So who is troubled in PCs as the world enters 2019? Certainly Microsoft, which has proven unable to move beyond the conventional PC in either smartphones or mobile tablets or other form factors. Its PC platform shrank twice as fast as Apple's iPad grew, and its own Surface vision of hybrid computing has remained tepidly flat for a decade at a number that's only about a twelfth of the revenue Apple is generating from its range of non-phone computing hardware.
Yet the Surface lineup includes so many various experiments-- Microsoft seems almost unable to say no-- that the cost of developing and maintaining all those SKUs is significant, crushing any hope of profitability. That makes Surface a profit sink, a distraction away from things Microsoft could be doing.
Microsoft is spending tons of money to look cool but isn't creating a viabile business
That's the very types of projects that Jobs canceled when he took over Apple in 1997, yet today's pundits demand that Apple take note of the whimsical things being done under the Surface brand and follow Microsoft, rather than pursuing the strategies that Jobs used to turn Apple around. Since 2011, Tim Cook has exercised the same strategies to dramatically grow Apple's sales even as the industries around it continue to slide sideways with distractions that were a waste of resources.
So Hololens 2 and Azure aren't moving beyond? They're utilizing an ARM processor along with their own in-house silicon and hardware to create a product without rival. Voice control, eye tracking and hand tracking combined with Azure remote rendering to allow for some very forward thinking experiences and visuals well beyond what the headset's hardware alone could produce. They're building major cornerstones in the mixed reality ecosystem starting with commercial and enterprise applications. They're partnered with dozens of industry leaders and scoring major contracts, such as the roughly $500 million dollar contract with the US military.
A group of MS employees is demanding they cancel that military contract.
While that is true, Eric, those Chrome laptops are destroying Apple’s role in the class room. Not only are they cheap, but it it is an integrated, easy to maintain wholistic system of software and services. It’s depressingly easy it has been for google.
That and Apple's obsession with the iPad in the classroom, whilst shunning the Mac and Xserve hasn't helped.
Xserve was simply not a viable business. Nobody’s shunning the Mac.
But it was extremely valuable in education. What is there now? A 2013 trashcan Mac Pro isn't remotely rack mountable and is a mess of wires, the Mac mini server was not powerful enough by far.
It seems absolutely ridiculous to me to lump iPad and PC sales numbers together. The iPad is not a PC and it seems so bizarre to me that some people would came it to be so. What makes an iPad not a PC has nothing to do with the processor. It's the lack of a real file system and peripheral support with actual ports you can plug into that make an iPad not a PC. I have both a PC and an iPad because there are things you can do with a PC that are not practical with an iPad. I have a large number of files on my Personal Computer but basically all I have on my iPad are a collection of Apps.
Perhaps this is because Apple keeps pushing it as a PC replacement.
If iPads are included then ChromeBooks should be two. Are they? How many Chromebooks are sold each year? I find 9 million last year?
I will say this about Wintel computers. They seem more reliable now that most have SSDs? My last windows computer lasted over 6 years, much better than I expected. That means fewer upgrades. Maybe that is why MS is pushing the cloud so much. Lenovo, Dell, and HP are doing fine, Looks to be growing more than Apple.
Anyone know Why Apple isn’t included before 2014. It’s in their quarterly reports. I think it would be better to look at annual numbers back to 2000. Macs were growing through 2012 but now seem flat.
End of Microsoft Era
1.Enterprises could follow consumers away from the Windows platform. 2.As employees start to do more and more work from non-Windows smartphones and iPads, companies may start to question why they're still buying Office for every employee and upgrading it every two or three releases.
3. As IT departments of corporations move away from Windows and Office, they would have less reason to adopt Microsoft technologies on the back end like Exchange Server for email, SharePoint Server for collaboration, Lync for videoconferencing and real-time communication, and Dynamics for CRM and accounting.
4.Non-core businesses like the Xbox and Bing would be shut down or jettisoned. 5. the Future is End of Windows-Intel era and rise of OS X-ARM era.
Xserve was simply not a viable business. Nobody’s shunning the Mac.
But it was extremely valuable in education. What is there now? A 2013 trashcan Mac Pro isn't remotely rack mountable and is a mess of wires, the Mac mini server was not powerful enough by far.
Education is shunning the Mac.
Not true.
