back to article Thought sales were in the toilet before? Behold the agony: 2013 was a PC market BLOODBATH

The beleaguered market for desktop and notebook PCs continued its downward spiral in 2013 as shipments plummeted to new lows. According to figures from analyst firm Gartner, worldwide shipments rounded out the last quarter of the year at 82.6 million units, down 6.9 per cent over the same period in 2012. Overall, 2013 saw a …

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: OEM copy of Windows.

        If you buy your copy of Windows with a processor or a motherboard, you can get the OEM price. At least, that's how I built my last machine. Before that I always bought a copy through my boss who was a licensed OEM reseller (and was usually selling me the parts too).

      2. plrndl
        Linux

        ...boxed copy of Windows?

        Anyone with any sense would build a DAW on Linux.

    1. Naughtyhorse

      I doubt you'll get it cheaper

      If I were you I'd have a look at a cheap box and then bung a kick ass soundcard in it.

      that's how my DAW came into being, a while back now.... 5 years or so. got a cheap pc for about £450 (with a quad core chip in it!) squeezed all the ram I could into it, stuck a 1/2 way decent soundcard in there, bob's your uncle.

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I quite often see PCs outside waiting for the scrapman to collect these days.

    They're junk to most people, why would they buy another?

    Laptop maybe, but even those are slow to turn on, bulky etc for most people who use their computer in the living room.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Whats your point? I see TVs, sofas and beds at the local tip. I don't assume people have taken to sleeping on the floor.

    2. Tom 13

      Re: slow to turn on,

      Compared to a tablet? Really?

      My seven year old PC boots faster than my brand new tablet.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Back to pre-internet age.

    Apart from the Good Enough Already and Economic Downturn arguments, ordinary non-geek people used to have a PC on a desk somewhere in the house to get online. Then they got a laptop and the PC gathered dust or got stored in the garage. Then they found they really wanted a tablet instead, as all they wanted to do was websurf, play simple games and apps. And their mobile phones are much the same. So the market for PCs is back to real enthusiasts only (and deskbound business use), just like it was before the internet caught on. You'd have to be an idiot to expect to sell as many full blown PCs as before.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Back to pre-internet age.

      Schools nowadays to my knowledge expect children to have access to a PC at home, likewise a notebook PC is essential for students in higher education. You seem to have some concept of 'ordinary people' that excludes families and children, not to mention other people who do more than websurf and, emails and social networking. What has changed is we've had much greater lifespan for PCs, plus tablets, phones and even games consoles are now useful for many activities previously done on PCs only so little incentive to increase the number of PCs in many multi-occupancy households.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    bad news, if true

    because when (rather than if), my current laptop and server finally sublime, I'll have to dish out a lot more money on the replacement, than I would now. Presumably, with dwindling demand for laptops and desktops, their supply, and prices, are due to go up?

    ..

    Well, I guess I could... store them (Mr Banks, I salute you again! ;)

  4. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I did my part.

      GTX770 and mirrored SSDs on Windows XP? I... I... have no words. Except maybe, "What did Windows 7 ever do to you!?"

      Does XP x64 even do 32gb of ram (ah, it does, 128 is the limit... but still... XP!?)?

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    End of the sensible world ...

    Lets see you edit and transcode HD video with any degree of success outside of a PC environment.

    DX11 PC games continue to exceed the graphical quality of event he latest consoles.

    Windows is required for Photoshop.

    Try running a full on music production app (eg REASON) on a tablet. Yeah, right.

    PCs continue to be the real deal. Everything else is a compromise or conformance to lesser requirements.

    1. Michael Habel

      Re: End of the sensible world ...

      Windows is required for Photoshop.

      Is it I thought any old HTML 5 Browser could run it now, much like Office365. Now that these have all gone On-Line

      1. RaidOne

        Re: End of the sensible world ... @ Michael Habel Posted Friday 10th January 2014 15:33 GMT

        Yes, any "computing device" can run Photoshop if it has HTML 5 support.

        In the same sense that any car can carry 10 tons of sand from A to B, but most sane people would prefer to have a tool more suited for that, called a truck/lorry.

        1. fandom

          Re: End of the sensible world ... @ Michael Habel Posted Friday 10th January 2014 15:33 GMT

          And you can use a truck to go about town, but most people would rather use a car.

          Pretty much nobody needs Photoshop, the only reason it is known beyond graphic designers is piracy.

