A fully saturated PC market means upgrade cycles are slowing down, slowing consumer uptake of Windows 8, IDC's Bob O'Donnell told CNET in an interview.
What ails the U.S. PC market ails Windows 8 too. That is, saturation and slowing upgrade cycles.
"The U.S. market is pretty much 100 percent saturated. So it is 100 percent dependent on replacement [PCs]," said O'Donnell, a program vice president at IDC, in a telephone interview referencing a report he helped author that was released Wednesday.
Windows 8 contends with Win 7, PC saturation, says IDC | Business Tech - CNET NewsOn the other hand, corporations in the U.S. have not only been seeing slower replacement cycles but are only now upgrading to Windows 7.
"Commercial [corporate] clients are telling us they're upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7."
O'Donnell continued. "And in the conversations I've had with Dell and HP, most of their commercial customers are buying Windows 7, not Windows 8."