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Just delayed until the next quarter.
Also, lower revenues are not money "lost".
Also, a newer story says it's $170 M, (2% of revenue), not $250M: https://digitimes.com/news/a20...

But it wouldn't be a modern news story without a bunch of exaggeration and misunderstood info, would it? The important thing isn't the correct facts, the important thing is to point and laugh at someone's misfortune. Because news...

If they get subsidies based on 50,000 employees and only end up with 500 then we got ripped off.

And 500 is generous. They've already got 10 production lines that are fully automated.

So, maybe, 50 jobs?

They aren't even going to hire us.
They are going to fill the factories with robots.
Foxconn is already running ten 100% automated production lines in china.

If they build a brand new factory here, where labor is so much more expensive, its going to be the most automated factory in the entire company.

Is 500,000 in sales considered pretty good? To put this in comparison the Surface has been considered a disaster by many here (myself included) and that sold 1.7 million.

I won't argue your other points on mouse and multiple on-screen app windows as they are quite valid. My point is that I think Google could be much more successful in pushing Android on laptops than Chrome. Certainly there is work that would be needed, but that is absolutely paltry compared to the amount of work that it would take to bring Chrome up to par in terms of apps, developer familiarity and market acceptance.

Because netbooks became uncool, but the market for them didn't go away.

Agreed, and an Android based notebook can be made for netbook based prices. Chromebooks are certainly popular on Amazon, but overall they have only sold about 500,000 units so far. That's actually a pretty small fraction of the market and it doesn't change my argument.

There's still a substantial market for a small, cheap, light laptop that boots fast and lets you browse the web and type the occasional document

I couldn't agree with you more, and I think the market could be better served by letting people use Android and the legacy Market. Right now the market is too fragmented and people are reluctant to dive in as who knows what will be the next on the chopping block.

Think about it, both Palm and Blackberry just died in the market recently and now you have Firefox trying to make an OS as well. If your an average person, do you want to go with the small thing, or the big thing you know works because your phone runs on it?

How is that an unhealthy situation?

Because partners who've been closely tied to their success are now looking at alternatives.

"Vendors in China have revealed the Intel has begun to promote Android based convertible tablet/notebooks. Intel is concerned that Windows 8 has been unable to stimulate global demand for notebooks, and since global sales of Android tablets have been increasing, they are looking at reducing their reliance on the Microsoft OS.

China-based vendor Lenovo will be first to release Intel driven Android systems in May, while Hewlett-Packard (HP), Toshiba, Acer and Asustek Computer will launch theirs in the third quarter."

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20130419PD208.html

Global e-book reader shipments in the fourth quarter of 2012 will reach 4.57 million units, hiking 92% on quarter but dropping 49.1% on year, according to Digitimes Research.

Thus, 2012 global shipments will reach 9.82 million e-book readers, decreasing 57.3% from 2011. Amazon will be the largest vendor in 2012 accounting for 55% of global shipments, followed by Japan-based Kobo with 20%, Barnes and Noble with 10% and Sony with 6%.

http://www.digitimes.com/Reports/Report.asp?datepublish=2012/11/14&pages=VL&seq=200

Apparently they're throwing it in for free if you'll take Windows 8.

Buy a computer that has the specs you want. Then wipe the hard drive and install Debian. Return the Windows 8 license for a refund. Problem solved.

Even if this ploy is successful --- it's a perfectly ridiculous waste of time and money that will net you next to nothing.

Microsoft has released licensing rates for OEM Windows 8, including US$60-80 for Windows 8, US$80-100 for Windows 8 Pro (with Office) and US$50-65 for Windows RT (with Office), according to Taiwan-based notebook supply chain makers.

Microsoft unveils Windows 8 OEM licensing charges

Then there is the small matter of warranty service and technical support.

You purchased a system with hardware, software and drivers certified for Win 8, remember. Diagnosing and repairing problems associated with any random --- and customized --- Linux distro was not part of the deal,

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20121112PD219.html

Well, that only took a quick google.

