PC Sales Slump Over Economic Crisis 232
nandemoari writes "The damage isn't just limited to the United States. Shipments of PCs in Europe, the Mid-East, and Africa dipped to records posted around the turn of the century. It was even worse in Asia, which according to Gartner, posted its worst growth rate ever — just 1.8 per cent.
Within the industry, desktops took the hardest hit, as was expected. Sales of non-portable computers were down about 16 per cent as consumers opted instead for the rising 'netbook' and similar hybrids. That fact alone is troubling for PC makers, given that $300-$500 netbooks offer a far lower profit margin than more expensive and more powerful laptops and desktops."
Newsflash (Score:5, Insightful)
* Sales Slump Over Economic Crisis
* = Insert nearly anything here
Re:Newsflash (Score:5, Funny)
Computer...yep.
Notebook...yep.
Bacon...yep.
Coat...yep.
Lamp...yep.
Prostitute...ehhh...yep.
Congressional Seat and Vote...hmm...nope.
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Well that basically covers everything then. Not much need for user comments on this one. Next story, please.
your mom (Score:2)
Yep, it works.
Re:Newsflash (Score:5, Insightful)
"No".
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If you look at the past 20 years, economic slow downs have not slowed down technology purchases. Computers were perceived as improving productivity. Fire people, hire computers, become more efficient in a downturn was the mantra.
Only now that everybody has a computer is the world of technology synching up with the rest of the economy. It is important news.
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Whoosh
He's saying insert a 'No' at the '*', giving a sentence of 'No Sales Slump Over Economic Crisis'. Obviously 'No' is one of the words you can't appropriately insert there.
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Re:Newsflash (Score:5, Funny)
Sales of "For Sale" signs have been increasing dramatically.
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China has ramped up production and should be able to avert any shortages.
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"Aha! Once again the conservative sandwich-heavy portfolio pays off for the hungry investor!" [Eats Sandwich] "Oh.. I'm ruined! Wuahahahaaha why ... why...."
http://www.gotfuturama.com/Multimedia/EpisodeSounds/3ACV21/ [gotfuturama.com]
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Actually I heard on the radio recently that business is booming for strippers and prostitutes.
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>> * Sales Slump Over Economic Crisis
> * = Insert nearly anything here
Except Campbel
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Invest in things that people need when they are buying houses at low prices. When you buy a foreclosed home, you want lots of home repair and remodel stuff. And there has never been a bigger foreclosure market.
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Well, other than the 1930's, which had a much larger foreclosure rate than we're having now.
Portables rock! (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe people just don't want a 100lb system when they can get something that fits in their pocket. I just got an iPod Touch to use as a pocket computer (it works nicely and I'll really like it when I figure out how to write programs for it), and now my wife wants one too. She'll probably get one of those cute Acer netbooks for $400 too as they look handy to throw in the diaper bag for times you need to run a Windows program on the go.
The vast majority of the time we just want web and email access or to make
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Re:Newsflash (Score:5, Funny)
* Sales Slump Over Economic Crisis
* = Insert nearly anything here
Anything? Well, how about inserting a penis? Well okay so it's not really an insertion so much as an in-out motion... but you did say nearly anything...
Penis sales have been on the decline forever. This is nothing new. Mothers always tell their daughters not to give it away for free, but fathers rarely do. Why do you think a young male has such a hard time making extra money during college? Few available "side jobs" such as man-whoring or stripping. The gay community, god love them, do their best, but until we get women to pay for our penises, it's not going to matter. It's not the economy, its our culture.
Maybe that's why cheap netbooks are missing (Score:2)
Only the more expensive 8.9" and 10" models are available
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Yeah, where are all the $200 netbooks?
I'm waiting for one with a 8.9" screen, 1GB of RAM, and an SSD drive.
It'd be nice if it came with XP Home, but that seems to add another $100 to the cost.
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Certain BestBuy locations are selling Eee PC 900A white netbooks for $199. That's a 9 inch screen, one gig RAM, four gig SSD, and Linux.
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Upgrades? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Well, let's face it, it's not like it was 10 years ago where every 8 months you could buy a PC that was practically double the speed of your current PC. I mean how long have we been sitting at the same speeds?
