Here is my collection of trends and predictions for year 2014:
It seems that PC market is not recovering in 2014. IDC is forecasting that the technology channel will buy in around 34 million fewer PCs this year than last. It seem that things aren’t going to improve any time soon (down, down, down until 2017?). There will be no let-up on any front, with desktops and portables predicted to decline in both the mature and emerging markets. Perhaps the chief concern for future PC demand is a lack of reasons to replace an older system: PC usage has not moved significantly beyond consumption and productivity tasks to differentiate PCs from other devices. As a result, PC lifespan continue to increase. Death of the Desktop article says that sadly for the traditional desktop, this is only a matter of time before its purpose expires and that it would be inevitable it will happen within this decade. (I expect that it will not completely disappear).
When the PC business is slowly decreasing, smartphone and table business will increase quickly. Some time in the next six months, the number of smartphones on earth will pass the number of PCs. This shouldn’t really surprise anyone: the mobile business is much bigger than the computer industry. There are now perhaps 3.5-4 billion mobile phones, replaced every two years, versus 1.7-1.8 billion PCs replaced every 5 years. Smartphones broke down that wall between those industries few years ago – suddenly tech companies could sell to an industry with $1.2 trillion annual revenue. Now you can sell more phones in a quarter than the PC industry sells in a year.
After some years we will end up with somewhere over 3bn smartphones in use on earth, almost double the number of PCs. There are perhaps 900m consumer PCs on earth, and maybe 800m corporate PCs. The consumer PCs are mostly shared and the corporate PCs locked down, and neither are really mobile. Those 3 billion smartphones will all be personal, and all mobile. Mobile browsing is set to overtake traditional desktop browsing in 2015. The smartphone revolution is changing how consumers use the Internet. This will influence web design.
The only PC sector that seems to have some growth is server side. Microservers & Cloud Computing to Drive Server Growth article says that increased demand for cloud computing and high-density microserver systems has brought the server market back from a state of decline. We’re seeing fairly significant change in the server market. According to the 2014 IC Market Drivers report, server unit shipment growth will increase in the next several years, thanks to purchases of new, cheaper microservers. The total server IC market is projected to rise by 3% in 2014 to $14.4 billion: multicore MPU segment for microservers and NAND flash memories for solid state drives are expected to see better numbers.
Spinning rust and tape are DEAD. The future’s flash, cache and cloud article tells that the flash is the tier for primary data; the stuff christened tier 0. Data that needs to be written out to a slower response store goes across a local network link to a cloud storage gateway and that holds the tier 1 nearline data in its cache. Never mind software-defined HYPE, 2014 will be the year of storage FRANKENPLIANCES article tells that more hype around Software-Defined-Everything will keep the marketeers and the marchitecture specialists well employed for the next twelve months but don’t expect anything radical. The only innovation is going to be around pricing and consumption models as vendors try to maintain margins. FCoE will continue to be a side-show and FC, like tape, will soldier on happily. NAS will continue to eat away at the block storage market and perhaps 2014 will be the year that object storage finally takes off.
IT managers are increasingly replacing servers with SaaS article says that cloud providers take on a bigger share of the servers as overall market starts declining. An in-house system is no longer the default for many companies. IT managers want to cut the number of servers they manage, or at least slow the growth, and they may be succeeding. IDC expects that anywhere from 25% to 30% of all the servers shipped next year will be delivered to cloud services providers. In three years, 2017, nearly 45% of all the servers leaving manufacturers will be bought by cloud providers. The shift will slow the purchase of server sales to enterprise IT. Big cloud providers are more and more using their own designs instead of servers from big manufacturers. Data center consolidations are eliminating servers as well. For sure, IT managers are going to be managing physical servers for years to come. But, the number will be declining.
I hope that the IT business will start to grow this year as predicted. Information technology spends to increase next financial year according to N Chandrasekaran, chief executive and managing director of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest information technology (IT) services company. IDC predicts that IT consumption will increase next year to 5 per cent worldwide to $ 2.14 trillion. It is expected that the biggest opportunity will lie in the digital space: social, mobility, cloud and analytics. The gradual recovery of the economy in Europe will restore faith in business. Companies are re-imaging their business, keeping in mind changing digital trends.
The death of Windows XP will be on the new many times on the spring. There will be companies try to cash in with death of Windows XP: Microsoft’s plan for Windows XP support to end next spring, has received IT services providers as well as competitors to invest in their own services marketing. HP is peddling their customers Connected Backup 8.8 service to prevent data loss during migration. VMware is selling cloud desktop service. Google is wooing users to switch to ChromeOS system by making Chrome’s user interface familiar to wider audiences. The most effective way XP exploiting is the European defense giant EADS subsidiary of Arkoon, which promises support for XP users who do not want to or can not upgrade their systems.
There will be talk on what will be coming from Microsoft next year. Microsoft is reportedly planning to launch a series of updates in 2015 that could see major revisions for the Windows, Xbox, and Windows RT platforms. Microsoft’s wave of spring 2015 updates to its various Windows-based platforms has a codename: Threshold. If all goes according to early plans, Threshold will include updates to all three OS platforms (Xbox One, Windows and Windows Phone).
Amateur programmers are becoming increasingly more prevalent in the IT landscape. A new IDC study has found that of the 18.5 million software developers in the world, about 7.5 million (roughly 40 percent) are “hobbyist developers,” which is what IDC calls people who write code even though it is not their primary occupation. The boom in hobbyist programmers should cheer computer literacy advocates.IDC estimates there are almost 29 million ICT-skilled workers in the world as we enter 2014, including 11 million professional developers.
The Challenge of Cross-language Interoperability will be more and more talked. Interfacing between languages will be increasingly important. You can no longer expect a nontrivial application to be written in a single language. With software becoming ever more complex and hardware less homogeneous, the likelihood of a single language being the correct tool for an entire program is lower than ever. The trend toward increased complexity in software shows no sign of abating, and modern hardware creates new challenges. Now, mobile phones are starting to appear with eight cores with the same ISA (instruction set architecture) but different speeds, some other streaming processors optimized for different workloads (DSPs, GPUs), and other specialized cores.
