When was the last time someone pulled you over to show you their nifty new PC? Chances are good that it’s been awhile. And therein lays one of the reasons a leading research firm just revised its PC sales forecast downward — there simply isn’t that much new in PCs to get buyers excited.
Monday Gartner released revised estimates for PC sales, citing the success of the iPad as a key factor in its decision to pare back its forecast. Going forward, you can expect a number of iPad wannabes to further entice consumers away from traditional PC purchases but, as Datamation reports, the PC still has plenty of life and utility left.
The good news for PC makers is that research firm Gartner expects PC shipments to continue to boom along in 2010, on pace to total 352.4 million units for the year, a 14.3 percent bump up from 2009.
But the bad news is that those numbers represent a drop from Gartner’s earlier estimate of 18.1 percent for the year. Gartner has also clipped its 2011 estimates downward.
One key factor driving Gartner’s (NYSE: IT) revised forecast is the impact of Apple’s iPad.