The personal computer market -- with and without Apple's iPad
Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore has taken a red pen to IDC's graph of the personal computer market and corrected it to include Apple's iPad. The difference, of course, is striking.
2011 was supposed to be the year of the Android tablet. One year later, Android tablets have failed to meet expectations and for the most part have been unsuccessful. This year, tablets had a much smaller presence as vendors appear to be placing greater emphasis on Windows 8. We expect Windows 8 ARM tablets to ramps slowly as most Apps require rewriting for ARM-based tablet hardware. We remain skeptical that Win 8 tablets will gain much traction this year (App rewrites take time / developer ecosystem support). As a result, we expect the move away from Android tablet investment and a slow ramp of Win 8 tablets to create a favorable competitive backdrop for Apple's forthcoming iPad 3.
IDC and other metrics companies have struggled comically with their reporting since the introduction of the iPad, classifying it as a "media tablet" and inventing a "non-iPad tablet" space (where, apparently, no one can hear rival executives scream). When Windows 8 tablets begin to ship over the course of the next year, they'll either have to reassess how they handle the iPad... or come up with an even more distorted "non-iPad possibly ARM-based Windows tablet" market.
Source: Fortune
Editor-in-Chief of iMore, Executive Producer at Mobile Nations, co-host of Iterate and ZEN and TECH, cook, grappler, photon wrangler. Follow him on Twitter @reneritchie
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I seriously don't get the argument why it should be included anyway. It is not a PC. Sure, it makes the numbers look great and it is fun to consider but the iPad runs iOS...it isn't a desktop class OS. Windows 8 will be the same as desktop Windows so that is a definite grey area but still...iPad is a curated tablet, pure and simple.
It is like throwing Android or webOS tablets in the PC scope. It doesn't make sense.
With Widows 8 on tablets, they'll need to figure out what to do with the category and then just be consistent
it depends on what your talking about. these studies are typically for investors. The link is to Fortune Magazine. I mean for phone enthusiast and People in some mobile os fan battle it may be a big deal but most of the target market will look a whole lot deeper then global computing share. For example. HP may have great computing share but it's PSG is declining in profitablility, it a market, pcs, that is stagnant, and 1/3 of it's revenue. Add to that that imaging is the other 1/3 and it's equally stagnant so the investor is going to care much more about profitability and what the future looks like. This chart doesn't really tell much more then investors already know, that apple is profitable and sells a ton of tablets at a profit. Well hell we knew that already. it matters not how anyone classifies them. What matters is one sale at the expense of others. If a market is declining for one company is there growth somewhere else to ofset that. but the classification is mainly semantics for the fan battle. I'm not saying there is no overlap of tablet and pcs or one has no effect on the other. i'm just saying it's a bad investor that looks at that graph and concludes that Apple now sells the more enterprise computers or something then the others.
I don't think so. Windows has had tablets since 2001. It is just another form factor but it is a complete personal computer. Granted, tablets of 2001 were laptops with swivel monitors [at least the HP I used] but they were full PCs.
I wouldn't argue Windows 8 tablets are tablets and not PCs. I'd be fine with that distinction but, in the current incarnation, the iPad should never be considered a PC. If you do then comes Android tablets, webOS [oops!; lol], etc as PCs and that's muddy water we don't want.
Just my view.
It depends on whether we're talking about 'personal computers' or 'PCs', where even including the Mac in the latter is questionable. The iPad is certainly a personal computer. No, it's not a traditional 'desktop' OS (whatever that even means anymore).
1000% agree. a tablet, for the bulk of computer uses is not a replacement for a computer. The overwhelming majority of people working in a law firm or in a big office building is doing their major desktop publishing on a tablet. i'm sure there's a few here and there. To me, its fine to talk about markets, especially in the investment sense, but i think to blanketly equate the two would be wrong and misguided.
I might add that if a tablet functioned as fully as a pc, I for one would love to switch! I simply find that they are much too limited and therefore are not acceptable on their own--maybe in the future though...
To John C. Bland:
First, I'm assuming that you consider a PC, a windows based desktop. If that's your definition then I agree with your response. But, consider this. The two letters "PC," stand for personal computer, not windows based desktop. A Mac, all smarts phones, and all tablets are essentially personal computers(PC). Now, it's irrelevant if Apple calls these personal computers "Macs." it doesn't matter, because that's just a marketing scheme to differentiate them from other manufacturers of personal computers.
