Tag Archive for Dell

| January 23, 2020
Comments Off on PC Market Show Signs of Life

PC Market Show Signs of Life

PC Market Show Signs of LifeAfter 7 years of consistent declines – PC sales finally stopped their slide. Market researchers Gartner and IDC reported that PC sales grew during the fourth quarter of 2019, boosting all of 2019 into the positive. For the entire year, global PC shipments were up 2.7%, according to the IDC. That makes 2019 the “first full year of PC growth” since 2011.

Sick computerPCWorld reports that 2019 new PC numbers from Gartner and IDC and are remarkably similar. Gartner reported that PC sales grew 2.3% in 2019 Q4 to 70.6 million units and 261 million units for the year. Rival analyst firm IDC largely agreed, estimating that PC unit sales grew 4.8%, to 71.8 million units. IDC said that worldwide PC sales grew 2.7% for 2019 as a whole.

Among the results:

  • The top three global PC vendors—Lenovo, HP, and Dell—all consolidated their market share, reaching 65% of the PC market.
  • Lenovo logoIDC and Gartner concur that Lenovo (LNVGY) is the world’s top PC vendor for 2019. IDC reports Lenovo had a 24.8% global market share and Gartner said it had a  24.1%.
  • Globally HP (HPQ) ranked #2 with 23.9% by IDC and 22.2% by Gartner.
  • Dell was ranked #3 worldwide with 17.4% by IDC and 16.8% by Gartner. Dell’s unit sales climbing by nearly 11%, according to IDC’s estimates.

In the U.S. market the ‘Q4-19 rankings differed:

  • HP logoHP is #1 with a 31.2% market share and a modest 4.4% bump in U.S PC sales for the quarter.
  • Dell ranked #2 with a 26.8% market share and a gain of 15.9% for the period.
  • Lenovo came in #3 with a 14.9% share and 11.2% increase in share.

The tech prognosticators attributed the surge in sales to firms swapping their hardware to Windows ahead of MSFT”s Windows 7 end of support, giving new PC sales a one-time shot in the arm. Ryan Reith, program vice president with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers, said in a statement.

The market will still have its challenges ahead, but this year was a clear sign that PC demand is still there despite the continued insurgence of emerging form factors and the demand for mobile computing.

Ranjit Atwal, a research senior director at Gartner, in a statement to PCWorld, cast doubt on future growth. He says,

The PC market’s future is unpredictable because there will not be a Windows 11. Instead, Windows 10 will be upgraded systematically through regular updates …As a result, peaks in PC hardware upgrade cycles driven by an entire Windows OS upgrade will end.

rb-

Don’t do your happy dance just yet.

Gartner and IDC both predict global sales to steadily decline again over 2020 as MSFT’s drives to a subscription-based model. Other threats to the PC market include:

China – The Chinese government has ordered all PC hardware and operating systems imported from foreign countries to be replaced in the next three years.

HP- Xerox – I have covered Xerox’s maneuvers to take over HP. The possible disruption to HP by a Xerox hostile takeover could rattle the entire sector. Especially if Acer or Asus cannot scale up fast enough.

History – Data from Statista says that annual PC sales have dropped nearly 1/3 from their peak in 2011.

Year# of PC's Change YoY
2011364.0-
2012349.3-14.7
2013315.1-34.2
2014308.3-6.8
2015275.8-32.5
2016260.2-15.6
2017259.6-0.6
2018258.5-1.1
2019261.02.5
2020 *254.3-6.7
Data from Statista YoY = Year over Year in millions of units

Related article

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
| November 30, 2019
Comments Off on RSA Available?

RSA Available?

Updated 12/26/2019 – The rumor mill says that Dell Technologies is working with too big to fail Morgan Stanley in a bid to sell off RSA Security.

—

RSA Available?

Is RSA available? In keeping with the wave of cybersecurity mergers and acquisitions the rumor mill is reporting that Dell is exploring the sale of its RSA Security business unit. If the rumors are correct, RSA can be had for at least $1 billion. Rumors about Dell potentially selling RSA have surfaced multiple times over the past few years.

