PC Sales See 'Longest Decline' In History 385
dryriver writes "Global personal computer (PC) sales have fallen for the fifth quarter in a row, making it the 'longest duration of decline' in history. Worldwide PC shipments totalled 76 million units in the second quarter, a 10.9% drop from a year earlier, according to research firm Gartner. PC sales have been hurt in recent years by the growing popularity of tablets. Gartner said the introduction of low-cost tablets had further hurt PC sales, especially in emerging economies. 'In emerging markets, inexpensive tablets have become the first computing device for many people, who at best are deferring the purchase of a PC,' said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, said in a statement."
Whatever (Score:5, Insightful)
The PC is doomed, blah blah blah. All the grandma's are buying tablets. Anyone who does any real work are buying PC's or already have what they need. Nothing to see here.
Not necessarily because of usage. (Score:5, Insightful)
definitions matter (Score:5, Insightful)
For some reason, there still remains this weird claddistic requirement that "pc's" (ie desktops, I guess?), laptops, and other devices be all conceptualized in separate boxes. Or, it could just be that the companies that are paid to do this sort of info gathering (and sorting) aren't changing as fast as technology...?
PC stands for 'personal computer', at least it did.
The laptop was the evolution of the desktop into a more broadly useful form factor.
The smartphone, and the pad device are precisely the same thing - just other points on the spectrum, not a whole different genus of computer.
That said, then, if one were to include the counts of all such devices that have the computing power and utility of a desktop even as short as 10 years ago, I hardly believe that the "PC market" is in decline.
One might even wonder then what the agenda is for such a naked contrivance to present the situation in such a gloomy light might be?
Re:This is the slope before the cliff (Score:5, Insightful)
The PC is here to stay. What we are seeing is a longer life cycle. There is no need to update the hardware these days, there's plenty of power and storage for people writing the odd letter/email, social media and most games. Unless you're a developer or working with huge amounts of media data, PC users aren't going to notice a shit load of RAM, loads of cores CPU and a GPU capable of real-time Avatar level of rendering.
It isn't tablets (Score:5, Insightful)
The main reason for the decline of PC sales is that PC's have gotten to the point where their useful life is far longer than it used to be. Other than bleeding edge gamers and enthusiasts, there is just no need to upgrade as often as people once did. The same applies more or less to businesses.
Nearly every person I know who owns a smartphone and/or a tablet also has some sort of PC. I really don't think the portable device boom is the culprit here.
Re:This is the slope before the cliff (Score:5, Insightful)
That is a truly misguided statement. Here's a better one:
"Consumers use touch screens. Producers use keyboards."
Good luck using a tablet for tasks such as Photoshop or Blender. Heck, even using a tablet to type out a proper letter could be classified as cruel and inhumane.
The era of the PC is not over... only the era of the PC as an entertainment device.
Re:Not necessarily because of usage. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, more than that, they seem to have stalled in terms of getting much better. 4.5 years ago I built an i7 system. I've been used to getting a new computer every 2-3 years that blows the old one out of the water. This time however, there just hasn't really been much to upgrade to. The CPU specs are still competitive. We're still at quad cores. We've gone from tri-channel memory on the i7's to dual channel. I've upgraded the graphics card though.
In the past, people would buy new computers because their old ones were made obsolete by new ones (so not necessarily because their old ones stopped working). This hasn't happened in a while, so why would people buy new computers that aren't an upgrade, if their old ones are still working?
PCs are not going to die. (Score:5, Insightful)
What worries me is that if the PC market can't continuing making profit off volume sales, the prices of a computer (or its components) will go up. I'm still on core 2 due (hey, still works), and waiting for it to die so I can build something with 8-core.
Not as many are needed (Score:5, Insightful)
At the end of the day, we just need fewer PCs than we used to:
- People can do their "consumption" media (browsing, videos, etc) on tablets or phones. Don't need a PC for that.
