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PC Industry Is Now On a Two-Year Downslide (theverge.com)
According to analyst firm Gartner, PC shipments have declined for eight consecutive quarters -- "the longest duration of decline in the history of the PC industry." The company found that worldwide PC shipments totaled 68.9 million units in the third quart of 2016, a 5.7 percent decline from the third quarter of 2015. The Verge reports: The firm cites poor back-to-school sales and lowered demand in emerging markets. But the larger issue, as it has been for quite some time, is more existential than that. "The PC is not a high priority device for the majority of consumers, so they do not feel the need to upgrade their PCs as often as they used to," writes Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa. "Some may never decide to upgrade to a PC again." The threat, of course, comes from smartphones, which have more aggressive upgrade cycles than PCs and have over time grown powerful enough to compete with desktop and laptop computers at performing less intensive tasks. Tablets too have become more capable, with Apple pushing its iPad Pro line as a viable laptop replacement. PC makers are feeling the pressure. HP, Dell, and Asus each had low single-digit growth, but Acer, Apple, and Lenovo all experienced declines, with Apple and Lenovo each suffering double-digit drops. Meanwhile, the rest of the PC market, which collectively ships more units per quarter than any of the big-name brands, is down more than 16 percent. Some good news is that 2-in-1 devices have experienced year-over-year growth. Kitigawa also notes: "While our PC shipment report does not include Chromebooks, our early indicator shows that Chromebooks exceeded PC shipment growth."
I'm the opposite. Only thing I do on my phone is check contact info for say a business or directions. I'd rather wait till get home or to my shop before I do any computing on my desktop. Even my 17 year old would rather do things on his desktop than on his phone.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
EM simulation of millimeter wave antennas and circuits. The tools will probably never run on the cloud.
I think Windows 10 is causing the slump, but not because people don't want it - it is because they already have it. There has always been a large segment of people who used a new version of Windows as the excuse to buy a new system; either because the OS needed the extra grunt or it was simply deemed to be the easiest way to upgrade for non-techies.
Along comes Windows 10, which basically threw itself onto everybody's existing systems. All of a sudden, there was no reason to buy new computer. As we all know, recent computer hardware is still fast enough to run average software so the benefit of buying a new system is miniscule.
I don't think you're a fool. Bought my wife a MBP last year. Our home is now Windows-free. No more "Honey, this update is taking forever, can't you do anything about it?" No more Windows Just Crapped Itself And Ate Her Report At 11PM on Sunday (and *of course* she has her semi-monthly department heads meeting at 9 the following morning...). And no more worries about what Windows is trying to pull with her data, and on my network. BLISS!!!
I thought I would resent having to pay too much for hardware that I know full well I can get for half the price. But after a year? Not a bit.
Best damn overpriced kit I ever forked out for, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Damn straight I would.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The problem is they are reading the data incorrectly, they are taking data from a BUBBLE and trying to claim that was the norm when in reality it was no different than the housing bubble, an anomaly that did not reflect the actual state of the market.
You see the bubble was caused by the "MHz wars" where a PC from a couple year, hell even a year ago at the start of the bubble, simply would not be able to run the latest software because of the insanely quick jumps in MHz. In just one 4 year period during the MHz wars my personal PC went from 400Mhz to 2GHz, 5 times the power in just that small amount of time! The consumer didn't WANT to replace their PCs that often but they did not have a choice because this years software simply ran like ass on last year's machine and probably wouldn't run at all on a PC two years old.
Now compare this to today, what mainstream software is there out there that won't run on a C2D or Phenom II X2 from 2008? I have a C2Q Media Center PC I use at the shop as my desktop and to do analog to digital video conversion...its got 4 cores, 8Gb of RAM, and a 2TB drive...why would I need to replace it? Even video gaming isn't immune to this as there are plenty of videos (and I have plenty of customers who can back this up) of playing the latest and greatest mainstream games on C2Qs and Phenom II X4s and they play at 1080P just fine, no issues.
The simple fact is even grandma has the equivalent of a fire breathing funny car for a PC which is spending a good 90% of its time in idle, so what would be the point of replacing it? Before my father passed away last year I looked into replacing his office PC, it was a 2.3Ghz Phenom I quad and I had a batch of newer systems in, surely he needs more power running his office than a PC from 2006, right? After collecting data for 3 months I found in reality most of the cores were parked most of the time and the system never got above 50% utilization...replacement simply was not needed.
The only reason you are seeing replacement in the ARM space is they are in the middle of their own MHz bubble which I would argue is already coming to an end as they too hit the thermal wall and users find they can't "feel" any difference between that quad core tablet or phone they got 3 years ago and the new octocores sitting on shelves. Bubbles pop folks, what we are seeing is NOT the "end of the PC" but it simply going back to being replaced only when it fails and I have a feeling we will be seeing the popping of the ARM bubble soon and it would have probably already popped if the industry wasn't forcing upgrades by refusing to support their older products.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.