“The PC market in Western Europe suffered from weak demand in both the professional and consumer sectors, a market which also faced inventory issues caused by overstocking in 2010,” said Meike Escherich, principal analyst at Gartner. “The much anticipated uptake in the professional segment, in the wake of migration to Windows 7, was subdued by the negative economic outlook. PC shipments in the professional segment declined 9 percent in the second quarter of 2011. The biggest decline continued to come from the consumer segment which decreased 27 percent year-on-year.”

PC shipments in the UK totaled 2.5 million units in the second quarter of 2011, a decline of 15 percent compared with the same period in 2010. The professional market remained weak with a decline of 13.5 percent. The migration to Windows 7 and replacement of aging PCs continued to be muted by the negative economic outlook.

“PCs are not attracting consumers' disposable income, particularly in light of alternative devices. While remaining an important device to consumers, there are few compelling technological reasons to drive PC replacements,” said Isabelle Durand, principal analyst at Gartner.

PC shipments in France totaled 2.3 million units in the second quarter of 2011, a decline of 17.8 percent compared with the same period a year ago. It performed below expectations and remained weak due to slow consumer demand and lower PC shipments.

“For the fourth consecutive quarter, the PC market in France showed decline,” said Durand. “It also exhibited the weakest PC growth of the three major countries in Western Europe in the second quarter of 2011.”

The consumer market declined 33 percent partly due to the rise in popularity of media tablets and smartphones, which impacted PC purchases. The professional market increased 9 percent in the second quarter of 2011 but volumes were not significant enough to compensate for the drop in consumer demand. The mobile PC market accounted for 67 percent of total PC shipments, with volumes declining 18 percent. Desktop PCs declined 18 percent year-on-year. Of the total mobile segment, mini-notebook sales declined 49 percent in the second quarter of 2011. Apple made its entry in the top five PC vendors ranking in the second quarter, and it was the only top five vendors to exhibit shipment growth.

“The French PC market is expected to improve in the second half of 2011, with more attractive back-to-school promotions compared to a year ago and product refreshes,” said Durand. “However, the availability of new media tablet models will lead to a price battle in the mobile market. Some level of government austerity measures due to the recent economic issues could also impact consumer confidence and spending in France.”

PC shipments in Germany totaled 2.4 million units in the second quarter of 2011, a decrease of 13.3 percent compared with the same period in 2010. This marks the second consecutive quarter of double-digit shipment decline. The PC market continued to be hit by poor mobile PC sales that decreased 14 percent. Desktop PC shipments declined 12 percent in the quarter. The double-digit fall in mobile PC sales was mainly caused by a steep decline in mini-notebook shipments, which decreased 43 percent.

HP continued to lead in the German PC market as it accounted for 13.3 percent of PC shipments in the second quarter of 2011. Demand in the professional PC market has improved as organizations released budgets to migrate aging PCs to Windows 7. HP in particular seemed to benefit from this upturn in the professional market.

“Given the hype around media tablets such as the iPad, retailers were very conservative in placing orders for PCs,” said Escherich. “Instead, many of them wanted to secure space for media tablets.”

PC shipments in the second quarter of 2011 declined in Western Europe. The only real bright spot was Apple. The company made its entry in the top five PC vendors ranking. Photo: www.imagine-your-world.com

“We have written the application from the ground up in HTML5, so that customers can also access their content offline directly from their browser,” said Dorothy Nicholls, Director, Amazon Kindle. “The flexibility of HTML5 allows us to build one application that automatically adapts to the platform you're using - from Chrome to iOS. To make it easy and seamless to discover new books, we've added an integrated, touch optimized store directly into Cloud Reader, allowing customers one click access to a vast selection of books.”

The Kindle Cloud Reader can be seen as Amazon’s answer to Apple’s App Store policies. To comply with the latest rules, Amazon removed the buy-button from the Kindle app late last month. Through the new application, users can now access over 950,000 eBooks through the browser based app that applies updates automatically to.

According to a 2010 study from Goldman Sachs, Amazon did have a 58 percent market share of eBook sales in the U.S. at this time, followed by Barnes & Noble (27 percent) and Apple (9 percent.) The Kindle Cloud Reader will be available on additional web browsers, including Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Firefox, and the BlackBerry PlayBook browser in the coming months.
The Kindle Cloud Reader is available for download here.

A new app for Amazon’s Kindle allows users to access over 950,000 eBooks through the Safari and Chrome web browser. Photo: www.imagine-your-world.com

Windows 7 will become the leading operating system worldwide in the PC installed base, running on 42 percent of PCs in use by the end of 2011. Gartner's latest PC OS forecast shows 94 percent of new PCs will be shipped with Windows 7 in 2011.

"Steady improvements in IT budgets in 2010 and 2011 are helping to accelerate the deployment of Windows 7 in enterprise markets in the U.S. and Asia/Pacific, where Windows 7 migrations started in large volume from 4Q10," said Annette Jump, research director at Gartner. "However, the economic uncertainties in Western Europe, political instability in selected Middle East and Africa (MEA) countries and the economic slowdown in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 will likely lead to slightly late and slow deployment for Windows 7 across those regions."

