Rumours of Windows' demise have been somewhat exaggerated: 90 days in, Windows 8 sales are 'on par' with Windows 7.Those aren't the numbers you're looking for. These are: $429/£273.That's the average selling price (ASP) of a Windows laptop in the last quarter of 2012, according to the NPD Group. Windows is selling, but it's largely selling on crappy hardware. Despite Microsoft's desire to sell Windows on touchscreen devices, which have a much higher selling price, the ASP only increased by $2. That's largely because only 4.5% of sales were touchscreen PCs. Meanwhile Apple's notebook ASP went up by $100, and it currently sits at $1,419 (around £897).We all know how this works: Apple gets the luxury market and Windows gets the rest. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the luxury market isn't the only place where Windows is under attack. Remember Steve Jobs' predictions about a post-PC era? We're in it.Caught in the crossfireWindows faces several simultaneous threats. The first is that the PC market is in terminal decline. Notebook sales are down 11% year on year, and as NPD told Business Insider, "Windows notebook sales were going down all year. This isn't new. This isn't an acceleration. This is in line with what's going on. It's not any worse, or any better."The second threat is the tablet. iPads and their Android and other OS-run cousins are selling in serious numbers now, and while every quarter shows another decline in PC shipments, tablet sales continue to rocket.New C
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