Ah, I should have searched the intertubes again before my post. That one is relatively new. Thanks.

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20121112PD219.html

Well, that only took a quick google.

I think it's great for many reasons, but I'm wondering something.

The Forbes article links to a digitimes article. The digitimes article says, "The program will give the engineers an environment to learn the Chinese language, first-hand expereince in the manufacturing process, and a training that can be helpful after they return to the US, he added."

If the American workers will work in the US, why should they learn the Chinese language?

Perhaps to communicate with Foxconn managers and Chinese suppliers more efficiently? Through my dealings with Chinese and Taiwanese companies, I've found that although many engineering/tech personnel in China have a minimal ability to communicate in English (although some only by email), almost none of the factory or production personnel nor tech employees at low-level parts suppliers have servicable English communication abilities (neither verbal nor email). In a production environment, good communication skills are very important. A manufacturing "lines-down" situation can means thousands of dollars going down the toilet every second.

I'm sure this is just for supervisors and managers and product and quality engineers. They aren't gonna ship all the hourly assembly employees over to china/taiwan for training.

I think it's great for many reasons, but I'm wondering something.

The Forbes article links to a digitimes article. The digitimes article says, "The program will give the engineers an environment to learn the Chinese language, first-hand expereince in the manufacturing process, and a training that can be helpful after they return to the US, he added."

If the American workers will work in the US, why should they learn the Chinese language?

Just saw numbers: http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120612PD219.html

Retina screens (in volume) are running them 4x the cost of the other screens. So about 8% by volume of screens but about 30% by volume of cost.

Maybe Google and Apple being the most visible players in the cloud competition, but I do not think they will be the only major players

Other firm that have already enter the fray, or will enter in a big way are firms that already have an online presence, such as Amazon or Facebook, or firms that have traditionally offer corporate services, such as IBM, or firms such as Microsoft; Major ISPs and Telcos may also want to branch out in this field

Even major datacenter operators may see cloud computing as an extension to their existing businesses

In fact, Digitimes reported that NTT, a Japanese Telco, has placed an order of 100,000 cloud computing servers to Quanta Computer of Taiwan

URL is at http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120529PB200.html [paywall, sorry]

Chart 21: Android shipments overtake the iPhone 2 years after the launch of Android

http://www.digitimes.com/Reports/Report.asp?datepublish=2011/12/30&pages=RS&seq=400#11

Tablet PC manufacturers prefer Android over other operating system because Android is an open operating system platform and it seamlessly allows third party hardware installations. ErenEben, the local player which is currently selling Android based Tablet PC’s, is currently focusing on professionals and customers aged 35 and above and is becoming a hot favorite for business world in China

http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/android-anticipated-to-become-market-leader-in-china-tablet-pcs-market-by-2016-says-techsci-research-122105.htm

Android captured a record 39 percent share of global tablet shipments in Q4 2011, rising from 29 percent a year earlier. Global Android tablet shipments tripled annually to 10.5 million units.

http://www.strategyanalytics.com/default.aspx?mod=pressreleaseviewer&a0=5167

I'm sure Windows Phone will be as successful as the Zune, the Kin and the Spot Watch.

Anything Apple makes will be as successful as the Newton and Ping.
And anything Google makes will be as successful as Buzz and Wave(and G+?).

See, I too can make non-sequitur arguments by digging up past failures and ignoring successes like the XBox and Kinect(which is the fastest selling consumer electronic device ever).

Add Google TV and Chromebooks to the list of Google failures. Apparently, Chromebooks sold only a few thousands, ouch.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Logitech-Giving-Up-on-Google-TV-After-Losing-100M-344197/

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20111109PD222.html

In June 2011, Acer and Samsung launched their Chromebooks ahead of other PC brand vendors, but by the end of July, Acer had reportedly only sold 5,000 units and Samsung was said to have had even lower sales than Acer, according to sources from the PC industry. However, Acer has declined to comment.

