Gartner: PC growth slowing to 9.3% through iPad effect
updated 11:30 am EDT, Wed June 8, 2011
Gartner sees PC slowing in 2011 due to tablets
PC sales won't grow as much as expected for 2011 in the wake of tablets like the iPad, Gartner said on Wednesday. Originally expecting the field to grow by 10.5 percent, it lowered the mark to 9.3 percent and a total of 385 million computers. The analyst group blamed it chiefly on the collapse of netbooks following the iPad's release. Tablets like Apple's weren't necessarily replacing all notebooks, but they often led people to stall getting a new portable PC.
The move still meant that PCs were returning to a heavy dependence on corporate buyers upgrading their PCs. Windows 7 was finally encouraging the move from XP for many and would offset the tablet effect, but home buyers were noticeably less influential.
Research lead Ranjit Atwal warned that, regardless of the direct impact of the iPad and its kind, PCs no longer had the safety net they once did. They now had to compete against tablets, phones, set-top boxes and other devices as even the computers themselves were getting more specialized.
The effect of the iPad and other tablets has already been large and led Microsoft both to a rare decline in Windows revenue as well as a complete rethink of its tablet strategy after nearly a decade of trying to push pen-based interaction with a desktop interface. System builders that leaned too heavily on netbooks are now paying the price as well, with Acer bleeding share and refocusing its strategy on phones and tablets.
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Innovation vs. Stagnation
"... after nearly a decade of trying to push pen-based interaction with a desktop interface. ..."
Same old Windows, different form factor. Apple knows that Microsoft will be forced into backward compatibility forever. They are just as locked in to Windows + Office as the corporate IT groups who they've literally trained into subservience. All frozen in time circa 1995.
This provides Apple with an attack vector that Microsoft will never be able to defend against. Apple can and will evolve iOS and iDevices very rapidly. They have technological momentum, consumer and business mindshare, and marketplace dominance in mobile.
MS can't mount any serious mobile competition because, to them, anything other than Windows + Office on legacy pee cees is a threat to their main revenue stream. That's why they keep trying to hammer the same old square Windows peg into the round mobile hole.