Tablet shipments are projected to surpass total PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2013, IDC said this week. Shipments of PCs will still be higher than tablets for the full year, but that will change by the end of 2015.
Although there are those who try to point the blame at Windows 8 for the falling sales of PC's I believe it is much more complex then that simple explanation. The reason for the declining sales has very little, in fact to do with the latest version of Windows. Technology buy it's very nature is in a constant state of flux.
Blame the Tablet
The reason that the sales of PCs are shrinking can be explained by simply examining the increasing sales of tablets. Consumers and professionals alike are mobile today more then ever before. In addition average tablets today have superior processors, memory, hard drive space and more then the best PCs five years ago could offer.
Blame the Cloud
The second cause of the declining PC sales and concurrent increase in tablet sales is the cloud. Tablets by there very nature do not have very large hard drives. However many tablets have 128GB of internal storage which is for the majority of users plenty of storage, especially with the easy and inexpensive (and often free) availability of cloud storage.
All is Not Lost for the PC
With all this in mind, I would not feel to bad for the PC. It will be a very long time before PCs are dead and buried. While their market share will continue to shrink, professionals will continue to use PCs in the office and at home. Considering that today's PCs are well built and last longer then ever before and that users are also using tablets at the same time it should surprise no one what is occurring in the PC market.
Read my April 15, 2013 related article, "In Defense of Windows 8".
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