Windows PC numbers going down the drain - at least for those connect to the web

[zMeul]

1 minute ago, Dabombinable said:

Also, for example there wasn't a demand for Kabylake at all, yet we got it anyway. And it was the same for Broadwell.

there's no demand for kaby!? you create one

how?! simple! DRM - Netflix UHD streaming tied to W10, Edge and Kaby iGPU

[TidaLWaveZ]

13 hours ago, Atmos said:

A Mobile OS cannot be compared to a traditional computer OS.

For christ sake people, apples and pears are not the same thing.

 

Also... as @Daring has said, without actual numbers, all this shows is that android is booming right now. Although a HUGE percentage of that android market is on cheap "semi" smart phones with only very rudimentary online functionality in the third world.

Exactly.

 

I don't know why they would call this market share if they are comparing different markets. 

 

People and businesses alike are not migrating from Windows to Android, it's just that people have phones and tablets that they use in addition to their desktops/laptops. Android is neither a competitor or a substitute for a full pc os and Windows is still nearly 90% market share in terms of real PC operating systems.

[ATFink]

1 hour ago, zMeul said:

that's just theory talk

 

if the production lines are working, it means the manufacturer loses money - "he" has to pay the workers for scratching their noses

"he" will either

• drop the product
• shrink the manufacturing line and retask the rest to more lucrative endeavors

both will end up with a cost increase

 

---

 

when was the last time you saw a tech product price drop?

it only happens when manufacturers produce and sell in large quantities

 

MS's Surface RT case - extremely poor sales

what MS did? lower the price?!? nop! they wrote off all the inventory and recycled every last one of them

I agree with your sentiments above the dashed line, but that does not negate my point in my original post. I still maintain my position that oversupply will decrease sale price until the oversupply thins out into scarcity. Then sale price will match to create more profits. The Great Depression of the US in the late 1920's was in part caused by overproduction and unsold product. I agree overproduction is not good, but incurring a full loss rather than a partial loss is worse. Your argument of "pay the workers to scratch their noses" is entirely pointless. Yes, of course workers have to get paid, that's why products are sold for a profit, and that's why selling a product responsibly (i.e. partial loss on the last remaining units left unsold) is actually not a bad thing. Most oversupply is not a drastic portion of sales, but instead the straggler units that weren't sold due to rounding error or overestimation. Might as well only suffer a minor loss on the few remaining units at the end than incur a full loss that may actually be notable.

 

I disagree that only quantity decreases price... look how many similarly performing i7s exist nowadays stretching back to haswell... they're practically identical in performance and have barely decreased in price at all despite 3 and a half years of practically the same production on what is supposed to be a year to year performance gain.

 

Last couple of times I've seen tech prices drop due to oversupply:

• This PSU had a $20 MIR earlier today. Oops, just notice the rebate was removed... I guess $24 for this unit was too good a deal to pass up and an increase in demand removed the need for a rebate as an incentive: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139026&cm_re=corsair_cx-_-17-139-026-_-Product
• I bought my sapphire nitro r9 fury for $235 ($255+$20 MIR) through newegg as a new product in early December... looks like they ran out of unused units in the warehouse today and only have used market options now: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0ZX52Z9434&cm_re=r9_fury-_-14-202-186-_-Product

Surface RT failure:

You do realize that the rt surface was a big problem even existing in the public's eyes right? The existence of these monstrosities threatened the sales of all future surfaces by simply existing. A non-techy person interested in buying the surface would pick the cheapest surface available (surface rt), decide it is crap without considering the craptastic arm instruction set it followed, and never buy another surface again. These users would probably tell there friends/coworkers just how bad their experience was and inform there colleagues not to buy a surface because of the paper weight the one consumer bought. To compound the issue online reviews would backup this sentiment because it was not a problem constrained to an individual unit... it effected ALL surface RTs. Letting a public debacle like this occur would have threatened the newly formed surface product line Microsoft just invested Billions of dollars into developing. Might as well pull these crappy units from the shelves and incur a loss per unit instead of miss a sale on the $800 entry price unit today that wouldn't occur due to the major share of surfaces in the public's eye being horrible and not selling new units at all (due to rt variants being the major public share of surfaces, of course your average consumer won't know the difference). This would have created a prolonged stagnation that could have threatened the existence of Microsoft's new surface lineup in its entirety. Of course pulling the units was the best option in this scenario. Instead of trashing what they had they recycled the units to recoup some of the loss.

