Tag: tablets

Microsoft snaps up Israeli firm

Posted on February 12, 2015 by - News

Microsoft campusMicrosoft has spent $200 million on an Israeli firm that makes digital pens and semiconductors for touch screens.

According to financial news website Calcalist, the 190 people who work for N-trig will work for Microsoft’s Israeli division.

N-trig makes pens for use in smartphones, for tablets and for slim notebooks.

Microsoft already owned a 6.1 percent chunk in N-Trig to incorporate its pen in the Surface Pro 3 tablets it makes.

Reuters said N-trig revenues in the first half of 2014 amounted to $20.6 million. Its customers include Sony, HP, and Lenovo.

Microsoft is keen to re-position itself in the next wave of the IT market.

EE to invest £1.5 billion in 4G

Posted on February 11, 2015 by - News

oldphoneComms company EE said today it will spend £1.5 billion over the next three years to expand its 4G network in the UK.

EE said that 4G will overtake 2G by 2017, with 99 percent of the British population able to access 4G networks.

And, by 2017, 4G+ will be available in 20 British cities.

It said that it will spend to create data and voice connections in 1,500 places that don’t have either reliable mobile or high speed broadband.

Its “double speed” broadband will be available for 90 percent of the UK population, with data speeds of up to 60Mbps available for both smartphones and tablets.

And in the future it claimed it will be a leader in 5G, because the foundation for even faster speeds will rely on 4G infrastructure being available.

Its 4G+ network will allow speeds of 150Mbps, EE said.

Today it released its “Signalling the Future” manifesto intended to guide the next government of whatever hue to set digital priorities.

Dell intros support for PCs and tablets

Posted on February 10, 2015 by - News

Dell logoDell said it has extended its ProSupport Plus service for both PCs and for tablets.
The company claimed it’s the first to offer proactive and predictive support for these devices.
It also claimed that with this package in place, people will spend up to 84 percent less time on technical support calls.
The company claimed that IT departments spend around 80 percent of their time on routine operations and support.
The service will be available to both Dell customers and to its channel partners – and includes cover for a number of situations.
Those include coverage for drops, spill and electrical surges;  hard drive retention after replacement and workflow management for support cases, as well as self service case management and parts dispatch.

 

Tablet makers rethink their plans

Posted on February 6, 2015 by - News

cheap-tabletsDisappointing shipment numbers for tablets last year are forcing vendors to contemplate their marketing navels and come up with new ideas.
According to Digitimes, one way vendors want to turn the market round is to persuade their suppliers to slash the cost of their components so they can cut prices on production.
And Apple, the wire reports, had disappointing sales of the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3, which were launched last autumn.
Sales of HTC products and Xiaomi products haven’t been that brilliant either.
Apple is rumoured to be introducing a 12-inch iPad that it hopes will cause waves of excitement.
The problem is that once you have a tablet, there isn’t much desire to get a new one that’s shinier unless you’ve more money than sense.
Apple appears to believe it can launch all sorts of new applications for the 12-inch iPad when it appears.

People keep taking the tablets

Posted on January 29, 2015 by - News

ipad3Despite reports suggesting that the market for tablets is in decay, fresh data shows that it ain’t necessarily so.
Digitimes Research said that overall global tablet shipments in the fourth quarter last year grew by 16.9 percent to total 74.77 million units, mostly down to Apple and first tier vendors good performances.
But so-called “white box” tablets declined in the fourth quarter.
The survey said these white box tablets, using the Android operating system, offer very slim margins and many vendors have given up on manufacturing.
Apple managed to ship 21.9 million iPads in Q4 2014 and was the largest tablet vendor.
Samsung failed to introduce new tablet products in the second half of last year and so it say some stagnation.
Third in line was Amazon, displacing Lenovo from that position in the marketplace.

 

Tablet market faces further woes

Posted on January 15, 2015 by - News

tablet-POS-cash-registerThere’s more research data on the tablet market out today and the latest report suggests gloom for 2015.
Digitimes Research said that total shipments of tablets worldwide will fall by 11.8 percent this year, accounting for shipments of 244 million units.
The logic behind the forecast is that demand for high end and entry level units is saturated, and smartphones with bigger screens are further eroding the tablet marketplace.
The seven inch segment, in particular will see a sharp drop in shipments because of smartphone competition.
However, it’s not all bad news. The report said demand for tablets with 10-inch screens and above will grow by 20 percent, fuelled by enterprise interest.
Digitimes Research also thinks Windows tablets will grow by 50 percent this year – which if true – is encouraging news for both Microsoft and Intel.  Both behemoths have introduced subsidies to encourage vendors to use their kit.