I don't know, multiple cores are pretty damned sweet, too.
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Only to a point -- The benefits of additional cores becomes less and less significant with the addition of more cores unless you're running multi-threaded applications -- and quite frankly, for consumer level software, there's not a lot floating around. I would wager more than four cores is probably a waste on a consumer PC.
Make the Egg so we can get the chicken. (Score:2)
3 reasons why most consumer apps are not multi-threaded.
1. Before there wasn't a performance need to be multi-threaded, in many ways it was a performance hit.
2. Developing Multi-threaded apps take more considerations.
3. Languages don't have good methods for multi-threading.
So the Multi-Core CPU's when we start getting cores numbers that legacy apps start taking a theoretical performance hit, or stagnation. Then it makes demmand to create Multi-threaded apps.
With more demand for multi-threaded apps Programmi
Re:Make the Egg so we can get the chicken. (Score:5, Informative)
4. There are computing-jobs that are inherently not parallel.
5. Parallel programming is hard not because of bad programming languages but because of the logical problems that come with shared state and parallelism.
http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-23.html#%25_idx_3598 [mit.edu]
Therefore multicores do not bring a substantial performance benefit. Futhermore because the problems are fundamental logical ones, there is no big hope.
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Didn't you guys get the press release?
Processes are the new Threads [slashdot.org]
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Silly person. That's why we have Vista, to take up the other cores. Haven't you heard? What Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away?
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I would wager more than four cores is probably a waste on a consumer PC.
Unless it's being used as a media pc, game pc, file storage, etc, all in one package. "consumer" doesn't mean just hobbyist, err, writing letters in wordpad to print for snail mail, err, gaming, err, email & web ... anymore. As shown in the previous sentence, consumer PCs have had many principle uses over the years. I know a few non-techie families that are seriously looking at getting family servers.
That's because (Score:2)
It is all my fault (Score:4, Interesting)
My company only buys refurb PCs off lease. $200 for a 2.8GHz P4 with 1GB of RAM. It is the only way I can keep up a 25% turn-over rate and stay under budget.
Re:It is all my fault (Score:5, Informative)
"$200 for a 2.8GHz P4 with 1GB of RAM. It is the only way I can keep up a 25% turn-over rate and stay under budget."
Alternatively, about $250 plus an hour to assemble it and install Linux will get you a dual-core Atom with 2GB of RAM and a 100+GB-ish hard drive; you'll probably save the difference in reduced power usage over the next couple of years, given how power-hungry P4s were.
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"$200 for a 2.8GHz P4 with 1GB of RAM. It is the only way I can keep up a 25% turn-over rate and stay under budget."
Alternatively, about $250 plus an hour to assemble it and install Linux will get you a dual-core Atom with 2GB of RAM and a 100+GB-ish hard drive; you'll probably save the difference in reduced power usage over the next couple of years, given how power-hungry P4s were.
I am waiting to see how the Atom is doing in the market for another 2 or 3 years. I am too conservative when it comes to buying 30 PCs a year to risk it on a new CPU. I am just now giving folks P4 technology, for goodness sakes!
I did recently get rid of all the CRTs. I had a slightly tough time justifying the cost of THAT swap out, but I had my power number comparisons in hand. High up-front cost, high long-term savings.
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So you're saying your PHB actually looked at long term results over short term?
Are pigs flying?
I have zero knowledge of Atom processors except that they exist and power most of the netbooks I find interesting (read: cheap).
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So you're saying your PHB actually looked at long term results over short term?
My PHB is an advocate for free and open source software. And his PHB is, in fact, willing to consider long-term costs. I also pulled OSHA out of thin air about recommendations for eye strain and ergonomic reasons.
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That's interesting... years ago, when I got my first LCD screen at work, I used ergonomics as the justification, but that was, in fact, the real reason... I was going home with red blurry eyes every day; after the LCD, I could use it all day with no eye-strain.
Nowadays everyone in my department has 30inch widescreen HP monitors. My, how times change.
