Just as the annual Consumer Electronics Show kicks off this week, according to a report from the NPD Group: Consumer electronics sales during this past holiday period dropped six percent from last year.

That should be some not-so-welcome news for the vendors at the Las Vegas gadget confab, which is seeking to show off new wares to excite said consumers.

Those offerings had better step it up, from a look at the NPD Weekly Tracking Service, which noted that the decline was coming off another decline from a year ago.

While 2011′s drop was not as bad as 2010′s, it’s not the right direction, although the tally did not include some of the more explosive device categories being prominently featured at CES, such as tablets.

Said NPD: “Total consumer technology sales (excluding cell phones, tablets, e-readers, and video games) fell 5.9 percent to around $9.5 billion for the 5 weeks ending December 24, a slight improvement over the 6.2 percent decline in 2010.”

Sales of personal computers and televisions fell 4 percent, with flat unit volumes.

“2010 was the first year in quite awhile where the real drags on the core CE marketplace were not TVs and PCs,” said Stephen Baker, VP of industry analysis at NPD, in a press release. “Revenue for those two segments outperformed while the rest of the market dropped by more than 7 percent. The accelerated rate of decline in older technology categories such as DVD, GPS and MP3 players put a ceiling on how well the industry could perform during the holiday.”

Consumers did snap up flat-panel TVs, with screen sizes of 50 inches and higher rising by 32 percent in unit sales.

And the rocky 3-D TV business also grew by more than 100 percent, with TVs with “3D capability accounting for more than one in every five dollars spent on TVs during the holiday.”

Also up: Home theater systems (10 percent) and stand-alone streaming devices (65 percent).

But those increases did not stem the overall negative tide.

For other sectors, here’s the damage to holiday revenue in percentage change from 2011 dollars spent:

Blu-ray players: Down 17 percent.

Camcorders: Down 42.5 percent.

Digital picture frames: Down 37.5 percent.

GPS: Down 32.6 percent.

HDD: Down 25.1 percent.

Mice and keyboards: Down 7.1 percent.

MP3 players: Down 20.5 percent.

Multifunction printers: Down 9.9 percent.

Point-and-shoot cameras: Down 20.8 percent.

MORE CES NEWS:

• Complete coverage
• HP’s Former CTO: Ultrabooks Are Nothing New, webOS Still Has Life Yet
• Walt Shows Off CES Gadgets for Fox Business News (Video)
• What Kind of Web Video Plans Does Sony Have? (Video)
• Fujitsu Seeking Way Into Crowded U.S. Smartphone Market
• Why Rhapsody Is (Probably) Bigger Than Spotify — In the U.S.
• Microsoft Beefing Up CeBit Presence Even as It Pulls Back on CES
• Inside the CES Lost & Found
• FCC Chairman Has New Tablet, but Same Script: More Spectrum!
• Verizon Wireless: We Want to Connect Five Devices for Every Subscriber
• Ultrabooks From HP and Lenovo That Are (Kinda, Sorta) Different
• Walt and Katie Take a Tour of CES (Video)
• Schmidt-Storm Alert: The Google Chairman Didn’t Like Your Question
• T-Mobile Expands Bobsled Messaging Service
• Intel Shows Just How It Plans to Get Into Phones (Video)
• Motorola CEO: We’re Going to Release Fewer Phones This Year
• Kinect Helps Keep Aging Xbox at the Top of Its Game
• More From T-Mobile CEO: On Pricing, LTE and That Ever-Elusive iPhone
• Exclusive: New Boss Acknowledges Windows Phone Still Has “Awareness Problem”
• And You Thought Jawbone UP Was Going to Miss the CES Party!
• Interview: T-Mobile CEO Says No Second AT&T Deal Out There
• Grover Is at CES and I Am Missing It
• BlueStacks Bringing Android Apps to Windows 8
• Why the Future of TV Won’t Be Here Soon
• Nvidia’s Tegra 3 Tries to Save Battery in All Sorts of Different Ways
• Dynamic Dual Coverage: Ballmer’s Last Act in Vegas and the BCS Championship in 3-D
• Microsoft Phoning In Its Last CES Keynote
• Myspace — Yes, Myspace — Says It’s Going to Sell You Web TV
• Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV
• Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share
• Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)
• Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile
• AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works
• LG: 55-Inch Glasses-Free 3-D Screen Is on the Way
• LG Pushes 4G Smartphone Through Verizon: The LG Spectrum
• Live: AT&T’s Vegas Act Stars LTE and, Making Her Return to the Stage, Nokia
• CES Notebook: The Constant Search for Power and Vegas’ Worst-kept Secret
• Belkin Bringing Mobile TV to Lots of Cellphones, Will Anyone Tune In?
• Acer Introduces “World’s Thinnest” Ultrabook and a “Me-Too” Cloud Service
• There Better Be Some Cool Stuff at CES, Because CE Holiday Sales Data Bytes!
• CES 2012: Snooki and Bieber Are In, Gaga Is Out!
• Coming to a Smartphone Near You: Gorilla Glass 2
• RIM Hopes Next PlayBook OS Will Impress at CES
• Ultrabooks, the Ultra-Fancy New Name for Laptops
• At CES, Expect More Gadgets Telling You to Get Off the Couch
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Microsoft Pulling Out of CES After Upcoming Show
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Dell Will Drop the Flashy Vegas Act for CES This Year
• Ultrabook Conga Line Preps for CES 2012

Loosely modeled on the iTunes App store for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, Apple created the store last year as a reliable place to get Mac software. It follows the same 70-30 revenue split, where software makers share 30 percent of their sale with Apple, unless the app is free.

Unlike the iOS App store, the Mac App store isn’t the only place to get Mac software. You can still find good Mac software from sites like MacUpdate.com which has been a go-to for Mac fans for years; it is still buzzing along, referring users to software and generating 100,000 downloads a day.

Still, the Mac App store is now the biggest online software store in the world.

Apple’s statement is below:

CUPERTINO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Apple today announced that over 100 million apps have been downloaded from the Mac App Store™ in less than one year. With thousands of free and paid apps, the Mac App Store brings the App Store experience to the Mac so you can find great new apps, buy them using your iTunes account, and download and install them in just one step. Apple revolutionized the app industry with the App Store, which now has more than 500,000 apps and where customers have downloaded more than 18 billion apps and continue to download more than 1 billion apps per month.

“In just three years the App Store changed how people get mobile apps, and now the Mac App Store is changing the traditional PC software industry,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “With more than 100 million downloads in less than a year, the Mac App Store is the largest and fastest growing PC software store in the world.”

“With Autodesk products in both the App Store and Mac App Store, we can reach hundreds of millions of Apple users around the world,” said Amar Hanspal, senior vice president of Platform Solutions and Emerging Business at Autodesk. “With our free AutoCAD WS and the more powerful professional drafting tools of AutoCAD LT, we’re using the Mac App Store to deliver new products and reach a growing base of new Mac customers.”

“The Mac App Store has unparalleled reach and has completely transformed our distribution and development cycle,” said Saulius Dailide of the Pixelmator Team. “Offering Pixelmator 2.0 exclusively on the Mac App Store allows us to streamline updates to our image editing software and stay ahead of the competition.”

“In less than one year we’ve shifted the distribution of djay for Mac exclusively to the Mac App Store,” said Karim Morsy, CEO of algoriddim. “With just a few clicks, djay for Mac is available to customers in 123 countries worldwide. We could never have that reach through traditional channels.”

The Mac App Store offers thousands of apps in Education, Games, Graphics & Design, Lifestyle, Productivity, Utilities and other categories. Users can browse new and noteworthy apps, find out what’s hot, see staff favorites, search categories and look up top charts for paid and free apps, as well as user ratings and reviews. The Mac App Store is included with Mac OS X Lion and is available as a software update for any Mac running Mac OS X Snow Leopard. For more information visit, www.apple.com/mac/app-store.

Mac developers set the prices for their apps, keep 70 percent of the sales revenue, are not charged for free apps and do not have to pay hosting, marketing or credit card fees. To find out more about developing for the Mac App Store visit, developer.apple.com/programs/mac.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

First, Apple investors will freak out.

Second, Apple will do what Apple has planned to do for all these years.

For years, since Jobs’s first bout with pancreatic cancer was disclosed, Apple has taken a lot of criticism from analysts, shareholders, activists and tech and business columnists on the subject of succession planning. The main complaint has always revolved around the fact that Apple seemed not to have a plan for the day that Jobs would cede the helm either by choice or happenstance.

The fact is that Apple does have a plan, and chose, I think wisely, to keep most of the details related to it confidential. On the very last page of Apple’s Corporate Governance Guidelines (PDF here) you find that the company designates its compensation committee, a subset of its board of directors, as the body responsible for succession planning.

