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November 16, 2011 by admin
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Google, which last week created a bit of chaos with the launch of a Gmail application for Apple iOS devices, has decided to put out discontinue its Gmail application for the BlackBerry.
As of Nov. 22, Google will no longer offer technical support to users of the application, nor will it allow people to download it anymore, the company wrote in a blog post.
However, people will be able to continue using it, although Google will put its development efforts on the version of the application for mobile browsers, available at gmail.com.
AMD Makes Gains
Worldwide processor shipments grew during the third quarter this year and Advanced Micro Devices gained market share from Intel over last year despite being plagued by manufacturing problems, according to a study released by Mercury Research on Tuesday.
Shipments of processors during the third quarter went up by just 5% compared to the same quarter last year, according to Mercury Research. Chip shipments have grown despite flat-to-slow growth in PC shipments worldwide over the past year, said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at the research firm.
Intel held an 80.3% market share, a small drop from 80.6% market share during the third quarter last year. AMD’s market share was 18.8%, growing from 18.3% market share last year.
Mercury Research’s numbers cover all x86 systems including laptops, desktops and servers. The company did not provide full microprocessor shipment numbers.
AMD’s Fusion mobile chips for netbooks and laptops are doing much better this year compared to last year, which helped the company gain year-over-year market share over Intel, McCarron said.
Lenovo Passes Dell, Becomes No. 2 PC Vendor
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Lenovo surged past Dell to become the world’s second largest PC vendor at the end of the third quarter, according to research firms IDC and Gartner.
Top PC maker Hewlett-Packard also saw its worldwide PC shipments grow by 5.3 percent in the quarter, despite reports that the company may spin off its PC business.
Both research firms said growth for the quarter failed to reach earlier projections. IDC said at the end of the third quarter, worldwide PC shipments increased by 3.6 percent year-over-year, below its earlier 4.5 percent growth projection.
Gartner said PC shipments grew by 3.2 percent year-over-year, which was lower than the research firm’s original projection of 5.1 percent growth for the quarter.
Analysts have pointed to sluggish spending because of weak economic conditions as a key reason behind the slowdown in PC growth. The rise of tablets has also hurt shipments.
“For the moment, PCs have taken a backseat to a range of other devices competing for shrinking consumer and business budgets,” said IDC analyst Jay Chou in a statement.
Best Buy Stuck With TouchPads
Best Buy is sitting on a boatload of 200,000 HP Touchpads and wants to send them back to HP.
According to Allthingsd, Best Buy stocked its warehouses with around 270,000 HP Touchpad tablets. However, the retailer has been unable to sell the tablets and has only sold at most 25,000, even with a $100 discount, so Best Buy is requesting that HP take back all of the unsold devices.
Furthermore, it is being said that things are so bad that HP EVP Todd Bradley might have to go to Best Buy’s headquarters and plead with executives to exercise patience. It appears that the Touchpad is suffering from poor sales in many stores across the country, with Wal-Mart also said to be an unhappy camper.
Update…HP will stop making the HP Touchpads…….
iPad Rivals Have Better Chance In Europe
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Would-be rivals to Apple’s iPad have a better chance in Europe than they do in the United States, but they need to drop prices fast to grasp the opportunity, IT research firm Forrester said on Tuesday.
Apple’s relatively small retail presence in Europe — with 52 stores compared with 238 in the United States — offers a chance to the likes of Samsung, Acer and Research in Motion, Forrester said.
But their prices cannot yet compete with Apple, which has far larger scale in the tablet market and an efficient supply chain. Forrester said emerging challengers from China and Taiwan would likely step in soon with cheaper offerings.
“There is this opportunity for iPad challengers, but the competition is very fragmented. Competing with Apple will require a different approach from what we’ve seen so far,” said analyst Sarah Rotman Epps, the author of the Forrester report.
Apple still has the tablet-computer market almost to itself after launching the iPad a year and a half ago. It has sold close to 30 million iPads, whose prices start at about $500.
Forrester expects Apple to sell 80 percent of all consumer tablets in the United States and 70 percent in Europe this year.
It expects 2011 worldwide tablet sales to reach 48 million units, with half of those sold in the United States, 30 percent in Europe, 15 percent in Asia and 5 percent in Latin America.
Forrester surveyed almost 14,000 online adult consumers in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Britain, and also interviewed product strategists from manufacturers, telecommunications operators and retailers.
The Netbook Lives On
Tablets may be the hottest mobile devices on display at this year’s Computex. But netbooks still have a presence at the trade show, and vendors are coming out with several new models that will hit the market this year. Their low cost will continue to drive sales, analysts said.
