Microsoft's Product Chief Sees PC Revival as Durable (axios.com)
- Reference: 0158051739
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/22/01/26/145243/microsofts-product-chief-sees-pc-revival-as-durable
- Source link: https://www.axios.com/microsofts-product-chief-pc-revival-durable-panos-panay-39403346-dcb8-4e19-bc38-58a5d9d85c35.html
> "This pandemic has been a forcing function," Panay said in an exclusive interview on Tuesday, following the release of Microsoft's quarterly earnings report. The PC market got a boost as life moved online, but the question for the industry now is whether and how it can keep the momentum going. Before the pandemic, many households focused their tech spending on buying bigger TVs and upgrading their cell phones every couple of years, while trying to keep their PCs as long as possible. During COVID-19, the PC has taken on new life as a tool for remote work, distance learning and staying in touch with friends and family in a world where travel has been greatly curtailed. That drove the global shipments of laptops and desktops for the last quarter to surpass 90 million for the second year in a row, and sales for the year reached a level not seen since 2012. Microsoft reported 25% growth in the revenue it gets from having Windows installed on new PCs.
[1] https://www.axios.com/microsofts-product-chief-pc-revival-durable-panos-panay-39403346-dcb8-4e19-bc38-58a5d9d85c35.html
I'm not buying it, literally (Score:3)
The problem Microsoft is facing is that old PCs are still good enough to do stuff, basically anything that came out since about win7 has enough CPU for 99% of everybody out there to do their day to day stuff, work-related or not. So they had to put absurd CPU requirements into their latest Windows in order to spur PC sales, which is an absolute requirement for their pet vendors to be happy with them. But that only means that more and more people will put off upgrades, and continue to stick with older versions of the OS.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not building a new PC because of the ludicrous prices of GPUs driven up by crypto miners. And I have no interest in Windows later than version 7, except for a small amount of interest in windows 8 now that the interface woes have been mostly solved. (I would like the desktop duplication API so as to speed up my ambilight clone.) But not enough to put effort and/or money into it.
So on one hand you have people and businesses whose PCs are fast enough, and on the other hand you have those who would like to upgrade but won't because the value proposition of a new PC is crap as long as GPU prices are painfully high. Where in this is a healthy desktop market?
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Microsoft may like people buying new PCs and may encourage it, but there's a reason why they are cramming subscription model down everyone's throats: then they don't care that you have a 6 year old computer, they are still getting theirs.
Not all of us are gamers (Score:2)
And we don't give a shit about GPUs. I'm buying a new PC soon to do linux dev and office work on and whether it can play CoD at 100fps is an utter irrelevance.
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> I'm buying a new PC soon to do linux dev and office work on
That's nice. For the vast majority of people their old PC suits their needs just fine, just like my comment said. You don't need a new PC for office work unless you've been needing a new PC for that for years; And the vast majority of developers can use an older PC as well, on the same basis. Unless you're building truly massive projects, pretty much anything with a SSD will do the job.
The people who actually need a new PC to get stuff done are mostly doing some kind of graphics work, whether video, 3D, Pho
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"For the vast majority of people their old PC suits their needs just fine"
Define old. Mine dates from 2009. Its time for a total upgrade.
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> Define old. Mine dates from 2009. Its time for a total upgrade.
That's pretty well antique. Mine is from 2016, but my prior machine was from about 2010 and frankly it still meets all my application needs. I only upgraded for gaming. Even then I built budget, I have maybe $1000 into my PC all in, and have 32GB RAM and a 512GB SSD (about to upgrade from SATA to four lane NVMe x4 plus my SATA drive for data since a new pull got so cheap, and I need more space.)
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> The problem Microsoft is facing is that old PCs are still good enough to do stuff, basically anything that came out since about win7 has enough CPU for 99% of everybody out there to do their day to day stuff, work-related or not
Why do you think Windows 11's TPM requirements exist? And in a few years new PCs will need TPM 3.0 and newer
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I didn't see your post before adding mine about Pluton. Yeah - using security fears as a tool to drive sales. Planned obsolescence. From a greed factor, I could see the hardware vendors being eager to jump on board.
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>> So they had to put absurd CPU requirements into their latest Windows in order to spur PC sales
> Why do you think Windows 11's TPM requirements exist?
I believe I addressed that point in my comment. It's obvious why I think Windows 11's TPM requirements exist.
