Hardware is very much in focus this week as we try to summarise the state of user platforms. Our first pit-stop has to incorporate a feature from the Guardian of this week that states that desktop PC sales might well have hit their peak, citing a fall in sales in PC’s when compared to the first quarter of 2010 by 1.1% overall, but a more significant 6.1% in the United States.Meanwhile, are you a liberal, vegetarian, city based computer user? You must be an Apple hardware fan, according to this infogram from Gigacom. The chart looks to compare Mac v. PC people (for whatever reason!), and amid some very odd areas of comparison, PC users are more likely to fall into the older age group (that’s PIND then!).
The netbook, it would seem, has had its short life as its window of opportunity appears to be closing pretty quickly. Born out of a need for smaller format, lower cost, more portable computing, the netbooks arrival was especially well received by the young, but with the creation of tablet computing, the netbook is undoubtedly already in decline. Even Google’s Chrome OS is now having tablet functionality added, and is also being described as a notebook product, rather than the original netbook OS.What to do if your PC or Mac develops a fault? This often pondered question has become the latest topic for The Oatmeal to muse on. As regular readers will know, we do hold a torch here for the works of The Oatmeal, so do spend a moment enjoying this latest (far too brief) offering: How to Fix any Computer.
In the world of the e-book reader, we find out this week that first quarter sales of digital publications have outsold the paper format. ReadWriteWeb asks if this is good or bad for publishers; we say good for publishers, but bad for printers. Publishers will have to learn to deal with the piracy issue, but then if they chat with the good folk of the music industry they might find out a thing or two! Also worth noting: audiobooks have continued to grow their share of the market, up 37% v. February 2010.Amazon, king of the e-book reader suppliers, has made further announcements this week regarding e-book library facilities. The story, mentioned this week by various stories, is that over 11,000 American lending libraries will incorporate the facility to lend out digital versions of books to Kindle or Kindle app users. From a marketing perspective, one has to salute the move as an effort to get establishment approval of the format.
As we speed along into tablet talk, the Telegraph tells us that tablets such as the iPad will need to fall to a price point below £250 before they can become mainstream. Interesting point, but then maybe we need to just stand back a bit: we are just one year into the popular form of tablet computing; only just past the first wave of buyers, the innovators. Undoubtedly prices will fall, and most likely they will eventually dip down below £250. Apple is unlikely to lead the way in this move; they will lead by technological development, not by price. The mass manufacturing power of Sumsung is more likely to focus, eventually, on pile it high and sell it cheap marketing.Not that this will happen any time soon, according to numbers released this week by Goldman Sachs. They are predicting a continued Apple dominance for the next two years. Further number crunching from Digits offers some further evidence, if any were needed, that Apple is still dominant in the areas of the market that it wants to be in (ie, the bits with the money!).
RIM has finally made it, however, so maybe Apple should keep looking over its shoulder to see how the Blackberry PlayBook is selling (450,000 in the first week, according to industry figures). We can only see it succeeding in firm Blackberry intrenched markets, and even then the name might let it down (business markets having a PlayBook? Doesn't sound right does it!). Perhaps one to keep an even keener eye on: Amazon is rumoured to be looking seriously at the tablet market. Utilising Samsung hardware, the company already has so many good things in place from its Kindle efforts in the e-book market. This one would be worth watching!And the Polestar Story:
Having reviewed all of that hardware, we do also need to give a quick mention to the news of the week from the printing industry, with the purchase of Polestar. We first saw it announed in the Telegraph, and PrintWeek have added some more detail. PrintWeek provided some great informed detail on the pension fund issue, which has been a long standing area of conflict for the company.
Finally, do keep checking back to see what will be featured in our next edition, PIND 50. Details of our “half-century” edition will be added to this link during the course of the week.
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