Category: Products

Tablet makers cut targets citing white-box competition

Posted on July 2, 2013 by - News, Products

cheap-tabletsBig brand tablet makers have slashed their shipment targets for 2013, citing stronger than expected competition from white-box vendors. According to NPD DisplaySearch, worldwide tablet shipments should hit 256.5 million units this year, up 67 percent from 153.6 million units last year.

However, big brands will lose market share, as white-box outfits are growing faster. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Acer and Asus are expected to lose share at the hands of Chinese white-box makers, who are slowly making inroads in the international market. NPD DisplayResearch estimates that top brands shipped 172 million units in April, but shipments are believed to have dropped to 167 million units in June.

Market leader Apple is also feeling the pinch. It shipped 67 million iPads last year, but NPD DisplaySearch has cut mighty Apple’s shipment target for 2013 from 88 million units to 74 million.

However, despite the cuts the tablet market is looking as healthy as ever, but it might be becoming a bit more heterogeneous. Cheap Androids might undercut industry heavyweights, but at the moment this is more of a regional trend than a global one. White-box vendors are doing well in some parts of Asia, but they won’t take western markets by storm.

While browsing through some cheap tablets at Computex, we got the impression that they have a lot of potential and they might be competitive in some markets. However, it won’t be a repeat of the Macintosh vs. vanilla PC battle of the eighties. The trouble for white-box Chinese tablets is that they can’t just waltz into Europe and the US. For the time being many of them can only sell their kit in mainland China. As one vendor told us, if they tried to go overseas, their collective hind quarters would be sued by Acer and other big players.

First Firefox OS smartphones launch today

Posted on July 2, 2013 by - News, Products

zte-open-firefox-osThe first Firefox OS phones could be just days away from hitting retail. Mozilla has announced that the regional rollout of the first foxy phones will begin soon.

There are just a couple of devices so far, the Alcatel One Touch Fire and the ZTE Open, and the latter launches in Spain on Tuesday for just €69.

Needless to say, it doesn’t feature headline grabbing specs. It’s a 3.5-inch HVGA device powered by a 1GHz processor and 512MB of memory. That’s the sort of spec one would expect from a mid-range Android handset launched in 2011, but that sort of seems to be the point.

Mozilla doesn’t want to compete in the high-end, it thinks it has a very lean operating system that could bring most smartphone features to first-time smartphone buyers. Smartphones are overtaking feature phones in terms of worldwide sales as we speak and cheap smartphones are expected to fill the gap.

It seems like a sound approach, but the smartphone market is already overcrowded and it’s dominated by two or four operating systems, depending on whom you ask. There doesn’t appear to be much room for another competing platform, but Mozilla is going after a small niche. Apple, BlackBerry and to some extent Microsoft, don’t really matter in this price segment.

Android, however, remains a force to be reckoned with. There are dozens if not hundreds of cheap Android phones on store shelves, with a tried and tested OS and a huge app ecosystem. What’s more, last year’s models often end up in the bargain bin, hence it is possible to get something even better than an entry-level phone for peanuts.

Mozilla thinks it can do better, with an OS specifically designed to run well on a meagre serving of silicon and this might be what differentiates its products in the long term. The hope is that consumers will choose a frugal phone with a lean OS instead of an outdated Android device that doesn’t really support all the nice features offered by Google in its latest Android builds.

The approach might work, especially in emerging markets, but for the time being the platform is rather limited and untested, although initial reviews were positive.

EU slashes roaming charges

Posted on July 1, 2013 by - News, Products

dubrovnikThe EU just got a bit bigger. Croatia entered the fold at midnight, just in time for the summer holiday season – which is economically vital for the new EU member. Good thing, then, travelling in the EU just got cheaper with roaming caps in place cost cutting on all networks and services, effective Monday.

Mobile wallet market worth billions by 2018

Posted on July 1, 2013 by - News, Products

google-walletThe mobile wallet market is about to get big, huge even. According to a new report published by Transparency Market Research, the global mobile wallet market will reach $1,602.4 billion by 2018. In EMEA it will grow at a CAGR of 30.7 percent from 2012 to 2018 and EMEA will be the largest mobile wallet market in the world by 2018.

EMEA accounted for about 40 percent of the global mobile wallet share in 2011, but the Asia Pacific region is expected to see the fastest growth over the next five years.