- People who use PCs for work have no reason to upgrade them as often as they used to, as the machines last for years and real world performance gains in hardware have slowed to a trickle. When most of my software is single-threaded, upgrading from dual core to quad core (or more) does absolutely nothing for me.
- Even gamers don't need to upgrade that often, as requirements have stopped going up unless you want the ultra quality mode. A three year old gaming PC can still play everything new at high quality, and that's never been the case in the past.
Add it all up, and we need fewer PCs today than we used to need. The ones we do need last longer than they used to. The market isn't going to go away, but it is going to become a lot smaller.
Re:definitions matter (Score:2, Insightful)
The laptop was the evolution of the desktop into a more broadly useful form factor.
The smartphone, and the pad device are precisely the same thing - just other points on the spectrum, not a whole different genus of computer.
I disagree. The evolution from PC -> tablet is at least as profound as the evolution from mainframe -> minicomputer -> PC. Tablets and smartphones are really more of media consumption devices, which go to great ends to de-emphasize composition of anything greater than a photo, SMS or tweet. Laptops were really just a mobility improvement, where tablets are an entirely different mode of usage.
Microsoft kills the PC (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect this is primarily because people who think of buying a new PC go to the store and see Windows 8 and think 'WTF? Why do I want a tablet interface on my 24" monitor?'
In a vain attempt to gain a few percent market share on tablets, Microsoft are killing their PC cash cow.
What were they expecting? (Score:4, Insightful)
Perpetual exponential growth? Good luck with that.
I would expect this to be obvious to the casual observer, but I guess not. So, let me enumerate:
Primary reasons for the decline:
1) The PC has been around now for over 20 years. It no longer possesses excitement and consumer appeal.
2) SMARTPhones and tablets are better meeting the needs and desires of the consumer; their increasing sales are supplanting PC sales.
3) The PC market is saturated, either due to consumer need or financial constraint. (Plenty of foreign markets have consumers but lack capital to meet the saturation levels of Western countries.)
4) Digital product producers, online retailers, and brick & mortar stores have all been significantly marketing tablet and SMARTPhone devices to consumers while ignoring their traditional PC products.
5) Tablets and SMARTPhones have much shorter average lifespans than traditional PCs, creating more consistant and continual demand for their replacement.
Ergo, you have a very simple recipe for the decline of PC sales.
not correct (Score:5, Insightful)
That's BS, it's Windows 8's fault entirely. This study doesn't count used PC resale or a drop in computer (scrap) recycling levels. Tablets replace laptops, not PCs. There is no drop because of tablets. It is completely Windows 8's fault.
Re:Not necessarily because of usage. (Score:5, Insightful)
Get an SSD.
Dropping an SSD into a 4 year old machine will make a bigger difference than getting a new CPU for 90% of people.
Re:This is the slope before the cliff (Score:4, Insightful)
The existing PCs are powerful enough for most users, and have been for years. Most users are running Word, EXCEL, or their open source equivalents. They've had enough speed and memory for years. New hardware buys them little more than a keyboard without fingerprints. New software actually slows the machine down due to all the glitz.
Sure, there are a few people like me who want more speed for video processing, or other computational tasks,, but we're the exception, not the rule.
Re:This is the slope before the cliff (Score:5, Insightful)
The era of the PC is over. I'm not sure why anyone would be surprised at this.
That's drawing a conclusion on shaky evidence.
Drops in PC sales does't indicate that PC usage has dropped.
The real issue is two things:
- There's little in the way of new markets for generic computing devices. After 30 years, most of the population likely to ever have one have been served effectively by the companies selling them
- In existing, saturated markets, there's declining reason to replace existing systems. The sweet spot of memory, storage, and CPU power has been met for the majority of the uses that people have them for. Gaming is really the only area pushing a need for new computers, and even that is arguable in most cases. (Peripheral sales like new video cards is doing just fine, as an example). Even things like editing HD video of the kids is done more than effectively with five year old hardware.
