
PC sales plunge, Microsoft and Windows 8 blamed  - gtani
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/brierdudley/2013/04/10/pc-sales-plunge-microsoft-and-windows-8-blamed/
======
DigitalSea
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.

~~~
InclinedPlane
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
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.

------
jl6
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.

~~~
joenathan
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
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.

~~~
yen223
Simply upgrading to SSDs is also a huge financial drain. It's a difference of
about $1/Gb for SSDs vs $0.05/Gb for HDDs. For consumers, an SSD could easily
cost more than the rest of the PC.

Not saying it's a bad idea mind you, it's just another factor to take into
consideration.

------
RyanZAG
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
_"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]

------
zmmmmm
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.

~~~
InclinedPlane
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.

~~~
WettowelReactor
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

~~~
zmmmmm
Those are getting there ... but the GPUs are all weak.

The closest I have seen to what I want is the ASUS u500vz which has a decent
mobile GPU, but it's extremely hard to get hold of (at least in my country).

------
lightknight
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.

~~~
keithpeter
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.

------
kellros
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!

------
mhdavid
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
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.

------
kokey
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...](http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2012/07/changing-my-mind-on-
microsoft.html)

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

Microsoft have pushed themselves to the bottom of that list.

------
FailMore
> 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...

------
uslic001
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.

------
ekurutepe
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.

------
venomsnake
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.

------
microwise
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.

------
smashu
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?

------
rottyguy
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.

------
vy8vWJlco
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).

------
pointyhatuk
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
> 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.

------
Toshio
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>

------
yoster
Personally, I missed the start button.

~~~
andyjohnson0
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/>

