PC sales climb as pandemic keeps consumers at home — trackers

Gartner and International Data Corporation (IDC) reports released Thursday show shipments of desktop computers, laptops and workstations grew in the second quarter as pandemic-related disruptions to the supply chain were overcome.

“The strong demand driven by work-from-home as well as e-learning needs has surpassed previous expectations and has once again put the PC at the center of consumers’ tech portfolio,” said IDC Mobile Device Trackers research manager Jitesh Ubrani.


“What remains to be seen is if this demand and high level of usage continues during a recession and into the post-COVID world since budgets are shrinking while schools and workplaces reopen.”

IDC determined that PC shipments worldwide jumped 11.2% to 72.3 million units in the same quarter a year earlier. Gartner had the climb at 2.8%, to 64.8 million units.

Both market trackers ranked HP and Lenovo as the top two PC makers, with Dell in third place. Apple, which doesn’t use Microsoft’s Windows operating system but is nevertheless grouped among PC makers, came in fourth.

Gartner research director Mikako Kitagawa described the second-quarter figures as a short-term recovery, with some of the growth due to distributors and shops restocking supplies as they become available.


Early indicators suggest strong PC shipments for education, business, and consumer uses such as streaming entertainment, according to IDC’s devices and displays research vice president Linn Huang.

“With inventory still back-ordered, this goodwill will continue into July,” Huang said.

“However, as we head deeper into a global recession, the goodwill sentiment will increasingly sour.”

Agence France-Presse

Billionaire Dell boss embraces change, saves oceans

MANILA - Michael Dell, who founded the computer company that bears his name, always reminds employees of the need to anticipate change, a company official said Friday.

Dell is now Dell EMC after it acquired a data storage business in 2016, enabling the technology hardware pioneer to leverage itself as a one stop shop for digital services.

The 53-year-old Dell is "very humble, very focused and works extremely hard," said Amit Midha, Dell EMC president for commercial business in the Asia Pacific and Japan.

"The first thing he always says is change is the only constant. We have to expect change in our industry. We cannot take anything for granted," Midha said in an exclusive interview with ANC's The Boss.

Forbes Magazine estimates Dell's net worth at $23.5 billion and ranks him as the tenth richest person in technology. The college dropout started his business at 19 from his college dorm in Austin, Texas, according to the magazine.

Dell is also supporting cleaning the world's oceans, even allowing the use of recycled ocean plastic in the company's products, Midha said.

Since 2007, the company has cleaned up 1.8 billion pounds of electronic waste, he said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Dell targets casual gamers with new Inspiron laptop

MANILA -- Casual gamers who are used to playing games on their mobile devices are returning to their PCs for higher-end games that demand more powerful graphics and faster performance.

This, according to Chris Papa, country manager at Dell Philippines, which recently announced its new Inspiron 7500 line of gaming laptops.

Rather than ride the wave of behemoth 17-inch gaming laptops like the MSI G-Series and the Acer Predator, Dell adopted the relatively compact 15-inch platform with the emphasis on compact portable gaming.

Despite this, the Inspiron 7500 packs a lot of gaming power in a 22-mm thick laptop. It can speedily do common tasks like word processing, spreadsheets and browsing. The demands of a gaming laptop will also allow users to run more processor-intensive software like AutoCAD and PhotoShop. In breaks between work, these laptops have the horsepower to run current-generation PC games on recommended settings at a decent frame rate.

PC games these days like Overwatch, Dark Souls and modded versions of SkyRim and Grand Theft Auto V demand a powerful processor and a lightning-fast graphics card -- not an easy task cramming these into a small package. The graphics are powered by an NVIDIA GTX960m with a 4GB DDR2 memory to power its 15-inch display.

The Inspiron 7500 comes in two configurations. The base Inspiron 7566 i5 (SRP P49,990) with a 6th gen Intel i5 quad core processor with 4GB RAM, a 1TB hard disk and an HD display. The top-of-the-line Inspiron 7566 i7 (SRP P69,990) sports a 6th gen Intel i7 quad core processor, 8GB RAM, hybrid storage 256 GB SSD + 1TB Hard Disk and an Ultra HD/4K display should allow power users/gamers to enable all the graphical bells and whistles today’s games demand.

This writer thinks that the specs of the lower-end Inspiron 7655 i5 will leave gamers wanting. Paired with the slower i5, the 4GB onboard memory will need an upgrade to play 3D games at minimum settings.

