Sticking with the analogy, if some manufacturer manages to convince me that their newfangled tyres are better than the tyres currently on my car, I don't buy a new car; I upgrade its tyres.
But if you don't know how to change the tyres, you can take your car to a garage and have it done; while there are places that will upgrade your system to Windows 8 for you, they're far less well known than Kwik-Fit and the like. PC World is likely the only one anybody's heard of these days, and I don't know that they still offer the service - I certainly haven't seen any adverts for it recently. Add in to that the previously-mentioned power of advertising - where the features of the OS and the features of the PC (sorry, "car" and "tyres") are deliberately conflated - and I'm still predicting that a percentage of the uneducated masses will buy a new PC 'cos the telly said it was better. This figure, naturally, decreases in a recession-like scenario - which could well account for the 6.4 per cent drop this quarter. Tell you what: let's have a little bet. If I can get some figures out of IDC (or A. N. Other market watcher, or a friendly PC manufacturer if all else fails) and they fail to show a spike in sales each time a new version of Windows is released, you win and I'll donate £20 to a charity of your choice; if a spike is present at the relevant points, I win and you'll donate £20 to a charity of my choice. Deal?
Oh do give it a rest. Windows 8 is Windows 7 with some tweaks and a fresh coat of paint. There are plenty of paint stripping applications out there! Exactly. If you look at some of the Asian countries, for many the primary way they are accessing the internet is via smart phones. Many don't even bother with a computer, that is the way it is heading. The market is shifting as a result of that change, the PC isn't going to disappear obviously but you can't expect the same sort of sales.
My mom told me never to bet for money with strangers. But spikes alone say nothing: See PC's sold around the release of Windows 7 (Oct. 2009): an obvious spike, but preceded by a sharp drop. People who were going to buy a PC held off for the release of Windows 7 and then struck (much like people hold off buying a car until the new licence plate comes out). But the overall sale of PCs over time remains constant. A similar drop followed by peak can be seen in 2001 (release of XP): Conclusion: a new release in Windows only influences when people buy a new PC, but not whether they do. And in a recession, it drops. If people used to buy a new PC every 4 years, and now they buy one every 5 years, that's a 20% drop in sales. It's that sharp a change.
Software doesn't push for the HW anymore... Hell, my HD5870 can still play at 1920x1200 with high setting in some games... PC has stagnated... just that
when the PC market was the only space that we saw any hardware/software innovations that was what got people talking and wanting to upgrade, but now the smartphone/tablet market is see'ing innovations at a much more rapid pace, that is what everyone is talking about and that is what is making them upgrade their phones/tabs, but not their desktop/laptop computers... you only have to look at the slow pace of improvements from AMD/Intel to see what I mean with the slow desktop/laptop innovation. now that we have Nvidia, Qualcomm & Samsung competing in the ARM CPU space and delivering new CPUs/SoC's every other week, that is more interesting.
@nexxo/niko "poor sales earlier in 2012 had been blamed on consumers waiting for the release of Windows 8. With that next-generation operating system becoming available in October, the hoped-for explosion of interest in buying new computers hasn't materialised." The claim isn't that a new windows causes a large surge in demand on a year by year basis merely quarter by quarter. The hardware companies will have been expecting to report poor Q1-3 result due to the pre-window release lull and will of been telling there investor to just wait for the windows 8 peak hoping a strong Q4 would make up for it and result in stagnant rather than declining year end figures.
