HP KEEPING PC DIVISION

HP today announced that it has completed its evaluation of strategic alternatives for its Personal Systems Group (PSG) and has decided the unit will remain part of the company. “HP objectively evaluated the strategic, financial and operational impact of spinning off PSG. It’s clear after our analysis that keeping PSG within HP is right for customers and partners, right for shareholders, and right for employees,” said Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer. “HP is committed to PSG, and together we are stronger.”

The strategic review involved subject matter experts from across the businesses and functions. The data-driven evaluation revealed the depth of the integration that has occurred across key operations such as supply chain, IT and procurement. It also detailed the significant extent to which PSG contributes to HP’s solutions portfolio and overall brand value. Finally, it also showed that the cost to recreate these in a standalone company outweighed any benefits of separation.

The outcome of this exercise reaffirms HP’s model and the value for its customers and shareholders. PSG is a key component of HP’s strategy to deliver higher value, lasting relationships with consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and enterprise customers. The HP board of directors is confident that PSG can drive profitable growth as part of the larger entity and accelerate solutions from other parts of HP’s business.

PSG has a history of innovation and technological leadership as well as an established record of industry-leading profitability. It is the No. 1 manufacturer of personal computers in the world with revenues totaling $40.7 billion for fiscal year 2010.

“As part of HP, PSG will continue to give customers and partners the advantages of product innovation and global scale across the industry’s broadest portfolio of PCs, workstations and more,” said Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP. “We intend to make the leading PC business in the world even better.”

RUMOR: SAMSUNG BUYING HP PC BUSINESS

According to a new report from DigiTimes, Samsung may be eyeing a purchase of HP’s PC division, which would catapult the South Korea-based electronics giant past Dell and into the No. 1 PC vendor spot globally. The report states that Samsung is currently meeting with various leading manufacturers including Quanta and Compal to investigate outsourcing the production of its own netbook computers. Samsung has held similar meetings in the past to no avail, but anonymous source tell DigiTimes that the company may be particularly motivated this time around as it negotiates a deal to take over HP’s PC business and free up space to build the machines in its own factories.

APPLE INTRODUCES iCLOUD, REPLACING MOBILEME

Apple today introduced iCloud, a breakthrough set of free new cloud services that work seamlessly with applications on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC to automatically and wirelessly store your content in iCloud and automatically and wirelessly push it to all your devices. When anything changes on one of your devices, all of your devices are wirelessly updated almost instantly.

“Today it is a real hassle and very frustrating to keep all your information and content up-to-date across all your devices,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iCloud keeps your important information and content up to date across all your devices. All of this happens automatically and wirelessly, and because it’s integrated into our apps you don’t even need to think about it—it all just works.”

The free iCloud services include:

The former MobileMe® services—Contacts, Calendar and Mail—all completely re-architected and rewritten to work seamlessly with iCloud. Users can share calendars with friends and family, and the ad-free push Mail account is hosted at me.com. Your inbox and mailboxes are kept up-to-date across all your iOS devices and computers.

The App Store™ and iBookstore℠ now download purchased iOS apps and books to all your devices, not just the device they were purchased on. In addition, the App Store and iBookstore now let you see your purchase history, and simply tapping the iCloud icon will download any apps and books to any iOS device (up to 10 devices) at no additional cost.

iCloud Backup automatically and securely backs up your iOS devices to iCloud daily over Wi-Fi when you charge your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Backed up content includes purchased music, apps and books, Camera Roll (photos and videos), device settings and app data. If you replace your iOS device, just enter your Apple ID and password during setup and iCloud restores your new device.

iCloud Storage seamlessly stores all documents created using iCloud Storage APIs, and automatically pushes them to all your devices. When you change a document on any device, iCloud automatically pushes the changes to all your devices. Apple’s Pages®, Numbers® and Keynote® apps already take advantage of iCloud Storage. Users get up to 5GB of free storage for their mail, documents and backup—which is more amazing since the storage for music, apps and books purchased from Apple, and the storage required by Photo Stream doesn’t count towards this 5GB total. Users will be able to buy even more storage, with details announced when iCloud ships this fall.

iCloud’s innovative Photo Stream service automatically uploads the photos you take or import on any of your devices and wirelessly pushes them to all your devices and computers. So you can use your iPhone to take a dozen photos of your friends during the afternoon baseball game, and they will be ready to share with the entire group on your iPad (or even Apple TV®) when you return home. Photo Stream is built into the photo apps on all iOS devices, iPhoto® on Macs, and saved to the Pictures folder on a PC. To save space, the last 1,000 photos are stored on each device so they can be viewed or moved to an album to save forever. Macs and PCs will store all photos from the Photo Stream, since they have more storage. iCloud will store each photo in the cloud for 30 days, which is plenty of time to connect your devices to iCloud and automatically download the latest photos from Photo Stream via Wi-Fi.

iTunes® in the Cloud lets you download your previously purchased iTunes music to all your iOS devices at no additional cost, and new music purchases can be downloaded automatically to all your devices. In addition, music not purchased from iTunes can gain the same benefits by using iTunes Match, a service that replaces your music with a 256 kbps AAC DRM-free version if we can match it to the over 18 million songs in the iTunes Store®, it makes the matched music available in minutes (instead of weeks to upload your entire music library), and uploads only the small percentage of unmatched music. iTunes Match will be available this fall for a $24.99 annual fee. Apple today is releasing a free beta version of iTunes in the Cloud, without iTunes Match, for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users running iOS 4.3. iTunes in the Cloud will support all iPhones that iOS 5 supports this fall.