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Then shouldn't you be looking at an atom or an older P3? P4 suck serious juice, and when the first one came out, the ranking went like this, in terms of performance: 1Ghz Athlon > 1Ghz P3 > 1.6Ghz P4
Atoms are just another version of the P3, afaik.
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That setup will have as much processing power as I need and will use noticeably less power and space than my aging althon64 based desktop. Chuck it in the closet and voila, nice small home server that uses less juice than a light bulb.
Only 2 sata ports on the board, but for now 500GB plus my 1TB will be fine (I can always add on some external storage).
all the more reason to buy Apples instead (Score:2)
What's the BFD? (Score:3, Insightful)
"posted its worst growth rate ever"
BFD. Contact me when it is in decline. A positive growth rate means that sales are still growing. That's just something that bugs me about economic news reporting. We're not in a !!CRISIS!!!..Oh, Nooo!...We're ALL gonna' DIE!! situation, and if we're headed in that direction, reporting how dire the situation is because the economy grew (but not as much as last quarter) doesn't help anybody...except maybe the newscaster.
So, reading the summary, the worst growth rate was 1.8%. That means, on average, the company that sold 100 PCs last quarter, sold 102 PCs this quarter. Boo-friggin'-hoo.
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Negative growth is right around the corner....
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Oh, Nooo!...We're ALL gonna' DIE!!
Re:What's the BFD? (Score:5, Insightful)
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you're effectively making less money this year, even if your paycheck has a larger number on it.
I think that's what you meant to say, since technically they're making more money.
Re:What's the BFD? (Score:4, Informative)
I think that's what you meant to say, since technically they're making more money.
If you want to split hairs, it depends what you call money. Take the DJIA, for instance. In 1999, the Dow was at 11,000 and change. In July '08, the Dow was at 11,000 and change. Technically they were at the same level. Effectively, the Dow was lower in July, since inflation has been occurring, by whatever compounded percent that's been since 1999. But actually, it took 4 times as much gold to buy the Dow in 2008 as it did in 1999, so in real terms the Dow has lost 75% of its value in the past decade.
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The market for computers trends directly with uses that a computer can have. As an example, I do not need a desktop computer for a media server if my needs are better served by a Tivo. I do not necessarily need a laptop if my needs are served by a smart phone.
Quite, and I suspect there's real sales growth in terms of computers, it's just the PC sector that's lagging.
(what, you like to watch commercials? ;) )
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Just like the economy itself. Even if growth slows down by some margin, at the very least it's still positive!!
Well, right now it's shrinking, but nonetheless.
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Indeed. Same thing happens with government budgets; if this year's spending increase is less than the previous year's, it's apparently a "budget cut", even though total expenditures are still greater.
Usually someone is playing tricks with nominal vs real dollars - if the budget is 100M$ and it costs 100k$/patient you can treat 1000 patients. Next year, if the budget is 102M$ and it costs 102k$/patient you can still treat 1000 patients. Normally with inflation getting 100M$ next year when it costs 102k$/patient means you can only treat 981 patients, so while it's not a dollar decrease it's effectively a cut in services. Even a budget increase to 101M$ is an effective decrease in service to 990 patients.
the new way (Score:3, Informative)
These days, you can get a powerful PC with a decent GPU (if you're a gamer) for less than $1k, and a $400 netbook for when you're on the road. Why have anything in between?
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I actually bought a netbook specifically so I wouldn't waste money trying to upgrade it. It should always be able to browse, IM, ssh, and type simple documents. Any upgrade money is specifically designated for the desktop.
Re:Quality. (Score:4, Funny)
Support? Hah! I think I speak for nearly everyone on Slashdot when I say: if we don't know the answer to a technical question, the script-reading third-worlder on the other end of the phone sure as hell won't know, either.
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while that is true.. when i need replacement parts and need them covered under warrenty and need them asap.. lenovo gets it done.. dell drags their feet (well they did dill we ended up in their "gold" support area)
How will this affect Windows 7? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well if they do it within the next 8-10 months, the economy will most likely not yet be recovered and most consumers and businesses will still be wary of making the large purchases. This means a rough launch for Windows 7. Perhaps in 2 years they will have picked up but they will not get the initial response they wish for because it will still require a large number of consumers/businesses to upgrade from older systems.
