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Apple vs. PC Shipments: "PC" Decline Worse Than Reported
Based on data from Gartner and IDC, AllThingsD reported that it was a very bad year for PC shipments, except at Apple.
I have a problem with that.
It isn't that it's not true, but rather that PC growth vs. Apple is even worse than reported. To see why, let's look at the chart from Gartner for US "PC" shipments, where the conclusion is that Apple growth increased 20.7% while PC growth declined 5.9%.
If you truly want to know how Apple did in the US on its own against "PCs", you must subtract it from the latter's numbers. Here's what you get:
- Total 4Q11: 15,854,964
- Total 4Q10: 17,342,605
- 4Q11-4Q10 Growth: -8.5
The originally reported dismal "PC" growth of -5.9% becomes an even more dismal -8.5% without Apple's numbers propping it up. That -2.6% delta is not insignificant, it's over 40% worse than what was reported.
IDC's numbers are also available. As usual, they do not agree completely with Gartner, yet the trend is the same.
Any way you look at it, Apple is exceeding the "PC" growth rate, and if you pull their numbers from "PC" shipments to get a true Mac vs. PC comparson, the latter's state is revealed to be even worse than it appears at first glance.
PCWorld: Windows Laptop Makers Can’t Catch Up to the MacBook Air
Building a better Air - or even just a cheaper one - is proving to be difficult. Those unibody aluminum chassis on MacBooks make them really rigid despite the thin design… Challengers like the Samsung Series 9 have metal bodies, but without the satisfying stiff feel and seamless edges of one carved from a single chuck of alloy.
Looks like PCWorld has discovered Apple's unibody advantage.
Playing catchup is tough when you're this far behind.
Some Windows PC notebook builders are calling for steep discounts from Intel as they don't think the promise of a $300 million ultrabook fund is enough… Having been quoted over $700 in parts to make an 11-inch model to square off against the MacBook Air, they didn't think the $999 target price would be achievable without help.
If the rest of the industry started a response to Apple's new designs immediately—instead of just mocking them the first two years—they'd be in a better position to compete when they realize Apple was right all along.
With iPad, Apple is No. 3 in portables, Let the Howling Begin
The best thing about this isn't that Apple jumps to #3, but rather that it's become realistic to include tablets in the mobile PC numbers to begin with. At the iPad launch just a few months ago this was unheard of, but the iPad has proven so capable it's not a wild idea, it's becoming obvious.
Traditional PC vendors—who still have no iPad rival—will howl and protest at this suggestion. We'll be told that only the type of PC we've been using for years fits in this category. Their rhetoric will be tailored not only against products they don't sell, but also to soothe baffled consumers and IT groups who can't imagine that "portable" isn't synonymous with laptop.
We'll see a lot of this, but ultimately it will fail. When the iPhone came out there was lots of talk about how it wasn't really a smartphone, but that BS didn't last, either. The market defines product categories, not the tech shills and marketers who want to bend a definition to include only what they sell.
Forrester Research: Tablets Will Only Steal Sales From... Desktops?
What other conclusion can be drawn from the graph? From 2010, netbook sales barely change (18 to 17%), and laptops barely change (44 to 42%). With the tablet rising from 6 to 23%, it all comes out of desktop share (32 to 18%).
Um...
Forrester's report is questionable right up front. It predicts sales of 3.5M tablets this year, and 20.4M in 2015. Those numbers are so low it's ridiculous. Apple is already over 2M sales this year; Forrester thinks they can't even double that by December 31? Thats nuts. Apple will hit 8M or more this year, and who knows what other tablet players will join the game in the coming months.
As for netbooks, I disagree their sales percentage will remain steady over the next five years. Their sales growth is already slowing. People are figuring out they're not the "laptop" they promise to be. Netbooks have all the headaches of PCs without the size or power to have enough of the benefits. Cheap laptops make better sense, and a tablet even more-so. Netbooks' day in the sun is nearing its end; I see a pretty small trickle five years hence.
Regarding laptops, they'll feel the pinch of tablets getting faster with more sophisticated software, which won't take long. Look at where the software is already: iWork or Documents To Go productivity suites; Photogene for great image editing; Reel Director or iMovie for iPhone (iPad won't be far behind) for video, etc. And these are here now, imagine what we'll have in just a year. I could argue these apps are already close to doing what the majority of consumers need in these areas. There are certainly rough edges, but they'll get smoothed. Laptops are going to feel the heat sooner than Forrester imagines.
I agree on desktops' decline, but that's already happening and has been for a while. Laptops have eaten their lunch in the past, but tablets will encroach on laptops as explained above.
The tablet form factor is going to be huge. I'm already on record that it's how "all" computers will work someday, and I don't think critical mass will take as long as the GUI did, which is apparently what Forrester is expecting.
Just 20M tablets sold in 2015? They'll pass that number in 2012. Netbook and laptop percentage will decline more than Forrester is predicting, and tablet percentages will be higher. Forrester's report seems written to appease those vested in the status quo, but it doesn't make it realistic.
Battle of the Steves
My point is that disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing is conventional, uninspiring and pointless. If Microsoft wants to help build the future, they’re not going to do it by clinging to words like “PC.
I think Ballmer gets more credit than he deserves.
Great Dual-Screen Wallpapers
The work PC I brought home has two monitors. The same wallpaper on each screen looks silly, so I went over to Digital Blasphemy and snapped up a bunch of dual-screen 'papers. The six shown here are just a few of the many I downloaded. Beautiful stuff.
They're not free, but for $15 you get 90 days access, which means you could easily download everything there. It also means you generally don't see this wallpaper on other machines, keeping your PC unique. I'd say 75% of the wallpapers on my Macs and PCs are from DB.
