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Acer storms up on Dell in PC market |
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Dell had better take a look over its shoulder -- rival Acer is coming up fast from behind and is on the verge of overtaking Dell as the No. 2 PC maker in the world.
Acer enjoyed huge growth in 2009, showing a 21% increase in PC shipments. The Taiwanese computer maker went from 31.8 million unit shipments in 2008 to 38.5 million last year, according to research company iSuppli Corp.
While Acer showed the strongest growth among the world's five leading PC makers, Dell did not have such a good year. Dell showed a 9.9% drop in shipments last year, with global PC shipments slipping from 43.3 million in 2008 to 38.96 million this past year, iSuppli said in a report released today.
With Acer growing and Dell struggling, Dell managed to hold on to the second-place spot in the PC market by a 0.2% margin over Acer. Dell held a firmer 3.8% point lead over Acer the year before.
"Acer's 2009 success was driven by the notebook PC market," said Matthew Wilkins, a principal analyst at iSuppli, in a statement. "Notebooks accounted for nearly 80% of Acer's shipments in 2009. This allowed the company to capitalize on the fast-growing mobile-computing segment, while limiting its exposure to the moribund desktop segment."
Wilkins added that Acer grabbed a 28% worldwide increase in laptop shipments last year, compared with a 20% increase in shipments for the entire market.
"Acer owes its strong notebook success to the fact that it is covering the key bases well, with a strong portfolio encompassing both regular laptops and netbooks," Wilkins said.
ISuppli noted that Acer trumped Dell and move into the No. 2 spot for the third and fourth quarters last year. With worldwide shipments of 11.9 million units and a market share of 13.4% for the fourth quarter, Acer overtook Dell for two quarters in a row.
For the entire year, though, Hewlett-Packard remained firmly seated in the PC market's top spot, according to iSuppli. HP had a 19.7% global market share in 2009, while Dell came in with 12.9% and Acer grabbed 12.7%. The top five were rounded out with Lenovo at 8.2% market share and Toshiba at 5.1%.
Dell was the only company in the top five to show a shipment decrease last year.
In what iSuppli called "a surprisingly strong result," the worldwide PC market last year managed to make a slight gain over 2008 despite economic turmoil and IT managers holding tightly to their dwindling budgets. According to the research company, PC shipments hit 302.3 million units in 2009. That's a 1% gain from 299.2 million shipments in 2008.
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Google opens store for cloud apps |
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In another move to work its way into the enterprise, Google has unveiled an online store where users can buy cloud-based applications designed to work with Google's own apps.
The Google Apps Marketplace goes live tonight with 50 applications available from third-party vendors, said Chris Vander Mey, a senior product manager for Google.
He also noted that the company is celebrating a recently hit milestone -- 25 million users and 2 million businesses that now are using Google Apps, like its popular Gmail e-mail service and its Google Calendar application.
"What we found as we talked to these customers is that they asked for more apps," said Vander Mey. "They want a specific app for a specific vertical... We want to help them but one of the challenges has been that as you get more apps, there's more hassle. These apps don't naturally work together. They have to share data and they don't do it natively."
However, he added that the cloud-based applications being sold in the new marketplace are specifically designed to work with Google's own applications, which should take a lot of the hassle out of the integration.
That is a good move for a company that has been trying to move from a consumer-oriented road to a more enterprise course. For months now, Google has been trying to push its applications into the enterprise.
Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group, said this new move is a smart one. "This move not only raises the profile of Google apps for business and individual users alike, it also plays on the so-called app mania that has propelled platforms like the iPhone and other devices into prominence," Olds said.
"With their own app store, Google provides a store front where developers can display and sell their wares to a large audience. With a lot of developer interest, there's a chance that someone will put together a must-have app that is useful, or fun, enough to capture the imagination of users, which will convert more of them to Google's platform," he said.
Vander Mey noted that partners are going to be key to growing Google’s business in the enterprise. "These third-party vendors expand our breadth of being able to help enterprises run their businesses in the cloud," he said. "If you need payroll or accounting or image management, you can go to our partners. We will help each other grow a rich ecosystem."
Third-party developers that are selling their applications on Google Apps Marketplace include Intuit Inc.'s online payroll application, Manymoon's project management application, and Mailchimp's e-mail newsletter management application.
David Glazer, an engineering director with Google, noted that the company will get 20% of the revenue from all sales on the marketplace site.
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Windows 7 SP1 release date moved up |
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Even though Microsoft has dropped a plan to wait nearly two years after Windows 7's launch to issue a first service pack, it won't deliver the update before the fourth quarter of this year, a site that has accurately predicted past Windows timetables said today.