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Unless you're gaming or doing seriously graphics intensive work -- CAD/CAM, 3D visualization, etc. -- what does the GPU have to do with anything?
The increased storage bandwidth, faster CPU and RAM can be a huge benefit. I just bought a new laptop (Frame.work) and the change for me from 6th Gen Intel to 11th, along with SATA SSD to PCIe x4 SSD was like a night-and-day change.
Native Intel graphics and they're fine for casual gaming, 4K video playback, etc. Hell, I can even play WarThunder on Linux and it's co
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> Unless you're gaming or doing seriously graphics intensive work -- CAD/CAM, 3D visualization, etc. -- what does the GPU have to do with anything?
Unless you're gaming or doing seriously graphics intensive work, why would you need a new PC? Any old POS that's at least new enough to have SSD will do literally everything else that nearly everyone wants to do. There are no common tasks which require a whole lot of number crunching which are not also GPU accelerated. There are only a few niche applications in that category. Meanwhile, [1]the majority of computer users play video games [extremetech.com] of some description regularly .
> I just bought a new laptop (Frame.work) and the change for me from 6th Gen Intel to 11th, along with SATA SSD to PCIe x4 SSD was like a night-and-day change.
It's not going to be night and day for most
[1] https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/314009-3-billion-people-worldwide-are-gamers-and-nearly-half-play-on-pcs
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For me it was system responsiveness. I *despise* the fact that a modern system with oddles of RAM and CPUs clocking at absurd frequencies are less responsive to user input than a Commodore 64.
I tune my system for low latency and responsiveness. When I click something, that is the most important thing the computer should be doing. This is MY desktop, the CPU isn't saving lives or controlling air traffic somewhere.
I agree that moving to an SSD from the old spinning HDs is by far and away the biggest noticable
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> Unless you're gaming or doing seriously graphics intensive work -- CAD/CAM, 3D visualization, etc. -- what does the GPU have to do with anything?
Not really disagreeing with your main point but training deep neural nets (CUDA) is another important application for GPUs now. Not to say many people are buying them for that, but if you reverse the question, quite a few high end GPUs are sold for that purpose.
Re: I'm not buying it, literally (Score:2)
I'm on Win 10 pro personally, upgraded from Win 7 pro. There were some requirements for newer games that necessitated it unfortunately. This is my last version of windows I think, and I was fortunate enough to upgrade my PC shortly before the crypto boom really fucked prices. I have Windows locked down and updates disabled, and a handful of firewalls and AV software, so security wise I am alright. I just don't trust future updates to leave my current OS version unmolested. Most gaming rigs running on someth
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> Most new games do not need anything above a 1060 unless you want to run on a high resolution, high refresh rate monitor.
I'm still using a 970, you insensitive clod! Actually it's 2x950s which are supposed to be roughly equivalent. One was a warranty replacement for a 750Ti. Obviously a single card would have been better. I can run most games at 1080p, but not at full quality and still get 60 FPS. Consequently I'm not only not buying a new PC, I'm not buying a new monitor either.
As an editor of Maximum PC once said... (Score:2)
"Post-PC my ass"
For all the hoopla over mobile devices taking over desktop computing, it's been nearly 15 years since Jobs declared the death of the desktop computer. And here we are, still using desktop computers to get work done, play games, edit videos, develop software, and do other tasks that tablets and phones are completely unsuited for performing. Mobile computing has its place (mainly media consumption), but it will never usurp the king of the mountain: the desktop computer.
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I think it's because most desktop computers don't fall apart or become irreparably obsolete within 2-3 years.
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> I think it's because most desktop computers don't fall apart or become irreparably obsolete within 2-3 years.
This.
The laptop I bought back in 2017 is just as good for the purpose I bought it for today. The PC never went anywhere, it's just gotten to the point where they don't need to be replaced every 2 years, same as you don't need to buy a new fridge or car every 2 years any more. A 50 year old technology has matured.
Now tablet sales... I dare say we may actually be entering the post tablet era, especially if we stop counting things like the MS Surface as a tablet (they're essentially a laptop with a deta
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I have one of those Asus EEEpc's circa 2009 that still runs on XP. Still good for web browsing and simple stuff. I love it.
