The PC is Dead

[cornemuse]

I just threw out all of our PCs....what should I buy now?

An abacus?

[usually_quiet]

Selfie is a typical idiot troll who comes here to start flame wars because he's bored and wants attention. He comes back to this thread when his current attempt to stir up shit proves less successful than he'd hoped. Just ignore him.

[hello_hello]

Selfie is a typical idiot troll who comes here to start flame wars because he's bored and wants attention. He comes back to this thread when his current attempt to stir up shit proves less successful than he'd hoped. Just ignore him.

I don't think he even bothers reading the information in his own links any more. Or when he's posting them he selectively ignores anything that doesn't suit his point of view. Just as he'll probably ignore this post.

Seems vendors are holding their collective breath that the end of free Windows 10 upgrades will breathe new life into the PC market. Hahaha

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS41584116
"Worldwide PC shipments totalled 62.4 million units in the second quarter of 2016 (2Q16)"

How could anyone label that market as "dead"?

"a year-on-year decline of 4.5%, beating the forecast of -7.4% by roughly 3%"

And it's apparently declining at a slower rate than predicted.

"and the expiration of free Windows 10 upgrades may transition some users into buying new systems"

Yeah, that sounds exactly like vendors are holding their collective breath that the end of free Windows 10 upgrades will breathe new life into the PC market to me. Not....

"Lenovo remained the worldwide PC market leader, and continued its strong growth in the U.S. market."
"HP Inc. had a solid quarter, with growth returning to positive territory after a year of declines."
"Dell also had a productive quarter, with worldwide growth recovering to over 4%."

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160711006385/en/Gartner-Worldwide-PC-Shipments...ed-5.2-Percent
"This was the seventh consecutive quarter of PC shipment declines, but Gartner analysts said the market is showing some signs of improvement."

"There is an opportunity for a Windows 10 refresh among businesses, which we expect to see more toward the end of 2016 to the beginning of 2017"

Collective breaths being held? "Hahaha".

And of course none of that includes sales of PC components for upgrading, or sales of PC components to those building their own PCs.

[usually_quiet]

I don't think he even bothers reading the information in his own links any more. Or when he's posting them he selectively ignores anything that doesn't suit his point of view.

What do you mean "any more"? He began doing that with the link in his initial post.

First, what exactly does Tim Cook mean by the PC? My guess is he is talking about the desktop form factor most typically found perched on top or below someone's desk with an attached monitor and keyboard/mouse.

Personally, I don't know how anyone who read the article about Cook and Apple's new products can draw the conclusion that in Cook's mind, laptops are not PCs. Cook actually says that both can be replaced with a tablet in most cases.

“I think if you’re looking at a PC, why would you buy a PC anymore? No really, why would you buy one?”, asks Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, who has just flown into Britain for the launch of the iPad Pro. Cook, whose spotless tailored suit and red poppy belies the fact that he spent the night in a plane, is clearly in ebullient mood. Wall Street and the City are obsessed with the iPhone, the company’s dominant product, but Apple appears quietly confident that its new tablet and TV device are going to help power the company’s continuing growth.

“Yes, the iPad Pro is a replacement for a notebook or a desktop for many, many people. They will start using it and conclude they no longer need to use anything else, other than their phones,”

[SameSelf]

I just threw out all of our PCs....what should I buy now?

Good for you. Unshackling yourself from the PC is a freeing feeling.

[hello_hello]

Good for you. Unshackling yourself from the PC is a freeing feeling.

In your efforts to ignore what doesn't suit you, you appear to have moved beyond simply looking foolish.

Have you checked the links in your own signature lately? Running Avisynth on a Smartphone? VirtualDub on an Android tablet? Premier Pro on an ipad maybe? I assume it must be a theoretical unshackling to which you refer, and the freeing feeling of which you speak must be an imagined one.

[Clockwork]

I just threw out all of our PCs....what should I buy now?

An abacus?

32bit or 64bit abacus?

There's a difference, you know.

[cornemuse]

I just threw out all of our PCs....what should I buy now?

An abacus?

