Update: 15/05/09

 

MICROSOFT SURFACE TO HIT MARKET IN 6-9 MONTHS
Shelley Singh, Hyderabad
The Economic Times

At first sight, it’s an acrylic table top, could pass off for a miniature pool table and sits on a massive black box. The box is its heart and the table top is a high-tech touch sensitive surface. Had it been human, the surface may have screamed abuse, what with touch bringing it alive and lots more touch activating its various tasks. Well, it’s a computer, called Microsoft Surface, likely to hit the market in 6-9 months.

Demonstrated at Tech Ed 2009, auto makers, hotel chains, entertainment and telecom companies have shown interest in buying the Surface.

Companies plan to use it for better customer interaction and enhancing the shopping experience. You could walk in a car showroom and get a 360 degree view of the car you want to buy, compare it with other cars, see what it looks in different colours, customise the interiors and check out the road test done by professionals — all loaded on to the Surface’s computer.

``Speech and touch are among the computing bastions that are now being tackled. Microsoft Surface demonstrates a Natural User Interface and very much represents the future of computing—based on touch,’’ says Supreet Singh, User Experience Evangelist, Microsoft.

The black box or the heart of the Surface comprises a Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB RAM, 256 MB graphics card with a modified version of Microsoft Vista as its operating system. The computer also includes four cameras that capture the hand movements on the surface and help the software take appropriate action—like open an application, enlarge an image, transfer a ringtone (via Bluetooth) or make a move in a virtual game of say, chess.

When objects touch the tabletop, the light reflects back and is picked up by the infrared cameras. The touch sensitive user interface is similar to that found in some phones like Apple’s iPhone, but with ability for more complex tasks.

Multi-touch devices like the Surface accept input from multiple users simultaneously, allowing for complex gestures. The Surface has the added advantage of a horizontal screen, so several people can gather around and use it together.

The Microsoft Surface, in development for almost a decade, hit the US markets last year. Its global customers include BMW, AT&T and Sheraton Towers. Individuals can also use it to work or play games or maybe just use it as a coffee table. Though at $10,000 (the price it retails at in the US), the high-tech table is perhaps the most expensive coffee table you will buy.

“Surface computing is a major new concept in computing with novel ways of interacting,” says Umesh Dubey, senior business manager, Vectorform, a US-based software developer

 

CANON INDIA TO LEASE OUT PRODUCTS TO LARGE FIRMS
Bhaskar Hazarika, New Delhi
Financial Chronicle  The Hindu Business Line  Deccan Herald  The Times of India (Bangalore edition)  The Hindu  

With flat growth in its customer segment, global printing and imaging solutions company Canon India has earmarked Rs 100 crore for financing and leasing out its products to large companies.

Kensaku Konishi, president and CEO, Canon India said that there was a pause in the growth from large enterprises. However, the company was witnessing growth in small and medium enterprises, government and the consumer segment. “We are witnessing 30 percent sales growth in this segment. In the first quarter, there was a growth of 18 percent, but in April 2009, we witnessed 25 percent growth,” he said.

Konishi said the financing and leasing options for the high-end products would contribute to the growth in the segment, which is witnessing a pause.

He said that the company had worked out a number of options in this regard.

“India is witnessing high double digit growth during the global slowdown. China, which has been strongly growing, is now witnessing single digit growth.

Compared with the 31 percent growth last year that the company witnessed, we expect to grow at 25 percent this year, which is a positive sign,” he said.

Contribution from the Indian market to the company’s global revenues is relatively small. India contributes 1 percent to the $40 billion global revenues of Canon.

“With the slowdown in other region, we do expect that contribution from India will grow but it will not be much significant.

The Asia Pacific region is growing between 10 to 15 percent, which is higher than all other regions globally.

This year Asia Pacific will keep a steady growth,” he said.

SAMSUNG EYES 8 PERCENT OF NOTEBOOK MARKET
Thanuja B M, Bangalore
Financial Chronicle  DNA  The Economic Times (Bangalore edition)  

Samsung India is betting on the mobile personal computer segment to boost its IT business. After foraying into the notebook segment in India last December, the electronics company has launched a new range of notebooks and netbooks, aiming to garner a 7-8 percent market share by 2010.

Ranjit Yadav, director – IT business, Samsung India Electronics, said, “We are focusing on this category (notebooks and netbooks) this year and are targeting home users, small and medium businesses for these products.’’

The company launched four N series and three R series of netbooks on Thursday, priced between Rs 23,639 to Rs 1.15 lakh.

The subsidiary of South Korea’s largest chaebol is a late entrant into the category in India even though it is a significant player globally. It tested the market in December 2008, when it launched about five notebook products. Yadav said Samsung had sold between 2,500-3,000 units in January-March period. “We think that this is the time to be a full-range IT business player.’’ The company already sells PCs, printers, LCD monitors and IT pheripherals in the country.

