There Is No Doubt The PC Market Is In Trouble

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Why do people keep saying this stuff? I know it is the trend these days but the whole doom and gloom "the PC is dead" thing is getting old.

There's no doubt that the PC market is in trouble. And for Intel, that's a real problem -- how do you market yourself when your bread-and-butter processor business is on the decline? By showing what else you can do, apparently.
 
Intel is in competition with itself. People don't replace unless its worth it.
 
Because if they repeat it often enough and it eventually becomes true, someone can say "We saw this coming back in [insert arbitrary year]!"
 
Businesses still need those CPU for their data center, servers and workstations. I believe that's where a majority of Intel's revenue comes from. Doesn't mean Intel has to be in trouble to expand to other markets, as long as their product is applicable elsewhere, might as well take advantage of it.
 
PC gamers have been used to this "PC is dead / dying" talking for a long time now. This is old hat.
 
Standard sign of a mature product cycle. Everyone has one and the primary sales are now replacements. Smartphone sales are entering the same mode causing Apple to lower futures sales estimates. Same problem Microsoft has with Windows. Properly patched, Win 7 or 8.1 is all most folks need running on their two to five year old PC.
 
We need some computer program that hogs a lot of CPU cycles and memory that people need I guess.
 
The Washing Machine is in trouble due to stable sales of a mature product ... people expected to wear dirty clothes or go au naturale

Microwave ovens are in trouble due to stable sales of a mature product ... people expected to eat sandwiches or starve

The PC is in trouble due to stable sales of a mature product ... people expected to use their 5" smartphones to do spreadsheets until they get frustrated and throw their phone against the wall and return to the home computer to do their calculations on their 27" home system :cool:
 
tetris42 said:
PC gamers have been used to this "PC is dead / dying" talking for a long time now. This is old hat.
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Except that it's not only affecting OEMs building PCs for idiots, the custom PC market has also seen a slowdown:

http://208.94.245.218/addcomment-id...for-the-year-to-decline-by-21.7-percents.html

ECS took a large enough hit to exit the market entirely.

Next year expect the number of different models to drop, and for prices to rise at the high-end. They have to make up that lost revenue somewhere :D

I don't think this decline will be sustained (if it is, MSI is in some SERIOUS trouble), but the custom PC market is not bulletproof.
 
defaultluser said:
Except that it's not only affecting OEMs building PCs for idiots, the custom PC market has also seen a slowdown:

http://208.94.245.218/addcomment-id...for-the-year-to-decline-by-21.7-percents.html

ECS took a large enough hit to exit the market entirely.

Next year expect the number of different models to drop, and for prices to rise at the high-end. They have to make up that lost revenue somewhere :D

I don't think this decline will be sustained (if it is, MSI is in some SERIOUS trouble), but the custom PC market is not bulletproof.
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A maturing market is not a slowdown. Makers need to be satisfied with dividing the available demand, they can't keep expecting the market to keep expanding forever. This is the same problem the big game publishers are having right now. You can't keep increasing you profits because they have all the customers that are available for their product. Unless Intel or AMD pulls some new innovations out of their asses and then software is written to support it we're not going to see a big uptick in PC sales ever again.
 
the reason is have you seen kids these days and how much they do on their mobile phones you put them in-front of a pc and they would have no clue how to use it
 
maxius said:
the reason is have you seen kids these days and how much they do on their mobile phones you put them in-front of a pc and they would have no clue how to use it
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My kids are pretty equally adept at any piece of technology I put in front of them. Makes me happy. As they've gotten a little older, they've asked for desktop PCs instead of consoles to play their games on too. Even without me coaxing them in that direction. The end-result is that I have enough people to play LAN games with again, since I don't see my friends as much as I used to. :D My own little digital army. (daughters play Borederlands with me for example) We have a LOT of PCs in our house.
 
A mature market is part of it. Another part is that we all know that in truth consoles really were just gimped PCs. Oh they had nice graphics, but come on, a box with a CPU, RAM, GPU (even if on-board), NIC, and a hard drive, is a PC even if it is compact and has a funny looking HID. So consoles are just PCs that have been optimized for mostly entertainment purposes.

