The age of the desktop PC appears to be over as its more portable cousin, the
laptop, surges ahead with consumers clamouring for light-weight computers in
funky designs for use at home, in cafés and on the train to work.Not a single desktop model figured on online shopping portal Amazon.com's 10 top-selling PC and hardware list the weekend before Christmas, while seven laptop models made the list.
It was yet another sign that the former dominance of desktop PCs is fading as wireless advances and lower prices make laptops the preferred option for millions of PC users around the world.
"On both price and performance, laptops are so competitive now it's surprising they weren't able to catch up with desktops even earlier," said iSuppli analyst Peter Lin. "The ability to surf the internet wirelessly at public places, the need to be able to take your office out with you when you travel, and an increasing range of notebook computers have all led to lower desktop sales."
Laptops posted a milestone in the third quarter of 2008, passing desktop PC sales for the first time, according to research group iSuppli. With an entry level price of $300 (Dh1,110) for some basic models, laptops should bolster their position in 2009. They are forecast to take up about 55 per cent of all computer shipments, according to data tracking firm IDC.
Many companies eagerly awaiting the era of the laptop are in Taiwan, maker of about 80 per cent of the world's laptop PCs. They include the world's top two contract manufacturers, Quanta and Compal Electronics, and two of the most aggressive laptop brands, Acer and Asustek.
While those firms have seen their market share rise, the world's top two PC makers overall, Hewlett-Packard and Dell, have seen their share shrink.
Other companies that produce parts such as motherboards for bulky desktop PCs are already switching production to parts for other electronic gadgets such as iPhones.
While laptops used to cost more than double that of a desktop with equivalent processing power, advances in technology and economies of scale have dragged prices down so much that little price differentiation exists today for most consumers looking for a daily use PC, analysts say.
"It's just evolutionary I suppose," said Gartner analyst Tracy Tsai. "Things have reached a point where the price difference is no longer as pronounced as before for many consumers, and the average person is more likely to choose the option that offers him portability over the one that doesn't."
SPECIALISATION IN FORM AND SUBSTANCE
To keep their growth coming, Acer, Asustek and others vying for laptop dominance are increasingly looking to segmentation, taking aim at the wide range of computer buyers.
The runaway success of low-cost mini notebooks, initially derided by many industry watchers but now one of the fastest growing categories, could foreshadow a coming boom in products offering a wide range of prices and functions.
"There is incredible choice in the notebook space now," said IDC analyst Richard Shim. "You can get notebooks at every inch size from 5-inch to 20-inch."
Alex Gruzen, Dell's manager for consumer products, agreed that the days when his company could offer laptops "in the same shades of grey" are coming to an end.
Segmentation comes in both form and substance. In the former, Asustek offers a bamboo-cased laptop for the environmentally conscious. HP has tied up with designer Vivenne Tam to release the "world's first digital clutch", a notebook designed to look like a woman's handbag.
On the more technical front, companies are offering an ever wider range of specialised laptops in varying sizes, processing speeds, wireless capabilities and prices. Battery life is also coming into play, with HP recently announcing that one of its notebooks had broken the 24-hour barrier.
Faster boot-up times and features such as touch-screens are also being touted as companies try to convert former desktop users and build new markets.
WHAT'S LEFT FOR DESKTOPS?
As portability becomes the norm, some are asking if there is any room left for desktops in the brave new era of laptops.
Salesmen at Taipei's Kuanghwa computer market, one of the city's top PC hang-outs, said hardcore computer game addicts may be one of the few groups to keep buying desktops that offer greater processing power for memory-intensive applications.
"Hardly anyone buys desktops anymore," said Elton Tsai, gesturing towards the solitary HP desktop sitting in his shop amid rows of laptops.
"Anyone who is enough of a geek to want real processing power can probably assemble his own computer, saving himself at least a few thousand Taiwanese dollars in the process."
But not everyone believes the desktop, which was first introduced in the 1970s, will soon be relegated to the junkyard of history. After all, desktops can still offer substantial savings, especially for those who are handy with a screwdriver.
"How can a laptop compete with a desktop on price?" asked Gartner analyst Lillian Tay.
"Especially in the emerging markets where price is a consideration, laptops simply cannot compete on price with a group of people who slap a motherboard, a hard drive and a few chips together to get a desktop," she said.
