Showing posts with label Lenovo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lenovo. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

New tablet may replace keyboard with touch-screen

Apple is shrinking its Mac computer and bringing out a tablet that is small enough to be carried in a handbag but big enough for comfortable web surfing, newspaper reading and watching movies. The computer will revolutionize laptops as we know them because it is one flat touch-screen device without a keyboard.

Speculations have reached a feverish pitch that by 2010, the revolutionary touch-screen gadget will be in a store near you. Blogs are alive with rumours that the tablet’s launch will be announced in September by Steve Jobs, Apple founder and CEO, and launched in time for the Christmas market, reports the Telegraph.

The product is believed to have been in development for the past six years, with Jobs personally involved over the last two. If the speculation is true, it could be the next technological breakthrough for Apple, which has sold more than 200 million iPods since its launch in 2001. The tablet will be billed as the solution for people who work a lot on the move, but don’t want to be burdened with a laptop.

Pundits are predicting that our lives will never be the same. “People expect it to be the ultimate Apple surprise. This thing will knock people’s socks off,”Leander Kahney, a blogger and author of The Cult of Mac, told the Observer.

“Apple will totally rejig the computing experience. You won’t manipulate a keyboard and mouse any more but rather use an intuitive touch-screen. It will very tactile. It will be a whole new paradigm.”

Gene Munster, a technology research analyst, estimated that the tablet, with an onscreen keyboard like the iPhone, would cost around $600, putting it between the high-end iPod Touch at $399 and the Mac-Book, which starts at $999.

Agencies

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Has HP retained No 1 position in the Indian PC market?

Hewlett-Packard (HP) improved its market share in the first quarter to continue its lead in the India PC personal computer (PC) space, according to technology research firm IDC.

HP captured 18.2% of the India PC market in terms of unit shipments in the January-March period, an IDC India report said. The PC maker had a 15.6% share in the previous (October-December) quarter. HP has been numero uno in the India PC market consistently every quarter over the past four years. With a market share of 9.8% in overall PC shipments, HCL Infosystems regained the second spot, after losing out to Dell in the October-December quarter. Dell slipped back to the third spot with a share of 9.7% in the first quarter this year, IDC said in a release.

The India PC market witnessed a 7% quarter-on-quarter growth in shipments in Q1 of 2009. A total of 16.79 lakh units of desktops and laptops were shipped during the January-March quarter of 2009.

Desktop PC shipments of 12.13 lakh registered a sequential growth of 9%, while laptop shipments of 4.66 lakh units grew 3% QoQ.

The research firm said the market share, over the next two quarters, would depend on how well PC vendors capitalise on opportunities in the consumer, education and government segments in India.

In Q1 2009, fourth-placed Acer’s market share dipped marginally to 7.3%. Fifth-ranked Lenovo showed a more pronounced drop — its share came down to 4.7% in Q1 2009 from 6.6% in the previous quarter.

“Moving forward, hardware in general, and PC shipments in particular, will continue to remain under pressure. Winners would gain market share and improve profitability through the right price/volume mix and optimal exploitation of supply chain efficiencies,” IDC India country manager Kapil Dev Singh said.

Economictimes

Friday, May 22, 2009

AT&T outlets to sell netbooks across USA

AT&T Inc plans to expand sales of netbook computers to all its stores in an effort to expand wireless services beyond cell
phones.

Ralph de la Vega, the head of AT&T's consumer business, said on Tuesday that the US phone company would directly sell netbooks from Dell Inc, Acer Inc and Lenovo Group Ltd starting this summer.

Until now, only AT&T stores in Atlanta and Philadelphia, and consumer electronics retailers RadioShack Corp and Costco, have been selling the netbooks, which come with AT&T mobile data connections.

"We're taking broadband and really making it mobile," de la Vega said at the Reuters Global Technology Summit in New York.

While sales of netbooks are expected to be boosted by promotions from carriers, some analysts have said that consumer enthusiasm could be muted by the requirement to sign up for two-year wireless service contracts and the $60-a-month data connection fees that come with the devices.

AT&T said in April it was testing a $40-per-month fee for 200 megabytes of data downloads to netbooks, or about 1/25th of the downloads allowed under the $60 service.

AT&T's bigger mobile rival Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc, started selling netbook computers from Hewlett-Packard Co earlier this week.

Agencies

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Is HP top PC maker in US?

Global shipments of personal computers fell 7.1 percent in the first three months of the year, but the decline was smaller than expected and research group IDC on Wednesday said the industry could turn around by the end of the year.

A second research group, Gartner Inc, calculated first-quarter PC shipments fell 6.5 percent from the same period in 2008. The two groups use different methods to track PC shipments.

