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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Wednesday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week
03/04/2009 The economy’s crashing, and the pc industry
looks like it’s taking an even bigger dive... Gartner, Inc. is the world’s leading information technology
research and advisory company. On Monday the company forecasted worldwide PC
sales will fall almost 12% this year, as the industry goes through
"unprecedented market slowdowns" that are hampering sales in both
mature and emerging markets. Gartner said the previous worst decline in PC
shipments came in 2001, when unit shipments fell 3.2%. "The
PC industry is facing extraordinary conditions as the global economy
continues to weaken, users stretch PC lifetimes and PC buyers grow increasingly
cautious," said Gartner research director George Shiffler. The shift
in PCs from desktop units toward notebook devices highlights the overall
expected decline in PC sales this year. Gartner said that desktop PC sales
will drop almost 32% this year, while mobile PCs will rise 9%. However,
Gartner said that mobile PC sales will be "substantially boosted"
by growth in mini-notebooks, also called netbooks. Gartner is forecasting
netbooks to reach 21 million units, up from 11.7 million last year. So
what’s going on in our pc marketplace ? Businesses
are trying to stretch the life of traditional desktop computers they already
own. With a desktop its possible to upgrade its hardware and its operating
system and keep on getting productivity out of it. There’s
a hesitancy to invest in new desktops until the future of personal computing
becomes a little clearer. One issue
is how much lower will the price of a desktop computer go? Today Dell computers is selling a complete desktop with Vista,
powerful hardware, and a 22 inch monitor for around $ 600. That’s
probably a lot less that you paid for your last desktop, but you know that
you can probably squeeze a few more years out of what you’ve got right
now, and even upgrade the hard disk or ram for less that $ 600. What’s
really interesting is the prediction for big increases in sales of notebooks
and netbooks computers, both of which are targeted at the internet, and
perhaps- the new concept of cloud computing, where the computer you have
doesn’t need to be a traditional powerful desktop. In this
new scenario your application programs and data are stored on client servers
somewhere, or up in the clouds as they say, and you just need to be able to
access them through the internet using a lightweight portable device. And
you’re probably carrying around a lightweight portable device – a
cell phone - already, so you can talk from anywhere, check email, and do
limited web surfing. So rather
than having to pack 2 separate lightweight portable devices to talk and compute from
anywhere, I see the merging of netbooks and cell phones into new intelligent
devices which might have as big an impact on the world as did the original
pc. |
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For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2009 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522 (509)624-7230 |
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