But computer sales were and are not “up” by any large numbers. And any “remote” employee already had a PC at their desk that they could take home for the shutdown.
I call BS. I think this is a quiet Cold War maneuver from China myself.
In many cases, the companies ordered laptops instead of letting them take the desktops home. Further, many people didn’t have anywhere to put a desktop and there’s also the issue of possibly having to move the desktop several times as (projected) waves of COVID came through, not something desktop computers like. Many corporate desktops don’t come with WiFi either, so that would be another nightmare to deploy. And on top of that, a lot of companies simply needed new computers and this was a good time to get them.
Agreed.
I want to hear one of these execs explain why. With the exception of the two fab fires there is no reason. Demand is basically the same as it was.
“I think this is a quiet Cold War maneuver from China myself.”
The vast majority of chips in the supply chain do not come from China.
Honda is manufacturing cars using one semiconductor to park them in the lot until the rest arrive (6months)
I’ve bought two laptops for work from home. And the company’s seat licensed machines were still mounted at work last time I went into the office at the end of last year. Now, I could have given control of my home desktop to the company to manage, but for some reason I didn’t want to give them access to my financial accounts and personal emails. You might have fewer concerns about privacy.