Slashdot Mirror
PC Sales Slump Over Economic Crisis
nandemoari writes "The damage isn't just limited to the United States. Shipments of PCs in Europe, the Mid-East, and Africa dipped to records posted around the turn of the century. It was even worse in Asia, which according to Gartner, posted its worst growth rate ever — just 1.8 per cent.
Within the industry, desktops took the hardest hit, as was expected. Sales of non-portable computers were down about 16 per cent as consumers opted instead for the rising 'netbook' and similar hybrids. That fact alone is troubling for PC makers, given that $300-$500 netbooks offer a far lower profit margin than more expensive and more powerful laptops and desktops."
* Sales Slump Over Economic Crisis
* = Insert nearly anything here
Given the lack of perceiveable performance improvements over the past several years, there really isn't a need to upgrade your home PC. Back before the XBox (BX?) the PC was still a considerable factor in gaming. Today, the cost of a single video card almost justifies the cost of an XBox by itself. The internet connectivity on the gaming consoles, the video and audio streaming and the game selection/quality means that the 'need' for a gaming PC ($$$) is reduced, because the XBox or PS3 can do the same or better for less money.
To the best of my knowledge, aside from the MS Flight Simulator X program - is there a 'killer app' that will drive PC sales? The only reason I caveat MS Flight Simulator X as a PC game "Killer App" is because hours spent playing this game can be applied toward actual Flight School (under specific guidelines, planes and conditions).
People are probably just buying laptops...
Possibly. But my desktop is 5 yo and Mrs Smidge's desktop is going on 10...! The reason? We don't game, just appliance the heck out of it. No need to upgrade. Same thing with our vehicles, we just fix 'em and take xtra care with preventive maintenance.
=Smidge=
Is it just my observation, or is eldavojohn an idiot?
"$200 for a 2.8GHz P4 with 1GB of RAM. It is the only way I can keep up a 25% turn-over rate and stay under budget."
Alternatively, about $250 plus an hour to assemble it and install Linux will get you a dual-core Atom with 2GB of RAM and a 100+GB-ish hard drive; you'll probably save the difference in reduced power usage over the next couple of years, given how power-hungry P4s were.
If the population grew faster than 1.8%, then this is actually a decline. It's no different than if the inflation rate is 3%, but your salary grew just 1% -- you're technically making less money this year, even if your paycheck has a larger number on it.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Notebooks are getting smaller, and have longer battery life, and tend to break more often and often cost more than they are worth to fix, and WiFi is becoming pretty standard everywhere. Desktops are easy to fix (e.g. no need to buy a new one when I can just swap out the defective part), have been more powerful than the casual user has needed for a while now, and consumer confidence is very shaken with Windows Vista (which most users won't upgrade their 4-5 year old computer to use, or specifically is holding on to the old one to not "have" to upgrade), and linux tends to run very well on older hardware (sometimes even better than the latest and greatest if the driver support from the vendor sucks). I'm sure the economy has something to do with it, but has been slumping for quite a while now. The only one appearing to kick ass is Apple, and that is only because they are taking customers away from Dell/HP by having compelling features, Not Vista, more PC compatible, trendy, and if they have to upgrade anyway, might as well get what they want.
I read an article by Michael Dell (lost the URL) saying that the market is saturated in the US; as in there are no "first time buyers" except maybe for the kid going off to college and a lot are going Apple. Everyone who wants a PC already has one, and the manufacturers have done nothing to convince buyers they need a new box. Instead, they've made the machines suck more though inferior integrated parts, made them more difficult to upgrade, and loaded them with crapware to try to make a profit on a product that is already razor thin.
The second problem is that the "Windows" bundled applications like Windows Movie Maker are crappy compared to the iMovie/iDVD bundles on Macs, and the manufactuer ones like Dell-Movie Maker (or Dell DVD Player) are even worse than the Windows default ones. Users get "box shock" when they attempt to buy Off-the-Shelf software so they are really looking for a box that "does stuff" and is "known" for "doing stuff" not just being faster. On Apple, the bundled apps are either very simple to remove, or are fully-functional "free as in beer" includes; here PC manufactures to often include crippled, hard to remove, ugly, slow applications.
Saavy PC buyers remove all that crap and put a clean Windows install or Linux on there. The base consumer has no idea how to do that, and get a piece of crap for their hard earned money. The OEMs should really work to either make Linux ready for desktop primetime, or invest in OSS projects to produce, very good, very simple, portable to Windows if need be, very user friendly, very attractive, free desktop software rather than put together a crappy version, and get rid of all the crap running in the system tray for a clean, snappy system and stop blaming the economy for no one buying there stuff.
Netbooks are doing exactly this; running very efficent OS installs where if feels like the system was designed like a velvet glove over the hardware. Lowering the price and giving the buyer the features they want "size, power usage, WiFi, price." Not more GHz and more ram simply to feed a more hungry, more restrictive, more lackluster OS.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
4. There are computing-jobs that are inherently not parallel.
5. Parallel programming is hard not because of bad programming languages but because of the logical problems that come with shared state and parallelism.
http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-23.html#%25_idx_3598
Therefore multicores do not bring a substantial performance benefit. Futhermore because the problems are fundamental logical ones, there is no big hope.