Chromebooks, Windows touch laptops offer lifeline to PC makers

PC sales may continue to shrink, but hardware makers can point to a couple of bright spots—Chromebooks and touch-based Windows laptops.

Chromebooks, which had negligible market share a year ago, accounted for 3.3 percent of U.S. sales during the back-to-school season, according to market research firm NPD Group. Nearly 175,000 of these low-cost laptops, which run the browser-based Chrome OS from Google, were sold between June 30 and September 7. NPD has previously said that Chromebooks make up 20 percent to 25 percent of the sub-$300 laptop market.

This NPD Group chart looks at how PC sales compared in the June-to-September time frame between 2013 and 2012.

PC makers have been showing more interest in Chromebooks as a potential source of growth. Both HP and Lenovo began producing Chromebooks this year—with Lenovo targeting schools-only—and a new wave of Chromebooks based on Intel’s Haswell processors is coming soon from Acer, HP and Toshiba. Acer has said that Chromebooks make up 5 to 10 percent of its U.S. shipments and that it may bring Chromebooks to tother developed markets. While Google’s operating system has its share of detractors, the software has matured over the last year, and the launch of Chrome Apps may lead to a wider range of offline applications.

While the gradual rise of Chromebooks could be bad news for Microsoft, Redmond can at least take comfort in the news that touch-equipped Windows PCs are gaining some traction, thanks in large to part to lower prices. NPD says that touch-based notebooks made up a quarter of back-to-school sales, and more than 33 percent of those touchscreen notebooks cost under $500.

Touch computing also made its mark on the high-end, contributing to a 24 percent rise in sales of $700-and-up Windows notebooks. Users are upgrading their PC less often, but they may be willing to pay more when it’s time for a new machine.

The main trouble spot for Windows PCs in the U.S. market is the $300-to-$700 price range, which makes up nearly two-thirds of all Windows notebooks sold. U.S. sales in this segment fell by 16 percent from last year, dragging down the entire U.S. market for Windows PCs by 2.4 percent.

Even Apple took a small hit in the laptop department, with NPD reporting a 0.2 percent decline in U.S. MacBook sales and a big drop in average selling price from $1442 to $1286.

“Chromebooks and Windows Touch helped offset what could have been much steeper declines this back-to-school season,” NPD analyst Stephen Baker said in a statement. Still, he cautioned that any declines in this crucial laptop shopping season do not bode well for the holidays. It’ll likely another season of explosive growth for the iPad and Android tablets, as people drift away from laptops for their casual computing needs.

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Phone makers roll their own operating systems as Google and Microsoft close ranks

Sometimes, you can’t help but pay attention to what the man behind the curtain is doing. Earlier this week, Microsoft announced plans to acquire Nokia’s device and services business for more than $7 billion, effectively seizing control of the entire Windows Phone experience, from software to hardware to services.

Just like that, the companies behind every major smartphone operating system now compete directly with their manufacturing partners. And while Google erected a "firewall" between Android and Motorola when it bought the handset maker in 2012, Microsoft has no plans to separate Nokia from the core Windows Phone business. It’s full steam ahead for Microsoft-made smartphones as Redmond tries to single-handedly turn Windows Phone from an also-ran into a contender.

“Vertical integration was hard to ignore with Apple, then Google. But now it’s impossible with Microsoft going it on their own. What it emphasizes is that there is a need for a truly open mobile operating system.”

The sudden circling of the in-house wagons has to have third-party handset makers like Samsung, HTC, and LG sweating.

“Vendors who are not tightly aligned with an operating system company…[have]…got to be looking at this and saying ‘Maybe I should be looking a little more closely at how to chart my future by partnering or owning my own operating system stack,’” says Ramon Llamas, a research manager with IDC’s mobile phone team.

Indeed, with their OS options looking increasing cloudy (if not downright perilous), hardware ronins like HTC are starting to fight fire with fire by creating alternative smartphone OSs.

TizenThe Tizen logo

“Vertical integration was hard to ignore with Apple, then Google,” says Patrick Moorhead, founder and principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy. “But now it’s impossible with Microsoft going it on their own. What it emphasizes is that there is a need for a truly open mobile operating system.”

That’s the approach Samsung is taking with Tizen, an open-source operating system developed in partnership primarily with Intel, as well as Huawei, Fujitsu, Panasonic, and others. If successful, Tizen could turn into a backup plan for Samsung’s booming Galaxy handset business should Google change the rules of the Android game for device makers.

