Market Share and Companies Involved

Market Share and Companies Involved





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3.) Desktop’s and Desktop Computer Hardware’s place in the marketplace/Companies

Desktop Computer sales have consistently slumped in regards to total PC units. PC’s have consistently lost this percentage of the market by both lagging behind in technological upgrades that consumers can see, while also being difficult to market to consumers. Based on the data between 2008 and 2010 desktop computer sales lose market share by 5 to 6 percent each year. They lose out to mainly notebook and laptop sales as a whole, but have seen tablet PC sales make the most significant dent as tablets continue to gain a foothold with purchasers.

The biggest reason desktops lack the appeal as before, is because people want mobility over anything else. With wireless internet in many areas other than at home, laptops, net books, and tablets all become increasing popular. Most workplaces have wireless internet access across the building so desktops often become obsolete. In addition to this desktops typically in the past resembled comfort and ease of use, but now more than ever laptops and tablets are becoming more powerful, more comfortable because of their mobility and have just as much storage space, or at least enough to function adequately. Desktops on the other hand are chained to a desk, lake longer times to turn on, and are not as comfortable as being able to adjust your positioning when using a laptop or tablet.

Reasons for Failure

To figure out why desktops are failing badly in the marketplace, we can look at the hardware for desktops compared to hardware for other devices over the years. First lets look at the power of each device. Desktops before were much more powerful than laptops and they still retain that gap, however the problem is that the power often exceeds the necessity. This being true there is also laptop versions of PC CPUs. Both PC’s and laptops can use the Intel Core series i3, i5, i7 as well as AMD’s Phenom II series of CPU’s. This creates less of a cap in hardware as well. When looking at the RAM, desktops usually have competitor’s beat, but the amount of RAM that desktops can now use also exceed necessity when laptops can also use 4 and 8 gigabytes of RAM. Desktops only really outperform in the power department when gaming system rigs are involved.

Speed is another factor that should be noted between laptops, desktops, and tablets. The problem is that laptops and tablets have already caught up in the speed department. Laptops have basically enough power often equaling desktops to perform most tasks that consumers and companies use computers for. Again processor speed can be up to 3-4 GHz and as low as 2.4 GHz in either laptops or desktops, so unless gaming is involved speed becomes a non-factor in the decision to buy a desktop.

Output devices are important to look too, because desktops have a monitor size increase, but other output devices which were often classed into the same home station that desktops were a part of are less important to it. Net-books, laptops and tablets can not only connect to these devices like printers and fax machines, but they can do so wirelessly in many cases.

Desktop Hardware Component Sales

Individual hardware components are also sold through websites such as newegg.com and amazon.com, so the ease of getting these parts has become much easier and often times cheaper. PC gaming is also on the rise with more types and amounts of video games being developed. All this being true however, the individual Hardware Components that make up desktops have fallen in sales. The graph above includes both desktop/laptops shipments, and parts regarding those PC’s. The 5 biggest companies from HP to ASUS, as well as others, have experienced a fall in market growth in 2012 and 2013. Windows 8 seems to have failed in trying to reboot the desktop marketplace in regard to hardware component and desktop sales.

What’s in store for the future?

It is of my opinion, that while it is true that desktop PC sales are down and consistently lowering each year, newer and better hardware keeps becoming available at faster rates than ever before. Newer CPU’s are reaching higher rates of speed of speed, the record being 8.429 GHz overclocked. Motherboards are becoming increasing more customizable with even more expansion slots. The general technology regarding all desktop hardware is moving forward. The main problem is that other technology has taken advantage and moved at the same or greater rates of expansion. The only thing keeping personal desktops in the marketplace is that they are always just slighting more powerful than laptops and tablets. This slight advantage gives them precedence in fields that capitalize on it. Things like PC gaming and computer graphics need this power.

Desktops won’t completely die because of these this. They continue to push the industry in the areas of CPU power with more cores and more GHz, graphical memory and power reaching the 1 upwards of 4 tera-flops of horsepower, and increases in memory access speed and secondary storage across all platforms. Though the desktop PC and its hardware continue to evolve the majority of consumers will reluctantly push it aside for mobility and comfort.

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