The Post-PC Era The Future of Home Personal Computers

The personal computer industry is in crisis, and computer manufacturing has declined over the past five years, as the domestic market has become saturated. High import competitions and advances in substitute technology have caused fierce price competition in the industry. This, in addition to decreasing input costs has hindered the industry’s revenue growth over the five years to 2017. Nonetheless revenue and profit are expected to endure show growth over the next five years, as demand for computer is anticipated to continue to increase in tandem with levels of standardization and price competition increasing, according to IBISWorld’s Market Research Report.​

THE INDUSTRY IS IN CRISIS

PC industry is in crisis. Consumers used to use home computers for everything from checking email, to surfing the web, to listening to music. Now, we are doing such activities with smartphones, and other devices with communication capability. Computer makers like Lenovo and HP have responded by trying to make their PCs more like tablets. Their two-in-one “hybrid” devices can work as both a desktop and ta tablet, powered by Microsoft’s touchscreen-friendly Windows 10. There is evidence the market for

​these hybrids is going. But that has not been enough to stop the bleeding. Even in this grim environment, Apple and rival Microsoft are not giving up on PCs.

Worldwide shipments of traditional PCs (desktop, notebook, and workstation) totaled 70.2 million units in the fourth quarter of 2016, posting a year-on-year decline of 1.5%, according to the Internet Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. The result continued the recent trend of stabilizing growth, which has been in decline since 2012. Dell Technologies and HP Inc. have recently enjoyed year-on-year moderate growth while Lenovo and Asus have been suffered the declines. But Apple seems to be the biggest loser in the PC market.​

   Mature regions continued to perform best. Japan and Canada extended positive growth from 3Q16, while volume in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region was stable. Shipments in the United States declined slightly, although the country performed slightly better than the global average. Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) (APeJ) continued to improve with only a mild decline in shipments while Latin America continued to experience significant contraction.​

SAVE THE LAST DANCE

With Apple’s new MacBook Pro laptop, the standout feature is a touchscreen strip called the Touch Bar which offers different functionality depending on what app the use has open. Launch iTunes, and you will see playback controls. Switch to Safari, and you will see a list of your open tabs. The Touch Bar also packs Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint scanner, enabling mobile payment and lightning-fast switching between user accounts. Microsoft’s new Surface Studio, meanwhile, is a behemoth desktop with a built-in hinge that allows it to lie nearly flat. When combined with the firm’s Surface Pen stylus and new Surface Dial control input, the Studio offers an experience more akin to using a drawing desk or an easel than a computer. It is a bold offer.

Taken together, Apple’s new MacBook Pro and Microsoft’s Surface Studio are an acknowledgement of a reality facing PC vendors: Desktops and laptops are increasing more useful as professional tools than consumer gadgets. That explains the flashy new features. No one probably needs a desktop that folds down to a 20-degree angle, but an architect or graphic artist might. It also justified their sky-high cost. The MacBook Pros with the Touch Bar starts at $1,799, while the Surface Studio will be at least $2,999 on the price tag. Those price tags are tough for an everyday user to justify, but professionals might see the machines as an investment if they are making money by using them, According to Time’s the MacBook Pro and Surface Studio reveal the future of PCs.​

IF CAN’T GROW SALES, GROW THE PROFIT PER SALE

The implication is Apple and Microsoft have both come to terms with the fact that people are simply never going to buy PCs in the old numbers that they used to. Computers are just too good nowadays, most users are already satisfied, and so the market for new PCs inevitably shrinks. And when you can’t have growth in total sales, the logical move is to try and improve the other multiplier in the profit calculation: the per-unit price and built-in profit margin. That’s been Apple’s approach for a while, and now Microsoft is joining in.

TAKE-HOME MESSAGE

The only way for new electronic device players to thrive is that they have to show themselves capable of doing things existing ones can’t, according to the Verge. That used to be easy in the ear of constantly advancing specs and software demanding more power, but all the easy upgrades are over now. Besides Apple and Microsoft, companies like Razer are pushing the design and pricing frontiers too, offering PCs like the $3,699 Razer Blade Pro with arguably the best laptop keyboard ever.

The path forward is through a thicket of interesting, albeit also very expensive, design challenges. Apple is going in one direction, Microsoft is going in another, and the future of computers is harder to predict now that it has been for a while, because there’s no obvious next stop. This makes developments exciting to observe, but the design and engineering exploration that is to come will come at a very literal cost.​