Christmas proved a turkey for the computing industry. The idea had been that we would all rush out and splash out on lashings of new equipment: Pentium notebooks, iMac G4s and more anti-viral software and games than you could shake a joystick at (not forgetting those wipes impregnated with a special formulation to remove dust, static and smears, to ensure a resplendent viewing experience).
But what happened?
Humbug happened. At best, three people in the whole world went shopping for computing stuff. One decided it just wasn't worth it. Between them, the other two returned with a desktop Dust Puppy bean bag doll and a novelty T-shirt saying 'Byte me'.
The reason for the disaster was that, despite faster new CPUs, great prices, and so on, buyers kept their wallets in their pockets.
They thought they could squeeze another year or so out of the PCs they already had on their desks. This tendency amounts to an illness non-technically known as 'I'm-sick-of-upgrading-equipment-which-works-perfectly-well-thank-you-now-go-away' syndrome.
The snappy synonym is 'upgrade fatigue'.