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?

[atrex]

Just like cars. Doesn't stop the industry execs from wanting people to buy new ones every two years though.

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?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

This is unexpected to morons -- you know, CEOs and the entire stock market. Apparently this fact has caught them all by surprise.

Somewhere in the last few years the irrational notion that every company needs to sell 10% more than it did last year, or it's back-sliding. Or your stock needs to grow by 10% or you've "missed your targets".

This, of course, is mathematically impossible and delusional, and has nothing at all to do with reality. But this is how the collectively stupid market behaves these days .. by making irrational assumptions weighed against impossible expectations.

So, yes, for all of these consumer things .. TVs, phones, computers, cars .. there comes a point where a rational consumer says "what I have is just fine, works, and meets all of my needs". The new features and gimmicks aren't compelling, and people simply don't have the money or desire to replace everything they own every year or so.

But that doesn't satisfy the irrational 'market', and unfortunately as reality asserts itself, companies, stock holders, and the 'market' are all panicking. They're in full blown zomg teh company didn't grow teh skis is teh falling. This despite people saying for over a decade this is simply not possible.

For example, nobody really wanted 4K TV .. sure, it's the next geometric evolution, but nobody needs it. Those 8K TVs which came out? Doomed from the fucking start because nobody cares. Someone is busily making 16K TVs, and still, nobody will care.

They want to reinvent the hype of the HD transition, but people aren't interested in shelling out the money or replacing their entire TV infrastructure on a timeline which suits the manufacturers.

This is the PC market suddenly shitting their pants .. not because they've had an especially bad year, but because people have said "what do I need a faster PC for?"

The entire stock market has become infected with this bit of crazy, which tells me that collectively Wall Street are greedy, and stupid, and likely delusional if they have believed you can sustain a 10% growth forever. It's simply not possible, and consumers don't have that kind of money.

Let the 1% buy more shit with their fucking tax breaks to prop up shareholder value. The rest of us are tired of being treated as cattle who are expected to buy shit to pad out the bottom line.

Re: Is this unexpected?

[Hal_Porter]

One thing Apple have got going for them is that if I buy a Mac I can use XCode to build code for iOS devices. And I can build for Android devices. And I can run Visual Studio in Parallels Desktop to build code for Windows. Or I can run a Linux distribution in Parallels. And a lot of stuff that builds for Linux and BSD will build for macOS too - Homebrew probably already has a port.

If I have a Windows machines I can build for Windows and Android.

And if I have a Linux machine I can build for Linux and Android.

Windows still rules for embedded stuff though - most embedded vendors only support their tool chains on it. Only hipster stuff like Arduino supports Mac. Still if I have a Mac I can run Windows in Parallels.

So for a developer machine there's a case for buying a Mac over, say, an Asus Zenbook. In fact that's what I did.

Re:Is this unexpected?

[Junta]

So far, I'd say the masses are augmenting with mobile, but as possible like to go to a full laptop experience because the mobile platform and form factor is just too limiting. This includes teenage relatives and my own child and their friends, they *all* wanted to have laptops *and* phones.

The problem though is that a 10 year old device (if it still works at all) is adequate for pretty much all casual usage, and the hardware update cycle is driven by hardware breaking, people mistaking software problems for aging hardware problems (or just not caring), and fashionable changes more than it is need to actually get new levels of performance.

I do however expect that volumes will never dip below say the mid 90s or so, even proportionally to the general population. The market for PCs exploded, and then for those less purely enthusiast customers, computers became good enough and their money got rerouted to extending their experience to their pockets.

Re:Is this unexpected?

[slickwillie]

Every 5-7 years I go to Ebay and buy whatever was hot like 5 years ago. I just graduated to an i3 with 2 cores!!! last year.

Re: Is this unexpected?

[sdinfoserv]

Here's what I find to be the practical demarcation:
Consumers - those who consume tech services; read email, surf/browse, watch video, have a specialized app.... etc. work just fine on a tablet.
Producers - programmers, CAD operators, AV content creators, critical office document users (word/excel/powerpoint), use PC's/MAC's/laptops.
Security - need secure environments controlled by active directory and group policies. BYOD not acceptable. Governments, security organizations -all use PC's.
Sure there are "inbetweens" like a writer who can get by with a tablet, but that's infrequent.

The IPAD has been out almost 8 years. That's a life time in tech and they just a fraction of the corporate work space - like 3%. And Yes, a ton of tablets have been sold, but sales are slowing as saturation is close.

Re:Is this unexpected?

[Anne Thwacks]

Meltdown and Spectre will have made second hand machines completely worthless unless there is a clear path to a fixed CPU. Sure you would stick with the one you have with a performance cut, but you are not going to spend real money on a system you know is duff if you can hang on and see how this mess pans out.

While Intel are compensating us, they can compensate us for killing the second hand value too.

Re:Is this unexpected?

[Cro Magnon]

Heck, I got email right after buying a new car, telling me that next year's model just came in!

Re:Is this unexpected?

[gravewax]

the negative growth is the increased gap between purchases, previously people were buying every 6-12 months, then it was every 2 years, then 3 to 4 years, now it is every 5 years or more. The simple maths on that will show a massive reduction in sales even with a growth of users.

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.

Re: Is this unexpected?

[gravewax]

once you grow up you will find adults actually use the internet and email for more than just porn browsing and social media, especially if you own or run a business.

Re: Is this unexpected?