PC maker Asus, a pioneer of the netbook concept, unveiled two new models at Computex. The Asus Eee PC 1025 C and 1025 CE are Windows netbooks that will launch worldwide in the fourth quarter of this year. Priced at $299, the devices are built with an “instant on” feature that allow users to resume Windows in two seconds from sleep mode.
The other Asus netbook that has caught some attention is the Eee PC X101, which runs Intel’s MeeGo mobile operating system. The device will launch worldwide in July and cost $199. Asus will also be releasing a Windows 7 version of the netbook that will cost between $240 and $250.
Asus’ rival Acer is also showing a low-cost netbook priced at $199. The Aspire One Happy has both Windows and Android 2.3 installed. Users can toggle between operating systems by rebooting the system. Acer launched a version of the device worldwide last month.
iPhone Gaining on Nokia’s Dominance
May 11, 2011 by admin
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Apple’s iPhone is moving closer and closer to Nokia’s top spot in smartphones globally, according to first-quarter 2011 results reported by IDC on Thursday.
With the iPhone in the second spot, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion dropped to third after finishing second a year ago, IDC said. 99.6 million smartphones shipped in the first quarter, out of 372 million mobile phones overall.
Nokia sold 24.2 million smartphones in the first quarter, holding on to its global smartphone lead despite announcing that it will move from Symbian to Windows Phone as its main smartphone operating system in next few years, IDC said. Nokia “may find itself in danger of ceding market share as the competition ramps up,” IDC said.
Apple shipped 18.7 million iPhones in the first quarter, IDC said, a new record for a single quarter, “and inched closer to market leader Nokia, with fewer than 6 million units separating the two companies,” IDC noted.
Apple also had triple-digit growth in the U.S., with the Verizon Wireless CDMA iPhone 4, and in greater China.
RIM, while down from second place where it was a year ago, remained in third place from the fourth quarter of 2010. The majority of RIM’s shipments are older, lower-cost devices, IDC noted, a trend that will continue in the second quarter.
Samsung finished fourth in smartphones for the first quarter, with 10.8 million smartphones shipped, while HTC finished fifth, with 8.9 million shipped.
Samsung grew the most of any vendor for the first quarter — 350% year-over-year. Samsung has a multiple-OS strategy and sells mostly Android smartphones, including Galaxy S phones, as well as Windows Phone 7 and Wave devices.
Samsung Sues Apple
April 25, 2011 by admin
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In the uber competitive world of mobile device development suing is fast becoming a sport engaged in by all of the titans of technology. Add another lawsuit to the pile as Samsung Electronics hits Apple with lawsuits in three countries alleging infringement of patents on smartphone technologies. Last week Apple sued Samsung for allegedly copying the designs of Apple’s iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone in its Galaxy smartphone and Galaxy Tab tablet PC.
On Thursday, the South Korean electronics maker sued Apple in Seoul alleging five patent infringements, in Tokyo over two alleged infringements and in Manheim, Germany, over three.
“Samsung is responding actively to the legal action taken against us in order to protect our intellectual property and to ensure our continued innovation and growth in the mobile communications business,” the company said in a statement.
According to Samsung, the lawsuits say Apple infringed on patents concerning reducing data transmission errors in WCDMA (Wideband CDMA) mobile networks, tethering mobile phones to PCs so the PC can use the phone’s wireless data connection, and reducing power consumption when transmitting data over HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) networks.
Apple’s lawsuit filed on April 15 in the U.S. says Samsung copied external design features on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. The lawsuit further alleges that Samsung designed application icons for that come close to icons on Apple’s devices.
Dell To Unleash Microservers
Dell is apparently in the process to debut two new microservers that are equipped with low-power consumption efficient processors from AMD and Intel.Representatives from Dell stated that the PowerEdge C5125 and C5220 were built for businesses that want to set up cloud computing infrastructures. Dell’s Barton George wrote in his blog that the C5125 will utilize AMD processors and will ship next month and the C5220 which will have an Intel processor will ship in May. The PowerEdge eco-friendly servers will have a dense 3U infrastructure that has 12 one-socket servers that can be used for running one application. These types of servers use four times less rack space and cabling which makes data centers more efficient.
Japan’s Earthquake Will Not Impact PC Supply
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According to Scott Lin, President of Acer Taiwan has said the PC supply chain still has at least three months worth of stock. That said, Lin stated that the Japan earthquake should not have an immediate will on impact on the PC market.
With PC manufacturers, brick and mortar each having at least one month’s worth of inventory, the supply should be fine for up to three months. Nevertheless, Lin did caution that Japan’s power infrastructure is an important factor and taking it online sooner rather than later will be crucial to whether the shortages become more serious. Read More…..