But looks like it's fashionable here to rail only on MS' failures and not any other company's.

true: Apple, directly or indirectly, uses child and slave labor to make consumer electronics.

true: So does everyone else.

true: You don't care.

If you want to cause change: Either mass-protest ALL of these companies and their products (good luck!), or do a startup if you have a better idea.

Otherwise: Stop pretending and continue loving your "precious" at all costs while screwing underage Chinese girls, you disgusting pedophiles.

how is Apple making the iPad so cheap?

Off the top of my head I can think of some reasons:

1. Deep pockets and long term planning.
   Apple is sitting on a ton of cash. With that money they afford to enter in long-term contracts for their supplies which lowers their costs. There was story that Apple appears to have locked up 60% of the touch screen supply with long term contracts. Adding to this, Apple approached suppliers probably a year before their competitors. Apple has entered into long term contracts for other strategic components like flash memory.
2. Apple designs their own chip.
   Many here on slashdot have written off the A4 as just another ARM processor. Certainly there's nothing that's really extraordinary about the A4 (and now A5). Apple did seem to have optimized it somewhat for power consumption. What they overlook is that it's Apple's ARM processor. When other companies like Motorola selects a processor, they have to accept whatever processors the manufacturers have. Remember Motorola divested itself of their chip business. Now they could of course customize the chip with the manufacturer. But customization means longer development and more costs. Add to that any licensing costs of using the chip. Another good reason Apple designs their own chip is simple; they are not dependent on any manufacturer for design. Right now Samsung makes the A5 for Apple. If in the future Samsung decided that wasn't a good business idea, Apple could go to someone else to have their chip made.

"our patents relate to key features that users have come to expect from every smartphone .. That Microsoft has important patents in this area should not surprise anyone - we've spent over 30 years developing cutting-edge computer software link

"How wonderfully twisted summary. Even the article doesn't say Microsoft is demanding license for installing linux. It says Acer and Asustek should patent license fees just like everyone else:", weachiod

Microsoft plans to impose royalty fees on Taiwan-based vendors of Android handsets for using its patents in e-mail, multimedia and other functions, with Acer and Asustek Computer being targets in an actual attempt to prevent the two vendors from adopting Android and Chrome OS for their netbook and tablet PCs, according to Taiwan-based makers.

There are only several Taiwan-based handset vendors and only HTC has signed for licensed use of Microsoft patents, leaving Acer and Asustek being the targets for the royalty charge, the sources indicated link

I suspect the "5 year agreement" started earlier than 2007... say end of 2005 when Apple wanted to lock down a network/carrier to try out their new revenue system.

None of the previous rumors have involved Pegatron already tooling up for production of an iPhone. Granted, that leak was right before their IPO--so I'd says there's an even chance that someone made it up to boost the stock, or they really are producing an iPhone under secrecy and needed to leak the info to boost the stock.

I'd say if we're going to hear something official, it will be at the September iPod event. If Pegatron really is going to produce iPhones, it will be hard to keep it a secret, so I would be shocked if Apple didn't plan to reveal something until Nov-Jan timeframe (which would coincide with VZW's LTE announcements).

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20100617PD215.html

Microsoft now owns and controls the netbook segment and they are doing a good job at killing it off. More specifically, they dictate what screen size a "netbook" has, what the maxium processor size can be and other specifics which pin the device down.

This claim is more than a year and a half out-of-date. Before September 2008, cheaper "netbook pricing" for Windows XP Home limited the screen size to 10.2", hard drive to 80GB, RAM to 1GB, and CPU to single-core. In September 2008, MS updated the screen limit ot 14.1" and hard drive to 160GB.

• Microsoft eases restrictions on the use of Windows XP Home for netbooks

Besides, Windows 7 Starter has gradually replaced Windows XP Home as the most popular pre-loaded netbook OS. Also, as another replier mentioned, Intel sets hardware limits for Atom netbooks, probably because they don't want to cannibalize sales of higher margin Core-based processors.