IDC had predicted worldwide shipments would fall 8.2 percent in the quarter. The US market was also much stronger than IDC forecast, with PC shipments falling 3.1 percent from a year ago, compared with an expected 8.9 percent drop. By Gartner's count, US shipments dipped less than one percent.

"Based on the U..being the center of the financial crisis, and looking at trends of last recession, we were concerned that demand and growth would continue to decline," said Loren Loverde, an IDC program director.

Instead, the US PC market, which took a beating in the fourth quarter, benefited from intense price competition among PC makers as well as the growing demand for netbooks, or small, cheap, low-powered laptops.

Both groups reported that Hewlett-Packard Co used the trend to overtake Dell Inc as the top PC maker in the US HP's lower prices and more established brand among shoppers helped push its market share to 27.6 percent. Dell's share fell to 26.3 percent as it struggled to reorganize its consumer business, according to IDC.

Taiwan's Acer Inc, the No 3 PC maker in the US and a force in the netbook market, snagged 10.5 percent of the market. Apple Inc's share edged up to 7.6 percent, and Japan-based Toshiba Corp, the fifth-largest, took 6.6 percent.

Worldwide, HP's market share crept up to 20.5 percent while Dell's slipped a few points to 13.6 percent, IDC reported. HP's shipments rose 2.9 percent as Dell's plunged 16.7 percent.

No 3 Acer captured 11.6 percent of PC shipments worldwide. China's Lenovo Group's share was flat at 7 percent, and Toshiba's share edged up to 5.4 percent.

Chipmaker Intel Corp. on Tuesday said personal computer sales "bottomed out" in the first quarter. Neither IDC nor Gartner wanted to match Intel's bold assessment, but IDC took a more optimistic stance.

"I don't think Intel's comment was meant to say we're going to come roaring back next quarter," Loverde said. "It's likely we won't see growth deteriorate from here."

Before the release of Wednesday's numbers, IDC had forecast an 8.4 percent decline in the second quarter and a 4.5 percent drop in the third before seeing growth in the fourth quarter.

George Shiffler, research director at Gartner, said in a statement that retailers may be restocking inventory, but "this restocking should not be interpreted as a recovery in PC end-user demand. It's still unclear if the global PC market has hit the bottom."

Agencies

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Is Nokia likely to enter laptop industry?

The world's top cellphone maker Nokia is eyeing entering the laptop business, its Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said in an interview to Finnish national broadcaster YLE on Wednesday.

"We are looking very actively also at this opportunity," Kallasvuo said, when asked whether Nokia plans to make laptops.

Industry has rumoured about Nokia's possible plan to enter the PC industry since late last year, but Kallasvuo's comment was the first official admittance of such plans.

"We don't have to look even for five years from now to see that what we know as a cellphone and what we know as a PC are in many ways converging," Kallasvuo said.

"Today we have hundreds of millions of people who are having their first Internet experience on the phone. This is a good indication," he said.

Nokia's comments come a week after No 3 PC brand Acer launched a foray into the phone business with eight cellphone models, joining leader Hewlett-Packard and No. 4 Lenovo in the high-growth space.

While strong profit margins in the smartphone industry attract PC brands, the attraction of the low-margin computer industry is less obvious.

"Nokia maybe nervous about entering a market segment that is already heavily commoditised, but it would be in a position to exploit its enormous scale in manufacturing, supply chain and distribution," said Ben Wood, research director at CCS Insight.

"All leading mobile network operators and retailers are adding connected notebooks and netbooks to their portfolios alongside mobile phones. On this basis it comes as no surprise that Nokia is evaluating this segment," he said.

The global PC industry was resilient for most of last year when other technology sectors were ailing, but it too has now been caught up in the deepening economic downturn that has hit demand from consumers and corporate buyers.

Agencies

Monday, February 9, 2009

After losses Lenovo announces management changes

Chinese PC maker Lenovo, which today announced a loss of $96.7 million for the quarter ended December 31, said CEO William J. Amelio resigned in a management reshuffle.

While Lenovo founder Liu Chuanzhi would return as the chairman of the company, present chairman Yang Yuanqing will return as CEO in the place of Amelio, Lenovo said in a statement.

Observing that the next several quarters will be "very challenging for Lenovo and the rest of the PC industry", Lenovo said the worldwide restructuring program announced on January 8 is expected to save the company approximately US$300 million in the 2009/10 financial year.

"In the past quarter, same as many other companies, Lenovo was deeply impacted by the global economic turmoil," said Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing. "We have taken actions to ensure that in an uncertain economy, our business operates as efficiently and effectively as possible, and continues to grow in the future."