          1. JDX Gold badge

            Re: End of the sensible world ... @ Michael Habel Posted Friday 10th January 2014 15:33 GMT

            Crap joke. Even if it was fully replaced with the HTML5 web version, you still need processing grunt to run the code.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: End of the sensible world ...

        I'd like to see this "Photoshop that runs in HTML 5". Cloud based third party options are possible, but you can say that about any cloud based streaming/VM etc system and any software. Yet I don't see everything being thin clients and subscription based just yet.

    2. Salts

      Re: End of the sensible world ...

      @PhilW

      In your situation, mine and probably most of el reg readers you are correct, problem is what percentage of the 300 million plus PC sales do you think that is?

      ePOS replacements, tablets, smartphone and server in restaurants etc. Shops, Travel agents, Airline booking, Estate agents, Hotels, etc, an Android type PC with server.

      That's not too small a market share that currently has PC's that are overkill for most of their business use case.

      The desktop as we know it is approaching the upward side of the bathtub curve.

  6. cs94njw

    Novatech closed down in Reading, and I think Southampton :(

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Novatech closed down in Reading, and I think Southampton :("

      From their website :-

      "Novatech is growing and we are stronger than ever, but the way people buy technology has changed so we have decided to close our Portishead, Reading and Cardiff stores."

  7. Frogmelon

    Our company switched from Dell to Acer quite a few years back, for one particular batch of purchases.

    We got stung quite badly on that one.

    The initial prices were good. We had a couple of DOA machines.. we could cope with that.

    However: We soon found out that the machines were running hot and power hungry CPU's. Not too bad in and of itself, but the machines started dying like flies down the line due to the totally inadequate ventilation of the pc's. At least that's what we think it was, mostly. Maybe the motherboards were just sub-par.

    The ones that still worked were hampered by slow hard drives, slow non-Intel chipsets and slow onboard graphics.

    The failure rate swung it for us though.

    We've steered well clear of Acer ever since we bought that batch.

    Perhaps other companies and corporations also have memories as long as ours :)

  8. Dick Emery

    Good enough don't cut it

    I'm probably in the minority. I have a Core2duo 7600 overclocked to 3.4Ghz, Nvidia GTX 560Ti and 8GB DDR2 memory. My video card performance is being bottleneck by the CPU so I don't get the best out of it. I could also get an SSD but would not feel the full benefit of it on SATA2. I put a cheap USB 3.0 card in but I bet on a dedicated motherboard with the new boosting tech it (USB 3.0 on the motherboard) would run faster.

    It consumes more power than I would like as well so an upgrade would save some money in that regard too.

    I am definitely going to upgrade.

    Originally I thought about about just getting a base model. But I think if I am going to do this then I may as well get the best I can afford and make it last another 5+ years. Plus I can always sell on the older system to help with the cost.

    But I can understand why a lot of people think their PC is 'good enough'. Especially if they don't do much more than browse the web, use office a bit and play some casual non-demanding games.

    1. Salts

      Re: Good enough don't cut it

      You would be surprised at the difference a SSD makes to an old system, you could always try one and if the system is still not fast enough, transfer it to your new machine. I hear what you are saying that a SATA 2 won't get full speed from a new disk but it will be a big difference.

      1. Tomato42

        Re: Good enough don't cut it

        I have very similar setup (exact same CPU) with a SSD, and I can say that the CPU is the limiting factor, the SSD does make the system feel snappy, but put any background number crunching and you feel the lack of oomph

  9. Stevie
    Trollface

    Bah!

    "analysts believe this to be rock bottom for the market and that many markets will have nowhere to go but up"

    In closing this meeting of the amalgamated manufacturers of buggy whips and horse tack, let me once again reiterate my conviction that the horseless carriage is a passing fad, a toy for the wealthy that will soon slip out of the public consciousness.

    1. fajensen

      Re: Bah!

      Exactly. We even have identified new market need for whips: to make the servarnt in front of the horseless carriage with the read flag run much faster!

  10. weathertop

    Each device has it's own use.

    My Android phone is with me wherever I go. My Android I take with me when I know I'm either going to be stuck somewhere and need reading material, or, I'm onsite taking notes and photos. I sure as hell am not trying to play Minecraft on either, nor am I trying to do any real "work". My Ultrabook is probably used the most, because it bridges both worlds: speed and performance and portability. However, when I need to get work done, and I mean "woodchipper attached to a Rolls Royce turbo-jet engine" work, I have my PC (homebrewed, of course).

