PC sales plunge, Microsoft and Windows 8 blamed

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/brierdudley/2013/04/10/pc-sales-plunge-microsoft-and-windows-8-blamed/

by gtani • 13 years ago

46 53 13 years ago

blogs.seattletimes.com

DigitalSea• 13 years ago

Is this a satire? I find it hard to believe that Microsoft and Windows 8 is to solely blame for any decline in PC sales. Haven't PC sales been declining for some time now? This sounds like a pretty far-fetched claim to make here. Considering here in Australia you can still buy a new PC with Windows 7 installed, I find it hard to believe that consumers are opting not to buy a computer just because of Windows 8 comes pre-installed. Remember when Windows Vista was an even bigger failure upon launch? That didn't make people stop wanting to buy a PC, how is Windows 8 any worse than when Vista first launched? It's the best version of Windows yet, the lack of start menu is a non-issue.

I'll tell you why PC sales are declining, because PC's are no longer our sole means of downloading, playing games, reading news or running apps. Mobile phones and tablets are to blame for the drop in PC sales, this isn't a bad thing and the PC isn't all of a sudden going to disappear because a PC will always serve a purpose. Sounds like a consulting firm trying to sound insightful and draw comparisons that shouldn't be drawn.

quattrofan• 13 years ago

Vista was nowhere near as bad as people made out, and in fact after SP1 a lot of problems were resolved. Win8 is a car crash its the bastard child of a Desktop/Tablet OS that only really works on tablets.

I actually like the look of Metro and how it works on a tablet, but Microsoft forcing desktop users down this path is not going to work.

oblique63• 13 years ago

Exactly. As much as I would find it amusing to blame Microsoft, it's really just a sign of the times. It's a combination of device saturation for general consumers, and hardware stagnation for power users, so that really doesn't leave many in the market for a new pc.

jiggy2011• 13 years ago

I think it's that a lot of people upgrade their OS when they get a new PC. So having a new OS is part of the appeal.

If Windows 8 is seen as worse or no better than Win7 , why bother upgrading?

mtgx• 13 years ago

But it still sucks for Microsoft. Because those sales include the "hybrid" sales, too, so whatever this means for the "PC market", it's still very bad for the "Windows" ecosystem and Microsoft.

InclinedPlane2• 13 years ago

It's perfectly reasonable. Yes, it may seem that Windows 8 isn't "that bad", but it does have a very real impact on the market. I've seen it with my own eyes. Of all of the people I know across all levels of technical sophistication very, very few of them are enthused about Windows 8 and many of them are actively turned off by it.

More so, while PC sales in general are also under assault from competing devices (like tablets and smartphones), that actually raises the importance of the desirability of the current version of Windows. It's when sales are weak and competition is strong that the effects of an undesirable OS are most pronounced.

Also, PCs certainly aren't going to "disappear" but the rate at which new PCs are purchased, especially in the near term, and the total size of the PC market is still up in the air, by a huge margin and perhaps even by an order of magnitude.

NewAccnt• 13 years ago

Casual PC users hate the lack of start button, but as a power-user I suits me just fine because I usually hide my task bar on the left side anyway. Having it hidden in the lower left-hand corner does not require me to make any dramatic changes. I also like the idea that the kernel has a lot of optimization making it faster on older hardware.

But as a human, what I hate legitimately and with a passion is having the "Mobile Web 3.0" paradigm being forced onto me with the Windows Market. Keeping games on a "real time" platform like Steam is one thing, but having my actual data in the cloud is not at all a comforting feeling. Not because I have anything to hide, but because I know that data is going to be mined for usage patterns and other valuable data that will ultimately be used to corral and control me. Features that cost money to support will be hidden behind deep menus and dialogs, affecting my productivity because their motivations are now skewed. Products they want to push are now right in my face and they know how much time I look at them, and by aggregate patterns, how to make it more "effective" i.e. annoying.

It's another bubble; There is a few applications that do benefit from this paradigm but unless it is managed very carefully, the temptation to extract my value for their own usage as a kind of user tax will always be there. The observer effect is not confined to quantum particles, it manifests up to observable macro phenomenon. While my incentive for taking a certain action may be fuzzy, it becomes binary when measured and leads to annoying false conclusions, a la clippy.

