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News

• PC prices will continue to go up due to shortage of components

  PC prices are going up due to a shortage of a number of components, and the situation isn't expected to change in the coming quarters.

• How Intel plans to change servers as it breaks away from PCs

  From PCs to servers, Intel is trying to redesign the way computers operate. We've already seen how PCs are changing, with 2-in-1 hybrids and tiny Compute Sticks, but some of the chip maker's groundbreaking technologies will initially appear in servers.

• Laptops, tablets could pack more DDR4 memory with Samsung breakthrough

  Samsung wants to cram faster and more power-efficient DDR4 DRAM in laptops and hybrids with new memory chips it introduced on Monday.

• After PCs and mobile, a chip battle for VR devices is brewing

  Millions of people will buy VR headsets in the coming years to play games and view 3D content, and those sales could spark a real-world war among chip-makers.

• Microsoft gets real, admits its device share is just 14%

  Microsoft COO Kevin Turner acknowledged today that his company's operating systems power only a small fraction of all devices worldwide.

• Windows 8 regains uptake mojo, XP restarts death slide

  Windows 8 surged in December to end the year with almost 12% of the user share of all Windows personal computers, while the destined-for-retirement Windows XP restarted its decline after a two-month pause, a Web analytics company Net Applications said Thursday.

• Bleak, bleaker, bleakest: PC market forecast projects historic 10 per cent downturn

  This year will go down as the PC industry's largest contraction, according to research firm IDC, with global shipments dropping by double digits and little relief in sight.

• Windows 8 uptake slows, ditch-XP movement decelerates

  Windows 8's user share in October climbed past the 10 per cent milestone for the first time since the launch of the radically-overhauled OS a year ago, an analytics company said Friday.

• In Pictures: 12 tips and tools for Chromebook power users

  The Chromebook can be a powerful workhorse -- here's how to replace your standard laptop for work

• PC market downshifting, says Gartner

  After a several years of strong growth, the PC market is downshifting to a slower, but hopefully steady, growth path, according to Gartner analysts.

• How virtualisation is changing the shape of your PC

  Near the end of almost every year, dramatic reductions in the size and weight of typical business laptops and PCs spark a series of blogs and media stories about how drastically different "your computer" will be next year.
  The way it looks so far for 2011, much of the power, data and abilities of "your computer" will have less to do with the hardware on your shoulder than with the data centres and virtualisation capabilities of both internal IT organizations and external service providers.

• Upbeat Intel sales lead road to recovery

  A brighter than expected outlook from Intel, the world's largest maker of computer chips, has fuelled hopes that personal computer manufacturers can avoid an annual sales dip for the first time since the dotcom crash of 2001.
  Research firm Gartner was predicting a drop of almost 12 per cent in unit sales back in March, after consumer and business demand ground to a halt in the wake of the global financial crisis.

• Prepare for the ‘perfect storm’

  CIOs and IT leaders approaching their next PC technology refresh had better do some serious preparation. Technology refreshes—when enterprises replace one-third to one-quarter of their PC fleets each year on a rolling basis—have become pretty routine in recent years. But several factors are coming together right now to make refresh decisions more complicated and more fraught with risk, says Bruce Michelson, Hewlett-Packard’s national lifecycle manager. “This refresh is kind of a perfect storm,” says Michelson, who travels to HP’s Fortune 500 customers to study and share best practices regarding PC lifecycles.
  Think of the factors affecting your next refresh as simultaneous storm fronts bearing names like Consumer IT and Virtualisation. (It almost goes without saying that Microsoft Vista upgrade plans, if you have them, will factor into this refresh cycle.)