The first Tizen smartphone is expected to ship this year, but even if it does, it will take multiple quarters—if not years—before Tizen becomes a viable platform, says Llamas. For the foreseeable future, Samsung is all about Android.

Martyn WilliamsThe first Firefox OS phones are already available overseas.

Other companies are also exploring their OS options. LG, presently one of the world’s top 5 smartphone makers thanks to its Android business, supports Mozilla’s Web technology–based Firefox OS project for mobile devices. The first Firefox OS smartphone was released in Spain this summer, and many more are coming down the pipeline. As if that’s not enough, LG gave Palm’s failed webOS a fourth lease on life earlier this year, albeit as a smart TV platform.

HTC, once the shining star of the Android world in the United States, has also experimented with Windows Phone, but that isn’t likely to continue in the near-term.

“I don’t expect to see much more to happen on the Windows side [from HTC], says Carolina Milanesi, research vice president for consumer devices at Gartner. “And certainly I think every vendor is now sitting and waiting to see what happens [with Windows Phone].”

But aside from its Android business and the flirtation with Windows Phone, HTC is also working on a mobile OS for the Chinese market, according to The Wall Street Journal—a move meant to shore up HTC’s business in other parts of the world as the company loses market share in this country—and meant, as well, to create a home-grown stack of hardware and software.

It’s all about the apps when it comes to mobile—just ask the floundering Windows 8 and Windows Phone app stores.

Third-party manufacturers have good reason to sniff out new, open pastures, but creating a viable mobile platform isn’t easy, and it isn’t done overnight.

Any company wanting to follow Apple’s lead in tightly integrated hardware and software not only has to craft beautiful hardware, but also has to build an ecosystem filled with attractive third-party apps. Without big hits like Facebook, Instagram, Angry Birds, and Doodle Jump, any smartphone platform would have a hard time finding traction—just witness the struggles of the app-deprived Windows Phone and BlackBerry platforms.

The potential pitfalls for a new breed of manufacturer-made smartphone platforms don’t end there.

The world can’t support a large number of smartphone operating systems, all competing for the attention of the same developers, according to Gartner’s Milanesi. Apps are already slow to trickle down to lesser-used smartphone platforms. Every minute spent developing an app for Windows Phone or Tizen’s miniscule masses is a minute spent not creating apps for the vast hordes using Google Play and the iOS App Store, and because of that, wooing developers to new platforms is just plain hard.

Even a mobile platform with a large and sterling app catalog won’t necessarily have enough to win in today’s smartphone world. A killer platform also needs cloud-based services that sync data between multiple devices, and smart, on-demand features like Google Now and Siri. We expect a lot out of our phones these days.

The Firefox OS developer phone.

With so much change happening in the smartphone market, there’s no telling what the future holds, and that goes doubly so for Android device makers who are wholly dependent on Google’s mobile OS. Fallback options like Windows Phone are looking even less promising than before.

That would be a problem should Google decide to give Motorola a more favored status among Android device makers, or if competitive forces (read: Samsung’s overwhelming Android dominance) compel Google to take a more active role in keeping Motorola and Android relevant.

True, that’s not likely to happen given Google’s hands-off approach to its OS, and for now, Android is still the solid choice for smartphone makers that like to focus on hardware alone. But Microsoft’s Nokia acquisition proved that drastic change can occur overnight. By cultivating open-source OS alternatives today, third-party hardware manufacturers could very well be sowing the seeds of their future survival.

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Ian is an independent writer based in Tel Aviv, Israel. His current focus is on all things tech including mobile devices, desktop and laptop computers, software, social networks, Web apps, tech-related legislation and corporate tech news.
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AMD to ship 64-bit ARM chips to server makers next year

AMD will start shipping its first ARM server chips to manufacturers for testing in the first quarter of 2014, a company executive said on Tuesday.

"When our ARM chips start sampling, [the servers] will be [among] the first few 64-bit machines out there," said Lisa Su, senior vice president and general manager of Global Business Units at AMD.

[ Keep up on the day's tech news headlines with InfoWorld's Today's Headlines: Wrap Up newsletter. ]

AMD announced in June its first 64-bit ARM chips, code-named Seattle, which will have up to 16 CPU cores. The chips are expected to be available in servers during the second half of next year.

