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Desktop PC remains key business tool: IDC

Regina Pazvakavambwa
By Regina Pazvakavambwa, ITWeb portals journalist.
Johannesburg, 05 Oct 2015
Lower price and better resilience definitely make desktop the best choice for companies that have limited budgets, says IDC.
Lower price and better resilience definitely make desktop the best choice for companies that have limited budgets, says IDC.

Despite the continuous shift to mobility and the proliferation of portable devices such as ultra-slim notebooks, convertibles, and tablets, desktop PCs are still the main PC form factor for businesses.

This is according to a recent survey carried out by market research firm IDC. Six hundred executives at small and medium businesses and large enterprises in France, the UK and Germany, were interviewed.

Eighty four percent of respondents indicated they would consider purchasing desktop PCs for their organisation.

The most important factors the respondents cited in the decision to buy a desktop PC were higher performance, better durability, longer lifespan, and lower prices, says IDC.

"The survey confirmed that the average lifetime of a desktop is one year longer than that of a laptop, reducing total cost of ownership for the company," said Maciek Gornicki, research manager: personal computing at IDC Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)."

As a result, lower price and better resilience definitely make desktop the best choice for companies that have limited budgets and that require solutions for non-mobile office employees, says Gornicki.

On the other hand, desktops' higher security will benefit businesses that operate in industries such as insurance, finance, and banking, as well as government agencies, he adds.

According to IDC, small form factors and mini PCs are however key to the future of client computing, with companies increasingly looking at these devices, says Gornicki. Some 43% of respondents said they would consider a small form factor device and 35% said they would be willing to purchase a mini PC.

These smaller products have become more popular as companies are increasingly looking to implement solutions that will save desk space and energy, it adds.

The research firm says specific industries are also planning to deploy mini PCs for digital signage technology or Internet kiosks, which continue to gain presence.

In addition, for companies that want to upgrade or customise their PCs over time, the increasing availability of customisable mini PCs is likely to boost their adoption in the future, it notes.

In the era of business transformation and digitalisation, desktops remain relevant as computing power is key to productivity, says Chrystelle Labesque, associate director, IDC EMEA client computing.

Meanwhile, the Middle East and Africa PC market suffered a sharp year-on-year decline of 25.6% in Q2 2015 - the steepest decline recorded for a single quarter, says IDC.

Overall, PC shipments for the quarter fell to 3.3 million units. Desktops were down 21.2% year-on-year to 1.4 million units, while the notebook segment declined 28.6% to total 1.9 million units.

However, PC shipments are expected to start growing again in 2017 led by the commercial market, with consumer shipments continuing to decline through the end of 2019, the research firm said.

As a result, commercial demand for PCs in the region is expected to surpass that from home users by the year 2017.

Lenovo and HP were the only two vendors among the top five worldwide that experienced an increase in PC shipments in the first quarter of 2015, says research firm Gartner, adding Lenovo experienced its strongest growth in EMEA and the US.

HP performed moderately well in the first quarter, and it kept its top position in the US and EMEA.

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