The specs of the Inspiron 7655 i7 are competitive with 15-inch gaming laptops like the HP Omen and the Lenovo Ideapad Y700, although the i7 variant is a little bit more expensive because of the SSD option which should result in a significant speed boost.

All these high-end components generate loads of heat. The Inspiron 7600 cooling system sports dual fans and multiple exhaust ports around the laptop’s chassis to keep the machine cool and prevent internal damage.

The Inspiron 7500 is a laptop that will keep local gamers who want to happily bring around their gaming rigs. That is, until Dell brings its Alienware monster gaming laptops to the Philippine market.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Dell launches new Inspiron laptops

Computer hardware manufacturer Dell on Thursday introduced the latest Inspiron 14 3000 Series laptops and Inspiron 14 and 15 5000 Series laptops which the company claimed can perform high-performing tasks.

“Students and parents alike want technology that helps them to be successful in their personal and educational pursuits,” Charlz Adano, marketing manager of Dell consumer group, said in a statement.

“Our new Inspiron laptops are a smart investment for families, providing the latest technology for productivity and entertainment in thin, space-saving designs,” he added.

Adano said the latest computing machines of the company have been designed with powerful processors, high-capacity hard drives and responsive 10-finger touch displays up to full high definition (HD) resolution. These, he said, are some of the options designed to meet the needs of consumers’ diverse lifestyles.

Further, Adano said Dell added new features such as the 20GB of Dropbox cloud storage for sharing, saving and collaborating, and facial recognition software to make using password-enabled web sites safer.

He said the new Inspiron 14 3000 are loaded with lots of hardware configurations to enable consumers to select the model best suited to their needs. With built-in DVD drives, up to 1TB of storage and optional touch panels, the Inspiron 3000 Series laptops are backed by long-lasting battery.

Meanwhile, he said the new Inspiron 14 and 15 5000 Series laptops are well-suited for a day spent roaming across the campus or sharing screen time among family members. He said families will be excited by doing mobile computing with the enhanced by high-end options like a backlit keyboard and Full HD touch display

The Inspiron 14 and 15 5000 Series are showcased within an attractive, brushed aluminum lid, and the 10-finger capacitive touch option makes it easy to scroll, zoom, and tap through documents or social media status updates.

The laptops are powered by 4th Generation Intel Core i processors that help extend battery life, up to 8 hours, 9 minutes for the Inspiron 14 5000[i] and up to 7 hours, 33 minutes for the Inspiron 15 5000.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Dell vStart: The Simple, Fast, Smart Path To Virtual Infrastructure

MANILA, Philippines --- Since it took off just a few years ago, virtualisation has proved itself beneficial to enterprises. Besides helping to simplify physical infrastructure and lower TCO, it can speed up service delivery, improve IT and enterprise agility, boost infrastructure scalability, resilience and reliability, enhance security and outage recovery, and lay a foundation for cloud computing.

Not surprisingly, the adoption rate for virtualisation is robust: IDC research shows the number of virtual servers is growing rapidly, with growth far outpacing that for physical servers. About 25–30% of all servers have been or are being virtualised worldwide and IDC expects the figure to grow to nearly 50% by next year.

Every enterprise embarking on virtualisation wants to be able to realise and maximise its benefits quickly. However, building virtual infrastructure can be a complex and lengthy process. The build process starts with the design of the system architecture, followed by an examination of the use cases to be supported by the virtual environment. The selection and proof-of-concept testing of virtualisation software to meet these use cases, as well as hosting hardware, comes next.

Once software and hardware have been procured, the enterprise needs to migrate its existing servers to the new virtualised environment. This key step involves configuring virtual servers, consolidating workloads from multiple physical servers, integrating the virtual servers with physical ones, adding memory and I/O if necessary, and so on, with tests interspersed between the various tasks and post-migration. Once migration is complete, the enterprise then needs to decide how it wants to administer the new environment: are the management tools for the virtualisation product sufficient or is there a need for more general system management tools?

Setbacks of DIY Approach

It is possible for enterprises to build virtual infrastructure on their own without outside help, provided their IT organisations have decent-sized budgets and the specific skills related to virtualisation. However, where budget dollars and the necessary skills are in short supply, as in many enterprises, achieving virtual capability can be not just complex and lengthy but painful as well, especially for those with smallish IT teams and remote offices that lack any on-site IT support.

While there is always the option of using consultants and systems integrators to supplement in-house staff, the approach can be expensive and time-consuming.