Just another new USB connector type will be pushed to market. Lightning strikes USB bosses: Next-gen ‘type C’ jacks will be reversible article tells that USB is to get a new, smaller connector that, like Apple’s proprietary Lightning jack, will be reversible. Designed to support both USB 3.1 and USB 2.0, the new connector, dubbed “Type C”, will be the same size as an existing micro USB 2.0 plug.
2,130 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
End of Moore’s Law Forcing Radical Innovation
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/01/08/0013210/end-of-moores-law-forcing-radical-innovation
“The technology industry has been coasting along on steady, predictable performance gains, as laid out by Moore’s law.”
“Marc Snir, director of the Mathematics and Computer Science Division at the Argonne National Laboratory, outlined in a series of slides the problem of going below 7nm on chips, and the lack of alternative technologies.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Debug.js: A JavaScript VM and In-Browser Debugger In Pure JS Generators
developers.slashdot.org/story/14/01/08/0119237/debugjs-a-javascript-vm-and-in-browser-debugger-in-pure-js-generators
“This post describes building a JavaScript virtual machine and an in-browser stepping debugger using the latest JavaScript generator feature. It’s called debug.js.”
Building an In-Browser JavaScript VM and Debugger Using Generators
http://amasad.me/2014/01/06/building-an-in-browser-javascript-vm-and-debugger-using-generators/
debug.js
http://debugjs.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The First Look at the New Oculus VR Prototype
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2014/01/oculus-rift/
Tomi Engdahl says:
CES: AMD finally unveils 28nm APU Kaveri to battle Intel Haswell
First APU to feature heterogeneous system architecture (HSA)
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2321439/ces-amd-finally-unveils-28nm-apu-kaveri-to-battle-intel-haswell
CHIP DESIGNER AMD has finally unveiled its long-awaited next generation Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) Kaveri at CES in Vegas.
As a 28nm silicon chip, the Kaveri APU packs 2.41 billion transistors. The biggest change in terms of architecture for Kaveri is its use of AMD’s x86 Steamroller architecture, a multi-threaded architecture focusing on enhancing the Instruction Per Cycle (IPC) rate by up to 20 percent.
Being the first APU to feature AMD’s heterogeneous system architecture (HSA), a system of shared memory and heterogeneous queuing that allows both the CPU and GPU to create and dispatch work independently and efficiently, Kaveri is touted by AMD as having up to 12 compute cores.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Android will shift more than one billion devices in 2014
Sales of PCs and high-end smartphones will tail off
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2321425/android-will-shift-more-than-one-billion-devices-in-2014
INTERNET GIANT Google’s Android mobile operating system will reach a user base of almost two billion this year, according to number crunchers at Gartner.
Gartner said that global shipments of everything from PCs through tablets and mobile phones are expected to reach over 2.5 billion units over the next twelve months.
Android alone is expected to see sales of more than one billion devices this year
Overall, mobile phone devices will lead the market, and they will be complemented by other hardware like tablet, notebook and hybrid devices, according to Gartner. The firm predicted that mobile phones will see most sales in midmarket and basic devices compared to high-end handsets, while buyers will continue to move away from traditional PCs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Edison: A Desktop From 1998 In An SD Card
http://hackaday.com/2014/01/07/intel-edison-a-desktop-from-1998-in-an-sd-card/
Among the more interesting announcements at CES is the Intel Edison, a tiny device that combines a dual core Intel SoC with ‘a Pentium instruction set’, WiFi and Bluetooth adapter, and some amount of storage into an SD card form factor. Apart from that, little else is known about the Intel Edison and the only other primary source for this announcement appears to be Intel CEO [Brian Krzanich]‘s CES keynote address.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hell Freezes Over in Linux Land as Red Hat Makes Nice With Its Clone
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/01/redhat-centos/
Hell has frozen over in the world of Linux, the open source operating system that runs so many of the machines that underpin today’s online businesses.
Today, Linux vendor Red Hat announced that it’s entering a partnership to help develop CentOS, the project that cloned its flagship software in an effort to get around its license fees. The two operations have been at odds from the moment CentOS hit the web.
“Red Hat will contribute its resources and expertise in building thriving open source communities to the new CentOS Project to help establish more open project governance and a roadmap, broaden opportunities for participation, open pathways for contribution, and provide new ways for CentOS users and contributors to bring the power of open source innovation to all areas of the software stack,” the company said in an announcement.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Big Data Brings Big Changes to Recruiting
http://www.wired.com/insights/2014/01/big-data-brings-big-changes-recruiting/
It’s no secret that companies — particularly small businesses and startups — face challenges when it comes to finding and hiring the best possible talent. While it’s true that the age of the internet has made a wealth of information available on potential candidates, wading through all that data can be a considerable time (and money) suck. It’s enough to make you miss the good old days when referrals were the only way to find employees. (In fact, referrals are still an important factor, but more on that later.)
What’s certain is that big data is the future of job recruiting and development, and understanding how to make sense of it will be critical to a company’s success. These days, big data is helping fast growing companies find their perfect engineers, developers and executives. And everyone can say they have access to big data with LinkedIn, G+ and other profiles on the web. However, you can’t just “data mine” your way to the right candidate; you need the right tools to analyze it, and the right people who can provide meaningful insight.
There’s no shortage of workforce analytics and applicant tracking systems designed for recruiting purposes, and many are great at gathering and aggregating “transactional information.” But the trick isn’t merely in collecting the data–it’s in interpreting it, and understanding the importance (or lack thereof of) each data point. Systems like Hadoop are great at gathering large amounts of data, but there’s still a fundamental problem, because people don’t know what they don’t know.
Tomi Engdahl says:
PC skeleton key lets you reset forgotten passwords
http://m.cnet.com.au/pc-skeleton-key-lets-you-reset-forgotten-passwords-339346349.htm?redir=1
A USB “key” seeking funding on Kickstarter contains software that can reset any forgotten Windows password to regain access to your account.
A key-shaped USB, it contains software that allows you to boot your Windows PC in an administrator mode that allows you to view all user accounts for that PC — and reset any or all of the passwords, quickly and easily. You can also use it — along with antivirus software — to clean up after malware that locks you out of your PC.