Microsoft would be smart to reconsider and delay a service pack as long as possible, one analyst countered.
TechARP.com, a Malaysian Web site that has nailed previous service pack schedules for both Windows XP and Vista, said unnamed sources had originally pegged a 22-month development schedule for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1). But Microsoft has since changed its mind, reportedly to address an unknown number of "serious" performance bugs.
"The earliest Microsoft can realistically release Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 is in the last quarter of 2010," the site said.
That schedule would, in fact, fit with the timetable Microsoft used for the two desktop operating systems prior to Windows 7. The company issued Windows XP SP1 slightly more than 10 months after the release of XP in October 2001, and delivered the first service pack for Vista about 12 months after Vista's January 2007 retail launch.
"There's no required rule for a service pack," observed Michael Cherry, an analyst with Kirkland, Wash.-based Directions on Microsoft. "It's a psychological milestone. They've trained us to wait for SP1."
Microsoft would benefit by postponing Windows 7 SP1, Cherry argued. "Windows 7 has pretty good momentum right now, and that might slow down if they announce a service pack. Then, logically, that's when people will wait. It could put the dampers on [Windows 7's] good sales right now."
According to Peter Klein, Microsoft's chief financial officer, the company has sold 90 million licenses to Windows 7 since July 2009.
Microsoft declined to comment on TechARP's claims, or on a Windows 7 service pack in general. "Per Microsoft policy, we do not comment on rumors or speculation," a spokeswoman said today via e-mail. "We have nothing new to announce at this time."
"If Microsoft wants to break people of the habit of waiting for SP1, this would be the time to do it," said Cherry, citing the popularity of Windows 7 and the almost unanimous praise the operating system has received. "I'm not hearing any significant problems with Windows 7, so this time, waiting for SP1 you may be doing yourself a disservice."
Microsoft may also be leery of releasing a service pack because of those positive reviews of Windows 7, and the chance that a flawed service pack could poison the well. "You have a good success on your hands," said Cherry, "so the last thing you want is a bad service pack."
When Microsoft first released Vista in 2007, company executives argued that a service pack wouldn't be necessary because Windows Update could deliver fixes as they became available. Microsoft later backed away from that position. It hasn't made the same argument about Windows 7.
Cherry explained why a service pack was still necessary. "When a person buys a new computer and they go to Windows Update, and there's 50, 60, 70 updates waiting, at some point it becomes burdensome," he said.
Microsoft has issued several stability and reliability updates for Windows 7 since its late-October launch. The January stability update, however, caused some Windows 7 systems to randomly freeze or display the "Blue screen of death" error screen. Microsoft said the reports were not a "major problem." |
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LTE speeds faster than expected in Verizon trials |
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Verizon Wireless today disclosed that wireless data speeds in LTE (Long Term Evolution) field trials have been faster than expected, prompting a spokesman to boast that the company will beat AT&T into the LTE business by 12 to 18 months.
Verizon's LTE field trials in Boston and Seattle have shown average downlink rates of 5Mbit/sec. to 12Mbit/sec. and average uplink speeds of 2Mbit/sec. to 5Mbit/sec., which would give mobile customers browsing speeds comparable to what users would expect from a typical wired home Internet connection, the company said.
In January, Verizon had said it expected that LTE, also known as 4G, would offer user speeds that were 10 times faster than those of existing 3G networks, and up to 6Mbit/sec. on the downlink.
The LTE field trial speeds are "faster than we've ever suggested. Our network team is shocked," said Jeffrey Nelson, a Verizon spokesman, in a telephone interview.
Verizon launched field trials in Boston and Seattle in August.
The company said today that it is on track to deliver LTE capabilities to 25 to 30 markets and roughly 100 million people by year's end. Verizon has not named any other trial markets.
The tests are valuable to LTE application developers and device makers, said Nelson, and they should be valuable to end users as well. "Early adopters are looking at our leadership here -- developers but also end users and enterprises that understand the value of this speed," he said.
In January, Verizon demonstrated live videoconferencing over LTE using portable units from Creative Labs, and it streamed a movie in 1080p over LTE at 4Mbit/sec. to a small handheld tablet from Motorola running an Nvidia second-generation Tegra processor. Nelson said both applications are still in the testing and development stage.
LTE applications for business use are also under development at LM Ericsson Telephone.
Enterprises will embrace LTE because it will enable them to push multiple applications at once wirelessly, said Nelson, noting that they will also appreciate its strong performance with video and its ability to transmit wireless data traffic through buildings that block 3G signals.
