PC Market Shows Signs of Recovery (betanews.com) 113
PC shipments will continue to decline in 2016, according to a new IDC forecast, but the drop will be slightly lower than previously expected. What's more, things will improve even more in 2017. BetaNews adds: IDC expects PC vendors to ship a total of 258.2 million units this year, a figure which would be 6.4 percent lower than last year. The previous estimate was a 7.2 percent fall, which IDC announced in August. Growth will still be negative in 2017, but shipments are expected to decrease by just 2.6 percent compared to this year. IDC believes that commercial shipments of notebooks will grow this year, while desktops should stay flat in terms of growth. The pressure from mobile devices is said to decrease as the markets mature. The tablet market, in particular, is not as big of a concern or threat as it sees declining shipments as well. "The PC market continues to perform close to expectations", says IDC Worldwide Tracker Forecasting and PC research vice president Loren Loverde. "Some volatility in emerging regions is being offset by incremental gains in larger mature markets while the interaction with tablets and phones is stabilizing. We continue to see steady progression toward smaller desktops and notebooks as replacement buying helps stabilize overall shipments in the coming years".
Wait until they find out (Score:2)
2017 will be the Year of Linux on the Desktop! :)
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I don't see this as a big deal... the rate PC sales are declining has slowed a bit, although it's still steadily declining. There are always going to be some places where you can't get around having a box, where it's more convenient to have one, or where it's cheaper to have one.
I think when mobile matures to the point of being fully functional as a PC replacement you'll see the bottom of the PC market fall out all at once.
As soon as we aren't deciding between a box or a virtual PC to run that LCD, but the
Re:Wait until they find out (Score:4, Insightful)
Which will be never.... advances to technology that might otherwise place mobile tech more in line with desktop pcs tend to improve the performance of desktop pc's as well, so the target of being on par with the desktop is a moving one that cannot be reached unless somehow progress was only being made to improve the mobile platform experience that didn't also improve the performance of desktops as well.
Re:Wait until they find out (Score:5, Insightful)
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I hate to say it but you are very WRONG. You are assuming that what you don't know won't happen. Hear me out for a second.
- Say you have enough processing power in a mobile device (we know this can and will happen)
- Say this device can hookup wired or wirelessly to an augmented reality device (you know have a display as big as you can handle
- Say now you have a revolutionary method of input or even just a docking station (should you absolutely want a hard keyboard)
- Say you have a network connection via som
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wireless that gives you 10gb or more maybe 10GB max per AP and then you need a lot of them and in big office building just hope that there is no cross talk.
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wireless that gives you 10gb or more maybe 10GB max per AP and then you need a lot of them and in big office building just hope that there is no cross talk.
For one, I was trying to make a point that you can't limit resources available because they theoretically won't be obstacles later on. Additionally most network requirements are BURST which means 10gb for 20 users is a ridiculous amount of bandwidth by today's standards.
Second, do you know what tech will be available in 10-20 years?
Do you remember the readily available wifi speed offered in 1999? It was 11mbs
Do you know the speed offered today? 1300mbs
At this rate it's not unreasonable to think 10gb wifi wi
Re: Wait until they find out (Score:2)
So what's the plan to power this amazing desktop killer of the future ?
The kind of horsepower a desktop or workstation is typically known for will eat a mobile battery in very short order.
Because of power limitations, mobile will forever be playing catch up I think.
While a few generations of mobile hardware down the road will be amazingly powerful and sip power, their big brothers ( without the same power limitations ) will be even more so.
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Yeah, yer right, no one would think to give those whizzy new interface devices their own power supply. Sheesh, docking stations are...what...inconceivable.
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There's a point where you might as well just use a laptop.
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Provided that such laptops are even manufactured in the desired size. Manufacturers largely gave up 10" laptops in favor of tablets in late 2012 [slashdot.org].
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Yeah, but the point is that we replace all devices with one. That's where the conversation started.
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The strict W^X policy in iOS forbids third-party applications from using "quality dynamic compilers". A page allocated as writable cannot be flipped to executable on request from a third-party application. The only dynamic compiler in iOS is the one in WebKit, and it won't compile anything but JavaScript.
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I think most of this will happen (wireless 10gb less likely unless some scheme for 40 gbe over copper becomes a reality, you have to feed the APs after all).
But why would it change most of the corporate desktop market? You won't bring your phone to work and do company business on it, they will still require/want you to use their equipment at work.
I'm actually surprised by this point that the whole business market hasn't gone thin client/RDP by this point. It's been materially viable for while, but maybe M
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That's just weak management or communication.
