Sorry, PC Industry: You’ve Apparently Managed to Perfect the PC

[A Guy]

Sorry, PC Industry: You’ve Apparently Managed to Perfect the PC

Research firm IDC (which is part of my former employer, IDG) has released new numbers on PC sales, and there’s only one way to describe them: they’re uuuuuuuuuuuuuuugly.

How ugly? Worldwide shipments in the first quarter were down 13.9% over the first quarter of 2012. That’s not only worse than IDC’s already gloomy expectations — it’s the biggest drop since 1994, when the company started publishing these quarterly figures.

Source

A Guy

 

[spencer1]

Love the pic of all those beige desktop PC's at Costco! A bygone era. That was when computer cases laid horizontal, with the CRT monitor sitting on top. Wow.

 

[Wenda]

I'm not in a panic to buy a new PC at the moment. Not because I've rejected them (quite the opposite) or because I've discovered I can do everything I need to do on a tablet (I can't).
Quite simply, it's because I already have, about a year ago. I should easily get another 2-3 years out of this
machine before I'd even be considering another upgrade.
But, when I do, you can bet that it'll be another powerful, top-end laptop. With a desktop-centric OS installed.
Failing that, I'll build another powerful desktop machine.
Some prefer tablets and/or smart-phones, and that's fine with me.
What I can't understand, is why my preference for a full-function powerhouse isn't fine with them.
IMO the push to kill the desktop/laptop off is foolish and short-sighted in the extreme.

Wenda.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
It's SO bleedin' obvious -- why is it that people NEVER understand -- once a market matures of course the number of products sold will diminish SIGNIFICANTLY (unless you believe in conspiracy theories where the products are built so poorly or have "planned obsolescence" built in that they have to be replaced frequently). PC's these days don't need upgrading very often --if at all. The whole market is MUCH MUCH smaller -- to say nothing of other devices that people now use instead of the traditional PC.

The market say for a new 8 way processor with a 128GB RAM memory and a 2TB SSD will be tiny (it will for sure exist) but in no way be anything like the PC market of a few years ago.

The market is NOT DEAD -- but just different -- and much smaller.

Mind you people are always taken in by "Invest in this company -- it's growing at say 30% a year" -- well this rate of growth can't continue indefinitely and then people are surprised when the growth rate slows.

Even the once mighty "Fruit Company" is realizing this.

Other factors too like the economy etc also can effect growth but it's very difficult to handle a "Mature Market" -- totally different problems to one in which the market is hugely expanding.

(New computing devices will appear in due course -- say Holographic projection and good Virtual Reality simulators but these aren't "Classical PC's" and are a few years off yet --even for the Lottery winners).

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Faladu]

I think it's called, the PCs from 5 years ago are still GOOD ENOUGH for most users, no mind blowing improvements, other than better video for gamers and solid state drives, that mostly don't matter for the masses.

I custom built my current desktop PC late summer 2010 and only added a better video card and SSD since, and it's still up to everything I use. [It was higher end gear at the time, fair enough.]

Go back about 12 years, yes the PC's were awful in comparison.

I'm still waiting on the 16/32 core CPUs that were talked about, and where's the 128/256 bit OS?

Windows is still just the bloated beast, to contend with, that it has been since Win 3.1?

People poorer in general, not helpful, yet car prices go way up!?! Something, has to give...

I bought a used laptop at a pawn shop last year for $130, that is perfect for basic surfing/gaming, only a Vista-32 machine but gave me the Vista knowledge gap help I was looking for, and still working just fine.

 

[jadinolf]

Well, I have no feelings of guilt.

In a couple of weeks I will have built 3 Windows 7 computers in less than a year.

I've gotta be helping the economy.

Yes, I'm hooked on 7.

 

[x BlueRobot]

Hi there
It's SO bleedin' obvious -- why is it that people NEVER understand -- once a market matures of course the number of products sold will diminish SIGNIFICANTLY.

A market can remain in maturity for a very long time, look at the Cadbury's Milk Chocolate, that product has been around since the company almost started, and it is still hasn't disappeared, sales are steady and growth is probably almost 0%, and the product is still not yet dead and probably never will be.

Chocolate probably isn't the best example to use

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
It's SO bleedin' obvious -- why is it that people NEVER understand -- once a market matures of course the number of products sold will diminish SIGNIFICANTLY.

A market can remain in maturity for a very long time, look at the Cadbury's Milk Chocolate, that product has been around since the company almost started, and it is still hasn't disappeared, sales are steady and growth is probably almost 0%, and the product is still not yet dead and probably never will be.

Chocolate probably isn't the best example to use

Hi there
It's actually a PERFECT illustration -- like the PC's the amount sold will resort to an essentially steady amount -- nobody said the PC is DEAD -- least of all me - but what I am surprised at is why people are surprised that the volumes are FAR less than they were a few years ago -- and they will remain at roughly this level .

There isn't much if any growth to be expected from this market - however volumes will still be sufficient for niche players to keep producing. The Dell's and HP's of this world might be in trouble though unless they resign themselves to much smaller markets than they've been used to dealing with.

Lenovo, Samsung and Acer will cream off what's left of this market while some specialist people like Gigabyte will cater to the "Build your own rig" people.

Incidentally I loved Cadbury's until that Ghastly US "Cheese" company KRAFT who make the most REVOLTING bit of what looks like "Re-gurgitated Paste" that they attempt to call "Cheese" took it over and after promising to leave production of some items in Europe immediately closed the sites down.

If they tried to sell some of that "Cheese" in Paris the Barricades would be up again in about 2 microseconds flat. -- Good for the French in this case I say.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[TVeblen]

:roflmao:+1 ^ !

