PC shipments flat in 4Q as HP falls
Smack in the middle of the ultrabook and tablet hoopla from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas comes a sobering report from the market researchers at IDC: PC shipments in the critical fourth quarter were down 0.2 per cent from a year before. Read more
When Acer last March unceremoniously ousted its then-chief executive Gianfranco Lanci, it was not an amicable parting, with both sides apportioning blame on the other for the split.
But if the Taiwanese company had thought they were rid of Mr Lanci by forcing his resignation, then they are sorely mistaken. Mr Lanci was this week appointed the head of Europe, Middle East and Africa by none other Lenovo, Acer’s Chinese rival. Read more
If 2010 was Apple’s year in personal technology, with the launch of the iPad and major redesigns for the iPhone, MacBook Air and Apple TV, it is harder to call the winners of 2011, with Apple happy with incremental updates and the competition still striving to catch up.
Lenovo aims for #1 spot in 3 years
Still high on overtaking Dell last week to become the world’s second largest PC manufacturer by sales, Lenovo is becoming ever more bullish. Milko van Duijl, Lenovo’s senior vice president, is now not shy of admitting the company is gunning for the number one position – which it could reach within two or three years. Read more
To judge how tastes and fashions can change, I placed our four-year-old family laptop, an Acer Aspire, next to the latest version, launched this week, the S3.
Acer had subcontracted the design of our old Aspire to BMW and it had a glossy black exterior curved like a bonnet, while its lid opened and shut with the solidity of a German car door.
Ultrabooks challenge MacBook Air
The MacBook Air finally has some serious competition with the first of the new Ultrabook laptops being launched here at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin.
After Toshiba unveiled what it claimed was the world’s thinnest and lightest 13.3in laptop on Thursday – the Portege Z830 - Acer followed up on Friday with the Aspire S3, which boasts 1.5 seconds start-up time from a sleep state that can last 50 days on its long-life battery. Read more
Lenovo has announced its first family of tablets, with two being launched under the IdeaPad brand along with a ThinkPad tablet that uses Google’s Android 3.1 operating system.
Lenovo had recently released LePad, a 10in Android tablet that can dock with a laptop base, in China only, but rumours of these new tablets for the US had been rife for months and the ThinkPad version (pictured) looked the most interesting of the three when I was shown them recently.
Lenovo unveils ThinkPad tablet
Lenovo has announced its first family of tablets, with two being launched under the IdeaPad brand along with a ThinkPad tablet that uses Google’s Android 3.1 operating system. Lenovo had recently released LePad, a 10in Android tablet that can dock with a laptop base, in China only, but rumours of these new tablets for the US had been rife for months and the ThinkPad version looked the most interesting of the three when I was shown them recently. Read more
Lenovo’s complete package
At work, I have substituted the box under my desk, the one I keep accidentally kicking, with a Lenovo ThinkCentre Edge 91z all-in-one PC that sits on the desk in front of me. It has just one cable – for power. The PC‘s innards have been incorporated into the rear of the monitor, so no monitor cable is needed; the keyboard and mouse are connected by wireless and the built-in WiFi means no ethernet networking cable is needed. The iMac has the same capabilities, making these two devices the Mac and PC state-of-the-art approaches to compact desktop computing. Read more
Workhorse laptops pick up the pace
The trend of employees wanting to bring their better-looking and feature-rich consumer devices into the workplace has provoked a reaction from those supplying the safe but staid business laptops we know and suffer. Faced with competition from tablets and ultra-slim notebooks, such as the iPad 2, MacBook Air, Samsung Series 9 and Sony Vaio Z, HP, Lenovo and Toshiba have produced ultraportable notebooks with extra style and consumer features – the subject of this week’s Personal Technology column in the FT’s Business Life section. Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
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