Two very interesting articles this evening for your perusal.

One is an AP report that goes into great length over how PC sales in Japan are declining quarter after quarter, representing 5 straight quarters of declining sales.

The other is a PC World report that says this Christmas, PC sales, in particular, laptops, should be booming, and is in fact, part of a greater trend towards better sales — not only in the US, but also in Europe.

While it would be tremendously tempting to say that Japan is a barometer for future technological trends (even more tempting to say ‘for all of Asia’, but that’s something that I wonder if South Korea has the title for), I think that its worth mentioning that the entire tech infrastructure in South East Asia is totally and entirely different than what exists in the West.

Although broadband is cheap and plentiful, the level of wireless sophistication is probably at a level that for a variety of reasons, will probably remain unmatched – and probably never find an equivalent for — in the States and Canada.  Perhaps less so, Europe.  There’s also a tremendous heritage, one might say, in other technologies, such as console gaming — which takes the bite out of needing a PC to conduct gaming activities.

For all of these reasons it makes a lot of sense that much interest is in mobile and consumer technologies because the wireless infrastructure exists for some really fantastic stuff, much of it as good as, or eclipsing tethered/desk top technologies — even though, as the PC World article states, prices for PC components are falling.

I don’t think the popularity of the PC in the US and Canada will ever really decline so long as we don’t have the ability — or, really, even the demand (although how can one demand something one has never experienced?) — for the kinds of technologies that exist in Japan and South Korea … what remains to be seen is how these kinds of trends will continue to diverge over time.