No matter, maxius is right about the phone thing and it's easy to see why the mobile market is such a target. People keep their phones with them all the time and the development costs for apps, even entertainment apps, they are a fraction of what it costs to produce a serious PC title.

But I still don't buy off on the PC is deed line.
 
We need some kind of social movement to let the world know that PCs are not dead and the journalists attacking us are wrong.
 
Microsoft may be killing off the PC themselves because of their Windows 10 crap shoving down our throats.

Microshaft is saying that if you have a Skylake or newer processor, that if you run anything earlier than their piece of crap Windows 10, that you won't get any more updates.

So if PCs fail, you can blame Microsoft... I bet Intel will get bit on this as well for less new Skylake components being sold. This comes AFTER I already built a new Skylake rig. I guess Microsoft needs to buy my new PC...

http://www.techspot.com/news/63501-microsoft-all-new-processors-only-compatible-windows-10.html
 
I agree. It is a mature market, and with average PC power where it is, most people don't need to upgrade unless they run specialist software (CAD/Design, Audio/Video, DB/etc.) or play high-end games. The lowest of the low PCs right now will run typically business suites, browse the web, open emails, and play casual games. There's not a compelling reason for mainstream users to upgrade their hardware, and many of those people also use mobile devices.

Overall sales may flatten out or decline a bit, but there is still going to be a sub-section of people that will always need more power. Especially with emerging technologies like AR/VR. If anything we're starting to see MORE reasons to upgrade, just not for the baseline mainstream users.

All of that aside, as soon as there is a small non-upgradeable box with the capability of driving high resolution displays at high frame rates, while running a flexible general purpose OS, I won't miss desktop PCs as we know them currently. In the meantime though, nobody's taking mine unless I'm dead.
 
J3RK said:
I agree. It is a mature market, and with average PC power where it is, most people don't need to upgrade unless they run specialist software (CAD/Design, Audio/Video, DB/etc.) or play high-end games. The lowest of the low PCs right now will run typically business suites, browse the web, open emails, and play casual games. There's not a compelling reason for mainstream users to upgrade their hardware, and many of those people also use mobile devices.

Overall sales may flatten out or decline a bit, but there is still going to be a sub-section of people that will always need more power. Especially with emerging technologies like AR/VR. If anything we're starting to see MORE reasons to upgrade, just not for the baseline mainstream users.

All of that aside, as soon as there is a small non-upgradeable box with the capability of driving high resolution displays at high frame rates, while running a flexible general purpose OS, I won't miss desktop PCs as we know them currently. In the meantime though, nobody's taking mine unless I'm dead.
Click to expand...

Was agreeing with Icpiper, it just took me too long to type that. :D
 
ShagnWagn said:
Microsoft may be killing off the PC themselves because of their Windows 10 crap shoving down our throats.

Microshaft is saying that if you have a Skylake or newer processor, that if you run anything earlier than their piece of crap Windows 10, that you won't get any more updates.

So if PCs fail, you can blame Microsoft... I bet Intel will get bit on this as well for less new Skylake components being sold. This comes AFTER I already built a new Skylake rig. I guess Microsoft needs to buy my new PC...

http://www.techspot.com/news/63501-microsoft-all-new-processors-only-compatible-windows-10.html
Click to expand...

everyone and dog is misinterpreting what m$ has said... it will work just past that date and you will still get updates for skylake and newer processors just if a patch they push breaks your os they no longer officially support that configuration
 
Stupid peoples is stupid. As CPUs change in use and function some people can't cope with their change in form.
 
evilsofa said:
We need some kind of social movement to let the world know that PCs are not dead and the journalists attacking us are wrong.
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Why? The people that make products for that market know the deal, their checkbooks ain't lying :rolleyes:
 
The Maximum PC people will tell you otherwise their mag is all about Extreme Desktop PCs Gordon was ranting for years on how the PC is more robust money saving and more effective then anything out there and he's right.
 
90% of the PC's sold in the past 5 years will run the majority of software needed in most home and/or office situations. The other 10% have higher requirements or special software.

Go back 15 years. A 5 year old PC is a dinosaur requiring an upgrade.

