FRAMINGHAM, Mass., January 11, 2018 – Worldwide shipments of traditional PCs (desktop, notebook, and workstation) totaled 70.6 million units in the fourth quarter of 2017 (4Q17), recording slightly positive (0.7%) year-on-year growth, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. The results outperformed the forecast of a 1.7% decline in shipments during the quarter.

The 4Q17 results further validate the view of a steadying, albeit still weak, traditional PC market, buoyed mainly by commercial upgrades and pockets of improving consumer PC demand. 2017 ended with an annual shipment volume of 259.5 million units, which represents a year-over-year decline of 0.2%. This makes 2017 the most stable year the market has seen since 2011.

Aside from commercial demand, 2017 was further helped by several other factors. Although the situation improved as the year progressed, the shortage of key components such as SSD (Solid State Drives) acted as a major driver of shipments for much of 2017, with top PC companies vying to lock up supply ahead of price increases and thus boosting orders. In response to the contracting tablet market, companies also returned their focus to the notebook market, shifting the product mix to appeal to key user segments and expanding the number of slim, convertible, and gaming systems.

Amid Market Consolidation, the Top Four PC Vendors Accounted for 64 Percent of Shipments in 2017

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 71.6 million units in the fourth quarter of 2017, a 2 percent decline from the fourth quarter of 2016, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. For the year, 2017 PC shipments surpassed 262.5 million units, a 2.8 percent decline from 2016. It was the 13th consecutive quarter of declining global PC shipments, as well as the sixth year of annual declines. However, Gartner analysts said there were some signs for optimism.

“In the fourth quarter of 2017, there was PC shipment growth in Asia/Pacific, Japan and Latin America. There was only a moderate shipment decline in EMEA,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. “However, the U.S. market saw a steep decline, which offset the generally positive results in other regions.

“The fourth quarter results confirmed again that PCs are no longer popular holiday gift items. This does not mean that PCs will disappear from households,” Kitagawa said. “Rather, the PC will become a more specialized, purpose-driven device.”

Can playing too many video games be a mental health condition? In some circumstances, the World Health Organization thinks that it can be, New Scientist has learned.

The WHO is to include gaming disorder in its International Classification of Diseases for the first time. This widely used diagnostic manual was last updated in 1990, and the latest version – called ICD-11 – is set to be published in 2018.

The wording of the gaming disorder entry that will be included in ICD-11 is yet to be finalised

The PC market is beginning to show some signs of stabling, with traditional PC shipments recording a slightly positive 0.7 percent year-over-year growth worldwide in Q4 2017 and total year-over-year decline of 0.2 percent in full year 2017, according to research released by IDC.

IDC said 2017 marked the most stable year for the PC market since 2011 with annual shipment volume of 259.5 million units.

In the holiday quarter, PC vendors shipped 70.6 million units, out performing estimates of a 1.7 percent decline. However despite the small quarterly growth of 0.7 percent, mobile devices are continuing to have a dampening effect on the global PC market.

In the United States, the purchasing power of consumers was in good shape during the Christmas season, but PCs did not end up in the present boxes. Instead, there were new smartphones, smart loudspeakers and home digital auxiliaries.

In October-December, the US sold only 15.2 million PCs. The figure is eight percent lower than in the previous year. The only manufacturer that had sold its sales volume was HP, according to Gartner.

HP went on to become the biggest PC maker last year, past Lenovo. The company sold 55.2 million micro, which meant a 21% market share. Lenovo dropped to 20.8 percent.

Dell increased its sales sluggishly, with a market share of 15.2%. Apple’s Macbook sales grew to 19.3 million units, while its market share grew faster than Asus.

However, Gartner does not yet declare that the PC will disappear completely from the homes. However, it is becoming a more specialized device to perform well-defined tasks. Buyers begin to look at quality and functionality instead of cheap prices.

Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7390&via=n&datum=2018-01-12_14:37:20&mottagare=31202

Microsoft plans to integrate Avere’s file system and caching technologies for Windows and Linux clients with its Azure cloud.

Following three successive Mont-Blanc projects since 2011, the three core partners Arm, Barcelona Supercomputing Center and Bull (Atos Group) have come together to develop the next generation of industrial processor for high performance computing (HPC). The latest project is looking to pave the way to a future low-power European processor and ecosystem for exascale computing systems, with new European Commission Horizon2020 funding of 10.1 million Euros (about $12 million).

