It was recently reported that global PC shipments have fallen to the lowest for 5 years according to research firm Gartner. With 80.3 million units shipped in 3 months to September this is reported as down by a whopping 8.6% from a year ago! With the personal computer decline seemingly falling ever harder into a nosedive just how long can companies continue before its time to panic? With the trend having no sign of ending manufactures and there supply chains must surely be looking out for some new technology to help pick up the declining sales.
Falling prices of tablets have shouldered some of the blame for the continuing decline PC sales but as consumers have slowly got used to having a more portable device at their sides all day why would you chain yourself to a desk? The office space has no intention of dying out anytime soon but the trusty office computer just might. It can easily be imagined that some industries are better suited to more flexible, portable devices than others – recruitment for example or what about other sales based roles. With more externally focused roles become more and more the norm in some sectors just what do you have to return to the office for? Access to the database and a chance to partake in the latest office pool?
The death of the PC is a long way off – The vast majority of people still use desktop PC’s at work along with serious gamers and flight simulator users however with a rise in company’s allowing workers to BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) who use their own laptop or tablet the desktop PC will have to come up with some fantastic new offerings in the coming years, both hardware and software – Windows 8 has surely never looked so important to Microsoft and PC manufactures – to keep its market share rather than continue to see its dominance continue to be chipped away by other technology.
People are turning more and more towards portable devices – The ever growing sales being touted on various websites is living proof – as the technology has improved to such a point that you can get all of your information and create documents, play games and stay in touch with your friends from a tablet or phone why would you want to spend hundreds of pounds on a piece of technology that you can’t take more than a few feet from a plug socket…
Much has been, and will be written, about the declining PC shipment figures however it would be interesting to note that 80 million units per quarter is still well over 300 million over a year. Even accounting for a continuing decline the PC manufactures still stand to ship over a quarter of a billion units in 2014 with the big names of HP, Dell Lenovo etc more likely to stick around with the PC marketplace then others it must be very worrying times for some of those smaller fish as the pond slowly drains of water.
