Opinion: Can Windows 8 Save the PC?

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Exactly drwho1, PC's don't need saving. Thumbs up for you!
PC users are too smart to be brainwashed by nonsense.
Save this type of ridiculousness for console gamers, if anything.
 
PCs are "dying"?
Maybe Desktop pcs dont sell nowdays as much as laptops/ultrabooks, because most users just dont need that much power to web browsing, multimedia and work.
Tablets and smartphones are and will be always just complementary, "toys" with some utility.
Therefore i see one strong future for desktop PC's.. Gaming!.. for the masses at least.
If Win8 xbox live integration is sucessfull, it could seriously damage the console market.
Nowdays PC gaming is strong but not perfect, amongst a few other things, it needs variety.
(The market is flooded with fps for example)
Most ppl buy a console for gaming a laptop/ultrabook for work/etc a tablet for browsing/media a smartphone for a bit of everything.
IMO, i rather have a powerfull desktop pc a smartphone and thats it.
 
Well it seems that a lot of people don't like the idea of windows 8 but I for one am trying to take the optimistic approach. There's a lot of people hating on the UI because it is taking away their windows desktop. Really though it's still going to be there from what I have seen, it's just going to be layers instead of one screen. What it so bad about that? Also, it's not like you HAVE to use the touch functionality. You will still have the use of a mouse and keyboard as usual. I'm actually excited for something a little bit different. However, I don't know if I agree with the author about how much it's going to innovate, beyond maybe the tablet or smartphone market, and even that's a big "maybe".
 
PC's will never die. Its just that Hardware has caught up with S/W so ppl dont need to upgrade as quickly as they did in the past. I remember back in the 486x - pentium 1 days, PC would needed to be upgraded every 1 yr. Nowadays PC can last a good 3-4 yrs without any upgrades, or minor upgrade of VGA would be good enuf to play games. Also another note, its GAMES/Software piracy that has slowed down the sales of PC gameing. But if they make a majority of multiplayer games, then ppl wouldnt bother with piracy since you can only play multiplayer games with legit copies on proper good servers.

PC never died.
 
My opinion still remains the same from your previous article, the PC Crash.

I still maintain that the PC market is seeing a natural decline as the number of PCs in an average household reaches a saturation point. It's like how refrigerators, microwaves and stoves don't sell in the massive quantities like it had in the past. Every household has one, and one only needs to replace the equipment that breaks, or gets simply too old.

The PC industry is heading the same way. Most households now have 2 or more PCs, and I'd wager most of them are at least 5 years old. To the general public, a 5 year old Pentium 4 or Athlon 64 will suffice for word processing, creating presentations and browsing the web. Why replace something that works? That's the mentality of the majority of consumers.
 
WTF??! How can Windows 8 save the PC? It's already dying cuz "the tablets are taking over"... wait... or was it the other way round??
Seriously getting tough to keep track, with the PC "crashing" and "dying" all over the place... maybe the Wii will jump in and save the day!!
What a load of ****!
 
I agree with everybody here that is saying the PC is not dieing. I can see how the sales has declined and probably will continue to do so because the need to upgrade has narrowed down to gamers and 3D designers etc.

The author states that W8 will innovate by "blurring the lines between devices that we consider PCs today, and those we do not. Smartphones, tablets, ultrabooks, notebooks and desktop systems are being combined into one personal computing ecosystem with their capabilities all very much in the range of what we consider to be a "personal computer"

Ok, well, isn't that kind of what we have already? My phone and tablet can access the internet and do many of the things that my PC can do now. The thing is though, the PC is never going to be in danger of being replaced by these devices. I don't want my PC to get any smaller, that's why I have a 40 inch television hooked up to it and I would rather watch a blu ray movie or play a game on that than a tiny little screen. I don't want my Tower to get any smaller because I put a lot of work into it and I want to show that off. I'm never going to want to hook a printer up to my phone or tablet because it's always going to be easier to do on my desktop. As far as the PC market goes, bigger is usually better imo, and I don't really see that changing anytime soon.

I guess I don't really get where the author is going with the whole "blurring the lines" statement. It almost seems like he can see into the future or something.
 
[citation][nom]DjEaZy[/nom]...windows 8 sucks big time... it's honorably wrong, what they are doing... is windows phone 7 such a success to implement the UI in a mainly desktop OS? I understand, what they trying to do with the only assets they got... you can see the slight blend of OSX Lion with iOS... and i understand that with the technology, the OS'es will blend... but in apples front the blending will be much seamless... but here? Windows is taking the WP7 UI and trowing on W7... the accent is on the WP7 UI, that's in my opinion is terrible... windows 8 will be the next in a ME and Vista line... them may be windows 9 will be better...[/citation]
... it's all good now... funded a way to turn the Moetro UI off... thats more like it... now i can enjoy the new performance of the OS...
 


Lol wtf? I'm not trying to replace Wolfgang... that guy has got quite some time to waste and a real talent for BS rage-inspiring articles. I think that Tom's should keep him for the lulz and to show its readers what happens when you smoke too much tablet weed. I'm merely trying to express my opinion, so please keep your sarcasm to yourself...

