[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Windows 8 not saving the PC industry as shipments decline here

[frugalfreaker]

People are choosing Lenovo because those are considered two of the most reliable brands, people don't want disposable PCs contrary to what manufacturers want. People share what brands are durable and lasting and thats what we buy. When I shopped for new laptop, warranty was my first consideration due to the cheap quality that has become standard it seems.

[Fatesrider]

One of my major issues with these kinds of articles is how they completely ignore market penetration as a factor on influencing sales. Another is how they don't do an apples to apples comparison to other markets insofar as how sales are tracked.

The fact is, holiday sales were not strong across the board. They were below expectations and down from last year. Secondly, PC's are more expensive than tablets. People are looking to economize and tablets are cheap, new and "exciting" compared to PC's, even if most people come back to PC's after playing around with tablets. Finally, those who are going to get new PC's tend to do it immediately. The PC is (or is rapidly becoming) something people can't do without for very long. Replacement sales is what is driving the PC market. It's not like they've got anything new that gives a useful enough function to scrap what is currently working for people in exchange for that new function.

Tablets, on the other hand and despite the hype, don't enjoy the kind of market penetration that PC's do by several orders of magnitude. Tens of millions versus billions.

So, yes, "new" sales of PC's aren't going to be stimulated, regardless of what OS you put on it. You need a new, game-changing, fiscally sound and desirable functionality in the PC line before people will race out and get something they otherwise already have. It doesn't make any sense to replace the old with something new that doesn't really do anything more than the old did if the old is still working well.

Besides, a new operating system doesn't create a boos in sales when the old one was a good one. Vista didn't see major market penetration and didn't boost PC sales. Windows 7 did. Microsoft traditionally gets only every other OS right. Windows 8 will simply join the growing line of Microsoft OS failures because a one-size-fits-all OS for all devices, while apparently a MS corporate wet dream, is impractical because form factors play a major role in how - or IF - one uses a device. But even if you had a whiz-bang new thingie that actually appealed to the masses in the OS, it's not going to make people go out and buy new computers. They'd buy the OS itself and install it on the computers they have. It's far more cost effective in the short-term - which is apparently how consumers are spending these days.

So between the lack of something desirable, cost-effective, innovative and new in the PC, the high market penetration of PC's, the "new tablet smell" of tablets, along with their generally lower relative cost and the still depressed state of the economy, you're not going see spikes in the new PC market sales ever again. They'll be replaced as they fail, meaning new PC sales will remain generally flat, until that new gizmo that no one can be without is incorporated into them.

[thewazak]

So what?
And why should MS even attempt to keep the "PC market" afloat?
As you correctly acknowledge, "Windows 8 license sales are following a similar trajectory to Windows 7"
And bearing in mind how successful W7 is, I doubt MS is complaining!
Do they care what folks instal W8 on or which device they buy? No!
So is this just another stupid fanboi style dig at MS, I wonder.

[stakeouttoo]

Windows 8..PURE UNADULTERATED JUNK!

[bigmiker73]

How was Windows 8 supposed to "save the PC". That line of thought just doesn't make any sense. Windows 8 with the tablet interface is MS way of adapting to the tablet trend.. AND getting desktop users acquainted to the MS tablet UI... so TA DA .. when they go pick a tablet, they will already know how to use a surface tablet.

[MichaelRousseau]

Microsoft's Windows 8 is supposed to stave off the PC's decline by combining a new tablet-friendly interface with a traditional desktop.

That is odd. I haven't seen Microsoft make the claim that they were trying to stave off PC's decline. Another MS hating article from PC World.

[MichaelRousseau]

Quote

So what? And why should MS even attempt to keep the "PC market" afloat? As you correctly acknowledge, "Windows 8 license sales are following a similar trajectory to Windows 7" And bearing in mind how successful W7 is, I doubt MS is complaining! Do they care what folks instal W8 on or which device they buy? No! So is this just another stupid fanboi style dig at MS, I wonder.

Seems that way to me to. Most of the articles on W8 from this mag have almost been purely negative. Maybe this mag is in decline so click bait headlines are going to save them?

[AsokAsus]

And the Windows 8 disaster continues to unfold, just as predicted six months ago by tens of thousands of analysts and technical evaluators, all of whom were 100% ignored by supremely arrogant and completely tone-deaf Microsoft management. It's going to be one of the worst years in a very long time for PC vendors and retailers, and it's all because those fools stupidly drank the Windows 8 Kool-Aid without considering what was in the cup.

Touch screen laptops were a miserable failure two years ago when they were promoted as the next "must have" gadget. Don't know why Microsoft thought things would be different now. No one really needs touch on a PC, and all Windows 8 does is turn a vastly overpriced touch-screen-enabled PC into a cellphone look-alike anyway with an interface that looks like it was ripped off from 1996 AOL. Gosh, who wouda thunk consumers wouldn't jump at a deal like that!

And does Microsoft really expect 100 million CAD/CAM designers, accountants, and other industrial content makers and knowledge workers to hold their arms up all day inaccurately poking smudges on their 42" vertical monitors with their fat fingers, working at 1/100th the speed as before Windows 8 with 1000 times the physical effort?

Microsoft totally jumped the shark with Windows 8, and the unfolding Windows 8 disaster shows how totally out of touch Microsoft management is with reality. Steve Ballmer will be fired by the end of the year if the Microsoft board wants to have any chance of saving their company from totally clueless management.

As for the rest, maybe the next time Microsoft comes out with a "game-changing" operating system, maybe they'll take a cold hard look at reality themselves to make sure "game-changing" doesn't actually mean "game-ending".

