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?"

Comments

Did the market really shift?

[Georules]

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.

Re:Did the market really shift?

[ShavedOrangutan]

I built my custom PC with parts from Newegg - years ago. It still works perfectly and does everything I need.

There's no reason to upgrade every year or two like there used to be. That's got to hurt their business even more than tablets and netbooks.

Re:Did the market really shift?

[erroneus]

I'm pretty much with you on this point of view. In fact, there might be a SLIGHT drop in volume, but by my guess-timation, NewEgg's future demographic is pretty much the same people who have been with NewEgg all along. Is that "survival"? In my mind it is. But there are still a million MBAs out there who believe that if you're not growing, you're dying. It doesn't make sense to me, but plenty to those who believe growth means everything.

Huh?

[DogDude]

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*.

Not post PC for businesses yet

[sandytaru]

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.

False Premise

[nmb3000]

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.

Can itworld.com survive?

[dreemernj]

Can itworld.com survive an obvious lack of valid topics to talk about?

Re:newegg should be ok

[hawguy]

tables suck ass for content creation

Are you kidding? Tables have been used for hundreds, if not thousands of years for content creation, and even ultrathin tablets won't replace them

http://stores.paulsplaceonline.com/Detail.bok?no=389
http://snarkmarket.com/blog/snarkives/books_writing_such/the_codex_climaci_rescriptus/

If anything, a table makes a tablet more useful:

http://www.cnet.co.uk/i/c/blg/cat/laptops/2001tablets1.jpg

Furthermore, tablets have been around for thousands of years, and they still haven't replaced tables:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhmim_wooden_tablets

Yeah, still waiting on that...

[sirwired]

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.

Re:YES

[roc97007]

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.)