I happy to believe that its probably trending down, overall PC shipments have been trending down for a while, but 400m drop over 3 years is a huge amount that just doesnt smell right.

A lab computer is used by up to N students typically, so by removing it, there is potentially N more devices being purchased by the N students. So that could mean more iPads or Chromebooks, or even more PCs overall.

And converting a university device to a byod device doesn’t necessarily remove a PC either, given the user may purchase a new device for work.

With any statistics to back it up (which none of us have, especially not the original article) all we have is speculation.