To hear Dell and HP tell it, the slump in PC sales can be blamed in part on
Windows 8, which won't do much to improve the situation until sometime next year.
During conference calls this week to talk about their earnings both Dell and HP pointed to lousy PC sales as a problem. Dell actually came out and said Windows 8 anticipation had resellers drawing down PC inventory, but also acknowledged that any benefit the new operating system will have on sales would be delayed into next year.
IDC backs them up. "Factors such as Windows 8 coupled with Ultrabooks could present a positive turn of events next year," says Jay Chou, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, "but it also faces some initial hurdles; chief of which is that buyers must acclimate themselves to an operating system that is a dramatic departure from existing PC paradigms. The PC ecosystem faces some work to properly educate the market."
