This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
PC Shipments Collapse At Fastest Pace On Record
"Interest in PCs has remained limited, leading to little indication of positive growth beyond replacement of existing systems," is IDC's under-stated way of saying that personal-computer shipments are projected to fall 10.1% this year, by far the biggest annual decline on record. At IDC’s projected sales rates, shipments worldwide will stay at just more than 300 million through 2017, or barely above 2008 levels.
As IDC notes,
"Perhaps the chief concern for future PC demand is a lack of reasons to replace an older system," said Jay Chou, Senior Research Analyst, Worldwide Quarterly PC Trackers at IDC.
"While IDC research finds that the PC still remains the primary computing device – for example, PCs are used more hours per day than tablets or phones – PC usage is nonetheless declining each year as more devices become available.
And despite industry efforts, PC usage has not moved significantly beyond consumption and productivity tasks to differentiate PCs from other devices. As a result, PC lifespans continue to increase, thereby limiting market growth."
»
- 15378 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Creative destruction, Bitches!!!!
i thought it was all the people who had the courage to throw out their teeveees finally got the courage to throw out their peeceees.....
XP 4 LYFE!!one11eleven!!
Well XP wasn't the flaming bag of poo that the three releases that followed it were.
Exactly.
I guess I don't really understand the point of OS upgrades. As long as it does what it's supposed to do(operate), why would you upgrade?
Visuals? That's for girls.
Actually counter-intuitive; when an OS is no longer supported, it means there are no more nuisance IE security upgrades. Like it was secure before or after.
No more support for XP after April 8th. Roughly 50% of business workstations are running XP. No updates equal no security patches. Businesses will have to upgrade. Smart businesses will upgrade to Windows 7 while supplies last. Windows 8.1 sucks.
If you continue to run XP after April you will be a prime target for hacking.
"Perhaps the chief concern for future PC demand is a lack of reasons to replace an older system,"
The PC I use is custom-made: http://www.frontiernet.net/~jimbot/allsparkproject.htm
A few components have been replaced over the last 6 years. Linux does everything I need a PC to do.
Guess I'll have to replace my Son's Windoze XP installation with Windoze 7...
Raspberry PI is kinda interesting for specific tasks. They are tiny little computers that only cost 35 bucks (base) and can be setup to run specific tasks. You probably wont use one as a primary computer but you could if you wanted
http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs
A few things that you can use a PI for (there are tons of others, this is just a sample)
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/desktops/25-fun-things-to-do-with-a-raspberry-...
Bah! Everyone knows Microsoft IE "security upgrades" are designed to make things run slower and make you dissatisfied with your trusty old computer so you will "upgrade" to newer hardware and Windows 8
I'm still running XP Pro with SP3 on the desktop, and will probably continue to do so until the box dies, and I've got some spare motherboards and shit...
If I do ever replace this desktop with another box, I'll pull the new hard drive and replace it with the one I have. (and screw with drivers like forever...)
I have a notebook with 7 which is OK, except for too much flashy shit that does not do anything but distract and steal cycles, but 8 sucks - ain't goin' there. (We will just skip Vista, OK?)
If worst comes to worst, I'll go back to Linux. Maybe there are printer drivers out there I can download, been awhile.
driver support for linux has improved out of sight, but there are still gaps.
None of my DVB-T cards have support.
I may yet buy all new cards, but Media center on 7 is pretty good, and since Bill gave me a big 100% discount on the OS, I'll stick for a while.
I run mint on most of my laptops, it's excellent.
Should try it, I bet you'll get your printer to work.
I bought mom a precision workstation, wiped it, and installed SUSE 12.3. It recognized everything including the quadro video card. First time in 12 years I didn't spend Thanksgiving re-installing windoz. I did have to delete the desktop config folder and allow it to rebuild.
ZP, I think genepix has linux drivers for his HD cards. Been a few years, though.
Going to have to look at that.
There goes my weekend lol.
Thanks man!
Still running XP Pro here too as a Parallels VM on my Mac . I've been through Vista (uggh), have Windows 7 on a laptop and Windows 8 as another Paralles VM and I have little reason to use either of them versus XP.