I don't really blame Microsoft and their solution is probably the best. I can't certainly think of anything better than hiding it on the right hand side, but it's still there, like a shadow hanging over the OS, waiting to slurp up less-wary users into its world, where I'll have to travel if I don't want to be left behind. If it is really as insidious as I imagine, they'll just die off as the machine leeches the life from them and we can all move along learning from the failed experiment. But chances are the machine will nurture its little human cells and use them to stomp out and consume anything that isn't it.

thebuccaneer2• 13 years ago

I only know 1 person who is actively enthusiastic about Windows 8. Everyone else has been extremely negative about it.

jl6• 13 years ago

There was a time when I would have felt seriously behind the times using my 3.5 year old PC. Maybe I just have different priorities now, but I no longer feel any compulsion to upgrade. I'm not aware of anything that a new PC can do that my current one can't, besides an incremental, barely noticeable speed bump.

On a related note, am I right in thinking that we are currently in the longest ever gap between new HD capacities? 4TB has been the top size for two years now.

ghshephard• 13 years ago

I use a May 2004 Dell Precision 650 running Windows XP every day for VMware, Dynamips Router Simulation, Visio, Outlook, Power Point, Excel, Word, PDF generation. I've got a 150+ Page document open in Word right now.

I realize that a new machine might be a bit faster - but, this current computer has been so rock for the last couple years - I haven't had a blue screen/lockup in 3+ years - that I don't want to mess with anything.

So - I totally agree with you, one of the reasons why Desktop Sales might start to drop, is that for the average office worker, right around 2004/2005, Desktops got "Good Enough" that you really don't need to upgrade.

When Microsoft stops supporting Windows XP, we might see another round of system purchases though.

keithpeter2• 13 years ago

HP XW6200 workstation (recycled) similar vintage, twin P4 Xeons, works fine with Linux.

I'm tempted by the floating point performance of the newer chips but for normal uses (LibreOffice Web &c) no problems.

wazoox• 13 years ago

Hard drive makers have been able to make 1 TB platters for a while, so 5 TB drives wouldn't be a problem at all (or even bigger drives, though in the past few years 5 platters have been the maximum). They simply chose not to make them because the demand even for 4 TB drives isn't so strong.

yen2232• 13 years ago

The Thailand floods 2 years back also hampered innovation in the hard disk industry.

ars• 13 years ago

Same here, I bought mine 3.5 years ago and it still seems perfectly fast.

I did a speed comparison against someone who bought their's recently, and their's was only marginally faster.

richardwhiuk• 13 years ago

As far as I can tell, consumer disk prices for >= 2TB drives are still higher than they were before the 2011 Thailand floods.

joenathan2• 13 years ago

The main speed increases as of late have been in CPUs adding more cores, most apps people use don't take advantage of all the available threads. Here I have a top of the line i7 3770k, a Samsung 840 Pro SSD, 16GB of RAM and Firefox will freeze up maxing out on 11% CPU usage and 3.5GB of RAM. I do use some apps that take more advantage of my hardware but most of the time all that horse power does me zero good.

Most computers nowadays have more horse power than most people need for all their common task, upgrading offers little to no advantage for most and as such is a waste of dwindling disposable income.

diminish• 13 years ago

simply upgrading to SSD is a huge performance booster. if i were still in IT, I would migrate all PCs to SSD, and that's it.

virtualwhys• 13 years ago

Firefox consuming 3.5GB...well, there's your problem, must be a memory leak in whatever version you have. Upgrade/downgrade or try Chrome as alternative until the FF issue is resolved.

Agreed re: most users not requiring a high end quad core CPU to browse the net, listen to music, use an email client, etc.

Those cores do come in handy with virtual machines, however. With hyper threading your quad core turns into 8 virtual cores, which can then be dedicated to, and shared amongst, VMs -- very handy as a Linux user needing to test various flavors of Windows without requiring separate physical machines.

SSDs everyone benefits from, novice or advanced user, a useful upgrade (short of storage space of course). RAM, better too much than too little, 8GB with Windows 8 is probably a safe baseline.

and Windows 8 intro screen is a bit baffling at first, a bit like Gnome 3's WTF do I do, is there something wrong intro screen.

swinglock• 13 years ago

An SSD is a fantastic upgrade. If you already have one you're all good.

pjmlp2• 13 years ago

Nowadays I only get new laptops when the current one dies, I no longer feel the rush to upgrade like in the 8086 - Pentium days.

My parents are still using my old desktop from 2001 (AMD K7) for their office + web stuff.

thebuccaneer2• 13 years ago

the only minor issue with that is that flash is a beast and, to watch higher def videos, you need a more powerful machine

venomsnake• 13 years ago

Unlike the early 2000s you can squeeze 6 years out of PC and 4 out of gaming PC with only upgrade of the video card. It is a mature market with slowing rate of replacement.

yoster• 13 years ago

Personally, I missed the start button.

andyjohnson0• 13 years ago

Almost the first thing I did with my new Win8 work laptop was to put Start Is Back on it. Gives you a Win7-style start button on up to two machines for $3.

