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Worldwide PC shipments are on pace to grow 15.2 percent in 2008, according to IDC. That's above the analyst firm's March prediction of 12.8 percent growth. But laptop shipments, which have become an increasing force in the PC market, will peak.

Shipments of portable PCs should grow 34.5 percent this year, according to a PC shipment tracker that IDC released this week. That's up from 33.9 percent in 2007 and way above the projected 13.4 percent for next year. By 2012, according to the firm, portables will increase by only 9 percent.

PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard are betting big on notebooks. The company this week released 17 new models, mostly for consumers.

(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)

By the end of the year, PC makers will have shipped 310 million units, close to half (145.1 million) of which are notebooks. The rest are desktop PCs and servers, which together on a global basis still comprise the largest slice of the market, but the difference is disappearing fast.

Portables are especially expected to take off internationally this year, growing from 78 million in 2007 to 109.4 million units this year. That's good news for the industry because notebooks and laptops tend to be pricier than desktop PCs, and they should keep average selling prices higher for a bit longer.

But inexpensive notebooks are stirring up the market too. A reason for the dramatic 40 percent bump in international portable shipments has a lot to do with how the numbers have been counted, according to IDC.

The firm said it had previously not included the rapidly growing low-cost mininotebook segment because of the "use of nontraditional PC designs, including the use of embedded or custom operating systems, (as well as) reduced processing power and storage," IDC said. But now, due to the popularity and computing robustness of the Asus Eee PC, the Classmate PC platform from Intel, and OLPC's XO, mininotebooks are included. Plus, the firm notes, the volume of units shipped are actually rising.

Those three manufacturers have some company in the consumer space. Acer, Hewlett-Packard, and perhaps Dell already have, or plan to release, their own tiny laptops.

Yahoo and Microsoft used the press to negotiate for several months regarding a potential merger. Now it appears Acer and Microsoft are having a public spat. Or, if they aren't yet, Acer's comments Wednesday will likely start one.

In an interview with VNUNet.com, Acer Vice President of Marketing Gianpiero Morbello said his Taiwanese PC maker has big plans to develop the market for Linux, not only on its low-cost ultraportable, but on the company's laptops as well.

The Acer Aspire One is just the beginning of Acer's foray into the Linux world, according to a company exec.

(Credit: Acer)

The reason is because of the cost and operation of Microsoft's operating system over open-source Linux.

"We have shifted towards Linux because of Microsoft," said Morbello. "Microsoft has a lot of power and it is going to be difficult, but we will be working hard to develop the Linux market."

Acer officially unveiled its entry into the low-cost mini-laptop market, the Aspire One, on Tuesday. It will come in both Linux and Windows XP flavors.

It makes sense to try to cut as much cost as possible out of building a device like the Aspire One, which will start at $379. The attraction to such a device is mainly price, and expectations of a full set of features can be relatively low. Plus, as Acer points out, Linux has a quicker boot time and can extend the battery life of tiny Netbooks like the Aspire One.

But will mainstream PC shoppers go for Linux when they're used to buying a Windows notebook? It's unclear if Acer, currently the No. 2 notebook seller in the world, will be foisting Linux on reluctant consumers or just looking harder for places and markets that have yet to fully embrace Windows.

AT&T's wireless network has just gotten a little faster.

The company announced on Wednesday that enhancements to its HSPA, or High Speed Packet Access, third-generation cellular network will allow wireless laptop users to upload and download content from the Internet faster than they can with 3G services from other carriers.

The top three major wireless operators, AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint Nextel, have been touting the speeds and feeds of their 3G wireless networks for more than a year in an attempt to lure profitable business customers to their wireless laptop services. These services, which cost about $60 a month, are ideal for road warriors who need consistent high-speed wireless Internet connectivity anywhere.

Until now, they've all offered similar speeds. Verizon and Sprint use a CDMA-based technology called EV-DO. They advertise download speeds of about 600Kbps to 1.4Mbps and upload speeds of between 500Kbps and 800Kbps. And until today, AT&T's 3G network offered similar speeds.

Now AT&T claims it is offering downloads of 700Kbps to 1.7Mbps and uploads of 500Kbps to 1.2Mbps. The faster speeds are the result of an ongoing network upgrade. AT&T uses a GSM-based technology called HSPA. It has recently finished upgrading 275 markets to the latest version of the technology known as HSUPA, which provides faster upload links. The company had already deployed HSDPA, which provides faster download speeds.