Here’s what the text says (emphasis mine):

XIX. Management Review and Succession Planning
The Compensation Committee should conduct, and review with the Board, an annual evaluation of the performance of all executive officers, including the CEO. The Compensation Committee is expected to use this review in the course of its deliberations when considering the compensation of the CEO and senior management. The Board also reviews the CEO performance evaluation to ensure that the CEO is providing effective leadership of the Corporation. As part of the annual evaluation, the Board and the CEO should conduct an annual review of management development and succession planning for senior management, including the CEO.

And for the record, the members of the compensation committee are as follows: Millard Drexler, the chairman and CEO of retailer J. Crew; Al Gore, the former vice president of the United States; and Andrea Jung, the CEO of Avon, is the committee’s chair.

All of them, Gore especially, know a little something on the subject of succession planning. Yet the market has over the years generally assumed that Apple has had no plan for a post-Jobs Apple.

Expect that assumption to be the order of the day when the markets open tomorrow. Apple shares have already taken a 5 percent hit, dropping $19.08 in after-hours trading tonight, and you can bet that’s just a precursor for what’s coming tomorrow. Over the coming days, the so-called “Jobs premium” will be erased.

So what happens next? First off, tomorrow will be Tim Cook’s first day as CEO — not acting CEO, but as the actual CEO of Apple. Long credited as the man who brilliantly runs Apple day to day, he’s now in charge.

And that’s an encouraging thought. Formally designated Apple’s number two in 2005, he has overseen it during its most exciting and world-changing years. On his first business day as COO, Apple shares closed at $54. Today before the news broke, it closed at nearly seven times that price.

During those years Apple has largely remade much of the world around it: Music, media, communications are all indelibly and fundamentally different because of the work that has come out of Apple during this six-year period. To assume that this stops because Steve Jobs doesn’t show up at the office tomorrow or next week is failing to understand the Apple way.

If you follow Apple long enough, you know that Apple has a long-term vision. I think enough time has passed that I can share the following anecdote. In 2007, right after the introduction of the first iPhone, I attended a meeting with Jobs and the editors of the magazine I was working for at the time.

The meeting included a Jobs-led, hands-on demo with prototype iPhones, during which I asked Jobs a question: “Will you do a version of this without the phone?” The answer — which surprised me that he even gave it — was yes. In that moment I got a very tiny glimpse of the long path that lay ahead. I could see way off in the distance the logical progression leading first to the iPod touch and from there to the iPad. It was a revelation.

And we all know exactly what the iPad is doing to the established order of the PC industry: It is tearing it down. Hewlett-Packard’s decision to get out of the PC business is just one very big and recent example of the degree of that change.

That in mind, I find it hard to accept the argument that there isn’t a similar long-term vision that Apple is executing on at this very moment. My suspicion has long been that a pipeline of products — some of them incremental improvements on existing ones, others radically new and disruptive — are in various stages of the design process. I think it is a safe bet that Apple’s strategic plans for the next five years are more or less mapped out. Beyond that, it’s harder to see, and circumstances can certainly change a great deal in that amount of time.

But consider where Apple was five years ago and what has happened since. Yes, the Apple story was interesting in 2005 and 2006, but who could have predicted that Apple would become the biggest company by market capitalization in the entire world, eclipsing ExxonMobil, if only for a few days.

Markets will do what markets must do. And so must Apple. The next phase of what has turned out to be the most interesting business story in living memory has begun.

Related posts

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• Steve Jobs Live on Stage in 2010 (Video)
• Tim Cook as Apple CEO: A Tested and Steady Hand
• Essay: Jobs’s Departure as CEO of Apple Is the End of an Extraordinary Era
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• Does Tim Cook Need His Own Tim Cook?

The results come as PC makers benefit from a wave of companies upgrading their computer hardware. Lenovo has also benefited from business in China and other emerging markets, where demand is outperforming a weak consumer segment in the U.S. and other developed markets.

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At Dell, while weak PC sales to consumers will put some pressure on overall sales, Whitmore writes, revenues should be more or less in sync with the consensus number of $15.4 billion. Gross margins should, however, be better than the 17.6 percent reported in the year-ago quarter–as high as 20 percent–because of better sales of more profitable products to corporations, a pricing environment for commodity components that is “relatively benign,” and higher contribution from Dell’s corporate storage products to overall results. “Looking forward, we expect Dell to highlight increasing activity around corporate upgrades and a growing pipeline of corporate infrastructure upgrade activity, which should support earnings in subsequent quarters,” he writes. He expects Dell to report per-share earnings of 45 cents, slightly better than the consensus expectation of 43 cents.

He also expects corporate PC sales to be strong overall for Dell, driven by upgrades to Microsoft’s Windows 7. He reckons about 80 percent of Dell’s small business and corporate customers are still running Windows XP. Soft sales to consumers are more or less baked into the expectations and shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Even though Dell has improved profitability of its consumer PC segment recently, it is having a hard time competing with Apple’s iPad, which sold 4.7 million units in the March quarter. “Expectations for the Consumer segment are very low,” he writes.

At HP, the picture is kinda the same, but also kinda different. It’s seeing the same relative strength in corporate IT spending relative to consumer spending that Dell is, translating strong sales of servers and software combined with services. Its weakness will be, Whitmore writes, around the growth of sales of its products generally, or what he calls “organic revenue growth.” He expects revenues to grow companywide by 2.2 percent to $31.5 billion, gross margins of 24.5 percent, one point better than a year ago, and $1.20 in per-share earnings–a penny below the street consensus of $1.21.

HP will be running downhill a bit, thanks to the state of the currency markets. The weakness in the U.S. dollar translates to attractive prices to buyers outside the U.S. This help from the currency markets could continue for the next few quarters, he writes. Even so, judging by the belt tightening seen in internal memos, HP may need every advantage it can get.

Sales of laser printers should be strong given a replenishment of inventories, and some gains in market share from more attractive prices. The inkjet business is another matter entirely. “Fundamentals in the inkjet printer market remain challenging and continue to be characterized by competitive pricing and soft unit volume.”

On PCs, HP is getting hammered on the consumer front thanks to the iPad, just as Dell is. “Although well anticipated, soft results in this segment could undermine confidence in HP’s organic growth prospects and highlight the absence of a tablet offering,” he writes, though the Touchpad is expected in the summer.

On the enterprise side, sales of servers should prove solid as demand for building out data centers remains strong overall, though storage sales may be weak on share losses to EMC and NetApp. Also, sales of servers based on Intel’s Itanium chip may prove weak because of uncertainty around the product’s future.

In the first of two memos below, Joshua Brenkel, head of PSG for the Asia/Pacific and Japan region, orders a freeze on new hires during the second and third quarters.

In the second, Guillaume Gerardin, finance director for PSG Europe-Middle East and Africa, institutes a freeze on operating expenditures (OPEX) “until further notice.” It includes a freeze on travel unless the trips are specifically approved by him or by Eric Cador, the group’s senior vice president. It also orders a hold on new marketing programs.

To place these memos in their context of recent events at HP, they were both circulated to relevant employees mere days after the March 14 HP summit at which HP CEO Léo Apotheker set out his big cloud-centric strategy for the company.

The dates on the memos are also mere days before the close of the first calendar quarter, one in which PC sales were said to be getting hammered, according to market surveys by both IDC and Gartner, thanks once again to the iPad.

I’m told from the source who sent me these memos that others like them went out around the same time in other divisions within HP. That said, I haven’t seen any others like it. HP, by the way, reports quarterly earnings a week from today. Analysts expect it to report per-share earnings of $1.21 on sales of $31.5 billion. Clearly someone is worried about something.

HP declined to comment, citing its quiet period before reporting earnings.

From: Joshua Brenkel
Date: 18 March 2011
Subject: Action: PSG APJ Hiring

Hi All,

Over the course of the past five quarters we have significantly invested in building our teams through sales coverage plan and have added over 370 net new team members to PSG APJ. Due to business conditions, our current revenue forecast, sales productivity versus other regions and OPEX plans, we need to implement the following immediately:

Hiring Freeze (Q2/Q3)
all new positions
all replacement positions
all ETW/contractor positions including extensions
all the above is inclusive of all current open/sourcing requisitions

Process
We will put all roles on hold effective tomorrow all current requisitions
All pending starts (offers extended and accepted) will continue
Finance in process of deploying 2H OPEX
Productivity analysis underway including ETWs/Contractors
Communicate live with your teams so they understand clearly the business context

We recognize there will be a select number of mission critical positions that we will need to go forth with. Thus, we will put in place the following exception process:

Exception Process
Country/Region HR Lead should submit the following attachment which has been approved by the L3 to Damien Hsu by March 24th and ongoing to Damien Hsu by the 20th of each month.
Jos/HR/Finance will review monthly

Overall, this is a very good opportunity for us to step back and ensure our organizations are aligned and efficient as well as all our talent is achieving the revenue/results we are capable of and expect.

