“the pace of inventory build-ups have been unable to catch up with the growth in demand for smartphones in China and other emerging markets, said the sources, noting that overall shipments of smartphones by China-based makers for domestic and overseas sales have skyrocketed to 30 million units a month recently compared to 20 million units in the first quarter of 2013.”
see China market: Several smartphone components in short supply
Eat your heart out, Wintel… While you have negative growth in shipments, stuff with Android/Linux on ARM is maxed out, limited by supplies of components to growth over 100% per quarter.
Despite the explosive growth of small cheap computers not running Wintel, IDC predicts the hardware under Wintel will struggle on for years to come. “Going forward, IDC expects that tablet shipments will surpass desktop PCs in 2013 and portable PCs in 2014. In 2013, worldwide desktop PC shipments are expected to drop by 4.3% and portable PCs to maintain a flat growth of 0.9%. The tablet market, on the other hand, is expected to reach a new high of 190 million shipment units with year-on-year growth of 48.7% while the smartphone market is expected to grow 27.2% to 918.5 million units.”
see Worldwide Smart Connected Device Market Crossed 1 Billion Shipments in 2012, Apple Pulls Near Samsung in Fourth Quarter
I don’t think so. People are buying smartphones and tablets because they are on retail shelves and they do what needs to be done. Very soon people will stop guying those legacy PCs because they are not on retail shelves and they don’t do what needs to be done. That will really send them to the grave. I am not claiming legacy PCs will die out completely. It’s just that very few of us need a super-computer on the desktop when a small cheap computer will do. Typing is the most popular use of a desktop/notebook PC that ordinary people have and they can do that with a smartphone or tablet merely by buying a keyboard with USB or Bluetooth connectivity.
Wintel is about to have a severe adjustment in attitude. No one wants or needs monopoly on retail shelves or on the desktop. The world is routing around that.
Life cannot get much better than this for mobile computing or computing in general for most consumers until 14nm comes along in a year or so… From now on small cheap computers will not be associated with whimpy performance. More of what they do will be done in specialized hardware with a significant increase in speed.
Here’s a gadget announced today from Nvidia using Tegra 4:
It took decades for PC-monitors to go from 640×480 to 1920×1080 but smartphones have done it in just a few years. “After HTC kicked off the trend with its “Butterfly,” there is a great deal of momentum around the adoption of Full HD (FHD; 1920×1080) displays in smartphones. Like the Butterfly, many of these devices will use 5” FHD displays, with a stunning 441 ppi (pixels per inch) resolution.”
see If FHD Smartphone Displays Take Off in 2013, is the Supply Chain Ready? | DisplaySearch Blog.
Now, if only they shipped them with magnifying glasses or HDMI ports for my monitor and USB ports for my keyboard… Wait a minute! They do: “3.5 mm stereo audio jack
Bluetooth with aptX™ enabled (Bluetooth® 4.0)
Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n
DLNA® for wirelessly streaming media from the phone to a compatible TV or computer
micro-USB 2.0 (5-pin) port with mobile high-definition video link (MHL) for USB or HDMI connection (Special cable required for HDMI connection.)” The chores that only a boxy desktop PC can do are becoming more limited every year. 2013 promises to be a good one.
“Motorola, the first major handset vendor to tie up with Intel, is scheduled to unveil its first Atom-based smartphone in London in September, the sources noted.”
Hint: They all run Android/Linux… This is not Wintel but something else. It’s also a gateway to the desktop for Android/Linux since the software runs on Intel. It should be able to run on Intel PCs of all kinds, perhaps with modifications for the phone stuff. Wintel is fragmenting even before M$ gets onto ARM. Isn’t it cute that Intel and friends are releasing these gadgets in September more than a month before “8″? It’s all good.
Intel is getting price/power/performance competitive on smart phones in order to be able to do this. That was inevitable but Intel is still handicapped by single core operation to be in the game. That puts them into the low end of smart phones but that’s still a huge market. In a year or two they will be competitive even in multi-core thanks to Moore’s Law. Soon neither ARM nor Intel will demand much power to run. The display will be the limiting factor.
OTOH, some makers of netbooks intend to get out of the market reducing some use of Atoms. Strangely, one of the triggers for this is higher licensing fees for “8″. Instead of opting for GNU/Linux on netbooks, OEMs are abandoning the netbook altogether in favour of tablets and smart phones. Whatever small cheap computer works, I guess.
My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.
My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.
I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.
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