[MoarSauce123]

Folks, running Mac OS X in a VM is against the license agreement you need to accept. Nevertheless, there are ways to run OS X on VMWare Workstation using a patch that gets distributed in a popular Mac forum....use Bing to google for the rest of the info. ;)

Re: Is this unexpected?

[TheRaven64]

I remember shitty laptop keyboards. I remember ones with so little travel that your fingers hurt after 20 minutes of typing. I remember ones with a spring right in the middle and a really crappy mechanism so if you hit them slightly off centre they'd bend and not register a key press.

I haven't seen a shitty keyboard on any laptop for about 10 years. There are a few really nice ones but most, including the Macs, have been good enough for a long time.

I haven't used a Mac with the OLED bar, but some of my colleagues have them. If you're in the terminal, they'll show the function keys (though that's configurable and a few command-line apps do modify the display). For most other things, they show context info that is more useful than having to remember what F5 does in this particular application (for example, in XCode they'll show things like 'run' and 'debug').

Laptops and Thunderbolt 3

[Hadlock]

Growing up in high school in the late 90s/early 2000s I was one of "those guys" (if you're reading this, likely you were too) with several used PCs living in their bedroom running various hobbyist tasks, sometimes tinkering with linux etc.
 
Then in the 2010s I was down to a single "vm lab" server and desktop for games, plus a single laptop for travel. As time has gone on, priorities have changed, I use my laptop more and my desktop is somewhere under a heap of old things in a storage unit an hour from my home. The laptop is my primary machine.
 
With the advent of Thunderbolt 3 you can finally get enough bits across to outsource your GPU to a box on your desk, and Lenovo's selling a "graphics dock" with a midrange GTX 1050 for $400 not much larger than an Apple TV or VHS cassette tape.
 
My last "new" computer was a 2012 era Thinkpad x230, and I'll probably be upgrading to the x280 pr T480 when it comes out in a month or so, and also a graphics dock. Then when I need to upgrade the graphics, just plug in a new TB3 graphics dock/eGPU. My i5 from 2012 is still plenty fast, the only shortcoming is that it can address a max of 16GB memory and moderately weak graphics (although I did play Skyrim on it over Christmas for 40+ hours without an issue). I also upgraded the drive from magnetic to SSD for maybe $100 and replaced the battery for $50.
 
If power users can hold on to their laptops for five years, I can only imagine how long the average user keeps their computer these days. Being able to extend the graphics on a laptop indefinitely is going to extend the life of the device quite a bit.

Re:Laptops and Thunderbolt 3

[DarkRookie]

I have had the same system for 15 years now.
(Theseus's paradox)

Re:Laptops and Thunderbolt 3

[jittles]

Growing up in high school in the late 90s/early 2000s I was one of "those guys" (if you're reading this, likely you were too) with several used PCs living in their bedroom running various hobbyist tasks, sometimes tinkering with linux etc. Then in the 2010s I was down to a single "vm lab" server and desktop for games, plus a single laptop for travel. As time has gone on, priorities have changed, I use my laptop more and my desktop is somewhere under a heap of old things in a storage unit an hour from my home. The laptop is my primary machine.

I travel frequently and do not trust hotel WiFi. I actually have an extra machine that i keep running 24/7. It's a low TDP fanless Xeon (ivy bridge) machine that runs VMs. Averages less than 10W of power consumption but can go as high as 35W. Allows me to VPN onto my home network and, if necessary, also provides a RDP option. It runs two host OSes at all times. I also have a desktop for transcoding video and playing games that rarely gets used. Laptop is the primary machine that I use as well. But with VMs you really don't need all that hardware anymore. It is very nice.

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.

Re: Processor speeds stuck at 3.5 GHz

[Hal_Porter]

What company doesn't kill off hardware between each major release? MS does it.

Actually for a long time they didn't

E.g. up to 8 Windows would run on pretty much any CPU. It was only with 8 that it started to require "NX bit, SSE2, PAE".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

If you search you find a lot of people got told their machines couldn't be upgraded from 7 to 8. Having used 7 and 8, I'd say MS was doing them a favour, but it was still something of a departure for MS.

You could install XP, Vista and 7 on an absolutely ancient machine and it would still run, albeit slowly. Only with 8 did they start to kill off support for old hardware.

Up to that point Microsoft was a software company and it was in their interests to sell you a new OS to run on your old hardware and not break any applications.

Apple by contrast sell hardware and give away software. So it's in their interest to make new OS releases not work on old hardware. It's also in their interest to tie new releases of their applications to new OS versions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

So if you've got a 2012 Macbook Pro which they were still selling up to a year or so ago, it's getting close to the edge. The next oldest machine, the 2010 Macbook Pro, is the oldest Macbook Pro supported.

I.e. I reckon I'm good for maybe one more release past High Sierra before my machine drops out of support. And for XCode that's an issue because you need the latest release to install it. I.e. Apple know for people who buy a machine to run XCode they can force an upgrade by tying XCode to Mac, tying XCode to the OS version and tying the OS to the most recent hardware.

Of course I might just decide to run macOS in a VM...

Windows 10

[hambone142]

I'd love to buy new hardware but I WILL NOT buy a PC that runs Windows 10 or similar spyware OS's.

I'm going to stay on Win7 and if Microsoft persists on collecting data on users with their OS, I will migrate to Linux.

Game over unless Microsoft cleans up their act and I suspect they won't.

That's one reason PCs aren't selling.