The aging of the installed base. It's Microsoft's fault. <g>
When a market approaches saturation, the upgrade/replacement cycle is critical to maintaining and growing an industry.
It also means your market is more product literate, and experience plays a factor in the purchase decision.
In the case of the PC, most users understand that replacing a PC is a "PITA". And the OS is the main factor.
Consider the many applications users have installed on their system. The DLL's are scattered throughout, and who knows what DLL goes with what application? Patches and upgrades have been downloaded, and are not resident on the original install disc. Applications have been customized, plug-ins have been downloaded from various sources on the Internet, folders and files have been created that include digital images, correspondence, spreadsheets, etc. Peripherals are installed and customized for your applications. Buddy lists, address books, cookies that contain log in and password info, a Browser customized and installed with your ISP, etc., etc. (Half the users probably don't even know where the install "ID" is for many of the applications).
So you buy a new PC. How does the average user transfer his data to the new PC? It probably has a new OS, and experience shows it will take the average user days, if not weeks, to get the new PC updated to his previous configuration. Even then it probably will be missing key elements that will show up over an extended period of time. And the users smart enough to back up applications and use that to re-install in a new PC will experience problems. A back-up most often is incomplete since much of the required data is not resident in the program folder, (for example, DLL's). And how will a new OS treat a re-installed application?
Without a compelling reason to go through the hassle, why bother? This is an issue that Microsoft should have been addressing for years.
JMO's <G> |
