“Dell’s disappointing quarter is much bigger than just its weak enterprise, Jim Cramer said Wednesday on CNBC’s ‘Mad Money.’ It marks the end of an era — what Cramer calls the ‘great secular decline’ of the personal computer, laptop and netbook,” Kirsten Chang reports for CNBC.
“After Tuesday’s close, Dell reported earnings and revenue that fell far below analyst expectations, prompting its stock to fall sharply. Some blame the poor results on Dell’s management, but Cramer thinks the real problem lies within the shrinking consumer demand for personal computers across the board. Netbooks were down a ‘staggering’ 15 percent, he noted,” Chang reports. “‘Why have a desktop, a laptop and a phone when Apple’s mobile devices make owning a laptop redundant?’ Cramer said. ‘That’s the reason why notebooks and netbooks seem to be going the way of the typewriter.’ Apple’s popular iPhone and iPad products are ‘just lethal for the Dell product line,’ he said.”
Chang reports, “‘When the smoke clears off this miserable Dell quarter, people will realize that Apple’s behind the destruction of the laptop,’ Cramer said. ‘And with that destruction comes a world of hurt for just about everyone, save Apple.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Meanwhile, Mac sales have outpaced the PC industry as a whole for 24 consecutive quarters and counting.
As we have always said, even as many short-sightedly waved (and continue to wave) the white flag, the war is not over. And, yes, we shall prevail… No company is invincible. Not even Microsoft. – MacDailyNews Take, January 10, 2005
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Tayster” for the heads up.]
DeLL is killing its self. DeLL makes crap and has hunkered down with a software company that makes crap. People see this and prefer Apple wares vs WinDeLL crap!
I agree with iQuack 100%.
Don’t blame apple, all Apple did was show up with a better product. Blame the companies like Dell and HP who responded by churning out a never ending stream of junk while dismissing Apple the whole time.
Actually it’s not just a better product but a vastly simpler product that will rule the day. Ecosystem is the key. Simplicity and ease of use. The “best” computer is the one you don’t see and Apple is building that through a range of devices. The computer becomes data, not command keys and installers.
Exactly. A Better Product.
LOL
Post PC era, plain and simple.
Horseshit. It’s a meaningless term, like ‘post-modern’. Desktop PCs will always be useful; desktop personal computers (PC’s) with OSX or Linux or Windows. It’s like saying ‘the death of television’ or something. And here Apple is making….a television? I see the television dying before the PC. Or going the way of the radio…but many of those are still in use.
So does ‘The Post PC era’ mean Apple will stop making Macs?
Because Macs are personal computers, aka “PC’s”
@Korgri
There will be no need for today’s iMacs and Macbooks when iPads also come in laptop and desktop screen sizes and can run whatever app/program is needed as iOS and OSX merge.
The PC as it exists today with hard keyboard and mouse will be gone. Laptops as they exist today will be gone. Within a few years the transition will be complete. Goodbye PC ‘s and laptops.
I welcome this transition!
Those large screen iPads that run all the software you need are called iMacs and we have them already. Just use an Apple trackpad for multitouch.
The stone age did not end because we stopped using stones.
I don’t think desktops or laptops (or any variation thereof) are going to “go the way of the typewriter”. I do agree that demand will fall since for many people a tablet is fine for web surfing, email, and showing pictures. However, I think the large majority of people that do heavy work related tasks will still require a laptop or desktop. Those people may not be in the majority for long, esp since tablets have smaller upfront costs that a decent laptop or desktop. But I do not think extinction of either is on the horizon.
“The large majority of people that do heavy work..”
Are a MINORITY
At least the servers they have are quite good, also the SAN and business applications. They should take a hint from IBM and focus on business only.
Any free wifi outlet I hang at doesn’t convince me that MAC laptops are in decline. It looks like windoze is in decline.
The decline will massively accelerate as the huge numbers of college kids who have already switched to Macs hot the work force. They won’t all go back to using Windows. Not going to happen.
The days of forcing your employees to use inferior windows is rapidly going to end.
DRMSSDB,
“Oh, you should never, never doubt what nobody is sure about.”
from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
(quote based on “The Microbe” by Hilaire Belloc)
Naysayers are short-lived in technology because they lack any imagination.
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The rebels. The troublemakers. The ones who see things differently. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
Apple’s “Think Different” ad 1997
Sure. Even the Unabomber changed the world. He was crazy, or as some people assert in that ad, a genius?. Some of his old classmates at Harvard recently got a taste of his
genius-troublemaking, if you have followed the news.
And if crazy Steve Jobs had been genius enough to treat himself to a cheeseburger here and there (or anything with protein on a regular basis), he’d probably still be with us.
It’s why his doctors told him he had to eat something…
..or did none of you yobos read all of the Isaacson book?
Korgri
You can take any quote out of context. The add talks about those who create and make things better not the crazies who injure and destroy.
The Unabomber did not change the world in any way. He selfishly destroyed the lives of a few people for his own egotistical purposes, but we see politicians and other terrorists doing that every day. Being crazy is a necessary, but not sufficient condition to change the world. You have to persuade the world to come along.
The Unabomber changed the world by turning the hoodie into a sinister symbol and a fashion statement for mall thugs.
Hadn’t thought about that angle. There’s a way to fix that real quick. Have a bunch of old farts (like me) turn out in hoodies for a few months. That’s a sure way to end any fashion trend.
Steve continues laughing from Heaven. Computers and laptops will thrive and actually make a comeback — and they will be Apple computers. And other amazing Apple devices not yet out 🙂
Heaven?
Cleveland?
Apple won the PC wars, it’s just that most people don’t realize it yet.
Back in 2007, Steve Jobs said, “There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.’”
What he didn’t say was what he was going to do when he got there.
