Back From the Dead Again 1997
The marked refuse in PC sales in recent years has prompted many commentators to pronounce the PC as dead.
Merely those rumours may have been greatly exaggerated, if the latest figures from analyst house Gartner are to be believed.
While worldwide PC shipments declined by almost 10 percent in 2013, at that place was simply a 0.5 percent subtract in shipments year-on-year during the most recent quarter of 2014. In the United states of america and Europe the number of PCs shipped during the quarter actually increased over the year before, up iv.2 percent in the US and 9.ane percent in Europe, Center E and Africa.
Lead analyst at Gartner Ranjit Atwal attributed the rise to a number of factors, only principally businesses refreshing their PCs running Windows XP, which stopped being publicly supported past Microsoft in April this year.
"On the professional side nosotros see growth from connected Windows XP migration. That'south really driving growth in the desktop to notebook professional market. Especially in North America and Western Europe. They're migrating from XP to newer operating systems, by and large Windows 7 and in some cases Windows 8," he said.
Atwal expects migrations abroad from XP by smaller firms will continue to buoy upwards PC sales.
"In that location'southward still a larger small and medium business concern segment out there that will keep this going for probably a couple of quarters," he said.
"We've gone from a minus ten percent [shipments] last year to minus ane percent this year to maybe slightly positive growth next yr. What I don't await is that nosotros'll become back to minus ten percent again next year."
However, in one case businesses accept replaced machines running XP that doesn't mean PC sales will exist dorsum in freefall, Atwal said, every bit consumer demand for the latest crop of lighter, thinner PCs with better battery life – the likes of ultrabooks, 2-in-1s and tablet convertibles – grows.
"What we've seen in the last quarter, and volition probably see in this quarter also, is more than life in the consumer side.
"We've been through that trough of change and those who have PCs now volition come back into the market and look to replace them. But at that place'southward also a portfolio of PC products out at that place – 2-in-1s, tablets hybrids, convertibles that have the battery life and are thinner and lighter, so will tick a lot of the boxes that users are looking for."
While shipments of PCs are showing signs of recovery, demand for tablets is slowing , with Atwal describing the shifting fortunes as a rebalancing of the market place for calculating devices.
"The install base of PCs grew really, really quickly considering between 2008 and 2010 in that location weren't whatsoever alternatives, and then anybody that needed access to the internet purchased a PC. What nosotros've seen over the past few years is a filtering out of that install base. Those who institute better alternatives have moved. The install base is smaller and instead of getting annual volumes of 400 million we're more towards the 300 million kind of level," he said, indicating that user base may now stabilise.
Some who bought tablets are now choosing to supercede them with PCs or deciding they also need a PC, co-ordinate to Atwal.
"We're seeing overall tablet book slow down. Specially in the Us where there'due south been a lot of penetration of tablets over the final few years, especially with iPads.
"There'southward a little flake of a trend back towards PCs, with a realisation by users that a tablet might not exercise everything they want it to."
PC shipments take grown in what Gartner terms "mature markets" for calculating devices, with the analyst firm expecting similar patterns of adoption in the emerging markets "some time later in 2015".
Atwal expects to see businesses and consumers will settle on a mix of computing devices – spanning phones, tablets and PCs.
"It's a combination of tablets and PCs and even phones as well, as they go larger screen sizes. So really the next motility is into those combinational devices. Information technology'due south about what sort of screen existent estate or what sort of weight you need for the kind of work you do."
Ultimately, in spite of the doubtfulness over prospects for the PC market place, the PC was never really dead, he added.
"It was never the case that PC was always going to disappear. It was always a menses of readjustment."
Source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-pc-back-from-the-dead-again/
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