Intel, Microsoft, HP, Dell and Lenovo join forces for PC promotional campaign

[midian182]

Intel and Microsoft are trying to reverse the trend of dwindling PC sales by teaming up with the world’s three top personal computer makers - Lenovo Group Ltd., Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co – to launch an advertising campaign aimed at making consumers aware of all the things a modern PC is capable of, reports Re/code.

Said to be the first cross-vendor effort of its kind, the TV, print media and online advertising campaign is set to be announced Thursday at a webcast featuring the companies’ top marketing executives. It will be based around the question “PC does what?” and aims to show people how much more versatile and flexible the latest Windows 10 machines are compared their current PCs. When Intel launched its Skylake processors last month, it pointed out that “more than 600 million computers in use today are five years or older” and “can’t take advantage of all the new experiences available today.”

The bulk of the money for the ads - set to run in the US and China - will come from Microsoft and Intel, which are the highest-margin companies in the group. Exactly how much is being spent on the campaign is unknown, though one source did describe the amount as “sizeable.”

Tune in tomorrow at 11:30am PDT for a special announcement https://t.co/SVdrJb2BhC pic.twitter.com/qwBdERvn1X

— OEM at Microsoft (@MicrosoftOEM) October 14, 2015

Re/Code points out that the campaign has been in the works for quite a while, predating the announcement of Microsoft’s Surface Book. After some PC makers expressed concerns that Microsoft’s device may steal business away from them, the Redmond, Washington-based company’s financial contribution to the ‘PC does what?’ campaign may go some way toward placating them.

PCs have been losing ground in recent times to other internet-enabled devices such as smartphones, TVs and tablets. Analyst firm Gartner Inc. warns that sales of PCs will decline by 5.3 percent to 214 million units in 2015 and not stabilize until 2017. The companies involved in the campaign will likely be hoping that 'PC does what?' helps convince plenty of people that now is the time to upgrade to a Windows 10 computer.

Image credit: joyfull / Shutterstock

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https://www.techspot.com/news/62437-intel-microsoft-hp-dell-lenovo-join-forces-pc.html

 

[Evernessince]

Yes, "upgrade" to a windows 10 PC. Frankly, if you have any generation i5 + 7, your set for now and who knows how long. Microsoft haven't introduced anything meaning full since 7 and Intel has been moving at a snails pace.

At the rate Intel and Microsoft are advancing, it would not surprise me in the least to one day see an ARM desktop Operating system and processor that outperforms windows and intel processors.

 

[psycros]

Yes, "upgrade" to a windows 10 PC. Frankly, if you have any generation i5 + 7, your set for now and who knows how long. Microsoft haven't introduced anything meaning full since 7 and Intel has been moving at a snails pace.

At the rate Intel and Microsoft are advancing, it would not surprise me in the least to one day see an ARM desktop Operating system and processor that outperforms windows and intel processors.

All the advancements are in GPUs now, and even that's leveling off. Slap a brand new mid-to-top end card into a PC that was pretty well specced three years ago and you'll be fine for the next two years at least. The industry killed itself by pushing low-powered devices like tablets and the dumbed-down apps they run. Now we have a generation of youngsters who've cut their teeth on tablets and game consoles: to the them a PC is that thing they use at school and little else. If not for Minecraft most casual users would probably never touch a desktop. Almost nobody even uses word processing or email at home any more - they just post everything on Facebook. Windows 10 only makes things worse by making a PC act like a big, expensive, non-portable tablet. Nobody needs a Windows tablet, either, and very few even want something like Surface.

 

[lripplinger]

Who needs to upgrade. My computer is 6 years old now, and quite frankly it is still playing games 1080p fine. Plus doing things like running Microsoft Office or browsing the web don't drain your system like they did back in the day. I know people still using Core 2 Duo/Pentium socket 775 era, and for their uses, it works just fine. Back when you had 286, 386, 486, etc. you saw a very tangible performance difference and upgrading was worthwhile and a necessity. The only real reason to build a new system in my case is just the faster SATA 3 ports (I have a first gen i7-860 so I only have SATA 2), and potentially the higher bandwidth PCI-E revision. It just seems like that unless you are doing heavy workloads that demand the horsepower, a PC that is 5 years old still gets the job done just fine.

 

[deemon]

Intel and Microsoft are trying to reverse the trend of dwindling PC sales

They all are stupid. It's like saying - "Refrigerator/toilet pot/TV makers are trying to reverse the trend of dwindling <xxx> sales."
Desktop SALES are dwindling (compared to 10 years ago) because the innovation and Moore's Law are dwindling (compared to 10 years ago) and are more like the previously mentioned items.

Fact is that PC USING is not dwindling! Gaming is more popular than ever. Most of the office work gets done on desktop computers still. In schools we teach more children to use computers than ever before.

But the problem is that if you don't innovate and give us any reason to buy NEW and MORE POWERFUL and CAPABLE computers (SHAME ON YOU, INTEL!) and our old ones are still capable enough, we have no reason to buy another one. Like I don't buy new refrigerator or owen or new TV or new toilet pot after every few years (and I don't hear toilet pot makers trying to reverse the trend of dwindling toilet pot sales really). UNLESS IT BREAKS! And desktop PC-s don't live a hazardous outdoor life, like mobile phones and tablets, so they rarely break. So intel... give us a computer that is 2x more powerful from the previous, with the interval of 1-2 years (not like current 10 years) and I guarantee you, your sales will go up again. And software makers... you obviously need to give us something that actually needs some heavy computing, or we will just buy new GPU-s once in a while (but way more often than new PC-s).

Who needs to upgrade. My computer is 6 years old now, and quite frankly it is still playing games 1080p fine.
...
It just seems like that unless you are doing heavy workloads that demand the horsepower, a PC that is 5 years old still gets the job done just fine.

7.5 years old here. Still good enough. To be honest, 5 years ago it started to itch again for building a new computer, and I decided that when Intel (OR AMD!) gives us "the next big jump"... like sandy bridge was ... that I will build new computer. And I am still waiting for this next big thing today. Seriously, who's to blame?

If intel made their CPU-s to make physics calculations more effectively than GPU-s or SOMETHING... ANYTHING usable in VR / Gaming / Skynet ... I mean AI environment... that would be huge.

At the current rate as the things progress, I predict, we can hear NVidia or AMD announce, that they now integrated CPU into their GPU sooner, than we get anything more useful from Intel.

 

[Charles Ingram]

Intel and Microsoft are trying to reverse the trend of dwindling PC sales

They all are stupid. It's like saying - "Refrigerator/toilet pot/TV makers are trying to reverse the trend of dwindling <xxx> sales."
Desktop SALES are dwindling (compared to 10 years ago) because the innovation and Moore's Law are dwindling (compared to 10 years ago) and are more like the previously mentioned items.
Trashing Win 10 and giving us a descent new Operating system more like Win 7 would be a good start to helping sales. Too many of us think Win 10 stinks in every way.

 

[Underdog]

“more than 600 million computers in use today are five years or older” and “can’t take advantage of all the new experiences available today.”

I suspect most of those 600 million computer users are finding them perfectly adequate for the tasks they require,
and are wary of all the "new experiences" available today such as Microsoft snooping into all our PC usage and hogging our bandwidth to report it home.