back to article Thought the PC market couldn't get any worse? HAH! Think again

Any PC makers dreaming of a sales rebound this year are picking up the pieces of that shattered aspiration: beancounters at IDC reckon the number of computers shipped will be worse than first feared. The statisticians believe the market in Western Europe will decline 16.3 per cent to just shy of 47 million units in 2013, …

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    1. xehpuk
      Linux

      Re: People may dislike Windows 8...

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/11/chromebooks_fastest_growing_pc_market/

  1. ian 22
    Trollface

    Just as I've always said..

    Computers and fire are simply fads, and bound to disappear.

    1. Frankee Llonnygog

      Re: Just as I've always said..

      In the early 20th century, you could buy a home electric motor, and add all manner of task specific attachments. Nowadays the motor is embedded in a task specific device.

      The similar decline of the general purpose home computer has started. You and I might not like that fact, but it is a fact

    2. Rukario
      Thumb Up

      Computers and fire are simply fads, and bound to disappear.

      But now do people want computers that can be fitted nasally?

    3. itzman

      Re: Just as I've always said..

      I think that your first respondee made the point. Computers wont disappear. But the PC will.

      It has split into three evolutionary branches. The personal computing device which is phones slabs and their ilk, the workstation for content generation and data input, and the server for storage access and central processing of data.

      Bigger and better servers are driving some sales. Smaller and cheaper slabs other sales. The workstation is of course the real problem. It fundamentally works well enough already for all but the most demanding applications.

    4. elderlybloke

      Re: Just as I've always said..

      ian 22- In a Puff of Smoke!

  2. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    "People may dislike Windows 8...

    ...but they'd rather not buy a PC at all rather than install Linux, according to these figures"

    More like Linux doesn't need a new computer to run, so people buy a used one to run it on.

    Well, not really -- the economy is still terrible so people just aren't buying, period, unless their existing kit breaks.

  3. John H Woods Silver badge

    Fracking resolution.

    If you want to sell laptops, stop pissing about with ultra low res "HD" screens and give us something worth upgrading to. It's not the only reason the tablets are kicking the arse of laptops, but I'm sick of seeing all new laptops being announced with last decade's screens.

    1. Tomato42
      Facepalm

      Re: Fracking resolution.

      If only those were last decade screens: you could easily buy 120+dpi screens in 2002.

      Screens with 74dpi are from two decades ago!

      It's really crazy when you can buy phones with higher resolution screens than all laptops smaller than 19"

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ""People have been putting off buying a new notebook and there was no compelling reason to buy."

    Isn't that the truth.

    I (finally) upgraded my own laptop earlier this year and what did I get? A just out of lease Dell Latitude, still with factory (extended) warranty (!), for 1/4 the price it went for new about 21 months ago. The performance difference between 21 months ago and today's kit? Not worth the 4x price difference, not even worth a 30% price difference IMHO. The performance level of the tech just hasn't moved enough to move me to spend for it - I spent all the extra funds on NAS, DAS, peripheral and network upgrades, instead.

  5. P Taylor

    Still need them here.

    Cannot mention my organisation, but we certainly still need PC's.

    In fact just last month i ordered 6,100 PC's from HP, so i must be HP's best friend right now. :-)

    1. xyz Silver badge
      Headmaster

      Re: Still need them here.

      >>Still need them here.

      >>Cannot mention my organisation, but we certainly still need PC's.

      >>In fact just last month i ordered 6,100 PC's from HP, so i must be HP's best friend right now. :-)

      Still need them here.

      Cannot mention my organisation, but we certainly still need PCs.

      In fact just last month i ordered 6,100 PCs from HP, so i must be HP's best friend right now. :-)

      Do the new PCs come with a grammar checker?

      1. Simon Harris
        Facepalm

        @xyz ... Re: Still need them here.

        On the other hand, a Dedupe application may be more useful.

    2. vmcreator

      Re: Still need them here.

      Oh go on tell us who you work for, we could pass it on to Dell .......grin :-)

  6. jnemesh

    The bleeding wont stop...