I might buy a new Dell desktop with an Intel i5 and gobs of RAM and a 1T HD ($400) only to speed up my CAD work but I don't want Windows 8 on it. I guess I could diskcopy XP onto an old drive and boot from it..
More damn computer work when I got reloading to do!
not after SP2 anyway
but yes, XP was superior to all the MS desktop OSes that preceeded it and followed it... ironically because it was the desktop version of Windows NT, and not an extension of their previous desktop line of OSes. The moment they went back to making it end-user-focused, Windows went right back to unstable bloatware.
And the expertise for NT ("New Technology") came from DEC.
"Windows went right back to unstable bloatware" because MS went back to what it does best: polishing the turd. Oh, and sucking NSA dick.
Huh? Unless you count server and multimedia releases (which obviously aren't targeted for the average consumer):
XP = great.
Vista = shit.
Windows 7 = awesome.
Windows 8 = shit (although with Classic Shell or equivalent, it's tolerable, but still definitely overall worse than W7).
Every other Microsoft release sucks, so we can expect the next Windows release to kick arse.
That's what the Marxist in the White House calls winning.
Time for Cash for Clunkers for PC's
Why, it should just be free. Having a computer is a god given right, just like healthcare.
"Free" I-Bama-Pads for everyone. The Camera and microphone never shut off. NSa style...
NSA: The only part of the Government that Listens.
For the idiots who complain that the government doesn't listen.
CB:
... and if it comes with Windows 8 then they should goddamn pay you an absolute shitload of money in compensation for being anywhere near it. Plus they should give you another computer for free that comes with a 64 bit version of Windows XP fully installed. Plus they should wipe the Windows 8 from the other computer and put XP on it as well.
Well the .gov could just fine the people that don't buy one. Why not. It worked for Obummercare.
Juice up the old PC.....or new one for that matter......with a Linux Distribution.
Many like Ubuntu.........my personal favorite and the one I've been running on several home built PC's and now my Thinkpad W500, an ASUS Windows 7 tablet that I nuked Windows off of and installed Linux is openSUSE.
It's one of the longest running distribtuions of Linux out there......started out as a version of Slackware Linux and has had the reputation for years as the best engineered distribution of Linux. It is also the version, highly modified of course, that ran the IBM Watson supercomputer that won on Jeapardy.
Have a look here......
http://www.opensuse.org/en/
And for those of you who say...."Well I use this Windows program or that windows program......here are some sites that will tell you what are the free and open source alternatives to Windows software you may use.
http://www.osalt.com/
http://www.opensourcealternative.org/
http://www.openalternatives.org/site/
And then if you do go with openSuse and find that it does not have the software already installed that you need (and it does contain most that you will need to replace the equivalent Windows based software) you just go here.....
http://software.opensuse.org/search
......and type in the name of the open source package you are looking for and click one button and it downloads it and sets it up inside openSuse. Pretty neat stuff. Try it out.
"As a result, PC lifespans continue to increase, thereby limiting market growth."
I am typing this response on a 6 year old Windows Vista laptop (converted to a 'desktop' with external monitor, keyboard, speakers and mouse) that recently replaced my 10 year old XP desktop.
It would be difficult for me not to agree with this article.
If that old XP desk top was still operating you can load a Linux OS on it and recycle it to modern standards.
Great minds.....
The only reason I'm not still running it is that it died. Just one day.... dead. No boot, no bios, no nothing.
My kids got a new/refurbished laptop (2 year old technology I bought for penuts) while I took their old one.
I could have our office IT guy load linux on it for me, but I feel like learning a new OS like I feel like drilling a hole in my forehead. I have NOTHING on my PCs that is of any value. Not a single password, account number, SS number or financial statement of any kind. And I never have. If they want to track where I go on the internet or look at family pictures, they're more than welcome.
In fact, I'll share it openly: My browser cache looks like this- ZeroHedge, ZeroHedge, ZeroHedge, Porn, ZeroHedge, ZeroHedge, ZeroHedge.
Which reminds me... I gotta go catch up on my porn viewing.
Damn, I like your style No Debt.
Any of you guys familiar with the bathtub curve?
Once Steam goes full Linux. I doubt I'll ever have a need to ever boot into a Windows Os again.