The PC isn't dying. It's extremely efficient and CPU's are doing their job a little too well. It's almost like that "Planned Obsolescence" thing went out the window a few years back.
 
Hi All
We have been hearing this for years now. Has growth slowed? Yes as others have said PC's last longer now, they are more efficient. Folk aren't upgrading as often.
 
Comixbooks said:
The Maximum PC people will tell you otherwise their mag is all about Extreme Desktop PCs Gordon was ranting for years on how the PC is more robust money saving and more effective then anything out there and he's right.
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No, not for everything.

For most business applications, virtualization rules in every way. Virtual desktops may still be running on Intel but the processors are Xeon, not Core. :D
 
Doesn't matter. New applications will continue to drive the hardware train. Take Virtual Reality for instance, The recommended minimum specs are pretty stiff. I just built a new gaming system and because I opted to build for 1080P gaming my brand new system wouldn't cut it. I would need a new video card for sure, the rest would be OK.

Look, AGP graphics drove me to buy a new motherboard that would support it. I upgraded again for PCI Express, and for SATA and again for USB3.0. Usually these corresponded with processor and/or RAM upgrades as well. PCs are pretty solid but in the end the software and or new hardware capabilities will continue to drive upgrades.
 
Good, let it die then, at least somehow satisfy the fucking people so they stop talking about it. Honestly, I'm ok with everyone moving away from the PC. I am tried of hearing about it.
 
SixFootDuo said:
Good, let it die then, at least somehow satisfy the fucking people so they stop talking about it. Honestly, I'm ok with everyone moving away from the PC. I am tried of hearing about it.
Click to expand...

He was tried, had a hearing and all :p
 
lcpiper said:
Doesn't matter. New applications will continue to drive the hardware train. Take Virtual Reality for instance, The recommended minimum specs are pretty stiff. I just built a new gaming system and because I opted to build for 1080P gaming my brand new system wouldn't cut it. I would need a new video card for sure, the rest would be OK.

Look, AGP graphics drove me to buy a new motherboard that would support it. I upgraded again for PCI Express, and for SATA and again for USB3.0. Usually these corresponded with processor and/or RAM upgrades as well. PCs are pretty solid but in the end the software and or new hardware capabilities will continue to drive upgrades.
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How much will VR change the whole PC industry, though. Even among gamers, it'll be a niche market. Office workers won't go for it.
 
Ur_Mom said:
How much will VR change the whole PC industry, though. Even among gamers, it'll be a niche market. Office workers won't go for it.
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That will depend on the software. If a few really good games with excellent implementations come out, it'll start to spread. It's still not going to go the Office workers, but I can see it being wide-spread for gamers. (or not, that remains to be seen, but it is possible)

I can see office workers getting some use out of AR though.
 
J3RK said:
I can see office workers getting some use out of AR though.
Click to expand...

I see maintenance workers getting a LOT of use from it. Right now, our maintenance workers are wanting iPad's or Surface's to view PDF's. They used to print them, but now put them on a laptop. Having an AR with the detailed parts being displayed (or even stats of the current view - RPM, etc.) would be a huge thing for them. Niche, still, but very valuable.
 
Ur_Mom said:
I see maintenance workers getting a LOT of use from it. Right now, our maintenance workers are wanting iPad's or Surface's to view PDF's. They used to print them, but now put them on a laptop. Having an AR with the detailed parts being displayed (or even stats of the current view - RPM, etc.) would be a huge thing for them. Niche, still, but very valuable.
Click to expand...

I used to work for a civil engineering firm that was just starting to get into 3D scanning the sites they were going to develop. I could see it being very useful there too, because they could actually visualize their plans and CAD drawings as well as the scanned location while standing at the location.
 
How come none of these writers have figured out that, making less money, it not making no money. As long as they keep making a profit, they aren't going away. The problem is the focus of these public companies. Making the same profit over and over again doesn't please investors. They want the big payday, so you have to keep trying to increase profit.