[1] http://startisback.com/

rottyguy• 13 years ago

Is it me or are 90% of the Microsoft articles voted up on HN slaps to Microsoft. I've been using them for years and really enjoy their tools but, admittedly, don't go for OS upgrades often. Still love XP when I can get it. btw- At work, we're still in cost cutting (e.g. "savings") mode so I haven't had a desktop upgrade since I got there 3yrs ago. I suspect the economy is playing a major role here as well.

ekurutepe• 13 years ago

Of course this has nothing to do with post-pc devices. It's obviously Microsoft's fault that Apple's Mac sales declined as well, for the first time in ages.

lightknight• 13 years ago

Bah, PC makers have done this to themselves. Look at their starting lineup...compare it to your average tablet. The tablet is, surprisingly, a better experience. Why? Because it has a solid state drive.

It's kind of like what would happen to Porsche / BMW / Mercedes-Benz if a car maker came along that offered an electric sports car for $20K that performed like their $70K offerings. No one wants to buy a $50K BMW that performs worse than a $20K electric car...that's easy to understand. Unfortunately, these PC makers haven't grasped this concept...which says a lot about them; they are too intent on preserving their price structure (that overpriced upgrade to a SSD) to realize that they need to spec them in standard, or they will collapse (their company will shed stock). The nature of the game has changed, but they're still worshiping Jobs and picking over his final words for any hidden meanings to guide them to profitability. Yesh.

I mean seriously, Ultrabooks? "Oh yeah, we'll just copy the MacBook Air, and BAM! Profit!" Because that's what consumers want...a more expensive, less useful version of a laptop. Only now that the Jobs reality distortion field is fading are we seeing people wake up, and wonder whether they really want an iPhone 6.

keithpeter2• 13 years ago

At the consumer level the cheap laptops and desktop PCs in shops make a big point about the capacity of their hard drives. 500Gb bottom end, 1Tb more common. I'm assuming it is the 'bigger number looks better' pitch. They even have little labels saying how many songs/pictures/videos you can fit on the disc.

Anyone done research on how much storage is actually used? I've never filled a hard drive yet but I'm old school with music.

FailMore• 13 years ago

> Yet it's still too early to write the PC’s epitaph. It will take another year or so to see whether Windows 8 is accepted by business users, who drive most PC sales.

I don't think so. Not unless business decides it wants random coloured squares combined with mad inefficiency...

RyanZAG• 13 years ago

I just got a new desktop this month - faster CPU, more ram, SSD, etc - it really is a lot faster than my 3 year old one. So I don't think hardware improvements are an issue, computer speed is still increasing heavily, and dropping compile time and allowing more programs open at once is always great.

However, since I built the PC myself, I could choose what OS to install, and I'm using Linux and Win7. If I was a more regular user, I'd be forced to use Win8 - and if that was the case, I would not have upgraded. If this is true for other users, then it's clear to me that Windows 8 really is to blame here. I would certainly not purchase a computer running Windows 8 for desktop work, and I believe a majority of desktop users agree with me.

Someone• 13 years ago

"So I don't think hardware improvements are an issue [...] dropping compile time and allowing more programs open at once"

for you. I doubt that "compiles much faster" or "allows more programs open at a time" would be marketing slogans that sell zillions of PCs. 'Normal' users run a web browser, maybe an email program, and Wordpad (I am not even sure that is an exaggeration, nowadays)

Also, about the SSD: in my limited experience, the only thing it really speeds up is boot time (shutdown of my iMac now takes ages, relatively speaking). Launching programs probably doubles in speed, too, but it already was fast enough for me. If you are compiling C/C++ or launching a VM zillions of times a day the difference will be huge, too, but [see above]

WayneDB• 13 years ago

I'm using Windows 8 and Windows 2012 Server for desktop operating and I couldn't disagree more.

What's the problem? Is the new start menu really that scary? I spend more time tweaking a new Windows 7 installation than I ever will on Windows 8.

zmmmmm2• 13 years ago

Purely anecdotal, but I'm currently in the market to replace my now 4 year old laptop. My problem? The top of the line laptops do not have touch screens. If I want to have a touch screen I have to settle for compromises elsewhere. It seems, a high resolution touch screen is a hard thing to do. If I buy a laptop now I will actually have to accept a downgrade over my 4 year old laptop. Even if it's not a real issue, psychologically that is very hard to do. So I wait. I think a lot of other people are waiting too - first they waited for RT, then they waited for the Surface Pro, and now we're all waiting for better laptops.