Questions, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Appreciate your leadership in advance.

Here’s the second memo:

From: Guillaume Gerardin
Sent: 22 March 2011
Subject: Freeze on Opex – effective immediately

Dear all,

Further to Eric’s message on March 18, this is to confirm that, in order to offset our revenue and resulting gross margin challenges, we are on Opex freeze in PSG EMEA until further notice. Effective immediately, the following measures must be strictly adhered to:

– Travel Freeze:
-No travel for internal meetings, unless otherwise approved by Eric or Guillaume.
-Travel for customer meetings/visits can continue but should be reviewed for maximized return.
– All requisitions are on hold — see attached message from Elizabeth with more details
– Marketing programs — under review for Q2. No marketing program should be engaged and committed for next quarters without formal approval from Eric.

Please distribute accordingly within your teams and ensure strict adherence.

Thanks,

Guillaume

As details about the daring raid on Abbottabad continue to emerge, we’re learning more not only about how Navy Seals found and killed their target, but about the potential for further clues that may help catch yet more terrorists still on the loose.

Historically, obtaining a computer used by a terrorist is almost as important as catching or killing the terrorist himself. When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was nabbed in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in 2003, agents with the CIA and Pakistani intelligence seized a computer whose hard drive was said to contain, among other things, three letters from Osama bin Laden, a list of safe houses that bin Laden had used, a pilot’s license belonging to 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and information about the four planes hijacked that horrible day.

In Iraq in 2005, a seized computer found after a close call played a role in ultimately running to ground the terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. After being pulled over in a pickup truck by U.S. forces, he managed to get away, but was in such a hurry that he left his laptop behind. (I wrote about it at the time.) The computer yielded financial information and recent pictures of Zarqawi. It took another year, but he was eventually killed in 2006.

Clearly the walled compound wasn’t some Luddite hut where modern conveniences were banned. In some of the images of the compound you can clearly see a satellite dish, probably for TV. The Journal’s Tom Wright was among the reporters who got to tour the site. Initially described as a “mansion,” it seems from his description to have been nothing of the kind.

Among the items seized at Abbottabad, according to numerous reports, are hard drives, DVDs and other “electronic equipment.” CNN has a more detailed inventory here. The amount of information found is being described as “impressive” by CIA Director Leon Pannetta, and analysts are digging through it now to see who they can smoke out next.

Often it turns out that terrorists are just as sloppy as the rest of us when it comes to using computers. They make up easy-to-guess passwords, don’t go to the effort to encrypt their sensitive files and leave unencrypted documents in directories where they’re easy to find. With any luck, there is among the collected digital detritus something that will lead to several repeat performances by Seal Team Six.

It’s all part of the wider implications stemming from the dramatic close of the biggest manhunt in American history. I discussed them with Simon Constable and Spencer Ante of The Wall Street Journal during an extended all-bin-Laden edition of The News Hub yesterday. We talked about my story from yesterday on how it appears that bin Laden’s efforts to forgo the use of telephones and the Internet may have been a key clue that helped bring his hiding place to the attention of intelligence analysts. By trying to make himself digitally scarce, bin Laden may have ironically raised a red flag.

In a repeat of a trend seen last quarter, both firms report that the market shrank in the first quarter of the year. This would constitute the first market contraction in six quarters, and the first since the onset of the recession. They differ, however, on the size of that contraction: IDC pegs it at 3.2 percent since the first quarter of 2010; Gartner at 1.1 percent.

To be fair, let’s remember that the first quarter of the year is always seasonably slow for PC purchases because two things tend to happen in the fourth quarter: Consumers splurge on gifts for family and frankly for themselves too, and take advantage of crazy deals offered by retailers desperate to clear out their inventory. On the business side, some CIOs take the opportunity to use up unspent funds in their budgets, and get employees starting off the new year with a fresh new machine at their desks. However, this tendency is just as often offset by the start of a new budget year. Whichever way you slice it, the first quarter is always weak on consumer sales though a bit stronger on the enterprise side.

So what happened? The iPad 2, for one thing. “With the launch of the iPad 2 in February, more consumers either switched to buying an alternative device, or simply held back from buying PCs,” is how Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, put it. “We’re investigating whether this trend is likely to have a long-term effect on the PC market.” Ya think?

Bob O’Donnell, IDC’s vice president for Clients and Displays, wasn’t quite as willing to blame the iPad: “Slower than expected commercial growth in the first quarter failed to offset the ongoing challenges in the consumer market,” he said in a statement. “While it’s tempting to blame the decline completely on the growth of media tablets, we believe other factors, including extended PC lifetimes and the lack of compelling new PC experiences, played equally significant roles.”

Jay Chou, another IDC analyst put it much more succinctly: “‘Good-enough computing’ has become a firm reality.”

The picture gets no better when you look at regional results. IDC says shipments declined in the U.S. by 10 percent. Gartner pegged it at 6 percent. It was, Gartner noted, the third consecutive quarter for year-on-year declines in U.S. notebook sales. Shipments in Europe contracted too, and Japan, which was already expected to be a weak market this quarter, has other things on its mind since the devastating earthquake and tsunami. Asia was the only bright spot, where shipments increased by 5.6 percent in IDC’s forecast and 4.1 percent in Gartner’s. China, IDC noted, failed to reach double-digit growth, and consumers in India, Gartner says, were distracted by the Cricket World Cup. Okay, then.

So how do the numbers look? Since IDC’s forecast is the most dire, I’ll start there:

The worldwide demand for PCs was 80.6 million units. Hewlett-Packard sold 15.2 million; Dell, which just made it back to second place, shipped 10.3 million; Acer 9 million; Lenovo 8.2 million; Toshiba 4.8 million; while “others” clocked 33 million. All vendors except for Lenovo saw declines. The worst decline was Acer’s, whose shipments fell nearly 16 percent. (Now we know why its CEO Gianfranco Lanci lost his job.) Lenovo, on the other hand, saw its shipments improve by more than 16 percent.

Demand in the U.S. was 16.1 million. HP led with 4.3 million, Dell 3.7 million, Toshiba 1.6 million, Apple 1.4 million and Acer 1.3 million. Unnamed others sold 3.7 million. Acer saw its shipments fall by an alarming 42 percent. Apple and Toshiba posted gains of 9.6 and 10.4 percent respectively. HP and Dell both saw declines.

Now let’s look at Gartner’s numbers (remember that each firm tracks the market a little differently):

Gartner pegged the worldwide market at 84.2 million units. It says HP sold 14.8 million, Acer 10.9 million, Dell 10 million, Lenovo 8.2 million, Toshiba 4.8 million. (Clearly there’s a difference in how they see Acer and Lenovo’s performances.)

In the U.S., Gartner estimated the market at 16.1 million units. By its reckoning, HP sold 4.2 million, Dell 3.6 million, Acer 1.8 million, Toshiba 1.7 million, Apple 1.5 million, others 3.3 million.

As you can see from the specs, it’s really just a modern PC built into a body that has the same look and feel as the original C64, which was fully contained inside the body of a keyboard. The appeal is that you can launch a C64-mode to play all the old games and run the old software via an emulator available on the desktop. Though as the vendor’s Web site informs you: “Commodore OS 1.0, along with emulation functionality and the classic game package, will be mailed to purchasers when available. In the meantime, units come with the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS operating system on CD ready to install.” You could probably also install Windows on it provided you get one with a sufficiently large hard drive.

I got my first C64 in 1983 and had to wait a few months before my folks could spring for the floppy disk drive. I had to get by loading programs with a cassette-tape drive at first. When I tell younger people about these tape drives, some of them think I’m pulling their legs. Remember downloading pictures or music or pretty much anything on a dial-up modem? Yeah, it was kind of like that, but worse.

Commodore USA–which bears no relationship to the company that brought the original C64, and later the Amiga computer, to market, then went bankrupt and was liquidated in 1994–is selling the machine for a starting price of $250, though the price increases to $595 (the price of the original in 1982) and $695 depending on options.

If you’re not willing to spend that kind of cash, there are several C64 emulators for modern machines, and plenty of sites where you can download ROM files for old games. Mac users will like Power64, which is what I use. I’m not as familiar with emulators that run on Windows, though here’s a list of several. And everything you’ve ever wanted to know about C64 software, including all those fabulous 8-bit games, can be found at C64.com.