PC companies bring laptops to the masses
Models pose with Asus' $700 notebooks in Mumbai. The laptops are powered by Intel and pre-installed with Windows XP. (AFP)
Gone are the days when laptops were a luxury. As people become more mobile, and the need to access and store information anytime, anywhere becomes a necessary business and research tool, notebooks have become commonplace.
Thanks to the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project which, while not yet altogether successful in lowering the price of a notebook to $100 (Dh387), has nevertheless been able to send on a message to manufacturers that what the world – especially the developing nations – needs is affordable PCs.
Earlier this year, Asus' Eee laptops – with prices ranging from $300 to $400 – topped the Amazon.com best-seller list for notebook computers.
Eee, an abbreviation of Asus's slogan "Easy to learn, Easy to work, Easy to play", has a feeble processor, a small seven-inch screen, a two to four gigabytes of storage, weighs less than a kilogram and can connect to the internet wirelessly.
Yet the Eee is being seen as more indicative of the future of computers than Apple's pricey MacBook Air, the wafer-thin laptop, which costs more than $1,000.
It didn't take long for others to follow. As early as January, Acer was reported to be planning to enter the low-cost arena. By the end of February, Acer confirmed to Emirates Business that it would be the first to provide ultra-mobile PCs in the region within the third quarter of this year.
The PC, which was launched even earlier to stay ahead of the competition, is called Aspire.
It runs on a Linux environment, weighs less than a kilo, features a 95 per cent full-sized keyboard and has a sub-9in LCD screen.
Priced between Dh1,500 to Dh1,900, the Aspire series offers a specially developed mail software application that can manage up to six separate e-mail accounts in a single window, while the messenger programme can simultaneously handle the most popular IM accounts.
Acer has thus become the first top-tier computer company to launch a low-cost laptop in the region, confirming the emergence of a new sub-notebook market segment. Acer, which currently ranks third next to HP and Dell, expects that the introduction of low-cost laptops will catapult it over the competition.
"With this, our computer penetration can grow five times the current size. If the affordability is increased then the market will grow very rapidly," said Krishna Murthy, Deputy Managing Director, Middle East, Turkey and Africa.
Leading PC and server manufacturer HP is also planning to join the low-cost craze. With the success of HP's 2133 Mini-Note, it was expected that the company would be working up a second edition and, according to Jerel Chong, HP Australia's Market Development Manager for Notebook PCs, it is "looking at a similar device but at a lower cost".
Reportedly, the low-cost laptop will be ready for budget-conscience consumers sometime before 2009. The HP 2133 Mini-Note, like the Asus Eee, is targeted at the education market. Priced around $375, the machine has a starting weight of 1.27kg. The system is designed to survive classroom life with a sturdy yet lightweight anodised aluminium shell and HP's 3D DriveGuard to protect the hard disk against damage.
Dell, who used to reign in the number one spot, will also flex its muscles in the low-cost game. On Wednesday, Dell will have its simultaneous worldwide launch of its Vostro units, Emirates Business has learned .
Dell Vostro, a new suite of notebooks, is designed exclusively for small businesses with up to 25 employees, simple or no networks and limited or no in-house IT support. "Vostro is an existing product line which we will expand. Expansion will include more affordable entry level notebooks," Michael Collins, General Manager, Dell Middle East told this paper.
"Affordable notebooks are the way to go," he said.
"Low-cost laptops will address certain segments, specifically first-time users where the barrier to entry is too prickly a price. So if you can get to a price point where notebooks are more affordable for more people then you become successful.
"We should want as many people to own laptops because PCs make information available and information is a wonderful thing to have. We want people to communicate across the globe so putting technology in the hands of people at more affordable prices is fantastic," Collins said.
Lenovo said it also plans to sell a low-cost laptop computer – known as a netbook – for £279 (Dh2,064). The PC maker will join Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Acer and Asus in the market for cheaper laptops, which are designed mainly for web surfing, e-mailing, playing movies and music and other basic functions. The IdeaPad will have a keyboard 85 per cent as large as that on a regular laptop and will come initially in two sizes – one with 512MB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive (for £279), the other with 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive (for £319).
The machines are expected to cost $400 and $449 respectively in the US.
Meanwhile, One Laptop Per Child, a non-profit organisation founded by Nicholas Negroponte of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has developed the XO, a bright-green laptop with protruding antenna ears that currently costs $188 to produce. The aim has been to reduce its cost to just $100. Negroponte revealed the idea in November 2005 at the World Summit on the Information Society conference in Tunisia.
Two-and-a-half years after it was unveiled, the machine still has some cost reductions to make and only about 300,000 of the devices have been distributed.
