India's computer sales

With rise in disposable income and job stability, India's computer sales is projected to grow at 35 per cent in FY12, more than double the pace in previous year, according to hardware association MAIT. As per its latest estimates, the sales of personal computers — desktops, notebooks and net books combined —– are expected to cross 12.6 million units during 2011-12. There is an important rider to achieving this target, though. The study only gauges the pent-up demand in India's market, that is, the keenness by households and enterprises to buy PCs, and MAIT admits that a lot hinges on factors like broadband penetration, interest rates and inflation influencing SEC B and C buying, as also the cascading impact of the global uncertainty. Any adverse incident could act as a spoiler, it cautions. For the year ended March 2011, the total PC sales rose 16 per cent to 9.31 million units. The the notebooks and net book sales growth continued to outpace the desktop segment. The desktop sales stood at 6.03 million (60.3 lakh) units, a growth of 9 per cent. On the other hand, notebooks and net books together recorded a consumption of 3.28 million units, about 31 per cent higher than the previous fiscal. That said, FY11 notebook growth rate is lower than previous fiscal (the segment had grown 61 per cent in FY10). “…Sales have really picked up across all product segments thanks to the stable economic growth and the increase in disposable income despite inflation,” Mr.SandeepNair, President of MAIT said on the FY11 performance of the hardware segment. The press release from MAIT further said that PC unit sales in FY12 would be driven by “conditions of increasing mobility among consumers”.

During 2010-11, the laptop sales growth was primarily driven by household purchases, which accounted for about 57 per cent of the total notebook sales and registered a growth of 32 per cent. The notebook sales among establishments grew 27 per cent. The net book sales crossed the 0.3 million unit mark for the first time, notching a growth of 80 per cent over last year. Again, the net book purchases were largely driven by the households which accounted for almost three-fourths of the total sales in this space during 2010-11. Notably, for the first time, the household and establishment buyers contributed equally, that is 50 per cent to the total desktop sales in FY11. Households contribution to the desktop market increased to 50 per cent from about a 42 per cent during the previous year, the statement revealed.. Sales of servers registered a decline of 14 per cent in FY11 as the contribution of purchases from medium sized establishments fell from 42 per cent to 15 per cent. However, MAIT did not elaborate on what caused this sharp fall. The printer sales grew 15 per cent during 2010-11 to 2.87 million units, led by laser printer and inkjet printer purchases. Dot-matrix printer sales registered a decline. The sales in this segment at 0.35 million declined by 3 per cent. The number of active ‘Internet entities' crossed the 13 million mark in March 2011, a growth of 36 per cent over the year-ago period. MAIT defines Internet entities as establishments/individuals with Internet connection. An entity could house multiple users. Interestingly, the optimistic forecast by MAIT for the India PC market comes on a day when global research firm Gartner has lowered its earlier projections for worldwide PC shipments for 2011 and 2012. Gartner has said that global the PC shipments may slow to 3.8 per cent growth in 2011 and 10.9 per cent growth in 2012.

Google's Android - software development easier because of the underlying instruction set and processor optimizations

Intel is running scared, as PC sales continue to slow and successful mobile platforms shun Intel chips. Intel's response has been to buy companies such as Wind River and McAfee in unrelated industry segments, then promote the Intel "ecosystem" as a consistent platform that will make software development easier because of the underlying instruction set and processor optimizations. Or so Intel software chief Doug Fisher argued unconvincingly today in a presentation to journalists. Reality begs to differ: Apple succeeded quite well in adapting the Intel-based core Mac OS X to the wholly different chip architecture of the ARM processor used in apple iPhones and apple iPads. You could argue Apple is exceptional, as it had ported Mac OS X previously from the IBM PowerPC architecture. But it's not just Apple that's willing to leave the familiar but pricey, power-gulping Intel architecture in the new era of mobile devices. Google's Android runs on ARM processors, as do RIM's BlackBerrys, Nokia's various (mainly Symbian) devices, and devices running Microsoft's Windows mobile Phone. Even Windows 8 is supposed to run on ARM chips for tablets, though at the price of not running legacy Windows (7 and earlier) applications. Intel has ported Android to Intel chips, and a really bad port is available from View Sonic proving that the chip architecture is not the gating factor. After all, Google Android apps run on both Intel- and ARM-based chips, and so far there's no demonstrated advantage of Android on an Intel based tablet rather than an ARM-based one. So what exactly is the Intel architecture or ecosystem advantage that Fisher says lies at the heart of Intel's software strategy?

The portfolio of software vendors that Intel has assembled are credible providers, but they really offer no synergy with each other or with Intel. Some, such as McAfee, are focused on yesterday's problems, notably the security shortcomings of the Wintel platform. That's not Intel's or Microsoft's fault -- that platform was created in a very different world. Mac OS X, apple iOS, and Android have their own security issues, but their architectures are inherently more secure (well, maybe not Android). They leverage knowledge and techniques that debuted in Unix, a world not starting on Intel architecture and had from the get-go more concern over mission criticality. If McAfee and its competitors become critical products in mobile phone devices, that would simply indicate a failure of the mobile platforms (client and cloud) themselves. Another sign of a "not getting it" strategy was clear in Fisher's evasive nonanswer to the future of the open source MeeGo mobile phone operating system that Intel (and before it, Nokia) mismanaged. It makes perfect sense for Intel to want to expand outside of the chip business. But it's not clear that it yet knows how, at least when it comes to software.