Enterprises that choose to build virtual infrastructure on their own often run into unforeseen obstacles in the design, test, procurement, integration and migration phases. More often than not, these obstacles cause what is know as virtualisation stall, where projects take longer or cost more than planned. In addition, many in-house teams end up focused on the wrong things, honing their skills on building infrastructure rather than running applications that generate value for their customers.

What Goes Into a Dell vStart Solution

Each of the three Dell vStart configurations is shipped straight from the factory as a single, pre-built, pre-cabled, pre-labeled, pre-tested rack that includes:

• Multiple high-performance Dell PowerEdge servers to host virtual machines

• A Dell PowerEdge server dedicated to managing the virtual environment

• A Dell EqualLogic iSCSI storage area network

• Dell PowerConnect switches

• Dell power distribution and rack hardware

• Management tools (plug-in for VMware vCentre, Dell OpenManage and Dell EqualLogic Host Integration Toolkit)

Also included are deployment services and three years of Dell ProSupport service.

Dell vStart

To help enterprises fast-track their way to a virtualised environment and accelerate time to benefit, Dell has innovated a ready-to-run solution that enables them to avoid the problems commonly faced when building virtual infrastructure. Called Dell vStart, the solution is prebuilt, preconfigured, pretested and preassembled and contains all of the server, storage, networking, and management extensions needed to go virtual.

Dell vStart is offered in three configurations – vStart 50, vStart 100 and vStart 200 – that support up to 50, 100 and 200 virtual machines, respectively. The configurations are further distinguished by their storage capacity and their support for either the VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor.

“Dell vStart is a great way to acquire virtual infrastructure without the complexity, resources and time associated with the on-site assembly approach. We’ve seen the challenges that can stand between the business and an effective virtualisation solution, and we’ve leveraged our deep expertise and experience in virtualisation to create a simpler path for our customers,” said CHRISTOPHER S. PAPA, COUNTRY MANAGER, Dell Philippines.

“It’s pretty much plug and play. Customers simply pick the Dell vStart configuration best suited for their workload needs. And with deployment services included with every vStart, customers can have their virtualisation environment up and running in days rather than months.” said CHRISTOPHER S. PAPA, COUNTRY MANAGER, Dell Philippines.

As for day-to-day administration of the virtual infrastructure post-implementation, the included software makes it easy to manage hardware infrastructure easily and without additional consoles or interfaces to learn or manage. Further benefit comes from having a single point of accountability. Scalability is almost effortless – as their needs grow, customers simply add servers or storage arrays or add more vStart racks.

Besides enabling enterprises to quickly implement virtualised environments, Dell vStart can also be deployed to refresh aging servers, virtualise branch offices or specific departments, support mission-critical applications, and create infrastructure for private clouds.

Brodart Goes Virtual With vStart

Based in Pennsylvania, USA, Brodart Co. provides library solutions ranging from shelf-ready books to electronic ordering systems and furniture. Most of its servers were nearing end of life and the plan was to migrate to a virtual environment. As Brodart’s small IT staff had enough on its hands, the wish was for a virtualised server infrastructure that could be implemented quickly, with low risk and complexity during the critical migration phase.

Of the solutions Brodart evaluated, only Dell vStart 100 met these criteria. The company worked with a Dell partner to deploy the solution and Brad Huyck, Brodart’s manager for IT operations, was pleasantly surprised when the team had virtual servers up and running within the first week of delivery.

“All we had to do was plug it in. Just four weeks after we made the purchase, we were already achieving business value. That’s about six times faster than I expected. The benefits that we saw in the first week were just through the roof.”

Compared with its previous setup, Brodart can now deploy a new server at least 10 times faster and recover data much faster and more conveniently by restoring from point-in-time snapshots of virtual servers.

article source: mb.com.ph

Dell sees room to challenge Apple in tablets

LONDON — A growing dissatisfaction among office workers with the clunky computers their employers force them to use, in contrast to the sleek Apple devices many have at home, could yet benefit incumbent suppliers like Dell, a top Dell executive said.

As Apple’s third-generation iPad went on sale on Friday, accompanied by the now traditional scenes of fans queuing round the block , Dell’s chief commercial officer Steve Felice said the tablet market was still wide open.

Dell ditched its previous attempt at cracking the global tablet market, the Streak, last year. It was based on Google’s Android operating system software.

Now Dell is planning a fresh assault with the advent of Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating platform, which is expected later this year and will have a touch interface that works across desktop computers, tablets and smartphones.

“We’re very encouraged by the touch capability we are seeing in the beta versions of Windows 8,” Felice told Reuters in an interview in London, adding that Dell may also make Android tablets again.