The staggering figures sound optimistic to say the least, but Transparency Market Research is basing them on a few emerging trends that hold a lot of promise. The outfit found that affordable NFC enabled phones and POS (point of sale) systems will be the main drivers of growth over the next few years.

Retail is currently the biggest application for mobile wallet services and the trend is set to continue, due to ease of payment using smartphones and initiatives to introduce new POS terminals in convenience stores. Vending machines are also a potent market. Mobile network operators are expected to play a pivotal role in future mobile wallet adoption.

Unsurprisingly, the key players in the market will be Visa, MasterCard, American Express, PayPal, Google and others from the list of usual suspects.

However, it won’t be just smooth sailing. Quite a few consumers still don’t know how mobile wallets actually work and we’re pretty sure that many aren’t even aware of their existence. Security and privacy remain sources of concern, too.

HP thinks about smartphones again

Posted on July 1, 2013 by - News, Products

HPHewlett Packard is apparently seriously considering re-entering the smartphone market. In related news, we did some research and found out that HP did indeed make phones at one point.

Joking aside, HP was a force to be reckoned with in the days of Windows Mobile. It viewed smartphones as a natural extension of its once massive iPaq business, but smartphones of the day were just too big, too slow and unattractive.

In 2010 HP acquired Palm and started making WebOS devices, but they flopped. HP launched its last WebOS phone in 2011, but now it might give smartphones another go, although the new generation will probably feature a different operating system and rumour has it that Android tops the list at the moment.

In a recent interview with Indian news agency PTI, carried by The Indian Express, HP Senior Director Consumer PC and Media Tablets Asia Pacific Yam Su Yin said the company is focusing on all market segments. When asked whether smartphones are one of them, she answered yes, but noted that she couldn’t give an exact timetable.

“It would be silly if we say no. HP has to be in the game,” she said.

However, HP might have a lot of catching up to do, but Su Yin believes the company can pull it off.

“Being late you have to create a different set of proposition. There are still things that can be done. It’s not late. When HP has a smartphone, it will give a differentiated experience,” she said.

At this point there is very little to go on, but HP probably won’t be another also-ran Android peddler. It will probably need to integrate a few of its business services into the upcoming phones, and recently the company has been making quite a bit of noise about its cloud services, which should end up on the feature list.

Despite that, we’re not sure we share HP’s optimism. The market is already overcrowded and overheating. It is about to get even tougher as Chinese manufacturers start to look beyond the local market and as some PC component makers enter the space. On the other hand HP has a nice brand to play around with and a top notch sales force.

Mobile shipments in Europe fall again

Posted on June 27, 2013 by - News, Products

nexus4-ceThe smartphone market seems to be cooling off at last. After years of double-digit growth, sales of mobile handsets in Western Europe were down 4.2 percent in the first quarter compared to a year ago, according to IDC’s latest numbers.

Smartphone sales were up 12 percent annually, but this was the slowest growth rate since 2004. Feature phones are dying a quiet death, with shipments down 31 percent to just 12 million units.

Samsung solidified its lead in the market. Its market share rose six percent to 46 percent. The Korean giant shipped 19.9 million phones in the first quarter, up 1.8 million compared to Q1 2012. Apple ranked second with 6.2 million iPhones shipped in Q1, but overall its shipments were down 800,000 units from a year ago. Nokia is in a close third, with 6.1 million units, but its shipments fell 2.6 million units. 

These figures include feature phone sales and the smartphone standing is a bit different.

Samsung still reigns supreme with a 45 percent share and 14.3 million units shipped. Apple is second, but its market share dropped from 25 percent to 20 percent. Sony came in third with 10 percent and LG had a very good quarter, quadrupling its shipments and seizing 8 percent of the market. Nokia ranked fifth with just five percent of the smartphone market and 1.6 Lumias shipped. HTC is conspicuously absent from the top five ranking.

In terms of platforms, Android is still on top, with 21.9 million units and a market share of 69 percent, up from 55 percent last year. Apple’s iOS dipped from 25 to 20 percent, while Windows Phone came in third, with a share of six percent.

“We are now entering the second wave of smartphone adoption in the region. The first wave was driven by those users looking for devices that would meet their mobility needs.” IDC European mobile devices research director Francisco Jeronimo said. “They did look for the best devices in terms of performance and user experience, and more importantly, they were able to afford and pay a premium to get a premium experience. We are now entering the second wave of smartphone adoption, which will be driven by those users with no need for a smartphone.”

