3 March 2008
by Paul Kunert
Analysts have downgraded their forecasts for the UK PC market as corporate desktop customers delay refreshes due to concerns over the less than certain economic outlook and the instability of the Vista OS.
Flat desktop growth in the UK had been predicted for 2008, said IDC, but the softness of the market in the fourth quarter had caught all analysts by surprise and there were signs the trend had continued this year.
"We expect the market to decline 10 per cent in the first half of the year and 2 per cent a quarter in the second half," said Mathew McCormack, consultant at IDC.
There is, however, the potential that Microsoft’s March release of Service Pack 1 for Vista will iron out the vulnerabilities it was shipped with and breathe new life into the ailing desktop sector, added the analyst.
"My gut reaction is that we will see corporate refresh activity in the third and fourth quarters with customers that were holding out on Vista till SP1 came out, and the system was more stable," he said.
Large enterprises wanted to remain on XP Pro, agreed Ranjit Atwal, principal analyst at Gartner: "On top of that, economic concerns have pushed customers to further extend desktop lifecycles."
Sales in the consumer desktop sector are expected to decline 10 per cent compared with the earlier prediction of a 7 per cent fall and shipments in the business market are expected to fall by 5 per cent.
Both analysts expect buoyant notebook sales in 2008. If anything IDC has predicted a slight increase in estimates to around 15 per cent with mobility and price declines appealing to users.
The adoption of Vista in the commercial desktop market has been very slow according to figures by Context and a year after launch it still accounts for less than half of all units shipped.
"Why would anyone consider Vista when there is no demonstrable return on investment to buy a new OS?" questioned Jeremy Davies, senior partner at the channel analyst, who added Windows 7 was due in 2010.
