The cloud is coming to your home. Nothing to be alarmed about: it’s the technology cloud, and just as it has likely reworked your business applications, it will also remake the way you compute at home.

This is according to research company Gartner, which has predicted the end of the reign of the old-fashioned home PC by 2014. Replacing it will be the personal cloud, which will take over consumers’ digital lives, says the company.

Gartner (News - Alert) analysts say this “personal cloud” will begin a new era that will provide users with a new level of flexibility with the devices they use for daily activities, while leveraging the strengths of each device, ultimately enabling new levels of user satisfaction and productivity, India’s Economic Times is reporting today. This “personal cloud” will demand that companies and organizations massively think how they deliver applications to users, however.

“Major trends in client computing have shifted the market away from a focus on personal computers to a broader device perspective that includes smartphones, tablets and other consumer devices,” said Steve Kleynhans, VP of research at Gartner. “Emerging cloud services will become the glue that connects the web of devices that users choose to access during the different aspects of their daily life,” he said.

And while the “personal computer” as a device may be about to go away, of course the concept of “personal computing” isn’t going anywhere...just changing shape a little.

“Many call this era the post-PC era, but it isn’t really about being ‘after’ the PC, but rather about a new style of personal computing that frees individuals to use computing in fundamentally new ways to improve multiple aspects of their work and personal lives,” said Kleynhans.