A real thin client deployment should have full management backing and a concrete criteria for establishing "need" for a thick PC. Don't meet the criteria? No thick PC, and it's not a line management override decision any more than carpeting or bathroom fixtures is.
And the "need" for thick PCs can easily be met by something like a micro form factor machine in many cases, because "need" will ultimately boil down to something like multiple displays or USB connecti
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Way to go - sabotage the volume sales of PCs - that will help the prices a lot.
I'll give up my desktop just as soon as I can have a 32inch 4K screen, full size hardware keyboard and an internal 1/2" tape drive on my phone. I have an A3 duplex colour printer and my current UPS weighs 40kg - OK, so its not very portable. I work at a desk, and then I stop working and go somewhere e
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I'll give up my desktop just as soon as I can have a 32inch 4K screen, full size hardware keyboard and an internal 1/2" tape drive on my phone.
I think you are miss understand the whole point. The desktop PC isn't required if you have docking or even better yet, augmented reality. Want a 60" screen, create one. That's where its going. Feel free to quote me on it 10-20 years from now.
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The usual thin clients suck, Wyse and HP. I really like Igel, try them out.
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>I'm actually surprised by this point that the whole business market hasn't gone thin client/RDP by this point.
We have (at least in my mega corporation), but we're using normal laptops hooked to big monitors as the thin client. All real work happens on Linux boxes via VNC. Thin clients were a promise that never got cheap enough to be justifiable when you could buy a PC for less.
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All the convoluted modulation required to squeeze all that bw into sane amounts of spectrum multiplied by the number of devices in close proximity will inevitably be less efficient than hardwired equivalents using similar modulation methods.
Even if somehow you managed to squeeze all of this fantasy into a mobile formfactor, someone will want a whole bunch of it crammed into a much bigger box because top performance is more important than portability for the use case.
I know people are obsessed with mobile, b
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I know people are obsessed with mobile, but there will always be those who require hardware and software that allows more flexible user-defined workflows
You are limiting your imagination. Back up only 25 years and look at how much processing power you could get into a device the size of a Samsung S7.
The performance per square inch is continuously increasing. I have users operating advanced 3D modeling software with hardware from 7 years ago. They are getting full performance with up to date software. The only features that have increased requirement for performance are high precision rendering and physic simulations which can easily be offloaded to server s
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My laptop can do all these things, so can my phone and my tablet, but the big thing holding me back from just hooking up a display and keyboard to the iPad and using it for hardcore work is the OS and software. Until we get phones and tablets that allow users to run more than just gimped "app" versions of everything, they won't completely replace the PC.
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Big display, keyboard, docking station
You either didn't read what I wrote, created your own understanding for the sake of your argument OR simply didn't understand parts of it because you aren't update to date on emerging tech. Regardless, you are miss understanding the whole point.
The point is that the tech that in your pocket can replace your desktop PC and even laptop. Displays will no longer be required with augmented reality sets. The only issue left is handling input devices. With AR you don't need a mouse but you still need a keyboard. T
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Perhaps you hadn't noticed, but "enough" does not mean the same thing "as good as the other". It may very well be the case that mobile will get fast enough for most people...
I'd argue that when you reach less than 2% of the population using them is pretty much elimination as it's more of a niche product at that point with special requirements.
but improvements that make mobile processing faster also result in faster desktop processing as well, and the demand for more power will *always* be there
I disagree with the last part. The number one sign of this is that the replacement rate has decrease while the cost has significantly dropped. Additionally with bandwidth and network speeds increasing, it's become far more effective to transfer the work load onto specialized servers with unlimited amounts of resources to handle said reques
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Also, mobile OS would need to be replaced by real OS which allow the user to run more than one app at once, allow root access, etc.
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For now, yes. But we never know if holograms or flex display or even VR can create a bigger display for work.
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Mobile will never fully replace the PC market, yes your phone might have plenty of CPU power, but when you get to your office you're not going to work on massive spread sheets or do hours of data entry on it.
Careful there bucko. Nokia almost started eating into that market but Microsoft utterly destroyed them. I had a Nokia N900. It essentially ran Debian. At the time, I was praying for the next phone to have USB and Display port connectors so I could use my phone as my primary computer.
Yeah, duh. Of course I would not be doing hours of spreadsheet work on a resistive (eh? Firefox assumes this is not a word either. That is the NAME of the type of screen. Deal it with Firefox assholes who try to limit our vocabu
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People once said that our "toy" microcomputers would never replace the mainframe.
