





Windows Blue styles
Windows 8.1 will reportedly somewhat prune back and revamp Metro's role.
[Image Source: The Verge]









Sources: Learn By Shipping [Steven Sinofsky], ZDNet

Comments     Threshold


Real reasons for why PC sales declined
By XZerg on 5/13/2013 12:29:51 PM , Rating: 3
1) Most users have had the performance needed for their usual work for almost a decade. Slap a SSD and that old system gets another massive boost to their decade old system. Heck Tom did an article recently that showed Core 2 Duo CPUs doing just fine at most tasks against the latest and greatest. So why buy a new computer? I have a AMD X2 4600+ running my HTPC and also have a standby computer on Sempron 3100+ 32bit version.

2) Tables/smart phones - a vast majority of the users are consumers of media - emails/multimedia/internet. They bought computers to do this in the past but now they have options, options that do not crash or are harder to understand or configure and are in a small light portable package. Performance needs have plateaued at least 5 years ago. So why get a PC? Would you buy your parents a PC or a tablet who want to just consume media? I didn't.

3) Windows 8 was something that many OEMs were hoping would help generate more sales but it did not and was not entirely Windows 8's fault considering the above two points. The only reason I would blame Windows 8 for the sales decline is that it did not offer any compelling reasons to buy/suggest it over Windows 7. Better touch input support is the only differentiator between it and Windows 7 but there aren't many applications used by most users that benefit from it. It is more like DVD vs Blu-ray debacle as most people didn't see the need/benefit for Blu-ray and have not jumped on to its bandwagon.

imho the only time the PC sales will jump is when there are some compelling differentiators offered by the industry and based on the history either that Touch interface or the current form of it is not compelling enough. Tablets had plenty of compelling reasons and you can see the results, PC world needs to offer more.

By JediJeb on 5/14/2013 9:47:27 PM , Rating: 2

I still run my Athlon 2400M with WinXp and it does all I need to do. Have W7 on my laptop and honestly can see no advantage in it over old faithful. The quad core on the laptop does run Registax faster but that is the only thing I use that shows a difference.

