The penetration of PCs in the US and Western Europe has reached such a point that it has prompted an IDC vice president to say the right way to measure install base is no longer the number of computers per household, but per person.
The comments by Bob O’Donnell, vice president of Clients and Displays were in IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, and represent a monumental shift in the way that PC sales are measured, reflecting the permutation of technology into all aspects of modern culture.
"The right way to gauge the success of consumer PCs is no longer the adoption rate of households with PCs, or even the number of PCs per household, but rather the number of machines per individual," O’Donnell stated.
"The increasing form factors and diversity in notebooks, as well as desktops, is enabling people to justify multiple PC purchases," he added.