PC Market Still Showing Few Signs of Life (axios.com)

An anonymous reader writes: It was another rough quarter for the global PC market, as fourth quarter unit sales dropped 2%, according to preliminary results from Gartner. In the U.S. things were even bleaker, with sales down 8%. HP was the only big name maker to post a sales increase in the U.S. and globally. It also passed Lenovo to grab the top spot globally and increased its lead in the U.S. over Dell. Apple saw Mac sales globally up 1.4%, but in the U.S. sales were down 1.6%. Dell gained less than 1% globally but fell more than 12% in the U.S. Lenovo sales dipped slightly globally, but its market share increased slightly, to 22% of the worldwide market.

Comments

Is this unexpected?

[jbmartin6]

PCs have mostly hit the 'good enough' point, there is no value in replacing them as frequently as in the past.

Re:Is this unexpected?

[sdinfoserv]

In the corporate office we have PC's on 5 year replacement cycles. Try telling your CAD operator he has to use ipad... ya, then tell me again "THE PC IS DEAD"... for thousandth time since 2005...

Re:Is this unexpected?

[ilsaloving]

I think it's worse than it ought to be, and Microsoft is to blame.

Generally, people have only really upgraded their machines when they needed to. Why replace what isn't broken?

But thanks to Microsoft screwing the pooch on every single version of Windows after Windows 7, people are now actively averse to upgrading, because they will be forced to use whatever shit-tastic Windows Microsoft forces upon people.

Needlessly modified UIs, OS-level spyware, updates that you cannot stop and have better than even odds of hosing your computer. IMO Microsoft is directly responsible for the collapse of the PC market.

You'll notice that Apple is basically stable. And that's despite their bad press and questionable hardware design choices.

If I had to buy a new machine right now, I would get Mac. As much as Apple pisses me off, I can at least mitigate their poor design choices with a couple of additional purchases. A frustrating hit to the pocketbook, sure. But a consumer has NO way to mitigate what Microsoft is doing without permanently disconnecting your computer from the network, so you pay for that lower price tag by needing to be eternally vigilant and having to constantly worry about whether you computer will still boot the next time you turn it on, through no fault of your own.

GPU shortage

[Tailhook]

Those who build "desktop" machines for gaming are in a bad place right now; mining has doubled the price of new GPUs; a GTX 1070 is ~$900+ right now anywhere that actually has them in stock. You can sell a used 970 for more than you paid new. Then you have GPU manufacturers sending a huge chunk of their foundry capacity to big ML cloud operators. The key piece of hardware for Desktop machines, a GPU, has become a costly and difficult to obtain part.

My desktop computer is 4 years old

[MpVpRb]

...and it still works fine

I did upgrade some stuff, like switching to an SSD, but for the stuff I do, performance is fine

The main reason I don't upgrade more often isn't price, it's pain

With restrictive licenses, activation, patches, drivers..etc, it's a MASSIVE PAIN IN THE ASS to upgrade. If I could just pop the hard drive in a new box and have everything adjust itself automagically, I would love to have the latest and greatest, even if I don't really need it

New Laptop on Hold

[Hrrrg]

I was planning to upgrade my laptop. But now with the Meltdown and Spectre issues? No thanks - I can wait a couple of years for them to design new chips.