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Comment by Lewisham | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, I'm surprised there are still as many Windows OEMs as there are right now. The consumer PC market has cratered since the iPad, and Apple's tactic of getting Macs into colleges is paying dividends now those students are moving into their 30s. How many people really want a Windows machine at this point? With Valve's aggressive move into taking PC games off of Windows altogether, I really don't know what market segment is left loyal to the platform.

Samsung might be taking a hit on experiments such as Chromebooks, but my guess is its going to be the OEMs that diversify quickly and focus on quality and not quantity that will stay in the business of selling computational machines to consumers.

Windows 8 is Microsoft's parting gift to the desktop. I'd put money on Windows 9 going Metro only, and perhaps a revival of the NT brand for enterprise buyers to keep the desktop around.

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My god, some of you people live in the weirdest little bubble, where you have no idea what is going on in the world.

> The consumer PC market has cratered since the iPad

No it hasn't. Not even close. There are a lot more PCs sold per quarter than iPads, and the rate of PC shipments is still increasing.

> How many people really want a Windows machine at this point?

According to every available stat, a vast majority of people choose Windows over Linux and OSX.

> With Valve's aggressive move into taking PC games off of Windows altogether

Valve's biggest market by far is PC, and will remain so for the immediate future. They have no intention of moving off Windows - just establishing other platforms.

> I'd put money on Windows 9 going Metro only

I will take this bet for any odds you are willing to give. The fact that you are even considering this as a possible outcome shows that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

> the rate of PC shipments is still increasing.

Gartner and IDC: PC shipments tumbled over 8 percent in Q3[1]

That's the second consecutive quarter of negative global growth.[2]

>> The consumer PC market has cratered since the iPad

> There are a lot more PCs sold per quarter than iPads

I don't think 'since the iPad' meant losing out solely to iPad sales.

[1] http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/10/gartner-and-idc-pc-shipme...

[2] http://www.consumerit.eu/index.php?option=com_content&vi...

So the quarter before a major new Windows OS release, the number of computers sold decreased? Earth shattering

You're grasping at straws, Windows is not going anywhere in a hurry. You may not like it, but to ignore this fact is to ignore reality.

I guess you missed the part where demand for this hugely anticipated OS release is looking decidedly weak?[0][1][2]

(I love that after telling one person they don't know what they're talking about, while making obviously false claims yourself, you continue to lecture about 'reality'.)

BTW, I'm not posting in support of Lewisham's thesis, so I have no need for straws.

[0] TFA

[1] http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/12/03/Why-Window...

[2] http://news.investors.com/technology/101612-629557-intel-bea...

> while making obviously false claims yourself

What claims have I made that are false?

So after a couple of weak quarters, PC sales are what, twice the rate of tablets? 3 times?

Go ahead, try to pretend that Windows is no longer relevant - but if you want to actually understand the market, which is what I thought this website was for, then you can't support ridiculous claims like "Windows PC sales have cratered since the iPad was released".

> What claims have I made that are false?

You said they're growing. They're shrinking.

I'm out.

They shrunk in one quarter. There are some early indications that by some measures they might have shrunk in Q4 as well. You know full well that the statement you are trying to defend, that "Windows 8 PC sales have cratered since the iPad" is indefensible.

I know I said I was done but since you keep harping on the point, I'll just leave this here:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Technology/Pix/pictures/...

It shows global PC sales flat since the start of 2010. The iPad debuted in April 2010.

I'm downvoting you because your tone is unnecessarily hostile. You are making a defensible point. You don't need to be so caustic to do it, nor simply ignore what points people are making in return; there are far more potent arguments available to you than just trying to pretend noibl didn't score a legitimate point by pointing out the market is indeed shrinking when you said growing, and then trying to sneak the goalposts somewhere else.

Maybe I was too hostile, but Nobl was trying to move the goalposts himself from the initial "Windows PC sales have cratered since the iPad", to "PC sales have shrunk in the latest quarter". I was getting annoyed and trying to bring it back to the original point.

So that would have been a decent theory before the Windows 8 release. But if people were delaying purchases because of the upcoming Windows 8 release, there should have been a sales spike by now as all that pent-up demand gets satisfied. And the impression I'm getting from the news (including the original article) doesn't support such a spike...

How many people really want a Windows machine at this point?

You know, it's funny that your id says that you're studying video games and yet you make such a bold statement. Anyone who's into serious gaming wants a Windows machine. Duh!

Anyone who wants to make money building and selling video games wants an iPad. Not all games sold are hardcore, which is somewhat of a difficult capital-intensive market anyways.

Many people into serious gaming are not necessarily on the PC platform. The other aspect is that the majority of those that are are buying into the Steam ecosystem. As I said in my OP, I expect those players will follow Valve away from Windows to Linux if Valve courts them (and developers) aggressively.

> How many people really want a Windows machine at this point? With Valve's aggressive move into taking PC games off of Windows altogether, I really don't know what market segment is left loyal to the platform.

Given that Windows still holds > 91% of the OS market share [1], I don't think it is going to fade away anytime soon.

> I'd put money on Windows 9 going Metro only

That is never going to happen, given how much influence Microsoft has on the corporate world, it would be equivalent killing their golden goose.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows#Usage_share

Regarding sales as opposed to usage:

Windows once held an overwhelming lead in 2008 with about 70 percent of the OS market, Forrester found in estimating overall personal computing device sales by OS. By 2012, that market share had shrunk to about 30 percent.

-- http://rcpmag.com/articles/2012/10/22/microsoft-os-market-sl...

According to a Goldman Sachs report acquired by The Seattle Times, Windows lost massive share in the global compute market-- from being the OS of choice in 97% of all computing devices in 2000 to just 20% in 2012.

-- http://www.consumerit.eu/index.php?option=com_content&vi...

That's hilarious - "all computing devices" includes tablets, and even some smartphones. No wonder desktop Windows is "declining" in popularity against that whole market.

It's not desktop Windows. It's Windows.

See my posts re declining PC sales for why this would matter (hint: people are getting work done on devices).

Then we can fall back to the argument that consumer PCs aren't really important anyway.

People are using tablets for what they used to use PC's for in the past. My mom can do everything on her iPad: e-mail, surf the net, take and look at baby photos of my daughter. In 2000 she had a Windows PC, but she's unlikely to ever buy one again. To the extent that it's not Windows running on those tablets, that represents a real loss in market share for Windows.

> That is never going to happen, given how much influence Microsoft has on the corporate world, it would be equivalent killing their golden goose.

You stopped reading when you read the sentence you wanted to read. I wrote:

Windows 8 is Microsoft's parting gift to the desktop. I'd put money on Windows 9 going Metro only, and perhaps a revival of the NT brand for enterprise buyers to keep the desktop around.

Enterprise will be given something, but I don't think it will be Windows 9. It'll be something else, maybe a new fork from Windows 7.

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