Microsoft has failed to deliver the vital PC sales impetus

Oct 11, 2015 12:58 GMT  ·  By

Windows 10 was seen as the salvation of an entire industry when it came out this summer, since every time a new operating system from Microsoft came out it traditionally sparked a new wave of hardware sales. This time, unfortunately, it didn't.

Windows 10 is the weird duck in Microsoft's operating system portfolio. It came out as a free upgrade to all previous versions owners, and it didn't require any serious system upgrade to guarantee a flawless performance, the way Windows Vista and 7 did in their days. Countless examples show how the new operating system works flawlessly on so many old laptops and PCs, so it doesn't make sense why people should buy a new machine to run the new operating system.

In this regard, surveys made by Gardner and IDC show that computer sales kept dropping several points year-over-year (between 7.7 and 10.8 percent) in the third quarter of 2015, right when the new operating system arrived.

Apparently this situation didn't surprise anyone since lots of retailers still sold old tech while Intel, the other main industry driver, had shipping issues regarding its newest "Skylake" CPU. This way retailers had to convince clients to buy Windows 10 laptops equipped with old hardware, something that didn't really work.

Intel and Microsoft share the heaviest responsibility for the current IT market crisis

However, this problem might be rectified in time since Skylake models are being pushed more in the mobile computing market and more models start arriving in retail stores. But if it doesn't, then the industry really has a major problem ahead.

Over the last few months, there have been many analysts that tried to figure out exactly why PC sales are falling and who's to blame, and besides Microsoft and Intel that both have to share a major responsibility for the current situation, macroeconomic events like the strengthening of the US dollar and the current Chinese market, coupled with an increased Chinese demand for tablets and 2-in-1s, saw companies like Lenovo, HP and AMD take the brunt of this major market trend change.

Although PC games and overall gaming entertainment industry is still going strong, the need to cater to more and more low-end PC users has left the hardware companies lacking in sales, and a restart of that trend currently needs a major impetus that both Intel and Microsoft have failed to deliver.

If no one is able to deliver that after all, the whole IT industry will have to get accustomed with this new reality and become ready to witness some spectacular falls from grace.

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IDC studies

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