Demise of the 3-Year PC Refresh Cycle

The three-year hardware refresh cycle may be dead. System lifetimes now look to be perhaps 33 percent longer for laptops and maybe double the old three-year norm for desktops. For system builders, this could herald a permanently changed landscape. But before things settle down, a last hurrah is under way.

“I plan to refresh 50 percent of the customer PCs we manage this year, as the timing is right,” says David Stinner, president of Buffalo, N.Y.-based managed service provider and...