“IDC today drastically lowered its forecast for PC shipments in 2013, a prediction that if accurate means more bad news for Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system,” Gregg Keizer reports for Computerworld. “‘Lower PC sales are certainly not a positive for Microsoft,’ said Loren Loverde, an analyst at IDC who heads the research firm’s PC tracking data group. ‘This will have a direct impact on Microsoft.'”
“IDC, which earlier this year had assembled a rosier forecast, predicting that shipments would slightly increase in the second half of 2013 to end the year down only 1.3% compared to 2012, revised its estimates today,” Keizer reports. “According to the new forecast, PC shipments will decline 7.8% in 2013, drop another 1.2% in 2014, and along with the 4% decrease already posted for 2012, create an unprecedented three-year contraction. Not until 2015 will the industry show shipment gains, when the market expands by an estimated 1.4%.”
Keizer reports, “Even in 2017, as far out as IDC looks into the crystal ball, the PC shipment total of 333 million will still remain below 2012’s 349 million and 2011’s peak of 363 million.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Any negative for Microsoft is a positive for traditional personal computing.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Thumper” for the heads up.]
Duh! No one wants useless pieces of junk, of which 95% of Windooze PCs are!
I think the main advantage that OS X has over Windows is the aesthetics. Everything is logically laid out in its own place which is clearly labelled and everything follows a certain logical convention so you’re not lost navigating around the OS. The Dock helps immensely in this as apps are easily accessible. Those apps that are not immediately accessible on the Dock can be easily accessed via the Applications folder situated on the right side of the Dock or you could launch them via Launchpad. Everything is logically laid out with a sense of order.
Contrast that with Windows and the Start button. You need to look at an array of drop down menus to find the application you’re looking for. It’s just cumbersome. With the Mac, all settings are in System Preferences which you can get to by clicking on the little Apple logo on the leftmost side of the menu bar. Control Panel in Windows is just a cluttered mess. And the add/remove programs menulet in the Control Panel is just retarded. There are so many things wrong with the basic layout of Windows that you’re constantly fighting against the OS to get anything done. OS X gets out of your way and lets you focus on your task.
I think Microsoft realised that it had to overhaul Windows to get traction in the consumer market but they went overboard by enforcing the metaphors of a mobile operating system onto a desktop operating system without a clear line separating the two. I feel this is MS’s biggest mistake. I don’t particularly want to touch my desktop computer’s screen when a trackpad lets me manipulate onscreen objects without needing to lift my fingers from the keyboard area.
It’s no wonder that PC sales are declining. People are militating against MS and finding alternate ways of satisfying their computing needs, whether that be through iPads or Macs or Android tablets or some other form of computing. People with longer memories will remember how MS messed up mobile with Windows Mobile 6 and learn not to trust MS again. I gave up on MS when they introduced the Ribbon interface to everything, adding unnecessary complexity in the process.
I see people all the time now toting Macs. It’s becoming more and more prevalent. People who would have never considered a Mac as their primary computer are jumping ship off the MS bandwagon and are ultimately happier for doing so. The anti-MS train is strong and getting stronger every minute that MS messes up its bread and butter operating system.
Apple’s Mac sales are lifting those numbers. Apple’s Macs are lumped into the PC numbers and the Mac’s growth rate continues to widen away from the Windows RoadKill. Even if the Mac is cannibalized some by Apple’s iPad, Apple still wins!
This is a critical point completely missed by the article that drives a wooden stake into the heart of count micro whereby artificially pumping up the numbers of PCs sold, Apple makes a terrible situation for windows look less grim.
This reduction is not ALL because of tablets becoming more popular. It’s because no one really likes Windows 8. Customers (especially in “enterprise”) do not want to replace their old PCs with new ones that are more expensive and less efficient in actual use, because touching the screen is an integral part of the user interface.
> Not until 2015 will the industry show shipment gains…
Maybe, because that’s probably about the time the replacement for Windows 8 will be out, trying to do what Windows 7 did after the Vista disaster.
We have no evidence Microsoft is capable of releasing something following windows 8 that fixes the problems caused by windows 8 in such a short time frame.
Windows 7 after Window Vista.
I can foresee windows turning into a corporate / power user OS and it will leave the consumer market.
OSX/iOS can’t handle high performance work. Windows can, it’ll be a back of the house OS.
OSX will have 85% of the home desktop / laptop market. iOS will be 95% of the tablet and phone market, they’re the best.
Windows will rule the corporate worlds just because OSX is impossible to manage on an enterprise level. And jt cant do anytjing high end . it can only ser 96gb of ram ? thats a jole And they’re enterprise service sucks. They’ll also do great in the back of the house. Like IBM.
Apple doesn’t seem to be interested in performance computing, the consumer market is where apple makes money, and as shareholder that makes me money.
“OSX/iOS can’t handle high performance work. Windows can, it’ll be a back of the house OS.”
Really? REALLY???!!!
You do realize that OS X is POSIX compliant Unix, the absolute epitome of a workhorse OS, inherently light years ahead of Windows for basic security.
I worked for a company retrieving a million records of live data every 15 minutes, about 25 GB per hour, analyzing it, storing it, and assembling reports on it in a massive DB. Windows was a major pain in the ass to try to use for anything but the front end interface. Wherever we needed heavy duty computing power from our OS we used IBM Linux. You need to get a clue.
I agree because replacing 100 thousand dollar video editing systems by avid with a Mac equipped with final cut, and doing trivial things like write novels, data analysis, create and manage websites, and write software for iPads and iPhones is not ‘real’ work…
Show me a laptop that has 96gb of ram by the way I’d like to see this!
Hmm…and here I was thinking that all these years that the argument was that Windows “won” back in the 80s and 90s, because all business needed was a cheap box that would allow people to use email, write some letters, and surf the web and combat viruses. Now they apparently do “real” heavy work.
What you may be arguing is probably what you mention in your last paragraph; Apple may not be interested in pursuing the enterprise-level environment; not that they couldn’t, just that they don’t see much advantage in it…right now. Who knows in the future.
Apple’s machines are more than beast enough to do heavy lifting. And if there is a real need for more and bigger “trucks”, then Apple will make more and bigger trucks. And with their philosophy of not gouging the customer on “per seat” charges with their server software, they could certainly floor MS on the server side if they chose to. The real secret is, Apple is putting business class machines in the hands of consumers.
I don’t see Windows as a necessary part of running a business anymore. We have been transitioning to Macs to rid ourselves of the disease that is Microsoft.
But what about Microsoft Office, some of you scream in fear! Well, we dumped that piece of crap long ago. We changed a number of our work flows and use software written by independent Mac developers. As a result, we have become more efficient and increased our turnover.
I guess the lesson is, don’t be afraid! It really is better on the Mac!
Microsoft will do fine. But the PC makers will face hard times. And if I read that right IDC thinks that PC shipments in 2017 will return to ok levels. Not like in 2007-2008 I guess but at par with 2012 is probably good.