Get Linux on that puppy, and bypass the spyware issues. http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop
Or both. I have dual boot, Windows Vista and Linux. Douchebags at work don't allow me to log in remotely with Linux.
Linux Mint if you don't want to configure, but want a light (not cpu burdensome) O/S
http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php
Yeah, Linux Mint is pretty decent. I've got a laptop (cheap Dell) running it; Dual-boot (still original Windowz install), but I can get most Windoz stuff that I care about running under Wine.
My desktop machine is another story... XP on it, but the hardware is like 7 years old (I built the box): intel CPU is great for keeping the house warm in the winter. Too much crap running on it (between my wife and I) to attempt to switch it to Linux :-(
http://www.kubuntu.org/ Looks and handles a lot more like Windoze, without all the pesky side-effects, like virii, trojan horses, spyware, annoying "are you sure you want to do that?" dialogs, etc.
Yup.
I just re-jiggered my neigbor's old XP machine.
Had a bunch of malware on it and the 40 GB hard drive was chock full.
Cloned the old drive to a 160 GB I had sitting around, ran updates, removed malware, gave it back to him.
He said it has never run so well and thank you so much. He is retired military on disability and they are broke as can be. His Wife made me some caramels and a pumpkin pie. I figured it was time well spent.
eb....YOU ROCK!
Yes, God Bless you.
PC's are obsolete. Computing and APPS are moving to Cloud based systems. New TV's wireless connect to Tablets and Smart phones so you can have a large monitor when you need one. Desk Tops that anchor you to a cube and desk and the traditional Lap Top has become too large to lug around. Most people don't want them and it's obvious people are not replacing them.
Not obsolete, but unable to compete within many application-specific niches.
No one is writing term papers or building financial models on televisions or smart phones. Conversely, if all you're doing is checking facebook/twitter for status updates from your friends, your phone will do it anywhere and no PC is needed.
PCs enjoyed a long run as the swiss army knife of computing, but that versatility allowed it to grow beyond its natural size -- the growth is over due to death by a thousand cuts from phones, tablets, TVs, and game consoles. Oh, and growth is over due to a massive fucked economy resulting in it making more sense for the 3rd world consumers to buy a smartphone or $100 tablet than a $600 PC.
Cloud computing is like having JP Morgan holding your gold and silver coins on its vaults
Cloud computing is like having JP Morgan holding your gold and silver coins on its vaults
PC's are obsolete. Computing and APPS are moving to Cloud based systems.
The NAS approves this message.
FORWARD MY MAIL, DEAR SOVIET!
Anyone else notice that screens on all those small devices are getting bigger? We're reverting to larger screens now. And, well, duh! people are getting older (mobility will also decrease).
I've been around the block a few times. This stuff all starts repeating...
"Most people don't want them and it's obvious people are not replacing them."
Might also be because people have overextended themselves with iShit and cannot afford updates/and or a "traditional" PC.
I'm telling you, Orwell's screens on the wall run by Big Brother are closer than ever.
'Ere long every baboon will have a big screen on the wall with a camera and mic to watch and listen that connects all their shit and every mouse click to the cloud and an N.S.A. database and not one single tangible bit of currency or value allowed - just binary traceable digits sub-contracted by Oracle, Cisco, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and whatever hardware vendors are left.
Fucking 1984.
Great.
OLEDs
I did research on these, they have been used by the DoD for years. You can print a TV "screen" as thin as photograph paper. You can "print" an entire wall. Very low power requirements, getting to be very high picture quality. Give it 5 more years.
Read Ray Bradbury's The Veldt.
I still have a dongel key stuck in the back of this old computer just to run an estimating program that will cost thousands to upgrade if I change operating systems. Being a technosauras is fine by me, they can suck it.
The world is becoming a land of thumb typing monkeys.
Fuck it, I still lug my notebook around, just to open it at the park defiantly, and type LIKE A REAL MAN you fucking thumb pokers.
I feel better now.
I'll go quietly.
And see if I can still buy ddr2 ram somewhere.
LOL. You did nail the biggest problem with keeping old systems alive though - replacement parts. I'm totally happy with the desktop box I put together 7 years ago, but the next time a major component fails I'm going to have to upgrade (or pay as much for the replacement component as it will cost me to get a whole new system).
ebay - you can still buy computer parts from the 80's and damn reasonable.