32bit or 64bit abacus?

There's a difference, you know.

One is 'pental'/bi the other is 'quintal'/bi, , , ,

-c-

(no, not that 'bi')

[SameSelf]

PC's are sooooooooooooooo boring. But the mobile space. Wow!

https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-introduces-worlds-first-universal-flash-storag...te-gb-capacity

[hello_hello]

PC's are sooooooooooooooo boring. But the mobile space. Wow!

https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-introduces-worlds-first-universal-flash-storag...te-gb-capacity

Really, you've never connected a card reader to a PC?

".....reading sequentially at 530 megabytes per second (MB/s) which is similar to the sequential read speed of the most widely used SATA SSDs"

PCs must be boring because 256GB is "been there, done that". I wonder what creates a mobile space "wow! factor? Maybe it'll be the price.

Or maybe it'll be the fact you won't be able to use one of those cards until you've replaced your current mobile space device. Wow! It will be the price!

Samsung Has New Memory Cards That No-One Can Use (Yet)

Wow......

[usually_quiet]

I just threw out all of our PCs....what should I buy now?

Not a regular tablet. Those are as passe as PCs.

Tablet sales have been in decline for the past two years, except for models with detachable keyboards like the Surface Pro 4 tablets, which make them more PC-like.

Your video encodes will take a lot longer than with your PCs and the tablet will cost far more than a PC with equivalent processing power, but one must be prepared to suffer for the sake of having the right fashion accessories to be counted among the cool kids.

[ron spencer]

I just threw out all of our PCs....what should I buy now?

An abacus?

I've acquired one that has m-sata!!! So much more convenient than my old PC for video encoding and digital editing. I'm glad I didn't go the Apple route for sure with the mobile space killing everything off!

[Constant Gardener]

An abacus with m-sata? Should tell this guy.

[SameSelf]

I have no idea what hh and uq are jabbering abt; they have been on my ignore list for months. But,

I started this thread late last year. And the situation has only gotten worse. The writing is on the wall. PCs are dead men walking. Anyone who spends $500, or even $250, on a desk based PC is a seriously misinformed consumer, and I feel sorry for them. Of course, this leaves HEDTs or workstations which are overkill and too expensive for the average consumer. The margin in desk based PCs is so razor thin that R&D can no longer be justified. Any architecture improvements are only incremental while the reality is that OEMs are cramming legacy technology into their boxes because consumers are none the wiser and OEMs need to clear inventory. In the mean time, massive amounts of R&D and capital is being invested in the mobile space, and programmers have decamped from Windows. Thus smartphones and tablets are getting more powerful along with the applications. The hope that the expiration of Windows 10 free upgrades will juice the market for desk based PCs is wishful thinking because people stopped caring about OSs years ago. It is all about the apps people. All this means that the desk based PC are and will be squeezed out of the market irregardless of how nostalgic people feel.

When this trend dawned on me last year, I was admittedly angry. Sorry to see the PC go. But now I say, good riddance. Don't let the door hit ya on the way out.

[bendixG15]

OK SameSelf here's the subject for your next post................

Moore's law is on it's deathbed, has only 10 years to live, then it's the end of the CPU.

Happy hunting

[SameSelf]

I already posted cpu performance gains from SB to Skylake. This thread is nine pages long though, so you're excused.

[hello_hello]

I have no idea what hh and uq are jabbering abt; they have been on my ignore list for months. But,

Yes, we all know when you can't ignore what doesn't suit you without looking too silly, you claim the forum is ignoring it for you. Like most people who prefer to be bum up, head in the sand. Every forum has one or two. And unlike a grown-up, they can never help themselves and always refer to the people they're're pretending to ignore.

I started this thread late last year. And the situation has only gotten worse. The writing is on the wall. PCs are dead men walking. Anyone who spends $500, or even $250, on a desk based PC is a seriously misinformed consumer, and I feel sorry for them.

Could someone ask SameSelf to explain? Why does he feel sorry for them? Will someone who spends $250 on a PC find it's outdated faster than someone who spends $250 on an iPad?