RSA Security logoDell inherited RSA in 2016 as part of its $67 billion acquisition of EMC. EMC bought RSA for about $2.1 billion in 2006. RSA Security was founded in 1982.

RSA is well-known for its products. Well known products include SecurID multifactor authentication tokens and NetWitness for security incident event management and threat detection and response. However, RSA is probably best known for its annual RSA Conference in San Francisco. RSA faces many of the same issues that have precipitated the HP – Xerox face-off. The challenges include competition from fast-growing cloud and software based identity and access management (IAM) firms.  The RSA challengers include Okta and Ping Identity, according to Bloomberg.

Why is RSA Available

RSA SecurID multifactor authentication tokensDell may have put RSA on the block because it is redundant in the Dell portfolio. Dell also owns Secureworks, an MSSP that’s evolved a software-defined era led by threat detection and management services. Additionally, Dell’s VMware business now owns Carbon Black — an endpoint protection and cybersecurity company that works closely with MSSPs. Dell has been connecting the dots between Secureworks, VMware, and Carbon Black as part of its own enterprise security strategy.

Neither Dell nor RSA commented on the Bloomberg report.

rb-

As I have noted a number of times on Bach Seat, the cyber-security market is seeing lots of M&A action. If Dell is really serious about unloading RSA, now is the time to do it. Before the cyber-security bubble bursts and/or the economy tanks again. Not only would selling RSA streamline Dell’s security story the $1 billion would allow Dell to pay down its debt after its purchase of EMC or fund other projects.

Related Posts

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , ,
| August 1, 2019
Comments Off on The Secret to F-Keying at Work

The Secret to F-Keying at Work

The Secret to F Keys at WorkWe use keyboards at home, work and the car. The first keyboard to feature function keys was the 1965 Singer/Friden 2201 Flexowriter Programmatic as a standalone word processing system. Each of the function keys was programmable. The familiar 12 F-Keys were introduced in 1984 with the second generation Model M keyboard for the original IBM PC. It had 12 function keys in 3 blocks of 4 at the top of the keyboard. Over the years, various operating systems and applications have made use of function keys in different ways.

After you learn this list of F-Key secrets, you can improve your fun at work by F-Keying around in your cube as you work on your project.

F1• F1 – Universal – Opens a help or support menu in most programs.
• F1 – Apple macOS X – Reduces the screen’s brightness.
• F1 – Some computers  – Used it to enter BIOS setup during startup.
• F1+WIN – Microsoft Windows –  Opens the Microsoft Windows help and support center.

—

F2

• F2 – Microsoft Windows – Renames a highlighted icon, file, or folder.
• F2 – Microsoft Excel – Edits the active cell.
• F2 – Apple macOS X – Increases the screen’s brightness.
• F2 – Some computers  – Used it to enter BIOS setup during startup (Acer, Asus, Dell, eMachines, Gateway, Lenovo, Sony).
• F2+CRTL – Microsoft Word –  Displays the print preview window.
• F2+ALT+CTRL – Microsoft Office – Opens the Documents Library.

—

F3

• F3 – Microsoft Windows – Opens desktop search feature.
• F3 – MS-DOS or Windows command line – Repeats the last command entered.
• F3 – Browsers (Firefox, Chrome and IE) – Launches the Find bar.
• F3 – Apple macOS X – Opens Mission Control.
• F3 – Other programs – Will find the next search value after an initial search is performed.
• F3+CTRL – Microsoft Word – will lowercase any highlighted text.
• F3+SHIFT – Microsoft Word – Toggles between capitalizing each word, lower case and upper case for the selected text.
• F3+WIN – Microsoft Outlook – Opens the Advanced find window.

—

F4

• F4 – Microsoft Windows 95 to XP – Open find window in Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer.
• F4 – Apple macOS X – Accesses dashboard.
• F4+ALT – Boss key – Microsoft Windows – Immediately closes the current program without saving. It can be used in an emergency to close browser windows you don’t want others to see.
• F4+ALT – Microsoft Windows – When no program is running it launches the Shutdown dialog box.
• F4+CTRL – Microsoft Word – Repeat the last action performed.
• F4+WIN  –  Closes the open window or tab in the active window.