Google has pushed partners to dump $150 Chromebooks on K-12 programs that largely weren't using anything before. Chromebooks grew faster than iPad or Macs because of this, the same way that Chinese phone producers are growing rapidly (and outpacing iPhone) by cranking out lots of units sold at a loss to poor people who didn't have smartphones before.
One can argue that some districts are moving to cheaper PC or Chromebook alternatives rather than buying new Macs or iPads, but that's always been the case. Apple's installed base in schools isn't drying up, and wasn't that big (compared to today's mass market or enterprise sales) or strategic anyway. It was only really important back in 1996 when Apple didn't have anything else but the edu market.
The fact that concern troll pundits (and yourself) are focused on K12 edu and ignoring enterprise tells everything there is to know about the actual value of K12 sales. They're small, profitless and return little strategic value. The "set for life" theory trumpeted by Bloomberg is false. If it weren't, the entire US would have been using Macs or Apple IIs when they left school instead of Windows PCs. Kids in K12 aren't being taught coding or UIs on Chromebooks. They're doing basic word processing at most. In college they're likely going to get a Mac or iPad. Chromebooks aren't being used in higher education because those institutions have funding.
If iPads are included then ChromeBooks should be two. Are they? How many Chromebooks are sold each year? I find 9 million last year?
I will say this about Wintel computers. They seem more reliable now that most have SSDs? My last windows computer lasted over 6 years, much better than I expected. That means fewer upgrades. Maybe that is why MS is pushing the cloud so much. Lenovo, Dell, and HP are doing fine, Looks to be growing more than Apple.
Anyone know Why Apple isn’t included before 2014. It’s in their quarterly reports. I think it would be better to look at annual numbers back to 2000. Macs were growing through 2012 but now seem flat.
As usual, everything you said here is false.
Chromebooks are being dumped on K12 schools, are not growing, and are included in most PC sales (Gartner). They're split amongst vendors, so some tiny proportion of "PCs" are running Chrome OS, but only in grade schools, as enterprise and personal users aren't buying them.
Wintel computers don't "look to be growing more than Apple" even if you repeat that phrase a lot. They're also making no money.
Apple wasn't among the top five makers before that. Macs were not "growing through 2012 but now seem flat." They peaked in 2015 and have been reaching plateaus of 5M quarters since then. The PC market continues to shrink, so Apple is successfully claiming the finite premium segment for itself as PC vendors settle for scraps, just as in smartphones. Rather amazing how everything "seems" different to you than the reality in sales numbers.
If iPads are included then ChromeBooks should be two. Are they? How many Chromebooks are sold each year? I find 9 million last year?
I will say this about Wintel computers. They seem more reliable now that most have SSDs? My last windows computer lasted over 6 years, much better than I expected. That means fewer upgrades. Maybe that is why MS is pushing the cloud so much. Lenovo, Dell, and HP are doing fine, Looks to be growing more than Apple.
Anyone know Why Apple isn’t included before 2014. It’s in their quarterly reports. I think it would be better to look at annual numbers back to 2000. Macs were growing through 2012 but now seem flat.
As usual, everything you said here is false.
Chromebooks are being dumped on K12 schools, are not growing, and are included in most PC sales (Gartner). They're split amongst vendors, so some tiny proportion of "PCs" are running Chrome OS, but only in grade schools, as enterprise and personal users aren't buying them.
1. The article doesn't say clearly if ChromeBooks are included in the the Chart or not. It doesn't say if the the Data comes from Gartner, or IDC. Your response is just BS.
And Cash Starved school districts are happy to use reasonably priced ChromeBooks with the groupware that comes with it. A few rich school districts aside has Apple's new iPad made any inroads into K-12? I haven't heard anything. Until they add cursor support to iOS its just a third-rate solution.
Wintel computers don't "look to be growing more than Apple" even if you repeat that phrase a lot.
2. I was referring to Lenovo, Dell, and HP look to be growing based on the size of their bars. Without the actual underlying data it's hard to tell. But it's certainly possible for DED to have researched the numbers from Apple's investor website and split out Apple's counts from the "Other" catch-all group where not provided. Just laziness on his part that he uses these numbers as he's railed against Gartner, IDC numbers in the past. I believe that Mac market share would be significantly higher if they weren't ignored by Apple but updated on a timely basis.
They're also making no money.
