Market Focus
Trends In Personal Computing
By Ramdas S
 With newer technologies taking center stage and small form-factors becoming popular, the personal computer will never be the same again.
Over the past few quarters, the personal computing space has seen many paradigm changes. With technologies like 3D, touch-screen and ultra-low-power processors gaining popularity, a whole new range of personal computing devices are expected to take center stage and this will change the way customers use PCs and also how resellers sell them.
“Personal computing as we know is changing at a fast pace. The way we access and process information, entertain and educate ourselves is expected to change as the mobile devices market explodes,” says Diptarup Chakraborti, Principal Analyst, Gartner India.
Smartphones
Often described as a mobile phone with advanced PC-like capabilities, smartphones have come a long way and are today emerging as a challenger to the PC. One of the early innovators in this space was Nokia with its Communicator, and later Research in Motion (RIM) with BlackBerry phones. But the real market boom has happened in the last couple of years with Apple launching the iPhone and Google announcing its mobile OS, Android. Microsoft has also joined the race with Windows 7 Mobile.
In 2008, there were 100 million smartphones shipped globally. According to market research firm IDC, the market is expected to quadruple by 2012. In India, the number of mobile users will touch 500 million by 2012 and smartphones will constitute at least 10 percent of the annual mobile handset shipments.
“Over the next six months you will see Android-based smart phones shipping at less than Rs 6,000. Today there are several OEMs in China who manufacture such phones at less than $100,” says Vikram Mehta, CEO, Medwaves. However, he believes that the biggest challenge to smartphones adoption is the lack of common mobile OS platform.
“There is Symbian, Apple has iPhone OS, RIM has BlackBerry, then you have Microsoft pushing Windows Mobile and Google betting on Android. The lack of interoperability between them is thwarting the growth of smartphones. Eventually there will be a major consolidation which will increase smartphone adoption in a big way especially in the enterprise segment,” believes Mehta.
“Integrating smartphones with enterprise class applications will emerge as the biggest opportunity for partners. Globally, this market is expected to cross $3 billion by 2013,” forecasts Chakraborti.
Smartbooks
Analysts are increasingly using the term Smartbook to describe mobile internet devices sporting a display bigger than 5-inch and having PC-like capabilities. While many of these devices have phone capabilities, they can also perform almost all tasks that a PC does. Though the concept has existed for nearly a decade, the market has been reinvented with Apple launching iPad. It has also forced a number of PC OEMs to announce similar products.
Recently, HP recently launched a similar product called HP Slate, while Intel has also said that its in the process of launching a specific chipset for smartbooks based on Atom.
Analysts predict that smartbooks will eat into the netbook market, which over the last two years has seen significant volumes. “Initially, smartbooks will be targeted at consumers, and professionals like doctors and teachers. Soon enough, industry verticals such as hospitality, travel and even retail will start adopting it,” believes Chakraborti.
Touch and 3D display
According Display Research, touch-screen will emerge as the most influential computing technology by 2015.
Mobile phones will continue to be the biggest consumers of touch-screens followed by PCs. Several PC vendors such as HP, HCL, Acer and Lenovo have announced touch-screen PCs or notebooks, over the last six months.
While these products are still very expensive, most believe that with increasing volumes, prices will come down drastically over the next couple of years. “The demand for touch-screen devices have increased faster than expectations and the exponentially rising volumes will bring down prices” says Rajendran S, CMO, Acer India.
Several touch-screen monitors are also currently available in the market. Although they are still priced at 100 percent premium over the normal LCDs, vendors are seeing better-than-expected sales. The biggest boost for touch-screen PC has come from Microsoft with the launch of Windows 7 which boasts of a touch interface that is far superior than its predecessors.
Microsoft is also providing software development kits for the development of touch-enabled applications. With over 600 3D-ready gaming titles available in the market, the 3D notebook and desktop market too is set to boom. Vendors like Acer, Lenovo, Dell will be announcing more 3D notebooks and gaming PCs soon.
All-in-one PCs
All-in-one (AIO) PCs have made a comeback and PC vendors believe that they are the best bet to reinvent the desktop market, which has been eroding due to the increasing demand for notebooks.
Priced between Rs 25,000 to Rs 90,000, there are almost 20 models from different vendors available across retail outlets. According to Display Research, 6 million AIOs were shipped in 2009 and this figure will nearly double in 2010.
“We believe that AIOs will reinvent the consumer PC experience and boost the home desktop market. The response from our retail partners has also been excellent for the AIO models we have launched,” says Amar Babu, Managing Director, Lenovo India.
Almost all vendors including Acer, Dell, and HP have been pushing AIOs very aggressively. “Consumers are waking up to the new PC form-factor and the benefits that AIOs offer. It’s just a question of time before the volumes start picking up,” opines Rajendran.
Small form-factor PCs
Once considered a fad, small form-factor (SFF) PCs, especially those with power saving capabilities, are in demand with consumers and enterprises, alike. According to a survey conducted by Dell—among SMB customers in top 10 markets including US, UK, India and China—respondents said that their primary consideration for buying SFF is space and power savings.
According to IDC, by 2013, SFF desktops will make up nearly 38 percent of the global desktop shipments. While Dell has SFF models such as OptiPlex960 and Zino which is styled like a Mac Mini, HP has launched the Compaq dx2009 sporting the Via C7 processor and priced less than Rs 10,000 excluding the monitor. Acer too has launched Revo.
Many system builders are seeing the demand for SFF grow. “We have built SFF CPU sporting a Core 2 Duo processor. Earlier in the same form-factor we could fit only an Atom,” explains Harish Kumar RP, CEO, Connoisseur Electronics. “Earlier prices of components for SFF PC were more than the regular PC building blocks. However, that difference has come down significantly.” |