Belows is probably not the first and certainly not the only Commodore TV ad you’ll see around this week. (Many more to be found here.) This one is a 1984-vintage ad for the C64, advertising the machine for $250. It had come down from its original price, but its specifications didn’t change in that time.

The C64′s time on the market gave it the staying power required to make it the best-selling single model of a computer of all time. Estimates as to exactly how many were sold vary: Commodore founder Jack Tramiel said he thought the number was between 22 million and 30 million. A 1993 Commodore annual report (yes, it was publicly held, and you can read more than you ever wanted to know about it in this book) claimed lifetime sales of about 17 million units, though further research suggests the real number was closer to 12 or 13 million. Whatever the number, millions clearly adored, and still do adore, the 64.

The executive–Todd Bradley, who heads HP’s personal-computer business–decided earlier this month to remain with the company, the people said.

But the negotiations underscore Intel’s willingness to consider unusual measures to strengthen its management ranks as the company faces the difficult task of identifying an eventual successor to Chief Executive Paul Otellini. An executive vice president regarded as the most likely candidate among Intel’s top managers, Sean Maloney, is recovering from a stroke he suffered a year ago. Another potential candidate, Patrick Gelsinger, left Intel in 2009 to join EMC Corp.

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For one thing, January’s restructuring of the board of directors has left a bad taste in the mouth of a pair of shareholder advisory firms, who have publicly called upon HP investors to vote against the re-election of as many as three sitting directors and against some say-on-pay proposals.

Sources familiar with the situation confirmed to me that after today’s event, HP’s investor relations team plans to mount what’s being described as a “road show” to counter the recommendations to vote against management made by Institutional Shareholders Services and Glass Lewis among retail investors. Exactly who is involved and whom they plan to visit couldn’t be determined. HP had no comment about it.

At least part of the road show’s mission will be to drive home the highlights of the strategy that Apotheker lays out in his keynote today. But there is some nagging concern that a sufficient number of shareholders, put off by repeated instances of board room drama over the last decade — Carly Fiorina’s ouster in 2002, the pre-texting scandal in 2006, and last year’s departure former CEO Mark Hurd — may vote against the three directors standing for another term: Lawrence Babbio, Sari Baldauf, and Ken Thompson.

That enough investors would vote against management to make a difference may seem unlikely at first until you consider the number of shareholder lawsuits stemming from the Hurd affair that are currently pending both in federal courts and in the Delaware Chancery Court. The fear of an embarrassing defeat for HP and its new board at the annual meeting on March 23 isn’t an unreasonable one.

Then there are the larger questions. As Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi pointed out in a recent note to clients, HP’s stock has underperformed the S&P 500 since Hurd’s departure, and the lag has been driven mostly by uncertainty among investors about its strategy and about Apotheker himself. Its disappointing results in the first quarter didn’t help matters.

There are numerous questions around HP’s hardware strategy, particularly around the PC business. While it has promised to put the WebOS platform it acquired last year when it absorbed Palm into tablets and into every PC it ships, HP is still seen as far behind Apple on the tablet front. We all know why that is.

But the questions go deeper than that. Apotheker, a former CEO of the business software giant SAP, last week sent a strong signal in an interview with Bloomberg News that he plans to acquire some software companies.

What kind of acquisitions? He’s ruled out SAP, for one thing. And in a meeting with Bernstein’s Sacconaghi last month, he said any acquisitions would not be so large as to “keep investors awake at night,” meaning, Sacconaghi suggests, that they would probably not exceed $5 billion. Aside from buying software companies, he’s also signaled that the days of cuts–the hallmark of Mark Hurd’s tenure–are over. Cutting costs is out, investing is in.

But then there’s the larger issue about whether or not Apotheker can steer Hewlett-Packard, the storied Silicon Valley icon, on a course that restores its former glory. The question marks around him on this score are considerable because the task is just so huge. HP is a sprawling $126 billion juggernaut meaning change comes slowly, often in barely perceptible steps that leave impatient investors wondering what’s taking so long.

At the outset, the Apotheker’s strategy appears to be summed up pretty simply: Bring the market-leading position in hardware to bear and combine its offerings with a newly ascendant software business, which together will feed into an IT services business that aims to compete with IBM. It’s not going to be easy and the most important important thing that Apotheker has to do is inspire both analysts and shareholders alike that he’s the man to get the job done. As yet both are understandably skeptical mainly because Apotheker is an unknown quantity.

When Apotheker’s predecessor Mark Hurd took over at HP in 2005, there was very little doubt about what kind of CEO he would be: A relentless, unsentimental cost-cutter, and this much was clear before he was even officially on the job.

And while Apotheker has pointed tentatively in the direction he’d like to take HP, there are still more questions about him than there is certainty. His most important job will be to convince all concerned that he’s the man who can steer HP back on a course to greatness.

PREVIOUSLY:

• Another Advisory Firm Singles Out HP Director Babbio
• Shareholder Group Contends HP’s New Board Is Too Chummy
• “Peripatetic Polyglot” Léo Apotheker Wants to Save HP’s Soul by Buying Software Companies
• HP Earnings Today: Will Léo Apotheker Speak?
• Michael Dell Thinks HP Paid “Way Too Much” for 3Par
• Judge: HP Can Re-Investigate Hurd Departure
• Is This the HP Board That Will Allow Us to Stop Thinking About HP’s Board?
• Meg Whitman, Patricia Russo Among Five Joining HP Board
• HP Plans Another Probe Into Hurd Departure
• Léo Makes It Official: SAP’s Bill Wohl Joins Hewlett-Packard
• Want Enterprise Growth, HP? Think Services
• Mark Hurd Really Wants to Keep the Jodie Fisher Letter Private
• Mark Hurd Doesn’t Want You to Read the Letter That Cost Him His Job
• HP Networking Head: “People Are Tired of Paying for Cisco”
• HP Names Ex-SAP Chief Apotheker as CEO

Dell just reported quarterly earnings, and the numbers are a bit mixed. First off, sales in the fourth quarter were $15.692 billion, just a whisker short of consensus analyst expectations of $15.72 billion. That represents a 5 percent improvement over a year ago.

Per-share earnings, however, were way ahead of the consensus at 53 cents versus 37 cents, amounting to a change of 89 percent over the year-ago quarter.

In its outlook, Dell said it expects revenue to to grow in the range of 5 to 9 percent in its fiscal year 2012 (underway as of Jan. 29), and for profits to grow in a range of 6 to 12 percent. Cash flow from operations will exceed profits.

Dell shares are up more than 6 percent in after-hours trading.

Here are some highlights:

• Enterprise sales and services grew 7 percent to $4.6 billion, or 29 percent of overall sales.
• Server revenue increased 16 percent.
• EqualLogic sales grew 49 percent and, combined with Dell PowerVault sales, accounted for almost two-thirds of storage sales and north of 80 percent of storage gross margin dollars.
• Sales in the combined large enterprise, the public and small- to medium-business sector was up 9 percent to $12.4 billion in the quarter, with revenue for commercial laptop and desktop computers growing 10 percent.
• PC profitability (Dell calls them clients) improved in the second half of the year, driven by improvements in the supply chain, lower input costs and improved product quality. For the full year, PC revenue grew 14 percent to $33.7 billion, driven on a refresh cycle from corporate buyers.

CEO Michael Dell sounded an optimistic note, the first I can recall in some time:

“I’m very pleased with our fiscal year results and the strong performance we’re seeing in our commercial businesses. We remain focused on developing and acquiring new technologies and capabilities, and our IT solutions portfolio has never been stronger. Customers are now seeing Dell in a fresh light, and we’re heading into the new year with strength and optimism.”

Sorry, joining slightly late. Jen-Hsun Huang is walking through Nvidia’s recent announcements.

And also some history. 1995 was important because the personal computer really became personal back then. (I assume this relates to a Windows release but not clear why.)

At the time, we thought we’d be a $300 million company in five years. But we got a lot bigger.

Ina Fried: You’re expanding beyond graphics, but how big is that business?

JH: We’ve shipped one billion GeForce processors. That’s a lot. We’re also doing Quadro processors for high-end processing. We’ve got the new Tesla business, where we use our GPU for general technical computing. It’s being used for the world’s fastest supercomputer.

Our newest business is the Tegra business. Using our expertise for a new class of mobile computing.

IF: Earlier versions of the Tegra were used in the Zune.

JH: And the Kin.

IF: I wasn’t going to mention the Kin.

Now JH is talking Intel. Which started with move into building chipsets, 12 years ago. Started with Xbox, then AMD platforms, then we wanted to scale out so we started talking about Intel. Now we’re in a dispute.

IF: So where do things stand with that?

JH: [More or less a non-answer here.]

IF: Okay, let’s talk about the future!

