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back to article The suits helped biz PC makers feed their kids in bumper Q2

Less than six months ago forecasters were predicting continued gloom for the European PC market. Sales had been hit hard in 2017 by price hikes amid component shortages and as US vendors sought to maintain margins by offsetting the rise in value of the US dollar versus both the Euro and the Brit pound. However, businesses …

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  1. Korev Silver badge

    GDPR?

    The GDPR deadline was also cited as a reason to upgrade ageing PC stock

    My first impression when reading this was "WTF?"; but then I realised there's probably some good quality BOFHery using GDPR to justify raising the toy budget...

    15 0 Reply
    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: GDPR?

      Not particularly difficult either: "We need this new compliance tool, but the PCs we have are too old to run it".

      3 1 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "The GDPR deadline was also cited as a reason to upgrade ageing PC stock, [...]"

    That seems to be a non sequitur. Moving to Windows 10 is likely to have raised more concerns about M$ slurping via their increased "telemetry" hooks etc.

    2 4 Reply
  3. Blockchain commentard

    Bitcoin mining.

    1 3 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Not in Western Europe. The cheapest electricity is close to EUR 0.06 per kWh so even with the latest ASIC mining rig the electricity costs alone are going to be higher than any income.

      0 0 Reply
    2. dnicholas
      Reply Icon

      Unlikely crypto - this is PC sales, not the bits that make a PC. Unless people are buying SFF HP ProDesks and ramming 6x 12" GPUs in/on them...

      1 0 Reply
  4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    I'd have thought businesses would have kept the old fleet running until new post-Meltdown/Spectre processors become available.

    5 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Fair point, but for most businesses the risks of Meltdown and Spectre are a little ethereal. The saving on power consumption (and aircon) are very tangible as they appear on the balance sheet.

      0 0 Reply
  5. Guus Leeuw

    Dear Sir,

    were those people that made up the end-of-quarter report equipped with a Crystal Ball? By my reckoning, it is around the 26th of June, far off from the 30th of June, which is supposedly the end of the quarter...

    Also, in reply to some GDPR comments, GDPR indicates that companies should endeavour to make sure that there IT is "safe" and as per "best practise"... Having old PCs running God-knows-what-OS is not the best practise... My missus came home the other day with a laptop from work... Some Toshiba thing. It is thicker than my Alienware 17... :D

    Best regards,

    Guus

    0 1 Reply
  6. Bavaria Blu
    Go

    Windows 10 is coming

    I look after 9000 Windows 7 PCs and not all will be happy with Windows 10 and things like UEFI and secure boot. So lots more PC purchases coming in the next couple of years.

    0 0 Reply

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