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It Was Flat Sales That Helped Microsoft Become America's #5 PC Maker (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Ars Technica:
Microsoft was the fifth-biggest PC maker in the U.S. in the third quarter of this year, according to industry advisory firm Gartner. The top spot in the U.S. belongs to HP, with about 4.5 million machines sold, ahead of Dell at 3.8 million, Lenovo at 2.3 million, and Apple at 2 million. The gap between fourth and fifth is pretty big -- Microsoft sold only 0.6 million Surface devices last quarter -- but it suggests that Microsoft's PC division is heading in the right direction, with sales 1.9 percent higher than the same quarter last year. The company pushed down to sixth place was Acer. The current quarter should be better still; the Surface Pro, Surface Laptop, and Surface Studio have all been given hardware refreshes which, when combined with the always-busy holiday season, should stimulate higher sales.
Globally, both Gartner and IDC reported a flat PC market (up 0.1 percent in Gartner's view, down 0.9 percent in IDC's), after the previous quarter's modest growth.
"The PC market continued to be driven by steady corporate PC demand, which was driven by Windows 10 PC hardware upgrades," said one Gartner analyst.
In defining what constitutes a PC, Gartner includes notebooks and "premium" ultramobile devices -- but does not include iPads or Chromebooks.
Globally, both Gartner and IDC reported a flat PC market (up 0.1 percent in Gartner's view, down 0.9 percent in IDC's), after the previous quarter's modest growth.
"The PC market continued to be driven by steady corporate PC demand, which was driven by Windows 10 PC hardware upgrades," said one Gartner analyst.
In defining what constitutes a PC, Gartner includes notebooks and "premium" ultramobile devices -- but does not include iPads or Chromebooks.
I wonder about how Microsoft ended up selling so many Surface thingies. Most everybody hated the manufacturing quality of Surface Pro 4. Botched firmware updates happened too, like the one this week that disables the touch screen and for which you need to send your computer for repairs. What did the other companies do that let Microsoft take 5th position?
Microsoft could stop selling their operating system for non-microsoft computers. Just like google and apple do.
Microsoft computers, like google computers, are not built by microsoft. I suppose one could argue apple doesn't build there's either but they do design and integrate them themselves.
Or they could just go exclusive and only support HP or Lenovo.
THat would definitely drive the upgrade cycle.
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