ARM processors are used in most smartphones and tablets, and they are being tested in servers as an alternative to the widely used x86 chips. Some believe that servers with ARM processors will be more power-efficient at processing Web applications, which would help cut electric bills. AMD says its 64-bit ARM server chips will be up to four times faster and more power-efficient than its latest quad-core x86 Opteron X-series chips, which draw up to 11 watts of power.

AMD will sell the 64-bit ARM processors alongside x86 server processors, but the company expects ARM to outsell x86 in the long run. In 2011, ARM announced the first 64-bit ARMv8 CPU architecture, and AMD will be one of the first to ship server chips based on that technology. Most of the current ARM chips are just 32-bit, while x86 server chips from Intel and AMD have a head start with 64-bit support.

AMD is being patient with ARM. Adoption of the new architecture will take time as it will require a change in the way servers are built and software is written, Su said.

"Our thought process is it's a multiyear effort for the market to grow. But it's important to get the software development on it," Su said. "We definitely view it as a long-term investment."

There is a lot of interest in ARM chips, especially for dense servers, Su said. AMD last year bought SeaMicro, which offers dense servers packed with low-power x86 chips that can scale up performance depending on the workload.

AMD is also looking to expand into new markets with its custom-chip business, which builds device-specific hardware for customers. AMD has said the custom-chip business could deliver as much as 20 percent of the company's revenue by the fourth quarter, which closes in December, and more than half the revenue in the coming years.

The custom-chip business is already showing results, with Sony and Microsoft using AMD's CPU and GPU technology for their upcoming gaming consoles. The company is also targeting the living room through set-top boxes and other devices that process high-definition video and deliver content from the cloud.

"As we look forward, there are a number of areas where the same model can work. They are in the area of specialty tablets, living room as we look through how the living room evolves, and specialty server applications," Su said.

But AMD isn't losing sight of the PC market, which continues to be its main revenue driver. The PC market has collapsed as tablet and smartphone adoption grows, but the lines are blurring between hybrids, tablets and laptops, Su said.

The company's latest Temash chips and Kabini chips are making their way to Windows tablets and laptops starting at US$399.

"We continue to believe Windows is very important. It's very capable. Windows 8 is something we are committed to, but we also believe Android is important as well," Su said.

AMD has virtually no market share in tablets, and Su acknowledged that the tablet chip is a work in progress. She also pointed out there's potential to grow in the server and custom-chip markets. After years of losses, the return to profitability in the second quarter was a key step ahead, and the company now has a sustainable business model.

"It's very important for us to continue to execute," Su said.

Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh. Agam's e-mail address is agam_shah@idg.com

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AMD to ship 64-bit ARM chips to server makers in 2014

IDG News Service - Advanced Micro Devices will start shipping its first ARM server chips to manufacturers for testing in the first quarter of 2014, a company executive said on Tuesday.

"When our ARM chips start sampling, [the servers] will be [among] the first few 64-bit machines out there," said Lisa Su, senior vice president and general manager of Global Business Units at AMD.

AMD announced in June its first 64-bit ARM chips, code-named Seattle, which will have up to 16 CPU cores. The chips are expected to be available in servers during the second half of next year.

ARM processors are used in most smartphones and tablets, and are being tested in servers as an alternative to the widely used x86 chips. Some believe that servers with ARM processors will be more power-efficient at processing Web applications, which would help cut electric bills. AMD says its 64-bit ARM server chips will be up to four times faster and more power-efficient than its latest quad-core x86 Opteron X-series chips, which draw up to 11 watts of power.

AMD will sell the 64-bit ARM processors alongside x86 server processors, but the company expects ARM to outsell x86 in the long run. In 2011, ARM announced the first 64-bit ARMv8 CPU architecture, and AMD will be one of the first to ship server chips based on that technology. Most of the current ARM chips are just 32-bit, while x86 server chips from Intel and AMD have a head start with 64-bit support.

AMD is being patient with ARM. Adoption of the new architecture will take time as it will require a change in the way servers are built and software is written, Su said.

"Our thought process is it's a multiyear effort for the market to grow. But it's important to get the software development on it," Su said. "We definitely view it as a long-term investment."

There is a lot of interest in ARM chips, especially for dense servers, Su said. AMD last year bought SeaMicro, which offers dense servers packed with low-power x86 chips that can scale up performance depending on the workload.