—

F5

• F5 – Microsoft Windows – Reload the page, document, or contents list in a folder.
• F5 – Microsoft Office – Open the find, replace, and go to window.
• F5 – Microsoft PowerPoint – Starts a slideshow in PowerPoint.
• F5 – Browsers (Firefox, Chrome, and IE) – Refreshes a web page from the cache.
• F5 – Apple macOS X – Increases the keyboard backlight.
• F5+CTRL – Browsers (Firefox, Chrome, and IE) – Forces a hard refresh of the web page from the server instead of the browser cache.
• F5+CTRL+SHIFT – Microsoft Word – inserts a bookmark in Word doc.

—

F6

• F6 – Microsoft Windows desktop – Tabs from desktop files to the taskbar and the system tray icons.
• F6 – Browsers (Firefox, Chrome, and IE) – Move the cursor to the address bar.
• F6 – Apple macOS X – Decreases the keyboard backlight.
• F6 – Reduce laptop volume (on some laptops).
• F6+CTRL+SHIFT – Microsoft Office – Opens to another document.

—

F7

• F7 – Microsoft Office Suite – Spell and grammar check a document.
• F7 – Mozilla Firefox – Places a moveable cursor in web pages, allowing you to select text with the keyboard (Caret browsing).
• F7 – Apple macOS X – Can be used to rewind media content.
• F7 – Increase speaker volume (on some laptops).
• F7+SHIFT – Microsoft Office Suite –  Runs a Thesaurus check on the word highlighted.

—

F8

• F8 – Microsoft Windows – Enter the Windows Start Menu, to access Windows Safe Mode (if pressed during the boot process).
• F8 – Apple macOS X – Can be used to pause media content.
• F8 – Used by some computers to access the Windows recovery system, but may require a Windows installation CD.

—

F9

• F9 – Microsoft Word – Refresh document.
• F9 – Microsoft Outlook – “Send and Receive All folders” email.
• F9 – Reduce laptop screen brightness (on some laptops).
• F9 – Apple macOS X – Can be used to fast forward media content.

—

F10

• F10 – Microsoft Windows – Activates the menu bar of an open application.
• F10 – Browsers (Firefox and IE) – Shows the Menu bar.
• F10 – Apple macOS X – Can be used to mute the speaker.
• F10 – Some computers – Increase laptop screen brightness.
• F10 – Some computers – Used it to enter BIOS setup during startup (Compaq, HP).
• F10+SHIFT – Microsoft Windows – The same as right-clicking on a highlighted icon, file, or Internet link pops out the context menu.

—

F11

• F11 – Microsoft Windows Explorer – Enter and exit full-screen mode.
• F11 – Microsoft Excel – Adds a graph of highlighted cells.
• F11 – Browsers (Firefox, Chrome, and IE) – Enter and exit full-screen mode.
• F11 – Apple macOS X – Can be used to decrease the speaker volume.
• F11+CTRL – Microsoft Excel – Adds a new macro to the workbook.
• F11 –  Used to access the hidden recovery partition when pressed during boot (Compaq, HP, Dell, eMachines, Gateway, and Lenovo).
• F11+SHIFT – Microsoft Excel – Adds a new sheet to the workbook.

—

F12

• F12 – Microsoft Office –  Open the Save as window.
• F12 – Browsers (Firefox, Chrome, and IE) – Opens browser debug tool.
• F12 – • F11 – Apple macOS X – Can be used to increase the speaker volume.
• F12 – Used to access the list of bootable devices on a computer when pressed during boot, allowing you to select a different device to boot from (e.g., hard drive, CD or DVD drive, floppy drive, USB drive, and network).
• F12+CTRL – Microsoft Word – opens a document.
• F12+SHIFT – Microsoft Word – Saves the Microsoft Word document (like Ctrl+S).
• F12+CTRL+SHIFT – Microsoft Office – Prints a document (Like Ctrl+P).

—

Newer Apple keyboards have F13, F14, and F15 keys for even more F-Keying around – in place of the Print Screen, Lock key, and the Pause key. They also have F16 – F19 keys above the number pad. Early IBM keyboards had F13 through F24 keys, but these keyboards are no longer used.

