Did you notice we just passed into the 'post-PC era'?

Bill Tallent, CEO of Mercury Intermedia, which developed the iPad app of USA Today and apps for other media companies, and Rex Hammock, founder of Hammock Inc. and author of the popular RexBlog, do some Q&A at "The Mobile Migration Workshop" in Nashville, Tenn., on April, 1, 2011.

According to IDC, several factors (Japan disaster, unrest in the Middle East, a spike in fuel prices) are causing a PC market slump in the U.S. and Western Europe, but there's also this: "'Good-enough computing' has become a firm reality, exemplified first by mini notebooks and now media tablets."

In other words, people aren't making buying decisions based solely on specs anymore. Sure, people will still buy computers--post-PC doesn't mean we won't use PCs anymore--but their primacy is being diminished by devices that will do many of the basic PC tasks well: Web browsing, sending e-mail, checking Facebook, shopping online, getting directions, reading the news, etc.

"The iPad shows you don't have to have the best hardware. It's about marrying the software and hardware, and about what people can do with it," said Jay Chou, senior analyst for IDC. "I think that will be key in sustaining more PC growth."

Read more at CNET.

More videos of the presentations at the workshop are on YouTube.

The workshop was co-sponsored by the Online News Association and the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute.