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Can Newegg Survive the Post-PC Future?
jfruhlinger writes "Upgrading your desktop PC's video card was once a rite of passage for many Slashdot readers — and could also be a gateway to building your own computer from the motherboard up. And more often than not, you bought the components from Newegg. But the tablets and ultrathin laptops that are today's hot sellers don't let you so much as swap in more RAM. What's a component retailer to do in world without user-serviceable components?"
That's probably why they advertise rice cookers in my inbox every morning. agh
I doubt that those who purchased parts from newegg.com in the past are going to completely shift to ultrathin laptops and tablets. Developers, gamers, hackers who bought parts from newegg in the past are still going to want to make custom systems in the future.
Kids are still interested in this as well. I taught middle schoolers how to build a PC from scratch, and wanted nothing more than to work on their custom machines.
Just because the number of mobiles is rising it does not mean the number o PCs is falling.
2011. The year Gnome decided Linux will never be on the desktop.
Post-PC? "World with user-serviceable components"? I don't know what world jfruhlinger lives on, but it ain't the same as mine. Desktop PC's will be around for a very long time. It's pretty hard to do any kind of actual work on an i*.
I don't respond to AC's.
I still manage about 500 desktops, and we're constantly ordering parts from NewEgg. While the consumer PC era is being described as ending (not true in my experience), the business workstation is going to be around for a long, long time.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Students in my college were given Thnikpad L420 's.
The HDD,RAM can be upgraded w/o voiding the warranty
I have a R61, on which I have maxed out the RAM, probably will get a SSD when they are cheaper
At home, have a self assembled PC.
Now, as you may see from my UID, I'm not one of the people for whom, "Upgrading your desktop PC's video card was once a rite of passage for many Slashdot readers " is valid.
However, I have seen the older PC's insides, and can say that newer ones are MUCH easier to work with.
Hello, I'd like to introduce you to the False Premise.
Besides, people who are replacing their real computer with whatever the current "hot seller" is are not the primary customer of computer component retailers.
Assuming they don't do anything stupid to themselves, NewEgg is going to be just fine.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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tablets can not fully replace the PC
cause some of us have to create stuff not just watch adorable videos of cats on youtube..... although adorable videos of cats are quite nice indeed.
tables suck ass for content creation
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
Yeah, just like the suppliers of after-market vehicle parts all went out of business when manufacturers started computerizing cars.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Newegg competes with tiger direct and buy.com, not tablets and ultra thin laptops. Newegg SELLSSSSS tablets and ultra thin laptops. Dumb #### . Last I checked they were VERY competitive on their prices in those categories along with everything else. Their business model ties very close to their shipping model, I've been with them since almost the start.
They've been trying to branch out as a pass through seller amazon style into stuff like rice cookers and HD Tvs. No idea how that's been going for them except they can't post a loss on it as they are not selling it under ordinary circumstances. I've bought some of this stuff esp on shell shocker, and though the shipping is a little disappointing, they can't seem to coordinate too well most of the time, it's always been a good deal, something I can't find in stores without a special trip, and good quality.
Also, if you want to build a computer, where else do you go? Micro center prices are complete BS, Wal-Mart? They still think the 9500gt is top of the line. The manufacturer? Somehow newegg beats their prices 99% of the time.
Question the survival of a cornerstone of the internet PC market is just plain out overzealous.
Ex. they survived the palm pad wars just fine and I don't remember those being too customizable, how about apple? not much you can do there without serious hardware knowledge. I think they'll be just fine.
But the tablets and ultrathin laptops that are today's hot sellers don't let you so much as swap in more RAM. What's a component retailer to do in world without user-serviceable components?
Um, pre-built computers from Packard Bell, IBM, Compaq, Gateway, HP, Dell, were the hot sellers prior to and during Newegg's rise. I have a feeling a change in "hot seller" won't change the custom built market one whit.
OK, let's get this started.
What's a component retailer to do in [a] world without user-serviceable components?
In a world without user-serviceable components, a component retailer wouldn't exist. So it's a good thing for component retailers that we do not live in a world without user-serviceable components.
I want to play Rage and Skyrim with the graphic detail maxed out, am I going to buy a tablet for that or am I going to order my shiny new SSDs and video card and mobo and other components from Newegg? The last computer I built was for Crysis when it came out, so it's time for a new one. And I never even got to fill up my terabyte RAID array.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Can itworld.com survive an obvious lack of valid topics to talk about?
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
The big difference for me is in turnaround time. If I place an order with Newegg, it's generally shipped the same business day... ordering from Amazon usually has a week turnaround for the free (non-Prime) shipping. Adding to that, a lot of the items on Newegg have free shipping as well, not free shipping on orders over $25, just plain old free shipping.
Interestingly there was a push back in 2006 by Intel to standardize the Laptop industry by making standards for cases, mobos, etc. so that they could be built by people.
If it is the case where laptops will overcome PCs, it may still happen.
Thus, these vendors will not be in as much trouble as PC manufacturers would like them to be.
Just because the number of mobiles is rising it does not mean the number o PCs is falling.
If by mobiles you include laptop PCs: Not all PCs have user-serviceable parts. Laptop PCs, for instance, are far less user-serviceable than desktop PCs; apart from hard drives and sometimes RAM, laptops from well-known brands really aren't built for internal upgrades.
If by mobiles you exclude laptop PCs: It might come iOS 5, when iPhone and iPad no longer rely exclusively on a Mac or Windows PC to load firmware for the first time.
As best as I can tell, this whole post-PC era we're supposedly in is nonsense. Tablets, phones and other cute consumption devices are neat, and I wouldn't mind a tablet myself when they eventually mature, but there's no replacement for my home workstation. I've built my last few desktops myself and my current desktop is hitting around the 3 year mark and I'm starting to look at my upgrade path. I just got a new GPU, the CPU, RAM, mobo and PSU are my next upgrades and will likely occur as one single big hardware swap. An SSD would be nice too!
Back to the topic at hand: I don't see many people I know using their tablets to completely replace their 'real' computers. For some people laptops have started to replace desktops because they have lower demands and realistically laptop hardware seems to be much more on par than it was five years ago. As that continues to improve more people will probably ditch the desktop for a laptop, but that's still a 'PC' and there are still upgrade options like RAM and drives. I still wouldn't ditch a desktop for a laptop but in either scenario Newegg can continue to be successful. They sell laptops, they sell replacement parts.
Even if the Post-PC era weren't just marketing hype and news headline making nonsense, they still have plenty they can offer. NewEgg sells tablets too, they also sell software, home entertainment gear (I just got a new receiver from them) and all sorts of other things. I believe they have the ability to adjust themselves to changes in demand as needed, but I don't really think the PC business is in any danger of crumbling beneath them any time soon. New uses will emerge for computers, new games will come out demanding the latest technology and the best price/performance and the best choice for expansion continues to be the "desktop."
Presently here, but not there.
I said that's why I bought it. I didn't say I was successful. ;)
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
As others have said, there is no 'post-PC world', and this alarmist black and white thinking is getting a bit irritating.
Yes tablets and ultrathin laptops are gaining popularity. They are popular for uses where user-serviceable desktops were a sub optimal solution to whatever the user was using them for.. so yes, we will see some adjustment in the market as people who were using desktop due to lack of other options move away from them, but there are many domains where desktops are still the right tool for the job and that market will continue to be served. In fact I would wager that said market, after maybe a dip, will go back to growing as the population increases.
This is not to say that newegg is immortal or shouldn't check how it does things now and then.. the industry is littered with companies that could not find a good balance between servicing a niche vs a broader market.
But what about when you can get a 15 inch tablet (which is basically a mb and a screen) for say 50 bucks. Would you *bother* to upgrade it?
That depends on whether I'd need to upgrade it in order to become able to run applications that the device's manufacturer has suppressed. Compare modding original Xbox consoles to run XBMC for Xbox (formerly Xbox Media Center).
When it comes to computer parts, Amazon's website is a freaking disaster zone. NewEgg's search engine has a few quirks, but it's still way better than Amazon's. And I don't find Amazon's pricing to be significantly cheaper, and their free shipping is WAAAYYY slower.
Interestingly enough, the local "CompUSA" store (formerly TigerDirect Outlet) has prices that are usually within a buck or two of NewEgg, and I can have my part NOW. The place is a poorly-organized dump, but as long as they have the part I need, I'm not that picky.
Holy fucking shit. MichaelKristopeit posted something that wasn't completely fucking retarded. Maybe slashdot really is dead.
And creating such obviously stupid articles is a great way to drive page hits and adclicks especially when slashdot puts you on the front page.
And of course the term "post PC" does not mean the PC is going away, just that it may not be the primary device for everyone with a computer as it has been.
By post-PC, some people refer to post-prosumer. A "prosumer" device such as a PC allows creating works ("pro") in addition to viewing works ("sumer"). A tablet, smartphone, or video game console allows viewing works, but its capacity for creating works is very limited or none.
More of this "Post-PC" idiocy.
PCs aren't going anywhere. First off, thanks to their high price, there is no tablet market. None. Just an iPad market. When tablets come down in price, to around $200 or less, THEN you can expect to see a tablet market. However, I guarantee that almost all tablet owners will also own a PC. Those who don't will tend to be elderly.
They have been calling the desktop dead for 10 years now each time a new gadget come out. Just got 2 boxes from newegg last week myself. Many people like their desktops, the batteries don't go dead, you always know where they are, the kids don't bring them to their rooms and still juice on it. A $600 desktop will outperform a laptop costing double the price, add a new video card a few years later and your right back up to date. Also, do not rule out the business side of it. Go into most any office and you will see rows of desktops and maybe a few scattered laptops. The IT people need power supplies, replacement drives, fans, keyboards. Tablets are not to useful in most offices, no keyboard, no usb ports, no printers, it all has to be bluetooth or wifi. And dont forget networking is a big seller. Wired, wireless, hubs, switches, modems, firewalls.
Let's look at my 12-month purchase history with Newegg:
1) HD for my laptop
2) LCD screen
3) laser printer
4) headphones
5) camera
Yeah, I think Newegg is going to be just fine in a "post-PC" world.
When trolls get insightful and informative you know your user base is stagnated.
The article is flamebait and retarded, seems like wishful thinking in an alternate reality coming from Cupertino and the likes. Newegg might as well sell beagle boards, DIY laptops and related accessories. I bet they profit more on selling tablets than "OC-ePEn00rz GTZXX over9000 SX - Ultimate XIII Green Brutal1ty" videocards.
Now that even little kids can wear shoes that light up as they walk, will the automobile industry be able to cope with the flashier competition? "I don't like cars. I run!" said Johny Demply, age 6. Shoes are selling at a higher rate than ever before and new "smartshoes" offer portability and ease of use not found in ancient vehicular relics like cars. As the era of the car comes to an end, will automobile manufacturers and dealers be able to adapt to sell accessories for shoes or will they be relegated to the dustbin of shameful obsolescence?
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Mod up, please open the shop and shipping to developing nations that don't bite on the fad of "appliance computers". I have payed up to 50% more in shipping intermediaries for getting parts only available in your shop, parts that I can't possibly find locally.
Tablets don't have to be a fad. But Windows may yet kill the perception of tablets as useful, in the public's eyes, and then we'd be back to only Apple fanbois carrying tablets. Which would be ok, I guess, except for those of us who need an SD card slot. Or a USB port. Or a replaceable battery. Or Flash support. Or a form factor smaller than 10". Sorry, I meant to stop at SD card, but I always get carried away. Parenthetically, do we know if Apple has shown any signs of relaxing any of these restrictions now that Jobs is gone? Just wonderin'.
I'd say that to us geeks, tablets are useful *in addition* to our other devices. I can carry a 7" Android tablet running Logmein Ignition and actually get work done on my home machine, or fix problems on customer's machines. (7" seems to be the optimal size for "always with you", as opposed to the cooler but more likely to be left at home 10" form factor) This is useful enough that I don't consider it a fad, but I am sure as hell not going to trade in my desktop PC just yet. As said elsewhere, tablets (*all* tablets) have barely usable screens and input methods, and laptops aren't a whole lot better. Their only real advantage is portability. For heavy duty work, PCs are still the way to go for a lot of reasons. (By "PC" I mean the hardware platform, irrespective of the OS, speaking as a Win7 user who's probably going to skip Win8, and who owns an OSX machine and finds it useful.)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The problem is that this is largely incompatible with the nicest form factors. I've disassembled every laptop I've owned. I thought the parts in my 386 were crammed together, but my new MacBook Pro is almost a solid lump of hardware internally. You've been able to get more standardised components for a while, but the price you pay for these is that you need more space when everything is modular. With the trend towards smaller machines, the first thing you sacrifice is modularity.
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I agree with you that consoles target a market that is too large to care, overall, about user-generated content. PCs are definitely about fine-grained individuality. (Which makes it somewhat ironic that Apple ran the "think different" campaign and now markets some of the most mainstream, locked-down hardware in the world...but I digress.)
There is no technical reason that consoles could not download user-generated mods and mappacks. Purely a question of demand.
Frankly I would rather download game code onto my consoles, which ONLY play games, than onto any of my PCs, which have lots of personal data.
Unfortunately, Windows 8 seems intent on turning ordinary PCs into tablet wannabes.
I think it's a case of people getting more stupid, so the PCs (and cars, and ...) have to follow suit.
Regardless of the whole "PC is dead" argument, I've found Newegg's website the best and most helpful compared to any online retailer. Combined with their outstanding service and good prices, I think Newegg would be doing well even if they just sold dairy products.
Specifically, what I like about Newegg:
1) Comprehensive product pictures - they make their own, reasonably high-resolution, from various angles, rather than just using the manufacturer supplied one.
2) Detailed specifications - especially for computer products (somewhat lacking still for other items). It's often easiest to find specs directly from from Newegg.
3) User reviews - these are very useful once there's a critical mass of them for a given product. They tend to reveal major issues right away.
4) Links to manufacter's pages - useful in the rare event that Newegg's info is not enough.
Point 1 - The premise that we are entering a "Post-PC" era requires some evidence to back the theory. TFA didn't provide anything, other than a reference to Newegg pulling out of their IPO in May 2011. And even with that statement, Kevin Purdy says, "What happened? The internal factors are unknown." That does not provide sufficient data to support his premise. Shame on you, Kevin Purdy, for your sensationalism.
Point 2 - Newegg.com sells a great deal more than just PC parts. Even if Kevin Purdy's apocalypse were to occur, Newegg has a great deal of other business to support their profits margins. Last time I checked, you can buy phones, tablets and ultrathin laptops from Newegg.com.
Point 3 - There is sufficient evidence that we are, in fact, in the midst of a PC expansion. Nvidia just made the claim that PC sales will overtake consoles by 2014, Microsoft believes in the prominence of the PC, Michael Dell comments on his predictions, Epic thinks the PC has been 2nd fiddle to the console for too long, and MaximumPC has an article showing the results of a Baird survey relevant to the issue.
Will some people buy phones, tablets and laptops (ultrathin or otherwise) instead of a PC? They have been for years, why would that change now?
Will the PC market dry up and force PC Enthusiasts into a world of non-replaceable component devices, where we will be forced to feed on the scraps of outdated machines? Doubtful. I point to the Audiophile market as a comparative case study, where you can spend an incredible amount of money on components that some might argue have been replaced by smaller and better integrated devices. I suspect the home built PC market will survive phones, tablets and ultrathin laptops, just as it survived Dell, Gateway, Micron, Acer, et al.
sig sig sputnik?
I'm a little shaky about this Post-PC future. I have a kid who works for me on my farm. He has just bought himself a new PC. He's a gamer, and wanted something with more zip. Comes with a random generic vid card, which he will swap with the better vid card he's got already in his old PC.
I've looked at netbooks, and have considered an iPad, Macbook Air, but at the end of the day, my work pattern is to have 9 octillion windows open at a time.
As to doing your work in the cloud, forget it. Even doing work over a LAN using RDP or remote X-windows is like sucking golf balls through a garden hose as soon as you get to something with significant graphics.
My internet speed at it's best is 1/50 my local network speed; and is 1/3000 my peak local disk speed ( 2Mbit/s vs 100 Mbit/s vs 6 Gbit/s
I don't think the PC is any where close to being 'Post'
They won't be as common. I imagine that the future heavy computer user will have both a desktop and a portable machine; a few people, like my father-in-law will use only an iPad, And there will be another bunch who use a computer at work, and have little interest in doing anything else.
Third Career: Tree Farmer Second Career: Computer Geek First Career: Teacher, Outdoor Instructor, Photographer.
That pretty much sums up what I think of jfruhlinger's post.
First and very foremost: It is not Post-PC yet. Businesses, schools, etc. aren't replacing their Desktops for Ipads and what not.
Second: Ipads and ultra-thin laptops are not at the same computing power that PCs and IMacs. Most people would want a Core i3 or 6-core AMD Phenom 2 beast to play games or develop on versus single core 1-ghz Droid cells.
Finally: Stores like Newegg and Tiger Direct will always be around in some capacity. How they would change is anybody's guess but so far they are doing quite well doing what they are doing.
"Why don't you buy a laptop?"
Because I don't want one. Most sit on a desk anyway. At best they migrate to the couch. Which I would argue is better suited for a tablet anyway, and my smart phone does a good enough job as it is. I do not want a pre-assembled POS. I like getting the components I want. I like being able to get a video card that isn't as slow as something offered 5 years ago, or costs about 1200$ extra. I don't want a CPU with bitched out cores, or throttling down to save on battery power. I want mine to dim the GD lights when I turn it on, and to give me a breeze when the fans rev up. I would also like to have the opportunity to have say 8 HD if I want to without having to have a daisy chain of usb all around me. I want to be able to upgrade only pieces I need without throwing everything away each time. I want to put everything together like logos, and then then load everything *I* want on it, nothing more, or less.
In short, I think newegg or others (NCIX is my store of choice) shouldn't be worried at all.