Much has been made about the popularity of netbooks, but now the statistics are pouring in to back up these claims. The market intelligence and research company IDC’s latest report confirms that netbooks accounted for an astonishing amount of computer sales over the Christmas season. This popularity is clearly reflected in the number of computing manufacturers that have jumped on the netbook bandwagon, and, according to the IDC, fuelled in large part by mobile broadband deals offering netbooks on the side for ‘free’.

In terms of actual units sold in the fourth quarter of 2008, netbook sales reached an incredible 3.6 million. This figure alone accounts for 20% of the entire laptop market and easily eclipsing the popularity of business laptops. The pack was led by the netbook giants Acer and Asus, with 1.1 million and 1.01 million units sold respectively. However, the report’s most interesting conclusion is on the role mobile broadband packages, which often offer netbooks for free, played in the mini-laptop’s success. Offered by all of the UK’s major mobile service providers, such as 3, Vodafone, T-Mobile, and others, the packaged mobile broadband deals offer easy internet access to all at an affordable rate; indeed, given the fierce competition and numerous providers of mobile broadband, consumers have managed to be on the receiving end of some incredible bargains.

Whilst netbooks are valued for their low cost, simplicity and ability to go online, mobile broadband is treasured for exactly the same reason. Mobile broadband is affordable, easy to sign up for, available to all, and only requires a dongle to get started; since even the netbook is often provided by the mobile provider. Of course, with the excess of mobile broadband providers in the market today, finding the best plan is often a difficult task. Aside from taking the time to examine every single plan individually, however, you can find the best for you by simply using the numerous websites that compare all the providers for you. The amount of websites offering this comparison service are as extensive as the different deals available; nevertheless, one website, namely Broadband Genie, stands out from the rest on account of its ease of use, accuracy, positive user feedback, and depth.

Not only does Broadband Genie offer the most recent mobile broadband deals available, with a comparison of over 100 different offers, but it also lists separately all the packages that include a free laptop. It allows customers to find the most competitive mobile broadband plan among providers that are offering laptops, ensuring that the customer receives both a new netbook, as well as the best bargain available. With just a cursory glance we see major providers like O2, T-Mobile, Orange and Vodafone, offering high quality netbooks, like the Asus Eee PC 904HD, or the Samsung NC10, for free as part of their mobile broadband packages; no wonder so many people are getting their hands on netbooks.

All indicators point to a continuance in this trend over 2009, with many going so far as to proclaim 2009 as the year of the netbook, even while PC sales decline. Analysts claim netbook sales could reach 30 million over the year, and Acer alone is targeting a 10 million sales figure for its Aspire netbooks. Of course, if the most recent data from the end of 2008 is anything to go by, then these projections are anything but fantastical, and 2009 could truly shape up to be the year of the netbook.

One Laptop Per Child project, popularly known as OLPC delivered more than 1m XO-1 laptops to the children of developing nations. This project was started with a vision to help the poor young ones. The main aim of the OLPC is to ensure that no child is deprived of quality education just because he cannot afford it.

OLPC was founded by Nicholas Negroponte, who is the founder and chairman emeritus of MIT’s Media Lab. Unfortunately it has been through lots of setbacks in past recent years. In 2007 OLPC’s chief technology officer, Mary Lou Jepsen refused to start a new company called Pixel Qi to support development of XO ideas separately. Later on Walter Bender, the software boss also resigned and recently the OLPC had shed off half of its staff and the remaining 32 members have agreed to a huge pay cut. Perhaps even more threateningly, many commercially made netbooks are now approaching and eclipsing the OLPC’s low cost. Whilst commercial netbooks, such as the Asus Eee PC 701 8G, were already almost as expensive as the OLPC XO laptop, recent developments have netbooks approaching the £100 mark; which is obviously a major threat to the OLPC’s viability

The amazing thing is that despite all this the OLPC stands tall and confident with regards to its vision and operations. Nicholas Negroponte doesn’t sound downhearted. He says, “OLPC should have trimmed sooner. We have since grown stronger. Almost all the cutbacks were in engineering staff related to the in-house support of Sugar, which is far better done in the community. In fact, paying people to do it from within created a degree of control that was unsuitable for real open-source development. There are 600,000 laptops in the field, 250,000 in transit and another 380,000 about to be made, so the total adds up to about 1.2m. Thirty-one countries in 19 languages are the exact statistics. It’s less than I anticipated, but still gratifying.”

Tags for this article: laptop, netbooks, sales

PDAs or Personal Digital Assistants are great devices to have, as they assist mobile users in their day to day tasks. These devices are used in almost every sector, despite the increasing popularity and presence of smartphones like the BlackBerry Storm. Be it marketing, sales, advertising, finance, HR, productions, logistics or any other functional area, the Personal Digital Assistants work as a great helping hand and manages all the complex tasks easily.

Due to such benefits and worldwide popularity the PDAs will now be introduced in workshops also. The after sales software developer arm of Manheim Retail in the UK, Real Time Communication (RTC) has developed a new handheld PDA to increase the efficiency of the after sales inspection system in the workshops. It will enable the wireless transmission of the recorded data to RTC’s vehicle health check module. This will eliminate the need for service advisors to re-enter the data that has already been recorded by the technician. It’s very simple to use the new PDA. This demonstrates how other PDAs, like the Hewlett-Packard HP iPAQ 214, can also be put to good use in an after sales environment, and not just in the office. Once the workshop technician is through with the vehicle health check, the necessary information can be downloaded wirelessly to the health check module of the RTC PDA. From thereon, the workshop controller can simple perform his task of costing and authorisation. Moreover, any deferred task is automatically entered into the RTC’s vehicle check module.