“While other utilities exist to help with this activity they are often complex to setup, require technical knowledge to use and need a working computer with an Internet connection before you can get started,” Lovell wrote.
As for any potential security concerns, Lovell told CNET Australia that Windows PCs are not particularly secure anyway — if you wish to gain unauthorised access to a Windows PC, you can find methods online to bypass a Windows password within minutes with ease.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ASUS unveils 28-inch, $799 4K display targeting price-sensitive pros
http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/06/asus-28-inch-4k-display/
ASUS’ 31.5-inch 4K monitor may be the ideal display for many content creators, but a typical asking price over $3,000 rules it out for all but the most affluent. Much to our relief, the company is bringing the cost of its technology closer to Earth with a new 28-inch display, the PB287Q. It touts the extra-sharp 3,840 x 2,160 resolution of its bigger sibling, just in a smaller and cheaper form factor.
the PB287Q will ship in the second quarter for $799
Tomi Engdahl says:
CES 2014: New era of inexpensive 4K monitors from Asus, Lenovo and Seiki ushered in
http://9to5mac.com/2014/01/06/ces-2014-new-era-of-inexpensive-4k-monitors-from-asus-lenovo-and-seiki-ushered-in/
With the new Mac Pro capable of powering three 4k displays, new MacBook Pros with Thunderbolt 2 and 4K HDMI 1.4 in many hands and Apple taking its sweet time to release its own monitor, an affordable 4k display is something many people are searching out right now. ASUS, at the Consumer Electronics Show, has just unveiled a new 28-inch 4k monitor that will retail for just $799. Currently, ASUS’ 31.5-inch 4k offering comes in at over $3,000
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oracle swallows Corente, hopes to kick rivals in software networking bits
Larry Ellison’s firm joins the SDN crowd
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/08/oracle_buys_corente/
Oracle is buying software defined networking specialist Corente, upping the stakes in telecoms and cloud.
Corente makes software to manage and provision applications and services regardless of IP network, transport type, access, security or provider over a wide area.
Oracle promised it will deliver “a complete portfolio” for cloud deployments using Corente.
The idea is to combine Oracle’s systems with Corente’s SDN to virtualise the enterprise data centre and local- and wide-area networks, to speed up deployment and improve management and security for clouds.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Calxeda postmortem: Low power WON’T bag ARM the server crown. So here’s how to upset Intel
Ex-marketing veep spills beans on where it all went wrong
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/08/calxeda_postmortem/
In the last days of 2013, Calxeda, the ambitious startup that hoped to design ARM processors for data-center servers, imploded.
Now El Reg has sifted its ashes, and pulled out some advice for the silicon upstart’s contemporaries.
The demise of Calxeda caused many to ponder the viability of general-purpose ARM-powered computing in the data center, especially given Intel’s twin threats of its custom chip business and a newfound dedication to shrinking the power consumption of its Avoton server chips.
The startup’s low-power ECX-1000 used the quad-core 32-bit Cortex-A9 architecture; the ECX-2000 used the Cortex-A15.
“In high tech, we are all trained by the years of the dot-com boom to think that being first to market is critical,”
“In [Calxeda's] case, we moved faster than our customers could move. We moved with tech that wasn’t really ready for them – ie, with 32-bit when they wanted 64-bit. We moved when the operating-system environment was still being fleshed out – [Ubuntu Linux maker] Canonical is all right, but where is Red Hat? We were too early.”
Chips stuffed with 64-bit ARM cores are expected to come along in the first months of this year, though Freund believes it will be in 2015 that the industry adopts the architecture in a big way.
“The big guys, they’ll all experiment with ARM, many of them will deploy ARM, but not until first-generation 64-bit at best,” Freund said.
“Red Hat will not have [an ARM] RHEL until 2015 at the earliest. If you’re an Amazon you’re not going to stand up a big farm of ARM servers if there’s nobody running a big load of software on ARM.”
ARM-compatible processors tend to end up in handheld devices, and thus aren’t as battery hungry as their x86 cousins.
If power-sipping 64-bit ARMv8 server chips have a chance of serious adoption in the data center come 2015, there’s a good chance Intel will at that time be fielding some capable Atom processors with close-to-ARM milliwatt-per-MHz ratings thanks to Chipzilla’s advanced manufacturing expertise.
Just as smartphone makers turn to system-on-chips with touchscreen-driving GPUs and wireless networking built alongside battery-friendly processor cores, server manufacturers should be able to pick up parts that strongly glue multiple cores to gigabit ethernet and high-end SATA controllers.
Bootnote
Intel experimented with ARM-compatible system-on-chips called the Xscale family between 2002 and 2006 at which point it offloaded the tech to Marvell.
co-founder Barry Evans once ran Intel’s Xscale businesses.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Indirect proposition: Inside IBM UK software supremo’s profit plan
Partners and tackling that PC myth…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/08/ibm_steve_smith_importance_of_partners/
Smith is the UK and Ireland head of IBM’s Software Group
As a whole, the group houses DB2, WebSphere, Informix, Rational, Tivoli and Lotus. By next year the plan is that these products will generate half of IBM’s profits.
That’s under the mandate of a 2010 roadmap that says “about” 50 per cent of profits will come from software by 2015 – up from 45 per cent now. If it hits the 50 per cent number, software will widen its lead over hardware and the renowned services unit.
Partners. Smith plans to sign up more in 2014, whom he hopes will customise and distribute more of software group’s products.
Software has become a more profitable venture in the tech business then either hardware or services. Hardware needs to be shipped and stored while prices have gone down, and you can the laws of physics mean you can only sell one unit per customer. Services only grows as you hire more bodies. But the same code can be sold again and again. Also, code doesn’t take up shelf space or demand a salary.
For the record, IBM sold its PC business to Chinese manufacturer Lenovo for $1.24bn in 2004, as part of a strategy to move out of low-priced commodity businesses. IBM’s decision today looks farsighted as Dell has gone private and Hewlett-Packard struggles to reverse losses at the hands of tablets.
IBM makes some chunky ol’ enterprise software and like others in this field – Oracle and SAP – it’s business model has been site licenses and maintenance.