In other words, the market is maturing. People who felt the need for a smartphone already have one and the upgrade cycles are bound to start slowing down, in spite of generous telco subsidies and 2-year plans. On the other hand, feature phones are going extinct and they will be replaced by cheap smartphones rather than high-end devices like iPhones or Galaxy S-series phones.

Security concerns hamper BYOD adoption

Posted on June 27, 2013 by - News, Products

Keep taking the tabletsAlthough BYOD is one of the hottest trends in the industry, it seems that the adoption of BYOD policies and gear is still being hampered by security concerns.

According to Insight UK’s latest survey, security, or more specifically data loss, is still the biggest problem concerning IT departments, at 72 percent.

However, although security is the top concerns, 55 percent of respondents said they have no plans for the introduction of BYOD policies designed to inform employees of how they should protect themselves. Three quarters of businesses questioned issuing mobile devices themselves, while one quarter allow employees to bring their own devices and access corporate networks and documents, allowing the data to leave the company every single day.

“It’s interesting to note that a year down the line almost three quarters of those businesses surveyed have seemingly moved to tackle this trend by issuing their own devices to employees and you’d think that means those allowing BYOD would now have their ducks in a line when it comes to policies surrounding this,” Ashley Gatehouse, VP EMEA Marketing, Insight, said. “To hear almost half have no plans to create a policy is clearly at odds with the raft of measures we know businesses already have in place to protect the flow of data within the corporate network. Failure to implement a policy or define rules regarding the use of personal devices at this stage of proceedings is tantamount to leaving the backdoor wide open and hoping you don’t get robbed.”

The survey also found that support for iOS and Windows is increasing, while Android and BlackBerry devices are becoming second tier. A total of 26 percent of IT departments support just iOS and Windows and going forward the divide will become even more apparent, as 38 percent plan to support Apple products and 29 percent are betting on Microsoft. Android and BlackBerry are in a different league, with 17 and 16 percent respectively.

In terms of actual support and implementation of BYOD policies, 82 percent of IT departments view security as the top concern, while device integration into existing infrastructure ranks second at 60 percent. Providing support to BYOD users is the third biggest concern, at 52 percent.

Unsurprisingly, the survey concluded that sales teams and new business teams are most likely to adopt personal devices. This probably has something to do with age, or the fact that they are on the go more often, or both.

Although not every staff member is keen to take the BYOD route, 60 percent of companies say they are implementing BYOD strategies that cover all staff, regardless of job function or status. However, 22 percent believe BYOD should be a privilege available only to senior executives.

Samsung may be about to ditch desktops

Posted on June 25, 2013 by - News, Products

samsung-aioSamsung might not be the first name that comes to mind when you think of desktop PCs, but the Korean giant had a handful of interesting products, including some stylish all-in-ones. Sadly though, it might be getting out of the market just as it was starting to look like it was about to make its mark.

According to the Korea Times, Samsung has decided to ditch its desktop business, which was deemed unprofitable. Instead, Samsung wants to devote itself to tablets and laptops.

“Demand for conventional desktop PCs is going down,” a Samsung Electronics official told the Korea Times. “We will allocate our resources to popular connected and portable devices.”

Another Samsung official said the company is restructuring its PC business through product realignment toward profitable products – and desktops don’t appear to be very profitable at the moment.

Oddly enough, Samsung launched its latest all-in-one PC last week and the Atic One 5 Style is quite a looker. Sadly though, while AIOs might be pretty, they don’t seem to be generating plenty of cash .

On the other hand, Samsung’s decision to throw in the towel should be welcomed by competing vendors. After all, Samsung spent billions developing and marketing its Galaxy smartphone range and now it’s certain that it won’t to the same in the PC space.

Toshiba rolls out a hybrid

Posted on June 21, 2013 by - News, Products

toshiba-sshdToshiba has introduced its first 2.5-inch hybrid drives aimed at the fledgling Ultrabook market. For a second it looked like Toshiba was about to be outdone by WD and Seagate, as they joined the SSHD club a bit earlier.

However, Tosh wasn’t taken by surprise and its 7mm hard drives should be on par with WD’s and Seagate’s similar offerings. The drives come in 320GB and 500GB capacities and both feature 8GB of NAND flash cache.

Although the spindle speed is 5400rpm, the hybrids perform better than plain 7200rpm drives, but the still fall short of SSD performance. However, they should end up four to five times cheaper than their solid state counterparts.