And in recent months, several senior officials have departed from OLPC.
OLPC lost its chief technology officer in January when Mary Lou Jepsen left to start her own low-cost laptop company. Pixel Xi is aiming for a $75 or even a $50 laptop in the next two to three years.
"Computers have been an exception. If you look at consumer electronics, a DVD player 10 years ago was about $800 – now they sell for $20," she said. "The computer industry has been able to keep the price flat by focusing on gazillion-gigahertz machines running really bloated software and that's worked for years since the IBM PC revolution."
The Classmate PC made by Intel, the world's biggest chip maker, is arguably a direct rival to the XO.
In July 2007, Intel joined the OLPC project but pulled out in January. Its departure stemmed from a rivalry between the Classmate and the XO, which take very different approaches to promoting low-cost computers in the developing world.
The XO is a radical, clean-sheet design that runs the Linux operating system under a graphical interface called Sugar.
The Classmate, by contrast, is a full-fledged but cheap laptop, costing $300 to $500 that runs Windows.
Intel's promotional literature, touting the Classmate's "real PC capabilities" looked like a swipe at the XO.
Currently, the XO low-cost laptop experiment is under way. The non-profit partnered with Birmingham, Alabama, – at the behest of Mayor Larry Langford and Birmingham City Council – for the first large-scale educational deployment of low-cost XO laptops in the US.
The pilot programme, running from April 15 to September 1, began with 1,000 of the group's $200 laptops being distributed to students in Glen Iris Elementary School. After some bureaucratic squabbles, the school board went on to approve the city's purchase of 14,000 more – funded by taxpayers money – with plans to eventually include all 15,000 students in the school system's first through eighth grades.
Some critics, however, wonder whether a computer initially designed for children in poor, rural parts of the world, and primarily using its own non-Windows operating system, is the right learning tool for students who eventually will seek a general computer-literate population.
Others worry that teachers will have trouble getting up to speed. Even more are concerned that it could be difficult to track progress and achievement on machines that promote a constructive approach to learning, which could pose a problem in today's educational climate of high-stakes testing and accountability.
Although there are concerns, the fact remains that OLPC opens up the road for more affordable laptops.
Thanks to its ambitious goals, the low-cost notebook revolution has thus begun.
Thanks to the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project which, while not yet altogether successful in lowering the price of a notebook to $100 (Dh387), has nevertheless been able to send on a message to manufacturers that what the world – especially the developing nations – needs is affordable PCs.
Earlier this year, Asus' Eee laptops – with prices ranging from $300 to $400 – topped the Amazon.com best-seller list for notebook computers.
Eee, an abbreviation of Asus's slogan "Easy to learn, Easy to work, Easy to play", has a feeble processor, a small seven-inch screen, a two to four gigabytes of storage, weighs less than a kilogram and can connect to the internet wirelessly.
Yet the Eee is being seen as more indicative of the future of computers than Apple's pricey MacBook Air, the wafer-thin laptop, which costs more than $1,000.
It didn't take long for others to follow. As early as January, Acer was reported to be planning to enter the low-cost arena. By the end of February, Acer confirmed to Emirates Business that it would be the first to provide ultra-mobile PCs in the region within the third quarter of this year.
The PC, which was launched even earlier to stay ahead of the competition, is called Aspire.
It runs on a Linux environment, weighs less than a kilo, features a 95 per cent full-sized keyboard and has a sub-9in LCD screen.
Priced between Dh1,500 to Dh1,900, the Aspire series offers a specially developed mail software application that can manage up to six separate e-mail accounts in a single window, while the messenger programme can simultaneously handle the most popular IM accounts.
Acer has thus become the first top-tier computer company to launch a low-cost laptop in the region, confirming the emergence of a new sub-notebook market segment. Acer, which currently ranks third next to HP and Dell, expects that the introduction of low-cost laptops will catapult it over the competition.
"With this, our computer penetration can grow five times the current size. If the affordability is increased then the market will grow very rapidly," said Krishna Murthy, Deputy Managing Director, Middle East, Turkey and Africa.
Leading PC and server manufacturer HP is also planning to join the low-cost craze. With the success of HP's 2133 Mini-Note, it was expected that the company would be working up a second edition and, according to Jerel Chong, HP Australia's Market Development Manager for Notebook PCs, it is "looking at a similar device but at a lower cost".