But just as growth is down at Oracle and SAP, so it’s falling at IBM.
But, still, software did do better than hardware and services: hardware fell a whopping 17 per cent and services was down four per cent
Don’t buy the software, float the software
Customers are thinking twice about the need to purchase a license for a piece of software. Instead, they realise they can rent time on or outsource the job to a service provider’s servers instead, or they can virtualise the software on their own high-density servers.
A byproduct of cloud is that customers’ expectations are becoming more pronounced when it comes to actually buying new software. They expect ROI in six to 12 months, not two to three years as they did in the past, Smith said.
“I’d be fooling you and everyone else if I didn’t say it wasn’t more of a challenge in this current environment – you have to work an awful lot harder on articulating a business proposition” – Stephen Smith
Tomi Engdahl says:
USB-IF Updates Us on Type C Connector, Demonstrates USB SuperSpeed 3.1 Transfers
by Brian Klug on January 7, 2014 2:36 PM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7652/usbif-updates-us-on-type-c-connector-demonstrates-usb-superspeed-31-transfers
December of last year, the USB-IF announced that the definition of a new type of compact connector, dubbed type C, was underway.
many saw the definition of a type C connector as a way to learn from previous lessons and design a connector for better, sleeker industrial designs and with a new emphasis on mobile devices like tablets and smartphones.
The type C connector is still in development, and there aren’t any current renderings or drawings, but what has been laid out are the design goals for the new connector design. The connector will be reversible, and able to negotiation which end is host or client (direction-agnostic) with type c connectorization at both ends, although cables will still come in type-A to type-C combinations for use with power adapters and current generation hosts.
In addition USB-IF showed two demos of USB 3.1, the new standard which enables up to 10 Gbps transfer speeds by doubling the clock rate and also moving to a more efficient 128b/132b coding scheme with just 3 percent overhead, compared to the 20% overhead in 10b/8b from USB 3.0. Both demos were implemented on FPGAs, and showed transfer rates right around 1 GB/s (8 Gbps), the second using Synopsis’ FPGA implementation over current generation USB 3.0 cables.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CompactPCI Serial Allows Easy and Flexible Implementation of Faster Point-to-Point Communication Systems
http://www.rtcmagazine.com/articles/view/103395
For industrial OEMs, CompactPCI Serial opens up a new realm of design possibilities and high-performance applications that can capitalize on a proven standard with a healthy ecosystem enhanced with new options for high-bandwidth I/O.
New CompactPCI Serial boards are an ideal solution for these systems as they now communicate in the system via a backplane with Gigabit Ethernet, PCI Express, SATA and USB connections. To make it especially future-proof, this standard was defined to already support the latest interface versions such as USB 3.0, SATA 6 Gbit/s and PCI Express 3.0.
Virtually any information/communication technology (ICT) application in the industrial computing market segment can benefit from the openness, longevity, modularity, robustness and reliability CompactPCI Serial delivers. These key advantages especially help applications that require high-speed serial interconnects for network, storage or PCIe data throughput. Migrating from CompactPCI to CompactPCI Serial is easily possible by adding a second backplane into the chassis—one backplane for classic CompactPCI and the second backplane for CompactPCI Serial. The only additional building block required is a bridge between CompactPCI Serial and CompactPCI. This bridge functionality can be simply implemented, e.g. as a feature of the processor board’s extension card.
Further, new design possibilities are enabled with the presence of rear I/O and the addition of fat pipe capabilities and multiple peripheral slots.
As CompactPCI Serial is compatible with the mechanical form factors defined in the IEC 1101, no changes are necessary to existing housing or cooling and systems can be reused from the standard CompactPCI platform.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CIO and CMO, Management Team Batman and Robin?
The long-known fact is that marketing executives (CMO, Chief Marketing Officer) are increasingly using corporate IT resources.
The research house Gartner estimates that by 2017, the marketing decides larger share of IT purchases as the chief information officer (CIO, Chief Information Officer).
Forrester Research analyst Sheryl Pattek to predict the CIO and CMO OF by jen bound to come into work together.
“Yet, only one in ten IT and Marketing, believes the CIO and CMO relationships work in practice,”
According to CIO’s and CMO’s are approaching the company’s problems in a very different kind of angle. CMO’s are understandably interested in the marketing perspective, the CIO’s by the IT departments and IT tasks, project costs.
One of the CIO and CMO straining relations between thing related to IT projects, the timing and schedules. IT leaders believe that marketing is always too busy, so to be able to weigh the issues in depth.
Pattekin view, bearing in mind, too, that the marketing of IT tools are really still in its infancy. Our marketing is enough energy and enthusiasm, but not knowledge.
“The company’s IT decisions depend largely on how the customer-oriented companies are. Both marketing and IT side will certainly need a better vision of what customers really need,” Pattek estimates.
One way to solve problems is, of course, that the CIO and CMO are one and the same person. American IT giant Motorola Solutions, has been tried such a solution.
Source:
Tietoviikko
http://www.tietoviikko.fi/cio/cio+ja+cmo+johtoryhman+batman+ja+robin/a958032
Tomi Engdahl says:
CIOs and CMOs: Power couple or strange bedfellows?
Forced marriage of IT and marketing gets off to a rocky start
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2014/010614-cio-cmo-277271.html
Marketing departments are shifting significant amounts of their own budgets toward IT-related products and services, independent of what the IT department spends, to the extent that Gartner predicts that by 2017 chief marketing officers (CMO) will spend more money on IT than chief information officers (CIO).
Tomi Engdahl says:
The INQUIRER Android Experiment: Episode Two
The Droids are alive with the sound of music
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/feature/2321210/the-inquirer-android-experiment-episode-two
Tomi Engdahl says:
Steam Machines
CES 2014
http://media.steampowered.com/store/steammachines/SteamMachinesBroc_WEB.PDF
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windroid confirmed: Intel CEO offers dual Android-Windows systems
January 6, 2014 7:13 PM
Dean Takahashi
http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/06/windroid-confirmed-intel-ceo-offers-dual-android-windows-systems/
Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich today confirmed rumors that the company would promote dual operating systems on future computers that combine both Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows.