This (Score:2)
Touch input devices are 99% consumption/output devices. For large amounts of input and content creation they're utterly hopeless. Yes you can get a tablet to sort-a kind-a pretend to be a laptop but the experience is horrible and if you want to do any programming, just forget it.
No one wants to touch the screen. (Score:2)
The problem with the post PC BS has always been that workers want to sit to do work, and nobody wants to touch a screen from their chair for hours or do swipe gestures with a mouse.
Microsoft has been one of the worst UI designers when it comes to this. I can sum up almost all of their recent UI innovations to "I CAN DRAW ON THE SCREEN AND SEND IT TO PEOPLE!". It's almost like they locked their UI designers in a room, gave them only a surface pro and a pen with no keyboard attached and ordered them under pen
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For the average consumer, they stop needing a desktop for the majority of their tasks long ago. Sure some people need them but most people do not. For example my parents and grandparents use their phone or tablet most of the time. I don’t even know when they turned on their computers but I’m sure they are very obsolete by now.
"PC" Revival . . . year of the "linux PC" (Score:2)
The "Product Chief" considers things PCs that should not be. Just like comparing an entry level android phone to a flagship phone . . it doesn't measure up.
The same general rules have always been the same concerning computers - a lot of people want to spend $500 and think that's the same as a properly built computer with adequate resources
Here are some items that are considered to be part of the new PC market . . .
1) go cheap on the memory
2) inefficient battery or power usage
3) chipsets/architectu
Hoping Pluton and secure boot will ensure that. (Score:1)
I see Pluton (and update lifespan) as a way to have planned obsolescence in your CPU. I could see the temptation to use security requirements in OS updates as a way to force people to upgrade systems (and thus buy new copies of the OS with it). I can't say if that is their plan - but my tinfoil hat is getting warm. When I first read about Pluton as a "chip" - I wasn't super worried. Then I see it being marketed to Intel and AMD. If they get buy in from the CPU vendors...
The PC industry has woken up again (Score:1)
What many people outside the tech sector have missed is that for six years, the entire PC industry was largely stagnant, and you can see that with the state of Intel processors from the 2nd gen Core i3/i5/i7 through the 7th generation. True design improvements were minimal, and a 2-5 percent improvement per "generation" was what we saw from Intel. AMD was in that situation where AMD was far far behind in terms of performance, though a quad-core AMD A8/A10 compared to a dual-core i3 or i5 was a bit more
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You: Alex, I'd like to choose Paragraphs for $500.
Alex: Make your prose readable for others.
You: Uh? I don't get it.
Alex: Wrong You, you didn't phrase it in a question, i.e., "What are paragraphs?"
Recently bought a new PC, but... (Score:2)
My previous PC was from 2014 and it was (and is) just fine for about 95% of what I do. However, I have started making videos and getting into animation a little bit, and my previous PC was annoyingly slow to render those.
I happened to come into a bit of money unexpectedly, so I bought a ridiculously over-powered machine and I fully expect it to last for at least 10-15 years. 64GB of RAM, AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X, dual NVMe drives, and a Radeon PRO WX 3200.
MSFT didn't get a cent. It's a custom bui
by Post-PC logic, no one would still buy trucks (Score:2)
Since the iPad came out, idiot writers (must have been marketing majors in their early 20s) have been predicting the demise of the PC. Apple even had that old obnoxious commercial where some kid who needs to be smacked across the face asks "what's a computer?" PCs are not going anywhere. New devices supplement the PC role, but never fully replace it.
I have relatives who haven't upgraded their computer in 15 years, but rely on iPads. They're dumbasses. They have dumb jobs and no interests. Their li
No kidding (Score:2)
What's he supposed to day? That it won't last and MS is therefore going to take a big hit? Why do they even bother saying anything at all?
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It's the classic good news/bad news scenario for Microsoft. The good news is that people are buying desktops again! The bad news is that they're using them as cloud service terminals.
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Not to worry, MS makes most of their money from the cloud. People buying Windows terminals just means they get to charge them twice.
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The CEO of Peleton might be in a lot better position now if he'd said 6 months ago, "listen everybody it's been a wild ride, but it's going to settle down and now we need to reorganize for a long-term sustainability..."
Instead they ran off the cliff like Wyle E Coyote at full speed and hung in the air for about 1 quarter and then suddenly came crashing down with layoffs and suspending production.
Microsoft's demand is more sustainable than that, but they should face it. The whole economy has been wrench