Of course, this leaves HEDTs or workstations which are overkill and too expensive for the average consumer.

I thought SameSelf wasn't reading my posts, but he seems to feel the need to justify why he's still using a PC. I assume he must put himself in the "not average" consumer group (who'd have guessed), and believes he's not using a PC because he calls his PC a workstation.

The margin in desk based PCs is so razor thin that R&D can no longer be justified. Any architecture improvements are only incremental while the reality is that OEMs are cramming legacy technology into their boxes because consumers are none the wiser and OEMs need to clear inventory.

Could someone ask Selfie for an example of a company manufacturing and selling computer components that's scrapped R&D because they can no longer justify it?
Could someone ask him to pull his head out of the sand to explain why architectural improvements haven't always been incremental?
Could someone ask Selfie which budget PCs included cutting edge technology in the past?

In the mean time, massive amounts of R&D and capital is being invested in the mobile space, and programmers have decamped from Windows. Thus smartphones and tablets are getting more powerful along with the applications.

Just one real statistic to go with the endless rhetoric would be nice.
"Smartphones and tablets are getting more powerful"? Could someone ask Selfie to explain why those improvements aren't incremental too?

The hope that the expiration of Windows 10 free upgrades will juice the market for desk based PCs is wishful thinking because people stopped caring about OSs years ago. It is all about the apps people. All this means that the desk based PC are and will be squeezed out of the market irregardless of how nostalgic people feel.

Could someone ask Selfie why he made up the theory that manufacturers are hoping "the expiration of Windows 10 free upgrades will juice the market for desk based PCs" and decided to state it as fact?

Could someone ask Selfie why he can't post like a grown up person instead of ignoring anything that doesn't conform to his overly opinionated.... what was the word he used...... jabbering?

[SameSelf]

Mergers: a sign of a sagging business. Prediction: more consolidations to come.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/emc-shareholders-approve-merger-with-dell-1468939673

[solarfox]

Mergers: a sign of a sagging business. Prediction: more consolidations to come.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/emc-shareholders-approve-merger-with-dell-1468939673

Oh, please. You haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about, and clearly didn't even read the article or have any idea what the merger actually is. But of course, clueless obliviousness on this subject is your stock in trade, so I suppose that's not surprising.

Dell -- the maker of those "sooooooooooooooo boring" PCs which you abhor -- is the one that's buying EMC, which is (among other things) a maker of enterprise-class storage systems for data centers, and has a majority interest in VMware Inc.'s virtualization and data-center software. All of which are the infrastructure that makes your dinky little "mobile space" possible in the first place. Your cell phone would be utterly incapable of doing anything useful without a PC somewhere to back it up and handle all of the heavy lifting -- and it would have nothing useful to do (and would, in fact, not even exist), if not for engineers and programmers designing every last bit of its hardware and software on PCs. Dell itself is doing just fine.

[SameSelf]

-1

"Dell, a leading maker of PCs and servers, is battling persistent declines in computer sales as users turn to mobile devices and other newer form factors."

[gonca]

Old tech?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1253810-REG/cyberpowerpc_gamer_panzer_pvx3000lq_desktop.html

Hello_hello
he doesn't have his head in the sand,
its actually closer to his mid section

[ron spencer]

-1

"Dell, a leading maker of PCs and servers, is battling persistent declines in computer sales as users turn to mobile devices and other newer form factors."

another, but older, view of Dell

http://uber.la/2014/11/pc-market-share-2014/

[johns0]

Dell is a crappy maker of pcs,that's why it's declining.

[SameSelf]

Dell is a crappy maker of pcs,that's why it's declining.

Part of the problem is they cram crappy spinning rust into their low end and even mid level machines while mobile devices use zippy, flash storage. This has been going on for years: OEMs squeezing consumers by reserving ssd's for only the high end. At least that was my original thought. However, I have modified my thinking somewhat and now believe the reason is due more to the relationships Dell has with other OEMs like Seagate and WD. But chinks are starting to show:

http://www.seagate.com/about-seagate/news/seagate-technology-announces-preliminary-fin...r-end-2016-pr/

"In addition to the Company’s restructuring actions announced June 29, 2016, the Company announced today an additional restructuring plan for continued consolidation of its global footprint across Asia, EMEA and the Americas. The plan includes reducing the Company’s global headcount by approximately 6,500 employees, or 14% of its global headcount by the end of fiscal year 2017."

