The IT Nerd

That’s a good question. The way I see it, there are three reasons:

• Tablets and smartphones: Sales of both of these have gone through the roof and it’s little wonder why. They are capable of doing most if not all of what a traditional PC can do and pack more power in a portable size than the computer that took the Apollo 11 astronauts to the moon. All at a slightly lower price point.  A lot of people have no practical need for a PC as a result.
• PC’s last longer: I remember the days when you bought a PC and within a year there was something twice as fast at a lower price point. Plus software and operating systems were making huge leaps in usability and functionality which created the “killer app” concept where a particular piece of software forced people to upgrade their PC every year or two to run said app or OS. People of a certain age will remember that Windows 386, Lotus 1-2-3 and PageMaker were examples of “killer apps.” In any case, that pace has slowed so that you can get three to four years from a PC easily with the software that it came with.
• Chromebooks and other alternative OS computers: Chromebooks running the Chrome OS and their ilk are grabbing market share like crazy. Seeing as they are dirt cheap and do what most people need them to do, it’s no shock that they are hurting PC sales.

This is why it’s not a shock that Microsoft is trying to reinvent itself to make sure that they can survive this change. Expect others to do the same. And expect the decline of PC sales to continue.

This entry was posted on July 12, 2013 at 9:16 am and is filed under Commentary with tags PC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.