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

Intel launches its tablet-specific processor, the Atom 7670, part of its "Oak Trail" platform.

The Atom 7670 processor is supposed to improve on performance (particularly on video playback and internet browsing) while not hitting too much on battery performance. It is designed to handle various operating systems, including Android, Meego and Windows.

Key to tablet OEMs is size-- with the new processor being 60% smaller than Intel's previous generations, while having a fanless design. It carries an integrated HD decode engine (for smooth 1080p video playback) and otimised Intel SpeedStep technology.

Alongside the launch of its latest, Intel provides new details of its next generation-- "Cedar Trail", to come out in 2011's second half. It will have Intel's 32nm process technology and support blu-ray 2.0, HDMI-output and DisplayPort.

Go New Intel Atom Processor for Tablets

Apple will continue owning the majority of the WW tablet market-- as it does nowadays-- at least up til through 2015, according to Gartner. 69% of tablets will carry iOS by 2011's end, and 47% of the market will in 2015.

Gartner says most other vendors competing against Apple fail to give customers really want-- apps, services and slick user experiences. Instead, such vendors prefer to concentrate on hardware features, just as they did when competing against iOS on smartphones.

The analyst forecasts further growth for Android, from 20% WW tablet marketshare in 2011 to 39% in 2015. Google's decision (for the moment) to close down Honeycomb to all but a select group of developers is something of a double edged sword-- on one hand it will prevent fragmentation (and supposedly drive more control), on the other it will slow down price decline, thus capping its market share.

RIM's migration of its entire Blackberry portfolio to QNX (the Playbook OS) should offer customers a single consistent experience-- at least once the Playbook hits the market.

Finally, MeeGo and WebOS will remain stuck with limited customer appeal until they also manage to grow within the smartphone market.

Go Gartner Says Apple iOS to Dominate Tablet Market Through 2015

"All Your Software Needs Under One Roof," promised the Fry's ad. But whose roof? Generally retailers hate selling software.  It's more than what you'd call "a problem category:"  it's a "forget-it, let's-not-talk-about it" category.

If retailers are rather notorious about lacking interest in software, then they also never advertise software. So I clicked on the Fry's ad in SiliconValley.com hoping to learn what Fry's has discovered that the rest of us don't yet know...

That click led me to an ad which is the typical message you expect from retail... it was a wall of deals on PCs, drives, memory, digital cameras-- even blank DVDs and refrigerators..but NO software. It's an interesting page to see where American price levels are these days, but definitely not the answer to the question: "How does retail sell more software?"

Then I used that clickable ad to enter Fry's website and found at least one category tab for software on their web site (one, of course, among the other 21 categories of merchandise).

No surprise here either: it's the basic retail approach to PC Software...you get your internet security, your Microsoft, your photo editing suite, your DVD burning software and (in USA) your Do-Your-Taxes software. Those impulse or urgent buys that afflict all computer users at some point in computer ownership.

It's the same old, same old approach. We can rack-mount walls and walls of humble cases for mobile phones in case a customer comes in and wants one for a lesser-known model at 24 euros...but we never could provide more than a handful of niche software.

After my attempt to find a novel approach from Fry's failed, this exhausted any possibility of the story I really had wanted to write...the story about how finally one retailer figured it out, how one retailer finally got up enough nerve and decided to tackle software.

"Are you crazy?" I can hear my retail friends ask.  "Everybody knows you can't make money off retailing software."

But I think I'll stick to my guns on this: That was "then." This is now.

Nobody thought you could make money on music, but Apple found a way. Nobody thought you could make money on phone apps...but Apple did. No one thought you could make money on selling game software but GameStop has done well. And I thought Target in USA was on the right track with conceptualizing iTunes pre-pay cards for Apple.

Clearly software functions best when delivered by internet. But that's no reason to intellectually walk away from how to bring lucrative software sales to the very targeted and very extensive customer base of computer and electronics retailers.

Think about it: we own the customers. We own or should own the customer experience. And we should be able to figure out a system to tap into software sales because we are not longer just bricks.  It's more than a fact that most of us now have clicks. We are moving rapidly into the integration of mobile-enabled consumers into retail.  Somewhere in that combination may be the formula that we really need.

What we need is a high tech way to bring the customer's software experience in-store. Think of this as Software Genius Bar with Minority Report technology. I keep seeing falshbacks to hifi dealers who once lined up rows of headphones above records so consumers could "demo" an album before buying.  This is not Mission Impossible....we just stopped trying. And we have all sorts of new technology that could allow us to re-invent the customer experience.

We've been talking only about software but I think it is urgent to think our way through this problem (of how retail sells digital products like software, apps, content etc) before the roof will come crashing down upon us.  More and more of the IT business is moving to the cloud and soon our storage section will be as depleted as our software section.

And storage isn't the only category that cloud will impact.  If we could solve the software problem, that probably also solves the question of how to get our retail mitts on the coming cloud opportunities.

The question remains for all challengers and all architects of consumer IT retail business: how do we get software under our roof?

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Peratech announces a clear version of its Quantum Tunnelling Composite (QTC) material, saying it could either replace current resistive touchscreens or enchance capacitative screens.

The company says QTC Clear combines the best features of the 2 current touchscreen technologies-- resistive's pressure sensitivity and low power consumption with capacitative's multi-touch capabilities and higher sensitivity and accuracy.

QTC Clear technology consissts of a 6-8 micron thick layer sandwiched between 2 ITO layers sandwiched between 2 hard sheets (usually glass). The QTC Clear layer has a transparency similar to other touchscreens, and Peratech says it is sensitive enough to detect deflections of only a few microns. It also uses less power, as no current flows through the screen unless a there's a user touches it.

Manufacturers of either touchscreen technology can upgrade their existing manufacturing procedures to produce QTC Clear, with little alteration needed to the actual control electronics.

Go QTC Clear