The Mont-Blanc 2020 consortium also includes CEA, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Kalray and SemiDynamics.

Canonical has halted downloads of Ubuntu Linux 17.10, aka Artful Aardvark, from its website after punters complained installing the open-source OS on laptops knackered the machines.

Specifically, the desktop flavor of Artful Aardvark, released in October, has been temporarily pulled – the server builds and other editions remain available. A corrected version of 17.10 for desktops is due to be released soon.

The cockup mainly affects Lenovo computers, although other systems may also fall foul: selected Acer, HP, Toshiba and Dell hardware are said to be hit, too.

Many users are reporting issues with BIOS corruption with 17.10. This seems to stem from enabling the intel-spi-* drivers in the kernel, which don’t appear to be ready for use on end-user machines.”

Intel’s SPI driver is a piece of kernel-level software that allows the operating system to access and rewrite the firmware’s flash storage on the motherboard via a serial communication interface.

Seemingly, a gremlin within this code causes the firmware’s data to become write protected, triggering further failures.

We’re told Canonical will remove the SPI driver from its kernel, and rerelease Artful Aardvark.

If your BIOS is already affected by this blunder, you may have to replace the firmware’s flash memory chip – or the whole motherboard – if reseting the BIOS or this suggested workaround, or some other remedy, do not resolve the matter.

Just yesterday, Nvidia released its new GeForce 388.71 WHQL driver. As it turns out, that could be one of the last to support 32-bit operating systems, according to a support page listed by the company.

Release 390 will be the last to support the legacy architecture, and according to Ars Technica, that is likely to arrive in January. Nvidia also says that it will support critical security fixes for an additional year, but 32-bit machines won’t get any new features, optimizations, or enhancements.

Indeed, there are reasons that some people may still be on a 32-bit version of an OS, and that includes legacy software. 64-bit flavors of Windows can’t run 16-bit software, but 32-bit Windows can.

Nvidia to cease producing new drivers for 32-bit systems
Bit by bit, the PC world is continuing to drop its legacy support.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/12/nvidia-to-cease-producing-new-drivers-for-32-bit-systems/

While most people have probably made the switch by now, yet another reason to drop 32-bit operating systems and move to 64-bits is coming. Version 390 of Nvidia’s graphics drivers, likely to arrive in January, will be the last to contain support for 32-bit versions of Windows (7, 8/8.1, and 10), Linux, and FreeBSD.

There will be another year of security updates for 32-bit drivers, but all new features, performance enhancements, and support for new hardware will require the use of a 64-bit operating system and 64-bit drivers.

Tech market researcher IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Converged Systems Tracker has found that worldwide converged systems market revenue increased 10.8 per cent year over year to $2.99bn during the third quarter of 2017 (3Q17) – and that the market inhaled a massive 1.96 EB of new storage capacity during the quarter, up 30 per cent on the year.

IDC splits this market into three sections: certified reference systems & integrated infrastructure, hyper-converged systems, and integrated platforms.

Certified reference systems are converged system architectures, such as the Cisco-NetApp FlexPod. Integrated infrastructure are these systems supplied pre-built and pre-tested, with Dell EMC’s VxBlock being the classic example.

There were revenues of $l.44bn for the certified reference systems and integrated infrastructure segment in the quarter

It’s obvious that the Integrated Infrastructure sub-segment saw falling revenues. The market leader in this category is Dell, with $697.2m in sales and a 48.3 per cent share.

Hyper-converged systems sales grew 68.0 per cent y-on-y to $1bn, 33.5 per cent of the total converged systems market revenue.

Dell was top canine, with a 30.6 per cent share, having grown 158.3 per cent to $306.8mn in revenue y-o-y.

Second was Nutanix, market leader a year ago,

HPE also saw triple-digit growth of 144.4 per cent to $35.6m.

The hyper-converged and converged reference architecture areas of the storage market are the hottest one of all, and now dominated by incumbent players, counting Nutanix as an incumbent.

We think Scale Computing is making progress in the hyper-converged area but would be surprised if many other players in the Others category outgrew the market.