Is the PC industry going down? More and more people are buying tablets and can do just about everything on a tablet as on a PC with the exception of a few tasks. As the link below shows some more detail with a nice chart, Microsoft seems to have screwed up with Windows and causing the PC sales to decline. Although, for me as a system builder it’s good because I’m able to build a computer with Windows 7 on it rather than them going to the store and buying a Windows 8 which I’ve only been hearing complaints about.
People are willing to pay extra to downgrade their Windows 8 to Windows 7. When is Microsoft going to pick up on this and make it optional instead of forcing all devices to be like tablets. For those who want tablets, we will buy them, if we want a PC, we want a PC, not computer that physically looks like a PC but software that acts like a tablet.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/11/pc-business-microsoft-windows-8
What people need to understand is what their needs are when buying a computer, tablet or smart phone for that matter. If you know what software you will be running on it, how much power you need to run it, how large of a screen, etc. it will be easier to know if you would be more productive on a desktop, more convenient with a laptop or tablet, and if Windows 8 will be of benefits keeping everything in sync between all your devices, or if you would rather keep life simple and stick with Windows 7.
If Microsoft skips out of Windows 7 and goes full tilt with Windows 8, I think this is where we will lose a lot of people to Apple, and Apple is not even trying to win the PC market, they are after the smart phone market which is what they got. Apple is not necessarily a better product, people just assume they don’t have problems but learn afterwards they do have problems, but at least they have a fairly easy to use interface still. For me to keep waiting for Linux to get enough support to run the latest version of all the business software year after year and feel confident that there will always be support, we are not there yet. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few years in this industry.
A laptop and and tablet are equally as inconvenient to carry.
If a manufacturer ever wakes up and puts a proper handle on a lap top, people will be okay with a little extra weight which will likely also mean more computing time on the device too.
But I am also of a mind that tablets are what the big software players want, computers without hard drives or software, computers that are really just access terminals for software and data that is all on the cloud. I don’t like it, but I can see it coming.
G
you are right daniel.windows 8 for a desktop is dumb. i am no comp guru but but as your average user i will be sticking 2 win7. i skipped vista altogether it was junk also.