The overall India PC market shipments remained flat with 7.98 million units being sold during January-December 2008 against 8.06 million in 2007, according to IDC. For calendar year 2008, desktop PC shipments (5.6 million) dropped 10.1 percent while notebook PC shipments (2.3 million units) recorded a growth of 31.5 percent on a year-on-year basis.

In the notebook category, Samsung will compete with the likes of HP (market leader with 15.6 percent in 2008), Dell (10.9 percent) and HCL (9.6 percent).

Netbooks or mini notebooks is the new segment within the mobile PC category, which is seeing huge growth. India is expected to see about two lakh netbbooks being sold this calendar year. Meanwhile, Samsung India including telecom, electronics products and IT, saw revenues of $1.7 billion in 2008. This year, it is expecting to post 25-27 percent growth.

SAMSUNG UNVEILS 4 MINI NOTEBOOKS
Bangalore
The Hindu Business Line  The Hindu  

Samsung launched four new mini notebooks under its N series and added to its portfolio of notebooks in the Indian market. The company had entered the mobile PC market in India in December last year. "We are looking at the mini notebook segment as a clear growth driver for our mobile computing business going forward," said Ranjit Yadav, Director-IT Business, Samsung India Electronics Ltd.

Quoting a Gartner figures, Yadav said the Indian mini notebook market was 2 lakh units this year against 22-26 million units globally. He said Samsung's mobile PC sales globally grew 92.9 percent growth in the first quarter, compared with the year ago quarter. The company is eyeing a market share of 7-8 percent in the notebook category by the year-end, he added.

PC MAKERS CONTINUE WITH NEW LAUNCHES DESPITE LOWER SALES
Shamik Paul, Bangalore
The Hindu Business Line

Computer sales might have declined marginally in 2008, but it is hardly a deterrent for personal computer (PC) makers launching new models.

While some vendors feel this is the right time to introduce devices with higher productivity and efficiency, others said the need for technology refresh continues in spite of a drop in volume.

Dell has gained share across segments due to new launches and expects new product announcements over the next few months, said Sameer Garde, Country General Manager, Dell India.

Dell workstations

Recently, Dell launched the new Precision workstations and the Adamo series of notebooks among other products. “The new products and services offer great return over investment (RoI) at all times but has become even more relevant in different economic conditions,” Garde said.

HP solutions

Hewlett-Packard, too, has introduced new products including the HP Z Workstation series and the HP EliteBook 8,000 series notebooks.

“The environment makes little difference as customers are looking for solutions for better RoI,” said Ms Deepti Dang, Head of Marketing - Commercial & SMB, Personal Systems Group, HP.

Ms Dang said the new workstations can offer savings that are equal to the cost of the machines in three months. HP would introduce notebooks and desktops in the enterprise as well as in the mid-market space in the next two-three months, she added.

Acer’s product

In tough times such as this, volumes may be down but the need for product refresh continues to be there, said S. Rajendran, Chief Marketing Officer, Acer India. Product refresh helps a company keep running ahead of the competition, he added.

Acer recently launched its Nettop or a small form factor computer targeted at first-time users, especially in the Tier I and Tier II cities. The PC penetration in India is low, but if the market is addressed in a different way, the penetration can actually improve, Rajendran said.

Technology refresh including new processors that are launched by chip makers as part of their product roadmap has greater influence over the PC industry than the slowdown, said Diptarup Chakraborti, Principal Research Analyst, Gartner.

He said the demand for PCs is very dynamic and users ask for newer configuration, which might not necessarily be more expensive. Fresh products also create an excitement that causes consumers to come into the market, and it is a marketing pull, he added.

QUALCOMM IN TALKS WITH OEMS FOR 'SMARTER SMART PHONES'
Rachana Khanzode, Mumbai
The Financial Express

Taking mobile technology a step ahead, the world’s largest maker of cellphone chips, Qualcomm, is looking forward to ‘smarter smart phones’ that could be used as computing devices.

The company has developed a dual processor chip called Snapdragon chipset, that will have a processor of about 1 Ghz. These, in turn, would be used by computing and mobile manufacturers to make phones that are capable of high-speed downloads and computing.

The company is currently in talks with various computing and mobile phone firms in this regard. Interestingly, Qualcomm has never been involved in making chip sets that could be used for computing devices.

Besides using the chip to make smart phones, the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), both in mobile and computing, will also be able to develop smart books that will be highly portable, thin and small and could be also used as a phone. Rajagopalan Thiagarajan, director, business development, Qualcomm India, said, “We are not trying to develop full-blown laptops with 4Ghz processors, but we feel that there is a market between the laptops, netbooks and smart phones which we can capture. And the processor is powerful enough to support this. It also supports both CDMA and GSM base with 3G.”