The forecast assumes that Windows 7 is likely to be the last version of Microsoft OS that gets deployed to everybody through big corporate wide migration. In the future, many organizations will also use alternative client computing architectures for standard PCs with Windows OS, and move toward virtualization and cloud computing in the next five years.

"By the end of 2011, nearly 635 million new PCs worldwide are expected to be shipped with Windows 7. Many enterprises have been planning their deployment of Windows 7 for the last 12 to 18 months, and are now moving rapidly to Windows 7," Jump said.

Shipments of Apple iMacs and Mac OS share on new PCs have seen increases in the last 12 months. The Mac OS was shipped with 4 percent of new PCs worldwide in 2010 versus 3.3 percent in 2008. Mac OS is forecast to be on 4.5 percent of PCs in 2011, and grow to 5.2 percent of new PCs in 2015. Shipments will grow stronger in mature markets where consumers are buying into the Apple product ecosystem.

"The adoption of Mac PCs and Mac OS is a result of Apple's ability to grow well above the market average in the last 12 to 24 months, thanks to its ease of use from the user interface (UI) point of view and ease of integration with other Apple devices, such as the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch," Jump said.

The Mac OS share still varies greatly by region, as Apple has much stronger presence in North America and Western Europe. The fastest growth is expected to happen in selected emerging countries, where Apple and Mac OS are growing from a small base.

Gartner does not expect Chrome OS, Android or webOS to get any significant market share on PCs in the next few years. Analysts believe that to get any consideration as an alternative for a traditional PC, lighter OSs will first need to get strong positions on emerging client devices such as Web books and media tablets. Even then, it is unlikely that they will have any impact on Microsoft and Windows OS's hold on positions on traditional professional PCs in the time frame of the current forecast. This is because of application compatibility issues and the high proportion of Windows-specific applications within many enterprises.

Gartner estimates that only in 2012 will the market reach the point of crossover between Windows-specific and OS-agnostic applications for enterprises, as 50 percent of the applications will be OS-agnostic. In the consumer space, the company believes that the proportion of OS-agnostic applications is already above the Windows-specific applications. This could help Chrome OS and Android make inroads into the consumer space in the next three to five years.

“It remains to be seen whether the next Apple iPhone set for introduction in September will support 4G LTE,” said Wayne Lam, senior analyst for IHS. “However, if it does, two things are clear. First, the iPhone’s minuscule printed circuit board (PCB) will have to grow in size in order to support the first-generation LTE baseband processor as well as all the supporting chipset. Second, the next iPhone’s BOM value certainly will increase substantially compared to the iPhone 4 if LTE is implemented in the same manner as in the HTC Thunderbolt.”

The code division multiple access (CDMA) version of the iPhone 4, currently offered by Verizon, carried a bill of materials of $171.35, based on the IHS teardown from February. If Apple used the same first-generation LTE chips and baseband design as HTC did in the ThunderBolt, BOM of the CDMA iPhone 4 will  rise to $211.10, a 23.2 percent increase that does include any other changes to the design that could further raise the materials cost.

However, recent comments from Apple indicate the company will not take the same design approach as HTC did. “The first generation of LTE chipsets forced a lot of design compromises with the handset, and some of those we are just not willing to make,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple chief operating officer, speaking at the company’s April 2011 earnings call.

A more efficient solution for implementing LTE would be Qualcomm SnapDragon MSM8960, a successor to the MSM8655 used in the ThunderBolt. The chip combines LTE, EVDO and HSPA into a single design. This new device not only eliminates the multiple baseband chipset approach employed by the ThunderBolt, but also would reduce the size and cost of making an LTE-enabled iPhone 5.

However, even the new MSM8960 will require the addition of more components, including power amplifiers, radio frequency components and switches. Qualcomm’s next-generation LTE solution is set to be introduced in 2012, which would allow Apple to produce an LTE-enabled iPhone at lower costs.

"iPads are becoming more prevalent, more reliable and more viable for locating information," said Acting NSF Director of Public Affairs Dana Topousis. "This application will provide at your fingertips another avenue for sharing and accessing breaking science news."

Content for this application is either produced by NSF or gathered from scientists, college and university press offices, popular and peer-reviewed journals, National Science Foundation science and engineering centers, and funding entities that include government agencies, not-for-profit organizations and private industry. New content is added weekly, with hundreds of images and videos currently available for download. All images and videos can be shared on Facebook and Twitter, or via email. A built-in news feed allows users to keep abreast of breaking stories in scientific discovery as they happen.

The main application screen is laid out in a user-friendly format, providing iPad owners with the top news, videos, images and discoveries from the science community. In the way it showcases science, Science360 for iPad has a unique look - a spherical or 360-degree presentation. The application demonstrates the successful partnerships and platforms NSF has developed with NBC Learn and LiveScience.com as well as Science Nation, to communicate science and technology discoveries to a broader audience.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by the U.S. Congress in 1950 “to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare …” Science 360 is available as a free download from the Apple iTunes store here.

Science 360 features spectacular images and video content from NSF-funded institutions in high resolution for download to the iPad. Photo: National Science Foundation