“We have a roadmap for tablets that we haven’t announced yet. You’ll see some announcements.. for the back half of the year,” he said. “We don’t think that this market is closed off in any way.”

Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard and possibly Nokia are also planning Windows 8 tablets.

Felice said that Dell’s relationships with its thousands of business customers gave it an advantage over Apple, whose gadgets can cause headaches for IT departments because they operate on different systems.

As iPads and iPhones have become popular from the boardroom down, corporate technology chiefs have been increasingly forced to accept the fact that employees will use their own devices.

“On the commercial side there are a lot of concerns about security, interoperability, systems and device management, and I think Dell is in the best position to meet those,” Felice said.

He added that iPads also left much to be desired in terms of processing power and ease of typing. “When people put their computer to the side and take their iPad with them to travel, you see a lot of compromises being made.”

Dell has also just launched a so-called ultrabook, a high-end notebook that is light and thin but still at least as powerful as a regular laptop. The XPS 13 costs about $995.

“The demand has been excellent since we launched this product just a week ago,” Felice said. “It is a fantastic product and shows our commitment to the PC space. We like the PC space. We are extremely committed to it.”

Dell, the world’s third-biggest computer maker after HP and Lenovo, has also been expanding its services offering to reduce its dependence on sales of computers, where margins are being squeezed and growth is slowing.

Taking Mac and iPad sales together, Apple sold more computers last year than any of the top PC makers.

Asked whether he envied Apple’s ability to produce such coveted objects, Felice said: “We come at the market in a different way … We are predominantly a company that has a great eye on the commercial customer who also wants to be a consumer.”

“In the areas where we come at the market, we think we are a coveted brand.”

source: interaksyon.com

New Dell head honcho to focus on SMB, BPO sectors in PH

MANILA, Philippines — The newly installed country manager for Dell Philippines vowed to build on the stepping stones prepared by his predecessors as he kicks into high gear the local unit’s foray into the small and medium businesses (SMB) and business process outsourcing (BPO) markets.

Christopher Papa, erstwhile Dell country manager for its consumer business, has been promoted to the overall country manager post following the departure of Ricky Lopez, the country manager for Dell’s commercial business.

InterAksyon.com learned on Tuesday that Lopez had assumed his new role as the Channels Group Director at Microsoft Philippines on February 6.

In an interview at the sidelines of the Dell 12th-generation servers launch on Wednesday, Papa said two of his key growth areas for the Philippines are the SMB and BPO sectors.

“Based on IDC’s outlook, we still have a lot of legroom on the [SMB sector],” Papa said. “Our growth targets are going to be a combination of various sectors, but SMB will definitely be part of our expansion.”

The Dell executive, meanwhile, deferred to the growth prospects of the local BPO industry from the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP), which is seeing a steep 20 percent growth rate this year.

“BPO has always been a major market for Dell, so with that, we are going to see growth in that area,” Papa added.

On the consumer side, Papa said they would continue to focus on delivering on the medium- and high-price band ranges, which in recent months saw the launching of the Dell XPS 14z and XPS 15z, two high-end units that the company is eyeing for profit.

The executive, however, refused to divulge the specific revenue shares of each of its business units, although he pointed out that the enterprise business comprises 30 percent of its global business.

Just recently, Dell announced a global shift away from merely providing desktop and laptop units to businesses and end-users, suggesting a strategic move toward providing IT services to customers.

Before assuming his current post, Papa oversaw the local unit’s consumer business in the country, bringing a host of notebook releases to the Philippines as well as Dell’s initial foray into consumer-grade tablets and smartphones.

Papa was part of Dell Philippines’ segmentation strategy in 2010, which saw three core business units–the commercial, SMB and consumer segments–being handled by three different top executives. He initially handled the SMB segment for that year.

This year, however, saw the consolidation of those three management roles back into a single leadership position, which Papa has recently been appointed to.

Papa was promoted to the overall country manager position at the end of January.

source: interaksyon.com

Dell Unveils The XPS 14z

MANILA, Philippines — Dell has unveiled its XPS 14z laptop, one of the thinnest fully featured 14-inch laptops featuring an internal optical drive and discrete graphics option. The latest in a series of thin-and-powerful solutions from Dell that include thin laptops, desktops and accessories, the XPS 14z delivers performance that impresses and design that inspires. Professionals now can power through their day at work and kick back at night to take advantage of the system’s HD screen to watch movies or video.

The XPS 14z is a sleek laptop with a compact design that measures in at less than an inch thin. The unique design also maximizes screen size, delivering a 14-inch screen in a 13-inch form factor.