There comes a point in the ever increasing processing power that even mobile will simply have more than enough compute horsepower to do what most every day people need to do. We might already even be there or very close.
There will always be comfortable desktop workstations. Mouse, big screens. But most people may one day use their mobile device as the "computer" for the workstatio
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People once said that our "toy" microcomputers would never replace the mainframe.
Well, they were right, weren't they? Just not exactly the way they thought, and not on the timescale they thought. Look at how everyone is rushing to put everything in "the cloud". We're very quickly moving from the microcomputer mindset to pushing everything of value to centralized servers.
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no, the industry is pushing people that way, using appeals of convenience to challenge their better judgements.
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It doesn't really matter what the motivation is, people are willingly going that way.
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Oh yes it does. Being manipulated into something is not the same thing as a conscious choice.
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I don't see this as a big deal...
Given the fact that this was the Year of the Telemetry desktop for Windows, as well as that abysmal Fuck-You-That's-Why proprietary offering from the "Pros" at Apple, I'd say it's a big deal. Linux becomes more and more attractive by the minute when considering the alternatives.
the rate PC sales are declining has slowed a bit, although it's still steadily declining. There are always going to be some places where you can't get around having a box, where it's more convenient to have one, or where it's cheaper to have one.
I think when mobile matures to the point of being fully functional as a PC replacement you'll see the bottom of the PC market fall out all at once.
As soon as we aren't deciding between a box or a virtual PC to run that LCD, but the LCD runs itself through an app and doesn't need to be wired to anything but power, then the PC will go the way of the dodo. We're not quite there yet for enterprise.
Keep in mind the mainstream endgame is a sealed box devoid of any standards-based connections wrapped in a proprietary OS riddled with privacy-robbing "features". With that kind of shit to look forward to, the death of the PC will
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Given the fact that this was the Year of the Telemetry desktop for Windows, as well as that abysmal Fuck-You-That's-Why proprietary offering from the "Pros" at Apple, I'd say it's a big deal. Linux becomes more and more attractive by the minute when considering the alternatives.
Only to people who don't have a herd mentality. As much as I'd like to see everyone switch to Linux, we're just not seeing it happen in any significant amount; instead, everyone is simply rationalizing the new normal in their heads
apple app store only needs to go / Censorship (Score:2)
apple app store only needs to go / the Censorship issues are big. At least have an adults only room for stuff that is to hot for the main app store.
And why can't we have emulators where it's easy to load a rom, iso, disk image, have a real HDD image, etc? you can do side loading but it's not as easy as it is on android.
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I think when mobile matures to the point of being fully functional as a PC replacement you'll see the bottom of the PC market fall out all at once.
It will never be as fully functional as is.
To be as functional, you would need a full sized physical keyboard and at least 1 large (19" or greater) monitor.
So... a phone, as it is, will never be as functional as a PC. At least not until we have a way to interface better than with a tiny touch screen.
The PC market will die as soon as a phone sized device is able to drive 5760x1080 or higher screen resolutions while rendering modern 3d or virtual reality content at 60fps or higher.
Either that or the computati
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To be as functional, you would need a full sized physical keyboard and at least 1 large (19" or greater) monitor.
So... a phone, as it is, will never be as functional as a PC. At least not until we have a way to interface better than with a tiny touch screen.
My phone can already do this. I can connect an HDMI adapter, bluetooth mouse and keyboard. Believe it or not, Android works fairly well with a mouse except for games and apps designed around swiping exclusively.
That and no split screen on pre-Nougat devices (Score:2)
Believe it or not, Android works fairly well with a mouse except for games and apps designed around swiping exclusively.
That and the fact that most devices haven't been upgraded to Android 7 "Nougat", the first version to incorporate tiling window management as a standard feature, as opposed to the maximized paradigm that smartphone-derived GUIs tend to impose.
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What I keep wanting to see IRL is the stuff they keep showing in concept videos for probably 20+ years now. You sit down at an empty table and set your phone down on it. It connects to the desk and the surfaces light up, a touch sensitive keyboard and screen is drawn in front of you. A stack of folders to your right, you touch the stack and it fans out, letting you navigate through the folders to find the document you're reviewing for your meeting this morning. Tap it and it opens in the editor on your
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"There are always going to be some places where you can't get around having a box, where it's more convenient to have one, or where it's cheaper to have one."
Our smartphones are wondrously functional, but when you need to run Photoshop, you will want a computer.
