PC decline is not temporary: Study

[CityFarmer]

A note-able market trend for those invested on PC related companies.

PC decline is not temporary: Study

SINGAPORE — PC sales will contract as tablets gain popularity, warns a new study released today.

According to market researcher Gartner, the diminishing sales of PCs is not a temporary one due to an austere economic environment but a reflection of a long-term change in user behaviour.

The study said worldwide devices, combining PCs, tablets and mobile phones, will reach 2.4 billion units by this year — a nine per cent jump over last year. However, there will be a shift from PCs to tablets, said Ms Carolina Milanesi, Research Vice-President at Gartner.

http://www.todayonline.com/tech/gadgets/...rary-study

[sgd]

it will decline but it will not go obsolete and it will still be very relevant. Tablets and notebooks are really only for consumers and end users are cool sexy things to have or for education. Things like equipment, machinery will still have to use or integrate with a PC that means have monitor keyboard cpu because some things not pratical to use a tablet. There are different brand of tablet but each are proprietary in design unlike a PC that has 3 components and each of these 3 their sub components are also pretty standard. Whether is IPC or datamini or dell or sun if you open up the box you will see the pretty much the same sub components so for manufacturing equipment and machinery is easier to source and integrate how do you do that with a tablet which is fully integrated?

You go shopping center or go to supermarket buy things all the casher POS terminals are actually PC computer terminals in a different shape. Can you imagine if POS terminal are tablets how difficult the cashier have to look downwards all the time to key in the virtualized keyboard I think you will find the queue to cashier to be very long thanks for waiting

Same with ATM machine same with your EZ-link/Cash card top up terminal.

[yeokiwi]

You go shopping center or go to supermarket buy things all the casher POS terminals are actually PC computer terminals in a different shape. Can you imagine if POS terminal are tablets how difficult the cashier have to look downwards all the time to key in the virtualized keyboard I think you will find the queue to cashier to be very long thanks for waiting

The keyboard for the POS terminal in many supermarkets has already virtualized.
And, 95% of the items are scanned.

The touch screen is placed near the shoulder level of the cashier and facing the cashier with extra big virtual buttons to key in the price when necessary.

Something like that
[Image: POS-Terminal.jpg]

[corydorus]

This article comes out after it has becomes a fact many moons ago ...

In the past there is a class of users who prefer tablets but there aren't such product which force them to use PC or notebook.
So when such product materialize, it is obvious a segment of customer will be gone.

For productivity purposes, majority will still have to use Notebook or Desktop currently.

[yeokiwi]

This article comes out after it has becomes a fact many moons ago ...

In the past there is a class of users who prefer tablets but there aren't such product which force them to use PC or notebook.
So when such product materialize, it is obvious a segment of customer will be gone.

For productivity purposes, majority will still have to use Notebook or Desktop currently.

The killer part is the entertainment value of the platform. Mobile platforms simply win hands down in providing entertainment to owners.
Anyone still sit down in front of PC/laptop to play games?
So, with the entertainment function taken out of PC/laptop, most are quite content with a low end or old desktop/labtop.
With lower frequency of changing desktop/labtop, the sale will get sluggish year after year.

[sgd]

You go shopping center or go to supermarket buy things all the casher POS terminals are actually PC computer terminals in a different shape. Can you imagine if POS terminal are tablets how difficult the cashier have to look downwards all the time to key in the virtualized keyboard I think you will find the queue to cashier to be very long thanks for waiting

The keyboard for the POS terminal in many supermarkets has already virtualized.
And, 95% of the items are scanned.

The touch screen is placed near the shoulder level of the cashier and facing the cashier with extra big virtual buttons to key in the price when necessary.

Something like that
[Image: POS-Terminal.jpg]

Yes I've seen that around but not all the supermarket and groceries stores have such things lah. People will still want to use keyboard because it is reliable practical and don't break easily and cheap. Where as touch screen sensitivity of indium coating wears off after 2-3 years you have to replace the whole thing vs just replace the keypad and the cost for implementing traditional Point of Sale (POS) terminals are not cheap each around 8-12k these are long term capital expenses.

But since we are on the topic of touch screen and tablets if people really think it's going to take off in a big way then means sgx listed unionmet who supplies indium for touch screen devices market will going to see high growth and tremendous opportunities.

boom town.

[gemswizard]

This article comes out after it has becomes a fact many moons ago ...

In the past there is a class of users who prefer tablets but there aren't such product which force them to use PC or notebook.
So when such product materialize, it is obvious a segment of customer will be gone.

For productivity purposes, majority will still have to use Notebook or Desktop currently.

The killer part is the entertainment value of the platform. Mobile platforms simply win hands down in providing entertainment to owners.
Anyone still sit down in front of PC/laptop to play games?
So, with the entertainment function taken out of PC/laptop, most are quite content with a low end or old desktop/labtop.
With lower frequency of changing desktop/labtop, the sale will get sluggish year after year.

I am one of those who will still sit down in front of a PC to play hardcore MMO games and epic strategy games such as Civilisation V. I don't really play games on either my ipad or my Galaxy Note 10.1 because games on tablets are simply not the same. You don't really feel that u are gaming but just passing time during parcel of waiting time. For hard core gamers, PC or consoles are still an absolute necessity.

Even for doing stock analysis and valuation, I still use my PC very extensively (i.e. Excel). But yes, now with the tablet, I can open up the companies' annual reports on it and then used the PC to do the number churning. Tablets definitely adds to the productivity equation but I don't think it will replace the PC yet (soft keyboard still cannot replace hard keyboard in terms of speed and ease of use).

Even in my company (listed blue-chip co), instead of replacing existing laptop with tablets even though we have lots of marketing staff that travel extensively, we are instead allocating huge chuck of budget for windows 8 hybrid PC/Tablets devices e.g. Microsoft Surface, because those devices have the traditional power of PC and yet still can double up as tablet during travel.

IMHO, I am on the camp that think PC is not going away anytime soon.

Vested in Intel. So my views may be biased But I went through the above analysis too before I started picking up Intel.

[Boon]

PC shipments post the steepest decline ever in a single quarter, says IDC

Press release, April 11; Joseph Tsai, DIGITIMES [Thursday 11 April 2013]

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20130411PR203.html

[yeokiwi]

PC shipments post the steepest decline ever in a single quarter, says IDC

Press release, April 11; Joseph Tsai, DIGITIMES [Thursday 11 April 2013]

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20130411PR203.html

The trend is almost unavoidable. Growth for both Intel and Microsoft will go negative until they can find a way to charge the consumers more or move into new frontiers.
But, unfortunately, all the new frontiers are cheapskate frontiers. Android OS is free and so Microsoft cannot charge much for its mobile OS. Same with arm chips, they are so dirt cheap as compared with Intel Processors.

Their business model that is based on products with high profit margin is over.

[CityFarmer]

The shrinking will continue...

Global PC market ‘shrank 11% in second quarter’

SAN FRANCISCO — Global shipments of personal computers slumped 10.9 per cent in the second quarter, the fifth straight quarterly decline in a market that has been devastated by the popularity of tablets, research firm Gartner said yesterday.

Marking the longest decline in the PC industry’s history, Hewlett-Packard in the June quarter lost ground to Lenovo, now the world’s leading personal computer maker with a market share of 16.7 per cent.

http://www.todayonline.com/tech/global-p...nd-quarter