Mark my words. The carnage for PC makers has only just begun.

[usually_quiet]

Dell is a crappy maker of pcs,that's why it's declining.

...and Dell sells more laptops (which Selfie has been classifying as mobile devices) than desktops these days. Most "PC companies" make both. So because Dell is diversifying, that must mean the laptop is dead too.

[Edlt]I almost forgot, Dell also sells tablets, which must mean the tablet is dead as well.

[hello_hello]

Dell is a crappy maker of pcs,that's why it's declining.

Part of the problem is they cram crappy spinning rust into their low end and even mid level machines while mobile devices use zippy, flash storage. This has been going on for years: OEMs squeezing consumers by reserving ssd's for only the high end. At least that was my original thought. However, I have modified my thinking somewhat and now believe the reason is due more to the relationships Dell has with other OEMs like Seagate and WD. But chinks are starting to show:

Twaddle. There's actually less need for zippy flash storage in a PC than a mobile device. I reboot this PC on an average of a couple of times a week. I couldn't care less if it takes 2 seconds to boot or two minutes. PCs have more memory than the average mobile device, and they're better at multitasking.

Your endless rhetoric ignores the price difference between HDDs and SDDs and available capacities. Even today HDDs are far cheaper per MB than SSDs. In a budget PC if the choice is miniscule storage, fast speed or large storage, slower speed, the choice is obvious.

Many early portable devices such as MP3 players used HDDs because flash storage was too expensive to make high capacities economical. Without HDD storage portable devices had tiny amounts of memory. All that's changing is flash storage is slowly becoming more economical and naturally it'll be used more in the mobile space first where size and portability is a concern. For a PC, where capacity is more likely to take priority, HDDs still rule, although solid state storage is heading closer to being economical for use in the average PC.

Take your theory to it's ultimate conclusion though.... eventually flash storage will be cheap enough to to replace HDDs in budget PCs. If HDDs are killing the budget PC market as you imply, it follows we can probably look forward to that market receiving a boost in the near future, as the use of SSDs and flash storage becomes the norm.

http://www.seagate.com/about-seagate/news/seagate-technology-announces-preliminary-fin...r-end-2016-pr/

If that has any relevance to the point you're making, I'd be keen to understand what it is. Maybe you decided to end your post with a bit of comedy, knowing this is something you didn't copy and paste from your link.

"The difference in the Company’s revenue from its forecast was driven primarily by better than expected demand for the Company’s HDD product portfolio. The difference in the Company’s gross margin from its forecast was driven by better than expected demand for the Company’s enterprise HDD portfolio and cost containment execution."

[Krispy Kritter]

PC's aren't becoming outdated as quickly as they have in the past, thus people no longer have to replace them every couple of years. So it's not surprising that sales are down. But simply saying sales are declining is meaningless without context. Dell had $54.89 B is revenue last year (down 7%). Sales being down has NOTHING to do with the PC market collapsing. Dell still turned a huge profit.

Small devices have their place, but they are not a replacement for the PC. Even trivial tasks like email can be a total pain in the ass with a phone or tablet.

You could also do a little research on tablets (and similar devices) as sales for those devices are no longer on the rise. If PC's were dying, sales in this market would continue to increase.

[KarMa]

Wonder if people who build their computer from parts are even counted towards PC sales. Or is it only prebuilt computers that count. I've not bought a prebuilt computer since 2010, yet have replaced all the parts in that computer except for the DVD drive, the boot HDD, and the case. It looks nothing like it's former self inside.

[SameSelf]

Rolling your own is a single digit fraction of the market, so it doesn't even move the needle.

[johns0]

I doubt that,i have never bought a prebuilt computer and i know a lot of people who build their own plus get custom built computers from various computer stores.