For the first quarter, PC shipments tumbled 12.5%, compared with IDC’s forecast for an 11.3% decline, as unfavorable currency market movements, depressed commodities prices, political uncertainty and project delays have all contributed to suppress sales. That marks the fourth consecutive quarter of volume declines in the double-digit percentage range. “This type of prolonged slump is unprecedented, and lowers the bar for some improvement going forward,” said Loren Loverde, vice president of world-wide tracker forecasting and PC research at IDC. “Unfortunately, the PC market still faces some persistent challenges, and for now, improvement continues to mean slower declines.” We might actually see some real innovation again in PCs to get the buyer back out. We’ll start to see a leveling of the market in 2018 or so and then a more realistic growth. The PC is certainly not dead. The home PC isn’t either. I still have a desktop and a laptop and my wife and son both have laptops. They just don’t need to be upgraded every 2 years like they used to. I’m also curious to see how much of that is simply people figuring out that you don’t need a whole new off-the-shelf computer, you can just upgrade the one you have piecemeal. The last time I bought off the shelf was an Atari ST — a computer that can’t be bought piecemeal. Every PC I’ve ever owned has been entirely custom.