Toshiba did not reveal the exact pricing though, or availability date for that matter. However, both Seagate and WD are pricing their 7mm hybrids south of $100 and Toshiba’s SSHDs should probably have a similar price tag.

NAND prices continue surging

Posted on June 19, 2013 by - News, Products

nand-chipsPrices of NAND flash memory are set to continue rising this month and beyond, as a result of strong demand for mobile devices. According to a report from DRAMeXchange, NAND prices are showing signs of rising in the second half of June due to inventory restocking.

NAND contract prices rose two to four percent in the first half of June already, compare to May. DRAMeXchange says OEMs rushed to boost their inventories at lower prices, resulting in a shortage. The surge in demand is likely to push prices even further in the near future, despite the fact prices tend to go down seasonally over the summer, reports Focus Taiwan.

DRAMeXchange pointed out that no major manufacturers, aside from Toshiba, have any immediate plans to boost capacity in the third quarter. It concluded that NAND production between July and September is likely to rise slowly, at less than ten percent from the previous quarter.

However, demand for flash in the third quarter is expected to increase by more than 10 percent from the second quarter, resulting in a significant shortfall. Obviously, tight supply could push up NAND prices toward the end of the year.

Starbucks UK gets NFC

Posted on June 19, 2013 by - News, Products

starbucks-logoStarbucks has started accepting contactless payments in more than 550 stores in the UK. Barclaycard Global Payment Acceptance and Visa Europe are behind the tap-to-pay system, which seems to be gaining traction.

Starbucks says that cash payments are losing popularity fast, as only one out of three transactions are made in cash nowadays.

The system should make card transactions even faster, cutting queue times. Starbucks said the rollout of contactless follows other innovations implemented in the past, including a bespoke mobile payment app.

“Contactless payments are changing the way we pay in the UK. Transaction numbers are growing rapidly and with more than one in four UK Visa cards now contactless we’re expecting usage to quadruple again by the end of 2013,” said Mark Austin, Vice President at Visa Europe. “We’re delighted that Starbucks is joining the growing number of retailers who now offer contactless payments to their customers.”

There are currently over 27 million Visa contactless cards issued in the UK and contactless payments are accepted at more than 250,000 terminals in the UK, including on London Buses, which have seen more than 2 million transactions since launching contactless payments in December 2012.

Starbucks is behind the times and doesn’t pay much corporation tax. 711s and Family Marts in old Taipei have been piloting a combined NFC card for metro and other transactions for years.

Asustek blames Win8 for poor sales

Posted on June 17, 2013 by - News, Products

asus-buildingAsustek has cut its Q2 forecast for notebook and tablet shipments and unsurprisingly it is blaming soft demand for Windows 8 for its woes.

The company now expects its second-quarter notebook shipments to fall 10 percent sequentially to 4.23 million units. Back in May the Taiwanese outfit said it hopes to ship 4.8 million notebooks in the second quarter.

Surprisingly tablet shipments were also revised downward by 10 percent to 2.7 million units. Since Asus is moaning about Windows and it is expected to have a strong Android lineup, this may indicate that demand for Windows 8 tablets is even worse than expected – and it wasn’t very optimistic to begin with.

The gloomy figures were delivered by Asustek CFO David Chang during a shareholder meeting on Monday, but he also had a caveat. Chang pointed out that notebook and tablet shipments are poised to grow significantly in the third quarter, thanks to new product launches. Fourth quarter sales should remain flat, or see small gains. Despite the revised forecast, Chang said the company is on track to meet its original goal of shipping 20 to 25 million notebooks and 12 million tablets this year, reports Focus Taiwan.

Asustek CEO Jerry Shen also hinted at a strategic shift from PCs to tablets, which already make up 15 to 20 percent of the company’s revenue. By the second half of the year they might contribute between 20 and 30 percent, as the company managed to boost margins on tablets to a similar level to notebook margins. Shen said this was done by clever research and development, with a pinch of cost cutting.

Needless to say this is very good news for Asus, as the company already has a top notch Android tablet portfolio, from the low-end to its posh Transformer series. Cutting tablet production costs is also good news for Windows tablets in the long run, but they won’t do well this year.

HP launches tablet POS thing

Posted on June 13, 2013 by - News, Products

HPHewlett Packard has introduced a new point of sale (POS) solution aimed at retail and hospitality businesses.