Tim Baumfield, Managing Director of RTC commented, “Adapting existing PDA technology to the aftersales environment, replacing paper-based systems and minimising the risk of human error have all been the key objectives in the development of this new product. The end result is significant process improvements and productivity efficiencies at a time when dealers are looking to sweat their assets and generate revenue wherever they can.”

Tags for this article: mobile, technology, sales

The significant increase in the sale of mini laptops in the year 2008 took PC makers by surprise. Inspired by the One Laptop per Child project which is a non profit venture, there was boost in the sales of ultra light notebooks, so-called netbooks, which were intended to be very compact and low price. With inspiration from the OLPC project, Asus manufactured the ultra successful Eee PC and the rest is history. Soon every major computer manufacturer came out with its own netbook model and a new mobile computing market was formed.

These ultra portable machines were originally accessible only for business travelers. However, last year saw the laptops from Asus, such as the Asus Eee PC S101 posting huge sales. In fact, big computer makers such as Lenovo, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Acer swiftly followed with their own slender machine versions. Apple is next in the line for releasing a budget laptop.

Growth rates of these laptops are astronomical, according to the research manager from IDC, Richard Shim. He said, only a year back, no one was even talking about them. According to Intel, these mini laptops will actually serve as a second or third computer in the West. Mini laptops are bigger than smart phones and smaller than regular laptops. Only time will tell whether these laptops will continue to make impressive sales and establish their presence.

According to IDC, as compared to last year’s few hundred thousand, they were expecting to ship at least 11 million netbooks worldwide. They were expecting additional sales of ten million next year.

It remains to be seen if users can sacrifice the comfort of bigger screens and added power for a mini sized laptop.

Today mobility is a big concern for many organisations and their respective workforce. Almost every field employee possesses a smartphone and needs instant access to relevant applications and databases to work efficiently. Responding to such demands, Sykes-Pickavant, a distributor and manufacturer of automotive, diagnostic and specialist tools, has created a new mobile phone application called Sales-i to enhance the productivity of its field based sales team.

Sales-i will act as an integrated intelligence and CRM application that will provide the necessary information to its users such as sales information, buying alerts, customer database, history and much more. This means the already essential mobile organiser, has just become an even more critical part of the employee. According to the company, the Sales-i is a worthy investment in the field of mobile computing.

Paul Archer, managing director of Sykes-Pickavant said, “Our customers are technology savvy, so we use mobile devices that they are familiar with to demonstrate new technology, keep us fully abreast of their buying patterns and any changes in buying behavior and to show them their buying history and areas where improvements can be made to improve their buying power with us. This can all be done from the comfort of their office, showroom or on the workshop floor without any disruption to their business. Furthermore, with the inbuilt CRM functionality, we can call up details instantly, annotate them, add notes and reminders, safe in the knowledge that the information is being instantly recorded and can’t be lost.”

Tags for this article: smartphone, sales, software

For the first time laptop shipments have exceeded desktop shipments. Both the business markets and the day to day consumers are beginning to prefer laptops over desktops.

Most people find it very convenient to have a laptop with Wi-Fi Internet connection. This lets them to work anywhere, anytime they want. Students too, love to entertain themselves by logging on their portable machines while relaxing in the bed. They don’t like to step out and sit in front of hefty computing machines to do their work. This becomes especially true when heavy-duty laptop models, like the Sony Vaio VGN-AW11Z/B, offer just as much performance as their desktop PC counterparts. With the advancements in technology, the next generation laptops offer incredible functionality, hi end configuration and support high definition digital entertainment and gaming. The convenience and ability to move around is driving the Laptop’s popularity.

David Daoud, analyst at IDC (a global market intelligence organization) said, “What you have is massive numbers of students going back to school and they tend to shift the market one way or another, and they shifted enormously toward laptops as they went back to school. There’s a lot more innovation happening, a lot more research and development money spent on mobility than on desktops. A lot of people use the laptop for DVD viewing in bed rather than watching in the living room with their parents. . . . It has an entertainment usage, whereas the desktop forces you to go to the desk and sit down in an uncomfortable position.”

The laptops today are making up more than 70 percent of the consumer market and 60 percent of the business market and this figure is expected to rise further in the near future.

Palm is one of the world wide leaders in producing easy-to-use mobile products that simplify people’s lives and helping them to stay connected on the go. Palm mobiles are designed to serve mobile professionals, consumers and businesses. It seems the company is doing something right, as the demand for Palm handsets has recently increased.

Recent research conducted by Palm suggests 70 percent of Centro owners are first time smartphone owners; the handset is also reaching high proportions of women and customers over 35. Palm Centro users are those who are looking for a more robust experience with their mobile phone. Palm suggested that the increased work and life pressure leads to an increased expectation from users to be always connected and the more mainstream use of messaging functionality has driven the consumers move to smartphones. Palm has extensive experience developing PDAs that offer an optimal amount of messaging functionaliy. The reason for Palm’s success is its full QWERTY keyboard and colour touch screen, which makes it easy to quickly type text messages, respond to emails, start instant message conversations, browse the web and a lot more. It offers a detailed and integrated contact list, together with a simple and handy calendar for fixing meetings and getting together with friends. One can take business on the run and stay connected with its Wi-Fi connection.