Apple is ready to ramp iCloud in its three data centers, including the third recently completed in Maiden, NC. Apple has invested over $500 million in its Maiden data center to support the expected customer demand for the free iCloud services.

Pricing & Availability
The iCloud beta and Cloud Storage APIs are available immediately to iOS and Mac Developer Program members at developer.apple.com. iCloud will be available this fall concurrent with iOS 5. Users can sign up for iCloud for free on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS 5 or a Mac running Mac OS® X Lion with a valid Apple ID. iCloud includes 5GB of free cloud storage for Mail, Document Storage and Backup. Purchased music, apps, books and Photo Stream do not count against the storage limit. iTunes Match will be available for $24.99 per year (US only).

ACER CEO RESIGNS

It appears as though Acer founder Stan Shih will get his wish, as news of CEO Gianfranco Lanci’s resignation could mark the start of a much needed overhaul. Shih, who retired from the company in 2004, said on Tuesday that Acer is in need of an overhaul and a shift in focus from being a leader in the PC market to increasing profit margins.

On Thursday, Acer announced that Lanci is resigning effective immediately, and company chairman J. T. Wang will step in as interim CEO until the company finds a suitable replacement. “The personal computer remains the core of our business,” said Wang in a statement. “We have built up a strong foundation and will continue to expand within, especially in the commercial PC segment. In addition, we are stepping into the new mobile device market, where we will invest cautiously and aim to become one of the leading players.” Wang continued, “In this new ICT industry, Acer needs a period of time for adjustment. With the spirit of entrepreneurship, we will face new challenges and look to the future with confidence.”

SMARTPHONES OUTSELL PCS IN Q4 2010

According to an article on ReadWriteWeb, smartphones outsold personal computers in the fourth quarter of 2010, marking the first time such an event has occurred. Analytics firm IDC provides the data, and indicates that smartphone OEMs sold 100.9 million units worldwide — an 87.2% jump year-over-year — while PC OEMs sold 92.1 million units worldwide — a 5.5% increase year-over-year. The report lists the top five smartphone vendors of 2010 (by units shipped and market share) as: Nokia, Research In Motion, Apple, Samsung, and HTC.

AMAZON TO LAUNCH TABLET SPECIFIC KINDLE APPS FOR ANDROID AND WINDOWS

You can read your Amazon-bought ebooks on your Kindle, your PC, your Mac, your mobile, and even on your iPad. Now, it's time to have them, contained in a tailor-made application, on your Android and Windows tablets as well. Amazon has just announced its intention to introduce a free app for reading Kindlebooks on devices running Google and Microsoft's operating systems, which will expand its device compatibility list as the year goes on. Amazon specifically notes that these apps are intended for upcoming devices, which probably foreshadows the sort of tablet-heavy year we're going to be having. [Engadget]

TABLETS AFFECTING PC SALES SAYS GARTNER

Gartner’s worldwide PC shipment estimates have been downgraded and it seems that tablets are to blame. The research firm had originally estimated 18.1% growth in 2011 PC shipments compared to 2010. Gartner’s latest estimates have dropped the 2011 forecast to annual growth of just 15.9%.

So what kind of hit can PC’s expect to take as a result of tablets? Gartner believes that media tablets will displace around 10% of PC units by 2014. Apparently tablets aren’t the only thing that PC manufacturers should be worried about either. Raphael Vasquez, a research analyst at Gartner, says:

PC market growth will be impacted by devices that enable better on-the-go content consumption such as media tablets and next-generation smartphones.

That means that smartphones and tablets are giving PC shipments a one-two punch stunting their growth.

Gartner went on to point out four additional dynamics which are currently challenging the PC industry. This includes the fact that emerging markets are driving growth gaining more than 50% of the total worldwide PC market by the end of 2011. That growth may dry up due to the looming shadow of consumers who could bypass the traditional path to their first PC in favor of an alternative device.

Additional factors include cash-strapped consumers putting off PCs in favor of media tablets and extending average PC lifecycles. Hosted virtual desktops are also applying pressure to PC shipments as businesses and consumers look for ways to cut hardware costs by accessing desktop resources using thin clients or refurbished PCs. [Geek]

EA ANNOUNCES NEED FOR SPEED: SHIFT 2 UNLEASHED

On the same day EA released Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, they announced Need for Speed: Shift 2 UNLEASHED. Shift 2 will be the sequel to the popular Need for Speed: Shift game. “SHIFT 2 UNLEASHED is redefining immersive racing by blending the rush of tearing up the track at unbelievable speeds with the emotional experience of competitive battle,” Marcus Nilsson, the game’s producer, said in a statement. “We are also working closely with real-world performance drivers to ensure that SHIFT 2 UNLEASHED captures their experience and becomes the benchmark in authentic racing action.” SHIFT 2 UNLEASHED will launch some time in the spring next year, and will be available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

SHARP QUITTING THE PC BUSINESS

Sharp has become the latest causality of the electronic companies tough times. They announced they are leaving the low margin, cut-throat personal computer business to focus on more profitable areas.  Sharp still has plans to develop tablet computers starting with Galapagos and concentrate on related ebook, music and video services for those tablets. [Engadget]