I think this is only one factor that's problematic for Win8. Another is that it now as a touch-first OS, looks and feels like it is competing with the iPad. So perversely, MS may have opened themselves to even worse competition with tablets because they have conflated the desktop and tablet ecosystems together. Instead of people buying a laptop when they need laptop and a tablet when they need a tablet, MS seems to be saying "Hey, you think you need a laptop, but maybe you actually need a tablet?". This is so confusing. People don't know what Windows really is any more. So they either wait, or they buy the less confusing option, which turns out to be the tablet.

InclinedPlane2• 13 years ago

Not only that, it's hard to find a decent high-performance laptop that has a decent screen. If I were to upgrade now I might think of going with the Lenovo T430u, except it has a 720p 16:9 TN screen. How long until it's possible to buy an ultrabook with a 1080p or higher resolution IPS display? And hoping for a 16:10 aspect ratio is probably out of the question.

benaiah• 13 years ago

There's the ASUS UX31A Zenbook model, which I have. It's not quite what I'd consider high-performance, but the screen is beautiful.

WettowelReactor• 13 years ago

Have you looked at Vizio's new ultra-book lineup. They have all been upgraded to touchscreen and the 15in models run at 1920 x 1080

vy8vWJlco• 13 years ago

Ignoring the banking issues that have dominated the economy in recent years, I largely associate the decline in PC sales with increasing copyright enforcement, DRM, etc.

In particular, I find it interesting that XP hung on so long and was the one that MS started its Geniune Advantage program with. I suspect it's the first one that many people paid for (to shut up GA) and they felt more ownership of, and commitment to, making it a harder sell for them to upgrade. For better or worse, in earlier years, Microsoft did not really prioritize copyright enforcement as much as they do today. In fact, Gates is on record over this. In 2007, Bill Gates said in Fortune Magazine "It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not." A year earlier he said "as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." (LA Times) I think the strong change from the lax enforcement approach in the late 90s and early 2000s (before the XP GA stuff) is a major source of Microsoft's decline in sales. Their OS sales 15 years ago, IMHO, benefited greatly from social effects and word of mouth. I'm sure I'll get some flack for that sentiment, but they deliberately worked to eliminated that effect and now people, at their request, are treating software more like a valuable asset -- and hanging onto what they bought for much longer.

It doesn't help that Vista was poorly received, nor does it help that tablets are filling a lot of the appliance use-cases (video chat, YouTube - another nightmare for copyright - and pocket gaming), and it certainly doesn't help that Windows 8 is also launching like a lead balloon. People never like change. But tablets are still benefiting from the "cool new thing" network effect that has largely left PCs over the past decade, usurped largely by Apple, proving that it hasn't gone away.

People aren't interested in having a better PC than their neighbor any more though because, due largely to copyright enforcement and DRM, they feel less welcomed/excited by the PC+Internet environment and, to top it off, they are already putting their "bling" money into tablets smartphones, etc.

The last time PC sales tanked like this was in 2001, after the IT bubble burst (interestingly, Napster was shut down in July 2001). If we ignore that as an oddball (but one that's consistent with my assertion), from the early 90s to the time of Genuine Advantage, things were lined up very well for the PC market to see strong growth: copyright law was ambiguous or unenforced, and people were actually enjoying buying PCs because they could do new/exciting things every day (music, movies, games, and sharing over the internet) in spite of the specter of copyright litigation. Furthermore, desktops and laptops (full systems, allowing even the OS to change) were the only game in town - so it was the thing being talked about around the water cooler (today it's the tablet, etc).

pointyhatuk2• 13 years ago

That'll be because of three reasons I think, only one of which is mentioned:

1) The last generation of computers that people already own (Intel i3/5/7 with Windows 7) is actually pretty damn good and covers most requirements perfectly well. In fact my 5 year old Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz ThinkPad T61 with a Samsung 840 Pro SSD is really fast to the point I have no plans to upgrade any time soon. I see people hanging on to these sorts of PCs now because they are the first generation to work pretty flawlessly, ever. People hang on to stuff that works and I don't blame them for doing that. Businesses do the same and to be honest, with some heel dragging, they're good until Windows 7 EOL in 2020.

2) Windows 8 is just horrible. I've tried it several times at different points of time on different machines ranging from laptop to desktop to touchscreen desktop and the usability has just completely gone out of the window. It doesn't work on a laptop and doesn't work on a desktop in any adequate way. It physically hurts you if you have to use it on a touch screen desktop either through mouse hoop jumping or aching arms. New device paradigms are being pushed but they all feel awkward and a bit Heath Robinson. I do think they got Windows Phone pretty spot on but that experience doesn't scale up to larger devices well.

