Does the PC market need to shrink?

So says Acer CEO. I guess he is saying that maintaining the shitty quality and raising prices is the only way to survive in the PC industry?

Acer’s chief executive, Gianfranco Lanci, says that the major PC makers need to make some bold moves to boost profits — namely, buy out the little guys.

“This can be a very good industry in terms of making profits if you think about there being four or five players instead of seven or eight as you see today,” Mr. Lanci said during a recent interview in Taipei. “There is not enough profit in the chain to maintain all these players today.”

The highest cost for all these guys in licensing Windows. As long as these guys hitch their wagons to Microsoft, there will be no differentiation and the market will continue to be commoditized.

BTW,

Demand for 13″ MacBook Pro better than Apple planned

Differentiate or die.

Still betting on Windows 7?

PC sales sucks and will continue to suck, so says Gartner (who, I must point out, suck at predictions):

That’s the word from Gartner, which back in March was claiming the decline would be just 3.8 percent. The research outfit said Tuesday that it expects tech spending to fall to $3.2 trillion this year, down from $3.4 trillion in 2008. And it sees all four major segments of IT–hardware, software, IT services and telecommunications–suffering revenue declines in 2009 (click on chart below).

“The forecast decline in spending growth for the hardware and software segments in 2009 has almost stabilized, and only minor downward revisions have been made to these forecasts this quarter,” said Gartner’s Richard Gordon. “However, the full impact of the global recession on the IT services and telecommunications sectors is still emerging, and forecast growth in these areas has been further reduced significantly.”

That said, the company sees a rebound of 2.3 percent in 2010.

I wonder if this the tipping point for cheaper cloud or open source software and the start of a new enterprise war. I can’t believe that companies would just go to all the junk and go back to spending all that the money to “maintain” the junk. But then its never been about saving money as much it as been about maintaining relationships.

4.5.6.7.8.9

Keep awake tonight to witness the magic:

Pat Kiernan just noted that tomorrow morning it will be 04:05:06 on 07/08/09

Racing to the bottom

Once you go cheap you can never go back up:

The company said the W-Series netbook will sell for around 60,000 yen, or about $630, when it goes on sale in Japan in August. Sony plans to eventually sell the netbook in 54 countries. Sony wouldn’t say exactly when the W-Series would hit U.S. store shelves but said the launch should be approximately in line with Japan.

The W-Series has a 10.1-inch screen, a 3.5-hour battery life and weighs 1.19 kilograms (2.6 lbs.). It comes in three colors: white, pink and brown.

Is anyone willing to pay a premium for just another Windows laptop from Sony over one from Asus or MSI? Maybe Sony can make one that’s not crap.

iPods with cameras

Wired:

It’s looking more like the whole iPod range will have some kind of camera inside. Would that kill the compact camera industry? Probably.

Maybe it’s time for camera makers to move into other areas – video, photo sharing etc.? Just adding megapixels only goes so far. Can anyone really tell the difference between a 7.1MP and 10.1MP camera?