Is the end nigh? PC market freefall accelerates.

[Silent_Buddha]

Yeah but the US's smaller decline appears to be down to the professional market, driven by the end of XP support.

That would be true for all regions. It isn't like XP support is only being dropped in the US. For EMEA, eastern Europe doesn't usually do professional PC purchases this time of year so would be unaffected compared to this time last year. Western Europe on the other hand is seeing a sharp decline. Africa is always going to be price sensitive so it makes sense for people there to switch to ultra cheap tablets for web, e-mail, and video.

Regards,
SB

 

[Blazkowicz]

Africa suffers from insane bandwith costs, too. Cloudy platforms based around an app store / central software repositories (which hurts linux too) and relying on the web and email for everything might be a problem.

Many countries are thus doing old style computing, using cracked Windows XP (formerly win 9x), CD-R/DVD-R with warez software and pirated media. Windows 7/8 can still be used for this (and Windows 7 32bit is actually well usable on ten year old PCs)


Maybe PC laptops (netbooks) and fanless, low watt desktops that can take laptop HDDs are useful for Africa. The $100, x86 desktop PC is possible (it has been done before). It's always more flexible, some guy on a donkey cart can bring a ton of software and data on a USB drive or HDD, with a tablet it's harder to do that (or you have micro SD)

Some friend had an idea of doing a protocol like UUCP by the way (which is two machines exchanging queued data, say daily or weekly, which makes e-mail and newsgroup able to work)
Fundamentally, tablets/phones can do what desktops/laptops do, though, as long as there's software, data storage (internal/external) and networking.

 

[jimbo75]

The real question for us as PC gamers is how does the introduction of this new form factor effect gaming desktops and laptops. The answer should of course be minimal since the tablet form factor is 100% incompatible with serious gaming requirements.

It has to have an effect somewhere, tbh it already is. Look at the price of GPU's from both vendors now and it's clear there is an increase and a holding of price that didn't occur in previous years. If the low end sales are disappearing the high end revenues need to increase to compensate.

So rather than get hung up on declining desktop and laptop sales which are merely a symptom if an inevitable transition within the PC market, we should be looking at GPU sales. If they are consistently declining too, then we have something to worry about.

I think that the damage to GPU is just taking a little longer to be realised than the CPU damage is. IMO we are just at the start of the real CPU (x86) problems, at least for Intel (AMD has already suffered and downscaled in anticipation of it). Discrete GPU sales are about to be smacked up the head by consoles I'd wager (gtx 770 or PS4?), and on top of sluggish PC sales I think we're looking at the start of GPU pain in a few months time.

 

[Blazkowicz]

ARMv8 servers might be where real trouble for the x86 CPUs can begin.
x86 servers have been completely ruling the server market, barring some IBM mainframes and Sun, AS400 legacy.

x86 servers are basically desktop PCs (you can use desktop hardware as a server, and server hardware as a desktop if you really wanted to), sometimes same CPU dies and similar chipset are used on both server or desktop, sometimes server gets its own CPU dies but based on the exact same architecture that goes in our gaming PCs and laptops.

In 2014/2015 and further, a lot of non-PC servers will be deployed and PC servers might be relegated to higher end uses (performance critical relational database, etc.)

 

[Silent_Buddha]

ARMv8 servers might be where real trouble for the x86 CPUs can begin.
x86 servers have been completely ruling the server market, barring some IBM mainframes and Sun, AS400 legacy.

x86 servers are basically desktop PCs (you can use desktop hardware as a server, and server hardware as a desktop if you really wanted to), sometimes same CPU dies and similar chipset are used on both server or desktop, sometimes server gets its own CPU dies but based on the exact same architecture that goes in our gaming PCs and laptops.

In 2014/2015 and further, a lot of non-PC servers will be deployed and PC servers might be relegated to higher end uses (performance critical relational database, etc.)

Even there I'm not sure it's a long term problem for x86 (Intel).

As with smartphones currently there's going to be a lot of Arm server CPU makers that will be participating in a race to the bottom (who can provide the cheapest Arm CPU). As the core is licenseable by virtually any company, price becomes the key differentiator in many cases.

If Intel can weather the storm without eroding too much market share in the server market, many of the Arm competitors will go out of business, leave the business, or be acquired by another company. Once that happens ASP will rise to allow for the survivors to be profitable. And when that happens Intel will be better able to compete as I don't think Intel will slash prices to compete in the "race to the bottom." They have to adjust prices somewhat to at least slow the market share erosion, but that'd be as far as I think they would need to go. And then wait it out while many of the Arm manufacturers inevitably go out of business.