That's an interesting question. This Digitimes article published the day before he died, but after he had reported the loss, claims that Apple and Sony are cutting back on Foxconn orders, while Dell, Asustek, and HP are climbing on board.

Just found this actually: Asustek and Gigabyte to form joint venture - seems like you might have been right, up to a point, after all.

64GB of memory has been supported for a LONG time, especially with server class hardware. Usually requires a Xeon or Opteron processor.

From 2005: Opteron based: http://www.digitimes.com/mobos/a20050729PR208.html

Xeon based: http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=9&l2=39&l3=712&l4=0&model=2147&modelmenu=2

How about 256gb? http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/Opteron8000/MCP55/H8QMi-2+.cfm

Yes, the Geode will probably live on.

Evidence the fact that AMD has developed an adaptor board to allow the Geode to run with DDR2 RAM since DDR is becoming so hard to find. They would not put effort into supporting this chip if it were end-of-life.

He was not talking about sales, he was talking about preloads. Digitimes has the actual quote:

The ratio of Eee PCs preloaded Windows XP and Linux stands at 7:3.

This contradicts common sense but not the fact that XP EEEPCs don't fly off shelves.

oops... I forgot the second link: http://www.digitimes.com/print/a20080801VL203.html

Here's a better source. Pegatron (a Chinese company) will be making the drives for the 360. As my friend said, they will be available this fall (third quarter).

Maybe this is what you are looking for: BD licenses reportedly granted to 11 China makers

Actually, I found a statistic where they estimate only 30% of ultraportable purchasers are replacing an existing (large) laptop. see it here

Hehe, that's a good one.

Sadly I wouldn't get too smug, Apple, HP, and Sony portables are made by the same company and have almost identical parts in most cases.

Apple doesn't 'make' hardware, Taiwan does.

I wonder why didn't that guy use a real camera. Horrible pics.

Few nit-picks about this machine:
- a lot of real-estate wasted to the sides of the screen. Couldn't they put there thumb-pointers like those in the VAIO UX50? or at some cursor buttons? For reference: http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/08/unboxing-the-sony-vaio-ux50/
- a second, fanless, merom-based generation is already coming in April. If they keep the same price I'm in. http://www.digitimes.com/systems/a20070904PD215.html

Going down to 7W from 11W looks pretty big to me.

The shrink from 90nm to 65nm on the processor may have little to no effect since the design flaw is in the X-clamp on the GPU. The new repair service that went in hand with the warranty extension involves an installation of a new heatpipe on the GPU. So there is something being done, but in a passive form, rather than an active product recall. That's what supposed to fix the issue, the idea of the new Falcon chip solving the RROD was pure speculation, and as parent has mentioned there is NO proof. Not even a claim from MS that this is the case.

However, there are rumors of a GPU shrink coming in late 2008 from 90nm to 65nm as well: http://www.digitimes.com/bits_chips/a20070430PB208.html . This would be more likely to affect the RROD issue since this is the source of the heat that causes the board flexing under the X-clamps.

Heck, just today, they went ahead and osborned the first-generation Eee PC. The Eee is definitely a "hold" until next summer at the earliest.

I doubt that the licencing is that much ($20). If it was then surely someone would just stick vlc or mplayer in a box with a drive and sell it for $10.

Yes, but that would be "under the table." Wiki says $20/player while another source shows min $4/player for the DVD spec alone. MP3, JPG, VCD, etc. support each have their own fees.

Here's another article on fees: http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20050120A2004.html Quote: "Xinhua Online cited the China Audio Industry Association (CAIA) as indicating that China produces 60 million DVD players and exports 45-50 million of them a year, with the exported DVD players subject to a royalty charge of US$20 per player."