Now to the main point, the companies that are in the graph are the ones that make personal computers. Point of the graph is to show how 1 little risky idea(the iPad) affected the industry.
Bad assumption.
The companies in the graph also make tablets. Throw in the tablets they make and let's see where all of them stand. You can't include tablets from one and not from another. So that one little "pesky device" [the iPad] is being shown but no other tablet [or "PC device"] is shown to level the playing field.
I don't have a horse in the race either way, to be honest. I'm die hard Mac [PC] and Android [phone/tablet]. The list matters not [in the sense of my next purchase] because my next PC will be a MacBook Pro [or Mac Pro] and my next phone/tablet will run Android.
Ballmer said: "of course iPad it's a PC".
D8 Conference, June 2010
iPad is a PC: it has the hardware of a PC but in a different form factor. It has apps. So it's the post pc maybe but 5 years from now 60% of people will have iPad or other tablets.
Cool. Everything Ballmer says is right.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/iPhone-Will-Fail-Say-Microsoft-039-s-CEO-94322.shtml
Haha.
Of Course the iPad is a computer. The OS is irrelevant. It would be like saying that an Ubuntu PC isn't a computer. If they want to split into categories, desktop, laptop, and tablet seem like reasonable categories. As the iPad persists, more will be available. An example: I am using Cisco's Net Academy. This content is unavailable on iOS due to flash. This content will likely be changed to html5 or a native iOS app. If MS office is released on iOS, then we may see a definite decline in Windows. Personally, I WANT a full function Win8 tablet. I want it with all the positives of the iPad plus all the positives of a full windows machine.
It is a personal computing device but not a computer in the sense of the top-level category. Tablet can be under the computer category and I'd agree but I'm far from calling my phone a computer or this old school Palm "tablet" from 2001.
Computer --> Desktop Computer --> Tablet Computer --> Smartphone
I'm ok with your setup. Again...just my view. I don't get to decide for the world though.
Things are much simpler to do on my iPad than on a desktop/laptop. I don't think I need a tablet with the full windows os on it. But well see when they get here, if they can change my mind.
Tablets should be its own market. Its not a phone and its not a Desktop/Laptop. There should be 3 different markets. With ICS for android they are making it one OS like iOS but they still not the same.
It doesn't really matter how "personal computing devices" are categorized. People will continue to buy innovative products that are priced comfortably. It's pretty simplistic to draw conclusions without realizing that technology and the market has changed the sizes, shapes, and uses for these devices since the 1980's. It's like saying cell phones aren't real phones because the don't have cords or dial tones. What is selling better IS the market.
By this same logic you will be asking to include televisions in the PC count next year.
Why not, if they can do a similar function.
It needs to be a bit more than anything with some sort of CPU, or we'd have to include toaster ovens and cars. I think the point, though, is that when we speak of 'personal computers' we're starting to think more broadly than just devices that sit on a desk with Windows, OSX, and maybe Unix. They are now, computing devices that persons use to get a various assortment of tasks done. Where is the line? I'm not sure. I'd probably even include the smart-phones since the iPhone. Tablets for sure, since I replaced my laptop with one.
I guess some might agree with the TV thing, but I think the functions and user experience don't support the analogy.
Ok investors, maybe you'll want to listen to this:
I haven't bought a new laptop in over four years because an iDevice (iPhone and now its iPad brother) replaced it. This made me curious about other Apple products. My primary tech investments in the last year have included a 4S, iPad, iMac and AppleTV.
I'm not alone. Plop that in your OLAP cube however it makes you feel warmest.
stupid as hell...it should be a pc market which includes windows and macs and a tablet market that includes ios and android etc....if you going to add the ipad into the pc market then shouldnt all tablets such android android,webos etc tablets also be included...you cant just add 1 tablet and not the rest.(lol if they have included all other tablets then forget this comment but they dont specify anywhere that android tablets etc are include all they say is they have not been successful.
I'm not sure if they included Android tablets on that kind of chart, they would even show up. While I sort of do mean this as a dig at Android
what I mean is that they list company names. I don't think any particular companies have sold enough devices to show up or significantly affect the stats. Possibly, if all the Android tablets were combined, it might show up.
World Will Change... Forever http://www.musicwillchangeforever.com
I'm curious why they only included iPad in 3Q 11 numbers. Why not include it all the way back to the release of iPad 1?
it's a cumulative number, i don't see how it would make any difference...
iPad is not a personal computer. My four year old ThinkPad can run circles around an ipad for computing power.