AMD is also looking to expand into new markets with its custom-chip business, which builds device-specific hardware for customers. AMD has said the custom-chip business could deliver as much as 20 percent of the company's revenue by the fourth quarter, which closes in December, and more than half the revenue in the coming years.

The custom-chip business is already showing results, with Sony and Microsoft using AMD's CPU and GPU technology for their upcoming gaming consoles. The company is also targeting the living room through set-top boxes and other devices that process high-definition video and deliver content from the cloud.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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AMD to ship 64-bit ARM chips to server makers next year

Advanced Micro Devices will start shipping its first ARM server chips to manufacturers for testing in the first quarter of 2014, a company executive said on Tuesday.

“When our ARM chips start sampling, [the servers] will be [among] the first few 64-bit machines out there,” said Lisa Su, senior vice president and general manager of Global Business Units at AMD.

AMD announced in June its first 64-bit ARM chips, code-named Seattle, which will have up to 16 CPU cores. The chips are expected to be available in servers during the second half of next year.

ARM processors are used in most smartphones and tablets, and are being tested in servers as an alternative to the widely used x86 chips. Some believe that servers with ARM processors will be more power-efficient at processing Web applications, which would help cut electric bills. AMD says its 64-bit ARM server chips will be up to four times faster and more power-efficient than its latest quad-core x86 Opteron X-series chips, which draw up to 11 watts of power.

AMD will sell the 64-bit ARM processors alongside x86 server processors, but the company expects ARM to outsell x86 in the long run. In 2011, ARM announced the first 64-bit ARMv8 CPU architecture, and AMD will be one of the first to ship server chips based on that technology. Most of the current ARM chips are just 32-bit, while x86 server chips from Intel and AMD have a head start with 64-bit support.

AMD is being patient with ARM. Adoption of the new architecture will take time as it will require a change in the way servers are built and software is written, Su said.

“Our thought process is it’s a multiyear effort for the market to grow. But it’s important to get the software development on it,” Su said. “We definitely view it as a long-term investment.”

There is a lot of interest in ARM chips, especially for dense servers, Su said. AMD last year bought SeaMicro, which offers dense servers packed with low-power x86 chips that can scale up performance depending on the workload.

AMD is also looking to expand into new markets with its custom-chip business, which builds device-specific hardware for customers. AMD has said the custom-chip business could deliver as much as 20 percent of the company’s revenue by the fourth quarter, which closes in December, and more than half the revenue in the coming years.

The custom-chip business is already showing results, with Sony and Microsoft using AMD’s CPU and GPU technology for their upcoming gaming consoles. The company is also targeting the living room through set-top boxes and other devices that process high-definition video and deliver content from the cloud.

“As we look forward, there are a number of areas where the same model can work. They are in the area of specialty tablets, living room as we look through how the living room evolves, and specialty server applications,” Su said.

But AMD isn’t losing sight of the PC market, which continues to be its main revenue driver. The PC market has collapsed as tablet and smartphone adoption grows, but the lines are blurring between hybrids, tablets and laptops, Su said.

The company’s latest Temash chips and Kabini chips are making their way to Windows tablets and laptops starting at $399.

“We continue to believe Windows is very important. It’s very capable. Windows 8 is something we are committed to, but we also believe Android is important as well,” Su said.

AMD has virtually no market share in tablets, and Su acknowledged that the tablet chip is a work in progress. She also pointed out there’s potential to grow in the server and custom-chip markets. After years of losses, the return to profitability in the second quarter was a key step ahead, and the company now has a sustainable business model.

“It’s very important for us to continue to execute,” Su said.

Agam Shah is a reporter for the IDG News Service in New York. He covers hardware including PCs, servers, tablets, chips, semiconductors, consumer electronics and peripherals.
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Developers cry foul as PC, tablet makers get Windows 8.1

Microsoft has started sending Windows 8.1 to its hardware manufacturers, hitting the so-called RTM milestone for the much-awaited update to Windows 8.

Both Windows 8.1 for x86 machines and Windows RT 8.1 for ARM-based devices have begun shipping to makers of PCs, tablets and laptops, Microsoft said via a blog Tuesday.

However, commercial and enterprise developers, as well as other IT pros, will have to wait until mid-October to get their hands on the OS update, prompting a chorus of boos from them.

In the past, the RTM release also meant the OS was ready “for broader customer use,” but that’s changed now, in part because the OS has to work with such a broad variety of devices, wrote Microsoft official Antoine Leblond.