Regards,
SB

 

[Squilliam]

I was wondering if 'proper' Haswell/Silvermont tablets could reverse the trend. I still rate Windows 8 ahead of iOS in design, but it seems that the general population doesn't want a Windows tablet. One important factor here however is that the Windows 8 App store sucks; every time I use it I am reminded why I don't use it.

 

[Malo]

One important factor here however is that the Windows 8 App store sucks; every time I use it I am reminded why I don't use it.

I agree with this entirely. It doesn't seem to be monitored at all, there's no way to report anything either. People can literally sell completely broken programs.

 

[pMax]

WP8 (not desktop!!) has imho an excellent design&useability - I find it way more usable that my iPhone&Android phones.

Actually, the visual search function of wp8 is the first one I ever used to find apps... it is great (and this caused endless discussions my manager saying "ah, you like microsoft" alike). And the fact I can always use my phone with 1 hand and my thumb due to vert/horz scrolling and tiles is... amazing.

While some obvious function is very well hidden and requires at least 3 sw engineers to discover it (like 'how can i add an unknown number to my name list" ...2 are not enough), I tend to say it is inversely proportional in quality to the desktop one (touch desktop included, tried).

 

[lanek]

I was wondering if 'proper' Haswell/Silvermont tablets could reverse the trend. I still rate Windows 8 ahead of iOS in design, but it seems that the general population doesn't want a Windows tablet. One important factor here however is that the Windows 8 App store sucks; every time I use it I am reminded why I don't use it.

You know somewhere it is a bit difficult when looking at the population. You have the "pro Android", who hate iOS Apple user, Apple fanboys who hate Android ( and Samsung maybe too), and you have both who will say they hate MS or WP8..

I was read some commentary on some sites about the the Lumia 1020, i know it is the hollidays so kids are not at school, but it is absolutely funny)

I use Android, but i recognize some excellent things in WP8.

About the stores, well, anyway, when i see the tons of useless apps on GooglePlay or on the Appstore, or when you see 5000 apps who do the exact same things, both the Appstore and Play are not perfect .. MS should change some little things, but its not like other should not too.

 

[Squilliam]

I agree with this entirely. It doesn't seem to be monitored at all, there's no way to report anything either. People can literally sell completely broken programs.

That goes a long way to explain why it is so crap.

You know somewhere it is a bit difficult when looking at the population. You have the "pro Android", who hate iOS Apple user, Apple fanboys who hate Android ( and Samsung maybe too), and you have both who will say they hate MS or WP8..

Well the marketplace isn't really defined by 'fanboys' really, or else the Wii would have sold 1/5th as many consoles and the 360 would have stopped selling once Kinect came out.

Windows 8 really is a great tablet OS because you can do pretty much everything you can do on iOS/Android without being stuck in tablet mode 100% of the time. Sometimes you need a little more flexibility than what iOS/Android gives you else little things become exceedingly complex in my experience (file system access/root admin access mostly). The issue is that the start menu sucks on a desktop and is mediocre on a laptop.

About the stores, well, anyway, when i see the tons of useless apps on GooglePlay or on the Appstore, or when you see 5000 apps who do the exact same things, both the Appstore and Play are not perfect .. MS should change some little things, but its not like other should not too.

The difference is not that Windows store has the repeat/bad apps, but it also lacks the really good apps as well. It also has really bad organisation which will allegedly get fixed with Windows 8.1 when that gets released.

 

[liolio]

WP8 (not desktop!!) has imho an excellent design&useability - I find it way more usable that my iPhone&Android phones.

Actually, the visual search function of wp8 is the first one I ever used to find apps... it is great (and this caused endless discussions my manager saying "ah, you like microsoft" alike). And the fact I can always use my phone with 1 hand and my thumb due to vert/horz scrolling and tiles is... amazing.

While some obvious function is very well hidden and requires at least 3 sw engineers to discover it (like 'how can i add an unknown number to my name list" ...2 are not enough), I tend to say it is inversely proportional in quality to the desktop one (touch desktop included, tried).

I haven't tried it, just played quickly with a winphone 7 and liked it though.
The issue is that Android is quite customizable, for instance I have an "old" Tegra 2 based cell phone and I've just changed the UI from GO launcher to "launcher 7". It feels "new" again (by the way phone refresh rate is slowing too, I guess they are getting good enough for lot of people).
Indeed the late Winphone UI is great but it still lack traction, if I were to upgrade I would most likely go with Android, just so much more apps/software and options/customizations. The UI is not irrelevant but at least on Android can be seriously tweaked.
I think that "non geek" people could mistake my phone for a winphone for example.