It does seem that Target will not be stocking stand alone HD-DVD players, but they will still be selling the disks and the 360 HD-DVD drive

True, but I never said they were media exclusive - just player exclusive, in-store. That's still a big deal, and Blu-Ray gets the end-caps along with players whereas HD-DVD is stuck in the back.

My guess is the they don't want to compete with Walmart's HD-DVD players this Christmas

The only cheap Chinese players we know about for sure are the cheap Blu-Ray players coming from Funai, voted "WalMart Supplier of the year" a few years ago. The rumor of a cheap Chinese HD-DVD players was shown to be a planted story by a chinese manufacturer meant to drum up business, and was retracted.

Also, now that a major movie studio has gone HD-DVD only, I'm guessing that Blockbuster will have a harder time staying away from them.

That is a possibility, it'll be interesting to see what they do. Again I think they would have to see HD-DVD sales figures climb substantially because right now the sales figures are still where they were at to have Blockbuster make the choice they did.

You'd get even more up to date info if you use their 'news' search. It would seem that the 2 to 1 number does hold up for disks, however HD-DVD players still outsells Blu-Ray players

That was a UK story though, I was talking worldwide. Toshiba in a press release a few months back said they had 65% of standalone players, and just a month or two again issued another press release claiming 55% of the standalone market - a reduction of 10% that implied Blu-Ray players sales were overtaking them in that timeframe.

As noted I think we'll see cheaper players shortly, from Funai - and probably from other companies, who I expect to get very aggressive now this Christmas (which I think was in the works anyway).

OK, I found some real numbers.
In 2006, "H-P claimed the top spot with 2.26 million units... Dell was second with 1.78 million shipments... IBM placed third on shipments of 1.3 million units... while Sun sold more than 368,000 servers"
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/gartner-says -server-shipments-revenue/story.aspx
So, the top four sold about 5.7 million servers, and considering that 4th place is about 1/6 the size of first place, I'd say it's safe to assume that the numbers drop off considerably after that.

(Another site says that the 8th, 9th, and 10th most popular servers--Acer, Hitachi, and Apple--sold 15,000 servers or less in one quarter.
http://www.digitimes.com/systems/a20070604PD204.ht ml
So yeah, the tail gets pretty thin, pretty fast.)

So let's say that there were about 6 million servers sold in 2006. Guess what: in 2006, Apple sold over 5.6 million Macs.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/apr/19results .html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/jul/19results .html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/oct/18results .html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/01/17results. html

So the number of Macs sold roughly equals the number of servers sold. BUT, as we all know, Apple only has about 5% of the market, so there are roughly 20x more consumer computers sold than servers. And as I said above, "in order for the number of Linux boxes to equal Macs, there would have to be one server for every 20 desktops."

Wow. Am I a good estimator or what? :-)

And remember--the point of this is not whether there are more Linux boxes or Macs out there. I know that the number of servers sold does not include all those boxes that someone put Linux onto for server use, and I don't know if servers or desktops last longer, etc etc etc. But no matter how far you push the numbers, the point is clear--Apple and Linux are probably very close to each other. One might be one-half or twice the size of the other, but they are both obviously QUITE large and they in the same league and neither should ignore the other. The fact is, Apple and Linux have comparable market share, and for this guy to totally dismiss Apple--by talking about a world where there is only MS and Linux--was wrong in several ways.

There. Happy?

Currently, Intel's Core-based Clovertown is only available for 2-way motherboards (with two independent FSBs). Intel's 4-way boards still use the Netburst architecture and two FSBs for four CPUs. Tigerton and Clarksboro (the Caneland platform) will update Xeon MP to the Core architecture and four point-to-point buses.

I thought I read somewhere that TSMC was gearing up to do 32nm fabrication on contract for other companies. Here's a reference to assure me I have some sliver of sanity left. 45nm by September, and 32nm by Q4 of '09. So it seems that at least one company might be an option for outsourcing some fabrication.

