PC Sales Are Flat-Lining

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Posted by timothy on Thursday July 12, 2012 @07:43AM from the more-like-personal-computer-is-changing-its-meaning dept.

DavidGilbert99 writes "Gartner has released figures showing that PC shipments globally declined 0.1 percent in the last three months, making it the seventh consecutive month of little-to-no growth in the PC market. This was despite the launch a number of new Ultrabooks, the much-vaunted slim-and-light platform promoted by Intel. The decline has been put down to the poor economic situation around the globe, increased spending on tablets and smartphones instead of PCs as well as the imminent launch of Windows 8, making people hold out on updating their PCs."

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Flat-Line by ColdWetDog · 2012-07-12 05:40 · Score: 4, Insightful

I don't think that word means what you think it means, Timothy.
(What a shocking thought...)

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1. Re:Flat-Line by jmorris42 · 2012-07-12 07:47 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Nah, he used it in the modern corporate sense. If sales aren't going up, Up, UP every quarter then they might as well be dead. Smaller players will begin to pull out, big players will see their share prices tank, etc. Tech companies are structured on the basis of ever growing sales and profits so the idea of a nice stable market would be death to them and they probably won't have time to restructure.
  Longer term, sales will probably go down. For a long time millions and millions of people who had no business buying a PC were buying them because of the Windows monopoly, to get access to basic things like email, word processing and basic web/media consumption. Those users are going to finally go away and stop demanding that the PC be turned into what they wanted all along, a simple device without confusing options, flexibility or programability.
  But people who always needed the power of a PC will continue needing one so they aren't going to go away.
  
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2. Re:Flat-Line by jmorris42 · 2012-07-12 08:09 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  > A brand new machine is hardly better than a 5 years old one, so why replace them before they break completely?
  If that is your attitude you probably are one of those people I was talking about who needed a tablet all along.
  A PC built today is actually a lot better than one from five years ago, especially if you spend the same money. But if all you are doing is running Firefox on it you won't see much advantage. Or for that matter, if you are running Office you won't see a difference. But if you are pushing the edge you will. From a developer to a gamer, from 3d modeling to hi-def video editing to even sound mixing, a new machine will still improve productivity. And a new machine for a serious user now would almost certainly be equipped with multiple displays while five years ago that was still fairly uncommon.
  
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3. Re:Flat-Line by KingMotley · 2012-07-12 08:20 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Nah, flat-line only means dead in the medical industry. Everywhere else flatline means exactly how he used it -- there is neither advancement nor decline.
4. Re:Flat-Line by gstoddart · 2012-07-12 08:20 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Longer term, sales will probably go down. For a long time millions and millions of people who had no business buying a PC were buying them because of the Windows monopoly, to get access to basic things like email, word processing and basic web/media consumption.
  Well, that's kind of what a PC is for, isn't it? What, exactly, makes that so those people had no business buying a PC? Because they can't field strip it or debug it?
  
  Those users are going to finally go away and stop demanding that the PC be turned into what they wanted all along, a simple device without confusing options, flexibility or programability.
  Why should they have to go away, and why isn't that a realistic expectation?
  I was talking with my neighbor the other day. From what I can piece together, a Colonel since he mentioned a Major who works for him.
  He was asking me why every other device in his house he plugs in, and then it goes. He doesn't have to dick around with the internals or know anything about it. He'd been through a lot of frustration with his Windows laptop, and said every time he tried to connect it to wireless it was a 30 minute job.
  I've always thought it should be a perfectly reasonable goal that at some point, computers would need to reach a point of operating like toasters and televisions instead of something which comes in a kit.
  Slashdot has this absurd bias that PCs should be magical devices which are reserved for the technology priesthood ... I think that's ridiculous. The reality is, pretty much everybody in modern society wants access to email, word processing, and basic web stuff -- and they mostly just want it to do it without a lot of fuss.
  There seems to be a knee-jerk reaction that these people must be a simpering idiots who should just stay away from technology. Given my neighbor's rank and the other stuff he does, he's far from an idiot, but simply wants to use the damned thing to do some work. He's got more important things to do than worry about the technology.
  In the end, I was hard pressed not to suggest a Mac -- because for all of those people who just want it to work and have no time to learn the ins and outs, that's kinda what it does well.
  Having gotten tired of fiddling with PCs in my spare time to just make them work, increasingly what I want is something which is as easy to use as my TV.
  
