2011 February 24 archive at Robert Pogson

Archive for February 24th, 2011

Be All You Can Be. Buy a Smartphone

Published by Robert Pogson February 24th, 2011 in technology. 1 Comment

Gartner has more numbers for 2011. It looks like a smartphone is the number one item on consumers wishlists. Combined with the numbers from 2010, this means the numbers of users of Linux on client devices likely doubled in 2010 and will do so again in 2011. More people are buying smartphones than PCs of the notebook, and desktop kinds and the trend will only increase as prices come down. Having seen what a smartphone or tablet can do with a large monitor and keyboard, I believe that the larger format devices will peak this year. Growth of notebook sales has slowed considerably and desktop sales have already peaked.

The world of IT will change dramatically in 2011 and the monopoly is near death.

- Robert Pogson

20nm ARM Chips This Year From Samsung

Published by Robert Pogson February 24th, 2011 in technology. 11 Comments

ARM is doing well at 45nm and below. Samsung is expecting 30% power reduction at 20nm compared to 28nm processes with the same level of performance. Its current 45nm Exynos processor is perfectly able to run all kinds of gadgets. Two steps lower in resolution should make for very long battery life. This technology is quite suitable for lower-priced PCs of all kinds.

- Robert Pogson

ARM Ships Billions of Chips but IDC Doesn’t Count Them

Published by Robert Pogson February 24th, 2011 in technology. 4 Comments

In a year in which HP and M$ both announced intent to ship personal computing products with ARM processors, IDC still does not count them…
“Looking at processor shipments by form factor, during the year 2010 mobile PC processor unit shipments grew 26.2%, x86 server processor unit shipments grew 28.1%, and desktop processor unit shipments grew 6.2%. Mobile PC processors, which represented 50.2% of all PC processors shipped in 2009, represented 54.1% of processors in 2010.”

Well, IDC, some mobile processors are ARM. Why not count them? What’s holding you back?
IDC’s forecast for year-over-year growth in PC (mobile, desktop, x86 server) microprocessor unit shipments is 10.1% in 2011. “Corporate spending continues to drive spending on server platforms and commercial clients,” added Rau. “However, the affects of emerging devices, like media tablets, and economic concerns in Europe and the U.S., lead us to be conservative in our overall outlook.”

With ARM shipping billions of units annually and approaching 100 million personal computing devices, I should think ARM will be having an impact on personal computing in 2011.

Does anyone doubt that consumers and businesses will find uses for these gadgets? The ability to connect to large screens and keyboards means these devices can do anything most people want from a personal computer.