January 14, 2011
PC market limps into 2011
Channel Register
John Oates writes about the worldwide PC market.
“The worldwide market for PCs grew just 2.7 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2010 despite generous pricing and Christmas promotions. Figures from IDC put total shipments at 92.1M – making it the largest ever quarter. But analysts warned that softening consumer demand, the fading of interest in mini notebooks and competition from Apple’s iPad all restricted PC sales in the period. David Daoud, IDC’s research director for its Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, said: ‘Growth steadily slowed throughout 2010 as weakening demand and competition from the Apple iPad constrained PC shipments … consumers are being more cautious with their purchases and competing devices have been vying for consumer dollars. This situation is likely to persist in 2011, if not worsen, as a wave of media tablets could put a dent in the traditional PC market.’”
Microsoft working on ‘Concero’ cloud-management portal
ZD Net
Mary Jo Foley shares details about Microsoft’s upcoming management tool code-named “Concero.”
“Microsoft is building a new management tool, code-named ‘Concero,’ that will allow customers to oversee both on-premises and cloud-based services. Microsoft is planning to show off the new member of its System Center product line at the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) 2011 conference in March. The Concero tool will allow customers to manage both on-premises Services running on Hyper-V hypervisor and System Center Virtual Machine Manager (a new version of which is due in the latter half of 2011), and off-premises Services running on Windows Azure and Windows Azure Appliances. Concero will be built on Silverlight, to enable an ‘access anywhere’ experience, according to information on Microsoft’s Web site.”
Freecom gets slim with Mobile Drive Mg portable hard drive, supports USB 3.0 and FireWire 800
Engadget
Darren Murph writes that according to Freecom, it has released the “world’s slimmest portable hard disk drive’ (HDD).
“Been awhile, hasn’t it Freecom? The same company responsible for serving up the world’s first portable USB 3.0 hard drive is now responsible for cranking out the world’s slimmest portable HDD. At just ten millimeters thick, the Mobile Drive Mg is likely thinner than your average ink pen, touting a magnesium enclosure and a USB 3.0 port, enabling it to shoot data back and forth at rates as high as 130MB/sec. Oddly enough, the drive will only be made available through Apple Premium Resellers, despite the fact that no existing Mac ships with native USB 3.0 support. At any rate, it’ll be on sale within the week for $69.95 (320GB) or $109.95 (750GB), with a high-end 750GB model offering both USB 3.0 and FireWire 800 for $119.95.”