 

Tablet Windows faces uncertain future

Posted on January 14, 2015 by - News

windows-10-technical-preview-turquoiseBy 2018, tablet sales will reach 540 million units, despite 2014 being a quiet year for the sector.
CCS Insight introduced its annual look at the marketplace and bullishly predicts the market will grow 28 percent this year to reach 283 million units.
While people in established markets will look to upgrade their existing systems, emerging markets will play an increasing role in buying units.
CCS expects that Android will retain its position as the operating system of choice in tablet sales.  But it also expects Windows to increase share over the next two years.
That’s down to Microsoft spending more on marketing, establishing Surface as a brand, and bundling hardware with its software.
Marina Koytcheva, Director of Forecasting at CCS Insight said: “We expect Android to continue dominating the low end and midrange market, with Apple taking the lion’s share at the high end.  But Windows is gaining a bigger slice of the pie, albeit from a very low level, and should not be overlooked.”
She said that the Microsoft move to scrap charging for licences for Windows devices under nine inches will help Microsoft.
She said that move has encouraged vendors to launch better devices at lower prices.
She warned that Microsoft’s next operating system, Windows 10, will “take time to make its mark”.  It will have little impact on sales before the end of 2016.
Enterprises will help Apple, specifically the deal it forged with IBM late last year.

 

PC shipments edge up

Posted on January 13, 2015 by - News

pc-sales-slumpShipments of PCs during any fourth quarter used to be strong until two years ago.
But figures released by Gartner said that worldwide PC shipments grew by a miserly one percent during the last quarter of 2014.
Shipments amounted to 83.7 million units and analysts at the company think the results are a “slow but consistent improvement after two years of decline”.
Tablets had been responsible for displacing PCs but that peaked in 2013 and the first half of last year.
People are drifting back to PCs, said Gartner, although different regions showed different results.
The US market showed the highest growth and the European region was strong too.
Lenovo is now the worldwide leader in shipments with 19.4 percent of the market, followed by HP and Dell. Acer and Asus were fourth and fifth.
HP showed growth of 16 percent in the quarter, while Lenovo’s growth slowed.
The chief driver for sales were mobile PCs including thin and light.  Prices around the $300 mark helped boost sales.

 

Future dim for Wintel in 2015

Posted on January 9, 2015 by - News

windows-10-technical-preview-turquoiseThe arrival of Windows 10 and the introduction of 14 nanometre microprocessors are unlikely to stimulate much demand for PCs in 2015.
That’s the view of Digitimes – which has interviewed sources in the supply chain that make kit using the software and components.
Windows 10 is delayed – it’s not now expected to ship until the August at the earliest, and will make use of a future 14 nanometre CPU from Intel which is codenamed “Skylake”.
But the wire thinks that in 2015 only 200 million PCs will ship this year – with smartphones and tablets continuing to erode market share.
The manufacturers in Taiwan are more update about Apple based PCs rather than their Windows based cousins and are anticipating that while enterprises may decide to upgrade.
Windows 8 has triggered a distinct lack of excitement in the marketplace, with many enterprises hanging on to Windows 7 systems for dear life.
Windows 10 is expected to look a lot more like Windows 7 than Windows 8.x.

 

Tablet users to exceed one billion

Posted on January 8, 2015 by - News

tesco-hudl-tabletA report claimed that over a billion people in the world will use a tablet this year – that’s 15 percent of the world’s population.
eMarketer said that by 2018, 1.43 billion worldwide will use tablets but that doesn’t mean that sales of tablets will increase exponentially.
While the number of tablet users will increase by just over 17 percent in 2015, eMarketer says that growth was 53.1 percent in 2013 and 29.1 percent in  2014.
In 2018 the growth figure will be just under eight percent, and there are a few reasons for that, the study suggests.
One is that tablets are seen as luxury items, and they are facing competition from ever larger smartphones and other devices.  The last reason eMarketer gives is that the use of tablets is not always that clear.
By 2018, Chinese tablets will be used by around 435.5 million people, USA people will account for 172.6 million, India for 60.2 million people and the UK for 38.4 million people.
The survey predicts that Indonesia will enter the top five in 2016, and by 2018 nearly a fifth of the world’s population will be tablet users.

 

Tablet sales will continue to slow down

Posted on January 6, 2015 by - News

cheap-tabletsGartner said that sales of tablets in 2015 will continue to slow down.
While sales of tablets will reach 233 million units this year – which is an increase of eight percent compared to last year – the trend is downwards.
Ranjit Atwal, research analyst at Gartner, said that in the last two years global sales grew by numbers in the double digits.
He said: “The steep drop can be explained by several factors.  One is that the lifetime of tablets is being extended – they are shared out amongst family members and software upgrades, especially for [Apple] iOS devices, keep the tablets current. Another factor includes the lack of innovation in hardware which prevents people from upgrading.”
Apps could help grow the market, he said. And that will be helped by advanced in the personal cloud.
Garner figures show that traditional PCs will show a decline over the next two years.
He estimated the smartphone business will grow by 3.7 percent this year, and is being polarised between high and low end market price points.
The Android OS continues to rule the roost, and units expected to ship in thousands of units in 2015 amount to 1,454,760, compared t 279,415 for the Apple operating system.