Chartered Semi just signed another tech partnership with IBM, Samsung, Infineon, and Freescale. This one goes down to 32nm.

UMC and TI are working on 32nm together, too.

Fujitsu, although not especially known for fabbing chips for third parties, is working on getting down to 32nm as well. They do some fabbing for others now.

In any case, this story at Fabtech gives a much more reasoned and insightful look at the issues. They says it's likely AMD will outsource lower-end CPUs and continue to outsourc emuch of the GPU business as ATI already did. They may ramp up more outsourced work to Chartered than they currently do, and may share some fab space at Dresden and in New York. That's a far cry from going fully fabless.

Not a good idea to do a price/performance comparison when prices and lineup are about to change.

Intel will be releasing a few new CPUs and cutting prices on April 22. The E6320 and E6420 for example, identical to their 6x00 counterparts except with 4mb of L2 cache. They'll go for $163 and $183 respectively.

Benchmarks for next month's processors with price list:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2 duo-e6420.html

A 20-30% price cut is expected from AMD on April 9.

Even now the prices Techreport lists are outdated! The Athlon X2 4600+ dropped to $122 a week ago - faster and cheaper than the $170 4400+ techreport tested (which is actually more like $159).

I'm not sure what is more screwed up the article linked to about the drives or the Slashdot comment.

ReadyDrive is NOT ReadyBoost, but it IS STILL a MS Technology and is designed to work directly with Vista.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsv ista/features/details/performance.mspx

Also why does the linked article and Slashdot dismiss these drives as having nothing to do with Vista, when in fact they were DESIGNED Specifically to be used with Vista and employ MS Vista technology in the hardware?

Is Slashdot trying to become the misinformation site of the Internet?

http://www.digitimes.com/systems/a20070307PR201.ht ml

http://www.channelinsider.com/article/Samsung+Ship s+Worlds+First+Hybrid+HDD151or+Is+It/202621_1.aspx

"Optimized to work in Windows Vista-capable notebook PCs, Samsung's MH80 is a 2.5-inch hybrid hard drive with 128 or 256MB of flash memory. It combines a hard disk drive with a OneNAND Flash cache and Microsoft's ReadyDrive software, offering faster boot and resume times, increased battery life and greater reliability compared to traditional magnetic media technology, the spokesperson claimed. "

Sorry slashdot, but these drives are designed for Vista. Sure they may offer performance improvements in other OSes, but will see the majority of performance gains in Vista. Also even when used with other OSes, the way the Drives internally manage the Flash caching is from MS, so thank them the next time you boot your Linux laptop with one of these drives.

As for the other questions people have about the limited write times of Flash RAM, etc, go lookup MS Superfetch technology which specifically addresses these issues by writing to various locations in the Flash space, since this this is also how these drives work to ensure the same bits don't always get used, giving the flash cache the equivalent or greater lifetime than the HD platters.

I know this is SlashDot, but someone could get the fact right once, right?

Microsoft are also losing money on each 360 console sold..

From Todays News:

http://www.digitimes.com/bits_chips/a20070202VL200 .html

If you are preapred to lie about that, what else in your twisted post can we believe?

Just like Microsoft did with the 360, Sony is releasing a very small amount of consoles at a price far below the market value. Sony isn't making money now. The reason is to make the PS3 seems desirable and popular for when they release the big batch just before the hollidays. Sony _wants_ headlines about PS3s selling out quickly. And what better way to get media attention than violence?

US DoJ SRAM probe takes in Mitsubishi
U.S. Extends SRAM Antitrust Probe to Samsung
SRAM Industry Probe Hits Toshiba
iSuppli questions value of SRAM probe

All are 2 weeks old.

