My goal with this blog

I write about relevant changes in the way that people use the web and how startups are built to provide services and products for this ever changing wonderful thing we still know as "the web." As a former entrepreneur turned early-stage investor, my greatest hope is for this to be useful to other folks that are like me in the hopes that they can avoid some of the mistakes I've made.

From:
Antonio Rodriguez

PC units plummeting...and this is a surprise?

tech
by Antonio on

Gartner says PC sales are going to take a 12% nosedive this year which strikes me as no surprise given the following observation:

I use three Mac Intel laptops: one from this past November, one from 17 months before that, and one from 17 months before that. I think the processor speeds are something like 2.0, 2.2, and 2.4 Ghz and I think there are a bunch of differences in RAM type, video cards, and HD speed.

But you know what?

The reality is that I use them all interchangeably and don't really notice the difference! Outside of their obvious form factor differences (overall size wise), the biggest difference between them has been the shift to glossy LED screens— and this hardly screams upgrade to me.

Sure global demand is in the tank, but the reality is that ever since laptops went to the Core Duo architecture, progress seems to have slowed to a crawl, and PC buyers are not dumb.

Even the one bright spot, the 9% anticipated growth in netbooks won't save us now. Until and unless the manufacturers get start getting significant battery life increases (and not cheaps like the 2 lb batteries), way more storage (TBs not GBs), or CPUs that get us back on the Moore's Law rollercoaster, I doubt we'll see any meaningful pickup in demand— global recession depression or not.