Computer Industry Update: 1/7/09

LENOVO TO LAUNCH 50 PRODUCTS IN CONSUMER SEGMENT THIS YEAR
New Delhi
Business Standard  Mint  Financial Chronicle  

Bullish on the consumer segment, Chinese computer giant Lenovo today said it will launch 50 new products this year to strengthen its product portfolio.

"India is a very important market for us and we will launch a series of products in the market here... The consumer segment has seen a strong demand and we will launch 50 products in this segment this year," Lenovo India Managing Director Amar Babu said here.

Lenovo today launched seven new notebooks and netbooks in the Indian market in the price range of Rs 22,500 - Rs 1.04 lakh as a part of the consumer segment, which comprises about 40 percent of the Indian revenues. The company sells about 150,000 units quarterly.

"The notebooks would currently be imported, but as the demand increases, we can look at production here," Babu said.

The company has a manufacturing facility in Pondicherry with a capacity of three million units annually.

According to IDC's report on PC shipment for the January-March 2009 period, Lenovo's market share came down to 4.7 percent in the said period from 6.6 percent in Q4 in 2008.

"This was a result of the slowdown in PC shipments in general as well as enterprise purchases being slow. But, over the next quarters we expect the demand to rise on the back of government buying and also a strong demand from the consumer segment," Babu said.

SMARTPHONES, LAPTOPS HELP EMPLOYEES BOOST PRODUCTIVITY: SURVEY
New Delhi
Mint

Majority of the employees in the Asia-Pacific region feel that new technology devices like smartphones and laptops have boosted their productivity, says a survey.

According to a recent survey conducted by global workforce solutions provider Kelly Services, 62% of employees in the Asia-Pacific region said that their work productivity is “much better” due to new technology devices.

About 24% felt that their productivity was “slightly better” with such technologies.

The survey revealed that 75% of the respondents worldwide consider the opportunity provided by devices such as smartphones and laptops to remain in constant contact with work, as a positive development.

About 1,00,000 people in 34 countries covering North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, participated in the survey.

George Corona, who is Kelly Services’ executive vice president and chief operating officer said that the spread of mobile technologies is transforming the way that people interact with their work and their attitudes towards employment.

“There is an overwhelming view that the technology provides greater flexibility in working arrangements, and a better balance between work and personal life,” Corona said.

FREE AND USEFUL...DOES YOUR PC HAVE THESE?
Ashish Bhatia
Mint

- With an alphabet soup of media file formats floating around, it’s tough to figure out what you need to play the video you downloaded last. VLC is probably the only multimedia player that can play virtually any video or audio file. Apart from being able to grapple with various popular and unpopular formats, it also handles DVDs, VCDs and various streaming protocols without sending you back to the Net to search for external codecs.
- Need to convert video for your portable media player or squeeze that humongous file into a more lightweight, portable format? Download the humbly-named, though very capable, all-in-one video converting tool, Any Video Converter.
- If editing, tweaking, tuning audio files is what you want to do, the easy-to-use Audacity is simply the best free audio editor around.
- Don’t think that only an expensive program such as Adobe Photoshop can manipulate images so magically. Get GIMP, a close equivalent. It may not be as sophisticated as the world’s favourite application, but it’s robust and competent. If you want a more Photoshop-like feel, get GIMP shop.
- Lastly, to find, organize, manage, tweak and share your collection of images, there is nothing on planet earth as slick as Picasa.

Security

Even as the news of pop culture phenomenon Michael Jackson’s death ricocheted around the world, developers at Google and Yahoo were panicking.

The reason? They thought that the sudden upsurge in traffic was a virus attack. If technology behemoths such as these can fear attacks on their servers, you surely need to be doubly certain of your security options.

- If you are looking for a good antivirus to keep gremlins at bay, download the AVG Free Edition.
- You need further protection in the form of Spybot—Search and Destroy. This is a great free tool for detecting and removing all sorts of spyware that find their way into computers.
- Also get Ad-Aware, a tool for the detection of, and protection against, malicious intruders such as spyware, trojans, rootkits, hijackers and keyloggers, among others.
- You can’t ignore Secunia Personal Software Inspector. This tracks security vulnerabilities in well-known applications and monitors your PC for known exploits. When found, PSI points you to a security patch.
- Now, this one is for all of us who use multiple passwords for our different accounts. You can save yourself the trouble of remembering all these passwords by installing KeePass. An iron-clad, little master key, cubby hole safe, it caches all your passwords in one place very securely encrypted.

Office Productivity

- Instead of cajoling your vendor to install a pirated copy of Microsoft Office on your PC, download OpenOffice. This almost equally competent, multi-platform, multilingual office suite gives you word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics and database management for free.
- Top that with TinySpell, a spellchecker that monitors your spelling in all text that you input in any program. This download’s replacement suggestions are drawn from an American-English database of 110,000 words that you can append your own words to as well. A major drawback of the free version is that it doesn’t highlight mistakes within the text, but gives you suggestions only as you type.
- Windows’ default notepad was born when dinos roamed the earth. Well, almost. Download the powerful and eminently usable Notepad++ with its tabbed multi-doc interface, drag and drop support, and macro recording capabilities, among others, instead.
- Postbox, with its Web 2.0-ish feel and tabbed interface, is a good desktop email alternative that also allows you to upload to Twitter, FriendFeed, MySpace, Delicious and Google. It offers great search capabilities—even for images. - Don’t mindlessly download Adobe Reader just because everyone has it. Try Foxit Reader first. It’s much faster on its feet and weighs only about 3.5MB, against Reader’s 25.5MB.

Utilities

- One of the biggest irritants on a new PC are craplets—pre-installed adware and trialware—that come with big brand PCs. The PC Decrapifier is a diagnostic utility that searches for known craplets on your PC and lists such instances. You can peruse this list and uninstall whatever you want.
- And because Windows Add and Remove doesn’t kill all components—files, folders and registry keys—efficiently, you need something as lethal and painless as Revo Uninstaller to do the job.
- Talking of searches, a good search tool is an essential program sorely missing on all PCs. Try Everything, a superfast local search engine that locates files and folders almost instantly. You have to use it once to realize how fleet-footed it is. - For a file compression/decompression application, fetch 7-Zip. This tackle-all archiving/unzipping program integrates with your right-click menu and even handles Mac-formatted archives, multi-file RAR packages, ISO images and more.
- Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology saves us a lot. And the king of all programs VoIP is Skype. A must-download for everyone using the Net for video and voice chats, this top-drawer, peer-to-peer program boasts instant messaging (IM), screen sharing, contact sharing, as well as birthday reminders, among other features.

NEW WEB GADGET FROM DELL
Bengaluru
The Asian Age

Dell, the world’s No.2 PC maker, is developing a pocket-sized device for tapping into the Internet, the Wall Street Journal said citing people familiar with the company’s plans.

The gadget would run on Google’s Android software, the people said.

According to the paper, two people who saw early prototypes described the device as slightly larger than Apple’s iPod Touch, which is similar to the iPhone but does not have cellphone capabilities.

Another person who was briefed on the firm’s plans said, that Dell may begin selling the device later this year, though this person said the plan could be delayed or scrapped entirely. A Dell spokesman declined to comment on any plans for the product category.

Dell may use chips based on designed licensed from ARM Holdings PLC, people familiar with the firm’s plans said.