That is the real problem. There's no need to upgrade a 3-4 year old system, short of hardware failures. The fact that even a small part of the market (and is IS very small) can do everything they need on a tablet, without a primary computer is more evidence that there's just no "new" uses that drive a need for new hardware, and a smaller "ultrabook" form factor isn't a compelling enough reason to get people to cough up $1k.
Fact is, other then web surfing, most of the things people have always used PCs for they still need to use PCs for. You can't store a terabyte of family video and photos on a tablet. If you have a Windows tablet, I suppose you could use an external drive. Wireless NAS is just too slow. You're not, generally, going to tap your way through your taxes on a little tablet.
PC era isn't over, but the era of 18-24 month lifespan for PCs is. If that doubles, then sales have to drop in half.
Re:Longer Life Cycle (Score:4, Insightful)
The PC is here to stay. What we are seeing is a longer life cycle. There is no need to update the hardware these days,
Hold on there why does anyone say this....I want more powerful hardware and can use it. Where is my 4X 1080P 24" touchscreen monitor, with keyboard with LED keys with these futuristic storage sizes with android compatibility...at a price I can afford.
Those are new monitors, not new PCs. You proved the GP's point. You talk about more powerful hardware, and listed nothing that actually involves replacing the PC. You just need to replace the peripherals.
win8 and UEFI (Score:4, Insightful)
Who would buy a PC you can't use?
Didn't need a PC in the first place (Score:5, Insightful)
Many people are finding that they didn't need a PC in the first place when all they do is light web browsing and posting on Facebook. Previous to the smartphone/tablet, they needed a PC to do that. I think we'll see more special-purpose devices taking over functions that were previously relegated to the general-purpose PC.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Whatever (Score:5, Insightful)
The PC is doomed, blah blah blah. All the grandma's are buying tablets. Anyone who does any real work are buying PC's or already have what they need. Nothing to see here.
Yep. Most computer users turned out to be media consumers who a) don't need the hassle of maintaining a PC, and b) like the size/shape of tablets.
The sky won't fall. This "fatal" decline will level off soon when everybody finally figures out which camp they're in.
The PC is not dead (Score:5, Insightful)
The PC is not dead. For Windows, it was nearly perfected with Windows 7. Intel's Core i5 and i7 plus NVIDIA or AMD GPUs + 16GB RAM + SSD deliver the computing power of supercomputers from just a few years ago, and complete everyday tasks almost instantly. Why do people need to buy a PC that is only marginally faster, only to downgrade to Windows 8.n which is user-hostile on the desktop?
Tablets are new and rapidly advancing and people are buying them to do many things (snapshots, social networking, light web browsing) on the go, on their sofa, etc. but not to actually replace their PCs. Nearly any PC made in the last five years is "good enough" so why replace it before it fails?
The PC isn't dead; the market is simply saturated with computers that are finally "good enough" and a new computer is a downgrade thanks to Microsoft forcing the tablet UI upon everyone. I've had to install Classic Shell for Windows 8 users who are novices and complained the OS is unusable, so you can't convince me at all that Windows 8 is good for newbies.
Then for business, the Metro^H^H^H^H^HModern interface breaks usability and productivity; Windows 2.0's "innovative" overlapping windows (not so innovative actually - it was copied from Amiga) is removed. I don't know about you but when I am doing any kind of sysadmin or development work, I often have five to seven applications open, often overlapped so I can read documenation as I write scripts and code, or even work on spreadsheets.
I'd like Windows 8 if it came with the Aero interface and still supported glass, and the touch UI could be enabled as a choice - or even if it were the default and could be turned off, and if Metro apps could be moved around freely rather than be confined to full screen or tiled. I don't know about you, but even if I cared about touch screens on desktops and laptops, it would be a very secondary UI for me, because I want to keep my hands on the keyboard and mouse. I'm not new to touch screens either - I've been a PDA/tablet fan since WinCE. I own PocketPC (which I still use on occasion), iOS, and Android PDAs and tablets, and have used Windows XP tablets and each is great for its purpose, but when I did use the XP tablet as a desktop, I docked it and used only the keyboard and mouse. I never once used the touch screen while it was docked, nor would I bother with Win8's touch screen on a desktop or laptop.