    It won't stop until people have a compelling reason to upgrade to a new PC! Windows 8 has been ACTIVELY DISINCENTIVISING people away from new computer purchases. They want their old PC interface, but MS is not listening. Until we get Windows 9, with the "under the hood" improvements of Windows 8, with the UI of Windows 7, we will continue to see people avoid new machines!

  7. Malagabay
    Mushroom

    "Never mind a rebound, what PC makers need is for the market to stop declining,"

    "Windows 8" was the final "killer" blow that pushed the consumer market right over the cliff... the retail monopoly enjoyed by Redmond never meant the consumer liked Windows... it was just the only option.

    The average punter struggled to control [or even understand] the pre-installed crapware... they struggled to overcome the deluge of viruses, malware and pop-up that infested their systems... they struggled as the performance of their systems quickly cratered [or ground to a halt]... they struggled to reconcile their experiences with the happy smiley faces seen in the adverts.

    Basically, WTF XP, WTF Vista, WTF 7, WTF 8 [or any other version of WTF]

    WAS NEVER FIT FOR PURPOSE in the CONSUMER MARKET.

    Period.

    Now the consumer has a choice.

    Now the consumer can fondle and play with their phones.

    Now the consumer can tap and text on their shiny slabs.

    Now the consumer can "disengage mind" and "enjoy" using the technology.

    The consumer doesn't care what its called - they just want it to work.

    The consumer train has left the station... and WTF 8 is NOT on the train.

    A story with a very happy ending for the consumer...

    A story with a sting in the tail for the Beast from Redmond and their camp followers.

    1. sabroni Silver badge
      Facepalm

      the Beast from Redmond and their camp followers

      If you've never used a modern phone or shiny slab I guess that maybe you think that's true. I suppose if you just use an iPhone and iTunes it might be, provided you don't find it limiting and try to do something that Apple don't approve of. If you're an average Android phone user then you're still getting crapware plus additional network operator restrictions and you're much less likely to get any security or stability updates than some fool running windows. (yeah, you can flash your phone and remove that stuff, but we're talking about consumer products here. A customer who wouldn't wipe a pc and put linux on it is unlikely to root their phone. And as for a Nexus device, latest NSA updates automatically? No thanks.)

      Take off those rose coloured glasses, the crap wasn't because of windows it was because of corporate greed and a big market, and all that shit is heading straight to a mobile device near you right now.

      Period.

      AND AN EXTRA SHOUTY BIT because apparently THAT HELPS TO GET YOUR POINT ACROSS!

      1. Malagabay
        Happy

        Re: the Beast from Redmond and their camp followers

        That STILL doesn't make WTF 8 "fit for purpose" in the consumer market.

        Punto :-)

        The NUMBERS speak for themselves in the consumer market...

        Their voice is even being heard in the Ivory Towers of Redmond.

        The bi-annual upgrade has moved onto the phone market...

        and should get established in the fondle slab market...

        Contract renewal offers [and trade-ins for the old kit] have changed the volume market.

        Away from a high price WTF 8 "durable" investment...

        Towards a low price disposable market.

        At that price point people are willing to tolerate some crap...

        And they know its only temporary because they will have a new one next year.

      2. JEDIDIAH
        Linux

        Re: the Beast from Redmond and their camp followers

        > Take off those rose coloured glasses, the crap wasn't because of windows

        Windows was a mess built on a foundation of sand. At any point in it's evolution from DOS, it was worse than anything else out there both in terms of features and security. Apple even had some nice commercials highlighting these details until their new messiah came along.

        Tablets are a welcome relief to a monopoly-ware product from a totally crass company.

        Pretty much everyone else has more pride in their products and it shows. The underlying technical details do matter quite a bit.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Want to boost sales?

    Stop selling shit.

    For a laptop I want a 16:10 screen at least (16:9 is useless).

    I want the choice of matte/gloss (I prefer matte, but to each their own).

    I want a backlit keyboard.

    A battery life in excess for 6 hours for normal use.

    Then we can start to discuss CPU, RAM etc.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Want to boost sales?