JH: Cool. 2011 is a big year, a year that computing is getting redefined because of these mobile products.

IF: That sounds like hyperbole, but I sort of agree. There’s some amazing stuff being shown off this year. But explain what’s different about this stuff.

JH: We like to call the new phones superphones. Time to do a demo.

JH is plugging in a new Android handset into a dock. It’s taking awhile. Complains about his vision. Okay, there we go. Showing off multitasking, apps, etc. Showing off 1080p video that looks cool. No audio, though. “This is a full-on computer.”

JH: We think these will really change things, because they can be laptops, or a media center, etc., simply based on where you dock it and the kind of accessories.

IF: So you have cellphones basically being able to replace a computer. But Microsoft is also announcing that Windows will run on ARM processors, including ones you make. How important is that?

JH: If you’re a software company of any kind, your primary focus is to target processors, anywhere. At this point, it’s a foregone conclusion that ARM will be the largest installed base of processors in the world.

Then the important thing is the operating systems: Andriod, iOS and RIM are incredibly important.

IF: So Windows is fourth most important?

JH: The most important CPU architecture going forward is likely to be ARM. At this point, you have to embrace ARM or you’re going to miss out on a very important market. Now they have a huge growth market that’s opened up to them.

IF: Again, explain the importance of Windows on ARM vs. Intel, etc.

JH: It’s huge!

Then he talks about energy dissipation, and that the designs are more elegant. He notes that the D staff backstage is using MacBooks and Airs “because they’re more elegant.”

And note that Steve Ballmer showed off a next gen of Windows running on Tegra 2/ARM. Office, too.

IF: But beyond Windows, what kind of software work has to be done to take advantage of ARM?

JH: Lots of work.

IF: Windows took a decade to catch up last time around. They can’t take this long this time.

JH: Right. That’s why we’re talking about this now, so when next gen of Windows is out, we’ll be ready.

A discussion about how the market shakes out between different chipsets.

JH: Next-gen Windows, by the time it shakes out, I don’t think it will matter what chipset you use if you’re a consumer. Enterprise will still run on x86, I think.

IF: Back to the cool stuff we’re seeing this year at CES, which seemed impossible a few years ago. What will we see in a few years that we can’t imagine now?

JH: Whatever expectation you have for game consoles, PCs, etc. will be “fully met by mobile devices in the next three to four years.”

And in the next three to four years this kind of device will likely exceed your expectations, because the supercomputer will be in the cloud.

IF: More future talk, please. 3-D on the phone?

JH: 3-D on the phone is a foregone conclusion. This kind of glass (on phone) is perfect for 3-D display. And it will work perfectly when you’re touching it. Long term, this device will have much better computer vision, so instead of taking a picture and sending it back, it might analyze the image and send a signal back, to reduce bandwidth.

IF: Except there are all kinds of problems with bandwidth. You had problems with wireless at your demo. Isn’t that a bigger problem going forward?

JH: The carriers finally have real incentive to invest in the pipe, because there’s a reason to use it, with all the hi-def video, etc. So we can take their promises seriously, finally.

Next year every phone will be a 4G phone.

IF: Talk about your fab-less approach to this business.

JH: In 1993, we couldn’t get a fab. We didn’t have a choice. And now ARM has democratized the CPU. It’s a big deal. [Missing the connection here, but perhaps it's my ignorance.]

Okay, that’s it! Thanks.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110107/live-nvidia-ceo-jen-hsun-huang-at-dces/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20110105/quoted-in-case-you-didnt-get-the-message-our-new-chip-is-a-big-deal/ http://allthingsd.com/20110105/quoted-in-case-you-didnt-get-the-message-our-new-chip-is-a-big-deal/#comments Wed, 05 Jan 2011 20:27:20 +0000 Arik Hesseldahl http://newenterprise.allthingsd.com/?p=1391

“In 2011 alone, just the first year of shipments, Sandy Bridge will represent over one-third of Intel’s corporate revenues this year, and will generate over $125 billion of revenue for the PC industry. This is a huge, huge product.”

– Intel CEO Paul Otellini, speaking at the company’s CES press conference today, at which it formally launched its latest generation of PC microprocessors, which combine a traditional PC processor with a graphics chip.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110105/quoted-in-case-you-didnt-get-the-message-our-new-chip-is-a-big-deal/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100921/ipad-boosts-apple%e2%80%99s-customer-satisfaction-rating/ http://allthingsd.com/20100921/ipad-boosts-apple%e2%80%99s-customer-satisfaction-rating/#comments Tue, 21 Sep 2010 19:10:16 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=49007 The latest American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) this week gave Apple its highest-ever score (PDF), awarding the company 86 points out of 100 in its 2010 survey of consumer sentiment.

Apple’s score is a new record in the personal-computer category, one that’s nine points higher than the company’s closest competitors–Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL) and Acer, which all tied with a satisfaction rating of 77. Apple has claimed the top spot in the ACSI’s personal-computer rankings for seven straight years; the last time it was beaten was in 2003, when Dell bested it by a single point.

Impressive, eh? Now get this: The ACSI didn’t note this in its formal release, but its PC survey included the iPad. And evidently the iPad scored quite high. Higher than the Mac, actually.

“People said they find the iPad more satisfying than the Mac,” ACSI’s managing director David VanAmburg told me. “And that helped goose Apple’s ranking.” He added that that makes the iPad the highest-scoring product Apple sells and by extension the highest-scoring product ACSI has ever recorded.

Great news for Apple, particularly since folks obviously find the Mac pretty damn satisfying.

Now, the company’s certainly not without its customer-satisfaction issues; Antennagate is testament to that. But its facility in creating easy and compelling user experiences and dedication to those core values that CEO Steve Jobs often mentions–”We just want to make great products”–are clearly paying off, as this seven-year ACSI sweep demonstrates. And there’s a lesson for the rest of the industry there. “The biggest asset Apple has had for a long time is its commitment to innovation,” VanAmburg told CNN. “Others are improving, but the whole world watches Apple when it comes up with its new products each year.”

[Image credit: Gizmodo commenter Ahubbuch and ACSI ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100921/ipad-boosts-apple%e2%80%99s-customer-satisfaction-rating/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100514/chuck-geschke-on-adobe-flash-apple/ http://allthingsd.com/20100514/chuck-geschke-on-adobe-flash-apple/#comments Fri, 14 May 2010 10:00:55 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=40589 A couple of weeks ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs published “Thoughts on Flash,” a 1,671-word execration of Adobe’s Flash platform.

On Thursday, Adobe co-founders and co-chairmen Chuck Geschke and John Warnock followed suit with some thoughts of their own. Their eight-paragraph essay, “Our Thoughts On Open Markets,” mentions Apple only once, but when it does, it is to lambaste the company for its position on Flash, a position the two claim “could undermine this next chapter of the web–the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individual can be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time.”

I spoke to Geschke Thursday afternoon about the pair’s letter, Adobe’s (ADBE) new “We ? Apple” ad campaign and Apple’s (AAPL) stance on his company’s software. Below, a transcript of our conversation.

John Paczkowski: What is Adobe is hoping to get out of this new “We Love Apple/Freedom of Choice” campaign?

Chuck Geschke: We mostly are using it as a way to communicate with our customers and partners to assure them that we’re not going to change our strategy and to inform the rest of the community of what the pluses and minuses are of not supporting Flash on the iPhone and the iPad. Our customers, a large percentage of them, are the people who generate and distribute information and content, and for them they have one production stream that they use to do that and they’ve gotten used to the fact that we’ve worked very hard to open up the standards that we support so that we can offer them ubiquity of output on all kinds of platforms. So the fact that Apple is precluding that puts them in a tough position because it means that they’re going to have to create that content twice, and that’s not very productive. It’s certainly more expensive than what they do today. And as you know, the content industry is an industry under a lot of cost pressure these days.

JP: Both Apple and Microsoft have said publicly now that Flash has issues with reliability, security, and performance. Do you think those complaints are legitimate?

CG: I think they’re old news. Go to our Web site and read the actual facts about Flash. We enumerate the facts about Flash there as we see them. [Microsoft and Apple] may have a different set of facts that they believe are accurate. It’s up to you to decide. But I will tell you that the Flash version we’re coming out with now–where, for the first time with the Mac platform, we can actually get to the lower-level interfaces–is going to run like the wind. And the same is true on Windows.

JP: Shouldn’t Apple have the right to define the means by which apps for its own platform can be written?

CG: They absolutely have the right. No one says they don’t.

JP: Cross-platform mobile apps tend not to take advantage of native features unique to each device. What do you have to say about complaints that write-once-run-anywhere software results in subpar apps?