3) Consumers used to drive a big chunk of sales, but this has been relatively scuppered by other vendor's consumption devices such as tablets and smart phones.

lucaspiller• 13 years ago

> I see people hanging on to these sorts of PCs now because they are the first generation to work pretty flawlessly, ever. People hang on to stuff that works and I don't blame them for doing that.

Actually I think this is a very good point. I've always seen people replacing their Windows machines just because they are 'slow' or 'not working' which could probably easily be solved just by reinstalling Windows. Windows 7 is a lot harder to break in this respect compared to previous versions, so I guess people just don't see the need.

microwise• 13 years ago

Microsoft cutting support for XP will barely change anything, companies will upgrade to win7/win8 but the average home user wont coz he expects someone to do it for him and also doesn't like using things he is not familiar with.

mhdavid• 13 years ago

I hate the demise of the menu bar. It's godawful I can count a full second at least, and usually much longer when paged out, just to bring up a stupid little dialog like "Save As...." in applications that used to have a menu bar. Outlook, Word, et al. What happened? It's hell. Microsoft was crazy to get rid of the menu bar. The elimination of the Start menu was just an even more insane doubling down on the same crap "logic". Total. Loss.

awjr• 13 years ago

I had an older core 2 duo laptop I was thinking of replacing, but found that just replacing the HD with an SSD made all the difference I needed.

When I needed to do IOS development I decided to look at buying a Mac Book Pro recently, rather than go with a new model, I bought one off ebay that had a 3 year warranty, upgraded the ram to 16GB (overkill) and put in an SSD for less than buying a new MBP.

So when people start moaning about how they need to upgrade their slow laptop/pc, as long as the machine is at least core 2 duo (64 bit), I end up recommending they get an SSD and more memory.

For the £150 investment they walk away extremely happy for the next 5 years.

kellros• 13 years ago

Am I the only one finding it hilarious that non-hardware specific software is being blamed for the lack of hardware sales?

There are a couple of reasons why PC sales are declining: 1. Speed per CORE isn't dramatically improving and most users only really need 1 or 2 cores 2. Hardware is very expensive for top line components in comparison to 10 years ago 3. Every 2 years a new chip set comes out that requires you to replace your mobo (and possibly your ram) if you want to upgrade your CPU - in conjunction with that, a lot of software is getting bound to a machine - meaning that if you replace your motherboard you have to re-license your software - ex. Windows which turns a previously relatively cheap process (ex. replacing a cpu) into a very expensive process (replace cpu, mobo, ram, software). 4. Hardware intensive applications ex. games, some software; require top of the line hardware that requires you to spend $1500 - $3000 from scratch vs. $150 - $300 for a console - in my opinion that makes a PC undesirable. The word 'recession' has been hanging in the air since 2008.

I'm still using a 5 year old 2.2Ghz AMD quad core at home. I'm saving up for a new machine to last me a couple of years but the pricing is quite steep - about $5500. The only reason why I'm willing to justify that amount is because 1.it speeds up the rate at which I can do freelance/consultative work and directly affects my rates 2. I am a gamer 3. I sometimes need to work overtime from home. On a funny note; someone suggested I buy a car instead because its value would depreciate slower!

kokey• 13 years ago

I quite like Bronte Capital's take on Microsoft's mistake with changing the interface http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2012/07/changing-my-mind-o...

I think it has really sped up the process of people willing to go for other products even if they're not familiar with it.

Mordor• 13 years ago

People now have a choice: iPad, Mac, Android or Windows 8

Microsoft have pushed themselves to the bottom of that list.

Toshio• 13 years ago

So yeah, 79 million PCs were indeed sold, but I have a strong feeling that many of those were sold to businesses who take a hard line against SecureBoot. But if I, Joe Average Consumer, express a preference against SecureBoot, retailers and OEMs will just sneer and say "F-you, you'll take what we give you". Just like that cable company [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ilMx7k7mso

smashu• 13 years ago

What about the poor quality of the new PCs (laptops / desktops) ?

In the last years I never heard anybody saying "I bought a new PC and it's great" but rather "I got screwed buying a new PC".

Lenovo, Dell, HP! WHY U NO BUILD GOOD PCs ANYMORE?

uslic001• 13 years ago

I like Windows 8. The Metro UI is great on a touch screen. For desktops either work from the desktop which is one click away or install Start8 or Classic Shell or one of the many other programs to make it more like Windows 7. I have installed Windows 8 on two of my 5 desktops. It also came on my new Asus touchscreen notebook. At my office we are replacing all of our old Windows XP machines with new Windows 8 computers this year before XP support ends. I think desktop sales will increase as the year goes on for this reason.

PC sales plunge, Microsoft and Windows 8 blamed

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