PC Industry Fights to Adapt as Tablets Muscle In

Like the mainframe, which was said to be dead decades ago but has remained a meaningful business, the PC will almost certainly cheat death. True, mobile devices like the iPad will continue to gore PC sales. Those mobile devices, though, will most likely never satisfy spreadsheet masters, film editors and other workers who depend on multiple screens and the precision of a keyboard and mouse.

Still, there is a strong view among many longtime tech executives that the PC’s relevance will steadily diminish.

“In my humble opinion, the PC as we have known it is in a continuous decline and being relegated to a utility device for businesses,” said Hector Ruiz, the former chief executive of Advanced Micro Devices, a company that makes chips for PCs and other devices.

The mood around the PC industry has become increasingly glum. The business is effectively in a recession, and there is no upturn in sight. During the second quarter of the year, global PC shipments fell around 11 percent, for their fifth consecutive quarter of declines, the worst downturn since the advent of the PC more than 30 years ago.

Intel, supplier of the chips in most PCs, and Microsoft, which makes the Windows operating system on the vast majority of those machines, have delivered disappointing financial results. An overhaul of Microsoft’s software, Windows 8, did not lift sales and may have made them worse.

The once-mighty Dell, deeply weakened by the PC slump, is mired in a struggle with shareholders over a plan to go private, seeking relief from investor pressure. In their bid to take the company private, Michael S. Dell, the founder, and the investment firm Silver Lake have argued that they would turn the company into a corporate software services provider. A vote on Dell’s future is expected this week.

While sales of PCs to businesses remain steady, demand among consumers has plunged, largely because people are instead buying iPads, Kindle Fires and other tablets.

Still, a reality check: more than 300 million PCs are expected to be shipped this year globally. That is a lot of widgets for a business that has caught a cold.

Tablet sales are growing explosively. This year, there are expected to be more than 200 million shipments of the devices, which will for the first time exceed shipments of notebooks, the largest category of PCs, estimates Gartner, the research firm.

Steven P. Jobs, the Apple chief executive who died in 2011, predicted several years ago that PCs would become something like trucks, workhorses used by many people but outnumbered by tablets, the cars of the technology business. (The analogy is somewhat undercut by stats: the most popular vehicle in the United States for several years has been a truck, the Ford F-150.)

One theory is that tablets are leading PC shoppers to postpone purchases of new computers, perhaps by a year or two, but that eventually people will be ready for a fresh machine. “Replacement cycles are being pushed out,” said Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Bernstein Research.

A more pessimistic view is that a lot of the consumer demand for PCs will never return. Daniel Huttenlocher, the dean and vice provost of Cornell University’s new New York City technology campus, said consumers began buying PCs in big numbers beginning in the 1990s largely because no better device existed for getting on the Internet.

But the PC, he said, was always better suited as an office machine for the production of documents, presentations and other work. In his view, tablets are better for the consumption of content, whether that is watching Netflix or surfing the Web.

“There are way more consumers than producers, period, even in a world with lots of user-generated content,” Dr. Huttenlocher said.

In the first quarter, 53 percent of computer shipments were to the consumer market while 47 percent were to the commercial market, estimates the research firm IDC.

Microsoft Profit Misses as Surface Tablets Languish; Shares Drop

The stock fell 5 percent after hours from 5-year highs.

The massive charge underlines the struggles of the world's largest software company, which last week announced a deep reorganization to transform itself into a "devices and services" leader, but is struggling to make mobile computing as attractive as Apple Inc or Google Inc.

"That's the biggest miss we've ever seen from Microsoft, the biggest that I could remember," said Brendan Barnicle, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities. "It looks like everything was weak."

Before the sell-off late Thursday, Microsoft shares had risen 32 percent this year, beating a 19 percent rise in the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

Microsoft said the $900 million charge was related to its Surface RT tablet, the version of its tablet running on ARM Holdings-designed chips. The Surface was meant to challenge Apple's iPad when it was launched alongside Windows 8 in October, but has not sold well.

Earlier this week, Microsoft said it was drastically cutting prices and expanding distribution of the model to entice buyers, reducing the value of Surface devices in its inventory.

"We do know we have to do better, particular in mobile devices," Amy Hood, Microsoft's new chief financial officer, said in a telephone interview. "That's a big reason we made the strategic organizational changes last week."

Microsoft's biggest shake-up in five years, unveiled by Chief Executive Steve Ballmer last week, creates a single devices unit for the first time at the company, suggesting that it will double down on its so-far unsuccessful move into hardware.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft reported fiscal fourth-quarter profit of 59 cents per share, compared with a 6 cents per share loss in the year-ago quarter when it wrote off the cost of a failed acquisition.

