Posted on 04/10/2013 5:45:14 PM PDT by Olog-hai
PC sales certainly haven’t been good over the past year or so, but this past quarter was record-setting bad.
Shipments of PCs fell 14% worldwide last quarter, according to IDC. It was the worst yearly decline since IDC began tracking the data in 1994. …
Bob O’Donnell, a vice president at IDC, said in the company’s report that “the Windows 8 launch not only failed to provide a positive boost to the PC market, but appears to have slowed the market.” …
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Approaching market saturation. Its the way things work.
Windows 8 is MS’s way of telling the consumer to buy a Mac. My wife’s laptop died last month and I had to buy her a new one (with Win 8). Win 8 is the kludgiest piece of crap ever!
Win8 is not bad if you set it up right. Defaulting to the tiles instead of the desktop was a huge mistake.
Kludgiest?
“Kludgiest?”
I guess that means klunky and ugly.
Countdown until the Microsoft vendors/salesmen find this thread and claim Windows 8 is really great but we are just stupid to realize how brilliant it and Bill Gates are
In 3, 2, 1.....
A kludge is a program that works by accident, IOW the programmer made it work but doesn’t know why or how it works. Usually the result of making up the code as you go along instead of having a plan.
The irony is that the piece of hardware designed to showcase Win8, the Surface Pro, is a fine piece of machinery whose sales, at least in my personal case, are being hurt by the OS it’s trying to flog. A Surface Pro running iOS, now, that’d be cool, especially with the Microsoft logo on the bottom of the screen...of course, that would probably cause a black hole and suck the earth into it...
Biggest problem with Windows 8 is that the interface that’s optimized for phones and tablets is also the default for desktop and laptop PCs. I got mine to work like Windows 7 with no help from MS. The only reason I upgraded from 7 was to test my code in the Win8 environment.
As a developer I avoid iOS because of the up-front cost of entry into the market. There are a lot of very robust development tools for Windows and Android that are free.
Three weeks ago I bought a new Sony Vaio laptop. It’s a dream, with Windows 8 and all its bells and whistles and bang for the buck. I brought it home, installed Office, Adobe Suite and such, and zoom. It would not boot up.
I went back to Fry’s and they confirmed it was kludge.
So, I decided on a 15” MacBook Pro. It works like a computer should. It cost more, but I can now rely on my computer.
Buy best; cry once.
I was hoping I would be able to squeeze a few more years out of this PC thing, that started in the 90’s for me. It has been a great ride, and for the most part I enjoyed it.
And now something else has reared it's head that may provide me a few more years of compensation-Old people (half of my customer base) don't want to use (LEARN) Tablets, readers, smart phones etc...they just want to be left alone with their ol Dell Dimension running Win XP, Well I can fix that and make them happy and my solution does not involve Win 8. Yes I'm probably talking about your Auntie, admit it, you cringe when you see the Caller ID!
>>Win8 is not bad if you set it up right. Defaulting to the tiles instead of the desktop was a huge mistake.
Exactly. Win 8 is NOT BAD...IF you set it up right. IMO, version 8 of anything should be better than version 7. I’m an IT guy so trust me when I say that I know a little bit about computers. I have her computer set up now to make it productive, but the OS should not default out to a GUI that turns it into a tablet—especially when my tablet is an iPad that is infinitely better than the Win 8 tiles!
My client base (small business owners) don’t care about the bells & whistles or the OS, they just want something that works. That’s why all my apps are 32-bit and will run on anything XP or later.
>>A kludge is a program that works by accident, IOW the programmer made it work but doesn’t know why or how it works. Usually the result of making up the code as you go along instead of having a plan.
Not necessarily. A kludgy program is also one that is just a collection of disjointed features that gives it the look and feel of something created by committee. As you said, a program without a plan.
I would surely buy a Mac before getting a Win8 machine.
Win8 is just a sick knockoff of a Mac computer. Love Mac, or hate’em; why not just get the real thing?
Quite to my surprise my 76 year old sister in law bought a desktop with windows 8 and likes it. She had an older machine using 7 that died. I had suggested she buy a replacement direct from dell and have it set up with Windows 7 so if she had a problem I could help out.
I have 2 laptops and 2 tablets. I will be replacing the older XP laptop at the end of the year and will consider 8.
Who offers Desktops with Linux?
I’m only 59, and I’m already at that point. I have an eMachine running Vista with every bell and whistle turned off. I don’t want a tablet or a smartphone. I use Chrome, Firefox, Diamond Cut Audio Restoration Tools, OpenOffice, and VLC Media Player, Replay AV for podcatching and converting stuff, and that’s it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.