Exactly. Just found 2 GB ram, a new fan, and new keyboard for $28 for an HP laptop with Vista.
Of course, I had to tear the laptop down to the motherboard but I have the tools and knowledge to do that but no one wants to pay me a living wage to do it so I will sell it cheap or give it someone disabled or poor.
Fuck the kleptoligarchy.
Good stuff guys. I've been making a cottage "industry" out of making simple repairs to old laptops, adding a linux distro, and giving people back a useful device.
As you say ebworthen, no-one will pay me for this, I just do it free, because it's kinda fun, and either give them back, or hand them on to someones kids for school or something.
It seems like everyone has an old laptop or desktop lying around, they make excellent media machines sometimes.
Yeah I had to pull the motherboard of my laptop recently and bake it in the oven at 400deg for 10 minutes. To repair the solder joints on a video chip. Sure beats dropping a grand to buy a replacement.
LOL! Holy crap, that's above my paygrade. I can just imagine my wifes face as I slid some computer parts into the oven.
I donated a couple of very workable Win 98 machines to a woman's homeless shelter as teaching machines (learn basdic mouse and keyboarding skills). Used to fix up boxes to give to some of my kids' schoolmates who were low on money and high on talent when they were in high school. I really appreciate this thread and finding other folks that like to recycle this gear and just keep this stuff going. I suppose I can even admit I still have a working 486 with 'dual boot' = Dos 6.1 or WIn 3.11, in my office (and a 56 baud modem!) I fire up once every three months or so for my very favorite game of all time (Privateer, and the follow-on Rightous Fire).
Good stuff man!
"The world is becoming a land of thumb typing monkeys."
I long ago (when all the texting shit started popping up) figured that human evolution would hit a brick wall as we would manage to destroy our primary advantage- our opposable thumbs!
On many levels, that would be a healthy and admirable situation, were it not for the tablet/phone situation that renders it all moot.
The current trajectory is evidence that the point of diminishing returns of "collective computing power" was reached years ago.
My previous laptop is somewhere along the bottom of the Euphrates or has potentially made it's way to the Persian Gulf. I'll stick with desktops where I can have 5x the specs for half the price.
I read a piece on PCs expected to come down 20-25% in price over the 18 months due to competition from ARM architecture.
If that materializes along with lack of demand it could be a great windfall for the consumer looking to upgrade or replace existing systems. ARM vs. Intel: How the Processor Wars Will Benefit Consumers | TIME.com
It's already happened in the lower end of the notebook space.
Chromebooks were originally ARM architecture based notebooks running Android for an OS. It spooked Intel enough that they started pricing select processors against ARM. Now if you check, you can get a Chromebook running Intel CPUs for under $300, and going lower.
Who really gets screwed here is Microsoft. There's no room in the margin models for a $50 per license OS. Microsoft is far more at risk than the PC makers or the CPU suppliers are, as their share of the system build cost is an outsized percentage as the prices plunge, and as end users adopt non-PC platforms Microsoft has no revenue stream. It's no accident they bought a cellphone company, but my guess is they'll fail at that.
Android (a Linux derivative) is quite literally eating Microsoft's lunch. Android is open source so there is no license or cost to the end user. That eliminates a lot of problems such as keys and providing space on a drive that is used to restore the OS. It's easy for anyone to download free software to write your own APPs. That's one reason so many APPs are available for Android. It costs hundreds of dollars to obtain software that allow someone to write programs that function with Microsoft products. If Microsoft were smart they would stop selling their OS and open source it as well. That -might- save them. I don't see them doing that. They will ride that train until it runs out of track and crashes.
Windows 7 basically IS free, if you know where to look *cough Daz loader cough*
Probably why it's being completely removed from the lineup at the end of this year and replaced totally by 8.
People are running, screaming, in droves to Mac from what I hear at my local nerd store.
