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About LinkBacksRead more.ARM is included in PC market forecasts for the first time.
Read more.ARM is included in PC market forecasts for the first time.
Isn't this like asserting time travel will increase to 13% by 2100? There are virtually zero ARM 'PC's on the market, certainly none running a fully fledged desktop (not even with Linux). And it's not due to lack of software, the Ubuntu lot have been working with ARM on delivering a Linux/ARM desktop, and I certainly know systems programmers who're interested. It's not even a valid reference datapoint. There's just no mainstream consumer interest worth talking about.
Originally Posted by Agent
No.
Why not?No.
In terms of sales numbers.
PCs are dying relative to other computational devices. Ie intel/amd are dominate in the PC market but not in the actual computer market.
ARM won, intel lost.
ARM has certainly cleared the floor with smartphones and tablets. But they're not even an insignificant dot in the PC market itself.
Where do I start? The projection is four, rather than a thousand, years ahead, and it's generally assumed that ARM will appear in PCs, while few people anticipate time-travel becoming a reality.
A large company that commands much of its professional reputation from its forecasts has been specific about when, and to what extent, a trend that's broadly anticipated will occur. That's the story.
An assumption is still an assumption, no matter who makes it. They could be right, they could be wrong, it's still 50/50 chance, the same as time travel by 2100. Neither products exist yet, so making projections is entirely guesswork.
It's the new pseudo-nerd thing to love ARM, bash Intel and ignore the facts isn't it...
PCs & Laptops still sell well, maybe a smaller % of overall total computing devices, but as the total number of computing devices is rising fast it doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing. ARM based CPUs are still much slower than what Intel or AMD turn out, and they sell for much lower prices, so if you want to do anything serious you need still need x86 and Intel especially are taking a good profit there.
IF, and it's a big 'if' the ARM CPUs in development turn out to be fast enough for Windows 8 (most consumers still won't use Linux on anything more than a phone/tablet and business is firmly rooted in the Windows world) they may crack the nettop but Intel's fab advantages mean Atom is going to be even stiffer competition than it has been in that segment too.
It's just as hard to scale up ARM chippery to perform like modern x86 as it is for x86 to scale down to the power envelope of ARM chips.
Even if it hits 13% it'll be the slowest, most basic and least profitable 13% of the market...
ARM is not some brand new architecture from the Gods sent to save mankind, it's been around years and it's only phone's and tablets that fuel it along, many other architectures have shown promise but failed to topple x86 from it's PC throne... don't count on that changing.
No it's not, it's about extrapolation from existing data. That's only about 25% guesswork
There are already devices with ARM chips that could arguably be classed alongside PCs (at least, Canalys seem to think so) and Windows for ARM is a confirmed product which will be launching (no guesswork involved). Given ARM-based devices already exist that are physically very PC-like (i.e. they have keyboards, touchpads, similar processing power to existing netbooks etc.), it's reasonable to assume that some of those devices will be loaded with ARM Windows when it's available, and become fully-fledged PCs. So it's already arguable that ARM based PCs do exist, and even if you accept that they don't, it's hardly crystal-ball gazing to project that they will exist in a couple of years. It's relatively easy to obtain data on the current trend in sales of those ARM-based devices that are most like PCs. Thereafter, it's a bit of relatively straightforward maths to project future growth within certain confidence intervals.
Of course, to make a better news story they only publish the mean figures, which sounds very pretentious and oracular. "Somewhere between 3% and 20% of PCs to be ARM" just doesn't have the same edge to it
There is no existing data for mass market ARM-based PC's, that's the point.
Nearly 3 decades, in fact.
Indeed, I suppose actually this is the 2nd coming (if it happens) for ARM PCs... *
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risc_PC
* No this does not mean ARM is the messiah.
Don't worry! Intel will invent time phasing transistors that will go back in time and destroy the competition!
Terbinator (05-05-2011)
But it's not a valid point. There are ARM-based PC-like devices on the market, so there is trending data for an appropriate class of device. There are also confirmed future product launches that make ARM-based PCs nigh-on inevitable.
It's ridiculous to say that you can't predict sales patterns for a device until it reaches mass market, because if you took that point of view no-one would ever make any new devices because they wouldn't be able to predict if people would buy them or not! You extrapolate from the nearest appropriate equivalent. And from personal experience, I can confirm that an Android tablet with keyboard dock is a very close equivalent to an entry level laptop or netbook for typical usage patterns.
The term PC now means exchange terminal in the business world or games terminal outside.
If these monopolies go, we no longer actually need 'PCs'
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