The article here http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20061002PR207.html states the AMD quad-cre will be out by Q3 2007. Thats quite a long time coming.
Don't bother about buying these any time soon

Quanta will not categorize orders for the US$100 notebooks under its general notebook business, said Wang, noting that production for the US$100 laptop project will initially take place in Changshu, Jiangsu province (China), where Quanta mainly fulfills orders for its non-notebook products.

http://www.digitimes.com/systems/a20060831A2004.ht ml/

I know 10m is a global figure, but even so, I'm sure more than a few thousand (per the TechFreep article) of those would end up in Chinese schools.

http://www.digitimes.com/mobos/a20060904A1001.html

Dell reportedly to use about 20 million AMD CPUs

  Celia Lin, Taipei; Jessie Shen, DigiTimes.com [Monday 4 September 2006]

Market sources say that about 20 million Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) processors will be used in Dell's servers, desktop PCs and notebooks between the fourth quarter of 2006 and the fourth quarter of 2007. Dell will use four million AMD CPUs in its notebook line while sixteen million AMD CPUs will appear in Dell's desktop and server products, according to the sources.

Sources in the Taiwan notebook industry pointed out that AMD has progressively expanded its presence in the notebook sector, by adding Dell as one of its major supporters in addition to Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Acer. Obtaining Dell's support would better convince domestic notebook manufacturers to divert more R&D facilities and resources to AMD-based products, the sources indicated.

AMD declined to comment on the report and denied to reveal any details of the company's relationship with customers.

On May 18, AMD announced that Dell stated in its quarterly earnings statement that it intends to offer AMD Opteron Dual Core processor-based servers. According to Dell's August 17 press release, the PC vendor will launch Dimension desktop computers with AMD processors in September and will introduce a two-socket and multi-processor server using AMD Opteron processors by the end of 2006. So far, announcements of Dell's notebooks with AMD processors have not yet been made, though various rumors have circulated that Dell's first AMD-based notebook will be introduced in the fourth quarter of 2006.

According to International Data Corporation (IDC), Dell shipped 37.78 million PCs (including desktops, notebooks, ultra portables and x86 servers) in 2005, up 18.9% from the 31.77 million units that the company shipped the previous year.

With an average annual growth of 20% in full-year shipments, Dell is aggressively estimated to hit the 45 million mark in PC shipments this year and 55 million units in 2007, according to market sources. Accordingly, the 20 million AMD CPUs are expected to be used in a third of Dell's overall PC shipments, jumping from 0% at present, the sources found.

According to Mercury Research, AMD's overall market share stood at 21.6% in the second quarter of 2006, with on-quarter growth in the desktop and server sectors reaching 0.6- and 3-percentage points, respectively. In the meantime, AMD's share of the notebook CPU market had a sequential drop of 0.3-percentage points in the second quarter to 13.3%, data released by the research firm showed.

In related news, market sources speculated that AMD may face a situation where demand exceeds supply. Instead of a tight capacity concern, a shortage is predicted to surface in the channel market, as the chip vendor will give priority to PC vendors Dell, HP and Acer, according to the sources. An August 7 article cited sources as revealing that AMD aims to ship 12 million notebook CPUs in 2006, accounting for 15% of the world's notebook CPU market.

So there was no article but I found this online that I think I had caught on Digg once (can I say that here?).

Anyway, this all goes back to our friends IDC who have this knack for claiming to be the industry experts in everything. I don't really buy that but they make these reports and then the article gets published and Slashdot usually caries them. In the particular link above, they estimate that 55 million CPUs will be used by Dell in 2007 and that, according to Taiwanese chipmakers, 20 million of them will be AMD chips. So that comes to a little over a third, not half if those estimates are accurate.

Hemos, I know you're pissed because you have to edit Slashdot on labor day weekend but hang in there champ. You forgot a department on the last story and a link on this one but you'll get the next one right, I'm sure of it!

Considering this I don't know where you got your figures from. Desktop sales for Apple are declining although their notebook sales are improving quickly but they are still only 12% of the market for laptops. Still, 3% rough marketshare for their desktops now? They've improved by 1% of the last 4 years. Probably best to take that information with a grain of salt or two.