Comments on: PC makers and Microsoft – Conflict Surfaces

By: tatilsever

tatilsever — Sun, 13 Oct 2013 21:27:58 +0000

Ooops… I meant to say “PC sales grew *in the US*”

By: windsorr

windsorr — Sat, 12 Oct 2013 08:55:45 +0000

Its the natural step from making came consoes,, mobile phones and tablets. PCs ultrabooks next…given their history in hardware it might be better to do it organically

By: windsorr

windsorr — Sat, 12 Oct 2013 08:54:23 +0000

I am not sue they said that…what I read was still a YoY decline of around 8% instead of Q2’s cataclysmic 11% YoY decline.

By: tatilsever

tatilsever — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 11:36:49 +0000

I am curious why you expect Microsoft to buy a PC maker. Design-wise, it seems they’ve got enough of a team to develop a few SKUs a year. If they are really trying to become more like Apple, that may be enough with some organic growth. Besides, many of these PC makers have outsourced much of hardware design to Asia. They may be arguing that they are only doing that for their entry level systems, but that could still mean they do not have much of an internal development capability left. More volume might help with price negotiations, but Microsoft has enough name recognition and inspires enough confidence for future growth that most suppliers will offer them their best price. I am not convinced the few advantages of buying a PC maker is worth the integration headaches for Microsoft.

By: tatilsever

tatilsever — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 11:29:23 +0000

> “[…] stabilisation [sic] of the PC market which I am not sure is upon us just yet.”
Well, IDC and Gartner says PC sales grew year on year this quarter. This is where the mobile computing revolution started, so it could be a leading indicator. It will not grow by leaps and bounds again, but a stable to slightly growing business might let all the PC makers to eke out a living again.