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5. Re:Flat-Line by peragrin · 2012-07-12 08:22 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  So what you are saying is maybe 10% of users have a use for all that power that modern PC's have and the rest basically need a dumb terminal from 1997 that can run the internet browser of their choice and office application?
  Me I go about every 5 years between new machines mainly because i buy laptops and something goes and after 5 years it is better to buy new.
  
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6. Re:Flat-Line by tripleevenfall · 2012-07-12 08:44 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I've been doing development for and administration of a high end, technical software suite for about 10 years now.
  We aren't completely to the point where I can do my entire job on a tablet with a bluetooth keyboard (if needed), but we are getting very close. And, from what I have seen, the remaining issues are not with iOS (etc) or the tablet's capabilities, but with the last several vendors joining the 21st century and supporting it.
  I think most everyone will be using tablets for everything a lot sooner than people realize, even things that neckbeards say will never be done on a tablet. (I used to say those things too.)
7. Re:Flat-Line by AK+Marc · 2012-07-12 08:51 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Nah... "flat sales growth" would be the corporate term.
  Never listen to an AC. The term you were looking for is "plateaued", but you would see "flat-lined" in such situations as well. People may think "dead" but they will not actually take the meaning to be such, they would, in the context of this article, take it to mean a plateau, which is what was intended, so it would be correct.
  
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8. Re:Flat-Line by Patch86 · 2012-07-12 08:53 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  And "Desktop" systems seem to be receeding back into the niches that need them... business, developers, gamers, power-users. Casual users will basically abandon them (and already largely have) for laptops, tablets, and portables.
  Desktops aren't receding at all. Casual users aren't abandoning them. Didn't you read TFA? (I know, I know).
  Sales have stopped growing. They've shrunk by 0.1%, but then we are in the middle of the longest and deepest global economic crash since the Second World War, so don't read too deeply into that. Tablet sales have sky-rocketed, but desktop sales haven't been touched.
  PCs have had colossal growth over the last decade- that's partly because there were literally billions of potential users who didn't have one yet. Now that boom has finished, we're into a "steady market" phase- where people already have computers, and only buy replacements as needed. And even that is cooling off, as computers don't improve as drastically year-on-year any more- it used to be that a computer was obsolete 2 years after you bought it, now there are machines from 2007 which are still perfectly useful and usable.
  That's going to hurt the forecasts of the Dells and HPs of this world- but it's not a judgement on the desktop/laptop form factor itself. That's here to stay.
9. Re:Flat-Line by SQLGuru · 2012-07-12 08:54 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yeah, even as a more power-user (even at home where I do development), I've pretty much determined that I won't purchase another desktop without a serious need. Laptops are as powerful (my main development machine is a 17" beast) with the benefit of portability. Even media PCs tend to be outdated laptops now that I'm on my second (and third) wave of laptop purchases.....I'm the only one at my house that does much gaming, and my XBox takes a lot of that burden.....with my development laptop taking the rest of it. There are still some people who need the desktop, but it's getting smaller and smaller as they have to be uber-power-users.
  Servers, laptops, and tablets have a future. Desktops are nearing the end of the line.
10. Re:Flat-Line by gblues · 2012-07-12 08:57 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Nonsense. Flat-lining is plummeting towards 0 sales. The term you're looking for is 'plateau.'
11. Re:Flat-Line by gstoddart · 2012-07-12 09:01 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Sorry, but a computer is a tool. Most of the people who have used them for the last few decades treat it as such.
  