He said that the new computers would offer the best of both worlds
This kind of capability is already available through platforms such as Bluestacks, who told us last that it wasn’t afraid of competition from Intel (which is also an investor). Intel will be a heavy-duty promoter of the dual OS, but it remains to be seen how PC makers respond.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The problem with an Intel push for an Android Windows marriage
http://memeburn.com/2014/01/the-problem-with-intels-push-for-an-android-windows-marriage/
Android and Windows running in harmony on the same machine isn’t something new. Whether it’s by dual-booting — choosing which OS to boot when starting a device — or virtualisation — think BlueStacks — we’ve seen companies like Samsung and ViewSonic take a stab at the idea with the Ativ Q and ViewPad 10Pro, respectively. But now, Intel is said to be poised to throw its weight behind the idea.
Just as the world’s largest consumer electronics show is about to begin, rumours are surfacing that we are about to see a flurry of Intel-blessed devices emerge from International CES 2014 that can run Android apps inside Windows 8.1, through some form of Intel-optimised virtualisation — no reboot required.
Is this what consumers want? Maybe. Is this what Google and Microsoft want? According to reports, the answer is resounding, no.
It looks like the idea Intel is putting forward to stifle slumping PC sales are at odds with Microsoft and Google’s vision
Microsoft wants a Windows plus Windows Phone marriage, and Google is staring another fragmentation conundrum in the face.
Tomi Engdahl says:
When Doctors ‘Google’ Their Patients
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/when-doctors-google-their-patients-2/?_r=0
I remember when I first looked up a patient on Google.
As I stood before the patient, taking her history, she told me she had been a painter and suggested I look up her work on the Internet. I did, and I found her paintings fascinating.
Google has taught me other things, too, things that don’t come up during the routine history-taking or medication checks of my usual doctor-patient interactions.
Knowing more about my patients as people helps build empathy.
Doctors do “Google” their patients. In fact, the vast majority of physicians I know have done so. To my generation, using a search engine like Google comes as naturally as sharing pictures of our children or a recent vacation on a social networking site like Facebook.
I am tempted to prescribe that physicians should never look online for information about their patients, though I think the practice will become only more common, given doctors’ — and all of our — growing dependence on technology. The more important question health care providers need to ask themselves is why we would like to.
To me, the only legitimate reason to search for a patient’s online footprint is if there is a safety issue.
Tomi Engdahl says:
I Wore the New Oculus Rift and I Never Want to Look at Real Life Again
http://gizmodo.com/i-wore-the-new-oculus-rift-and-i-never-want-to-look-at-1496569598
So the Oculus Rift is fantastic. If you’ve used it in its original incarnation, you know that it’s incredible. It’s virtual reality done better than you’ve ever seen it before. It’s revolutionary. And it’s nothing compared to what’s coming next. I mean Oh. My. God.
Dubbed Crystal Cove, the newest model of Oculus isn’t meant for consumers. It’s also not just the 1080p upgrade that’s been floating around (though it does have a glorious 1080p panel). It’s a lot more than that.
There are two main upgrades here, the first of which is “positional tracking.” Previous models of the Oculus treated your head like it was affixed to a stick in the ground. A rolling, pitching, yawing brain-box with a body that couldn’t move. No more. Thanks to an external camera, the Oculus can now grok the motion of your entire upper body. This means you can lean in to get a closer look at control panels, or lean to the side to peak around a corner.
But it’s not just positional tracking. Crystal Cove also has a screen technology called “low persistence” that helps make the whole experience better and less nauseariffic. In the Oculus Rift dev kit models, swinging your head around caused pretty serious motion blur motion blur.
With low persistence, this smearing is gone
And this isn’t even the consumer model yet!
Tomi Engdahl says:
The First Look at the New Oculus VR Prototype
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2014/01/oculus-rift/
Every time virtual-reality company Oculus brings a prototype of its Rift headset to a show, it takes another big step forward. And the prototype at this year’s CES may be the biggest leap yet.
“We’ll need some seat belts for people. You want to stand up, you want to walk around.” — Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dell Wasn’t Joking About That 28-Inch Sub-$1000 4K Monitor; It’s Only $699
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2014/01/07/dell-wasnt-joking-about-that-28-inch-sub-1000-4k-monitor-its-only-699/
Last month Dell launched a pair of UltraSharp monitors boasting 4K resolution, and dangled a sweet carrot in front of our early adopting paws: a forthcoming 28-inch Ultra HD monitor that would retail for less than $1000. Today at CES 2014 Dell revealed it, along with an aggressive price tag: $699.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft CEO Selection Unlikely to Come in January, as Candidate List Contracts and Expands
http://recode.net/2014/01/08/microsoft-ceo-selection-unlikely-to-come-in-january-as-candidate-list-contracts-and-expands/
Tomi Engdahl says:
IBM Struggles to Turn Watson Computer Into Big Business
Revenue Is Far From Company’s Ambitious Targets
http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304887104579306881917668654-lMyQjAxMTA0MDAwNzEwNDcyWj
Three years after International Business Machines Corp. IBM began trying to turn its “Jeopardy”-winning computer into a big business, revenue from Watson is far from the company’s ambitious targets.
IBM Chief Executive Virginia “Ginni” Rometty has told executives she hopes Watson will generate $10 billion in annual revenue within 10 years, according to an October 2013 conference-call transcript reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. She set that target after the executive in charge of Watson said its business plan would bring in $1 billion of revenue a year by 2018. That would make Watson the fastest IBM business unit to reach the $1 billion milestone.
But Watson had total revenue of less than $100 million as of late October, according to the transcript.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows and Android on one PC? Here’s how AMD and Intel plan to do it
http://www.zdnet.com/windows-and-android-on-one-pc-heres-how-amd-and-intel-plan-to-do-it-7000024942/
Summary: Intel and partners are going to be bringing us PCs that run both Android and Windows 8.1. Meanwhile, AMD and its partner BlueStacks will enable users to run Android and its apps on Windows.
