back to article Frightening fondleslabs branded Hannibal Lecter of UK PC market

The classic PC industry in Blighty is down but not yet out for the count, according to the latest IT distribution channel data. Prelim numbers from Context SalesWatch shows 960,000 notebooks, desktops, x86 servers and workstations were sold in Q1 2013, a decline of 4.8 per cent on a year ago. Market revenues fell 3.4 per cent …

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  1. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Punditry

    The great thing is that in a day or two, whatever these guys say will be lost and forgotten, probably for ever. If pure, blind, random chance happens to do them a turn and this prognostication (one of how many?) happens to have a grain of truth in it, they will be blowing their own strumpets and telling the world what masters of forecasting they are. However, if it turns out they are completely and irredeemably wrong the story will get buried and never mentioned again.

    The trick is to make as many forecasts as possible and just play the odds.

    Now, if they were to have a significant amount of their own, personal, money riding on the outcome of this statement, then I might be persuaded to take it a bit more seriously.

    1. JFDavies

      Re: Punditry

      Hey, hold on a moment. Get your facts right before you sound off about pundits. In CONTEXT's case, or "these guys" as you put it, it happens to be a massive effort in collecting data daily and weekly from all the major channel sources in the UK. So the data is what it is - it's not derived, projected or invented, it's what we collect down to SKU level. And the investment is several hundred people working to make sure we get it right. If we reported what's not there, we'd be out of business in a flash, the fact we've been in business 30 years means we've been doing something right, and will continue to do so.

      It's easy to pan any research with slick comments and one-liners. Let me know when you'd like to come on down to the CONTEXT offices and learn how a professional research company works so you can get your facts right the next time you want to comment intelligently on research.

  2. FutureShock999

    Sales figures don't tell the whole story...

    Netbooks may be down and out, but that's not because people won't buy them - it's because manufacturers decided to stop cannibalising their own notebook sales...

    1. Armando 123

      Re: Sales figures don't tell the whole story...

      Mostly because the manufacturers realized they couldn't make any money on them.

  3. G R Goslin

    What do they do with them?

    From my experience with tablets, there's so little you can actually do with them, and this applies almost equally to Apple and Android vewrsions. It makes me wonder what people who carry the bloody things around actually DO to earn the daily crust.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    why are pc's/macs sold

    well somebody has to program those tablet apps and the underlying servers

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: why are pc's/macs sold

      Angry Birds only needs to be written once.

  5. Mephistro
    Facepalm

    The PC and laptop sales slump, again...

    Other factors to consider, aside from tablets and mobes:

    - Mature technologies: A decade ago when you bought a desktop or a laptop, it was assumed the machine would be obsolete in ~4 years. Nowadays it's more like six or seven years. That probably accounts for most of the sales slump.

    - Recession: We haven't left it behind yet, and it obviously affects IT spending both for companies and individuals.

    I´ll concede that a small part of the sales loss for desktops and laptops comes from the rise in tablets sales, but it's not by far as big as these 'analysts' will make us believe.

    It beats me how companies and individuals that should know better are willing to purchase expensive tablets when a far cheaper laptop would allow them to do the same job faster and far more comfortably. The power of fashion and shiny shiny, perhaps?

    And don't get me started on BYOD...

  6. Dan Paul
    Devil

    What about home built PC's?

    Just curious but I don't buy desktop PC's any longer, I build my own from parts. Does anyone actually track that kind of scenario? Track OEM Windows activations perhaps??

    I'll bet that has become a significant part of the market since it has become so easy to do, costs so much less and you get a MUCH better product than a PC manufacturer will provide.

    This would be especially true during this recession.

    Oh, Eadon, not everyone wants to struggle with a Linux distribution. I dislike Windows 8 but it will become a better product when the "Second Edition" is released.

    Even now, the use of Classic Shell fixes almost all of the objectionable issues.

  7. Wize

    Diblert cartoon on the subject:

    http://dilbert.com/2013-04-02/

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