As the company upgrades to the faster upload speeds it looks like it's also tweaked its download performance. Last month, the head of wireless for AT&T said that the company will offer theoretical network download speeds of 20Mbps as early as next year as it continues to upgrade and tweak its network. Of course, the real world network performance is far less than this and users can expect to get average download speeds between 4Mbps and 6.6Mbps.

AT&T plans to continue upgrading its network to reach 350 major markets by the end of the year. Sprint and Verizon already serve these market, so AT&T still has some catching up to do. But AT&T is already in most of the major cities. The company also recently started offering free Wi-Fi in its 17,000 Wi-Fi hot spots as an added bonus to its cellular wireless laptop users.

To take advantage of the new fast speeds, customers will need HSUPA-equipped gear. AT&T currently offers four LaptopConnect adapters in either USB, PC Card, or Express card form.

After months as the subject of speculation in the media, Acer will introduce its own low-cost mini-notebook PC at the Computex trade show in Taipei on Tuesday.

The device will be called the Acer Aspire One, as expected. It will come with an Intel Atom processor, and run Linpus Linux Lite, with Acer's own user interface. Other specs include: an 8GB solid-state drive, 512MB of RAM, 802.11 b/g WiFi, an 8.9-inch screen, and a standard 3-hour battery.

Acer Aspire One will begin at $379.

(Credit: Acer)

The Aspire One will be available beginning July 2 for $379. Later that month, a version running Windows XP Home Edition with an 80GB hard drive, and 1GB of RAM will be available, though the pricing details on that have yet to be ironed out.

As this niche of computing begins to become more crowded, the specs are beginning to look more or less the same. Price and little details like keyboard and exterior design are going to be the most distinguishing factors.

At $379, the Aspire One is cheaper than the runaway hit Eee PC from Asus, whose 9-inch version begins at $549 for the Linux version, and the $499 Linux-based Hewlett-Packard Mini-Note. (CNET has not yet reviewed the Aspire One, but stay tuned.)

Besides pearl white, Acer also plans to offer a bright blue version, and eventually pink and brown. The keyboard isn't quite as large as the Mini-Note's 92 percent keyboard, coming in at 89 percent of the standard size keyboard for a 14-inch notebook.

But just like its direct competitors, Acer sees two distinct customers for the Aspire One: school kids and the highly mobile tech-savvy set.

Acer's plan it seems is to use its Aspire One as sort of a gateway-PC (No pun intended.) for the uninitiated PC user.

"It's a great device that is a stepping stool to a first-time notebook user," said Sumit Agnihotry, director of notebook product management for Acer America. That way kids can "bypass the desktop completely (and move) to a notebook in less than 18 months."

And if there's something Acer's gotten good at lately, it's moving notebooks. It sells more notebooks than every other computer maker except for HP.

Acer says it sees the mini-notebook as a third device for geeked-out consumers after a smartphone and a standard notebook PC, claiming that "it's much more a single application with an Internet-centric focus," Agnihotry said.

But is it more devices we're after? Or fewer? The genius of the smartphone is how much it can do. With the $379 price point not all that far removed from some of Acer's more inexpensive full-size notebooks, is selling someone on the lack of features of the Aspire One really the way to win customers?

It's clearly not for the mainstream PC users, who generally expect the best features and latest-generation processors when purchasing a new PC. But the company doesn't seem to see any overlap between those customers, saying it doesn't expect this will "cannibalize" its current notebook business at all.

Sony is prepping a notebook based on Via's OpenBook reference design, PC World is reporting.

At the WiMax Expo taking place in Taipei, contract manufacturer Quanta Computer showed a mini-laptop based on Via's just-released design that will be out in the third quarter of this year. A sharp-eyed reporter spotted Sony as the listed manufacturer for the device. When questioned, Quanta representatives apparently clammed up, and it doesn't appear Sony will be commenting either.

The mini notebook has an 8.9-inch screen, at least an 80GB hard drive, will use a 1.6-Gigahertz C7-M processor from Via, and sports a VX800 chipset. The prototype on display was running Windows Vista Home Basic.

So has the Vaio maker finally caved? In February, a Sony exec said if the Eee PC started to do well, and major PC makers started to chase the low-cost laptop market, it was the beginning of "a race to the bottom."