With Intel, AMD, HP, Lenovo, and Asus all throwing their weight behind Android on the desktop, this isn’t just a shot in the dark. Serious businesses believe that Android has a real role on the desktop. For that matter, Microsoft—of all companies!—seems to think people will want a dual-boot Android/Windows smartphone.
Intel, however, isn’t telling us much about how they’ll marry Android and Windows with Dual OS. The one model that currently uses it, the Asus Transformer Book Duet, lets you jump from one operating system to the other with the press of a button.
AMD has been much more forthcoming. “Windows and Android are both mature operating systems, each satisfying the needs of millions of users,”
AMD and BlueStacks have created a seamless user experience between the operating systems.
BlueStacks does this, not by using a virtual machine (VM) per se, but by running an emulation of Android Dalvik on top of Windows. It can be slow on older systems, but it works well on today’s modern hardware.
On its systems, AMD claims that users won’t have to run just Android apps on Windows. Instead, they’ll be able to use the familiar Android user interface, including settings, configuration and customization controls instead of using Windows 8′s Metro. They’ll also be able to run Android apps within a window or at full-screen resolution thanks to AMD Radeon graphics processing power.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Million-Year Data Storage Disk Unveiled
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/520541/million-year-data-storage-disk-unveiled/
Magnetic hard discs can store data for little more than a decade. But nanotechnologists have now designed and built a disk that can store data for a million years or more.
Back in 1956, IBM introduced the world’s first commercial computer capable of storing data on a magnetic disk drive. The IBM 305 RAMAC used fifty 24-inch discs to store up to 5 MB, an impressive feat in those days. Today, however, it’s not difficult to find hard drives that can store 1 TB of data on a single 3.5-inch disk.
But despite this huge increase in storage density and a similarly impressive improvement in power efficiency, one thing hasn’t changed. The lifetime over which data can be stored on magnetic discs is still about a decade.
That raises an interesting problem. How are we to preserve information about our civilisation on a timescale that outlasts it? In other words, what technology can reliably store information for 1 million years or more?
Today, we get an answer thanks to the work of Jeroen de Vries at the University of Twente in the Netherlands and a few pals. These guys have designed and built a disk capable of storing data over this timescale. And they’ve performed accelerated ageing tests which show it should be able to store data for 1 million years and possibly longer.
This is based on the idea that data must be stored in an energy minimum that is separated from other minima by an energy barrier. So to corrupt data by converting a 0 to a 1, for example, requires enough energy to overcome this barrier.
Some straightforward calculations reveal that to last a million years, the required energy barrier is 63 KBT or 70 KBT to last a billion years. “These values are well within the range of today’s technology,” say de Vries and co.
And to prove the point, they go ahead and build a disk capable of storing information for this period of time. The disk is simple in conception. The data is stored in the pattern of lines etched into a thin metal disc and then covered with a protective layer.
These guys made their disc using standard patterning techniques and stored data in the form of QR codes with lines 100nm wide.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Linux Kernel News – December 2013
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/linux-kernel-news-december-2013
The last 3.13 release candidate for 2013 came out on December 29th.
Energy-aware scheduling use-cases and scheduler issues
A scheduler that is unaware of power topology, frequency scaling, and heterogeneous cores would make sub-optimal task migration decisions that could result in bad performance as well as poor energy savings. Scheduling audio tasks on 3-cpus could consume more energy without measurable performance gains
In some cases, scheduling tasks on a cpu that is active is better for energy savings compared to the cost of bringing an idle cpu to a fully active state.
Linux Allwinner ARM SoCs upstream support?
The linux-sunxi community has been making steady progress towards adding support for Allwinner ARM open-hardware SoCs. There is a good chance that the bulk of the support will be in included in 3.14 or 3.15. There is also a parallel effort in adding support for these boards in Fedora 21+ kernels.
Final Thoughts
The Energy-aware scheduling work is long overdue. Current scheduler is unable to meet the demands of diverse work-loads and fails to balance energy savings and performance on mobile devices. The hope is that 2014 will see some concrete discussion and move towards incorporating and/or enhancing the current scheduler with energy-aware features
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Most In-Demand Tech Skills: Why Java And The Classics Ruled 2013
Last year, employers stuck to the classics.
http://readwrite.com/2014/01/08/in-demand-tech-skills-of-2013-java#awesm=~osrFBdbovz80kl
If you’re a Java developer, chances are you did pretty well for yourself in 2013.
At least, that’s according to statistics from Stack Overflow. Thousands of companies use the website’s Careers 2.0 search in order to find job applicants with specific developer skills each year. In 2013 Java took the lead as the most frequently searched skill keyword.
“Java is hugely popular for a wide variety of companies, it’s the most common language across the world that developers use and are proficient at, and it’s relevant knowledge for a growing market in Android development,” said Cole. “Love it or hate it, many people know Java, and many companies want those developers.”
Stack Overflow isn’t isolated in putting Java on top. According a survey by Dice, a technology career center, employers listed Java as the number-one developer skill they’d be seeking out over the course of 2013.
According to job search site Indeed, demand for Java developers has remained steady for nearly a decade. Android development, which often utilizes Java, is currently Indeed’s fourth most popular trending skill (as well as Stack Overflow’s fourth most searched keyword).
Indeed, most of the skills on the Stack Overflow chart have been around for a long time. There’s no Hadoop, Node.js, or any other buzzword skill in the top ten.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung whips out 12.2-inch ‘Professional’ iPad killers
New tablet line debuts with improved UI, zippier Wi-Fi, potent processor
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/07/samsung_introduces_professional_tablet_line/
CES 2014 Samsung has taken aim at the professional end of the tablet market with a new line of “Pro” tablets – including two 12.2-inch models – and in doing so has thrown down the gauntlet to not only all other Android tablet manufacturers, but to Apple and Microsoft as well.
“What we always hear consistently is that people want to do more with their tablets,” Samsung Telecommunications America VP for tablets and emerging business Nanda Ramachandrar told a press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on Monday afternoon.