I totally agree with you here, the reason why PC sales are down is cause consumer market really didn't want a PC to begin with, or simply don't need to purchase a new one (consumer fatigue). Necessity drives demand, and now its simply not necessary to buy a computer as regularly, or at all, e.g. my parents laptop is 5 years old now, and it still does all the basic tasks they needed it for, so why would they buy another one? (except when it dies). When it does die, a tablet would suit them more, for its portability factor, and locked down babysitter style OS. I'd probably get them the Acer W510, cause they don't need anything above an dual core atom processor. (although I need to test its peformance to be sure). Tablets suit the non PC literate consumer more, and lets face it, that's 90% of the population. Tablets provide them with only the features that they need (browser and email) and brain dead useless apps that provide no benefit other than entertaining their low IQ. Tablets also make porn more accessible, being ultra portable It can be taken out to the shed, or into the toilet, for some more personal time, where privacy in some house hold is lacking, and that's what the consumer wanted (plus glass is easier to clean than keyboards). With the lack of internet in the 80's, pc's were either for programing, word processing or gaming, the industry didn't really have a great consumer market or need for it in their life. Computer sales sore, when the internet became popular which happened around windows 95 to 98, from which it plateaued around the beginning of Windows 7, and the quad core processor, capable of managing all the tasks the simple consumer would need the PC for of which can also be achieved as easily on a tablet. The gaming industry still remains strong for the PC, due to the advancements of GPU processing, and because the mouse and keyboard is still hands down the best gaming input device around. In general though gaming hardware increases haven't grown much in recent, as the game graphics are starting to hit a threshold, where its not very beneficial to invest additional time creating further ground breaking graphics beyond games of the likes of Crisis 3 and BF3, so I could expect the PC gaming industry to plateau in this area in a few more years. Until a more advanced gaming input device becomes available on console, gaming pc's will still be highly sort after, but with the tablet evolution, there will be less household computers, which could reduce PC gaming popularity / affordability for parents to buy a PC for their kids. If the xbox 720 is created with a complete mouse and keyboard functionality then it really will be dark times ahead for the "PC". However it will simply just be a form of digital evolution where new breeds of the PC will have evolved: Tablet, Console, Desktop, Phone. all of which competing to kill each other off in the ecosystem, until they all have fully evolved, where they too reach a point where there wont be consume demand to replace it unless it dies.
Remind me never to buy a tablet from you. Or at least put a clear photo of it under UV light in the for sale thread.
Another selling point for the Surface's kickstand: it leaves both of your hands free to... well... never mind. But seriously: compare it to the history of power tools. They started out as an electrical motor on a work bench in the garage. You attached different appendages dependent on what you needed to do. Then you got smaller, dedicated tools with their own power cord. Then you got smaller, rechargeable cordless tools. Same with cookers: first there was a central stove: it boiled your water, heated your house and cooked your food. Now you have microwaves, electric water kettles, and hobs. You even have self-heating cans. Computers are going the same way: from a big all-purpose device on a desk to multiple dedicated cordless mobile gadgets that do a few specific things conveniently and easily. Computers are becoming smaller and embedded. Soon we don't need a PC, because our TV is a PC, and so is our media Centre/game console, and our tablet/laptop, and our phone/tablet. Windows 8 is gearing up to that future. It is already there, waiting for the technology to catch up.
Wow. This conversation on an IDC report took an unusual turn for the gritty. Haven't we all been on the Internet long enough for the market for pornographic content to become saturated? It was a sad, sad day for me when I went to a LAN party and the shared porn folder on the network held no allure. Had I *gulp* grown up at last? Shirley not? I sat back and ruminated while engaging in bloody violence. Had I grown past pornography, or had I been completely desensitised by decades of violence and sexual content? After blowing the head off a passing CGI object, I realised that it wasn't that I had grown past pornography, it was that pornography hadn't grown up with me. Once you've seen one video (or a hundred) of a generic bleached blonde with a plasticised body, inflated "enhancements" and disturbingly generic tattoos, then you don't really need to ever view another. Plus, if I'm no longer satisfied with Doom levels of story development in my gaming, I'm not going to be happy with "my girlfriend's out of town and her friend is looking sexy" standards of pornography narrative and character development followed by some listless and uninspired sweaty activity and the least convincing "Oh"s that have ever been recorded. It really is a sad indictment on the state of modern pornography that formulaic and obligated sexual relations with a long term, monogamous partner is MORE erotic than professional erotica. Where is the inspiration? Where is the escapism? Or is it just me? And what were we discussing again?
All these sales figures prove is that a lot of people used to buy desktops and laptops then use 5% of their overall capabilities. Essentially, content consumption has shifted to tablets and phones. Content creation remains on desktops and laptops, for obvious reasons, but there are far fewer creators than there are consumers. Windows 8 was never going to reverse the trend, I don't think any operating system could. Microsoft was fully aware of this and made a touch-friendly OS. Now they just need a slap around the head so that they realise 1.) RT is pointless and should be scrapped and 2.) x86 Windows 8 at the same price point / hardware spec would be awesome.
No, desktops are not dying. It is laptops that are becoming less and less appealing. Personally I've never seen the appeal of a laptop. I'd rather wait to get to my desk then uncomfortably struggle on, and remain mobile. Phones and tablets, or laptop tablet hybrids are replacing laptops. Desktops will still have their place - when high power is needed, a desktop is unrivaled without spending ridiculous money. Of course there is clustering, but it's not exactly mainstream and easily manageable, or compatible with typical Desktop apps which aren't scalable; they struggle to use all the CPU's cores, yet alone another CPU...
