@database PCSales.html
@remark Converted with HTML2Guide ©1997 Mark Harman
@wordwrap

@node MAIN "PCSales.html"
@{"b"}The PC Market@{"ub"} 
	@{"i"}Upgrade Mad?@{"ui"}  

We all know how PC owners seem to spend £300 or so every month on upgrading their ancient machines - but is that really true? According to some survey (I read this somewhere - don't ask for sources!) most people buying a PC expect to keep their machine (with little or no upgrades) for a lot longer than the 18 month or so shelf life a machine seems to have.  

In fact, the average time they intended to keep their machine was 8 years!!!  

So what does this mean? Remember that although there are the die hard PC users, who spend on their machine constantly, plenty of buyers are only interested in a machine for a bit of word processing, games, maybe 'edutainment' and internet access. Many families buying will look on it like any other household good - you don't buy a TV with the intention of changing bits of it a few months later, after all!  

These results claim to explain why there has been a fall in growth of PC sales.  
	----------------------------------------
 
But let's face it, is this anything new? Despite what some would have us believe, home computing has been around for almost 20 years (ie, not the last 5 years according to 'The MicroSoft History of Computing') From 8 bit Micros to the Amiga 500, people (whether individuals or families) buying computers has never involved such constant upgrading, expect by those really into computing. So why should PCs be any different. 

PCites would argue how you can do much more 'useful' things on a PC. While this itself might be a matter of debate, that is an obvious statement, as with time, computers are always going to do more things, just like an A500 did far more than a Speccy before it; the computers of tomorrow (PCs or not) will do far more.  

But at least there is some evidence that this is true. Another thing I would like to point out here is that no matter how popular PCs are at the moment, it doesn't mean they will always be the 'in' machine; when people move onto a new computer a few years later, they would expect to buy new software anyway. Therefore the problem that competing non-PCs (be they PowerMacs, BeOS or pOS based machines, A\BOXes, Java boxes, or whatever) won't have PC compatibility doesn't really matter, as long as they have their own decent software base.   
 
 
@endnode