Samsung has replaced its TouchWiz interface with a new customizable UI it calls Magazine UX, which is the first thing you see when you unlock one of the tablets, and which has more than a little widgety whiff of Windows 8.1 about it. Magazine UX “funnels all your content and information onto three stylish screens” that appear on the home page, Ramachandrar said, and among which you can flip back and forth
In addition to a larger virtual keyboard, another UI element that takes advantage of the increased display real estate is what Ramachandrar described as an “enhanced Multi Window feature,” which allows you to view up to four different apps simultaneously,
The Pro tablets, he explained, have been optimized for Cisco’s WebEx web conferencing service for remote conferencing – a six-month free trial is included.. For non-remote conferencing, up to 40 of the devices can be joined in a collaborative editing mode when on the same Wi-Fi network using Samsung’s E-Meeting tech.
Other components inside the Pro tablets include a 2.3GHz quad-core processor – either Samsung’s own Exynos or a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, we presume – plus 3GB of RAM and a 9500mAh battery that Ramachandrar claims will provide over 10 hours of battery life for watching video. The operating system is Samsung’s version of Google Android 4.4, aka KitKat.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Developer skills valuation based on searches:
Java (22,26 %)
PHP (11.53 %)
C# (10,74 %)
Android (9,94 %)
JavaScript (9,23 %)
Python (8,30 %)
Rails (8,29 %)
iOS (7,53 %)
.Net (7,22 %)
C++ (4,96 %)
Source: Tietokone
http://www.tietokone.fi/artikkeli/uutiset/koodari_java_kannattaa_hallita
Tomi Engdahl says:
Swiftech: Enhanced Liquid-Cooling Options
by Jarred Walton on January 9, 2014 3:58 AM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7662/swiftech-enhanced-liquidcooling-options
Swiftech is a fairly well-known name in the realm of computer cooling, founded nearly 20 years ago by Gabriel Rouchon (but not officially named Swiftech until 2001). While they have various other products, at CES their focus is solely on the world of liquid cooling.
Last year they unveiled a new product similar to a closed-loop-cooling (CLC) kit that incorporated a pump on the CPU waterblock, with the interesting twist being that it came with quick disconnect valves and the pump is powerful enough to drive a full liquid-cooling setup with GPU(s), chipset, and of course CPU. This year, they’re going in a similar route only now the pump is being integrated onto the radiator.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Human overlord Watson lives in the ‘clouds’ now, in a $1bn cognition unit. Don’t be afraid
IBM ploughs cash pile into new lucrative biz for supercomputer
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/09/ibm_watson_business_unit/
IBM has said that it wants to throw more than a billion dollars at powerful cognition overlord and Jeopardy!-playing human crusher Watson… so that the supercomputer can become a new business unit.
The Watson Group will be headed up by Big Blue’s former senior veep of software solutions Michael Rhodin and will try to milk some more revenue out of the supercomputer that beat human competitors on the US quiz show three years ago.
Watson was designed to answer questions asked in natural language and make judgements based on its vast databanks, two of the most difficult tasks in creating computers that even approach artificial intelligence.
IBM already announced in November last year that it was planning to make the tech available as a development platform in the cloud, so that application developers can come up with new apps using Watson’s cognitive computing intelligence. The company is earmarking $100m of its investment to boost innovation in this cloud, which it calls the Watson Developers Cloud.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kickstarter’s 2013 Saw 3M Crowdfunders Pledge $480M, 19.9K Successfully Funded Projects
http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/08/kickstarter-2013-breakdown/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM and EMC have most to lose in China post NSA-gate: Report
http://gigaom.com/2014/01/09/cisco-hp-ibm-and-emc-have-most-to-lose-in-china-post-nsa-gate-report/
Summary:
A new Sanford Bernstein research note susses out the potential damage to U.S. tech companies — especially in China — in the wake of Edward Snowden’s disclosures.
“While spying has occurred across many companies, governments and corporations, we believe U.S. technology companies face the most revenue risk in China by a wide margin, followed by Brazil and other emerging markets.
The degree of risk faced by U.S. providers in China depends on how much domestic competition they face.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BBC: Valve to release VR dev kit to play nice with the Oculus Rift
http://gigaom.com/2014/01/09/bbc-valve-to-release-vr-dev-kit-to-play-nice-with-the-oculus-rift/
Summary:
The Steam Machine line may have access to virtual reality very early in its life cycle.
Tomi Engdahl says:
You’re fired: Lord Sugar offloads faded PC builder Viglen to XMA
Cycles away from the biz he helmed for 15 years
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2014/01/09/viglen_merges_with_xma/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gartner: PC shipments slip 6.9% to 82.6m units in Q4, as 2013 sees the worst yearly decline in history
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/01/09/gartner-pc-shipments-slip-6-9-82-6m-units-q4-2013-seventh-consecutive-quarter-decline/#!rRFPo
The PC market continues to be in free fall, having now seen its seventh consecutive quarter of declining worldwide shipments. Worldwide PC shipments dropped to 82.6 million units in the fourth quarter of 2013, according to Gartner, a 6.9 percent decrease from the same period last year.
It’s worth emphasizing that this past quarter resulted in a total of 315.9 million units shipped in 2013, a 10 percent decline from 2012, and the worst decline in PC market history. The overall shipment level was equal to the one in 2009.
While Lenovo and Dell managed to grow their respective shares in Q4, this was not enough to offset the losses seen by HP, Acer, Asus, and the rest of the market
Tomi Engdahl says:
CES: Intel talks up Edison micro computer
Intel details the company’s mini machine with Linux and WiFi
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2322067/ces-intel-talks-up-edison-micro-computer-video
Tomi Engdahl says:
Closing Windows: Microsoft and its platforms are nowhere to be found at CES
http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/9/5291910/microsoft-ces-2014-nowhere-to-be-found-report
For over a decade, Microsoft was the dominant presence at CES. But since pulling out of the show in 2013, the company has faded almost completely from view this year: the biggest Microsoft story at CES 2014 is that first-choice CEO candidate Alan Mulally has declined the job.
Since it’s not at the show, Microsoft has left it up to its hardware partners to push Windows 8. This year there’s an absence of new Windows PCs, especially exciting ones, and it’s noticeable. With a lack of new products and no presence on the floor, Microsoft and its platforms are almost nowhere to be seen.
