The HDD industry will suffer from the worst downturn in 3 years in Q4 2011 according to IHS iSuppli, as the recent catastrophic floods wreck havoc on the electronics supply chain.

Such a disruption, of course, will cause a "butterfly effect" on the production of other devices and systems-- mainly notebook PCs and DRAM, as well as cameras and STBs. Thailand is the second biggest HDD producer in the world (following China) and a major HDD part supplier.

As a result, the analyst forecasts Q4 20 Continue reading...

That old war horse, the integrated graphics processor (IGP) is "fading out of existence" according to Jon Peddie Research-- making way scalar x86CPUs carrying multi-core SIMD graphics processing elements.

The rise of integrated CPU and GPUs is proof of Moore's Law, especially thanks to to move to 32nm and even 28nm manufacturing processes. The category might also impact GPU sales and change traditional sales patterns-- even if nothing is ever so simple in the PC market.

JPR says the EPG/HPU Continue reading...

CONTEXT reports both European consumer and business PC sales (excluding tablets) continue struggling in Q3 2011, as sales revenues decline by -11% Y-o-Y while vendors and distributors slash prices in order to clear unsold inventory.

The analyst says PC sales from the top distributors in Europe (representing approximately 50% of Q3 2011 sales) are up by 9%-- however average selling prices are down by an average of -10%.

Meanwhile consumer PC demand (including desktops, netbooks and notebooks) continues Continue reading...

Doomsayers predicting the demise of the notebook PC might be wrong-- IHS iSuppli predicts the "notebook market will live to fight another day," saying WW shipments will reach 325M by 2015.

The 2015 forecast is up 105M from the total iSuppli predicts for 2011 shipments-- 220M.

While the notebook market will receive a bit of a beating from tablets (with shipments slowing down), the platform will retain a key role, especially in enterprise segments.

The analyst also describes notebooks as "a useful Continue reading...