      Cool, that'll be one sale then. Or does everyone want the same thing as you? You are pretty cool I suppose....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Want to boost sales?

      Pardon me, but why is 120 more pixels SO important on a 1920-wide screen?

      And as for the backlit keyboard, say goodbye to the battery life (What's the biggest battery hog? Lights. That includes the backlight of the monitor).

      And since normal use can vary from person to person, might it better to have a more objective target, say 4 hours at full tilt? On a COMPACT battery (so no cheating with bulky extra-capacity ones)?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Want to boost sales?

        4:3 would be even better (a la Pixel).

        The backlight can be turned off.

        All laptops (bar one or two edges cases like the Pixel) are the same. Shit low res screens. There is no choice.

        If people all have different need - WHY ARE ALL LAPPIES THE SAME?

        1. Tom 13

          Re: WHY ARE ALL LAPPIES THE SAME?

          Because laptops specs aren't set by techies. They use to be set by the marketing team and the engineers designed (or tried to given we're talking about marketing droids) to what they said. But these days not even the marketing team is setting the specs, it's the bean counters. Bean counters want to control manufacturing and inventory costs. Easiest way to do that is to make everything the same. Now I'm not sure why everybody's bean counters are reaching the same solutions. The 16:9 is obvious, that's HDTV format and therefore the media resolution. I'm not fond of the resolution myself except for tv/movies. Frankly for much of my work two (or three) 4:3s are better.

      2. Daniel B.

        Re: Want to boost sales?

        "Pardon me, but why is 120 more pixels SO important on a 1920-wide screen?"

        It is on the vertical part, where you don't even get 1000px tall. 16:9 sucks for anything, and MS's Ribbon makes it even worse. Most of the lappies I've seen people buy are 16:10's.

        Also, Windows 8 sucks so that also stops sales. Even those who do buy 'em end up wiping it out and reinstalling 7 (or getting someone else to do so).

        MS and manufacturers are shooting their own feet, repeatedly.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I want a 16:10 screen at least (16:9 is useless)

      ha ha ha I lolled at that.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And Microsoft's share price continues to trickle forever downwards

    as investers realise it's game over for Windows and the traditional PC, and that Microsoft has no other cards to play.

    1. vmcreator

      Re: And Microsoft's share price continues to trickle forever downwards

      Indeed, they played pontoon with Hyper-V, Azure and Windows 8, and went bust!

      Ballmer - deal me some better cards!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ""Never mind a rebound, what PC makers need is for the market to stop declining," he said."

    In my mind it is simple!

    Look at what most people DO with a PC. (To qualify, we are talking about average joe here, not those with a technical bent)

    The overwhelming majority of tasks can be completed on a tablet. So why spend over £200 on a PC if the majority of what I want to achieve can be done using a tablet?

    I'll hold back on renewing the PC until it comes to the point where what I do need the PC is so incredibly slow and painful that I would consider a new PC purchase.

  11. Bucky O' Hare

    Microsoft can save the PC business with one swift flying kick to the Windows 8 metro start menu.

    Give desktop users the old start menu back and you will get businesses interested again. Simples!

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tragic

    If you thought ICT lessons in schools was bad enough, with the decline of real computers with "full" power the kids of today won't have much experience of doing creative things with a computer.

  13. Salts

    The consumer PC market is now the same as the business market, in that the consumer market for PC's is dominated by people that actually know what they want and when they need to upgrade.

    The manufacturers are living in the past, gone are the days they can sell whatever they want,

    The average end user was conned into an upgrade every 18 months because their computer had become too slow and they where told they needed the latest 4gb memory, quad core etc. When reinstalling windows probably would have worked just as well. Now the tablet, digital media players and consoles do all the average user needs with many more benefits than a dedicated PC.

    However this means I need a new laptop now, because this can only mean the PC's is now approaching the upside of it's bathtub curve.

    1. Arctic fox
      Windows

      @Salts "average end user was conned into an upgrade every 18 months because........