  That's not elitism. That's just the nature of the beast.
  Then it's time to change the beast, and have us in IT stop acting like pompous asses about the fact that "das blinkenlights are nicht for defingerpoken".
  Apple has been trying to do this at least.
  
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12. Re:Flat-Line by Hatta · 2012-07-12 09:09 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  But people who always needed the power of a PC will continue needing one so they aren't going to go away.
  But we'll lose the economies of scale that have made PCs so cheap. That, and people who "need" a powerful PC are largely professionals, so they will buy expensive business class computers. This will, for lack of a better term, digitally disenfranchise a large fraction of computer users, and make locked down corporate controlled media delivery they only real use case for computers in the future.
  
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13. Re:Flat-Line by Hatta · 2012-07-12 09:14 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Me I go about every 5 years between new machines mainly because i buy laptops
  I'm hanging on to my laptop from 2006, and will do so for the forseeable future. You can't buy UXGA(1600x1200) laptops anymore, and WUXGA laptops are grossly overpriced, if you can even find one that's less than 17".
  CPU and RAM have advanced to the state that it really doesn't matter what you get. The only component that actually matters is the display, and we have worse displays now than we did 6 years ago.
  
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14. Re:Flat-Line by Spad · 2012-07-12 09:38 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  You know what a tablet with a keyboard used to be called? A Laptop. Sure it's all touchy-feely, but that's not exactly difficult to add to a laptop, there just wasn'hasn't been the demand for it. Let's be honest, the Surface is pretty much a laptop as it is, just with a furry keyboard.
  Once you take a tablet and add a keyboard and maybe a mouse for fiddly things and a charger because you're going to be using it for hours at a time there isn't any good reason not to just buy a laptop and have a proper computer instead.
15. Re:Flat-Line by jez9999 · 2012-07-12 09:52 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  And "Desktop" systems seem to be receeding back into the niches that need them... business, developers, gamers, power-users.
  Well, if "business, developers, gamers, and power-users" counts as a niche now then I guess there will be a few businesses making quite a lot of money out of those "niches". That's probably a few hundred million people right there. By the way, you forgot image/video/sound editing and processing.
  
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16. Re:Flat-Line by drodal · 2012-07-12 10:01 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Sorry but this is silly. Comparing a computer to a fridge just is wrong. Lets try more obvious examples...... Why isn't a computer more like a table saw..... I turn on a table saw and all my wood gets cut! (fingers too if trying to use a table saw the most "users" use computers). Why isn't a computer more like an automobile, I don't need to get a license to use it. and cars, well you just turn em on and nobody dies of drunk driving accidents..... Why isn't a computer more like an Oxy-Acetylene Welding torch... just turn on the valve and wellll I'm getting dizy and tired...... Why isn't a computer more like skydiving... well Yes computers can and will a lot more auto configuring..... but lets not forget you don't just plug in 'anything' and it works.... Except a fridge..... I plugin my fridge and keep my pets in there, they auto configure............ Any thing can be bad when used wrong...
17. Re:Flat-Line by TheRaven64 · 2012-07-12 10:15 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  A computer is not a toaster. It can't be
  Clearly you never used a first-generation Athlon.
  
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Time to trade in my PCs? by Drethon · 2012-07-12 05:42 · Score: 5, Interesting

Honestly though, I bought an I7 desktop almost two years ago with 12Gb of memory and a pretty good graphics card. I haven't found any reason why that PC isn't still fast enough for about for of anything I use it for today. This compares to ten years ago when a two year old desktop simply cried with the lowest settings of the newest computer games.
1. Re:Time to trade in my PCs? by Thelasko · 2012-07-12 07:50 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Heck, I've got a 6 year old Core2 and I don't see a reason to upgrade. I'm not a heavy gamer, so I don't require a fast machine, and everything seems to be running fine.
  
  PC speed improvements just aren't that noticeable these days. They are also much more reliable than they were 15-20 years ago.
  
