There’s been a lot of chatter recently about whether we’re living in a post-PC era dominated by tablet computers and powerful smartphones. Well, a new study out today by ChangeWave Research indicates that the tablet market is already having a big impact with corporate IT buyers, something that Apple CEO Tim Cook alluded to in remarks last month.

Today’s survey of more than 1,600 corporate IT buyers found that 22 percent of respondents plan to purchase tablet computers in the second quarter, and the vast majority of those folks (84 percent) plan to buy Apple’s iPad.

See results here:

At the GeekWire Summit last week, former Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie addressed the changing dynamic of the PC business. Here’s what he said:

No one knows whether to include iPads or other tablets or computers into PCs, because in some scenarios, they substitute, and in some scenarios they’re new growth scenarios. I will stand by one fact, just vigorously, which is the fact that the overall market for personal computing — people taking some kind of a computation device — and using it for creation activities, sharing activities and so on.

I don’t think anyone knows at this point in time, even with absolutely flawless execution on Microsoft’s part — and they’re doing a great job — but even with flawless execution, no one really knows on the adoption front whether a large set of consumers are going to want to take the 30 years of learning that they’ve had and build on that with new pad scenarios, or whether they’re looking for a clean break. It’s really too soon to tell. We know a lot of different scenarios that are clean break scenarios. But you could actually argue it both ways. But regardless, it is all growth and whether it’s Mountain Lion or Windows 8, the existing people who are in the technology business are trying their best to adapt at time when customers themselves are trying to figure out what to do.

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