Falling PC Prices Pit Microsoft Against PC Makers

CIO —

Last week, research firm Gartner released a PC sales forecast that initially sounded like good news for Microsoft and its hardware partners, but likely indicates trouble ahead.

Why? Because even though more PCs are predicted to ship this year and in 2010, the PC prices will head downward, thanks to the continued popularity of inexpensive netbooks.

Gartner originally forecasted a 2 percent decline year-over-year in worldwide PC shipments for 2009, but after consumers purchased more computers than expected in the third quarter, Gartner flipped its forecast to a 2.8 percent increase in PC shipments, equating to 298.9 million PCs. For 2010, Gartner predicts PC shipments will grow 12.6 percent year-over-year to 336.6 million PCs.

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But here's the rub: the average selling prices for PCs in 2009 will experience a year-over-year decline of 10.7 percent, with only a slight increase of 2.6 percent predicted for 2010, according to Gartner.

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"We expect PC ASP [average selling price] declines to slow as the market recovers, but given the market's competitive dynamic, we don't see PC ASPs rising any time soon," said George Shiffler, research director at Gartner, in a release.

Microsoft Won't Budge on Windows Pricing

Industry analysts agree that falling PC prices hurt Windows hardware makers more than Microsoft. The price Microsoft charges PC makers for Windows 7 Professional is the same as what it charged for Vista's business version, though Microsoft actually cut what it charges PC makers for Windows 7 Home Premium as compared to Vista's home version.

Yet at the same time, PC price drops have exceeded expectations. In the past year the average selling price of all Windows portable PCs has fallen from $659 in Oct. 2008 to $519 in Oct. 2009, according to research firm NPD.

Another point of contention: Microsoft is charging PC makers $50 for entry-level Windows 7 Starter on netbooks, compared to the $15 the company had been charging for Windows XP on netbooks.

"As long as there is an uptick in demand for PCs, there's no incentive for Microsoft to lower the prices of Windows 7 licenses that it charges PC makers," says Tim Bajarin, president of tech consulting firm Creative Strategies.

As a result, PC makers such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard will have to pay Microsoft the same amount for Windows licenses, even as their Windows laptop prices dip into the $500 range and their profit margins shrink.

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