To access all the fun of F-Keying you may need to access Fn Lock key or the “Fn key”+“Fn Lock” key to strike F-Keying gold.

rb-

Even Superman uses a keyboardThere’s nothing like F-Keying at  work to make you more efficient. It may feel somewhat strange the first time you try to control your computer from the keyboard since we’re so used to navigating with the mouse. But, you can’t beat the ability to keep your hands on the keyboard.

Related Posts

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| March 1, 2019
Comments Off on VMWare Crossing the Streams

VMWare Crossing the Streams

The Ghostbusters warned us. Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) warned us not to cross the streams. You should not cross the streams because as Raymond Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) explained it would cause total protonic reversal. Despite the warning, VMware is crossing the streams.VMWare Crossing the Streams

Rumors have it that Dell/EMC/VMware and Microsoft (MSFT) are crossing their streams with a VMware Cloud NSX on Microsoft Azure partnership could be coming soon.

VMware NSXVMware’s (VMW) multi-cloud approach combines the core VMware technology stack with services delivered through partnerships with other service providers including Amazon (AMZN) Amazon Web Services (AWS) Google Cloud and IBM Cloud. As well as an emerging development environment centered on the open source Kubernetes container orchestrator. Chennele2e hypothesizes,

The two companies are jointly developing software that will let their customers more easily run computing jobs, which rely on VMware software, inside Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing service … could be announced … in the coming weeks … move computing chores from their own private data centers, where VMware’s software is a critical ingredient, to Microsoft’s “public” cloud service.

In the past, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger described a range of cross-platform work — including:

  • Azure: NSX and VDI with more VMware management products for Azure are on the way.
  • Google Cloud Platform: VMware has partnered with Google and Kubernetes. Also, Android- and  Chromebook-related offerings.

As the slide below shows, the deal with Microsoft links VMware to most of the enterprise VM’s in the cloud. What impact will the VMware-Microsoft deal impact the VMware-AWS relationship? Will AWS continue to enjoy “most favored nation” status in VMware’s public cloud partner ecosystem?

The number of virtual machines in the cloud - Enterprise based on Right Scale estimates

The Redmond Channel Partner points out that former VMware executive Ray Blanchard, who was in charge of the VMware partnership with AWS joined Microsoft a year ago.

Related articles

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| June 9, 2018
Comments Off on PC’s Meh

PC’s Meh

PC's MehWe are almost midway through 2018 Q2 and the 2018 Q1 PC sales numbers were meh. The good news is that IDC called the PC market flat. That’s good news because they had predicted a 1.5% decrease for the quarter. IDC reports worldwide 60.4 million PC’s sold in the January-to-March period driven mostly by businesses moving to Windows 10. 

PC market experienced a 14th consecutive quarter of declineGartner (IT) is less meh and more blah. Gartner saw slightly more PC’s shipped in 2018 Q1 at 61.7 million units for a 1.4% decline. The PC market experienced a 14th consecutive quarter of decline, dating back to the second quarter of 2012.

Gartner Principal Analyst Ms. Mikako Kitagawa affixed the blame primarily to the Chinese market. “The major contributor to the decline came from China, where unit shipments declined 5.7 percent year over year.” Ms.Kitagawa continued, “This was driven by China’s business market, where some state-owned and large enterprises postponed new purchases or upgrades, awaiting new policies and officials’ reassignments after the session of the National People’s Congress in early March.”

Dell logoThe top three Gartner vendors — Dell, HP, and Lenovo — accounted for 56.9% of global PC shipments in Q1 of 2018. Up slightly compared with 54.5% of shipments in Q1 of 2017. Dell experienced the strongest growth rate among the top six vendors worldwide, as its shipments increased 6.5%.

HP‘s (HPQ) worldwide PC shipments increased 2.8% in the first quarter of 2018 versus the same period last year. In EMEA, HP Inc. recorded double-digit growth in both desktop and mobile PCs. Gartner says HP Inc. was adversely affected by declining demand in the U.S., which generally accounts for one-third of its total shipments.  