All the licensing bullshit makes it more difficult to work with/maintain a modern Windows Vista/7/8/8.1 PC. Want to swap hard drives or re-install, you have that activation crap. Want to change a few components or a motherboard, have to re-activate. There's even a good argument to use the hacked versions or the firmware modifications even if one legitimately has gone through the trouble of purchasing/licensing Windows from Microsoft and has no intention of evading the licensing fees.
Right, and if one goes to torrent, surely there're plenty to pick :-)
I just bought a new Wintel laptop for $230. Windows 8 and dual core celeron. Faster than my old one that cost $600. Now if only groceries trended the same way...
My Win8 stoppeed working for 6 days. By that stage, I was not surprised when it stopped working. But I was really surprised when it started working again. Fucked if I know what it was trying to do for six days.
I still lug my XP around because my Win8 is too unreliable.
Probably downloading the complete bit-coin chain....
I was out in the sticks at the time, so I do wonder if it was trying to download some vital heap of shit that they couldn't possibly have included in the factory. Stupid fucks couldn't possibly imagine that sometimes you don't have internet but still want to use your computer.
Microsoft is busy committing suicide with Windows 8 and Server 2012 [esp. the pricing model for VMware clusters].
They are making it too easy to not use Windows any more.
When I meet people who don't have computers, I tell them not to buy one. "Nice toy, but too much stress, not worth the hassle. Leave 'em for people like me. But I'm looking for a better way."
not a surprise.
Cyber junk. Let it pile up.
Bubble, bubbles, pop!
Where's my quantum super computer dickweeds? Are you afraid we'll crash the Wall Street Ponzi scheme?
/aren't you so busted on above statement.
You already know that the technology is being built on the Grey market. Its not about sitting in your Wall Street suite, it's about sending you into the next dimension of your life. No money will ever pay off some other person to get you out of town. I am aware you read my posts.
In retrospect, was it worth it? Only you and the small group can change the tide. This new vision is dead on arrival.
As long as I can still purchase parts to make my own desktop, what do I care?
Intel has a $139.99 box in the works that basically will do everything that desktops built 4 years ago could do. Uses very little power, and can be attached to the back of a screen with a VESA mount.
Its going to be a very brutal world next year in the PC industry as there is very little, if anything to drive demand.
Any old machine will work,when all you have to use it for is to sign up for unemployment bennies and download porn.
Then again everything put out since about 1987 has been bloatware and nobody uses 99% of the crap in most programs.
Hell MS,office is so fat you have to dump the program out of memory and load a subroutine just to print.
I was told that the Obozocare sign up site is very CPU-intensive.
Intel is about 5 years late to the market.
Hmm, sounds kinda like the RaspberryPi SBC: https://www.adafruit.com/category/105
I was just going to bring that up. Interesting little devices those.
The hardware demands of software is not keeping up with the actual hardware.
To put it simply.
A program in 2005 needed say 3ghz CPU power, and 3 Gb of ram and a 100$ video card.
The newest version of that program in 2013 needs more or less the same power it did in 2005 to run.
Yet the computing power from 2005 to 2009 jumped 10 fold.
So if you upgraded your computer in 2007~2009 there is no reason to upgrade until
1) Something breaks/burns out
2) The computer is old enough to say "fuck it lets upgrade"
Someone who purchased a computer back in 2007 probably will look for an upgrade sometime around mid 2014~2015.
And then the people who buy a computer in 2015 will not upgrade until 2022 ~2028~2036~2041
So you should expect a spike in computer sales every 6~7 years.
Just no reason to upgrade.
I have the same computer from 2007
i7 3.2 ghz
6gb DDR3
Sli GTX 280's
No fucking reason to upgrade, cause the games after 2007 suck and don't need anything more to run.
An office computer built in 2005~2006 has no reason to upgrade..... since I doubt quickbooks or excel would really see any netgain in performance from an upgrade for 99% of peoples use.
Yeah SSDs have eliminated hard drive failure pretty much. Stuff is more power efficient than ever, so power supplies tend to run very cool. Software vendors are actually doing a much better job of using multiple processors these days, so existing hardware is being more fully utilized.
I run 6-year-old laptops at my desk, can't find a reason to upgrade despite my wallet itching to just go out and buy something.
Umm, you might want to double-check that bit about SSDs.