      True. However, one little irony here is that it was Microsoft themselves that stopped that little "merry go round" with Win 7, hmm?

      1. Tom 13

        Re: stopped that little "merry go round" with Win 7, hmm?

        Actually I'd say Vista. The only reason it rebounded with Windows 7 is that the corporate world needed support contracts and MS wouldn't extend XP any further. MS managed to recover once. Not so sure the bean counters will fall for it again. The bean counters are willing to let the status quo with Win 7 continue. It's less risky than looking at a whole new solution. But when they EOL Win 7 support, look for new solutions to emerge.

        Linux is still lurking and improving. One of these days, some bold company is going to shift everything to Linux, cut their costs, and watch their profits rise. Once word leaks, it will be all over. Because that's how IBM lost the terminals attached to a mainframe/mini business way back when this PC revolution started.

  14. Katz

    Not rocket science really, is it?

    I think it boils down to these 3 things and the big issue is that these 3 are happening combined/simultaneously.

    1. PC's just haven't moved on in the last 2-3 years, WHY would you want to spend a fortunate on sod all? There is nothing exciting out at the moment.

    2. Touch screen PC notebooks, well anything decent is getting on around £1,000, it's a rip off.

    3. Cheap devices and tablets do what 70-80% of people want, so the divide between PC's and these other devices is now opening up, or more so, the users. Those that want a workstation for some serious work, it's a PC or perhaps an Apple machine. For a bit of email, browsing and general daily stuff, a tablet or hanging on to that old notebook does just fine.

    I think with a decent OS, some exciting products and decent price, notebooks could actually make a little comeback, but those issues, above, are stopping that from happening. Solve #1 and/or #2 and things could improve, solve both and even better! But issue 3, I doubt there's any stopping that.

    1. P Taylor

      Re: Not rocket science really, is it?

      I have also seen quite a few friends now that have moved over to the Tablet culture, and at the same time have got around storage limitations by using a small & cheap NAS device. Or a external HDD connected onto their Router.

      So now they have the convenience of a Tablet, and a large repository of storage if required.

      Now that is a PC killer for the consumer market.

      The corporate world is very different though. I would imagine many are like the organisation I work for in that we use many specialist applications that are not available on any other platform other than Windows.

      As such as rely on PC's, and have to maintain them / replace when required.

  15. Vociferous

    The bounce will come when the next-gen games hit PC next year.

    Because all games are made for consoles, and console hardware has been the same for over 7 years, games haven't been pushing PC hardware for well over five years, meaning that a computer that was good five years ago is still perfectly capable of any task you throw at it.

    So why should anyone upgrade their PC? It's perfectly rational to stick with the old machine (especially as Win8 is a DISincentive to upgrade!).

    XBone and PS4 are released late this year, and have capabilities comparable to a present mid-range PC. When those games start getting ported to the PC, old PC:s will no longer cut the mustard - and upgrading will ensue.

    Sadly the effect will be pretty short lived, as no further upgrade of the console's hardware is expected for the next ten years, meaning that after 2015-16 games wont drive the hardware upgrade cycle, so a computer that's good in 2015 will likely be perfectly usable at least until 2025.

    1. Tom 13

      Re: The bounce will come when the next-gen games hit PC next year.

      Historically PCs outperform consoles. Always been that way, will continue until the PC dies.

      In fact, in some ways consoles are the precursor to the phone/fondleslab market. Dedicated entertainment device with lower performance and vendor lock-in, but at a lower price point with acceptable performance that made the trade off palatable. Cartridges/DVDs/DRMed software = App Store lock-in, which is nominally beneficial to the Devs who drive the market.

      Not much of a PC/console gamer any more, but I was back in the day. Not much excited about what's out there these days. In fact, when I do visit friends with consoles, it's the old style games we tend to play: Rampage, Gauntlet, Mario Bros., Joust, maybe Space Invaders.

      1. Vociferous

        Re: The bounce will come when the next-gen games hit PC next year.

