Samsung Exec Blames Windows 8 for Declining PC Market

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bluerider

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Mar 9, 2013
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It is the vendors. How many Samsung, Asus, Acer commercials do we see for Window's PCs nowadays? All I see are android and apple commercials. If Samsung wants to blame anyone, they should blame their own marketing team for failing to market any of their Windows 8 PC's. Samsung paid lip service to Windows, then actively worked against the Windows brand, and now that it's reveling in its success, they blame Microsoft (who's surface commercials are the only ones I see). That's very underhanded.
 

Wamphryi

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Now that Win 8 has been rejected for reasons that are often inaccurate it is possible the PC industry may decline. That will push up prices from mass market pricing to niche market pricing. Something we can all look forward to I guess. To bad Win 8 actually works well and is an excellent performer on an ultra book. All that means nothing in the face of that missing Start Button.
 

ssd_pro

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Correct. There was enthusiasm around the Windows 7 launch on a much greater scale. The best you find for 8 are comments like:

"Its not that bad."
"I can tolerate it."
"Just install Start8 and it is fine."
"I just like having the latest."
"I had to get it, that's all they offered. I don't mind it."

That is not enthusiasm, its pathetic. And yes, it really isn't bad. It is a fine OS. It just isn't exciting or innovative.
 

STravis

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Samsung is making money hand over fist with their Android phones - so much so that Google is worried that they may be held hostage by them; of course Samsung has very little interest in PC's. They're not as lucrative.
 
Win8 just doesn't offer anything compelling for consumers to upgrade from Win7. With Win7, they were trying to get away from Vista as fast as possible, and that was because the initial release of Vista was pathetic. It did improve quite a bit after SP1, but the damage was done already, and Win7 was around the corner.
Win8 is not a bad OS, but the stakes were just raised too high by Win7.
 

whyso

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Seriously, if you think windows 8 is not hurting laptops sales just go on newegg and look at laptop review. Most common complaint (for notebooks sold with windows 8) is that it runs windows 8.
 

tobalaz

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Windows 8 without a touchscreen is junk.
Sorry.
Had to say it.

Outside of Windows 8 packing the single highest amount of suck since Windows ME, there are other things to take into consideration before laying all the fail on the OS.
1. Tablets and phones are sucking the desktop/ laptop market dry.
2. Driver support isn't there where Win8 performance hasn't been as good in games as Win7.
3. Win8 really is a touchscreen interface, without a touchscreen it isn't what I'd call usable because it doesn't flow as easy with a mouse and keyboard.
4. Big companies are going to hold on to Win7 and even Vista kicking and screaming before they sink a dime into training employees and IT people a radical new interface that many users find confusing.
5. Win8 maintenance is confusing unless you've been TRAINED for Win8. You can't just go to the control panel anymore, you have to know the secret of the charms bar because the control panel functionality has been nerfed down to the equivalent of right click in an empty space on the desktop.

Sure, there were GRADUAL CHANGES from one version of windows to the next, it allowed all of us to adapt to the next version with relative ease. Problem is when Linux looks more like Windows than Windows does, well, MS screwed the pooch.
 

AndrewMD

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Having owned a Samsung Laptop in the past, (2 years ago) I can honestly say that their hardware sucks. They love copying Apple designs but fail every time to produce something that is worth their premium price.

** I had their small 11" laptop with an i3 CPU, first one died 3 hours after purchasing it. The replacement started melting the case around the cpu.... (this was suppose to compete against the mac book air)....

From a smartphone prospective, they suck even more, starting today, I am on my fourth replacement model of the Note.....

It's time for Samsung to shut up and start producing products that are high quality.
 

AndrewMD

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Did Samsung ever consider the reason that PC sales are dropping is because people are content with their current computers and they are purchasing tablet and smartphones instead?
 

rooseveltdon

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The enterprise segment will more than likely never move to Windows 8 (most are stuck on XP and are just now moving to 7) and the mainstream never really liked it either, the UI change was drastic and honestly unnecessary and it's simply backfiring on them.
 

corbeau

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I'm tire of these companies bickering over who is at fault, it's simple, it's both hardware and software to blame for the limited PC market. Windows 8 while not terrible, isn't the most user friendly. If you want to create a compelling reason for people to upgrade, how about putting SSDs into full laptops at a reasonable price points. Right now in order to maximize your dollar you're best off buying a $400 laptop and swapping out the HDD for an SSD, why not sell a laptop for $600 with say a 120gb SSD and give people a reason to upgrade?
 

Stevemeister

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PC demand has nothing to do with Windows 8 - I think there are three factors.
1. The economy is not exactly going gangbusters for most folks
2. Market saturation - lots of people have more than 1 PC . . I have 3 and only upgrade 2 of them on a 4 year cycle because I game. The folks who only surf the internet and read e-mail (like my wife) don't need a new PC to do that . . 5-10 year old PC's can still cope well with those kind of tasks.
3. The biggest problem for Windows 8 is that Windows 7 actually works so well that for most people there is no compelling reason to change. Windows XP was actually a decent OS and the 64 bit version was very fast. Vista was a disaster and I suspect a lot of people held off switching from XP until 7 came out based on the early reports about how bad it was. While 8 is not a disaster, for most people there is simply no reason to voluntarily change something that offers no real advantage. . . . even if the price is reduced.


3 years is too short a cycle for the average person to want to change their OS.

 

Stevemeister

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I also disagree that the PC market will die. Tablets and smartphones may satisfy the needs of teenagers and websurfers but those of us who program and use PC's for work will never surrender our PC's for tablets
 

InvalidError

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While Win8 may not have helped, I think the bigger reason is that PCs and laptops from 3-5 years ago are still perfectly adequate for most people's needs so there is very little urge for non/casual-gamers to refresh equipment. I would still be using my C2D-E8400 if I hadn't needed to upgrade to 16GB RAM.

With all the little annoyances in Win8 (taskbar always on top, corner traps reverting to Vista, occasional deadlocks, seemingly broken MTP implementation, etc.), I am seriously considering. While it has not outright crashed on me, I cannot say it is particularly pleasant. Vista on my old PC used to run much smoother.
 
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