In one fell swoop today, technology research and analytics firm Gartner both proclaimed the PC industry as growing but showing signs of weakness. Gartner adjusted its previous forecast of 17.9 percent growth for PC sales in 2010 to 14.3 percent. Gartner directly attributes this slowing of PC growth to the increasing influence of mobile devices or "media tablets such as the iPad" as they call them. Gartner's current predictions have mobile tablets taking 10 percent of the industry by 2014. Among other reasons, the inability of the traditional PC market to innovate is a primary culprit, as is the ease of use and accessibility of this new crop of simpler, instant-on devices. Like all analyst predictions, Gartner's numbers are subject to revision at any time. If history is any guide, however, Gartner is likely undershooting the influence of tablets on computer market share. This latest revision is a perfect example, as is the tendency of research firms to underestimate the growth of Apple products. Just earlier this year when the iPad was unveiled, Gene Munster of Piper Jeffray predicted a modest 2 to 3 million iPads to sell in 2010, only to see that number obliterated within months of the product hitting the market. Even the most positive prognosticators saw 8 million as a healthy number, while Apple may eclipse that number in just the last quarter of 2010. Still, Gartner numbers tend to carry some weight, even if they are telling people what tech journalists have seen for the better part of a year.
PC sales are going to be impacted dramatically by this new class of products. Companies such as HP, Asus, Dell, and Acer are doing all they can to get into the mobile space to avoid being left behind. The one company that needs to be concerned, however, is Microsoft. With Mac sales beating market growth consistently for 20+ quarters now, Microsoft stands out as the company with the most to lose in this space. This, of course, is why they are moving as fast as possible to create a workable tablet OS, but it remains unlikely that they will be able to charge the same licensing fees for such an OS with Android available. HP has already seemingly abandoned its partner, purchasing Palm and their WebOS touch operating system to avoid being ragged down by Microsoft. For a company that makes virtually all of its money from Windows and Office for Windows, today's numbers aren't going to make anyone in Redmond feel terribly easy.