Re:PCs are not going to die. (Score:5, Insightful)
This. They can end up going up to the point that only businesses can afford them.
On the plus side, we might be able to move away from the awful glossy-widesceen-with-awful-keyboard models that the public have been forcing on us for the last few years.
It's a matter of needs (Score:4, Insightful)
Performance isn't as much of a factor any more - a 7 year old PC will browse the web and get your e-mail just as well as a brand new one. Monitor resolutions are stagnating at 1080p... video cards that are 3 generations old still play games great on single 1080p monitors.
In short, for most people (gaming enthusiasts and developers excluded), older PCs still work fine, so WHY UPGRADE?
Yeah, maybe a new PC will boot in 10 seconds, or that office app will launch in 50% of the time as the old one, but when that 50% is only another 2 seconds, who cares?
There was a time when improvements in PCs were more dramatic - you could FEEL the change performance between one PC and the next, but we've entered an era of diminishing returns with those performance improvements. Sure, we will see good improvements in media encoding time, or see lag on a game that is run on 3 monitors, but most people don't do these things all the time, or even some of the time.
This is why PC sales have dropped. Everybody who needs a computer has them, and most people are ok with the computer they have, until it breaks down. This obviously will slow down sales.
Re:definitions matter (Score:4, Insightful)
PC stands for 'personal computer', at least it did.
As far as I'm concerned PC derives from IBM PC. It's a PC if it's an IBM PC, a clone, or one of it's descendants. So it's CPU will be in on of the x86 compatible descendants. And it's firmware will be BIOS, or one of it's descendants such as UEFI (that emulates BIOS for compatibility.)
The rule of thumb is that a PC is a machine that can run the x86 build of DOS and/or Windows natively.
ARM based tablets are not PCs. iPad is not a PC. Android tablets aren't PCs. The Microsoft Surface that runs Windows RT isn't a PC. The one that runs Windows 8 is a PC.
Re:Have you ever actually seen a mainframe? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because it's just a server, definitely NOT a mainframe. Just because IBM sells it doesn't make it a mainframe. IBM's mainframes are under the "z" Series.
The Top500 is a list of the highest-performing systems. In other word HPC. It's NOT a list of mainframes. The Top 500 doesn't CARE about mainframes at all, as evidenced by their benchmark being purely number-crunching, with NO attempt to record I/O performance, which is the specialty of mainframes.
Slashdot... Lots of fools who know just enough to be dangerous.
Re:No software exists to justify buying new hardwa (Score:4, Insightful)
Not niche, it is becoming an appliance. Everybody already have one. The exponential growth and amazement period has passed. So you keep what you have until it breaks. There is no (big) money to make on this kind of market anymore. It is just another mature market, like dishwashers. We are seeing the transition from boom market to appliance market.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:PCs are not going to die. (Score:1, Insightful)
--- Create "almost good" computers that will work for you only for a while. Let's see.
--- Create "disposable" devices. This is how the printer business is shaped. They could work more time, but their chips decide not to continue working
--- Create "durable" machines, making them more expensive in the first moment, but cheaper on the long term. And develop an "update and DIY repairing business" around it. Again, as the printers industry, do $$$ with the ink, not with the printer, or the car industry do with their regular checkpoints and the replacement part industry. Try to be "the dentist".
--- Order your goals. Mobile, Desktop
--- Sell what you can sell
Yeah, there are solutions
Last economic crisis is not a joke, and how the ice is melting in our poles neither. The industries can't continue selling as they are doing now, this is nonsense.