...but in unlikely case you were serious, your suggestion is welcome xD
 
Basically, what we are terming as a Crash in the PC market isn't exactly that, there is a slowdown in the people buying PCs mostly because too many PCs have already flooded the market in too short a space of time.
We have had too many models and too much development too soon in this segment, people have already bought up the next 5 years of technological requirements that they have 'cos of the price drops in the PC market.
Now is a time to develop stuff without throwing it at the consumer cos he's really not interested in spending money right now. What he wants is to make the best use of his already bought systems and make it seem his moneys worth.
Windows 8 is going to be a pleasant change and will keep the consumer busy with new problems :) bugs and fixes for atleast the next 2 years.
So by then the new developments in the hardware area is going to catch up to optimize Win8, we'll already be seeing a new market then.
That is technology and development, it's a cycle that will never end, or actually it does have an end, when minds will control stuff thru tech.
So the PC is not dying, it'll will always be the one essential requirement in every household as the world becomes a more hi-tech place to live in.
 
This guy is a total DOOS, he probably spends all his free time checking how many smartphones, tablets and consoles he can cram up his asshole!
 
Windows 7 sales still crush all Apple sales combined, including the pads, pods, Macs, and phones. How is the market dead at all? Win7 is still sparking people to purchase or upgrade their current computers... Windows 8 likely won't even spark such a hardware upgrade, as everything running 7 will (likely) already run 8 just fine too.

I think you have some good points here Wolfgang, the problem is you're starting off with a false and preposterous premise. Do some research next time and we'll all probably be a bit more receptive to your uneducated opinions.
 
Let's just say that the growth has crashed.
Click to expand...
No, let's just say that growth has slowed.The best thing yopu could have done Wolfgang was to write an article on another subject instead of trying to defend an untenable position.
The PC market is not in decline and to claim it is when sales are still up is a gross misrepresentation of the English language and basic economics.
 
Mr Gruener, does market saturation and sluggish growth alter the definition of "crash"?

The PC market as a whole isn't going to grow much more in the developed world. That's the natural progression of technology, when a technology becomes ubiquitous growth slows. Aside from manipulating the market there isn't a way to avoid the basic rules of economics.

Apple is seeing explosive growth, but it's unsustainable, and there are likely going to be a lot of people who lose a lot of money when that bubble bursts. They make fine machines, but ask your broker if he'd risk his personal IRA to bet on AAPL. The AAPL price is a fluke like QCOM in 2000, and is in no way related to their actual revenue dividends or profitability.

Gross Profit 2010 MSFT 54.37B 2010 DELL 11.40B HPQ 8.76B Lenovo Goup 2.36B. I concede other factors help those numbers a large amount, but even with 3% growth the PC market from the 2010 350.9 million units that's still an increase of over 10.5 million units sold. The cost of parts is decreasing, as is the cost of production. The margins should get higher for both ODMs and OEMs in the next few years, so there is no need to even mention four letter words.

Here are the numbers in long form I gave earlier.

$54,370,000,000
$11,400,000,000
$8,760,000,000
$2,360,000,000

There were roughtly 350,900,000 PCs sold in 201o, and with a 3% growth
roughly 360,417,000 PCs would be sold.

Mr Gruener, take a few steps back, breath, and think about just how large those numbers are in comparison to the numbers you see around you daily. It's forgetting that the market is tad finicky at times which causes most crashes.

The PC market isn't real estate c.2007 or telecom c.2000. 3% market growth in an economy with 9% US unemployment, US real personal income down 0.1% and US GNP up less than 1.5% so far is pretty impressive. The stats for other large economies like the UK aren't too different. 3% growth is the sign of a resilient industry in times like these, not of impending doom or perilous futures.
 
It's call market saturation. The PC has been around long enough that it's reaching saturation levels in first world nations, basically everyone has one or two PC's these days.

The "new" devices like smartphones and tablets haven't reached saturation yet, they won't for many years to come. People are not replacing their PC's with tablets, they adding tables to their electronic gadget library, right next to the PC, MP3 player and smartphone. In another 10 years tablets and smartphones will have reached market saturation themselves and everyone will have a few PC's, a tablet, a smartphone, a portable media device, and some other new gadget will have hit the scene. Most likely it'll be a augmented reality device but there are a myriad of undeveloped untapped applications that we simply haven't hit the tech curve for yet.

So no, we're not replacing PC's with tablets, we're adding tablets to PC's.
 
[citation][nom]richaemry[/nom]The PC market isn't real estate c.2007 or telecom c.2000. 3% market growth in an economy with 9% US unemployment, US real personal income down 0.1% and US GNP up less than 1.5% so far is pretty impressive. The stats for other large economies like the UK aren't too different. 3% growth is the sign of a resilient industry in times like these, not of impending doom or perilous futures.[/citation]
Wolfgang, please note the above stats and also note that if you boil it down, that's a 3% growth in PCs during the biggest global financial crisis since the Great Depression.
If the PC market can grow at all during these hard times says volumes.
 
Is it just me or does that OS look like a smartphone OS?
I hope you can still turn the view to "classic", as i like to control the size of my files.. stuff like that.

On another note, I dont think that PC is going to die soon. After all, the DVD is still out there and we had Blue-Ray for a while now.
Now, after reading the article about Gaikai and their BRowser gaming, im not so sure PC can manage. If that system works well...
 
Here we go again. The PC does not need saving, it's going strong. Bulldozer, Sandy Bridge E, AMD HD7k series all coming out this year, maybe even Nvidia will throw something in the mix, SSD's are slowing creeping in on old mechanical HDD becoming cheaper and more affordable, Intel developing the new 3D transistors, all kinds of new and exciting stuff coming up for the PC. Why does the PC need saving?
 
I wasn't aware that the PC needed saving. How many billion of them are there around the world again?
 
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