"We’ve witnessed a decline across all PC segments this quarter in Western Europe," said Meike Escherich, principal analyst at Gartner. In the third quarter of 2012, mobile PC shipments declined 15.2 percent while desktop PC shipments decreased 15.7 percent. The professional and consumer PC markets declined 15.8 percent and 15 percent, respectively.
see Gartner Says PC Market in Western Europe Declined 15 Percent in the Third Quarter of 2012.
How many quarters will it take for the world to realize they don’t need M$’s OS as much as they did? We’ve had a full year of declines now even as M$ releases its next great thing. There’s no interest in business or consumer lines for more of the same old stuff. All the interest is in clouds, smart thingies and thin clients, stuff that works for the user, not Wintel. This decline is about more than a declining economy or anticipating “8″. The market could not even clear the shelves of “7″ at discounted prices. This decline is about a lack of interest in what M$ offers. People still need PCs but they can use smartphones, tablets and GNU/Linux PCs to do the same old stuff. The monopoly is fading away. There is no corresponding decline in Android/Linux smartphones (up 91.5%) and tablets (up 300%). Clearly the economy is not to blame. M$ is the problem.
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Too much bad news for Microsoft. This blog is not the place to be if you want to pretend it’s 1995 and all is well with the Redmond Behemoth.
Yes, the weight of their past and present business practices are slowly crushing them into just-another-player. Good for them.
Microsoft is in an difficult position, for years they preached that the general public NEEDED MSOffice and Outlook on their computers. But the public decided otherwise and bought iPads, Macs and Android devices. Hundreds of milions of them, all without those “essential” Microsoft programs…and they found out they didn’t need them.
Really the question is where will these saturation points level off.
Mobile phones growth will slow at some point in the nearish future as well. There will become a point where everyone who needs a smart phone has one.
Rules of markets. No market grows forever. Saturation point comes. Its just like over fishing a fishery.
The real problem is what is the sustainable income from the Computer market. How many vendors can this support. There will be a limit.
oiaohm wrote:
“Really the question is where will these saturation points level off.”
Good point. Where will it level off and what will happen when it does?
kozmcrae we have a kind of clue what will happen. It happened with cars a long time ago. There is going to be lot of companies go by by.
The level will define how many go by by. The ones that remain will go after ways to cut production costs to increase profits.
The problem is if Microsoft lives past the first round. The only way to avoid the second will be to become like Apple and make their own hardware. That is basically going to piss the curent Microsoft Partners off.
Microsoft future is not that rosy. It might not be enough to kill them. Companies that produce only software are going to have a very hard time.
Now the question is will Android/Linux or GNU/Linux become the future dominate force. Every other possible future dominate force appears to be in trouble one way or the other.
This past week, I have had 5-6 people ask me about the Google Chromebook looking for laptops.
Even a crusty Windows Admin chimed in and said that it is a viable option for many people.
Chromebook uses Gentoo Linux, so Linux HAS beat out Windows in the server market, phone market and desktop market.
No one is going to want METROFAIL, and it has already been pwned!
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/10/31/government-funded-hackers-say-theyve-already-defeated-all-of-windows-8s-new-security-measures/
Whoa, Windows 8 is good for hacking as well? Dude, no way! LOL… I wonder how much $$ M$ spent on marketing to have that TV show use their device. M$ is notorious for using film as marketing tools.