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no... Windows seven will run on a AMD 1.4Ghz Thunderbird with 2gb of ram with no issues what so ever. (Nvidia FX5500 means it even handles Aero with no issues)
I had old parts lying around and wanted to see how Win7 ran on older hardware.
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It is a well known fact that BETAS always run smoother than the final product
What?
I thought you were being cleverly sarcastic, but after checking your posting history and your signature it sees unlikely you'd say anything which slyly defends Microsoft on any aspect.
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I installed Vista 7 on a 3 gig p4 with a gig of ram. I did all the updates. Nothing else is installed except Firefox, flash, VLC, and a few other free programs. It seems to perform well except:
Full screen hulu.com vides run like crap.
Well, there are a slew of other issues so don't get me wrong.
But as far as performance goes running firefox with the latest flash full screen leaves the videos very choppy.
Notebooks == Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
I read an article by Michael Dell (lost the URL) saying that the market is saturated in the US; as in there are no "first time buyers" except maybe for the kid going off to college and a lot are going Apple. Everyone who wants a PC already has one, and the manufacturers have done nothing to convince buyers they need a new box. Instead, they've made the machines suck more though inferior integrated parts, made them more difficult to upgrade, and loaded them with crapware to try to make a profit on a product that is already razor thin.
The second problem is that the "Windows" bundled applications like Windows Movie Maker are crappy compared to the iMovie/iDVD bundles on Macs, and the manufactuer ones like Dell-Movie Maker (or Dell DVD Player) are even worse than the Windows default ones. Users get "box shock" when they attempt to buy Off-the-Shelf software so they are really looking for a box that "does stuff" and is "known" for "doing stuff" not just being faster. On Apple, the bundled apps are either very simple to remove, or are fully-functional "free as in beer" includes; here PC manufactures to often include crippled, hard to remove, ugly, slow applications.
Saavy PC buyers remove all that crap and put a clean Windows install or Linux on there. The base consumer has no idea how to do that, and get a piece of crap for their hard earned money. The OEMs should really work to either make Linux ready for desktop primetime, or invest in OSS projects to produce, very good, very simple, portable to Windows if need be, very user friendly, very attractive, free desktop software rather than put together a crappy version, and get rid of all the crap running in the system tray for a clean, snappy system and stop blaming the economy for no one buying there stuff.
Netbooks are doing exactly this; running very efficent OS installs where if feels like the system was designed like a velvet glove over the hardware. Lowering the price and giving the buyer the features they want "size, power usage, WiFi, price." Not more GHz and more ram simply to feed a more hungry, more restrictive, more lackluster OS.
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Dell has a problem with creating BTX based machines too. If they were really following his advise we'd not have the BTX platform. This is used only by the pre-fab makers for the purpose of forcing customers to return to the manufacturer for repairs/replacements.
I worked yesterday for about 2 hours to clean a system of all the crapware that came pre-installed on a compaq computer. By removing it I turned this extremely slow and annoying Vista box into something that was quite snappy.
Let's just say that co
More than meets the eye (Score:2)
Maybe people just prefer portable computers now. (Score:2, Interesting)
Unless I was unable to find a laptop that does what I need to do with a computer I don't see why I would go with a desktop. The price/performance difference is not what it used to be.
I could almost get away with using just my phone and a bigger screen and full size keyboard since most of what I do is ssh,email and web.
Netbooks? Not. (Score:2, Insightful)
That doesn't really make much sense. Laptops and notebooks are probably replacing desktops, but why would a desktop user go from a powerful machine with a big screen and keyboard to an underpowered netbook with a tiny screen and keyboard? It would be a whole different experience. The slow sales growth much m
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You are correct. Netbooks are a supplement to desktops. They certainly are not replacements for laptops or desktops because they have only a subset of their functionality (in exchange for extreme mobility).
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This really depends on what functionality is needed. I got my eeePc as a supplement, but then found that I almost never used my desktop again. Only when I need to rip a cd or DVD do I have to boot the big ugly noisy machine. It is almost worth it to me to test a usb dvd drive to see if I the little machine can crunch video in decent time (overnight would be fine with me).
