Vista PCs get cool response in Japan
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(InfoWorld) - PCs running Microsoft'sÂ new Windows Vista operating systemÂ got a cool response from consumers in Japan during their first month on sale, according to data published Tuesday. Sales of desktop and laptop computers from brand-name makers in February were 1.2 percent higher than the same month in 2006, said BCN. The company came up with its figure after analyzing point-of-sales system data from about 560 specialist PC and electronics shops that are part of 12 retail chains. The entire market was up 6 percent thanks to better demand for white-box PCs made by computer stores and for motherboards. The jump in the brand-market was smaller than expected by market watchers, who thought the launch of the long-awaited operating system on Jan. 30 would give the PC market more of a kick. Better sales had been expected in part because consumers had shown a lack of interest in new PCs in the months prior to Vista's launch. In October, sales were down 21 percent compared to the previous year. In November, they were 22 percent lower, in December 19 percent down and in January 14 percent below the same month in 2006. The little strength there was in the brand-name market came from increased sales of laptops, sales of which were up 9.3 percent on a unit basis for the month, said BCN. The desktop sector was down 13.8 percent on the year. Despite the apparently lackluster response from Japanese consumers, Microsoft and two major PC makers have in the last 24 hours given the Vista launch votes of confidence. "We're actually pretty happy with how the launch has gone so far," said Darren Huston, president and CEO of Microsoft's Japan unit, at a news conference on Monday. The same day Walt Mayo, corporate director of Dell Japan's home and business sales division, said in an interview that the Vista launch has been "good overall." On Tuesday Richard Walker, head of Hewlett Packard's consumer PC division, said sales of Vista PCs were "strong" in the global market. He didn't have any data specific to the Japanese market. "We're definitely ahead of our plan as far as Vista is concerned," he said. Among Vista sales demand for the premium versions has been greater than anticipated, said Microsoft's Huston. "That was actually a good, positive surprise for us," he said.
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The keyboards, mice, Webcams and headsets sport features for the upcoming Vista operating system.
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A full-fledged Windows XP  computer that's a fraction of the size of a laptop seems like  the answer to the digerati's prayers, but the praise greeting  the OQO Model 01 has been decidedly muted.
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Software maker says users will be able to run Home versions of Vista within a virtual machine. Company had briefed reporters in June on such a move, but then changed its mind.
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By Jessica Mintz  NEW YORK - Acrobatics, blaring music and plenty of hype accompanied Microsoft Corp.'s long-delayed debut of its new Windows Vista operating system.
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People actually redeeming vouchers Europeans who bought a new PC in time for Christmas and were persuaded that they would get a Vista upgrade soon after the rollout by redeeming a voucher, are learning that demand for the upgrades far outstrips "supply".â¦
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Home-entertainment PCs, now dominant in Japan, to reach 30 percent of worldwide market by 2008.
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(InfoWorld) - The PC is changing. Once simply a computer with spreadsheets for the family budget and games for the kids, home PCs are rapidly evolving into home entertainment systems, equipped with digital television tuners, high-definition displays, and other features drawn from consumer electronics. Globally, media PCs represent a fraction -- just 5 percent -- of desktop computer sales, said Eric Kim, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Home Group, during a speech at the Ceatec exhibition in Chiba, Japan. While media PC sales are relatively small at present, they will represent 30 percent of desktop sales by 2008, he said. While the rest of the world slowly warms to media PCs, the systems already dominate computer sales in Japan. "More than 60 percent of desktops sold in Japan today are already some kind of media PC," he said. Media PCs are big sellers in Japan because most homes here are small, putting a premium on the use of space. As a result, home PCs usually double as an entertainment system, making computers with these features popular among end users. This love affair with the media PC was readily apparent at Ceatec, where local PC makers showed off their newest products. At NEC's booth, the companyÂ showed off its Valuestar X PC, which will be available later this year for Â¥543,000 ($4,612). Based on a 3.4GHz Intel processor, the water-cooled PC offers dual 250GB hard drives, a Blu-ray disc drive, and a 20-inch widescreen LCD (liquid crystal display). At Sony's booth, the companyÂ showed several Vaio PC modelsÂ that had home-entertainment capabilities. One of them, the Vaio Type L VGC-LA915 integrates the components of a computer into the back of a 19-inch widescreen LCD (liquid crystal display) screen. The computer, which is priced at Â¥359,800 includes a Blu-ray Disc drive and remote control for watching high-definition movies. A smaller version with a 15.4-inch display, includes an attached keyboard that can be folded up against the display to save space. In addition to packing consumer-electronics features into their latest products, Japanese PC makers are also looking ahead, playing with new designs further tailored to the interests of end-users.Â One such design is Fujitsu's Turn Table PC, which adds the ability for DJs to spin and scratch using digital media files. The design, which may never enter production, calls for a 20-inch display that can be folded down to use the turn-table function. Outside of Japan, sales of media PCs will likely be driven by factors other than a desire to maximize the use of space in a home, said market analyst IDC in a recent report. Sales of media PCs will take off in the U.S. once a wider variety of content, especially video, is made available to end-users, it said. "The potential for that success is evidenced by iTunes' sale of 125,000 Disney movies in the first six days of its service offering," the report said, referring to Apple Computer's recently introduced video download service. Shipments of media PCs are expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 41 percent through 2010, when vendors will ship 27.5 million units, IDC said. This year, PC makers will ship 5.9 million media PCs, worth around $6 billion, it said.