 

[jimbo75]

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20130830PR204.html

PC shipments to be down 10% for the year according to IDC (remember Intel claimed they would be up 1% at the start of the year). What's more surprising is that the emerging regions are worsening as tablets take over PC's there as well, so bang goes the argument that it was because of the maturity of the market....

As for Q4, surely we're looking at even more carnage around Christmas because of the new consoles, although price might be too high initially to really have a big effect.

 

[nutball]

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20130830PR204.html

PC shipments to be down 10% for the year according to IDC (remember Intel claimed they would be up 1% at the start of the year). What's more surprising is that the emerging regions are worsening as tablets take over PC's there as well, so bang goes the argument that it was because of the maturity of the market....

As for Q4, surely we're looking at even more carnage around Christmas because of the new consoles, although price might be too high initially to really have a big effect.

*cough*

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2013/08/30/oh_the_horror_idc_slashes_slab_sales_for_2013/

 

[pjbliverpool]

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20130830PR204.html

PC shipments to be down 10% for the year according to IDC (remember Intel claimed they would be up 1% at the start of the year). What's more surprising is that the emerging regions are worsening as tablets take over PC's there as well, so bang goes the argument that it was because of the maturity of the market....

As for Q4, surely we're looking at even more carnage around Christmas because of the new consoles, although price might be too high initially to really have a big effect.

I've said it before but I'll say it again. PC's or "personal computers" are not restricted to Windows operating systems and mouse/keyboard control. The personal computer is simply evolving into other form factors and with a market of finite size that's naturally going to reduce the market share of some form factors. Laptops and desktops will inevitably lose share but the overal market penetration of personal computers which now ranged from smart phones through tablets, ultra books, laptops and Mac/Wintel desktops has never been higher.

If we're talking about the desktop and laptop segments of the overall computer market then yes they are reducing but they'll never go away completely because there's always going to be a demand for that form factor. The difference now is people aren't forced into that form factor if they want a PC, so many choose a smaller, less function form factor.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

*cough*

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2013/08/30/oh_the_horror_idc_slashes_slab_sales_for_2013/

About what you expect this far into the "tablet" generation. In mature markets tablet adoption/sales will start to slow and then enter decline until it stabilizes at some point.

At that point there should be relative stability in PC, tablet, and smartphone markets unless some new computing form factor enters the equation and captures the public's interest.

As well, if Microsoft's slate/tablet initiative takes firm root, then PC share will never go back to it's former levels as a single device can serve as a desktop (when connected to a monitor and keyboard), laptop (with a keyboard dock), and tablet (device alone) for many people. Thus removing the need for many people to have multiple devices for home, work, and vacation.

Regards,
SB

 

[zed]

thought I wrote this before

*cough*

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/201...ales_for_2013/

you miss the part

they are rightly a jumpy bunch these days – this sales volume still represents year-on-year growth of nearly 58 per cent.

also flat sales growth is NOT treading water its sinking
WHY? population expansion,more markets (2nd/3rd worlds) where consumers are becoming richer.
flat sales growth is actually prolly closer to 3-5%

Its like when company X saiz we made 3% more profit than last year & I go umm inflation

 

[jimbo75]

Wintel destined to eventually fail, says Acer founder

 

[UniversalTruth]

Wintel destined to eventually fail, says Acer founder

As for recent rumors that Acer may be acquired by another player, Shih declined to comment and said that he is in no position to talk about the situation. However, not long ago, when asked the same question, Shih said he is neutral about the idea as long as the plan is fully thought out, is good for both enterprises, and is able to create value and help the company advance further.

Very sad indeed if they allow someone to take over and eventually kill them...
What "advance" do they exactly see? Very weird vision

I also hope Wintel fails and the sooner the better for everyone

 

[nutball]

I also hope Wintel fails and the sooner the better for everyone

I agree.

My professional life will be so much better when I can no longer purchase servers that are capable of doing the job I require of them, I'd rather have something under-powered and not made by Intel/AMD. Yeah.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Acer does Chromebooks, which are perhaps the first meaningful competition to Wintel in regular computers (i.e. desktop/laptop), barring the Macs. Some Chromebooks use PC hardware, and others non-PC hardware.