 

[Bertison]

Jimbo your words about Cadbury's are spot on, the relevance to the PC market is very clear.

Kraft was simply not the company that Cadbury should have got into bed with, here in the UK we are all watching the product and waiting for it to get *smaller/more expensive/taste worse/ or move production to the USA or some Eastern European country.

* Take your pick from one or more of these.

It's been happening for so long to so many British products, some mega-company comes along and swallows up one of our favourite brands, then manages to take away the factors that made it a favourite. One (if not all) of the causes, is UK management of the companies involved, which just wants to unload for mega bucks, then head off into tax exile.

Your mention of cheese, reminds me of a holiday I took in Canada in '82. I bought a Cheeseburger in B.C. which was smothered in some tasteless pap advertised as Cheddar cheese. "This ain't Cheddar" I told the guy who served it up. "Sure it is" he said " Do you know where Cheddar comes from buddy?" I asked "Yeah, it's made down the road at _____ (some Canadian Dairy place I cannot remember)"

When I pointed out that Cheddar was in fact a place in the beautiful county of Somerset, England, the guy was dumbfounded. He actually produced an atlas of the UK and I pointed out Cheddar to him.

There are many different foodstuffs like this from UK sources, which are sold under their original UK names all over the planet. Cheese is a good case in point, as there are literally thousands of named cheeses in the UK and very few get to keep the original name as a brand name. I live in Lincolnshire and we have many different "Lincolnshire" foodstuffs, one of which is the Lincolnshire sausage. The producers are struggling to get the EU to recognise it as a brand name, only to be produced in Lincolnshire.

French cheese, by the way, is regarded here as almost all semi-liquid rubbish.

 

[jimbo45]

Jimbo your words about Cadbury's are spot on, the relevance to the PC market is very clear.

Kraft was simply not the company that Cadbury should have got into bed with, here in the UK we are all watching the product and waiting for it to get *smaller/more expensive/taste worse/ or move production to the USA or some Eastern European country.

* Take your pick from one or more of these.

It's been happening for so long to so many British products, some mega-company comes along and swallows up one of our favourite brands, then manages to take away the factors that made it a favourite. One (if not all) of the causes, is UK management of the companies involved, which just wants to unload for mega bucks, then head off into tax exile.

Your mention of cheese, reminds me of a holiday I took in Canada in '82. I bought a Cheeseburger in B.C. which was smothered in some tasteless pap advertised as Cheddar cheese. "This ain't Cheddar" I told the guy who served it up. "Sure it is" he said " Do you know where Cheddar comes from buddy?" I asked "Yeah, it's made down the road at _____ (some Canadian Dairy place I cannot remember)"

When I pointed out that Cheddar was in fact a place in the beautiful county of Somerset, England, the guy was dumbfounded. He actually produced an atlas of the UK and I pointed out Cheddar to him.

There are many different foodstuffs like this from UK sources, which are sold under their original UK names all over the planet. Cheese is a good case in point, as there are literally thousands of named cheeses in the UK and very few get to keep the original name as a brand name. I live in Lincolnshire and we have many different "Lincolnshire" foodstuffs, one of which is the Lincolnshire sausage. The producers are struggling to get the EU to recognise it as a brand name, only to be produced in Lincolnshire.

French cheese, by the way, is regarded here as almost all semi-liquid rubbish.

Hi there
I like a lot of UK cheeses -- Caerphilly, Leicestershire red, Cheddar (as you mention), etc. The French also have a load of "Hard cheeses" if you don't like their "soft" ones -- I like Brie , Camembert etc.

The UK should export a lot more of these - it's very difficult to find any of this stuff outside the UK - we can get some where I am but it's hideously expensive.

I absolutely LOATHE all those "Pappy manufactured processed" bits of Goo --a la Kraft. Proper Cheese is really fine with decent wine or after a decent meal. -- Even the Thought of a Macdonald's Cheeseburger(???) would probably send me running to the bog to throw up.

One thing I learned when visiting the USA was on the whole unless you are in some parts of NYC where you have some really old Italian etc neighbourhoods and some really fine dining even in "cheap looking diners / Deli's" don't attempt ever to eat Cheese or their Bread (which rather looks like Cake) while in that country. - Fish etc can be great but the culinary taste of a lot of people from that great Nation apart from in NYC as I've mentioned leave IMO a lot to be desired.

However that's for another Forum.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[sonshi]

People poorer in general, not helpful, yet car prices go way up!?!

Are you an economist?

 

[legacy7955]

I think a very large part of the problem right now is the Windows 8 DEBACLE.

The bottom line is that most MS users do NOT like or want to be bothered using the Metro GUI, and they are equally pissed off that they are forced to boot to it as the default instead of having a choice. The start button is also another huge issue.

My personal experience is that when I speak to folks about buying a new PC (laptop or desktop) they are balking at having to get Windows 8, many would like to buy Windows 7 because of their dislike for the metro interface.

I am now using Linux Mint and am very pleased with it. If metro hadn't been forced on the consumer I would have purchased a product with Windows 8. They lost at least one customer because of forcing Metro for sure.

 

[smarteyeball]

People poorer in general, not helpful, yet car prices go way up!?!

Are you an economist?

You don't have to be to see how skewif the situation is.

I think a very large part of the problem right now is the Windows 8 DEBACLE.

For MS PC sales figures it is. Although Windows 8 is more of a nail than the actual coffin.


Very silly for OEMS to not offer Seven though. 8 has proved a commercial failure in the hybrid PC/tablet area and MS really should accept the loss.