Analysts tip tablet sales

Posted on December 30, 2014 by - News

new-ipadDespite evidence that sales of tablets showed signs of decline in 2014, one market intelligence is bucking the trend by predicting healthy sales in 2015.

ABI Research said that although 2014 was “lacklustre”, it predicted that there will be solid growth during the next five years with shipments of tablets close to 290 million units in 2019.

But the growth is not for every vendor – Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and Google will show year on year falls in shipments.

On the other hand, Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, LG, Microsoft and Samsung are predicted to show higher volumes in 2014.

Senior analyst Jeff Orr doesn’t have good news for Apple.  He said: “Historically, Apple has counted approximately 35 percent of its iPad sales in the last calendar quarter of the year.  Unless Apple can pull off a 32+ million unit quarter, sales for 2014 will be down for the first year since the iPad launched.”

He said that Apple probably shipped 68 million iPads in 2014, but managed to sell 74 million in 2013.

On the operating systems front, Android has 54 percent of branded tablets, Apple iOS has fallen to 41 percent, and Windows 8 has a meagre five percent of shipments.

Tablets, ultrabooks get cheaper and cheaper

Posted on December 23, 2014 by - News

tablet-womanAverage selling prices (ASPs) of Intel based ultrabooks and tablets fell by close to eight percent this year in all markets worldwide.

ABI Research said that household income needed to buy either a tablet or ultrabook fell by 30 percent during the year, giving access to many new households.

The market research company surveyed 22 different countries between 2013 and 2014 and estimates ASPs fell by 8.5 percent for tablets and 7.1 percent for ultrabooks.

The price drops mean a wider range of countries can now afford the gadgets and even though growth is falling for both types of devices, analyst Stephanie Van Vactor said “affordability could help prevent a drastic decline in sales”.

The affordability index is highest for the US, Japan and Germany, but some countries showed a marked decline in prices.  She said Chile, for example, saw a fall in prices of 56 percent for both ultrabooks and tablets.

But India saw an increase in prices of 22 percent for the devices.

Van Vactor estimates we’ll continue to see competition increase and that means prices will once again fall next year.

Windows 10 is delayed again

Posted on December 11, 2014 by - News

Microsoft campusPeople eager to throw off the shackles of Windows 8.x look like they’ll have some time to wait before they’re free at last.

According to PC Advisor, a “consumer preview2 will be released in January so you’ll be able to see what you’re missing for quite a long time.  Windows 10 isn’t now expected until the second half of next year.

Reuters, quoting Microsoft’s chief operating officer, Kevin Turner, said the launch was likely to be the early Autumn.

Reports suggest that Windows 10 may well be free of charge to existing Windows 8.x users.  Microsoft isn’t giving any details of prices yet and so no one is clear what the upgrade paths are likely to be.

The operating system is likely to look more like Windows 7 than Windows 8.x – the latter was Microsoft’s ill fated attempt to resemble other tablet operating systems like iOS and Android.

Even Microsoft insiders wondered what the company was doing with such a hybrid.

Microsoft’s decision to skip the number nine and jump straight to Windows 10 seems to be some kind of weird marketing move – as usual, it is describing the future OS as the “best OS yet”.

AMD, Intel in tablet spat

Posted on December 11, 2014 by - News

tweedledummBitter semiconductor rivals Intel and AMD are set to up the stakes in 2015 with a fresh assault on the tablet market.

Both companies are often seen as the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of the chip market, continually foraying into battles where no one actually gets hurt.

But Digitimes, which is privy to both companies’ future roadmaps, said that they’ll foray out once more in an attempt to capture some slice of the tablet pie – estimated to represent 200 million units in 2015.

Intel has been forced to provide subsidies to companies in an attempt to bolster its rather feeble market share in the tablet and mobile markets.

It will kick off the show by releasing a system-on-a-chip (SoC) device codenamed Cherry Trail, which will be built using a 14 nanometre process and may be with the world as early as March next year.  The chip will have lower power consumption and support Windows and Android operating systems, said the wire.

But AMD is not going to stand still after receiving that SoC on the jaw.  It will introduce an X86 device dubbed Nolan, and an ARM device called Amur in the second half of next year.