The XPS 14z is the latest member of Dell’s portfolio of thin-and-powerful solutions, and the second such solution in the XPS family, joining the successful XPS 15z laptop.

Dell’s thin-and-powerful solutions now include the Inspiron 13z laptop, Inspiron 14z laptop, and the Inspiron One all-in-one computer that are ideal solutions for parents and students, as well as the Vostro V131 laptop for small businesses. All solutions are designed to deliver impressive performance in beautiful packages.

The XPS 14z is the classic example of style and substance. Customers will get more with this laptop: more screen size, and surprising portability for such a fully-loaded laptop.

The 14-inch HD display easily fits into a 13-inch laptop form factor –while offering 10 percent more viewing area than a 13.3” display. And starting at just 4.36 pounds1, less than an inch thin, and up to six hours, 42 minutes of battery life2, it also has the easy portability of a 13-inch laptop. The XPS 14z’s uncompromising performance helps busy professionals achieve their personal and professional pursuits – and look good while doing it. The XPS 14z is visually striking, with a slim, yet powerful form synonymous with innovation. Its anodized-aluminum finish is stylish and sophisticated, and the latch-less design is simple, yet elegant.

“The XPS 14z delivers what professionals want – raw power paired with a stunning, sophisticated design that signals ‘I’ve arrived’,” said Chris Papa, Country Manager, Consumer and Small Business, Dell Philippines. “The XPS 14z is specifically engineered to help our customers do more in their personal and professional lives – and it advances our industry-leading vision for thin-and-powerful solutions that deliver performance without compromise.”

“When Dell looks at innovation and product development, we start with the customer. For us, it’s about delivering the right feature-set and design to provide the best user experience for our customers,” said Sam Burd, vice president of Dell’s Consumer and Small/Medium Business product group.

Dell XPS laptops come with the Dell Stage user interface, which offers one-click access to favorite content including music, photos and video. SyncUP powered by Nero can keep content and personal information synched with other Stage-enabled Dell PCs and mobile devices.

Editor's Note: A performance laptop, that is how best to describe the XPS 14z. With second-generation Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors, an HD WLED display, a slot-load optical drive and NVIDIA graphics option, heavy stuff!

source: mb.com.ph

Dell and Baidu team up for tablets, mobiles

SHANGHAI - Dell Inc and China's top search engine Baidu Inc plan to jointly develop tablet computers and mobile phones, targeting the Chinese market dominated by Apple Inc and Lenovo.

China is one of the fastest growing markets for tablets and is home to more than 900 million mobile phone subscribers, but analysts were skeptical that the partnership would unseat Apple as the dominant force in the market.

"I suspect this is just Dell, who has a lot of problems on the mobile and tablet front, grasping at straws to get any kind of publicity that it can to make its product more attractive," said Michael Clendenin, managing director of technology consultancy RedTech Advisors.

"Ultimately in China, I still think it is Apple's game, still for the iPad and iPhone."

Dell declined to give a timeline for the launch of the devices, but local media reported on Tuesday, quoting sources, that it may be as early as November.

Baidu launched a new mobile application platform last week and offered a glimpse of its upcoming mobile operating system, which it hopes will serve a growing number of users accessing the Internet from smartphones and tablet computers.

The company said it already had partnerships with Dell and other device makers and declined to comment on the new tie-up. Dell said the partnership with Baidu involved the company's new mobile platform.

Baidu has built on its dominance of China's search market significantly since Google's high-profile exit last year citing hacking and censorship concerns.

Baidu's Nasdaq-listed shares are up nearly 50 percent so far this year, giving it a market value of around $50 billion.

BUSY SPACE

A Dell-Baidu tie-up would be the latest in a series of developments reshaping the mobile devices market.

Last month, Google said it would buy Motorola Mobility Holdings for $12.5 billion, putting Google into a lower-margin manufacturing business and pitting it against as many as 38 other handset companies that use Google's Android software.

"Dell has got nothing to lose. They don't have a big mobile presence, so by partnering Baidu, they will probably get some momentum for their mobile products," said Sandy Shen, a research director with Gartner.

Dell has chosen China to launch new products before. In June, Dell said it had chosen to launch its new 10-inch Android tablet in China this summer, passing up on a U.S. and European launch, in a sign of the market's growing importance to the company.

Dell's China sales grew 22 percent in the first quarter while its retail presence in China exceeds 10,000 sales points.

In 2009, Dell announced it will enter the smartphone market starting in China before moving into Brazil. -- Reuters

Source: gmanews.tv