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PC sales decline year after year, and as this article points out, continue to decline, just not as fast. At the same time Chromebooks (aka Linux) have outsold Windows laptops on Amazon for years now. While Linux Phones, Linux Tablets, and Linux "laptops" may not yet be dominant, the rate of new unit shipments far exceed that of new Windows PCs. A couple billion mobile phones get turned over every cou
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I actually have thought about going to plan9 (or a plan9 from userspace with a linux kernal) it looks nice enough but I will probably do that around the time I finally decide to run gentoo (something I mean to do eventually someday when I have the time and dont need to have my main PC actually operable for a few weeks but never actually get around to doing)
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The plan9 window system was not great. But that didn't matter - what you could do on the command line was magic.
I haven't used it for years, but at times I think I should go back, just for the joy of how everything was easy to do through the file system.
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2016 is the Year of Embedded Linux! **
** source - my own head
Interesting definition of 'recovery' (Score:5, Insightful)
PC shipments will continue to decline in 2016, according to a new IDC forecast, but the drop will be slightly lower than previously expected
One of the most imaginative definitions of 'recovery' that I've ever seen. It's like a kid who went from an A to a C in one term, and C to a D in the next, and claims that he's 'improved' b'cos he didn't go from C to an F.
Almost like how in Washington DC, baseline budgeting is done. If you are spending $100M on something and a proposal is made to raise it to $125M, but instead, the expense is only raised to $115M, then it's called a 'cut'. Nobody defines numerical shifts that way, excepting people in government... and market analysts
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Article says "signs of recovery" not "recovery". That said, I don't see how a slower decline is a sign of recovery either.
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Perhaps you should study calculus?
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What are people using to make the apps, edited videos, and the like that are played on said "Android based phones and tablets"?
Now is a great time... (Score:2)
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Oh yeah sure, like the kWorld driver on ODroid...
guessing game (Score:1)
RTFA (Score:2)
Oh, who am I kidding?
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"Backed by early Windows 10 transitions that are expected to boost commercial PC shipments in the next couple of years, and steady growth of SWaaS (Spyware as a Service) which should help shorten refresh cycles of commercial systems in the long-term, the overall US PC market sentiment certainly seems to be improving".
FTFY
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The push out of dx12 and needed software updates, the need for gpu generations like the 1070, 1080 nvidia cards, the suggestion for 16-32 gb of RAM, the hint that an i7 Is needed.
The 4K ready games are getting very complex with a new generation of GPU, CPU suggested for the very best graphics settings.
Add in the VR testing software to offer feedback on cpu, gpu, ram to ensure a really great user experience.
The ability to get a bit faster stor
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That's why I program, write and do other things on a PC every day.
{game of the year} (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd switch to Linux if it could play {game of the year}. Until it plays that game without much Wine hassle, I can't see myself switching.
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Well, I just decided to get a console. I use it more than my dual-boot computer. You put a game disc in and it works.
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Until you discover that a particular game that you want to play isn't ported to the console you have but is available for both Windows and X11/Linux.
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What about mods and other flexibilities? :P
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Well, I just decided to get a console. I use it more than my dual-boot computer. You put a game disc in and it works.
Housemates tried playing FIFA16 on the Xbox.
1. It had to connect to Xbox live.
2. It had to download an update.
3. It had to verify the disk.
4. It had to download another update.
5. Then it started the game.
6. Unstoppable into videos.
7. Logging into Xbox Live.
8. Now they have a start menu.
In the same time I downloaded an entire game from Steam.
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I'd switch to Linux if it could play {game of the year}. Until it plays that game without much Wine hassle, I can't see myself switching.
I play some fairly popular games on Linux. Natively. (DOTA 2, Euro Truck Simulator 2, Borderlands 2, etc)
I play some some fantastically popular games under Wine in Linux. (Skyrim, Dirt3, etc)
I bought Grand Theft Auto V. I can not play it in Linux either Natively or under Wine.
You know what? My freedom is more important to me than Grand Theft Auto V or the ~$60 I paid for it. I abandoned it all when Windows 10 came out.
If your freedom is not terribly important to you, as it seems not to be for the majority o
Its the content creators that need them! (Score:5, Interesting)
So I know a lot of people do Facebook, Twitter etc but for those of us that work doing any form of content creation of value desktops beat out most of the competition. For example... I am writing a white paper at the minute and doing so on a desktop. With a decent amount of grunt, good keyboard and dual monitors I can do stuff so much quicker than any other device, esp for media intensive ops.
There will always be a place for desktops.