CG: Well, people don’t say that about Photoshop. They certainly don’t say it about Acrobat….I’m a little confused about what the real examples of that are. If there’s a problem with the performance of Flash as demonstrated on the iPhone, it’s because we haven’t been able to access the inner layers of hardware and software we need to to provide the kind of performance we can provide on other platforms. But that’s Apple’s choice, not ours. And now, of course, you can’t use it at all.

JP: So you don’t think write-once-run-anywhere is limiting at all?

CG: Not really. I mean there may be certain features in certain environments that you’ll want to do customization for, but the more you go down that road, the more you get the experience of HTML on the Web, where the kind of browser, hardware and OS you use determines what your experience. That’s because HTML is not well codified and standardized and people sort of roll their own.

JP: How much of Adobe’s revenue comes from Flash?

CG: I would share that number if we disclose it, but I’m not sure that we do. It isn’t a huge amount of revenue, but it is an extremely popular platform that all of our apps have the opportunity to exploit when it’s distributed everywhere. Flash tools aren’t the largest piece of our business, but it’s a significant one and obviously we feel it’s extremely important to our customers and partners who want to build third-party apps in an environment where they can, in fact, put them on a variety of devices without having to re-implement them.

JP: So could Apple’s exclusion of Flash hurt Adobe sales?

CG: I don’t think it will have a significant effect. As well as Apple is doing, if you look at the number of platforms out in the market and the number of release of new ones that will occur over the next six to 12 months, it’s going to be huge. That’s a much bigger population, and we’re just focusing on making our technology operate as effectively and efficiently as possible for it.

JP: In his “Thoughts on Flash” essay, Jobs accused Adobe of abandoning Apple. “Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products,” he wrote. Is Job’s implication here a fair one?

CG: We never abandoned Apple. Apple now seems to be abandoning at least one aspect of our product line right now. No, we never abandoned them. We’ve always ported our apps simultaneously to both platforms. There have been times when Apple has changed its strategy on hardware or on operating systems that didn’t meet our product cycle, so there have been periods of maybe six months where we didn’t keep up with their latest release. But that’s our own business model; we can only afford to re-implement our products at a certain rate.

We have never, ever abandoned Apple and we don’t want to abandon them today. Everything you read in our new ad is true. I myself own probably between 8 and 10 Macintoshes — both laptops and work stations. I don’t buy PCs, I buy Macs.

JP: Why isn’t Flash an open standard?

CG: It is. What are you talking about?

JP: Flash is proprietary to Adobe. It’s not Open Source. Let me rephrase: Why isn’t Flash an open standard overseen by an open-standards body?

CG: As soon as Adobe acquired Macromedia, we openly published the SWF format and removed the requirement that you have a license to use it….No, we haven’t put Flash out to a standards body yet as we have with PDF and Postscript. But I wouldn’t be shocked if we do someday when it makes sense.

With the standards that we have built and made open to the entire world, we’ve tried our best to get them to the point where they’re mature enough so that we’re not doing design by committee. If you look at the amount of time it will take HTML5 to become a reasonably solid platform, it’s going to take a long time because there are an awful lot of vested interests trying to influence its development.

JP: Any thoughts on Steve Jobs’s claim that “Flash was created during the PC era–for PCs and mice”?

CG: What do you think an iPhone is? It’s a personal computer.

JP: One last question. What do you think of the iPad?

CG: I think it’s a neat thing. I personally have no particular interest in it; I’d much rather have a general-purpose computer. I think there’s definitely a market for that kind of product. We certainly know a lot of people that want to produce content for it and a large percentage of them are disappointed that they’re going to have to do that separately from the way they produce content for all the other devices they support.

PREVIOUSLY:

• Adobe to Apple: You Wanna Hug It Out? Let’s Hug It Out!
• Good Luck With That Alleged Antitrust Complaint Against Apple, Adobe…
• Adobe CTO: Flash on iPhone Doesn’t Suck and Apple Knows It
• A Possible Apple Antitrust Inquiry? Nothing to See Here…
• Microsoft on Flash: What Steve Said
• Adobe: We’re Done With You Too, Apple
• Apple to Adobe: I Know You Are, but What Am I?
• So Much for Flash on the iPhone
• Adobe: Flash for Mac Is Getting Better–Really!

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100514/chuck-geschke-on-adobe-flash-apple/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100211/latest-dell-acquisition-not-palm/ http://allthingsd.com/20100211/latest-dell-acquisition-not-palm/#comments Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:01:04 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=34732
Dell is certainly getting its money’s worth from David Johnson, the mergers and acquisitions specialist it hired away from IBM (IBM) in 2009. Last fall, the PC maker announced plans to buy information technology services outfit Perot Systems (PER) for about $3.9 billion. Now, just a few months later, it’s snapping up another company–and no, it’s not Palm (PALM).

Dell (DELL) is acquiring Kace Networks, a systems-management appliances venture with clients in government, education and health care. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

For Dell, which is pushing harder than ever to expand tech services offerings, the deal seems a savvy one. Certainly, it dovetails nicely with the company’s acquisition of Perot and will aid its effort to peddle services to small- and mid-sized businesses–something the company clearly needs to do as profits from its core personal computer business dwindle.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100211/latest-dell-acquisition-not-palm/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091230/no-file-no-icon-litl-is-a-big-idea-but-still-cloudy/ http://allthingsd.com/20091230/no-file-no-icon-litl-is-a-big-idea-but-still-cloudy/#comments Thu, 31 Dec 2009 02:31:29 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1130 One of the hottest ideas in the digital world now is the notion of dumping the traditional personal computer, where most programs and data are stored locally, for a stripped-down device that would operate primarily as a gateway to servers on the Internet, where your programs and data are accessed remotely. This approach is often called “cloud computing.”

In fact, the original netbooks, the small laptops that have become very popular, were designed around this concept of relying mostly on the Web. They used low-end processors, shunned Windows, and had very little internal storage. But a combination of consumer sentiment and industry maneuvering pushed them back into the fold, so that today, most are simply cheap, small conventional Windows laptops.

Now, a small Boston company, called Litl, is taking another shot at this idea, with a different twist. It is selling online a highly unusual laptop it classifies as a “webbook,” which attempts to meld cloud computing with a TV-like viewing experience—for the home. This shiny, colorful computer, named the Litl, is larger and more expensive than a typical netbook. It’s about the size of a small standard laptop, with a 12-inch screen and a weight of 3.4 pounds. It costs $699, or about twice the price of a netbook, at litl.com.

Yet the Litl doesn’t use Windows, or directly run word processors, email, or photo or music programs. It can only perform those tasks via Web sites and services like Gmail or Flckr, Google Docs or Pandora Radio. About the only local program it has that can run without an Internet connection is a virtual egg timer. It has no hard disk or any other way for a user to store anything locally.

The Litl’s user interface is a radical departure. There is no task bar or dock, no folders, no icons for files and programs; no traditional desktop. Instead, the Litl’s screen is filled with small cards that contain various kinds of Web content, from photos to news headlines, Facebook status and favorite Web sites. Click on a card, and its contents fill the screen.

The Litl webbook

And the Litl has another big difference from standard laptops or netbooks: something called “easel mode.” You can flip it around so the machine takes the form of an inverted letter “V,” with the screen facing outward. In that position, the machine can be used like a small Internet-based TV to display headlines, the weather, photo slideshows or videos from the Web. The company sells a $19 remote for controlling the computer in easel mode. You can also control it with a wheel built into the hinge.

I’ve been testing the Litl and I have mixed feelings about it. Some of the bold concepts behind the machine are refreshing, including the cloud-computing idea and the very simple interface and operating system, which demand much less work and attention from the user than a traditional PC does. The company also is promising many improvements, delivered via frequent over-the-air updates, including iPhone-type apps developed by third parties. It even offers a two-year money-back guarantee.

I was able to set up cards for Gmail and Yahoo Mail, and to send and receive messages. I also set up a card for Google Docs and was able to create and edit documents. I tapped into my Flickr account and could view slideshows of family photos I had previously uploaded. And I was able to watch TV shows via Hulu, both in easel mode and on my big-screen TV, once I connected the Litl to it.

But, in my tests, I found the device a bit clumsy and unsatisfying to use. For instance, as you add cards for your favorite Web sites or headline feeds (called channels), it becomes more difficult to scroll through screen after screen to find the one you want. There is no easy way to organize things.

In easel mode, when you see a headline that interests you, there is no way to click on it to read the whole story. Videos in easel mode too often stuttered. Worse, if you’re watching a video in easel mode, or through a TV, the Litl’s remote doesn’t let you pause, fast forward or back up. And the Litl doesn’t allow you to upload photos or videos to the Web.

