iPad popularity contributes to reduction this year Personal Computer sales forecast

PC product sales worldwide are growing, however at a much slower rate than predicted. Personal Computer sales are being impacted by the reputation of Apple’s iPad and its tablet kin. Industry analysts are saying the trend will gain momentum. The PC time could be coming to an end, given the increased acceptance of tablets and other technology for instance hosted virtual desktops. Source of article – iPad popularity leads to reduction in 2010 PC sales forecast by Money Blog Newz.

Tablets acquire big bite away from 2010 PC sales

Gartner on Monday cut the forecast for PC product sales this year. The Apple iPad tablet was what made the PC sales change too much. Future sales of tablet imitators riding on the iPad’s coattails are also expected to cut into Personal Computer product sales going forward. Gartner changed what the 2010 Personal Computer product sales from 2009 were. It went from 17.9 percent to 14.3 percent now. Gartner also scaled back projections for Personal Computer sales in 2011 from 18.1 percent growth to just 15.9 percent. By 2014, Personal Computer sales are designed to have 10 percent swapped out by tablets.

Why there are less Personal computers retailing right now

It seems like PC sales are suffering from much more than just the uncertain business climate and weak employment. In fact, Apple's iPad has made a huge difference. Apple's Macintosh computers have been selling less than the iPad already. PCs haven't been able to innovate as much since the volume increase and price decrease has been the focus although Gartner points out that PC's are necessary. The change from PC's to tablets was compared to the change from farmer's trucks to family vehicles in the 20th century by Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

Personal computer era finished?

PC sales are being further eroded by the emergence of hosted virtual desktops (HVDs). Businesses prefer HVDs because employees can use cheap terminals connected to a virtual machine running on a back-end server. IT departments are able to fix problems with systems without having to go to each individual unit with HVDs. This is bad news for business like HP and Dell that are expected to take huge hits. Microsoft, which sells 85 percent of Windows on new Personal computers, will also have to adapt.

Citations

Computerworld

computerworld.com/s/article/9198381/Tablets_expected_to_clobber_PC_sales_in_2011?taxonomyId=12

Apple Insider

appleinsider.com/articles/10/11/29/tablets_like_apples_ipad_expected_to_displace_10_of_pcs_in_2014.html

San Francisco Chronicle

sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/11/29/businessinsider-business-pc-market-strong-today-but-watch-out-2010-11.DTL