Slashdot Mirror
Are Chromebooks Responsible For PC Market Growth? (theverge.com)
From a report on The Verge: IDC claims the PC market is "up slightly," recording its first growth in five years. It's a tiny growth of just 0.6 percent, but it's a flattening of the market that Microsoft and its PC maker partners have been looking for after years of decline. While percentage growth looks good on paper, it doesn't always tell the whole story. Over at Gartner, another market research firm that tracks PC sales, the story is a little different. Gartner claims PC shipments declined 2.4 percent in the recent quarter. There's a good reason for the disparity between IDC and Gartner's figures, and it involves Chromebooks. IDC's data includes Chromebooks and excludes Windows tablets, even machines with a detachable keyboard like the Surface Pro. Gartner counts Windows-based tablets as PCs and excludes Chromebooks or any non-Windows-based tablets. Without IDC providing the exact split of Chromebooks sold vs. Windows- and macOS-based machines, it's impossible to know exactly how well Google's low-cost laptops are selling. However, IDC also claims that Chromebooks are doing well with businesses. The US commercial PC market "came out strong mostly backed by growth of Chromebooks," says IDC. Gartner has no opinion on Chromebooks as the company refuses to track them as PCs.
Obviously this depends on how you count, which was my response even before reading the fine summary:
If you are counting Wintel PCs then it makes sense to count windows tablets and not count non-windows-based whatever, definitely including Chromebooks. But whatever else is true, if you are counting PCs, then it makes absolutely no sense to not count Windows-based tablets, which are just PCs with a wacky form factor. That only makes sense if you are counting desktops, but then you also have to exclude Windows notebooks. So, WTF, IDC?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
People who don't realize what kind of computer they are buying might also not realize what OS is running even after they start using it. For those people, the Chromebook probably does what they need, and with fewer hassles.