Today, Intel officially announced their PC Refresh campaign for 2013, called 'Generation Today'! If you are already following us on Facebook, you would have already read the key details about this campaign. Here are the full details : The 'Generation Today' campaign will run from the 22th of May until 31st December 2013. During this campaign, Intel Malaysia and its partners will run a series of roadshows to showcase the latest touch-enabled devices, including Ultrabooks, convertible tablets and laptops. Intel Malaysia and its partners will also be offering the following promotions at each roadshow... Link : ED#153 : Intel's Generation Today Campaign
Does this announcement solidify the slow death of the Desktop platform for the average "Joe"? Kinda seems odd... all this tablet/ultrabook hype, but I see very few people in the "real" computing world (number crunching) getting away from desktop boxes.
Not surprising since the hardware enthusiast market is a rather niche market. Intel would rather sell a million Intel-based laptops than a few thousand standalone processors. Plus, logistics is actually easier since they only need to deal with large players like Dell and HP, instead of retailers that sell standalone processors.
I don't think the desktop is going extinct. Gamers, hardware enthusiasts and anyone else who need serious computing power would certainly still stick with desktops. But many more people will move to laptops and Ultrabooks (if they can afford it). I think Intel's problem is that they make really good processors.. too good actually. They are finding it hard to sell more processors, not because they make lousy products but because their products are so good, there's no real need to upgrade. Most people now find that they are perfectly happy with the first generation Core i7/i5/i3 processors. That's why Intel is focusing on trying to get those who are still on the Core 2 Duo to migrate to the 3rd generation Core i7/i5/i3 processors and soon, the 4th generation Core i7/i5/i3 processors. If you see one of the slides that we posted on Facebook, Intel specifically pointed out that it's high time for folks with the Core 2 Duo desktop or laptop to upgrade them!
And they also don't include products like Intel NUC. Current Haswell are not exactly good processors though. It's nothing more than an slight improved version of Ivybridge.
Very hard to improve on something that's already so good. It's going to further drive the malaise in the PC scene, IMHO...
Consumers like you are Intel's biggest problem today.. Hehehe... I'll have to admit - my Core 2 Duo system still runs very well too...
