Are Tablets Disruptive to the PC?

The Wall Street Journal today published an article that indicates that Gartner sees a structural shift in the PC market.  This is based on the drop in PC sells by 6% for 2012.  While PCs are not being left in the dust, the tablet appears to be the gift of choice for this past Christmas gift giving season.

I see coworkers carrying around tablets to meetings instead of laptops.  I have a tablet that I use for various things, but it doesn't replace my PC.  For me there are several reasons the PC will continue to be in my life - complex graphics and virtual reality video games - all of which require the power of a PC and graphics card.

At work, the table may be disruptive to the PC as most companies work from a server based infrastructure, so email, etc., are all kept on a server, and not on a laptop.  In the future, the cloud (a server in the sky) will do the same thing.  For my tablet to become really usable at home, I will have to move to a cloud environment, otherwise if I read my email on the table, I have to either save it there, or read it again on my PC and save it there.  Or both, and then I need to sync both systems.

So, are tablets disruptive?  Not yet, in my opinion, but they may become so.  The trends in storage, power included in the tablet, and communications speed in wireless capability, even in the home, all will merge to make it disruptive.