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2. Re:Time to trade in my PCs? by pegasustonans · 2012-07-12 07:55 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Honestly though, I bought an I7 desktop almost two years ago with 12Gb of memory and a pretty good graphics card. I haven't found any reason why that PC isn't still fast enough for about for of anything I use it for today. This compares to ten years ago when a two year old desktop simply cried with the lowest settings of the newest computer games.
  Exactly.
  With many PC games in recent years targeting DirectX 9 for easier Xbox 360 portability, any halfway decent hardware can run the latest games.
  It'll be interesting to see if the next generation of consoles causes a ripple into the PC game market as well, bumping up the minimum specs new games.
  
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3. Re:Time to trade in my PCs? by gman003 · 2012-07-12 07:57 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Part of that can be blamed on a lengthy console generation. Most games have to sell on the PS3/360, consoles that are now around six years old. Developers aren't going to spend extra millions making a game that can really push modern PC hardware, because that gives them no edge on the more lucrative console market.
  When the next generation of consoles comes out, I expect PC games to immediately jump in hardware demands.
  It's not entirely based on this, though. Display resolution's another thing - we're getting close to "as good as a game can look in 1920x1080, 60Hz". If 2160p displays suddenly become universal, you'll see the rest of the computer having to work harder to keep up.
Or maybe: by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-12 05:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

We've already all got computers?
So? by Animats · 2012-07-12 07:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

US Car sales are down. House sales are down. Employment is flat. Why should PC sales be different?
1. Re:So? by dc29A · 2012-07-12 07:57 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Why should PC sales be different?
  Ask Apple, they went through the 2008 financial clusterfuck with flying colours. Same for some Android makers.
I think people just got smarter by Schwhat · 2012-07-12 07:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

I think people probably found out that you don't need a super computer to watch porn.
1. Re:I think people just got smarter by locopuyo · 2012-07-12 08:00 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  You do to watch on 9 monitors.
  
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Re:So, consumers are getting smarter then? by Reverand+Dave · 2012-07-12 07:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

They are obviously not buying Dells then.

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Re:Well... by Princeofcups · 2012-07-12 07:56 · Score: 5, Informative

Gimme a Laptop Air that runs Windows or hell, Linux, and I'll buy it in a heartbeat...
OK, it's called the Macbook Air, and it runs Windows and Linux. Now off to the Apple Store with you. Bring your credit card.

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Re:So, consumers are getting smarter then? by rockout · 2012-07-12 07:59 · Score: 4, Interesting

I don't think they're buying either. My wife had a laptop just to keep her from using my desktop. Once that became outdated, I got her an iPad, and she loves it. Email, websurfing, and a few games, and she's happy. Just no need for a PC. We can't be the only ones that replaced one of the full-featured PCs in the house with an iPad, or something similar.

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Re:So, consumers are getting smarter then? by realityimpaired · 2012-07-12 08:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

Instead of buying computers built to last a year so you'll buy them over and over again, people are buying computers that actually have durability.
Hence, less buys.
More that computers simply *are* lasting longer.... unless your OS is festooned with viruses or you want to play the latest and greatest games on the market, there is absolutely no reason you can't do everything most users do with computers on a 8-year old hardware. And the first of those issues can be addressed by either reinstalling the OS or simply fixing it (or paying somebody to do so).
Couple that with a more "savvy" user who's more likely to be aware that viruses exist and Windows offering people free antivirus, and it means that the majority of PC users simply have no impetus to buy a new computer: their old one is good enough for angry birds and facebook.
I don't know if they'll even go down by Sycraft-fu · 2012-07-12 08:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

They'll just stop going up much. New computer technologies don't seem to kill off older ones, just make new markets. I mean it turns out that we have more mainframes today than when we had only mainframes, however that still isn't very many and there isn't any growth in the market. But it isn't dying.
Same deal with PCs likely. We'll reach saturation and they won't really drop, they just won't grow.
Ultrabooks suck by David+Jao · 2012-07-12 08:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

