“The personal computer business has been in the worst downturn since the industry’s inception, but Microsoft has shown a knack for finding ways to insulate itself,” Nick Wingfield reports for The New York Times. “Until now.”
“On Thursday, the company missed Wall Street forecasts, blaming the declining PC market for the shortfall. Microsoft also acknowledged the disappointing sales of one of its most prominent products, its Surface RT tablet computer, by taking a $900 million charge to reflect unsold inventory of the device,” Wingfield reports. “‘It finally caught up to them,’ said Colin W. Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners. ‘We’ve been in a PC recession for five quarters.'”
Wingfield reports, “Last week, the research firm Gartner reported that global PC shipments declined 10.9 percent in the second quarter of the year, the fifth consecutive quarter of declining PC shipments, the longest ever. Mobile devices have sapped much of the gusto out of the PC market. Many people are buying tablet computers, especially Apple’s iPad, instead of PCs to watch movies, surf the Web and write e-mails.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Tom R.” for the heads up.]
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