[Ryujin2003]

19 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Percentages really don't mean anything to me if I don't have actual numbers to go along with it.

 

For example, what if in Mar 2012 the total number of devices was 1 billion and today the total number is 2.5 billion? That doesn't tell me the PC market is dying. It's just stale.

Especially if you picture each household having at least 1 computer (kids having access for school and what not), then each page t and child having a smart phone. The ratio is already skewed. So in that home alone, there are more Android/iOS devices on the internet than Windows based PCs.

[Daiyus]

14 hours ago, sgloux3470 said:

People own multiple devices.  I'm sure there is a sizeable demographic that has moved completely to tablets and smartphones though.

Exactly my first thought. I own a Windows PC and an Android phone. My wife owns a Windows laptop and an Android phone. In my family alone we're running at 50% either way and we're unusual in that I'm a PC guy.

 

Most people these days simply don't need an advanced OS, high powered system as basically anything can do simple web-browsing, media duties, etc especially with the advent of networked peripherals such as printers. Even I do most of my research tasks on my phone rather than sitting at my computer (unless I'm at work).

 

Windows isn't dying, it's just becoming more niche; businesses will still use it primarily, and the enthusiasts will maintain their own rigs as well. If (and it won't, but if) Windows ever did "die" Linux would roll along and pick up the pieces in a combined community effort anyway. Nobody needs to be worried, or indeed shocked by this news at all.

[unsubscribed]

All good here. In 2012 most of us were using 'dumb' phones and most of portable market was either overpriced or just not there yet. Now you can get nifty looking and decent performing laptop/tabled and phone for under €300. We simply haven't reached the saturation yet. But it's coming, so does the real fate for desktops - gamer and productivity oriented. It won't be cheap lads.

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

This means absolutely nothing; not only are the important numbers missing, but there is no word on where exactly these percentages are coming from.

[Dabombinable]

9 hours ago, zMeul said:

there's no demand for kaby!? you create one

how?! simple! DRM - Netflix UHD streaming tied to W10, Edge and Kaby iGPU

And that hasn't worked out well has it. Especially with most people still preferring to keep on using Windows 7 over Windows 10 for a wide range of reason.

[weez]

I know it's already been said but most homes have more mobile devices than windows PC's. Most families only need one PC but everyone has their own phone. Doesn't mean the PC market is dying.

 

My home has 2 PC's and 4 Android devices (2 phones, 2 tablets). And most everyone I know has about the same. 1 PC, at least 2 phones, and maybe 1-2 tablets. 

[Zodiark1593]

The crowd of people that, before the Smartphone Era, used their PCs for email, browsing, social networking, etc, are now using smartphones to accomplish these same tasks. A modern pc is simply excessive for this use case, and inconvenient compared to using the device you most likely have on hand. 

 

However, there has been a rise in PC gaming as of late, and Nvidia and AMD are selling video cards in droves. This supports OP's theory that casuals are more likely to drop the PC in favor of their handheld device (though they may keep an old PC around for picture storage).

 

However, the niches that require a PC seem to incur a steady growth in itself, and said niches require higher end, higher margin hardware than what OEMs typically deal in. Ultimately, I think it would be the standard pc OEMs (HP, Dell, etc) that would struggle in the consumer space. Casuals don't need to buy a new PC aside from replacing a broken one, and power users and gamers are like to overlook these OEMs entirely.