The battery life is awful. The company claims 2.5 hours. In my tests, it conked out in less time. The company says that isn’t a problem, because the machine is designed for home use and will likely stay plugged in.

The company claims it is working on improving the Litl’s shortcomings. For instance, it plans a photo-uploading function and smoother video playback. So, it will likely get better. But, as of now, for $699, my feeling is that a standard laptop could perform many of these tasks in a more familiar, more versatile manner.

Cloud computing may one day be the standard way of doing things digitally, but the Litl, at least in its current form, isn’t the answer.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091230/no-file-no-icon-litl-is-a-big-idea-but-still-cloudy/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091216/diabetes-meter-mates-with-pc-to-track-trends/ http://allthingsd.com/20091216/diabetes-meter-mates-with-pc-to-track-trends/#comments Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:04:33 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1110 This week’s column was, in a sense, written in blood. It’s a review of a new consumer medical device, and to test it, I had to prick my fingertips several times a day to produce a droplet of blood that the gadget could analyze.

The product, called the Contour USB, is an interesting new computer-savvy blood-glucose test meter for diabetics, made by the big pharmaceutical company, Bayer. As a diabetic myself, I’ve been using a more traditional version of such a meter to test my blood several times daily for years. So do millions of others.

What makes the $75 Bayer Contour USB different from typical meters is that it looks and works like a common USB thumb drive, so it was born to integrate with personal computers. It plugs right into a PC or Mac without the need for any cables, and contains—built right in—software you can run on your computer for analyzing your test results. That’s helpful for both diabetics and their doctors, who need to understand the trends in the amount of glucose in the blood to make decisions on medication, diet and exercise.

After testing the Contour USB for five days, I found it worked pretty well and consider it a promising step in diabetes care. More information is at bayercontourusb.com, and the meter can be purchased at the Web site of the drug chain Walgreens and at drugstore.com.

But I am neither a doctor nor a diabetes expert, and I am not advising anyone to switch his or her meter without first consulting a medical professional.

The Contour USB is a compact, rectangular device with a USB connector on one end and a slot for glucose test strips, which collect the blood from the droplet, on the other. The face of the device has a color screen and three buttons that allow you to navigate simple menus.

Bayer’s new Contour USB blood-glucose meter

Loaded inside is a software program called Glucofacts Deluxe that runs on either a Windows PC or Macintosh once you pop the meter into a USB port. It launches directly from the meter’s internal memory, which also contains your test results plus free space for anything else you wish to store on it.

The software reads the glucose results from the meter, and displays them in various logs, charts and graphs, which can be printed out or saved as a file on the computer. The user can provide the printouts to the doctor or email the files containing the data.

This mating of a glucose meter and a computer isn’t a new idea. Many brands of meters can be used with computer programs via extra-cost cables. But because the Bayer device builds in both the USB connector and the software, it makes this process easier than it has typically been. (Another new meter, called Myglucometer, is on the same path. It uses Bluetooth wireless technology to beam results to a PC.)

In my tests, the Contour USB proved quick and easy to use. When you’re actually doing the blood testing, it works pretty much like any other meter, and a computer isn’t involved. The meter’s color screen does, by default, ask you to designate whether the reading was taken before or after a meal, an extra step that can make the results more meaningful. But this feature can be turned off. And there’s an option that allows you to add a canned note, like “Sick,” or “Stress,” to any reading.

The real payoff comes when you plug the meter into a computer and launch the software, which helps you see the trends in your glucose levels over time. For instance, it can plot in various ways how often you stayed in a target zone and when you deviated. I tested this on Windows and Macintosh computers, and it worked. But there were some downsides.

For one thing, to launch the Glucofacts Deluxe software on your computer, you have to click on an obscure-sounding file name. It’s supposed to run automatically in Windows, but I never could get it to do that.

Also, on Windows, the software required me twice to install a new component. And the program is incompatible with Apple’s latest operating system, Snow Leopard. Bayer says it is working on solving the problem.

Another feature some may see as a downside is that the meter’s sealed battery can’t be replaced. But the company sees the freedom from buying batteries as an advantage for heavy users, and claims that even a one-minute recharge session will allow for several tests.

My biggest disappointment with the Contour USB was that it doesn’t provide any way to upload your results to an online repository, where you and your doctor might view them. And the new meter doesn’t tie in with online medical portals from companies such as Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT). Bayer says it plans an online component for the Contour USB.

Despite these flaws, I consider the Bayer Contour USB to be a welcome move toward integrating home testing with the digital world.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091216/diabetes-meter-mates-with-pc-to-track-trends/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091104/motorolas-droid-is-smart-success-for-verizon-users/ http://allthingsd.com/20091104/motorolas-droid-is-smart-success-for-verizon-users/#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:10:06 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1069 Verizon Wireless customers tend to love the company’s fast 3G network. But many tech-oriented Verizon loyalists gripe about the carrier’s high-end smart phones, which haven’t matched the cachet and versatility of the Apple iPhone sold by AT&T (T). In fact, some Verizon customers have switched to AT&T simply to get an iPhone.

But this week, Verizon (VZ) is rolling out a device that finally gives it a more credible alternative. This new $200 phone is the Motorola Droid and it’s the first Verizon model to run Google’s (GOOG) Android smart-phone operating system. I’ve been testing the Droid, and while it has some significant drawbacks, I regard it as a success overall. It’s the best super-smart phone Verizon offers, the best Motorola (MOT) phone I’ve tested and the best hardware so far to run Android. I can recommend the Droid to Verizon loyalists who have lusted for a better smart phone, but don’t want to switch networks.

Like the iPhone, the Droid is really a powerful hand-held computer that happens to make phone calls, and is a platform for numerous third-party programs, or apps. Currently, Android offers over 12,000 apps. That is just a fraction of the 100,000 apps available for the iPhone, but it’s well above what the newer BlackBerry or Palm (PALM) phones offer.

The Droid is also the first phone that runs the 2.0 version of Android, which sands off some of the rough edges of Google’s platform and adds some features—notably, a free voice-prompted turn-by-turn navigation program. Android still isn’t as slick or fluid as the iPhone’s OS, in my view, but it has some functionality Apple (AAPL) omits, including the ability to run multiple third-party apps simultaneously.

The Droid is a handsome, squared-off device with a gorgeous, huge, high-resolution screen, bigger and sharper than the iPhone’s. There’s also a slide-out physical keyboard. It’s only a tad longer and thicker than the Apple product. But it’s 25% heavier, which makes it less comfortable to carry around in a pocket.

The Droid also has a higher-resolution camera than the iPhone’s: five megapixels versus three megapixels. And the camera has a flash, which the Apple lacks. In my tests, pictures came out OK, though not dazzling, and videos I shot were quite good.

Motorola’s Droid

The Droid’s large 3.7-inch screen looked great, but it lacks multitouch features, such as two-finger zooming, and it seemed less responsive than some other touch screens I’ve tested.

Battery life is listed at a whopping 6.4 hours, and, in my tests, the Droid easily lasted through the day on a single charge. Phone calls were crisp and clear, and I never suffered a dropped call. Verizon’s network was speedy and reliable for Web surfing, email and social networking. I copied some songs and videos onto the Droid by plugging it into a computer, and all played properly.

The Droid, whose $200 price comes only after a $100 mail-in rebate, requires a minimum $70 monthly service plan for two years, and text messaging costs extra. It comes with 16 gigabytes of memory, in the form of a removable card, and can handle up to a 32-gigabyte card.

Unfortunately for lovers of physical keyboards, I found the one on the Droid to be pretty awful. It has flat, cramped keys that induce too many typing errors, yet lacks auto-correction. I found myself using the virtual on-screen keyboard, which was pretty fast and accurate for me, and did include auto-correction.

Another downside: The Droid’s screen has only three panels for displaying apps, versus 11 on the iPhone, and some large apps, called widgets, hog much of the space on these panels.

Like the Palm Pre, the Droid tries to integrate social networking with contacts, though in a more limited way. It handles Google’s Gmail and Facebook, as well as Microsoft Exchange for corporate email and data. A nice feature lets you tap a contact’s picture and get instant options for ways to communicate.

The Droid can do some cool tricks with a couple of $30 optional docks, one for the car and one for the desk or nightstand. When placed in the car dock, the phone automatically displays a horizontal view with large buttons, including one for the built-in navigation system. In my tests, this navigation system worked pretty well, even showing photos of certain intersections. But it also gave me a couple of bad directions, such as sending me the wrong way at a fork in the road.

When placed in the desktop dock, the Droid displays the time and a different row of large icons from when it’s in the car dock, including music and an alarm clock.

