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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."
Sees, I just spent $33k for a dual Xeon, 512 GB, and 4 Telsa K40. I suppose that will make up for > 10x standard PCs. I suppose you either need the horsepower, and it's still not enough, or you don't need it at all. I just hope the high end workstations continue to be available; noting Intel stopped their motherboard production.
I'd have to wonder if Windows 10 is helping to cause this slump. People don't want Windows 10, but that's all you can really get for an OS unless you're willing to learn something entirely new. Not an option for the majority really. As a result more people will cling to their older PCs for as long as it'll last. If they aren't using it to play games, it's likely still good enough for what they were doing before.
For a lot of people, they can do everything on their phone that they would've done on a desktop/laptop computer a decade ago. Those folks just don't need a computer, period, nowadays. Heck, even though I work in computing I find myself doing email and web browsing on my phone (or tablet) most of the time when I'm away from my office.
And even those of us who actually do need a computer mostly don't need to keep updating to the latest and greatest hardware anymore. Phil Shiller said it was sad when people are still using five-year-old machines (BTW, Phil, how long has it been since Apple updated a computer? Feels like five years); but in reality the difficulty of the tasks most of us need to do hasn't kept pace with advances in hardware. Swap an SSD into any decent five-year-old laptop and you're probably still golden, unless you're a gamer.
#DeleteChrome
I hate these studies, they always seem to neglect the changing face of PC's. PC's require upgrades at far less frequent rates, a 3, 4 or 5 year old machine will work perfectly well for the majority of users, this doesn't mean PC usage has declined or something has superceded it, it simply means the technology in PC's has now far exceeded the needs of the average user allowing them to keep their machine far longer than ever before and hence a decreased annual sales of PC's
in 2012, I bought a ASUS G75VX-DH72 with an Intel core I7 3630QM 16G (±3ghz) 256SSD + 500G 17.3 (full HD) with a NVIDIA GTX 870M Windows 8 for $1,700
I upgrade the HD for 1tb ssd and 2tb hdd 2 years ago (and obviously, I have w10 and Linux on it)
Today, 4.5 year later, I can buy a
ASUS G752VL Intel Core i7 6700HQ (±3ghz) , Windows Home 10 64-Bit, 16GB , 1TB HDD, 17.3" IPS FHD Display, NVIDIA GTX 965M for 1800$
Yeah, right, Why I need a upgrade ?
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
> [T]he school gives you grief if the laptops more than a year old.
Fuck em. Seriously.
Are they paying you to provide the laptop? No? Fuck em.
In the US it is getting to the point that nearly everyone has a computer. Even people who are pretty poor usually already have a computer. Probably not a great one, but they have one. There is market saturation. So when everyone has one, and the pace of hardware has slowed so you don't need a new one as often, well ya sales are going to go down. The market is mature. That happens to markets in the long run, they can't grow forever.
I get tired of this attitude that some journalists (and investors) have that the only states are "growth" and "death". No, industries can be mature, stable, lots and lots are. That's what's happening in computers.
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.