Know what I heard? (Score:3, Funny)
I heard Dells aren't selling very well in Ireland at all these days.
Not just the economy? (Score:4, Interesting)
While I'm sure the recession has something to do with it, the fact of the matter is, unless you're a hard core gamer, or trying to run Vista, any computer bought in the last few years is "good enough."
Heck, I game quite a bit AND have the money, but why spend it replacing a perfectly good machine (which I got over three years ago)?
PCs now are far more powerful than Joe Sixpack needs to read his email and surf the web, so most people are probably fine with the ones they have. I doubt there are many households left that don't have a computer, so they have to justify replacing a functioning one now.
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I have a PC which I used to help me diagnose computer issues and perform back ups on customer computers. I also use it for gaming. I bought it over 5 years ago. With 2 gigs of RAM and 500 gigs of storage and a nice video card on a high speed network with a nice flat panel display it is perfectly suited for anything we do today (except maybe Vista).
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A Given (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a given.
I don't know why anyone would question it.
What happens is people begin to get their computers fixed rather than getting a new computer, which is something they should have done all along. Most computers of yesterday are more than capable running today's software (with the exception maybe of Vista--which should have been a no-go to begin with).
Always fix rather than replace unless the computer is far too old. Any honest technician worth anything will be able to tell you that.
Impact of Corporate PC Virtualization Projects (Score:4, Informative)
Instead, toss a bunch of blade racks together, virtualize your userbase, simplify your desktop management, address many of your network security issues, keep all your data "safe" in the data center, allow better user experience for remote users... lots and lots of benefits (if you can get it to work).
In my company (a large bank), we are due to refresh 10's of thousands of PCs, yet instead, we may refresh NONE of them, go with virtualization (and the saved costs of keeping older PCs will fund the new infrastructure). With PCs bought in the last 3-4 years, acting as thin-clients, we can keep them until they break, and replace them with some cheap thintops.
If many companies are going down this route, then it would be no surprise, coupled with the economy, that PC sales in the corporate world would be dropping!
Lokatana
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The problem is (Score:2)
PC Upgrade (Score:2)
A new PC is at the top of my list, as soon as I scrape up the cash.. oh wait.
I wonder what portion is because of Vista? (Score:4, Interesting)
I know a LOT of people deciding not to buy new computers because they only have Vista. Most people come and ask me if I can put XP on it after they buy it. And frankly, doing that is getting increasingly more difficult because OEMs are changing their part numbers and PCI IDs so their XP drivers don't want to install on the same devices. If I were better at hacking the installers, I would just run a PCI scan and add those numbers to whatever files are needed, but getting them to install without modification is becoming increasingly difficult.
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Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
buying is upgrading. (Score:3, Interesting)
Most of us have PCs already, and with reliability getting tolerable, thank goodness, most PC sales are upgrades, no? It is a luxury purchase; a good investment of some extra money. No extra money or a frugal conscience will lead to postponement of such purchases - especially for corporations.
I still disagree with the interpretation that sales are falling. Sales are not growing isn't sales decline... Maybe less than expected, but still, it is not a decline. 1.8% growth is not a decline. My height not growing doesn't mean I am shrinking.
Re:Regarding the desktops (Score:4, Insightful)
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The cheapest netbook on the market is more powerfull than the computer I had only a few years ago.
But it more than makes up for that by having such a small screen.
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They also have VGA-out ports, so problem solved.
In fact, even with my "full size" 15.4 inch laptop, I had a USB keyboard/mouse and 17inch monitor for when it was sitting on my desk, which was 95% of the time.
I think the issue here is that the industry is up against the wall in compelling reasons to upgrade... when you hit a certain mark, most sales are from people who already have computers. Perhaps those people are finally realizing that MSWord is not going to be any faster on a quad core than it is on a
Re:Regarding the desktops (Score:5, Interesting)
Given the lack of perceiveable performance improvements over the past several years, there really isn't a need to upgrade your home PC. Back before the XBox (BX?) the PC was still a considerable factor in gaming. Today, the cost of a single video card almost justifies the cost of an XBox by itself. The internet connectivity on the gaming consoles, the video and audio streaming and the game selection/quality means that the 'need' for a gaming PC ($$$) is reduced, because the XBox or PS3 can do the same or better for less money.