Wall Street had estimated earnings of 75 cents per share, on average, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Excluding the Surface charge, Microsoft reported 66 cents per share profit, a less drastic miss.

Revenue rose 10 percent to $19.9 billion, helped by sales of Microsoft's Office suite of applications, but fell short of analysts' average estimate of $20.7 billion.

Sales of Windows rose slightly, but only because of the inclusion of some deferred revenue, weighed down by an estimated 11 percent dip in PC sales in the quarter.

Microsoft's Windows 8 has sold more than 100 million licenses since launching in October, but is struggling to win over many consumers confused by the new design which is more suited to tablets than traditional PCs. Acknowledging this, Microsoft is releasing a revamped version of the system called Windows 8.1 later this year, which brings back the iconic 'start' button.

(Additional reporting by Liana Baker in New York; Editing by Richard Chang)

App Smart: Dictionary Apps for Smartphones and Tablets

But before your fingers close on that printed book and flick through its alphabetically indexed pages, consider this: There are many dictionary apps that could help you do the job more speedily. They may also have features that will teach you new words. And they might even be fun.

Dictionary.com Dictionary and Thesaurus is a free iOS and Android app that comes from one of the best-known dictionary Web sites. Unlike the Web site, the app has the advantage that many of its features work offline. This app’s home page is colorful with icons and is topped by a search bar where you enter words you want to look up. As soon as you begin to type in this bar, the app begins to suggest words that may match, so you don’t always have to type in the whole word. If you’re unsure of a word’s spelling, you can tap on the microphone icon and speak your word instead.

When you see the word you’re looking for in the search list, a single tap takes you to its main dictionary entry. Here you’ll find the usual definitions you’d get in a paper dictionary, including a guide to pronunciation, word origin description, various meanings and related word forms. You can hear the word spoken aloud by tapping on the loudspeaker icon, or add the word to a favorites list. The app also has a built-in thesaurus, which you can get to via a tab in the search bar. On the iPhone, the app can translate a word into several languages.

It’s functional as a dictionary, but the app also has entertaining extras. It can show you which words people are searching for most right now, for example, and even what people near you are searching for.

The app is visually cluttered, though, and some features, like voice recognition and pronunciation guides, work only online. I got the feeling I was being nagged to buy add-ons, like the ability to see example sentences. Also, the free version’s on-screen ads can get annoying if you don’t make a $2.99 in-app purchase to banish them.

The Android version has a slightly different interface of a simpler design than the iOS version. There is also an attractively designed free edition for Windows Phone, though it seems trickier to switch between the dictionary and the thesaurus in that one.

Merriam-Webster has released several dictionary apps with different functions to cater to certain users or devices. For example, some apps incorporate a thesaurus function alongside the main dictionary; others don’t. The basic Merriam-Webster app is free for iOS and Android devices and is supported by on-screen ads. Its design is simpler than the Dictionary.com app’s. The home page consists of a logo, a control bar at the bottom that provides access to the app’s various functions and a prominent search bar at the top.

Like the Dictionary.com app, Merriam-Webster’s version suggests word matches as you type in the search bar. It can also take voice input instead of typed text. When you tap on a word in the list of suggestions, the app shows the relevant dictionary entry, which is easy to read, with a clear layout and large text. The entry also uses the word in an example and offers a list of synonyms and antonyms. Tap on the red speaker icons to hear the word pronounced.

But the basic app’s database is limited and it knows only two of my favorite three words. It’s possible that the Collegiate edition would know all three: it costs a little less than $25 on iOS and Android to get more definitions as well as the ability to modify menus and a “pen reader” system for recognizing handwriting in many languages. A $3.99 Windows Phone edition of the Merriam-Webster app says it includes “all” the definitions from the Collegiate dictionary.

English Dictionary — Offline, free on Android, is the simplest of the apps mentioned here but is still powerful. Its interface is basic: a search box at the top and space below for word definitions to appear. Tap icons to share words to other apps, flag words as favorites or perform other actions like viewing your search history. Dictionary entries are based on the Wiktionary database, which the makers say includes about 159,000 words. You can click on individual words on an entry page to navigate to that word, and the app will speak the word aloud for you. It’s free and handy for looking up definitions. But it falls short if you’re curious about how a word came into use.

As for “philtrum,” it’s that little vertical groove in your upper lip beneath your nose.

Quick Call

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