Techie -
Enjoyed the humor in Do you have a URL? - keep up that fighting spirit.
But the IDC numbers are about the best analysis in the business - I usually double-check with dataquest (I subscribe to both) but my experience is that IDC is closer to the mark.
There are few on this, the CPQ, or the Intel thread who understand the difference between the consumer and commercial markets, the different dynamics, or the differences in distribution and business model. But Meat is not among the uninformed, and you will probably do well to consider his data sources as solid, whatever your view on his conclusions from that data.
I believe that the sub-1K segment is now a reality, and that in the next year or so its relative position in the food chain will stabilize. It will not go away, but it will not grow to eat the whole of the desktop segment either.
There are two trends which have been fairly constant over the last 15 years in PC land. First, the money you spent on the last machine will buy about twice as much machine about 18 months later, second the performance of the last machine will be available for about half the price 18 months later. The absolute ASPs have also been declining steadily and predictably - the IBM 286 based AT was the 'high end' model in 1985 at about $10K, and the 'cheapies' were about $2500. Today, 13 years later, the high end box is probably $3500 and the 'cheapies' are $800. But this is not an accelerating decline and there is nothing on the horizon that indicates that there will be an acceleration in the future, just a steady and continuing decline in overall ASP. If you draw a 15, 10, 5 or 2 year curve on ASPs for the high end, midrange and low end boxes you will see what I mean. It's like global warming, no question of a trend but also no reason to panic. |