Lenovo’s (LNVGY) global PC shipments remained flat in the first quarter of 2018. Lenovo achieved 6 percent growth in EMEA and double-digit shipment growth in Latin America. However, in Asia/Pacific (its largest market), PC shipments declined 4 percent.

After record holiday sales for consumer and gaming products in the fourth quarter of 2017, Dell continued to do well in the first quarter of 2018. With double-digit shipment increases in EMEA, North America, and Latin America, Dell grew in all regions except Asia/Pacific. Desktop and mobile PCs grew in equal measures, showing Dell’s strength in the business segment according to Gartner.

HP logoIn the U.S., PC shipments totaled 11.8 million units in the first quarter of 2018, a 2.9% decrease from the first quarter of 2017 according to Gartner. Dell moved into the No. 1 position in the U.S. based on shipments, as its market share increased to 29.1%. HP Inc. moved into second place as its shipments declined 4.8%, and its market share totaled 28.4%in the first quarter of 2018.

2018 Q1 - Gartner Global PC Shipments

Company2018 Q1 Shipments2018 Q1 Market Share (%)
Dell3,44029.1
HP Inc.3,36328.4
Lenovo1,63213.8
Apple1,49112.6
Acer Group3212.7
Others1,58613.4
Total11,833100.0
Notes: Data includes desk-based PCs, notebook PCs and ultramobile premiums (such as Microsoft Surface), but not Chromebooks or iPads. All data is estimated based on a preliminary study. Final estimates will be subject to change. The statistics are based on shipments selling into channels. Numbers may not add up to totals shown due to rounding.. Thousands of Units.Source: Gartner (April 2018)

PC shipments in EMEA totaled 18.6 million units in the first quarter of 2018, a 1.7% increase. driven by Enterprise shipments increased as many Windows 10 projects and the fast approach of the compliance deadline for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe.

PC shipments in Asia/Pacific totaled 21.9 million units in the first quarter of 2018, a 3.9% decline from the first quarter of 2017. As previously mentioned, the PC market in China drove the decline in Asia/Pacific.

IDC says the U.S. market saw a promising opening quarter for the year with almost all major vendors reporting increases in notebook sales. Overall, total PC shipments for 2018 Q1 stood at 13.5 million units.

IDC reports that HP Inc. maintained a comfortable lead over all others in the market with its eighth consecutive quarter of overall growth (up 4.3% year on year) and growth in all regions except Latin America.

Lenovo saw a flat quarter in 2018 Q1, the third consecutive quarter in which the company saw year-on-year volume stabilize with flat global growth and a slower pace of decline in the U.S. Dell Inc. posted the strongest year-on-year growth out of all the major companies, growing 6.4% and buoyed by strong performances in nearly every region.

Acer (TPE:2353) held onto fourth place. Its ongoing expansion into gaming and continued investments in Chromebooks have paid dividends for the company but also caused some tough going in other areas. Apple (AAPL) finished the quarter in fifth place with a year-on-year decline in shipments of 4.8%.

2018 Q1 - IDC Global PC Shipments

Company2018 Q1 Shipments2018 Q1 Market Share (%)
HP Inc.13,67622.6
Lenovo12,30520.4
Dell Inc.10,19016.9
Acer Group4,0856.8
Apple4,0006.6
Others16,12826.7
Total60,383100.0
Preliminary results. Shipments are in thousands of units. Source: IDC Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker, April 11, 2018

rb-

PC’s used to be a leading indicator of the health of the tech sector. That is not the case anymore. Economic stress has lengthened the life span of PCs from 3 years to nearly 5 years in many firms and even longer in the home market. Increased smartphones capability and cloud-based applications and storage have taken another bite out of the PC market.

But looking into the tea leaves, many think PCs are on the rebound. Driving the PC market is a demand for premium notebooks in the mainstream and commercial markets. Gaming systems are also part of the equation. IDC expects overall smartphone shipments to decline by 0.2% in 2018 after falling 0.3% last year, the thought is that those dollars would be used to upgrade their PCs.

Mmmm – we’ll see. I say not likely. Can you say “new normal?”

Related article

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
« Older Entries   Recent Entries »