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- Say you have enough processing power in a mobile device (we know this can and will happen)
- Say this device can hookup wired or wirelessly to an augmented reality device (you know have a display as big as you can handle
- Say now you have a revolutionary method of input or even just a docking station (should you absolutely want a hard keyboard)
- Say you have a network connection via some form of wireless that gives you 10gb or more
All this now has replaced the need for a desktop. This is a reality I expect
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There are already tablets and cell phones with micro hdmi ports, bluetooth that will accept a keyboard and mouse, and can connect to wifi.
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Yep and the only thing holding that from replacing desktops are the ecosystem (that will go away with time) and processing power (that will also be a problem of the past eventually).
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My brother bought an rpi 3b cana kit and brought it over for me to help him setup. There are cell phones with better processors, more ram, and the pi ran really well with raspbian... I wouldn't be surprised if it's android that makes better spec cell phone run like crap.
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a display as big as you can handle
A huge display isn't very useful if the smartphone-derived operating system's window manager doesn't allow displaying more than one app at once on that display.
Say you have a network connection via some form of wireless that gives you 10gb or more
And once I've burned through those 10 GB, which would take eight seconds at 10 Gbps, what else can I do for the rest of the month before my data plan resets?
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A huge display isn't very useful if the smartphone-derived operating system's window manager doesn't allow displaying more than one app at once on that display.
That's today and the software of today is built for today's hardware. This can easily be remedied so it's far from being a real concern.
And once I've burned through those 10 GB, which would take eight seconds at 10 Gbps, what else can I do for the rest of the month before my data plan resets?
I think your confused. What limit are you talking about? Cellphone plan limitation? Are you grasping on to straws to make a point because it's not coming across. 10Gbs WIFI is something that is already reality. Read up on Quantenna Communications.
Stop thinking that current tech is the end of the line. I'm surprised to see the lack of imagination of tech people on Slashdot.
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For example... I am writing a white paper at the minute and doing so on a desktop.
What? Why? Haven't you been paying attention? Based on the marketing the best way to do that kind of work is with an Apple iPad (tm)
Not suprising (Score:3)
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And "wears out" for many people means that the proprietary black sludge ball of an OS is borked with malware. Time to buy a new PC.
Business model idea(!): Proprietary OS vendor could increase it's sales if, somehow, for some reason, PC's were to "wear out" faster.
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Well. the nice thing about a PC is that it is modular, you can replace the parts that wear out.
I am still rocking my AMD 8 core rig from 4 years ago and it still runs modern 3d games at a decent frame rate at 5760x1080 resolution.
I expect the hard drives, GPU and power supply will last through at least another rev of the hardware when I replace the mobo, ram and CPU.
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Well yes. I guess in that sense, the PC really is already dead then because a PC, to me, means modularity and "hackability" more than anything else.
Still, though. I have helped many non-techies build a computer. I think that most people know it is possible and will do it if they have the right people around them.
I witnessed the birth of the PC and I will be around for its demise. Interesting times.
Built a laptop lately? (Score:2)
And to others, PC means a way to get work done while riding transit. This means a laptop. How many people actually build a laptop from a "barebook" kit?
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Moore's Law is dead. Lone gone and buried.
No it isn't. Clock frequency scaling hit a wall, most probably temporarily, but process size shrinking just keeps steaming on with areal density doubling every 2-3 years. Miraculously, photo lithography still works at 10 nm. Nanoimprint is likely to take over from there at 7nm and 5nm, the latter expected around 2020. [wikipedia.org] According to Wikipedia. I say 2024. In the intervening 8 years, it's entirely believable that graphene process technology will become commercially feasible, getting us down to 1 nm wire size w
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Moore's Law is dead. Lone gone and buried. There is no compelling reason to replace your PC at this point.
This and bad economies are to blame.
You no longer need to upgrade your PC or laptop every 2-3 years to run basic software... Hell, you barely need to upgrade your gaming rig every 3 years to play the latest game. I just built a new rig in 2016, the last one was made in 2009 between then I only upgraded the graphics card and to an SSD.
But the larger cause are businesses, they are deferring upgrades because of shrinking budgets. Businesses that would upgrade every 2 years in the 00's are now upgrading e
Nice paperweight you have there. (Score:2)
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Probably just resting.
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It's pining for the fjords
Predictions of everything are just BS (Score:1)
Humans are happy or sad based on expectations. Predictions just lead to expectations.
Let's predict PCs will never be sold again after today. Then tomorrow we can all be happy because poof, they are selling like hotcakes in relation to our expectations based on our predictions~~~!!!
PC market shows signs of recovery (Score:2)
And it's all thanks to a single game: No Man's Sky!
well duh (Score:1)