The results are hardly surprising. Ultrabooks cost more and weigh more than a Macbook Air. They're noisier, hotter, less durable, and don't look as good. If PC makers want to compete with Apple then they need to do so with a product that improves on the Air in some way. All they can offer is faster performance, which is NOT what this market segment is looking for. I want a good ultrabook very badly. I own no Apple computers and have no plans to get one, but neither am I eager to buy a PC which is so markedly inferior to what Apple offers.
1. Re:Ultrabooks suck by David+Jao · 2012-07-12 09:10 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  So, by your own words, you think Apple has the best computer. But you won't buy one. I really can't fathom why.
  I have a Galaxy Nexus phone. Apple has sued (successfully) to prevent this phone from being sold in the US. I will not financially support a company that attempts to destroy competing products through the legal system. It's true that the patent system in the US is broken and that lots of other companies abuse patents, but Apple takes abuse of the patent system to a whole new level of evil. No other tech company has gone as far as trying (much less succeeding) to outright ban the sale of competing products. Even Oracle in all their evilness did not order Google to stop making Android; they simply said "pay us 6 billion dollars".
  Basically, competition is good. Choice is good. I have no problem with anyone choosing Apple products. But when Apple says Samsung may not sell this phone, I have a huge problem with that. If Apple feels that their patents are being violated, the correct remedy is monetary compensation, not a sales ban.
Re:Well... by pubwvj · 2012-07-12 08:13 · Score: 4, Interesting

"Gimme a Laptop Air that runs Windows or hell, Linux, and I'll buy it in a heartbeat..."
It's called a Macintosh and any of them run Windows or Linux if you really want to downgrade to that. I'll stick to MacOSX.
As to sales, Apple is increasing market share while the others are flatlining. Why? Quality. I buy a Mac and it lasts a decade or more. We have 1999 Macs in our family that are still running fine. We just pass them down the line.
Admittedly anecdotal by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2012-07-12 08:18 · Score: 5, Interesting

I don't know of anyone that's holding out on updating their computers because of Windows 8. Heck, I hardly know anyone that cares at all about Windows 8.
I do know several people who, over the last year or so, decided to buy an iPad to replace their aging computer rather than buy a new computer.
As others have noted, there are a lot of people that own computers but really have no need of one.

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4 PCs in 14 years by Leo+Sasquatch · 2012-07-12 08:35 · Score: 4, Informative

1998, 2002, 2007, 2011. Some upgrades - 1998 was 400MHz CPU and 64M RAM with a 12M Voodoo 2. 2011 was 6-core Phenom 2, 8G RAM and 1G 6870. All built as gaming rigs in their time. But if you build it right, it lasts a while. They're not impulse purchases. Once every 4-5 years, just replace everything. Can't be arsed trying to do partial upgrades and squeeze another few fps out of a system that's just not up to it.

And if you just want to read your email, a smartphone will do in a pinch, but a tablet will do fine. Practically anything on the market will do it - doesn't need to be a top-of-the-range iPad. So only gamers are buying PCs. Businesses aren't - we have 5 year old machines in the office that still run XP and Office just fine. We don't need multi-core setups and uber-gfx cards to do Powerpoint and Excel. We have no upgrade plans for at least 3 years and we'll probably completely leapfrog Win7 when we do. PCs got 'good enough' a while back - no wonder the market's flattened out.
Can't justify the cost of upgrading. by BLToday · 2012-07-12 09:36 · Score: 4, Insightful

To the average person the only recent perceptible level of improve comes from SSD, and most computers don't come with SSD. So most people don't buy new machines every 2 or 3 years like they use to. I remember back in the mid '90s to early 2000s, I would be building a new machine every 18 months because the level of performance increase could be seen (Rendition and 3dfx :( RIP) or felt Celeron 300A (oc to 464Mhz). Now, I'm hard press to see real improvement between my old Core 2 Duo and Sandy Bridge computers under daily operations.
Computers are now just appliances, if it ain't broke they're not going to be replaced.