Articles

The New iPad – a new story?
(March 2012) Following the launch of Apple’s ‘new iPad’, the company may have been criticised again for the lack of design overhaul, with some arguing it will likely inhibit sales. However the March 7th event was actually yet another Apple masterstroke for two reasons. Firstly, whilst largely unchanged on the outside, the New iPad’s launch focused on the software rather than hardware and on apps putting content creation at the fore; vital in developing and further strengthening the iOS ecosystem and also converting PC users into post-PC users.

Not all doom and gloom for the UK monitor market heading into 2012
(February 2012) LCD Monitor sales across UK distribution have finished optimistically in 2011’s closing quarter, with the commercial market remaining resilient in the midst of uninspiring results for the consumer market. The players in this market will be looking for this positive spin to continue heading into 2012 with a greater move towards superior technology, increased screen size and more prominent product positioning to succeed in optimising revenue in a year where market conditions are testing.

Understanding Enterprise HDD Price Complexity: Sales Decline, OEM Prices are Up but Channel Prices are Down
(January 2012) End-users continue to be hard hit as Enterprise Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) such as HP, Cisco and IBM follow Dell in increasing prices for enterprise hard disk drives. Many corporate buyers have had to settle for smaller capacity drives or delay purchases for their datacentres in order to keep spending in line with budgets set at the start of the year when prices were more stable.

Resellers react fast to possibility of HDD shortages, as weekly sequential sales rise 109%
(November 2011) Distributors were slow to react as resellers took immediate advantage of HDD shortages; with sell-through up 109% in the week Western Digital confirmed likely supply constraints of Internal Hard Disk Drives (HDDs). CONTEXT figures revealed that unit sales in the week commencing 17th October (Week 41), Tier 1 and Tier 2 vendors both benefited from sequential sales increases, with Seagate sales to resellers up 175%, Western Digital up 118% and Buffalo seeing a 200% increase.

Pricing will be key for Tablet vendors wanting a slice of Apple’s market share
If HP’s TouchPad flash sale didn’t make it clear enough to onlookers and analysts, then the sales figures should; there is a market for non-iPad Tablet PCs in spite of – and indeed because of – the continued phenomenal success of Apple’s iPad.