PC sales - down: Microsoft support costs - up

The PC market is stumbling awkwardly through dark and changing times.

After relatively safe years when a decline in shipments was unheard of and everyone was excited about the launch of the newest edition of Windows or Office, it's now all change.

Last month, Dell stole the PC crown from long-reigning monarch Compaq who had snatched the position seven years previously from IBM.

But now research group IDC has announced news that will upset the lot of them: for the first time ever, a decline in US shipments has been forecast. Europe's also suffering, but at least growth is still on the cards.

However, where the US goes, Europe (mostly) goes too.

This will certainly be the case with Microsoft's move to start charging consumers and SMEs for support for certain products, including the widely used Office 97.

In the US, professional support will now set users back $195 per web support request and $245 per phone support request. Fair enough, maybe. After all, who expects a vendor to provide ongoing support for ever and ever?

Microsoft will be affected by the slump in PC sales IDC has predicted so it has to look elsewhere for income. But its move to charge for support is also part of a natural product cycle where vendors start to make more money from support and other services than licence sales and upgrades.

However, the charge has been introduced spookily soon after the launch of Office XP last week. Of course, it's happened to persuade people to take the XP plunge, but it is also a symptom of Microsoft's search for new revenues in an increasingly saturated market of which it has a 92 per cent share.

Both these developments are part of a bigger trend we're sure to see developing.