OPINION
By KELVIN DAVIS
(Kelvin Davis is the director or Greymouse, a cloud service-provider that supplies high quality, time-bound and cost-efficient services through its own facility in Fiji.)
The whole structural change in the PC market has meant that at this very point in time, many PCs in the installed base are being replaced by tablets or even smart phones.
It’s also part of the huge innovation in “how we actually do our work” which has been clearly taken over by smart mobile utility.
The decline in the PC market is as vicious as any market disruption common to these modern times and it confirms that even though money is still out there, it has clearly changed preference for new opportunities.
http://tinyurl.com/crn-headlines-pc-market-eid-as
The numbers confirm it all
According to IDC, the core PC market in Australia is in sharp reverse and they have confirmed that:
- In the second quarter this year, the PC market declined by 21 per cent;
- The consumer market has been hit the worst with SMB market being down by 19 per cent;
- Forecasts in personal computers remain in the doldrums with shipments forecast to drop 11.7 per cent
http://tinyurl.com/crn-shipments-doldrums-idc-asp
Reasons for decline
- Tablet shipments are expected to surge and run far ahead of the humble PC by 2015 because of inexpensive, small-screened variants and changing consumer demand;
- The research agency (IDC) says within its latest forecast that tablet shipments are expected to reach 229.3 million units in 2013, a growth rate of 58.7 per cent in comparison to 144.5 million units in 2012.
- According to IDC, the change in consumer trends can be placed at the feet of low-cost Android devices.
- The worldwide average selling price of tablets running this operating system is expected to decline by 10.8 per cent to $381 whereas the average selling price of PCs is nearly double at $635.
- Tablets surpassing portables in 2013, and total PCs in 2015, marks a significant change in consumer attitudes about computer devices and the applications and ecosystems that power them.
- For many consumers, a tablet is a simple and elegant solution for core use cases that were previously addressed by the PC.
http://tinyurl.com/smartplanet-idc-pc-future-tag
Why Upgrade?
An Intel executive says the reason there is actually a marked struggle in PC sales is because there’s no “compelling” reason for people to upgrade their PC.
- Intel has tried to push the PC market forward with Ultrabooks – thinner, more attractive laptops with new form factors and longer battery life.
- Touch screens are one feature that will push people to upgrade. Intel added touch screens as a requirement to Haswell.
http://tinyurl.com/crn-news-pc-compelling-aspx
Enduring a 14 per cent drop in one quarter and then an 11 per cent drop in the next one definitely isn’t good yet for the sale of PC’s yet:
- It’s important to note that those drops don’t mean PC sales are down a total of 25 per cent for the year.
- The data is year-over-year, comparing each 2013 quarter to its corresponding quarter in 2012 therefore computer shipments in the second quarter of 2013 dropped by 11 percent compared to the second quarter of 2012, not compared to the first quarter of 2013.
- IDC says 75.6 million PCs were shipped in quarter two of this year – a drop of just 600,000 units from the first quarter of the year.
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http://tinyurl.com/pcworld-article-sales-decline
Even though a lot of tablet buyers feel that a lot of what they needed to do with a computer has been taken care of by a tablet, the question is will a tablet actually be a 100 percent substitute for a PC?
Will a tablet be the perfect PC replacement? Businesses I have spoken to know that it depends on the business or personal needs.
Personally, the Microsoft Surface RT that I use provides great mobility functionality as with all the applications I am used to.
Android is a new experience of different applications. However through this maize, my most efficient use of document preparation and office email still comes from a desktop PC.