Too late. Hewlett-Packard, Acer, and maybe even Dell, are joining the low-cost, lightweight computing fray. And those are just the big names. Asus continues to crank out Eee PCs, and similar devices from no-names like MSI are widely anticipated.

Sony likes to position itself and its products on the high-end. But it started producing a line of its Vaio notebooks last year that sold for as low as $800. At the time, the company said it wasn't interested in going any lower.

Things, of course, can change. And though low-cost laptops are still a tiny niche of the market, it is another way for manufacturers to differentiate their product lines as notebook prices and profit margins continue their inevitable decline.

(Credit: Samsung)

This picture of a Samsung OLED laptop prototype raises more questions than it answers. Just how thin and light is it? Is touch-typing possible on that keyboard? Where's the mouse pad? What's that panel behind the display? Why is the woman pictured on the display checking her pulse? When can I have one?

What a translated-from-the Korean Samsung page does reveal is that it's an AMOLED (active matrix organic light-emitting diode) laptop prototype that Samsung's display division developed for the Society for Information Display's gathering in Los Angeles next week. According to Samsung, the prototype features a 12.1-inch screen with a 1,280x768 resolution. Perhaps we'll be able to glean more information next week when the display scientists, engineers, and manufacturers get together. As for when we might see this product on store shelves, Samsung has previously stated it'll start rolling out OLED TVs, monitors, and laptops in 2009.

(Via Engadget)

(Credit: Crave UK)

Samsung will cease operation of its laptop division if it doesn't improve its market share by 2011, according to one of the company's senior managers.

The news was broken to Crave UK while on a visit to Samsung's headquarters in Suwon, South Korea. Sukyong Hong, the senior manager of overseas sales and marketing for the company's computer division, said an additional 11 million units must be sold worldwide by the year 2011 in order to reach 5.7 percent market share--a massive task, considering Samsung's worldwide market share has only grown from 1.2 percent in 2005 to 1.7 percent in 2007.

To stay afloat, Samsung says it will have to--at least--overtake Sony, which currently lays claim to 6 percent of the laptop market. The rest of its primary competitors seem out of reach. Toshiba has 10 percent, Dell is on 14 percent, Acer has 16 percent, and Hewlett-Packard tops the charts on 23 percent.

One of the most obvious ways of increasing market share is to venture into the mini-PC market along with the likes of Asus, HP, and MSI, but Samsung seems reluctant to do so. The company fears that making a low-cost laptop will jeopardize sales of its existing machines.

Another alternative is to enter the U.S. market. Currently the only Samsung laptop being sold in the U.S. is the Q1 UMPC, which isn't a consumer favorite due to its high price and questionable usability.

The irony of this story is that Samsung provides many of the components used inside Sony laptops, including the LCD panels--so even if Sony does kick its proverbial backside, it's not exactly the end of the world.

(Source: Crave UK)

Is Nicholas Negroponte's capitulation to Windows last month due largely to a lack of open-source community involvement in the One Laptop Per Child project?

That's what Groklaw is suggesting--following a post by free software guru Richard Stallman.

According to Groklaw:

OLPC hoped for contribution from the community to its interface, Sugar, but this has not happened much. Partly that's because OLPC has not structured its development so as to reach out to the community for help--which means, when viewed in constructive terms, that OLPC can obtain more contribution by starting to do this.

Basically, Negroponte's decision to embrace Windows comes down to a belief that when community fails, default to whatever proprietary vendor makes the best interface. (If this is the case, Negroponte would have done well to choose the Mac's interface, but I digress...)

This is a weak-kneed, wrong-headed way for Negroponte--the founder and chairman of OLPC--to attempt to resolve the problem. It will only serve to perpetuate the very problem OLPC was designed to solve, as Groklaw writes:

Updated 11:10 a.m. PST Thursday May 8 with information that laptops were located

Hundreds of laptops used by the U.S. Department of State that were missing have been located, according to a report in the Congressional Quarterly.

Given the sensitive and often secret nature of data the State Department workers deal with, officials had been bracing for repercussions like congressional hearings, according to CQ. That's what happened when a Veterans Administration official had a laptop stolen in 2006, IRS laptops went missing in 2001, and a State Department laptop containing the names of foreign agents working for the U.S. government was stolen in 1999.

News of the missing laptops first surfaced in late March in an anonymous post on the Dead Men Working blog written by foreign service officers.