The HP ElitePad Mobile POS Solution is basically and HP ElitePad tablet with HP’s retail jacket for ElitePad. It is designed to integrate into existing IT infrastructure and connect to store systems on the go.

As many as 57 percent of retailers plan to implement tablets in their stores over the next one to three years and HP is clearly trying to cash in on the trend.

The package includes a 1D/2D barcode scanner and three-track encrypted bi-directional magnetic stripe reader (MSR). It also has an integrated detachable hand strap and an optional secondary battery for extended endurance.

“Consumers expect the same personalised experience they get online or on their mobile device in a retailer’s brick-and-mortar store,” said Kobi Elbaz, director, Commercial and Retail Solutions, Printing and Personal Systems Group, HP EMEA. “With the HP ElitePad Mobile POS Solution, store managers and associates are empowered to move the sale from behind the counter, giving them the ability to assist the customer right on the sales floor for immediate customer satisfaction.”

The HP ElitePad is available in EMEA, but the HP Retail Jacket for the tablet will show up in September.

HP expands its big data products

Posted on June 12, 2013 by - News, Products

old schoolHP has expanded its big data products portfolio so that partners can tailor products so that clients can squeeze more out of their business information.

There is a lot of money in these sorts of products. According to HP research, nearly 60 percent of companies surveyed will spend at least 10 percent of their innovation budget on big data this year.

However the study also found that one in three organisations have failed with a big data initiative and are wary of getting their fingers burnt again.

HP thinks its new enhanced portfolio delivers big data out of the box so that it can enable enterprises to handle the growing volume, variety, velocity and vulnerability of data that can cause these initiatives to fail.
The new product range is based around HAVEn which is a big data analytics platform, which uses HP’s analytics software, hardware and services.

George Kadifa, executive vice president, Software said that big data enables organisations to take advantage of the totality of their information—both internal and external—in real time.

It produces extremely fast decision making, resulting in unique and innovative ways to serve customers and society.

HAVEn combines proven technologies from HP Autonomy, HP Vertica, HP ArcSight and HP Operations Management, as well as key industry initiatives such as Hadoop.

It avoids vendor lock-in with an open architecture that supports a broad range of analytics tools and protect investments with support for multiple virtualisation technologies.

HAVEn uses all information collected including structured, semistructured and unstructured data, via HP’s portfolio of more than 700 connectors into HAVEn.

It means that organisations can consume, manage and analyse massive streams of IT operational data from a variety of HP products, including HP ArcSight Logger and the HP Business Service Management portfolio, as well as third-party sources.

In addition to this HP announced its Vertica Community Edition. This is a free, downloadable software that delivers the same functionality of the HP Vertica Analytics Platform Enterprise Edition with no commitments or time limits. Clients can analyse up to a terabyte of data before spending more cash on an enterprisewide solution.

There is also the HP Autonomy Legacy Data Cleanup—information governance package. According to HP this helps clients analyse legacy data, lower costs and reduce risks while squeezing value from big data.

HP taps Google apps and services for SMB boxes

Posted on June 12, 2013 by - News, Products

HPHewlett Packard has joined the Google Apps Reseller program and the first products packed with preinstalled Google apps are on the way. The first phase of what HP calls “HP SMB IT in a Box” will feature existing HP hardware, including PCs and printers, but it will also ship with an assortment of Google apps.

The Goog suite includes Google Apps for Business, Google cloud based communication and collaboration tools, or in other words everything from Gmail and Docs, to Google Drive and IM. An HP management software layer will be on top of them to simplify environment and cut operating costs.

“HP recognises the constantly evolving needs of SMB customers in today’s dynamic business environment,” said Ron Coughlin, senior vice president and general manager, Consumer PCs and Solutions, HP. “Together with HP’s channel partners, we will offer our customers an incredible bundle of PCs, printers and Google Apps for Business, enabling business owners to focus on their customers instead of worrying about IT.”

HP says the HP SMB IT in a Box will continue to grow to encompass all the technologies SMBs need. Eventually, the solution will include integrated consoles for resellers, IT administrators and end users, allowing easy access to the entire solution, including Google Apps for Business.

The company was quick to point out that its collaboration with Google already includes Android and Chrome devices. Although it looks like a routine PR line, it could be also viewed as a shot across Microsoft’s bow.

HP SMB IT in a Box will be offered through HP’s network of reseller partners. The initial offering is expected to be available to select resellers in the United States in July followed by broader availability worldwide by the end of the year.