        Yeah, PC:s outperform consoles. That's the point. You don't need heavy hardware to run console games, and ALL games, including the ones released for PC, are today made for console. A computer which was decent five years ago can still run present games, because the console hardware hasn't changed. Next year, however, console hardware WILL change.

  16. Sil

    Crap makers

    PC makers are 99% responsible.

    - They haven't mend their ways at all and still try put as much crap as possible in their machines such as very bad 1x1 WiFi n when 2x2 WiFi ac should become the entry. Or ultra crappy super low yes 1368x768 40% srgb space 1:400 contrast monitors, touchpads that won't work, 4gb soldered non upgradeable ram & one could go on and on.

    - non availability. Computexx is far away & most haswell high-margin ultrabooks still aren't available and the way it looks won't be available in a month.

    - one would expect a higher sense of urgency from such an underperforming group. Problem is some of them unrealistically think their salvation lies in tablets -it won't, margins are already laughable - while the rest of them seek salvation in enterprise services, as if the market could absorb an infinite amount of new entrants.

    1. P Taylor

      Re: Crap makers

      Don't forget Quality.

      A friend asked me this weekend just to setup a new laptop for her daughter that she had purchased.

      It was a Samsung large widescreen thing. Not sure of the model.

      Anyway, it felt terrible to use. Cheap keys. The plastics used on the casing were thin, and very hard. With sharp un-finished edges. It was like it was made from a re-cycled American car dashboard.

      And people pay 600 pounds for carp like that !.

      Would have been better off buying a used HP Elitebook or similar.

  17. William Donelson

    PC Makers don't get it; Microsoft does now, too late

    90% of the market do NOT need PCs. Tablets and smartphones are fine for almost everything they want to do, perhaps a bit more slowly or clumsily. But surely more cheaply and mobile as well.

  18. oomonkey
    Thumb Down

    And nobody really makes good techie laptops

    As everybody says tablets do what most consumers need. My parents have moved from a Windows 7 crapware ridden Toshiba laptop with a boot time measured in many minutes to an iPad and are overjoyed.

    As a techie the manufacturers aren't serving us either. Personally I want a cheap laptop that I can stuff full of RAM, with 1080p an SSD boot disk with second 2.5 inch data disk. Most laptops are still getting flogged with 4Gb RAM and crap screens.

    I'm typing this on an out of warranty Dell 3350, i5 2410M so second generation, which has 16Gb RAM (unofficially not supported but works a treat) and a 256Mb SSD. Why buy new kit when £200 - £300 of upgrades blows away the current generation!

    Only 32Gb RAM and a hi res screen would tempt.

    Memory = more VMs yippeee. Yes I am a developer.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Laptop/schmaptop

    I already have a really powerful desktop computer. I'd be more inclined to connect to that using remote desktop from a cheap tablet with a high resolution screen and Bluetooth mouse/keyboard than try to find a laptop that also has a good CPU, GPU, lots of RAM and plenty of disk space.

    I won't though, because life is short, and I have no wish to regret any personal time that I spent working when I could have been enjoying myself.

  20. Shannon Jacobs

    Lack of insight is depcressing? Wise crowds?

    I was expecting to see more insight here and I am sorely disappointed. At least in the first page of comments all of my searches came up dry, and I'm scarcely motivated to search further. Ergo, let me state the obvious:

    Touch interfaces suck, both absolutely and relative to the existing alternative of keyboards and mice and the future alternative of voice interfaces. Most users have enough common sense to figure this out, and THAT is the underlying reason Windows 8 shall die the big death.

    Touch is good for certain things. For example, if the computers really could suck, then there are some people who would find that a major selling point. (Just a negative side effect of reading another of Ryu Murakami's books?) However, in general touch lacks utility, precision, and flexibility. Typing is quite accurate for text input and the finger is probably the least accurate pointing device, at least on the scale of computers. A bit speculative, but I do think that voice interfaces will mature in the future, which partly means more precision (based on context awareness) but mostly means more flexibility and intelligence. I definitely expect to live long enough to work with computers that emulate human assistants, at least for basic stuff.