[WinTard]

What disaster? ROFLMAO!

Methinks deja-vu with Windows 7. I was an early adopter too...

I really like Windows 8, all my systems are either running Win8 or Windows Server 2012. And some Linuxes here and there in the basement, plus the Raspberry Pi just for fun.

The context sensitive start screen is too complicated for some?

~~~~~~~~~~
There is something that is much more scarce, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.
~ Robert Half

The roots of true achievement lie in the will to become the best that you can become.
~ Harold Taylor

Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.
~ Shaw's Principle

The world of achievement has always belonged to the optimist.
~ Harold Wilkins

Prejudice is the child of ignorance.
~ William Hazlitt

This post has been edited by WinTard: 14 January 2013 - 09:24 PM

[WinTard]

PCWorld, on 14 January 2013 - 11:36 AM, said:

Post your comments for Windows 8 not saving the PC industry as shipments decline here

Oh come on, this stereotype is so passé. It looks more like the bullshit propaganda "Post PC" really is turning into "PC Plus", predicted by Bill Gates in 1999, then stolen and bastardized by the late (RIP) Steve Jobs for obvious reasons.

The Personal Computer is just changing form factor. But it is still a PC! Even Mac's are a PC.

Google it!


I'm looking forward to the convergence of Cloud - Server - Workstation - Desktop - Ultrabook - Tablet - and phone, all done under the largest ecosystem of them all Windows!

What do you think these future devices will run? Seamlessly?




~~~~~~~~~~
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
~ Alan Kay, American Computer Scientist, 1940-present

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
~ Patrick Henry, 1736-1799

The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
~ Paul Valéry

As to looking at the rear view mirror; True, the past is not always an indicator of the future, but neither is the present necessarily an indicator of the future.
~ Koyanishi on DailyTech

[WinTard]

Fatesrider, on 14 January 2013 - 12:44 PM, said:

One of my major issues with these kinds of articles is how they completely ignore market penetration as a factor on influencing sales. Another is how they don't do an apples to apples comparison to other markets insofar as how sales are tracked.

The fact is, holiday sales were not strong across the board. They were below expectations and down from last year. Secondly, PC's are more expensive than tablets. People are looking to economize and tablets are cheap, new and "exciting" compared to PC's, even if most people come back to PC's after playing around with tablets. Finally, those who are going to get new PC's tend to do it immediately. The PC is (or is rapidly becoming) something people can't do without for very long. Replacement sales is what is driving the PC market. It's not like they've got anything new that gives a useful enough function to scrap what is currently working for people in exchange for that new function.

Tablets, on the other hand and despite the hype, don't enjoy the kind of market penetration that PC's do by several orders of magnitude. Tens of millions versus billions.

So, yes, "new" sales of PC's aren't going to be stimulated, regardless of what OS you put on it. You need a new, game-changing, fiscally sound and desirable functionality in the PC line before people will race out and get something they otherwise already have. It doesn't make any sense to replace the old with something new that doesn't really do anything more than the old did if the old is still working well.

Besides, a new operating system doesn't create a boos in sales when the old one was a good one. Vista didn't see major market penetration and didn't boost PC sales. Windows 7 did. Microsoft traditionally gets only every other OS right. Windows 8 will simply join the growing line of Microsoft OS failures because a one-size-fits-all OS for all devices, while apparently a MS corporate wet dream, is impractical because form factors play a major role in how - or IF - one uses a device. But even if you had a whiz-bang new thingie that actually appealed to the masses in the OS, it's not going to make people go out and buy new computers. They'd buy the OS itself and install it on the computers they have. It's far more cost effective in the short-term - which is apparently how consumers are spending these days.

So between the lack of something desirable, cost-effective, innovative and new in the PC, the high market penetration of PC's, the "new tablet smell" of tablets, along with their generally lower relative cost and the still depressed state of the economy, you're not going see spikes in the new PC market sales ever again. They'll be replaced as they fail, meaning new PC sales will remain generally flat, until that new gizmo that no one can be without is incorporated into them.

You hit the nail on the head! I've already got PC's galore. Dual independent pump water-cooled CPU & dual-top-of-the-line GPUs, down to $300 barebones. Oh and I've got (2) decent tablets: BlackBerry PlayBook and Google Samsung Nexus 10. I gave away my first iPad 1 (which was also given to me). Completely useless for serious business.

Naturally, people will buy what they do not have. And not acquire what already works wonderfully.

My next custom PC will have at least (8) cores, hyper-threaded at a minimum (for a total of 16 simultaneous independent processing threads) -- or more; and 64GB ultra-fast RAM. And that's the starting point. Why? Well I don't have it at home yet. This also begs the question: why not?

Anyway, all these 'mobile' gadgets are cheap, low processing power, and disposable content consumption devices. Virtually impossible to replace batteries, so I expect a (3) year life expectancy, then throw-away, buy a new one (at an even cheaper price). These tablets do not qualify as a real PC. Yet.

~~~~~~~~~~~
There is a capacity of virtue in us, and there is a capacity of vice to make your blood creep.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is nothing new under the sun, but there are lots of old things we don't know.
~ Ambrose Bierce

This world is comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.
~ Horace Walpole

[karthiq]

The last paragraph of the article summed it up nicely.

[stakeouttoo]

and maybe it's Windows 8 that is the problem not all these other 'profound reasons' for the decline.. most all are looking at what the consumer buys but not WHY he buys it... who wants to learn a TOTALLY new OS to replace one that was used for years.. to dump this down the throats of the average user is madness... MS will pay big time for their mistake..