A lot was expected from Windows 8. Not only did Redmond hope for big numbers from its new platform, but the prevailing state of affairs of the PC industry before launch, raised expectations from hardware vendors as well.
For more reasons than one, Microsoft’s newest operating system did not lead to increased PC sales towards the end of 2012 as some analysts (and a most hardware manufacturers) were expecting.
And it seems that the decline is set to continue — at least for the first six months of the year.
The folks over at Digitimes report several computer vendors and component manufacturers saying that they expect sales to stay lukewarm (or plain low) throughout the first half of 2013.
Consumers will not have much of a reason to upgrade their notebooks or desktop PCs, and in fact, second quarter shipments may even end up being lower than those in this first quarter.
According to them, this outlook may last until new solutions from Intel and AMD make their way to the market. That, and Windows Blue, with its rumored launch in August, may spur a change.
Obviously, not everyone seems to be looking at perhaps the most important factor here — tablets. As consumption devices go, tablets are pretty much unmatched, and have taken a fair bit of thunder away from traditional computers like desktops and notebooks.
Not just tablets, but smartphones too that are getting ever closer to rival feature sets that once were in the domain of desktop PCs and laptops.
Analysts may be expecting winds of change that probably will never come.
