How quick the tides turn! Intel was one of the companies that was quick to note that the retirement of Windows XP had a positive impact on sales of PC hardware last year.
But that was then, and this is now.
Now, the chip giant has lowered its revenue forecast for the first quarter of the year, and that is due to the simple reason that new PC sales are now well below expectations — despite the slew of price cuts introduced by vendors and the approaching launch of Windows 10.
The company let fall revenue estimates from $13.7 billion to a marked $12.8 billion for the first three months of the year.
Intel has provided a few reasons for this decline, and cites Windows XP as an important factor for the decline of the PC industry — with subtle hints that Microsoft may not have done enough to convince users to upgrade to a newer version of Windows.
Apparently, businesses and consumers are refusing to purchase new hardware, and for the remaining majority, Windows XP is still good enough for regular use.
Support for the OS was officially dropped in April 2014, but almost a year on, some 18% of computers the world over are still powered by the ancient operating system.
While there may be some truth to these statements from Intel, fact remains that there are a lot of other intertwined issues that force these users to stick with Windows XP — lack of driver support for their accessories and peripheral being the primary concern.
That only adds to the total cost of upgrading, as not many businesses are keen on replacing their scanners, printers and other connected hardware due to the lack of drivers.
Interesting times for the PC industry, however, continue.
The landscape changed when the power of CPUs levelled off around 2 GHz. Yes they can go faster but there is downward pressure due to the advantage of low power and no fan. And if they go faster, the gain is limited to a bit over 3 GHz anyway.
No longer the endlessly soaring CPU capacities. No more revolutionary OS changes. The entire business of PCs has matured and become a commodity industry with only small incremental improvements over time as far as many people see it.
It’s like cars. Why should I change my car when it still runs? The new roads, when there are any, are still compatible with my car.
There HAVE been changes. But a lot of them have been to absorb touch support into Windows. For tablets and small portable hybrids and laptops, that is great, and well worth having. But for a lot of office users, not so big a deal.
New features such as Cortana and OneDrive cut no ice in an office environment. You can’t talk to Cortana in an office because of the noise level and the need not to add to it. And your IT guys won’t let you use OneDrive. Or a Microsoft Account. So what do you get? Virtual desktops? Ok. What else? Not a lot. So is a change worth the upheaval?
However this does not preclude the installation of Windows 10 on new devices. And I reckon the uptake for home usage will as usual be ahead of office use. So can Windows grow from tablet and hybrid device sales? We can only wait and see.
The big impediment slowing conversion from Windows XP is compatibility with legacy software and devices. The developer of some of your favorite software went defunct 10 years ago. Likewise with some of your still functioning hardware. Windows 7 Compatibility utility told you they won’t work and Windows 8/10 is worse in that regard. What do you do?