Microsoft, Nokia, RIM, Palm, OQO, HP, Dell, Asus, Samsung, Sony et al have now seen at their expense, the full-force result of the action Steve Jobs and Apple wreaked from not just having skated to a point of the “tablet puck” but shot on to score from there with the iPad!
That’s formidable. It’s called delivering a seismic shock in the market place. And even “putting a dent in the universe”.
Pivoting off in a different direction as I skate onward in my commentary, I sincerely hope Apple continues to set its own agenda and doesn’t fall victim to Wall Street expectations now that Tim Cook has relented to some of the pressures from that source.
This is an important point for Mr Cook to note: over the last decade or so, each of the above competitors paid Wall Street more attention than Apple and yet Apple came out on top.
So don’t follow the herd!
Resist the pressure from speculators who are merely interested in a “position” in Apple stock.
Apple is not behind the destruction of the PC laptop. Apple builds products that they would want to use themselves. If enough customers like what Apple does, then Apple will be successful, if not, they won’t. Steve Jobs has said this many times. Apple’s success depends on its customers. If customers don’t like the products Apple makes, then Apple will not succeed. A generalization perhaps, but it’s true.
bkire
Apple is already sucessful and poised to continue and further that success.
… are NOT “going the way of the typewriter” any more than mainframes were taken out by mini-computers or micro-computers (desktops). Sure, there was a rough patch where the mainframes had to retrench, then they recovered. Sure, they hold a modest niche of the total market, but they are selling better than they were before the smaller models hit the streets.
The thing of it is, tablets or phones may become more popular than the larger computers, but those larger computers will maintain their own niches for quite a while.
About Apple’s role in this. Figure Apple is like the 9/11 terrorists … they had a plan that worked out far beyond their wildest dreams. Sure, they had to plan, and work, and sacrifice to get it done, but much of their success was made possible by the failures of those who built their targets. MSFT is as much to blame for Apple’s success as Apple is. So is Dell and HP et. al. … they built crap and Apple took advantage of it.
Saying Apple is like the 9/11 terrorists is kind of twisted, don’t you think? They didn’t go into Microsoft and train as software engineers only to infect everyone with a virus. The terrorists came into our country, playing themselves as people wanting the dream, trained as pilots, then committed suicide and took thousands with them. How is that like Apple? Very poor analogy. Fail.
Desktops and Laptops
Indentured1 with Indentured1 this is a poor and absurd analogy.
Desktops and Laptops will be gonzo just like the typewriter-get over it.
Meanwhile, Apple’s laptops are selling just fine.
-jcr
The buying public is behind the destruction of the laptop. Apple just happens to sell products that the buying public wants. The buying public wants them because Apple makes products that are easy to use, and perform above expectation; also iTunes, and the App store play a large part in customer satisfaction. 🙂
Dude! You’re getting a Dell!
It’s a vast fruit wing conspiracy!!!
“fruit wing”, that’s pretty good, heh. (writes it down)
In the past desktops were the only option so everyone had to use them. Apple started that trend.
Then apple launched the laptop and over the years they have become the pc of choice.
Tablet have been around for 10 years but until apple got the formula right no one paid attention. Now people prefer to discover content using the iPad than a traditional pc.
Tech advaces has allowed apple to come up with new ways of using computers.
No other company can really make that claim. Most just copy.
There is still uses for desktops and laptops. However web browsing and gaming is often preferred on an iPad.
iCloud makes this change possible. Before iCloud, an iPad (and iPhone) owner had to have another “big” computer, and that other computer had to be a Mac or Windows PC running iTunes. Now, an iPad never needs to be connected to another computer, not even once. iOS devices are now independent computers. All the stuff that was previously done using a Docking Cable (except charging) can now be done through iCloud.
Having said that, Apple’s Mac business will continue to thrive. Apple may lose some MacBook sales to iPad, but that loss is more than offset by iPad (and iPhone) customers who become first-time Mac users. And that pool of current Windows users, also known as “potential switchers,” is still HUGE. It will fuel Mac sales grow for MANY years.
Microshat is responsible. DELL makes only the hardware and has to rely on some other company to deliver the OS. Linux does it for geeks but is not consumer friendly; and the public have little ambition to move from one OS to another – one of the reasons Apple try in the iPad to hide it behind a touch user interface.
Its the complete lack of Windows progress that will kill the PC
@DRMSSDB
They will be gone! So if you need your blankey, better stock up soon or buy from the companies like Dell that are behind the curve.
Personally, the real problem of the hardware makers is the software. It doesn’t matter how great you hardware would be if the software is crap!
They will always blame on Apple because they ended up making generic crap-hardware fot crap-software.
The big harware companies should join venture doing an all new OS (not based on Win/Droid). I don’t know, I would give linux a chance, it is Unix based like OS X after all 🙂
I was just thinking about how computers and consumer electronics would look/behave now if the industry didn’t have Apple’s excellence to compete against. It would still all be that same crap that apple is “destroying.” thanks Steve for raising the bar for EVERYONE.
‘That’s the reason why notebooks and netbooks seem to be going the way of the typewriter.’
And yet Apple’s laptop market share keeps growing.
Netbooks: Were crap from day 1. Easy pickings.
Windows anything: Were crap from day 1. Should be easy pickings, except Microsoft bought the business/enterprise market and brainwashed IT dweebs into submission. Also, Apple has never/ever provided coherent support for the enterprise. And, most of the major business systems apps were never ported to Mac. (Gee thanks Oracle).
The actual trend is integration of different technologies toward the same goals. Users are sick of being screwed over with crap tech from IT dweebs and bring in their own. I’ve been doing that since 1995. No Mac provided? Here is mine. Deal with it, IT dweebs.