Times are tougher than you might think for some of the tech world's biggest players.
If you consider the amount of consumer technology that now saturates
our lives the understandable expectation is that leading brand names
would be quids in.But look at your growing collection of gadgets and a trend becomes clear – increasingly we're taxing the processing power of our smartphones and tablets on the move, rather than waiting to surf the web on our desktop at home.
PC sales are falling as people spend their money on shiny new touchscreen devices. And those who do use their PC more regularly aren't updating the hardware as regularly as before.
Chip manufacturer Intel has suffered, reporting a massive 29% drop in profits.
They still provide processors for over three quarters of PCs, but declining desktop sales have hit them hard.
They're now trying to diversify, and push their product into other areas – one of its chips now replaces an ARM-based processor in a Samsung tablet – but this is already a hugely competitive market, and others are eyeing similar strategic shifts.
Shareholders in computer manufacturer Dell will vote later on whether to take the company private.
CEO Michael Dell wants to turn the company into a rather more diversified enterprise, selling tech services, business software and high-end computers.
Taking the company private would mean they could do that without quarter-to-quarter profit expectations.
If that all sounds a tad familiar, it was a model successfully adopted by IBM (save for going private). But have Dell, and Intel, left it too late?
Microsoft and Google are to report their results later today, and if I were to tell you one is expected to do rather well, and another very badly, there would be no prize for guessing which was which.
There is perhaps one glimmer of hope, and it relates to product development.
Frankly there has been no game-changing, innovative device released for a number of years.
Yes, tablets and smartphones continue to amaze us with their snazzy new features – but these are simply fresh iterations of an existing product.
We're about due another iPod, another must-have device that changes the market completely.
If you know where it will come from, do feel free to let me know.