To the best of my knowledge, aside from the MS Flight Simulator X program - is there a 'killer app' that will drive PC sales? The only reason I caveat MS Flight Simulator X as a PC game "Killer App" is because hours spent playing this game can be applied toward actual Flight School (under specific guidelines, planes and conditions).
Re:Regarding the desktops (Score:4, Insightful)
WoW? Or more broadly, any social computer game that requires a keyboard to interface with.
No big bype this year (Score:3, Interesting)
This year MS did pretty much nothing and there was very little motivation to buy anything new. Apple had not announced anything amazing for at least a year now.
Therefore sales drop off. Wow: who'd have thought that?
Re:Regarding the desktops (Score:5, Interesting)
People are probably just buying laptops...
Possibly. But my desktop is 5 yo and Mrs Smidge's desktop is going on 10...! The reason? We don't game, just appliance the heck out of it. No need to upgrade. Same thing with our vehicles, we just fix 'em and take xtra care with preventive maintenance.
=Smidge=
Re:Regarding the desktops (Score:5, Funny)
why sir, oh why do you hate America?
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I'm not American, Why do you hate Western Samoa.
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You're not constrained by processing power. :) ) with uptime limited only by power failures. A somewhat better system was buried under Microsoft's Firewall (after more than two years of use, that is). The OpenBSD one worked as good in its last day as in its first :(
I've used a P4 1.4GHz with 128MB of RDRAM as an OpenBSD firewall - it worked beautifully (unless I was "improving" it
Now we use a dedicated appliance, with a much lower power use. I'm still missing that OpenBSD box
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It wasn't modded down. He's just a habitual troll with such bad karma that he starts at -1.
Re:Regarding the desktops (Score:5, Insightful)
It could also just be that people have their computers already and are being content with them. You would expect the numbers to dwindle as people buy less. If I already have a desktop, why do I need another?
I think this is a big part of it. I haven't noticed the laptop craze as much myself. Most people I know still use desktops (heck I have a laptop but don't use it unless I absolutely have to).
The lifespan of a computer has changed though. Back in the early days you basically got 2 years out of a computer and then it needed replacing (heck I remember almost busting out laughing when I was a teenager and a guy had me work on his daughter's school computer. He mentioned that "I don't know why it's acting up. I just had a guy completely redo it not more than 2 years ago!").
Today though, even a really, really old computer still gets onto the internet just fine. My parents are using a 1200Mhz system with 512MB of RAM. My sister uses a 700mhz system with 256MB of RAM. Both still work just fine for what they need. I know of countless other people who just use the computer as a web browser (and even most email is web based now so you can't really mention it as a separate app) and are dealing with computers 5 to 10 years old just fine.
I think we've basically hit that plateau where computers have become like cars. Most people have one. They don't really become completely obsolete for basic tasks anymore. I think new sales will gradually slip to hobbyists, rich people, and replacements for broken systems. With the increasingly harsh economic times it's only hastening the arrival of an event that was going to happen anyways.
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This is basically Linux's only chance. As we move on to 64-bitters, Vista, osX, and Linux will compete on a different landscape. The problem, and opportunity, is that THERE ARE NO 64-bit KILLER apps out there. No OS has a single killer app that needs 64-bit computing. SO I think Eric Raymond is wrong about the hard deadline being in 2008 [catb.org]. As long as there is no killer app, all architectures are fair play.
Obviously, if the killer app is open source and is born in Linuxland, it will be ported...
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I don't think that applied to the /. crowd in college. Computer -> tuition -> cheetos -> alcohol -> textbooks was the order for me. I had a much better chance of passing almost all of my classes with a computer, but no textbook, then vice versa.
Hint: The textbook could usually be 'found' online in PDF form, shared, copied in the library, checked out from the library, used in various lab or just ignored wholesale, depends on the class.
Re:Duh. (Score:4, Funny)
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Alcohol IS food.
Let's talk again when you reach 35, if you reach 35 that is.
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