How exactly is it the OEMs own fault? It's not like these companies are swimming in PC hardware profits. Companies like HP and Dell are moving away from the PC business into enterprise stuff and storage/cloud business. The PC isn't in decline because of crappy hardware or bloatware. It's because we now know most people were/are using their PCs for things like email, surfing the web, Facebook, YouTube, some gaming etc. and the hardware they have is powerful enough for that. And then throw on top of that mobile phones and tablets and most people just don't need full fledged PCs anymore.
This new campaign is just weird. These videos are highlighting different features on different laptops. What happens when someone goes into Best Buy and says I want the laptop with 18 hour battery life that has no bezels and can slide under a door. And then they find out there isn't one laptop with all those features. And all the laptops featured in the ads are a lot more expensive than the average PC user is used to paying?
But it IS in decline because of poor quality hardware and customer service. How else can a company like Apple be explained, which charges a huge premium over other companies yet is probably the most successful company in history. Consumers flock to their superior quality and their customer service, that concierge type of service which you don't' get with anyone else except Microsoft. Although I do agree that it is in part due to PC's becoming powerful enough to do most things consumers want, although I can counter that partly with Apple's macbook and desktop sales which continue to climb. Even Microsoft's surface line is enjoying record profits and seeing increased sales every quarter, IMO consumers really appreciate hardware and customer service.
Is there any hard, reliable data that confirms Macs are outselling PCs? I'm skeptical about that. Even still my argument isn't that there aren't junky, bloat ridden PCs. My argument is I think it's unfair to suggest they couldn't make decent PCs until Microsoft showed them the way (or shamed them into doing so). As I've argued earlier Microsoft doesn't need to make money on hardware. They don't face the same dynamics PC OEMs do. They can afford to make low volume premium hardware. How many PC OEMs can afford to do the same? Microsoft's vision was a computer in every home, on every desk. It was Bill Gates that said software was what mattered and hardware would just be a cheap, low margin commodity. In that environment is it any wonder PC OEMs delivered cheap crap filled with bloatware?
But that doesn't make sense. Microsoft made huge profits on the surface line this year, they didn't lose money. The surface line isn't a loss leader, it's a bona fide product which makes Microsoft money. One some level I think the success surprised Microsoft and now they are taking advantage of it, which you can't blame them as a company.
I don't disagree that MS maybe had something to do with the OEM's apathy, certainly onerous licensing fees and such contributed. But it's a different environment and MS has drastically reduced it's licensing fees for the OEMs and is providing them much more support and trying to give them a direction, a direction which has been proven by Apple and is being proven further by Microsoft itself.
Bloatware, there is NO excuse for that at all, it's simply advertising greed on the OEM's part. It's like having commercials or ads forced upon you, no one likes it and it's a negative for your product.
Also if the OEM's don't have the supply chain connections that Apple and Microsoft do then that's too bad, it's a reality of business. If a company can't stand on it's own, then does it deserve to be in business? You're trying to get others to feel pity for the OEM's, but they are profit generating companies and need to rethink their strategy to match what consumers want, or die.
That's exactly the argument that all of them seemed to be making for the previous decade, which put them all in a race to the bottom because they had all convinced themselves that the problem with computers were that they were too expensive, so they ended up in a self-fulfilling prophesy where they built ever crappier computers driving the prices down and down until there were no margins left. Again, for much of the previous decade, I couldn't get a quality IPS screen on a top of the line Thinkpad which is built to custom order for any price.
Apple, and now Microsoft, have stepped in to show these companies that the problem with the PC market was not that they were too expensive, but rather that they were built too cheaply, with little consideration of design or usability or the overall user experience. Most of those companies are now improving, but they still suffer from the other problem which is giving the consumer too many choices, and in the end they either choose the cheapest thing or nothing at all. I think that companies like Lenovo, Dell, HP, etc. need to build up a high-end sub-brand completely isolated branding-wise from the parent company and build it out in the Apple/Microsoft mold. A few extremely well executed designs with premium materials and service. Right now there is no focus from these manufacturers. Even the occasional great product they produce is often lost in the sea of mediocre companion offerings.
Excellent points. This reminds me of Samsung, which releases WAY too many phones, then wonders why it can't sell them. The OEMs need to have a flagship and a less expensive option in each product segment, and that's it. That would free up a lot of R&D, manufacturing, supply chain, and especially marketing money, giving them much more of a profit margin to work with.
