PC Shipments In 2013 See the Worst Yearly Decline In History 564
An anonymous reader writes "The PC market continues to be in free fall, having now seen its seventh consecutive quarter of declining worldwide shipments. Worldwide PC shipments dropped to 82.6 million units in the fourth quarter of 2013, according to Gartner, a 6.9 percent decrease from the same period last year. It's worth emphasizing that this past quarter resulted in a total of 315.9 million units shipped in 2013, a 10 percent decline from 2012, and the worst decline in PC market history. The overall shipment level was equal to the one in 2009."
Other industries are hurting too (Score:5, Funny)
Iron lungs and horseshoes are still way down.
Window 8 (Score:5, Funny)
Wasn't Window 8 released about seven quarters ago?
Re:Current PCs are good enough. (Score:5, Funny)
> You've actually met someone who does like Window 8?
I have. Well, wait, he says he does, but he works in Redmond (true story) so it may be a job requirement.
Re:Window 8 (Score:5, Funny)
Wasn't Window 8 released about seven quarters ago?
Utter coincidence. Nothing to see here. Move along, now.
Re:Other industries are hurting too (Score:4, Funny)
Iron lungs and horseshoes are still way down.
Who doesn't like a game of horseshoes? These kids with their Upset Birds. They need to go outside more.
and who wouldn't want iron lungs? These pink ones get sore after the first pack of cigarettes.
It's a Windows problem, not a PC problem (Score:5, Funny)
Unit sales for Apple computers are way up year over year. Likewise unit sales for smart phones, tablets, game consoles -- literally everything with a CPU that doesn't run Windows -- are up year over year.
This is a Windows problem. People don't get excited by clunky old Windows. They don't buy it because they love it, they buy it when they have to. And increasingly they don't.
Re:Current PCs are good enough. (Score:5, Funny)
I went on a trip to Africa a few years back and by shear chance ended up traveling with a Microsoft Salesman. God was that a fun trip... I generally like giving people shit but this was special... ...and when he pulled out his windows phone, and it wouldn't connect... then it crashed... He had to borrow my Android... I just stood there grinning ear to ear every time he had to call home.
Re:Current PCs are good enough. (Score:5, Funny)
Menus are passe. Nowadays you're supposed to just search for everything! Want to start Word? You don't need to just click on an icon, you need to select a search box and then type "word" to find it. Want to see what software is installed on that PC? You don't need to know that, just search for what you want!
Re:Current PCs are good enough. (Score:5, Funny)
I open up Windows Store Apps only on the the Modern UI display and Win32/64 apps on the desktop displays.
Okay, I'll bite: What benefit could you experience on the Metro side (worth dedicating a monitor) that you can't with the desktop?
Well, you don't get the benefit of a clean slate from swapping to a full screen UI and walking through the mental-door-way that helps you forget what you were about to do. [scientificamerican.com]
You also benefit from the lack of discoverability that these gesture based interfaces present -- So you can sharpen your mind guessing at and maybe even learning new ways to do the things you already knew how to do.
You also benefit from Microsoft's App store which charges developers a cut of profits; You see, I'm not going to eat that distribution cost, I'll pass it onto you so the the same app in their "modern" W8 store will costs you more than the desktop version -- Well, actually, I'll calculate adoption rate then distribute that MS tax across both the W8 UI and the desktop program to increase overall cost to you whether you use W8 or not. This is "beneficial" because it gives Microsoft a cut of software sales they never needed before, so they don't have to focus on their core competency (Selling you an OS with features you want), and instead can... well... Give gamers more glorious ads on their dash over the XBL service they pay for which operates via the same MS sales tax model; Fund more patent suits against FLOSS OSs they had no part in developing so they can roll out the MS tax to smartphones and tablets instead of having to compete; Run servers for software as a service so they can rent you MS Office, and help the NSA [wikipedia.org] maintain "national" corporate interest "security" [wikipedia.org], etc.
You've got to look at things from MS's perspective: It's not a bug, it's a feature. It's only micro when it's soft, baby.