"LTE at these speeds doesn't just capture the imagination; it also captures wallets," Nelson said. |
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Google buys DocVerse |
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With its acquisition of DocVerse, announced Friday, Google is offering an online component to Microsoft Word before Microsoft does so itself.
DocVerse, a company founded by two former Microsoft employees, lets Microsoft Office users share and edit their documents online. The software is an Office plug-in that tracks and synchs changes that people make to a document so that multiple people can work on a file without having to send the file back and forth and try to keep track of changes.
The functionality sounds similar to that which will be included in Office 2010, the newest version of the software expected to become widely available on May 12. Office 2010 will let users store, edit and share documents online.
In a blog post, Google said it still believes that the Web is the best place to create and share information, via its Google Docs offering. "But we recognize that many people are still accustomed to desktop software. So ... we're also making it easier for people to transition to the cloud, and interoperate with desktop applications like Microsoft Office," Jonathan Rochelle, group product manager at Google, wrote in the blog post. "With DocVerse, people can begin to experience some of the benefits of Web-based collaboration using the traditional Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint desktop applications."
Google plans to link Google Docs with the DocVerse offering, according to DocVerse's founders. "Our first step will be to combine DocVerse with Google Apps to create a bridge between Microsoft Office and Google Apps," wrote DocVerse's Shan Sinha, founder and CEO, and Alex DeNeui, founder and CTO, in a blog post.
The move could step up the competition between Google and Microsoft for users. People who have existing versions of Office could decide to use DocVerse rather than upgrade to Office 2010 in order to get the online sharing capabilities.
It is not clear when a new product from DocVerse that integrates Google Apps will become available.
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Group seeks to open source data centre design |
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A new industry group is trying to apply open-source principles to the design and construction of data centres, which it says could accelerate the use of new technologies and increase competition in the industry.
The Open Source Data Center Initiative, announced this week, will act as a repository and test bed for mechanical and engineering advances in data-centre design, which it hopes will be submitted by small engineering firms, graduate students doing research with federal grant money, and others.
The group has enlisted a high-profile adviser in the form of Michael Manos, who used to run Microsoft's global data centre operations and is now building Nokia's cloud infrastructure. His enthusiasm for the effort stems partly from what he sees as a lack of motivation among established engineering firms to rethink how data centres are built.
The data centre industry is "dominated by a handful of large engineering houses" that are wedded to mechanical and engineering designs that are "largely considered proprietary," he said. Those companies don't have enough incentive to educate their customers about simpler, more standardized alternatives, he said.
"When you think of all the great things we've been talking about at data centre conferences, about moving to greener designs and driving efficiency with new technologies -- a lot of that innovation is being held back because competition for those ideas is not out there," Manos said.
The group will also play an educational role, he said. It will publish real-world data about the cost of implementing projects, such as a fresh-air cooling system, so that customers have "more transparency" when making decisions.
Manos is helping to assemble a team of advisers, mostly from the end-user community, who will steer the group's research by highlighting common problems, particularly related to energy efficiency.
"We have been able to put together quite a team of industry heavyweights to get involved in this effort," he wrote in a blog post. "Those announcements are forthcoming, and when they [are made], I think you will get a sense of the type of sea-change this effort could potentially have."
The group was founded by Dave Ohara, a former engineer with Hewlett-Packard, Apple, and Microsoft who now runs the green data centre blog. He has partnered with the University of Missouri, which will provide administrative support, and ARG Investment, which is building a data centre in Missouri where it says it will test some of the new technologies proposed.
The project is in its early stages and questions remain about how it will operate. To be successful, open-source projects need "pretty widespread participation," said Joe Polastre, CTO of Sentilla, which makes tools for monitoring energy use in data centres.
"One of my biggest questions is what will motivate people to open up and share what they are doing," he said.
One incentive to participate, Manos said, is that it will give smaller engineering firms access to a pool of engineering resources that could help them compete for business with more established players. "They can say, 'This is an open source, certified design, and here's an example of where it has been implemented before,'" he said.
Ohara said participation could help construction companies expand the role they play in new data-centre projects, increasing competition. "If they had this knowledge and information, the construction industry guys could get involved in a project earlier on, versus being handed the drawings at the end and being told to go build it," he said.
Not surprisingly, large engineering firms reject the idea that they are holding back the industry. Bruce Edwards, president of CCG Facilities Integration, one of the largest engineering companies, said data centres have seen significant innovation in the last 10 years, in areas such as electrical power delivery and cooling.
"It's not like we're sitting there parceling out the work; we're at each others throats," he said.