I ran into one odd flaw with my test Droid, and with a second test unit tried by a colleague. Neither could send a photo via multimedia messaging to either my iPhone or her BlackBerry. Verizon was able to send pictures this way to my iPhone from other Droids, and it suspects some flaw in our test units.

The Droid is potentially a big win for Verizon, Motorola and Google, as well as for loyal Verizon customers.

Find Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091104/motorolas-droid-is-smart-success-for-verizon-users/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091023/liveblogging-the-microsoft-first-quarter-earnings-call-look-wall-street-no-hands/ http://allthingsd.com/20091023/liveblogging-the-microsoft-first-quarter-earnings-call-look-wall-street-no-hands/#comments Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:42:52 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=19858

Well, well, well, that financial imp at Microsoft–CFO Chris Liddell–pulled a fast one on Wall Street and turned in first-quarter earnings that blew away all estimates and even the whisper numbers.

While revenue and net income were down for the third consecutive quarter, they were not as bad as investors had expected.

Perhaps those Microsoft (MSFT) financial predictions were no good, but the results were a strong sign of recovery at the software giant.

BoomTown liveblogged the morning conference call with Liddell, which took place at 7:30 am PT–thanks for the Kiwi-laced wake-up call, Chris!

(You can see the financial slides of the Q1 performance here.)

7:34 am: “It might have been the bottom of the economic reset,” said Liddell in the opening. “I’m very happy.”

Still, Liddell, who has been a glum goose for many quarters now, could not quite do cartwheels, noting that the economy was “still challenging.”

He also still repeated his favorite term for the market, calling it: “The new normal.”

7:38 am: Other investor guy, whose name I always forget (and who is Bill Koefoed, by the way), got on and went through the numbers. He also sounded deeply relieved and noted that it looked pretty good out there.

Liddell returned and said Microsoft was “well-positioned” to exit the econalpyse stronger than competitors.

Not so bad, although he expected personal computer and hardware sales be weak still and was not promising anything.

The online and search and advertising partnership with Yahoo (YHOO) was also on track, said Liddell.

“In summary, I feel great about how we are executing,” said Liddell, who made sure to give credit to “cost discipline.”

It was nowhere near the strong performances of Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) recently, but allowed Microsoft some much needed breathing room.

7:51 am: Question time!

The first was about when the launch of Windows 7 would start bringing home the bacon.

The next was about “channel inventory build,” which was like asking Liddell to be a soothsayer. “Net positive,” he opined.

The third question was about costs from the transition of the Yahoo deal and the contribution.

Costs will up front and there will be a contribution in the “hundreds of millions.”

Next: The future of cost cuts.

“I see that as the journey that never ends,” said Liddell.

Memo to PR head Frank Shaw: Cancel the truckload of caviar for a big honking party in celebration of these results. Stat!

7:58 am: I missed one question, since it was so boring, as was the answer.

Then a good one came about the deployment of Windows in corporate environments and elsewhere.

“All of the feedback we get so far is positive,” said Liddell, not that he is bragging or anything. “The sales in retail, we are expecting to be very good.”

Another cost question, this time about whether more investments are coming in the years ahead.

No ramping back, thank you very much!

The next question was about the impact of netbooks on the bottom line.

Not bad, but not huge, said Liddell.

What about display advertising online? In line with the weaker market, said Liddell, but it should improve.

8:09 am: PC demand? Liddell notes the “robustness” of the PC, which Microsoft has actually been pooh-poohing over many quarters.

Liddell said he saw better days ahead, perhaps because past ones had been weak, especially business PCs. “That can’t continue forever,” he noted.

A question about Europe. “Relatively weak,” said Liddell, while emerging markets were stronger.

“This calendar year is transition to next calendar year,” said Liddell.

A query about Windows 7 revenue recognition, which comes when Microsoft sells to OEMs.

8:14 am: More on OEMs, who are the big buyers of Microsoft’s operating system software.

Next up: Another question about outlook.

“Generally speaking, we are seeing good adoption of our products,” said Liddell, but the true rebound is coming next year.

The last question is about Windows Live.

It’ll get better, but next year, folks!

Translation, if you imagine Liddell channeling “Annie”: The sun’ll come out tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there’ll be sun!

Enjoy this lovely video of the classic song:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091023/liveblogging-the-microsoft-first-quarter-earnings-call-look-wall-street-no-hands/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20091023/microsoft-earnings-preview-move-on-nothing-to-see-here/ http://allthingsd.com/20091023/microsoft-earnings-preview-move-on-nothing-to-see-here/#comments Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:03:47 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=19850

Microsoft has had a high-profile week, between launching its new Windows 7 operating system and striking real-time feed deals with both Twitter and Facebook.

But Wall Street is not expecting quite as much excitement from the software giant’s first-quarter earnings, which will be announced before the markets open this morning.

Both revenue and profits are expected to be down from the same period a year ago.

So any beating of expectations would be seen as a big deal by investors.

Microsoft (MSFT) will hold a conference call on the results at 7:30 am, which BoomTown will be liveblogging–mostly to enjoy the lilting accent of CFO Chris Liddell.

Analysts are expecting the company to report 32 cents a share on revenue of $12.4 billion. In the same period a year ago, Microsoft’s revenue was $15.1 billion on net income of 48 cents a share.

Microsoft’s execs have been striking a tone of caution for several quarters, largely due to the falloff in sales of personal computers in the wake of the econalypse.

In the last quarter, the company’s income fell 30 percent, for example, and it missed revenue estimates by $1 billion.

There have been no new products of any consequence in the first quarter, although Windows 7–which has been well-received so far–is likely to boost results in the months ahead.

Office 2010 is also coming out in the first half of this fiscal year, which should also add to a better future performance.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091023/microsoft-earnings-preview-move-on-nothing-to-see-here/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091008/feds-launch-antitrust-probe-of-ibm/ http://allthingsd.com/20091008/feds-launch-antitrust-probe-of-ibm/#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:00:20 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=26293

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091008/feds-launch-antitrust-probe-of-ibm/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091008/dell-4/ http://allthingsd.com/20091008/dell-4/#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:15:17 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=26247 So much for Dell’s personal computer manufacturing operations in the United States. On Wednesday, the PC maker said it would close its plant in Winston-Salem, N.C., as part of a long-term restructuring that will see it cut costs by $4 billion by the end of fiscal 2011. Over 900 employees will lose their jobs as a result.

“This was a difficult but necessary decision to improve the company’s competitive position,” Dell (DELL) spokesman David Frink said. “It is not a commentary on workers in North Carolina or workers in the United States.”

Of course not. As Dell CFO Brian Gladden said during the company’s last earnings call, “Our cost reduction programs have never been more crucial than during this weaker demand environment.”

Still, it’s unfortunate to see the company forced to shift work once done in the states to lower-cost contract manufacturers abroad. This is, after all, Dell’s third big closure in recent memory. The company stopped desktop manufacturing in Lebanon, Tenn., earlier this year, and in 2008, it shuttered a desktop plant in Austin, Texas.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091008/dell-4/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090824/what-do-you-call-a-netbook-thats-late-to-market-a-nokia-mini-notebook/ http://allthingsd.com/20090824/what-do-you-call-a-netbook-thats-late-to-market-a-nokia-mini-notebook/#comments Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:28:37 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=23553 The world’s largest mobile phone maker has finally entered the PC market.

Not a week after confirming its interest in the netbook market, Nokia leapt into it, uncrating the Booklet 3G–a 2.8-pound “mini-laptop” with 3G, WiFi and A-GPS support, a 10-inch HD-ready display and a claimed 12 hours of battery life. The machine will feature an Intel (INTC) Atom processor and likely run a version of Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows. Finally, it will support Ovi, Nokia’s (NOK) version of Apple’s (AAPL) App Store.

“A growing number of people want the computing power of a PC with the full benefits of mobility,” Kai Oistamo, Nokia’s executive vice president for devices, said in a statement. “We are in the business of connecting people and the Nokia Booklet 3G is a natural evolution for us. Nokia has a long and rich heritage in mobility and with the outstanding battery life, premium design and all day, always on connectivity, we will create something quite compelling. In doing so we will make the personal computer more social, more helpful and more personal.”
 
Quite a pledge. And one that Nokia must deliver on if it’s to become a full-fledged mobile solution provider.

“Nokia is not trying to move into the extremely competitive market for PCs in general, even though it describes the Booklet 3G as a mini-laptop. What it is doing is moving to protect its key markets,” said Gold Associates analyst Jack E. Gold. “Indeed, netbooks are increasingly being sold as mobile device alternatives (or supplements) to smartphones. Many have 3G radios included, can make voice calls (via VoIP) and are increasingly being sold and subsidized by traditional wireless carriers. Therefore, it is logical to see Nokia make this move.”

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