That or be like IBM and not give a crap. Instead pay dividends and keep on trucking along.
 
krotch said:
How come none of these writers have figured out that, making less money, it not making no money. As long as they keep making a profit, they aren't going away. The problem is the focus of these public companies. Making the same profit over and over again doesn't please investors. They want the big payday, so you have to keep trying to increase profit.

That or be like IBM and not give a crap. Instead pay dividends and keep on trucking along.
Click to expand...
Because their job isn't to report anymore. It's to troll you with articles so outrageous people click on them and they get paid.
 
Its not dead, but really they are just lasting longer. I used to upgrade all the time so I could game with ultra settings (or whatever the highest was) but lately most games are geared towards consoles and my current rig seems to play anything I want to play just fine. Yeah I've upgraded the video card b/c there were no drivers available for my card, but it isn't the newest. The processor and such I believe is from 08 or 09 and so far its taking everything I can throw at it so why upgrade?
Until I run across something I do on a regular basis that annoys me that the computer won't handle I'll upgrade then.
 
ShagnWagn said:
Microsoft may be killing off the PC themselves because of their Windows 10 crap shoving down our throats.

Microshaft is saying that if you have a Skylake or newer processor, that if you run anything earlier than their piece of crap Windows 10, that you won't get any more updates.

So if PCs fail, you can blame Microsoft... I bet Intel will get bit on this as well for less new Skylake components being sold. This comes AFTER I already built a new Skylake rig. I guess Microsoft needs to buy my new PC...

http://www.techspot.com/news/63501-microsoft-all-new-processors-only-compatible-windows-10.html
Click to expand...

well, I think MS is androidizing (fully connected, always updating, 100% spied, nearly 100% online, company centralized (google)) Windows.. now I don't know if they are following the inevitable market direction, or they are destroying the desktop (such as it was) themselves. I now tend to think they are following the market, even if I don't like the direction.. it is what it is, it seems they days of powerful desktops with a lot of off-line software are a slowly dying chapter.
Still don't get why not android desktops? it already runs on x86.. there is still a lot to do with a desktop, even if androidzed... So windows is androided, why not actual android too in a desktop and call it a day.
 
Uvaman2 said:
well, I think MS is androidizing (fully connected, always updating, 100% spied, nearly 100% online, company centralized (google)) Windows.. now I don't know if they are following the inevitable market direction, or they are destroying the desktop (such as it was) themselves. I now tend to think they are following the market, even if I don't like the direction.. it is what it is, it seems they days of powerful desktops with a lot of off-line software are a slowly dying chapter.
Click to expand...

I think a lot of times people use the word "spying" so little thoughts. Connected devices that can leverage and share personal data allow computing devices to be used that simply aren't achievable with disconnected stand-alone devices. Files that can only be accessed by one device, contacts stuck on a device, web favorites, music. Voice interaction, location awareness, etc. They provide experiences that couldn't exist when PCs started to take the form many know them in the late 70s. Even geeks at the time had no idea about the Internet and how it would transform everything, as much and even more than desktop computers.

Uvaman2 said:
Still don't get why not android desktops? it already runs on x86.. there is still a lot to do with a desktop, even if androidzed... So windows is androided, why not actual android too in a desktop and call it a day.
Click to expand...

The vast majority of Android devices are phones and so are the apps developed for it. It's a low resource touch first OS that was never intended to work like a true desktop OS. Even when you add desktop functionality, apps would need to be written to support that. A lot of work for what? There's a number of Android emulators that allow Android apps to run on desktops and for many apps it works pretty well. But so many of the apps were clearly only mean for phones and just don't work well with keyboards and mice and large monitors.
 
heatlesssun said:
The vast majority of Android devices are phones and so are the apps developed for it. It's a low resource touch first OS that was never intended to work like a true desktop OS. Even when you add desktop functionality, apps would need to be written to support that. A lot of work for what? There's a number of Android emulators that allow Android apps to run on desktops and for many apps it works pretty well. But so many of the apps were clearly only mean for phones and just don't work well with keyboards and mice and large monitors.
Click to expand...

Besides which Google already has a desktop operating system, Chrome OS ... they may eventually integrate them into a single OS (like Windows) down the road when the phones become more powerful but for now Google is happy supporting both products separately apparently
 
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