The PC maker said its global sales of US$3.59 billion for the reporting quarter is 20 per cent less compared with the same period of 2007.

"The Group's results were impacted principally by slowdown of the Chinese PC market in which it has significant market share and demand reduction in the worldwide commercial PC segment," the company statement said.

On January 9, Lenovo had announced that the company is going tolay off 2,500 employees, nearly 11 per cent of its work force.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Own a personal supercomputer!

US technology firm NVIDIA rolled out high-performance “personal supercomputers” that let desktop workstations handle mind-boggling tasks once far beyond their capabilities.

Computers built with innovative NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs) are capable of handling calculations typically relegated to expensive supercomputing “clusters”, a technology breakthrough the company says could soon bring lightning speeds to the next generation of computers aimed at the consumer market.

NVIDIA’s Tesla Personal Supercomputers deliver approximately 250 times the processing power of current computer workstations for similar prices, according to the California-based company. “This changes everything. This supercomputing power is being brought to the workstation,” Tesla computing products general manager Andy Keane said.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other universities and research facilities are already using GPU-based personal supercomputers. “GPU-based systems enable us to run life science codes in minutes rather than the hours it took earlier,” said Jack Collins of the Advanced Biomedical Computing Centre in the US state of Maryland. “This exceptional speedup has the ability to accelerate the discovery of potentially life-saving anti-cancer drugs.”

NVIDIA, founded in 1993, became renowned for GPUs that drive sophisticated computer game and video hardware. While CPUs typically handle tasks in a linear style, zipping from start to finish in series, GPUs work on tasks simultaneously in order to do things such as get colour pixels together on screens to present moving images. Sets of NVIDIA chips built for speed, power, and superior graphics production are built into upgraded Macintosh notebook computers recently rolled out by Apple.

GPUs that could do parallel computing mathematics at lightning speed were engineered by NVIDIA to make Tesla chips that put desktop workstations on par with supercomputers at one 100th of the price. “You can’t ignore the GPU; you can’t say it is just a game chip,” Keane said.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Wipro among top three in desktops segment by 2008

Computer major Wipro Infotech, a division of the $3.47-billion Wipro Limited, having rolled-out its new range of environment-friendly desktops in the Indian market, is now eyeing to be among the top three in the Enterprise and SMB desktop segment by 2008. Ashutosh Vaidya, vice-president – Personal Computing Division, Wipro Infotech in an interview with Manu Sharma, spoke on wide range of issues ranging from their foray into eco-friendly computers to future plans.

CIOL: What is Greenware range of desktops and laptops? What prompted Wipro to launch these products?
Ashutosh Vaidya: Wipro has been addressing the issue of increasing e-waste and in this connection launched eco-friendly range of products as part of its responsibility towards cleaner environment. This provides a compelling proposition to our customers to adopt eco-friendly, high performance and feature-rich computing products in their enterprise.

CIOL: Where does Wipro stand in the computer market and how does it plan to grow?
AV: After having registered sales of 150,000 units in 2006 (IDC report), Wipro is now looking to achieve a target of 225,000 units in 2007. In the Enterprise/SMB segment, the company occupied number five slot with sales of 70,000 last year and is now eyeing to reach 70,000 units in 2007, thus move up among the top three. HP leads this segment followed by HCL, Dell, Lenovo and Acer. We are targeting at state banks, government agencies to reach our target.

CIOL: What are RoHS compliance products and mention its importance?
AV: RoHS or (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) is a directive from the European Union to reduce substantial e-waste in the environment. A lot of e-waste such as Brominated Flame Retardants (BFR), PVCs and heavy metals like lead, cadmium and mercury are used by computer manufacturers. Now Wipro has set up its e-waste management process called Wipro Green Computing, which spans across its product lifecycle – from designing, manufacturing right up to the final disposal.

CIOL: How does Wipro plan to reduce e-waste in India?
AV: Wipro is among the first computer manufacturing companies to launch these products in India. We will also not procure non-RoHS components from our global vendors. Besides we will roll out only RoHS compliant products by the end of this fiscal. Presently, we have eight products including four desktops and three notebooks that are 100 per cent RoHS compliant. We also have 16 centers across the country where customers can come and surrender their old computers and we will handle the disposal.

CIOL: In what way is Greenpeace involved in this project?
AV: Greenpeace, a global NGO has been at the forefront of the campaign for clean production and safe recycling. Greenpeace wants the electronics industry to design products that are free from hazardous substances, easy to recycle, and do not expose workers to health risks during production or recycling. Greenpeace is convincing individual producer responsibility (IPR) for full take-back of their products at their end of life, and go beyond the EU RoHS directive in eliminating all hazardous chemicals.

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