Those SSD drives die too. And they give no warning(they die silently). Most of the time you can tell when the hard drive is ready to die(lots of noise, clicks). But then it still might be too late to backup everything on the disk. Backup your stuff on a regular basis on multiple drives, or except that you'll eventually lose your data.
I had to look - I bought my (under) desktop in February of 2008 - It's gonna be 6 next month! Dual core 2.66 gigh, 4 gig ram, 320 gb harddrive = obsolete or something and still all the machine I want or need. Gonna run it until it breaks. I added a dual video card to run two monitors, and spend a lot of time each day with it. Works fine. Course, I also have a 1986 Toyota pickup that also works fine, and plan to will it to my grandson. I try to buy good stuff when I have to, and not plan to buy it again any time soon. I also fly a 1940 Piper Cub - it's an antique, like me. Cruises at 65 mph - my buddy can drop my off at the local airport and beat me to the big town airport 70 miles away cruising up the freeway. So what?
The problem is, PC technology reached a plateu (sp) that ran everything you needed just fine, with enough storage to last most folks like forever, really cheap and big back up, plug in hard drives - and most users just don't NEED to upgrade anymore. So fuck you MSFT. My fucking non-smart phone has more computing power and storage than my first 5 or 6 computers. I used to upgrade to every new OS MSFT came out with, from DOS 3.2 to XP. They finally got it right with XP (DOS 5.5 and 6.1 were really good, as well), and Vista sucked so bad I stayed with it. Still there. In a sense, the hardware and software purveyors got hoisted on their own petard - I mean my box is plenty fast for my needs (no intensive graphics, and no games any more - they all pretty much suck or I'm getting old or both); and all my software works. MSFT trying to tell me I need to upgrade to Win 8.1 when I got to play with it in the store and realized it was a total piece of crap - for me. I don't wanna touch my damn screen, thanks a lot rally.
And the hardware (knock on wood) is really pretty damn reliable. My CD/DVD player crapped out, I got a USB plug in drive and have yet to get around to replacing the one in the box. The only time I've cracked the box on this one is to replace the video player with a dual player - an absolute record for me - I used to be inside the damn box ever other week.
Times are changing for the better in the hardware and software/apps world; but I do think there will always be a place for a reasonable sized box for the desktop, both in the business world and a lot of homes. Just not every other year... And if the PC guys think they have it tough, go talk to the landline telephone people. ;-)
#PCMasterRace bitches.
Reminds me I need to build a new desktop. Have some games I want to play but my laptop just can't handle them. Maybe I'll wait and see what Steam does with their upcoming machines.
PC usage has not moved significantly beyond consumption and productivity tasks.
2009 Gateway,
Me<<<<A+, Net+, Sec+, Server+ certified 10+ years experience in tech field...now no real meaningful work for 3 years straight.
Used skills to replace:
HDD, PSU, RAM, Graphics, cabling, OS ...only thing not replaced were CPU and Mobo.Brand new machine to me.
Yeah, tasking away over here.Very productive I am actually.
PC usage has not moved significantly beyond consumption and productivity tasks.
It is also a communication device (unless you call rappin on ZH 'productivity') ;-) .
I really appreciated Skype when my daughter spent a year in New York City (egad) on a Vista project. Didn't have to buy a smartphone - already had one, sort of. And email is still useful to keep in touch with a lot of old friends.
Not consuming, not being especially productive, just communicating - still beats a smart phone or even a dumb phone for a lot of stuff. I also don't buy newspapers very much anymore, and don't watch TV at all.
I think you can thank Microsoft for forcing Windows 8 onto PC and Laptop users ? I get it a lot and don't blame people - first thing I do with my own systems is wipe and install Win 7 Ultimate ... consumers don't get this choice and can't even buy Windows 7 even if they wanted to fork out a extra few hundred on top of the new machine to do so ?
Windows 8 sucks bigtime for non-touch devices and especially for corporate networks. People would upgrade the hardware to newer and shiny despite the fact they don't NEED to ... but they won't if it also means being forced to use an OS they hate and don't know how to use ?