This year the company has barely involved itself with CES
Although Apple and Google officially sit out the biggest tech trade show of the year, their platforms are well represented by the third parties that create thousands of products for them. This year it feels like Microsoft is simply being left out. It’s certainly not getting any secondary attention from PC partners: while recent years at CES have seen products like the Yoga, ThinkPad Helix, and super-thin ultrabooks from a variety of PC-makers, this year it’s been difficult to pinpoint a laptop or hybrid star. After the launch of Windows 8.1, new Surface 2 devices, and a host of fresh hardware for the holidays, PC-makers appear to have paused and put the brakes on any adventurous hardware at CES this year.
This year’s CES is either a realization that it’s difficult (maybe impossible) to create the perfect hybrid hardware right now, or it’s a sign that the players in this space are starting to focus their energy elsewhere.
Toshiba is the only PC-maker that’s attempting to showcase its future vision. The company has a “shape-shifting” five-in-one PC
As tablets continue to increase in popularity and eat into laptop sales, it’s also possible that the industry has hit a spot where tablets are now able to replace laptops for more and more people. “We’re arriving at a sweet spot where Intel / AMD tablets are now becoming desktop, let alone laptop, replacements,” says Miller. “These tablets are combining the right mix of portability / weight, performance, and price such that a lot of users who would have held out for a laptop, because it was more powerful, might want a tablet instead, and even be willing to live with some compromises in order to benefit from the other form-factor benefits and flexibility.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dell will AXE up to ONE IN THREE workers in its US & EMEA sales teams
Box-shifters: Welcome to the new Dell. Now pack up your desks
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/09/dell_sales_redundancies/
We’re hearing from two sources that Dell is making 30 per cent of its sales and marketing staff in Europe, the Middle East and Africa redundant while cutting 20 per cent of its US-based sales staffers.
One source said: “Precisely 30 per cent, across EMEA.”
There is no word on what’s happening on the sales floor in the Asia Pacific region or the rest of the Americas region.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BEAM ME UP… twice: No local storage on Transporter Sync
Connected: Never fear, we plan to add local library soon
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/02/transporter_sync/
The Transporter product is a networked storage system which provides a peer network-based private file sharing and synchronisation cloud between a user’s networked computer systems – desktops, notebooks, tablets and smartphones.
Each of these systems has a network link to its local Transporter device and the Transporters, in turn, link to each other and function like a Dropbox cloud, only without an external cloud service, thus providing greater file security and saving the expense of an external cloud service.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Barracuda announces BaaS – Backup as a Service – range of boxen
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/10/baabah_barracudas_baas/
Barracuda’s Backup “supports replication to another Barracuda appliance for private-cloud data protection or secure transfer to the Barracuda Cloud.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why 2014 might just be the year of the Google Chromebook
Netbooks done properly: Cheap, the right size and without Windows
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/10/2014_chromebook_surge/
Can Google’s Chromebook become the laptop platform of choice during 2014? Probably not, but there’s certainly demand for it. According to US market-watcher NPD, during the 11 months from January through November 2013, the platform’s share of the computing device market had risen to 9.6 per cent from just 0.2 per cent in the same months of the previous year.
By contrast, Apple’s laptops accounted for a mere 1.8 per cent of the market in 2013, down from 2.6 per cent the year before. Windows-based laptops also declined, though they remain the biggest seller: their combined share fell from 42.9 per cent to 34.1 per cent.
Do the sums, and that means Windows laptops took 75 per cent of the US notebook market, Chromebooks 21 per cent and Apple a measly four per cent. Some 6.6 million laptops were shipped through commercial channels, says NPD, of which just under 1.4 million were Chromebooks.
Tablets showed that size need not be a problem for the kind of casual, browsing- or communications-centric jobs a lot of folk use computers for at home.
“We believe the market will accelerate greatly in the next 12 months,” said Parker. “I think Chromebooks can be very impactful in the market really quickly.”
As for the other, Windows, now that punters have grown accustomed to alternative operating systems through their experiences with iOS and Android, they’re clearly far more open to the idea of having a laptop without Windows than they were in the middle of the last decade.
“The presumption that desktop Windows is ‘most familiar’ [to users] no longer applies,” says Jeff Orr of ABI Research, a market watcher.
Tomi Engdahl says:
GIGABYTE at CES 2014: BRIX MAX SFF NAS, running Android
by Ian Cutress on January 10, 2014 3:07 AM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7668/gigabyte-at-ces-2014-brix-max-sff-nas-running-android
a Haswell based BRIX running Android aimed at being a NAS Server for the home.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The system language is after all, not in Hebrew, but the first impression of the user interface is not particularly inspiring
Still, I would hope that the IT system usability and user interface design in general, pay more attention to than it is now. It would be a pleasure to use application that has really invested in a clear layout and ease of use. Maybe a new system really make it easier and faster to work in the very first accessed, using a onwards.
Yes their usability and user interface design focus a lot. You’re just wrong user group.
The fair will the HR department asking whether a reporting unit availability better than the previous system. Yes it is.
These systems are designed and made for those to whom it is sold. That is, the management, not the workers. It’s a system is not there for you, so what’s all the same you feel.
Management is of course wrong in this, but it is not a system supplier failure. Supplier rubs those properties, of which the customer is interested. Employees’ job is to educate the management in this regard for example, so that you refuse to use it until it is better. Then it is of interest.
Source:
http://www.tietoviikko.fi/blogit/uutiskommentti/kun+kayttaja+tuntee+itsensa+tyhmaksi/a958661
Tomi Engdahl says:
Thought sales were in the toilet before? Behold the agony: 2013 was a PC market BLOODBATH
Worst. Year. Ever
By Shaun Nichols, 10th January 2014
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/10/pc_market_sees_worst_year_ever/
The decline is the worst the company has seen in its history, with the Asia Pacific, EMEA and North American markets all seeing a decline. Overall, analysts estimate that some 315, 967,516 PCs were shipped worldwide, compared to 352,059,698 PCs shipped in 2012 and 365,364,175 units shipped in 2011.
“Strong growth in tablets continued to negatively impact PC growth in emerging markets. In emerging markets, the first connected device for consumers is most likely a smartphone, and their first computing device is a tablet.”