Reportedly, the low-cost laptop will be ready for budget-conscience consumers sometime before 2009. The HP 2133 Mini-Note, like the Asus Eee, is targeted at the education market. Priced around $375, the machine has a starting weight of 1.27kg. The system is designed to survive classroom life with a sturdy yet lightweight anodised aluminium shell and HP's 3D DriveGuard to protect the hard disk against damage.
Dell, who used to reign in the number one spot, will also flex its muscles in the low-cost game. On Wednesday, Dell will have its simultaneous worldwide launch of its Vostro units, Emirates Business has learned .
Dell Vostro, a new suite of notebooks, is designed exclusively for small businesses with up to 25 employees, simple or no networks and limited or no in-house IT support. "Vostro is an existing product line which we will expand. Expansion will include more affordable entry level notebooks," Michael Collins, General Manager, Dell Middle East told this paper.
"Affordable notebooks are the way to go," he said.
"Low-cost laptops will address certain segments, specifically first-time users where the barrier to entry is too prickly a price. So if you can get to a price point where notebooks are more affordable for more people then you become successful.
"We should want as many people to own laptops because PCs make information available and information is a wonderful thing to have. We want people to communicate across the globe so putting technology in the hands of people at more affordable prices is fantastic," Collins said.
Lenovo said it also plans to sell a low-cost laptop computer – known as a netbook – for £279 (Dh2,064). The PC maker will join Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Acer and Asus in the market for cheaper laptops, which are designed mainly for web surfing, e-mailing, playing movies and music and other basic functions. The IdeaPad will have a keyboard 85 per cent as large as that on a regular laptop and will come initially in two sizes – one with 512MB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive (for £279), the other with 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive (for £319).
The machines are expected to cost $400 and $449 respectively in the US.
Meanwhile, One Laptop Per Child, a non-profit organisation founded by Nicholas Negroponte of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has developed the XO, a bright-green laptop with protruding antenna ears that currently costs $188 to produce. The aim has been to reduce its cost to just $100. Negroponte revealed the idea in November 2005 at the World Summit on the Information Society conference in Tunisia.
Two-and-a-half years after it was unveiled, the machine still has some cost reductions to make and only about 300,000 of the devices have been distributed.
And in recent months, several senior officials have departed from OLPC.
OLPC lost its chief technology officer in January when Mary Lou Jepsen left to start her own low-cost laptop company. Pixel Xi is aiming for a $75 or even a $50 laptop in the next two to three years.
"Computers have been an exception. If you look at consumer electronics, a DVD player 10 years ago was about $800 – now they sell for $20," she said. "The computer industry has been able to keep the price flat by focusing on gazillion-gigahertz machines running really bloated software and that's worked for years since the IBM PC revolution."
The Classmate PC made by Intel, the world's biggest chip maker, is arguably a direct rival to the XO.
In July 2007, Intel joined the OLPC project but pulled out in January. Its departure stemmed from a rivalry between the Classmate and the XO, which take very different approaches to promoting low-cost computers in the developing world.
The XO is a radical, clean-sheet design that runs the Linux operating system under a graphical interface called Sugar.
The Classmate, by contrast, is a full-fledged but cheap laptop, costing $300 to $500 that runs Windows.
Intel's promotional literature, touting the Classmate's "real PC capabilities" looked like a swipe at the XO.
Currently, the XO low-cost laptop experiment is under way. The non-profit partnered with Birmingham, Alabama, – at the behest of Mayor Larry Langford and Birmingham City Council – for the first large-scale educational deployment of low-cost XO laptops in the US.
The pilot programme, running from April 15 to September 1, began with 1,000 of the group's $200 laptops being distributed to students in Glen Iris Elementary School. After some bureaucratic squabbles, the school board went on to approve the city's purchase of 14,000 more – funded by taxpayers money – with plans to eventually include all 15,000 students in the school system's first through eighth grades.
Some critics, however, wonder whether a computer initially designed for children in poor, rural parts of the world, and primarily using its own non-Windows operating system, is the right learning tool for students who eventually will seek a general computer-literate population.
Others worry that teachers will have trouble getting up to speed. Even more are concerned that it could be difficult to track progress and achievement on machines that promote a constructive approach to learning, which could pose a problem in today's educational climate of high-stakes testing and accountability.
Although there are concerns, the fact remains that OLPC opens up the road for more affordable laptops.
Thanks to its ambitious goals, the low-cost notebook revolution has thus begun.
By going to Car Rental 8 you can get the best rental cars at over 50000 locations globally.
ReplyDelete