But but you can upgrade to Winders 8.1 and get your start button back though so all is well right? /sarc
I used to work in Korea and sometimes had to fly between Seoul and Pusan. I met a few guys who were technosaurs for the government there. You'd be surprised at how many guys make a living out of knowing Ada. Not just for the Korean government, either. Lots of legacy hardware run on it (and other old programs) and there's no reason to replace it.
It's cheaper to have some guys on hand who know how to run it, than replace an expensive infrastructure that runs on top of it.
I know that M$ and their POS Windows 8/.1 aren't the main cause, but it sure contributed a few nails.
Oh man, let me tell you.
Bought a cheap refurb. with Windows 8 lately to stay "up to date". Updated it to 8.1, still a P.O.S.
It isn't an Operating System, it is a Marketing System, a cattle gate.
You have to bend and twist it to do normal file operations.
I don't think they give a shit, they want a portal.
A bad Apple style O.S. does not = success.
Too many M.B.A.'s.
I'm using a 10 year old Linux computer. My car is a 1992 Toyota Corolla. I don't know why people buy new stuff. Although I did by a new phone for $15 two months ago because my 8 year old one finally quite allowing me to reply to anyone that called.
My desktop is a couple years newer than yours. But my Corolla is two years older. So, pretty even :-)
Did have to replace a laptop- it was great that all the touchscreen once came out so I could get an old-fashioned one for really cheap.
One of the guys at work had an old analogue cell phone a couple of years ago. When his carrier phased out analog service, they gave him a smart phone with a data plan for the same price just to keep him as a customer.
Consumerism and declining education at work. More people are capable of consuming than producing. Not that consuming is anything bad in itself, unless that is the only thing you are capable of.
Comuter sales tanking eh? Well that explains why MSFT is all of 0.40 off its thirteen year highs....
Apple and it's hardware took away regular PC demand.
Now Apple is no longer thought of as an inovator. This should end well.
I remember building my first PC when i was 14...1.2ghz cpu oh man, that was so much fun. Computers will just revert back to the hardcore enthusiasts and everyone else will be satisified with their Iphone or tablet...Way it should be. Fortunately the computer market will never "die" as it is the driving force behind the advancement of the digital age...funny along time ago I was thinking how video games had propelled the computer hardware forward. I used to buy 300$ video cards when I was 15, oh man..those were the days.
We can only hope. Gimme an assembler, a memory map and a firmware guide. Everything else is just shit that gets in my way. Okay, also gimme some version of Visual BASIC so I can write quick programs when I need to. On second thought, I'd be better off writing my own.
The computer industry: They sell you a dictionary when you just want to buy a word ... and then you discover their dictionary hasn't got your word in it.
I forgot where I saw this and can't recall it exactly, but 'if automobiles had followed the same development path as PCs, a Rolls Royce would now cost $100 and would explode once a year, killing everyone inside.'
And every week at some random time it would suddenly ignore you and drive itself to the mechanic for a tune-up ...
... every year the designers would change the shape of the dipstick and demand you install a new engine ...
Microsoft would be the only manufacturer of wheels - because they'd own the patent for anything round.
But they'd still be selling decagonal wheels while explaining their virtue over the nonagon.
Who needs a PC?
Same as before, only computer geeks.
The problem with idiots is there are so many of them and so they have buying power. The computer industry was totally destroyed by marketing to idiots and forgetting the geeks. There's never a flame-thrower handy when you need one.
I miss " the computer room".
Now I sit on the couch with an iPad, nagging wife and screaming kids...
Some explanations:
- geeks and other people who actually use a PC for computing activities will continue to own one and replace it as necessary. The huge numbers of people who only ever use their device for connecting to Facebook/Twitter and online shopping etc. never needed one in the first place and are now replacing them with simple menu-driven Galaxys/iPhones/Tablets and the like.
- there's been a slow down in PC technology advancements in recent years. The two major improvements have been USB3 and SSD disk drives. But for me and others these are not strong enough reasons for buying/building a replacement of the existing desktop. Not yet anyway.
- despite Linux being around for 10+ years and having many advocates, it still is not ready for prime time. Will it ever be?? This means that a vast majority of PC users are stuck with MS Windows, which itself has lost the plot.
Linux is more than ready for prime time, but most people are not "ready for prime time" and buy Windows because, well, that is what they have always done, like good little sheep making the sociopath Bill Gates the worlds richest man.