    Because somethings were meant to be on Dual Screen or a single HDTV Monitor, on a system with 8 GB of RAM and an i7 Processor. And those things run the gambit from real work, academic work, gaming, and the obligatory surfing of reddit's nsfw section. Because, really, who wants to look at code or tatas on a 5 inch screen?

  11. Number6

    I don't know if PCs purchased as a discrete set of parts counts as a PC sale, but if so, I did my part to help boost sales in 2013. A desktop with a decent monitor (or two, or three...), keyboard and mouse is still superior to a tablet for many purposes.

  12. A Butler

    PC market not as bad as this REG article MSFT / INTC stock up today

    As usual we do not expect the REG to depart from its PC market grave dancing, the truth about today's numbers is that PC market is not nearly as bad as reported here; MSFT stock up 1.44% today after the numbers. One source:

    http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/01/10/why-microsoft-and-intel-are-leading-the-dow-today.aspx

    Of course that does not stop the REG and its usual anti-microsoft bias, chromebook anything Android love in to continue.

    As other posters have pointed out the PC still remains the most productive device available. Tablets have their place however their peak market penetration in developed world anyway is approaching.

    1. fajensen

      Re: PC market not as bad as this REG article MSFT / INTC stock up today

      MSFT stock went up a lot more when they god rid of Ballmer.

      People "who are productive on PC's" are in the ppm-fraction of the potential customer base. The rest use tablets, android phones or cheap notebooks for whatever they need. That is why PC sales suck, "nobody" really need a PC

  13. HippyFreetard

    I'd still buy one

    When you buy a device, you kind of "fill it up" before getting a new one.

    When I first got into PC building, it was a case of upgrade the software until it ran slow, then upgrade the hardware until this was unsustainable because the RAM was maxed, the MB had the biggest CPU, but the OS and utilities were becoming too much, even before you tried to open a real app.

    Now, with 64-bit, MB's are being built with an incredible amount of RAM space etc. It simply takes longer to fill a build up to maxed, and it will take even longer for the software to make that insufficient.

    It's similar to the argument made about 3D movies or electronic music. As if the play, the novel, or classical music, or horse-riding, or painting had actually died as a result of new technologies.

    The PC market "ate'nt dead". Not yet.

  14. zen1

    I dunno..

    I blame Ballmer for all this, and I'm shocked and appalled that the Microsoft Board hasn't mounted his severed head on a pike, in front of MS HQ.

    While I'm convinced I'm going to get flamed for this, tablets are nice for light stuff, I still contend that to get any real work done, you need a real PC, a real iWhatever-book or a *NIX workstation/laptop.

  15. W. Anderson

    The consequences of substituting lack of innovation with Oppressive behavior

    These stats are hardly good news for Microsoft or their minions on TheRegister, TechTarget and ZDNet forums, although the substantially lower sales figures of 70 million in 2013 represents good news for these folk as an excellent base for their heroine in Redmond to advance the Windows 8 Mobile challenge for replacing both Apple and Android as the "No.1" position that Microsoft can then use to revive the diminishing PC sales marketplace.

    However there are several credible reports of large school system, organizations and governments - the latter mostly in Europe, Asia, and South America, replacing Windows PCs with Google ChromeOS, Ubuntu/other Linux and/or Android for more agile and "secure" clients to connect to their overwhelming Linux and BSD Unix infrastructure and Internet foundations. That would nullify any Windows long term hopes.

    Plus there is the pending - in April/May 2014 time frame, of Samsung/Intel Tizen Linux based mobile and possibly hybrid devices, to accompany the fast and widespread adoption of FirefoxOS devices.

    There is, unfortunately very little encouraging news for Windows PC recovery in reality.

  16. Alex Walsh

    There are *so* many people out there with PCs that are two or three years old who have no compelling reason to upgrade. Intel CPUs haven't exactly come on in leaps and bounds in the last two years and in terms of GPUs, nothing at the mid range is notably better to encourage an entire system upgrade above a card (and in some instances a PSU as well).

    Same with business. We had our last big round of hardware upgrades a couple of years ago when we finally dumped XP for W7. No compelling reason to do anything similar atm or in the near future.

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