Nov. 19, 2011, 12:00 a.m. EST
Tech gloom has moribund PC business to blame
Commentary: Commodity era is weighing down the whole sector
By John C. Dvorak
BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) — I hate to say it but perhaps we’re finally entering the era when the PC has become a commodity.
First predicted in 1990, the era has only recently come to pass.
When talk of this development began, numerous analysts had predicted the dominant demand for personal computers would shift from new buyers to replacement buyers. That scenario was derailed by the boomlet in the PC business that came as a result of Windows 95, which introduced a wide audience to the graphical user interface.
The scene was then further altered by the rise of the Web.
Suddenly the idea that there was a replacement market disappeared.
The boomlet ended with the double-whammy of the dot-com bust in 2000 along with the expensive fiasco called the Y2K upgrade.
Too many pundits forget that the often needless upgrades and expense surrounding the Y2K “bug” has forever decimated a lot of IT budgets. It put people into an austerity mode that hastened a trend towards skepticism and thinking cheap.
The 9/11 attacks and their aftermath exacerbated an already struggling tech market. Just as it was getting to the point of recovery in 2008, the whole economic environment collapsed, and now we await the EU’s mess to get resolved in one way or another.
It doesn’t look good.
Full story: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tech-stagnation-has-moribund-pc-business-to-blame-2011-11-19
Gold is $1,581/oz today. When it hits $2,000, it will be up 26.5%. Let's see how long that takes. - De 3/11/2013 - ANSWER: 7 Years, 5 Months
| 