back to article Thought the PC market couldn't get any worse? HAH! Think again

Any PC makers dreaming of a sales rebound this year are picking up the pieces of that shattered aspiration: beancounters at IDC reckon the number of computers shipped will be worse than first feared. The statisticians believe the market in Western Europe will decline 16.3 per cent to just shy of 47 million units in 2013, …

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  1. Ant Evans
    FAIL

    Retail flail

    I'm not sure what fraction of the market it makes up, but in no other industry is retail so suicidally, so sheep-shaggingly inept.

    This is not helping.

    Europe is worst. US a bit better.

    It won't sell itself, Einstein. You need to put it where people can see it. Try putting prices on it. Keep your shop tidy. Do some promotions. Try talking sense or, failing that, learn sales technique. Go to a real shop and see how they do it. Look at a real web site. Get fucking organized or go home.

    1. Ant Evans
      FAIL

      Re: Retail flail

      The argument that there isn't sufficient benefit at the margin to justify the capital outlay for most folks, or that Windows this or that is rubbish, has no bearing on the sales proposition, particularly in retail.

      Take bicycles. There hasn't been a material advance in bicycle technology in a century. Do regular punters need new bicycles? They do not. Do shops sell new bicycles to regular punters? They do.

      Today, the Register can reveal that most of the bicycles that get sold to regular punters are not strictly what those punters need. They are not correctly fitted (most are too big), they contain dubious and unnecessary non-innovations (integrated headsets, bladed spokes, telescopic forks), arbitrary design choices dressed up as features (622 wheels, 170mm cranks, and oversize tubing), and are designed to be easy to use, even when this makes them less effective (straight bars). Most of these features will never be exploited.

      Regular punters would be just as well off with a second hand bike from the 1980s. Why do you suppose they cough up regularly for redundant new kit?

      1. myarse
        WTF?

        Re: Retail flail

        http://www.cyclesurgery.com/pws/UniqueProductKey.ice?ProductID=CSBC1385KC&gclid=CN6QmaGSpLkCFSTKtAodp04AyA

      2. Two Posts
        Thumb Up

        Re: Retail flail

        There is of course a regular supply of return customers, as it is a well known fact that the number of bicycles a cyclist wants is always n+1

        I have a hack / commute / shop / all weather aluminium hybrid bike, a whizzy carbon road bike and for the past few months the n+1 itch has had me oggling a steel cyclocross type bike with disc brakes.

        Do I need another bike, nope, but this new bike would fit nicely between the others in the type of rides I could do, at least that is what I keep telling myself and a bargain at only £1250

        Back on topic, I built a nice water cooled, i7 powered monster desktop PC earlier this year, gobs of RAM, SSD boot, 3TB data drive...it is by far the best PC I have ever had and replaced a 7-8 year old computer that was on its knees.

        It is a joy to power up and use (once I get out of that damn TIFKAM interface) BUT what do I still do 80 - 90 % of my browsing / emailing / commenting (and therefore a majority of my computing activity) on - a roughly 4 year old netbook that is also nearly on its knees, why? because it is downstairs and on my lap whilst I am slouched on the sofa, or it on my bed side table with in arms reach or out and about when visiting family etc.

        As others have pointed out, computing at home as changed and the desktop PC (and to a lesser extent large laptop) market is never going back to how it was.

        1. Ant Evans
          FAIL

          Re: Retail flail

          Sir, you have excellent taste.

          Which would be *easier*? Building your i7 or buying the cross bike? Now replicate a million times.

          The PC 'industry' bleats about falling sales, but until they learn to sell like the bike industry sells, they get negative sympathy from me.

          I'm trying to build a machine right now. Impossible to find what I want. I'll probably stick with what I have, and buy that steel disc cross bike for winter.

          Losers.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does this mean Intel is finished?

    'Cos they really annoy me and, unless I missed something, they don't exist in the mobile world.

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