PC Shipments Drop, A Sign Of The Times?

As laptops and tablets increase in popularity, they continue to chip away at PC market share. Shipments of PC’s went down in the final three months of 2011 with some speculating that 2012 could result in an even larger decrease.

Microsoft is very aware of the decrease as a lot of their business depends on licensing their OS to desktop PC manufacturers. The AP has more of the story:

“Worldwide PC shipments ranged somewhere between 92 million and 93 million during the fourth quarter, based on preliminary figures compiled by the research firms. The numbers could be adjusted after PC makers release their own data as part of quarterly earnings reports due out in the next week. For now, Gartner is pegging the worldwide shipment decline at 1.4 percent from the same period in 2010. IDC calculated the decrease at just 0.2 percent.”

Tablets and laptops are more popular than ever. Success of the iPad and iPad 2 have led to a firestorm of new devices. With laptops being just as powerful as desktop PC’s and giving most users everything they need to do what they need to do, it’s no surprise that PC shipments are dropping.

“At this point, many consumers may hold off on buying a computer until the second half of this year when machines running on a dramatic makeover of Microsoft’s Windows operating system are likely go on sale. Microsoft hasn’t set a target date for the release of Windows 8, but most analysts expect it will occur in the late summer or early autumn. Windows 8 will overhaul the operating system so it can run on PCs or computer tablets and be controlled by touch, computer mouse or keyboard.”