The secret to Linux is the long view. If you bite the bullet and actually learn how Linux works and become comfortable with it, the payoff is that years later, the time you spent learning it still be useful as the underlying, well thought out paradigm is still there.
As an OS, Linux/UNIX is a verterbrate, a lean skeleton on which applications run, while Microsoft is more like a creature with an exoskeleton requiring that you molt the whole carcass in order to grow.
If you could actually look at how Microsoft stuff is put together, you will find total chaos, the result of poor design decisions (Microsoft is notorious for not adhering to industry standards) compounded by thousands of ad-hoc patches to try to overcome the bad decisions.
If you just look at the outside, your "knowledge" of Microsoft systems is limited to a collection of tab selections, mouse clicks and random strings typed into a window, insulated from what is really happening down in the OS to the point of being no different than a supersticious ritual.
I agree entirely with your views of Windows and I know a thing or two about MS & Mr Gates from my previous life in Baby Blue PC days and DOS. He is a slippery cowboy and always has been. As a colleague used to say about him "when he says he'll do something or fix something, get it in writing".
All that said, I still maintain Linux is not ready for prime time. Believe me I wish it were.
By prime time, I mean an op/sys that can be easily installed and run apps flawlessly.
I spent a lot of time last year installing, running and testing usability of several popular Distributions (SimplyMEPIS, DSL & Mint) under Virtual Box in the hope that one of them would meet my needs. None came close.
On top of that, there are some programs I use which will not run under Linux, even under the emulator.
I eventually gave up as it was clear to me that all of them still had serious bugs, flaws, UI and usability issues. I do not want a quirky toy to play with, I want a robust op/sys that does the job and lets me get on with doing stuff.
Way to go.
people used to upgrade to get the latest windows and faster hardware. Now windows is crap, people don't want it, and the hardware is way beyond what they need already. With analysis like the above expect the quality of hardware to decline and expect the licensing of software to become even more overbearing along with buggy programs and porous security.
I blame Steve Balmer and the Windows 8 NSA portal/Operating system. It is hard to find a system for sale with Windows 7 on it, not that it is probably any better.
If Balmer had any vision, he'd be trying to put a robot in every home instead of trying to build a fkn search to rival Google. But lets face it. He is going for the government info provider paycheck above all else.
PC's are for creating content. Most people are content users, not creators. They don't need a PC when a cheap phone or tablet will suffice.
The PCs the last few years can easily run most software effectively today. There's no compelling reason to upgrade. Also, Intel hasn't been coming out with significantly faster CPU performance like they did in the past. There's less bang for the buck.
Also, Windows 8 is supposed to suck. I read 1 review that said..."If you really hate somebody, give them a copy of Windows 8 upgrade."
Finally, people's disposable income ain't what it used to be.
For most people PCs do a lot more and a lot less than they want. There is also the fact that illiteracy rates are climbing in the western world and illiterate people don't want and cannot afford computers. They need someone to take care of them ... which ultimately leads to slavery.
There has been little cpu advancement in the past 3 years. My 2600K at 4.6ghz is still pretty much on par with the best offerings today since the newest processors don't overclock very well. Even then if you don't play games then there's absolutely ZERO reason to ever upgrade your pc if it was purchased after about 2009. The only thing I have done to my gaming pc in 3 years is change out the video cards. I'll be gaming on this rig until it dies which for me is a first since until my 2600K I upgraded motherboard, processor and ram religiously about every 18 months.
Little CPU or GPU advancement and even more limiting is that there hasn't been a single new or exciting app to compel me to buy a new machine.
I'm glad to hear sales are off. That means prices will plummet further and I can get a pretty fair machine to run Linux (can't decide between Ubuntu and Mint.) I already use it on a couple of old, slow machines but want something current so I can finally cut the cord on Microsoft altogether.
I'm sick of their crap. Sick of being scanned for legality and sick of being held hostage when they decide to end support for one OS to force you to buy the newest crap version.
I run Ubuntu on my laptop and as soon as I get a new desktop, it's bye-bye Windows.
pops
http://elementaryos.org/
I've heard some pretty good things about this version of Linux. Might be worth giving it a try