“As such, we’ve had to evolve the way we develop and the time in which we deliver to meet customers with the experience they need, want and expect. We’ve had to work closer to our hardware partners than ever before,” he wrote.

Via comments to the blog post, response from developers and enterprise IT customers has been swift and almost entirely negative.

“How are we supposed to test our software for Windows 8.1? The day it will be automatically installed on users’ machines? So we—software developers—can take blame that applications don’t work on Windows 8.1?,” wrote one person.

Another one echoed the sentiment: “Most of us actually want to support Windows 8.1, a lot of us want to get apps ready for the awesome 8.1 features, but we can’t properly do that unless we get the RTM bits before the public gets the Windows 8.1 update.”

In a response to one of the developers commenting on his post, a Microsoft moderator wrote: “We are continuing to put the finishing touches on Windows 8.1 to ensure a quality experience at general availability for (all) customers.”

Meanwhile, Microsoft downplayed the outcry, portraying it as much ado about nothing.

“For developers who want to begin building and testing apps for Windows 8.1, they already have all the tools they need using Visual Studio 2013 Preview and Windows 8.1 Preview,” the company said in an emailed statement.

Windows 8.1 Preview is an earlier version of the OS update that was released at the end of June during the company’s Build developer conference. Visual Studio 2013, the newest version of that application development product, is due to ship before year’s end.

In the statement, Microsoft also said it is moving “to a world of more continuous updates delivered in-product” and that this “rapid release schedule” results in faster access to updates for customers, including developers.

By shipping the OS to hardware makers now, Windows 8.1 devices will be ready in time for the year-end holidays, according to Leblond.

“Over the next several months we’ll see beautiful, powerful devices, from the smallest tablets to the most lightweight notebooks to versatile 2-in-1s, as well as industry devices designed for business,” he wrote.

Windows 8.1 is slated for shipping Oct. 18, when it will be “broadly available for commercial customers with or without volume licensing agreements, our broad partner ecosystem, subscribers to MSDN and TechNet, as well as consumers.”

Michael Silver, a Gartner analyst, said Microsoft met the date for sending Windows code to hardware makers, but breaking with tradition and not making it available to developers and IT pros via MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) and TechNet creates potential problems for subscribers to those programs.

“Not distributing the code beyond OEMs until October buys Microsoft 7 more weeks to work on it and fix things before users actually get it. This is good for Microsoft because the extra time allows it to make improvements and potentially get better reviews,” Silver said via email.

“But it also means organizations get 7 fewer weeks to work on it and with less time between new releases, every week counts. Serious work on projects like evaluating a new release of Windows usually decline during the holidays,” he added.

Billed as one of the company’s most critical products, Windows 8 started shipping in October of last year, sporting a drastically different user interface. That Modern interface based on tile icons was optimized for touchscreen devices to make Windows a better OS for tablets and improve its position against Apple’s iOS and Android.

However, complaints from consumers and enterprise users rained down on Microsoft over a variety of issues, including the learning curve for users to get comfortable and familiar with the new interface.

In Windows 8.1, Microsoft is trying to address that and other main objections. For example, it’s adding something very close to the Windows 7 Start button, which the company took away in Windows 8.

With Windows 8.1, Microsoft will also attempt to improve the interplay between the new Modern interface and the more traditional Windows 7-like desktop, which lets users run legacy applications. For example, it will be possible for users to boot directly to the traditional desktop interface, and toggling between the two will supposedly be smoother.

In Windows 8.1, users will also be able to view all the applications installed on their device and sort them by name, date installed, most used or category. It will also have an improved search engine powered by Bing that will return results from a variety of sources, including the Web, applications, local files and the SkyDrive cloud storage service.

Also new are options for seeing multiple applications on the screen simultaneously, including the ability to resize apps, for improved multitasking. Windows 8.1 also comes with Internet Explorer 11, a new version of Microsoft’s browser that the company has said will load pages faster and offer better performance in touchscreen mode.

Windows 8.1 users will also be able to make a Skype call and take photos with the Windows 8.1 device while the screen is in Lock mode without having to log in. It will be possible as well for users to select multiple applications at once and perform bulk actions on them, like resizing, uninstalling and rearranging them.

Updated at 12:30 p.m. PT with comment from Microsoft.

Juan Carlos Perez covers e-commerce, Google, web-application development, and cloud applications for the IDG News Service.
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