He also questioned the need for another industry group. "The idea that a nonprofit, collaborative, noncompetitive model will be a powerful engine to drive innovation -- I'm not convinced of it at this point," Edwards said.
The alliance says it doesn't aim to compete with groups like the Green Grid Forum and the Uptime Institute, but that it is frustrated with the rate of progress.
"These groups have been out espousing best practices for years," Manos wrote in his blog. "They do a great job of highlighting the challenges we face, but for the most part have waited around for universal good will and monetary pressures to make them happen. It dawned on us that there was another way."
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PC shipments to grow by 20%: Gartner |
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Gartner has raised its worldwide PC shipment forecast for this year, predicting growth of 20% compared to 2009, partly driven by growth in shipments of mobile devices like laptops and netbooks.
The analyst firm in December predicted worldwide PC shipments to grow by 13.3% this year. Gartner is now saying PC shipments will total 366.1 million units in 2010, compared to 305.8 million units shipped in 2009.
"The PC industry will be overwhelmingly driven by mobile PCs, thanks to strong home growth in both emerging and mature markets," said George Shiffler, research director at Gartner, in a statement. Shipments of netbooks, which Gartner calls mini-notebooks, will also grow in 2010, but not at the rate of previous years. The devices could face competition from next-generation tablets and new laptops with ultra-low-voltage processors, Shiffler said.
Mobile devices accounted for 55% of all PC shipments in 2009, and will account for close to 70% of shipments by 2012. By comparison, desktop PC shipment growth will be minimal and limited to emerging markets. The market will remain robust over the next few years as consumer demand for PCs increases and companies open up budgets to upgrade PCs.
Gartner also said its "initial thinking" is that vendors could ship up to 10.5 million traditional, keyboard-based tablets and next-generation tablet devices this year.
Apple's iPad is one of many new devices coming to market that could change the PC market, Gartner said. The iPad bundles Web surfing, multimedia, e-book reading and gaming into one device. It is due to ship later this month.
Users may no longer need a PC to access Web applications, and the emergence of new devices is changing the way PC makers think about the market, Gartner said. |
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Global disk storage capacity grew 33%: IDC |
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The amount of disk storage capacity shipped worldwide grew 33.4% in the fourth quarter of 2009, with more than 3.3 petabytes worth of capacity sold. And disk storage revenue for the quarter was up 0.2% from the same period a year earlier, to $7.3 billion; it was the first increase in external storage systems sales in more than a year, according to a report released by market research firm IDC.
However, worldwide external disk storage systems sales dropped by 0.7% in the fourth quarter of 2009 compared to the fourth quarter of 2008, according to IDC.
"Although 2009 might have gotten off to a rough start, it ended on a strong note," said Liz Conner, a storage analyst at IDC.
One of the bright spots for 2009 external disk storage sales was in the open networked disk storage market, which is made up of network-attached storage (NAS) and open iSCSI storage-area networks (SAN). Fourth-quarter sales in that market grew 3.6% year over year to $4.2 billion.
Total disk storage revenue, which includes sales of external and internal drives, also grew in the fourth quarter of 2009. It was the first time since the third quarter of 2008 that total sales saw an uptick. Fourth-quarter sales accounted for 29.7% of the entire year's revenue. In 2008, sales in the fourth quarter represented 26.2% of the overall revenue for the year.
"Much of this increase was driven by open networked storage," Conner said.
EMC maintained its lead in total open networked storage sales, with a fourth-quarter market share of 27.9%, measured in terms of revenue. IBM was No. 2, with market share of 16%. EMC also led the market in total disk storage systems shipped, with 23.7% of the overall revenue in the fourth quarter, followed by IBM, with 16.8%, and Hewlett-Packard Co., with 12.1%. NetApp and Dell finished the quarter in a statistical tie for fourth place, with revenue shares of 8.3% and 8.1%, respectively.
The open SAN market grew 0.9% from 2008's fourth quarter. EMC also led that market, with 20.4% of the overall revenue, followed by IBM, with 19.3%. The NAS market grew 12.6% year over year in the fourth quarter. That market was also led by EMC, with a 50.5% revenue share, followed by NetApp, with 20.2%.
IDC said the iSCSI SAN market continued to show strong growth with a 30% revenue jump year over year in the fourth quarter. Dell led that market with a 31.5% revenue share, followed by EMC with 15.7%.
Steve Scully, an enterprise storage analyst at IDC, said NAS represents 20% of the external disk storage revenue because users are looking for "storage solutions to help them deal with the continued growth in unstructured, file-based data.
"The growing number of unified storage solutions has made it easier for customers to implement one platform for multiple file-based and block-based storage workloads," Scully said. |
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