ConsumerIT - For Europe's High Volume PC Retailers, Distributors & Builders

What is the key factor stopping customers from buying an ultrabook? Costs, as CONTEXT reports the devices retain too-high selling prices.

The analyst points out an ultrabook has an average price of €670. In comparison, the average consumer notebook costs €410 while a netbook costs €197. Not to mention that ultrabooks launched in a period of tightening consumer wallets and austerity measures.

Ultimately when buying a notebook (instead of a tablet) customers look less at weight and battery lives and more at prices.

CONTEXT expects ultrabook prices to drop during 2012, due to launch of the Intel Ivy Bridge platform and growing competition from companies like AMD.

The analyst also reports Acer lead the ultrabook market in W. Europe, taking over 62% of Q4 2011 sales. Following are Toshiba, Asus and Lenovo. Intel remains optimistic on the format, predicting ultrabooks will make 40% of the global consumer laptop market by the end of 2012.

Go CONTEXT

Kesa revenues drop by -1.3% Y-o-Y for the 1 November 2011 - 8 January 2012 period, as market conditions remain weak during the end-of-year period.

Darty France revenues are down by -4.7% Y-o-Y, while Darty Italy, Turkey and Spain show 1.7% Y-o-Y growth for the period. The retailer say sgrowth was seen in sales within the multimedia device segments, particularly in tablets and notebooks.

The other established Kesa businesses-- Vanden Borre, Datart and BCC-- show "strong revenue performances," with an 8.6% Y-o-Y revenue increase across all product categories, especially multimedia.

Kesa online sales are also positive, showing 18% Y-o-Y growth. Web-generated sales now account for around 10% of total Kesa product sales.

Go Kesa Q3 Interim Management Statement

Will Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM) become the memory of choice for the future? Everspin Technologies certainly hopes so, announcing record 300% Y-o-Y growth in 2011 MRAM product shipments.

The Everspin customer list contains major OEMs such as Dell and LSI using MRAM in RAID storage solutions. The company says it has over 300 active customers, with around 100 MRAM products in 3 markets.

Everspin is currently the only commercial producer of MRAM products. IBM and Toshiba have been working on the technology for years, but so far the companies only show off research results.

In theory, MRAM combines the best of RAM and Flash technologies-- storing data in a magnetic state (instead of an electric charge), allowing for faster performance, near-infinite endurance and non-volatility. The only problem with MRAM? Storage densities. The current limit for the technology is 16MB... much, much lower than standard flash memory.

Everspin remains hopeful-- it hopes to sell 4-6 million MRAM devices during 2012, and believes its next-generation product will even manage to replace DRAM by 2016. Called Spin-Torque RAM (ST-RAM), the technology stores more data while providing nanosecond-class latencies at gigabyte-per-second bandwidth. Either way, expect to hear more about MRAM in the next few years...

Go Everspin Technologies Reports 300% Growth of MRAM Product Shipments

Cisco announces a HomePlug AV Powerline solution range with products allowing costumers to use their existing home electrical wiring as a home network.

The Powerline standard provides speeds of up to 200 Mbps, and is set up by connecting the adapter to a router (via Ethernet cable) before plugging it into a wall socket. The network is complete after plugging a second adapter into another wall socket and connecting it to a device via second cable.

The Cisco Powerline range consists of 3 products-- the PLEK400 and PLSK400 adapter kits and the PLW400 wireless extender.

The PLEK400 includes x2 1-port powerline adapters, while the PLSK400 includes a 1-port and a 4-port powerline adapters. The PLW400 converts signals from an existing Powerline network into 802.11n wifi signal.

Go New Cisco HomePlug AV Powerline Solutions