March 15, 2011
iPad slaps Acer, pumps Dell’s number two PC maker rank
The Register
Rik Myslewski writes about the top PC selling vendors right now.
“Dell has strengthed its position as the number-two PC seller in the world, thanks to Apple’s iPad kicking Acer in a place it’d have preferred not to have been kicked. And no, we’re not talking about that place, we’re talking about netbook numbers. ‘Acer’s decline was spurred by rising competition for its consumer-focused netbook and notebook computers from the iPad and other media tablets,’ say the analysts at IHS iSuppli in a report released on Thursday. Although HP remains el numero uno – as it has for seemingly aeons – Dell snuggles behind HP’s 19.2 per cent Q4 2010 market share with a healthy 12.1 per cent market share of its own. Dell’s growing lead over number-three Acer isn’t due to any sales surge – Acer’s sales are plunging”
Is Intel pricing itself out of the tablet PC market with new Atom Z670 processor?
ZD Net
Sean Portnoy shares reports about Intel’s Atom Z670 CPU pricing.
“According to Fudzilla, the chip giant’s new Atom Z670 CPU is going to cost $75, which not only gives you just a single core, but also is priced several times as much as competing dual-core solutions from Nvidia and ARM. Worse, it will only support Windows 7 out of the gate, with support for Android and MeeGo coming sometime in the future. The Z670 can run two threads and runs at 1.5GHz, and is supposed to be the most power-efficient Atom processor yet at 5W, so its performance against competition like Nvidia’s Tegra 2 chipset will be interesting to compare. However, could it possibly provide three times the power and efficiency that would match its purportedly sky-high price tag?”
Nokia: Transition to Windows Phone to take about two years
ZD Net
Mary Jo Foley shares details about Nokia’s plans for transitioning to Windows Phones.
“Nokia filed on March 11 a form 20-F with the Securities and Exchange Commission which mentions a number of new tidbits about Nokia’s smartphone-centric partnership with Microsoft. The document confirms that Microsoft and Nokia still haven’t finalized the deal, announced in February, noting the pair has ‘entered into a non¬binding term sheet … (while) the planned partnership with Microsoft remains subject to negotiation and execution of definitive agreements by the parties.’ There’s been some debate as to whether Nokia will be fielding its first Windows Phone 7 devices in 2011 or 2012. (The last ‘official’ word from Nokia was the company expected to start selling WP7 phones in volume in 2012.).”