Briefly: IDC lowers tablet forecast, new Dell kit, Blackberry woes

Bill Bennett -

Tablets may be eating the PC market, but not as much as analysts expected.

Research company IDC lowered its tablet shipments forecast saying the slim, light computing devices are under pressure from large screen smartphones and wearable devices like smart watches. The lack of exciting tablet product launches earlier this year are also to blame.

All this means IDC has revised its forecast of 229 million tablets sold worldwide this year down to 227 million.

It’s not a big drop. Two million is within the margin of error and shipment forecasts do not necessarily equal sales. To put things in perspective, the 2013 forecast is still 50 percent up on 2012 shipments.

Yet, the lower number indicates something is happening. 

  •  Dell New Zealand announced a swag of new hardware including new Latitude 7000 Ultrabooks using the same Haswell chip as Apple’s MacBook Air. There are also new Latitude 3000 and 5000 models, the company says touch screens are options across the range.
  • Hopes of a revival in Blackberry’s fortunes seem dashed as The Wall Street Journal reports ‘dismal’ sales of the company’s new keyboard-equipped Q10 smartphone. The company pinned its hopes on Q10 after the earlier touch-screen Z10 model failed to make an impact on the market. It’s unlikely the phone maker will get another roll of the dice.
  • It’s still a long way off, but a senior Skype executive told the BBC his company is developing 3D video call technology. As the BBC story points out, this is a strange time to make such an announcement with 3D television services closing down because of lack of interest.
  • New Plymouth is the latest addition to Vodafone‘s fast-growing 4G network. The carrier is rapidly expanding its fast mobile network coverage ahead of Telecom’s 4G launch which is expected to start with Auckland sites in October and in Wellington before year-end,