    In conclusion, if I were a speculator I would be betting strongly AGAINST touch interfaces, but especially on the long term. Even on the recent short term, it is clear there was money to be made in shorting them...

    1. Charles 9

      Re: Lack of insight is depcressing? Wise crowds?

      Nah, touch is here to stay because of one neat thing: no additional accessories required to use. Stylii get lost, and mice and the like need batteries. That's why the trend has been and stuck with just your finger (and if you don't have fingers or the like, you can't grip the device in the first place, rendering the device useless for you anyway). If something better could be devised since the iPhone, we'd have probably seen it by now, but not even the Galaxy Note is making a difference.

      What's going to happen is that apps will dispense with the need for precision. There are few applications out there that require pixel-perfect precision. Most that do probably need other things (like raw compute power) that will make them more suitable for true PCs. If a little more precision is needed, there are ways to accommodate like pinch-to-zoom and borders you an adjust after the fact.

  21. darklordsid

    Not until tiles are gone

    No hope of recovery until that smoking pile of sh1t of Windows 8 is around.

    Recover plan checklist

    fire Ballmer: done

    kill Metro, Store and RT API with fire: to do

    taunt and diss W8 as the epitome of failure: partially done

    re-label the desktop from "legacy" to "mature, capable and dependable environment for content creation" and re-label Metro from "future" to "unsupported legacy we hope never existed": to do.

  22. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    PC's have become fridges now

    You buy one and you replace it the day it dies, because until then it does what you expect it to do.

    The PC market is not declining because of Windows 8, nor is it declining because power is flatlining. The PC market is declining because tablets and smartphones fill the computing needs of 90% of the population, and consoles do it for gaming. Thus most people simply have no incentive to buy a new PC any more.

    Why have tablets and phones taken over ? Because they are much simpler to use, and more reliable as well. A PC is a fickle thing - click on the wrong web page and it dies a horrible virusy death. Users don't care about security (if they did, Facebook wouldn't have a billion users), and PCs require them to learn and worry about technology.

    Phones and tablets don't. With those tools, people just do what they want to do, and what they want to do is Youtube, Twitter and Facebook. Then they go to their TV and play on their console.

    That is why the PC market is declining, and that is not going to change any more. Of course, phones are becoming malware targets, but it's rather easy to avoid if you don't root your phone or download apps from a non-approved store. On top of that, phones are under the control of the providers, and it is not in their interest to have viruses knocking around on their network. That means that any large threat is probably going to to be taken care of, unlike the PC market where nobody had any incentive to crack down on malware since it doesn't hit anyone's bottom line. Your PC is a zombie spam center ? Your ISP doesn't give a flying monkey's, and it's not Microsoft's problem. Besides, they now have Microsoft Security Essentials, so their image is safe (MS has actually been congratulated for it).

    The PC market is in for a big shrink. Computing lifestyle has changed, and all computing partners are just going to have to deal with it.

    Which is not necessarily a pleasant perspective for me. I like PCs, and I'm a gamer. I'm already bored with games designed first for consoles then badly ported to PCs, and this is not going to make things any better. On top of that, computing has always depended on the PC to innovate and drive computing power up. If the PC market becomes a pale shadow of what it was before, if a PC user becomes the equivalent of the bearded Cobol programmer, then where will computing innovations come from ?

    1. Tom 13

      Re: PC's have become fridges now

      I agree with you up to the point where you went off on an unproven malware tangent. I think the systems just haven't been as targeted yet. The PC landscape is still target rich. Sure Android, using the Linux kernel is easier to secure. But I expect the manufacturers to frell it up. We've already seen signs of that. What may save the phone/fondleslab market is that the manufacturer differentiation is sufficient to provide the diversity we never had with the Windows monoculture. But as the Windows monoculture dies, the targeting will shift.

      And you're back on track with your conclusion. Sad to say, I think we are the new bearded Cobol programmers. Of course, with a little luck in a few years we'll have our equivalent of the Y2K bug.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    MS Windows Or...

    You can have any PC system, so long as its Windows.

    The public need a viable choice for games, office as well as net activities.

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