Microsoft Passes Acer To Become Top 5 PC Vendors In the US (venturebeat.com) 49
During the 3rd Quarter of 2018, Microsoft reportedly broke into the top five list of PC vendors in the U.S. for the first time, thanks to its line of Surface computers, laptops, and tablets. VentureBeat reports: Q3 2018 was flat; it did not continue the growth we saw in the previous quarter. Gartner estimates that worldwide PC shipments increased 0.1 percent to 67.2 million units while IDC counts a 0.9 percent decline to 67.4 million units. Gartner's top five vendors were Lenovo, HP, Dell, Apple, and Acer (in that order) while IDC's were Lenovo, HP, Dell, Acer, and Apple (also in that order). But Gartner also provides a U.S. breakdown every quarter, and Q3 2018 was the first time that Microsoft made an appearance, displacing Acer.
Microsoft is still a far cry from the other players in the top 5, and its shipments were in fact only up slightly by 11,000 units, gaining just 0.1 percentage points (to 4.1 percent market share). Still, Dell and Apple were down, and the overall U.S. market was flat (down some 50,000 units) in Q3 2018, so in that context, Surface sales are doing just fine.
Microsoft is still a far cry from the other players in the top 5, and its shipments were in fact only up slightly by 11,000 units, gaining just 0.1 percentage points (to 4.1 percent market share). Still, Dell and Apple were down, and the overall U.S. market was flat (down some 50,000 units) in Q3 2018, so in that context, Surface sales are doing just fine.
Of course (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know about the others, but if you follow Apple's hardware releases, there is a simple reason their sales are down.
- Four years since they barely updated the MacBook Air. Very old tech at today's prices. A minuscule CPU speed bump does not equal an update.
- Four years since they updated the Mac mini. Very old tech at today's prices. Can't even upgrade the RAM anymore. A downgrade from the 2012 models, so six years since the last real update.
- Three updates to a useless no-travel low profile keyboard that nobody asked for. This is the primary input method for a laptop and it got butchered because their industrial designer wanted to make the laptop one millimetre thinner. Also, they removed the function keys including the escape key for a stupid and expensive touch bar that, again, nobody asked for.
- Mac Pro trash that nobody asked for. Real pros are asking Apple to bring back the tower Mac Pro, we'll see in a few months if Apple really ditched pros to sell toy phones and tablets instead.
- Expensive Macbook that doesn't have enough ports to be of any use, ditched USB type A ports about five years too early. Very expensive for a low-power CPU.
After all that bullshit, I hope nobody at Apple is questioning why Mac sales are down.
Re: (Score:3)
I have a new MacBook Pro at work. For my use case, the keyboard and touch bar are mostly irrelevant, as it's connected to a large external monitor, keyboard, and mouse; I have a large and expensive dock that turns the USB-C ports into something actually useful. Same setup at home. But on the rare occasions when I have to use it as a, you know, laptop computer, I have to say that the keyboard is one of the worst ones I've ever come across in 30 years. And the enormous trackpad - even the cheap little Dell I
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which not only supports the claim that it's a poor notebook, but it also testifies to how bad Apple's support of the desktop is.
Shipments (Score:1)
Re: Shipments (Score:1)
Adaptable... haha. More like they use their enormous bank balance to keep throwing shit at the wall until it sticks or they get bored and move into something else.
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That is in fact a way to adapt.
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Thats called innovation. Something apple claims but never achieves
Re:Shipments (Score:4, Funny)
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why do you find it so hard to accept that the surface line is actually very successful?
Probably because of things like this. [theinquirer.net] And this. [pcworld.com] And this. [techradar.com] And this. [theregister.co.uk]
18 years and $30 billion lost. How's the Lumia? (Score:1)
> yeah right. they are spending billions over many years on something that isn't selling.
Yeah Microsoft would never spend 18 years
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org] and lose $30 billion
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org] on a platform that wasn't selling well. It's guaranteed to be a success https://www.theverge.com/2016/... [theverge.com] if Microsoft spends billions on it.
Did you type that in a Lumia?
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I have not seen any surface devices, lots of Mac's and iPads. Your mileage may vary. This is the same company that blew close to 22 billion on Nokia, $2 billion on Kin phone and is finding that they have to give 12 months of Cloud/Clown services to get users hooked on the subscription. All those corporate enterprise licenses get counted as clown sales even if the end users are banned from storing company documents in the clown.
Sometimes we only get the statistics that skew the appearance of a subject.
Hec
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I have a personal Surface Pro 4 tablet and use for work and personal travel. Rarely do I take it with me around town because most of the time my cell phone and Kindle do just fine.
For work travel, I use it as a second screen for my work laptop using a j5create USB 3.0 wormhole switch USB cable. When I am involved in a network refresh at a remote site, it's nice to have a second monitor, especially for new sites that have no monitors that I can borrow.
For personal travel, I use it to access travel informat
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My company issues Surface tablets instead of laptops these days.
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gartner and IDC don't use shipped numbers as they have no access to those, they base everything off retailer sales. Not sure why you think they aren't selling them. I see Surface devices everywhere nowadays.
I have yet to see a Surface device outside of a CBS show.
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We have been purchasing Surface Pros for the last couple years for some of our executives at work of course there are a lot more HP Elitebooks so this isn't even a surprising turn of events, HP in the top spot and MS finally taking the last spot.
Re: Fuck off Microsoft (Score:2)
You mean Windows Enterprise?
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>You mean Windows Enterprise?
I'm. waiting until Windows Enterprise reaches version 1701E
I'm considering a Surface Laptop (Score:3)
I'm considering buying a Surface Laptop, but I'm reluctant because they are full of glue and irreparable. (Per ifixit.com "The Surface Laptop is not a laptop. It’s a glue-filled monstrosity. There is nothing about it that is upgradable or long-lasting, and it literally can’t be opened without destroying it.")
My current laptop is 8 years old and runs well - i would expect my new laptop to be in use for a similar length of time... The reason I'm considering the surface laptop is they have a taller screen - their screen ratio is 3:2 rather than 16:9 that everyone else (except Apple) uses.
So I am torn... If I buy one, i will need to also buy an extended warranty of at least 4 years...
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People buy new cheap laptops everyday and the first thing they do: replace the HD with an SSD.
A SSD is the #1 performance benefit for upgrading a system.
In fact, I would never buy a laptop that cannot be opened and doesn't allow replacing the HD with a SSD.
SSDs are plummeting in price. You can get a 256 GB SSD for 25 bucks.
Why pay Apple or Microsoft $500 for an SSD upgrade that you can perform for $25?
Lenovo, HP up, Apple down (Score:1)
Lenovo up 22%, that's the news. Apple off nearly 8% yoy, RIP Macs.
But but (Score:2)
Someone on here said no-one was buying them because they hadn't seen one in public so this must be fake news.