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Microsoft Corp.  founder Bill  Gates said on Tuesday the company's Windows Vista operating  system had been incredibly well received.
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InfoWorld - The first laptop computer to feature an HD DVD-R drive, Toshiba&#39;s Qosmio Q30, went on sale in Japan over the weekend.
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Cool gadgets from Asia this month also include a new Toshiba laptop equipped for HD DVD-R.
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(InfoWorld) - Dell is seeing strong demand for its products in several Asian markets and is pleased with customer acceptance of Microsoft'sÂ new Windows Vista operating system, according to one of the computer manufacturer's senior executives in the region. While Dell's business in China and South Korea is growing at more than 30 percent year-over-year, it growth in India is even greater at 60 percent, said Jim Merritt, vice president of North Asia operations at Dell and president of the company's Japan unit. The growth hasn't been typical worldwide, however, where Dell has beenÂ battling a slowdown. The company's plan to revive its business depends partly on reaching more customers in emerging markets, particularly those mentioned by Merritt. The plan also looks toÂ focus on SMBs, enterprise services, and storage, and to shorten the amount of time it takes to design new products. In Japan, growth is more modest but still good at between 10 percent and 12 percent, according to Merritt. Dell Japan will be focusing on enterprise customers, services, software, and peripherals as it looks to grow market share in the traditionally tough market where Japanese hardware and software vendors dominate, he said. On the consumer side of the business, customer reaction to Windows Vista as been "good overall," said Walt Mayo, corporate director of Dell Japan's home and business sales division. "In Japan, the last quarter was very soft," he said. "Dell did quite well and we think [the softness] was due to consumers waiting for Vista." Last week, Dell reported profits of $673 million for its fourth quarter, which runs from December to February. The numbers, which are provisional, are sharply lower than the $1 billion it made in the same period a year earlier. Revenue was also lower. It fell to $14.9 billion from $15.2 billion in the same period a year earlier. The company has reported only provisional earnings for the last three quarters due to an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York into its accounting practices, it said. In January,Â Kevin Rollins resignedÂ as Dell's CEO and Michael Dell came back to the position. Merritt said he thinks Dell's return to the company that bears his name will help "reinvigorate Dell and bring a fresh approach." Â
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Microsoft Corp.  founder Bill  Gates said on Tuesday the company's Windows Vista operating  system has received an incredible reception.
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(InfoWorld) - Japanese users won't have to worry about a noisy cooling fan disturbing them while they watch high-definition movies on NEC's newest computer -- the PC, equipped with a Blu-ray drive, uses water-cooling instead. A prototype of the PC, called the Valuestar X VX780/GD, was on display this week at the Ceatec exhibition in Chiba, Japan. As most Japanese live in small apartments, PCs often do double-duty as both a computer and an entertainment system. But the use of cooling fans means that PCs are not as quiet as standalone DVD players, often interrupting the movie-watching experience. The use of water-cooling means NEC's Valuestar X runs quietly, making just 31 decibels of noise, or slightly more than a whisper. Priced at Â¥543,000 ($4,612), the PC is clearly not intended for people on a budget. But for those willing to pay more for a high-end system, the Valuestar X, which is due to go on sale in December and runs Microsoft's Windows XP Home Edition operating system, offers some impressive features. In addition to the Blu-ray drive and water-cooling system, the PC offers a digital television tuner, a 3.4GHz Intel Pentium D 945 processor, 1GB of RAM, and dual 250GB hard drives. It also includes a remote control and a 20-inch widescreen LCD (liquid crystal display) with internal flat-panel NXT speakers that provide surround sound.
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PC owners who bought late last year and planned to take advantage of Microsoft's Windows Vista Express Upgrade program have found that their Vista OS upgrades are taking longer than expected to arrive. They are not amused.
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Toshiba will begin selling later this week the first laptop computer to feature a rewritable HD DVD optical disc drive, the company said on Monday.The PC will be in its Qosmio multimedia laptop range and is firmly aimed at users who want to enjoy high-definition video on their PCs. There are two digital HDTV tuners so that one station can be recorded while watching another and the laptop comes with 400G bytes of hard-disk drive recording space. The 17-inch widescreen display has a resolution of 1,920 pixels by 1,200 pixels so is suitable for watching HDTV in full resolution.The HD DVD-R/RW drive can be used to transfer recorded TV shows or content from a high-definition video camera to disc for archiving. The drive also supports the new HD Rec format that allows for recording HD content on conventional DVD discs. With the price of blank HD DVD media still relatively high, the ability to use cheap DVD media could be a welcome feature for users. However, the capacity of DVD discs is lower so only about 24 minutes of video can be stored on a single-layer DVD.The PC is based on a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor and there&#39;s a NVidia GeForce 8600 graphics processor. Other features include a harman/kardon 4-speaker sound system, 2G bytes of memory and 802.11 a/b/g wireless LAN.As to be expected from a multimedia PC with such a large screen, the Qosmio G40 is a heavy laptop. It weighs about 4.8 kilograms, so isn&#39;t the most portable machine in the world, but likely consumers will be people who live in small apartments and who want a PC, TV and video recorder all-in-one to save space.The machine will cost around &#165;400,000 (US$3,500) and it will go on sale in Japan only on Friday. Toshiba didn&#39;t announce overseas launch plans. Previous models of Qosmio PC have been put on sales overseas after the Japan launch.
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If you're putting Vista on a PC yourself, you need to read this.