Apple wasn't among the top five makers before that. Macs were not "growing through 2012 but now seem flat." They peaked in 2015 and have been reaching plateaus of 5M quarters since then. The PC market continues to shrink, so Apple is successfully claiming the finite premium segment for itself as PC vendors settle for scraps, just as in smartphones. Rather amazing how everything "seems" different to you than the reality in sales numbers.
3. I expect sales of PCs to fall even more when Apple releases Arm based chips. Windows machines are doomed by being tied to Intel. That's why MS is trying to position themselves in the cloud. They should have moved off that (Intel) years ago. Why Apple turned to them for modems is crazy. Now I'm stuck waiting for a decent iPhone upgrade to finally come along. The last good iphone was the iPhone 7 when they came with Qualcomm modems. That's why Apple had to cripple them to make them comparable to Intel modems. The OpenSignal report showing iPhone XS/XSMax 26% better than iPhone X is great, but lets see a comparison to $400 android phones using QC.
End of Microsoft Era
1.Enterprises could follow consumers away from the Windows platform. 2.As employees start to do more and more work from non-Windows smartphones and iPads, companies may start to question why they're still buying Office for every employee and upgrading it every two or three releases.
3. As IT departments of corporations move away from Windows and Office, they would have less reason to adopt Microsoft technologies on the back end like Exchange Server for email, SharePoint Server for collaboration, Lync for videoconferencing and real-time communication, and Dynamics for CRM and accounting.
4.Non-core businesses like the Xbox and Bing would be shut down or jettisoned. 5. the Future is End of Windows-Intel era and rise of OS X-ARM era.
Nothing shows MS is trying to diversify their software than linux base SQL SERVER. Big change from 15 years ago. That's also why MS is bought GitHub.
Arm Based Macs and the merging of OS-MacOs will kill Windows entirely because of the ridiculous cost of the Intel Chips. I also wonder if Apple runs Intel or Arm based data centers now. Aren't their Arm Chips more power efficient.
Arm Based Macs and the merging of OS-MacOs will kill Windows entirely because of the ridiculous cost of the Intel Chips.
You confuse cost and price. An ARM processor might indeed by cheaper to produce but nobody expects that Apple will drop prices when the ARM CPUs are put in a Mac.
On the contrary, the backend developers in my company need an Intel developer machine. As long as AWS, Azure, GCP and others cloud service providers are only using Intel machines in their data centers, we can only develop and deploy our software on Intel machines.
It seems absolutely ridiculous to me to lump iPad and PC sales numbers together. The iPad is not a PC and it seems so bizarre to me that some people would came it to be so. What makes an iPad not a PC has nothing to do with the processor. It's the lack of a real file system and peripheral support with actual ports you can plug into that make an iPad not a PC. I have both a PC and an iPad because there are things you can do with a PC that are not practical with an iPad. I have a large number of files on my Personal Computer but basically all I have on my iPad are a collection of Apps.
Exactly. An iPad is a media consumption device and an iPad Pro is an enhanced media consumption device. I happen to own the current generation of iPad Pro which cost much more and is far less capable than the Surface Pro I also bought recently.
An iPad is a computer the way a bathroom scale is a computer. To those who want to work in the crippled environment of iOS- feel free as this is America. But the hoops required to do anything productive on iOS are just not worth it.
About the only thing left that separates iPads from being an all in computer is the lack of ability to code and develop.
The great thing is that with Codea on iPad you can do just that. Admittedly it’s not Xcode/swift (it’s Lua based) but it allows you create iOS apps, run and debug them and only at the end do you then dump it to a Mac and XCode packages it all up for you, ready to submit to Apple. I have written tons of apps but sadly only as a hobby and have never submitted one to the store (only so many hours in a day!) but it’s quite easy and worth a look. These guys are also developing an amazing shader app that generates all the visual effects you want for apps and games. All this on an entry level iPad. https://codea.io/
Thanks for the article, Dan. What do you thinks the odds are of Apple developing and putting their own GPUs into their Macs (before they make a move to replace Intel CPUs with their own CPUs/SoCs)? Given that Apple makes its own GPUs for iPads and iPhones, that Metal (2) is used across multiple GPUs, and that graphics performance is arguably the biggest shortcoming of the current 13" MacBook Pros, I think this makes sense. (I'm likely not the first one to come up with this idea, but I haven't seen much written about it so far.)
