Computer system builders like Hewlett-Packard and Dell may look to pull out of the tablet market now that both Amazon and Barnes & Noble cannonballed the shallow end of the pool. Over in the deep end is Apple with its full-size (9.7-inch) iPad line, the only one that seems to be able to stay afloat at the $500 mark and above. Is it worth trying to compete anymore?
Dell, like everyone else, was affected by hard drive shortages resulting from flooding in Thailand, which may have played a role in revenue falling flat during the company's fiscal third quarter of 2011. If nothing else, the "complexity in working through the industry-wide hard drive issue" has Dell trending towards the lower end of the range of its revenue outlook of 1 to 5 percent growth for its full fiscal year, the company said.
Lenovo has reason to crack open a bottle of bubbly heading into the holiday season. Reporting results for its second fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2011, Lenovo said its net earnings shot up 87.9 percent. Gross profit jumped 59.8 percent year-over-year to $948 million, and the company's net cash reserves now sit at approximately $4 billion. But what's really remarkable is how Lenovo defied the so-called post PC era.
Dell's ultrathin, ultraportable, or ultra-whatever-you-want-call-it (just don't call it an Ultrabook) XPS 14z is now available for sale in several configurations starting at $1,000. Dell's pitching this as "the world's thinnest, fully featured laptop with a built-in DVD player" and it figures to give Apple's MacBook Pro a run for its money in both form and function (as well as price).
With the introduction of the XPS 14z notebook, it's almost as if Dell took off its white glove, slapped Apple in the face with it, and said "How do you like them Apples?" The XPS 14z is thinner than a MacBook Pro at less than an inch thick (0.9 inches high), it has an optical drive (making it the thinnest 14-inch laptop to feature an ODD, 
Amazon did more than just throw down the gauntlet when it announced its $200 Kindle Fire tablet, the e-tailer may have also scared off some of the competition altogether. Oddly enough, the Kindle Fire might actually help Microsoft increase its presence in the mobile market, as OEMs look to Windows 8-based slates in order to avoid a price war among Android tablets.
Market research firms International Data Corp (IDC) and Gartner both report that HP still sits on top of the world as the largest PC maker, shipping more units than other computer maker in the third quarter. Given that HP is maintaining a sizable lead despite all the turmoil surrounding the company's past, present, and future, why on earth would HP go forward with plans to sever its PC business? That's a question HP itself is having trouble answering, and it now looks as though newly appointed CEO Meg Whitman wants to back off plans to spin off or sell HP's Personal Systems Group (PSG).
The tablet war has pretty much been a two horse race: Apple vs. Android. (Yeah, we know about the PlayBook, but let’s be realistic.) And that race has been like a blowout as the iPad 2 has been galloping away from the competition pretty handily. Microsoft’s hoping to hit the ground running with Windows 8 sometime soon, however, and they’ve just got a boost from Dell, who says they plan on heavily supporting the upcoming operating system.
Dell is calling its new Inspiron One 2320 all-in-one PC the "ultimate stay-connected desktop for families" equally suited for hammering away at homework assignments, keeping track of expenditures, and for watching movies and music. Pitching the homework angle might prove a tough selling point for school age kids, even if it makes mom and pop smile, but there's plenty more you can do with it.
The Intel-backed Ultrabook armada is all ready to set sail for an ambitious incursion into the domain of ultraportables. But the real motive is not to make a dent in the Apple-dominated ultraportable PC market but to stop the rapid advance of the iPad and other tablets. Even though Intel and its PC vendor chums have been making a lot of noise about this new breed of ultra-thin and light notebooks, Dell and HP continue to be conspicuous by their absence from the ranks of Ultrabook backers. So where are there Ultrabooks?
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