Toshiba has already launched a smart phone based on this technology in Europe and the firm expects similar initiatives in India by the end of this year. The enhanced high-end chips would support operating systems like Windows, Android and Research In Motion. These devices would have computing capabilities like email, browsing and downloads. The computing/mobile devices would also have battery life of about 12-15 hours.

The Indian market already has similar product line called netbooks from OEMs like HP, HCL, Asus, Lenovo and Dell, amongst others. However, these haven't seen a huge response out here.

NETBOOKS BEAT RECESSION, DOUBLE SALES IN FIRST QUARTER
C Chitti Pantulu, Bangalore
DNA

The PC's loss could well be the netbook's gain with the pint-sized gizmo posting huge numbers Q1 of calendar 2009.

According to technology market research agency Gartner, netbooks recorded a whopping 100 percent plus jump in quarter-on-quarter sales up to March 2009 at 36,000 units compared with nearly 16,000 units up to December, 2008.

In the whole of 2008 alone, netbooks sold an approximate 30,000 units.

The total notebook market in India is estimated at 2.5 million units per year of which the entry level is estimated at around 10 percent in size.

Thanks to price points beginning at Rs 19,000, netbooks have caught the fancy of consumers who are looking at them the second or even third PC, said Diptarup Chakraborti, principal research analyst at Gartner, the information technology consultancy.

Four major players, Acer, Asus, HP, HCL and Dell are the dominant players in this market while other players like Samsung, which launched 4 new models on Thursday, are gunning for a share of the lucrative market. Though a late entrant, Korean major Samsung is expecting to take a significant 7-8 percent share of the market by 2010.

"Mini Note will be a large growth category for us", said Ranjit S Yadav, director, IT business, Samsung India Electronics Pvt Ltd, said. Globally the company had seen mobile PC sales grow 92.9 percent in Q1 this year, he added.

FIRST DE-GROWTH FOR HARDWARE IN 7 YEARS
Praveena Sharma, Bangalore
DNA

The Indian hardware sector may have logged a de-growth for the first time in 7 years in the last fiscal, according to signals picked up by Manufacturers' Association for Information Technology (MAIT).

The sector had clocked a compounded annual growth rate of 26 percent in 2002-08. In 2007-08, PC sales -- desktop and notebooks together -- had grown 16 percent with total shipments of 7.34 million.

Last month, MAIT said growth may have flattened in the year gone by.

Vinnie Mehta, executive director of MAIT, said on Thursday annual PC sales seem to have slipped into the negative zone. "It (PC sales) is down for both fourth quarter and the whole year. We are trying to gather information on that and initial indications show that it will be down," he said.

He, however, did not specify whether the decline would be single or double digits. The IT hardware body will come out with its industry performance review by the first or the second week of June.

Mehta said one of the reasons the IT hardware market contracted during the March quarter was the elections, which brought business projects to a halt. "The elections have curbed demand (for IT hardware in March); people have postponed spending for the time being. We expect demand to revive in the next few quarters," he said.

The first signs of degrowth was seen in the December quarter, when demand for PCs shrunk 19 percent to 1.4 million compared with sales in the same period last year.

MORE UTILITY THAN BORG
Robert Cyran
Business Standard

Intel: Monopolies may be vilified in the popular imagination, but there are few businesses that don’t want one. So the European Commission’s finding that US chipmaker Intel acted in an anticompetitive manner – and the E1bn fine it levied for doing so – might appear an acceptable cost of business to some shareholders. But that assumes Intel can fully reap the benefits of its quasi-monopoly. Trouble is, Intel isn’t growing much, and increasing antitrust scrutiny is likely to become a bigger headache.

Intel sells about 80% of all microprocessors. But its revenues have expanded a mere 1% a year since 2000. This is partly because customers aren’t shelling out as much for new, faster chips. Problems dissipating heat have placed a limit on individual chip speeds. Intel has responded by putting multiple microprocessors on a chip, but software that takes full advantage of this design is difficult to develop. So customers see little reason to bother.

Nonetheless, Intel’s business is solidly profitable. Operating margins were 23% last year, which is attractive, but not atypical for the company – they were 31% in 2000, for example. The combination of mature revenues and static margins explains investors’ tepid view of Intel’s stock. Its total return over the past 12 years is zero.

Now throw increasing regulatory scrutiny into the mix. Intel is fighting accusations of monopolistic abuse in multiple jurisdictions. The EU decision may increase the likelihood that others follow – and that the new US administration, which has promised more vigorous enforcement, takes up the cause.