Thanks for the article, Dan. What do you thinks the odds are of Apple developing and putting their own GPUs into their Macs (before they make a move to replace Intel CPUs with their own CPUs/SoCs)? Given that Apple makes its own GPUs for iPads and iPhones, that Metal (2) is used across multiple GPUs, and that graphics performance is arguably the biggest shortcoming of the current 13" MacBook Pros, I think this makes sense. (I'm likely not the first one to come up with this idea, but I haven't seen much written about it so far.)
Interesting question. That would fly in the face of industry trends, I think. Both Intel and Apple have been investing heavily in GPU development, but each for their own hardware.
Comments
I will say this about Wintel computers. They seem more reliable now that most have SSDs? My last windows computer lasted over 6 years, much better than I expected. That means fewer upgrades. Maybe that is why MS is pushing the cloud so much. Lenovo, Dell, and HP are doing fine, Looks to be growing more than Apple.
Anyone know Why Apple isn’t included before 2014. It’s in their quarterly reports. I think it would be better to look at annual numbers back to 2000. Macs were growing through 2012 but now seem flat.
The new ultra-shallow butterfly keyboards - which have barely any key travel - are destroying the MacBook product line.
It's so sad. These horrible new keyboards could be easily fixed by increasing the keyboard travel by a few millimetres.
1.Enterprises could follow consumers away from the Windows platform.
2.As employees start to do more and more work from non-Windows smartphones and iPads, companies may start to question why they're still buying Office for every employee and upgrading it every two or three releases.
3. As IT departments of corporations move away from Windows and Office, they would have less reason to adopt Microsoft technologies on the back end like Exchange Server for email, SharePoint Server for collaboration, Lync for videoconferencing and real-time communication, and Dynamics for CRM and accounting.
4.Non-core businesses like the Xbox and Bing would be shut down or jettisoned.
5. the Future is End of Windows-Intel era and rise of OS X-ARM era.
Google has pushed partners to dump $150 Chromebooks on K-12 programs that largely weren't using anything before. Chromebooks grew faster than iPad or Macs because of this, the same way that Chinese phone producers are growing rapidly (and outpacing iPhone) by cranking out lots of units sold at a loss to poor people who didn't have smartphones before.
One can argue that some districts are moving to cheaper PC or Chromebook alternatives rather than buying new Macs or iPads, but that's always been the case. Apple's installed base in schools isn't drying up, and wasn't that big (compared to today's mass market or enterprise sales) or strategic anyway. It was only really important back in 1996 when Apple didn't have anything else but the edu market.
The fact that concern troll pundits (and yourself) are focused on K12 edu and ignoring enterprise tells everything there is to know about the actual value of K12 sales. They're small, profitless and return little strategic value. The "set for life" theory trumpeted by Bloomberg is false. If it weren't, the entire US would have been using Macs or Apple IIs when they left school instead of Windows PCs. Kids in K12 aren't being taught coding or UIs on Chromebooks. They're doing basic word processing at most. In college they're likely going to get a Mac or iPad. Chromebooks aren't being used in higher education because those institutions have funding.
Chromebooks are being dumped on K12 schools, are not growing, and are included in most PC sales (Gartner). They're split amongst vendors, so some tiny proportion of "PCs" are running Chrome OS, but only in grade schools, as enterprise and personal users aren't buying them.
Wintel computers don't "look to be growing more than Apple" even if you repeat that phrase a lot. They're also making no money.
Apple wasn't among the top five makers before that. Macs were not "growing through 2012 but now seem flat." They peaked in 2015 and have been reaching plateaus of 5M quarters since then. The PC market continues to shrink, so Apple is successfully claiming the finite premium segment for itself as PC vendors settle for scraps, just as in smartphones. Rather amazing how everything "seems" different to you than the reality in sales numbers.
Arm Based Macs and the merging of OS-MacOs will kill Windows entirely because of the ridiculous cost of the Intel Chips. I also wonder if Apple runs Intel or Arm based data centers now. Aren't their Arm Chips more power efficient.
An iPad is a media consumption device and an iPad Pro is an enhanced media consumption device. I happen to own the current generation of iPad Pro which cost much more and is far less capable than the Surface Pro I also bought recently.
An iPad is a computer the way a bathroom scale is a computer. To those who want to work in the crippled environment of iOS- feel free as this is America. But the hoops required to do anything productive on iOS are just not worth it.