Ultrabooks will enter the tablet price range in 2013 according to Acer.
ZoomFollowing reports that Intel plans (but also formally denied) to offer a $100 subsidy on every ultrabook, Acer president Jim Wong said on Thursday that ultrabook prices will drop down to $499 USD in 2013.
According to Wong, the drop in price should begin sometime around 2Q12 where he expects the new form factor to retail for $799 to $899 USD -- a 20-percent price drop from the current price point. Presently the company is shipping 100,000 ultrabooks each month, but the number of units is expected to ramp up to 250,000 to 300,000 units by the end of December.
Wong also reports a positive outlook for 4Q11, as there are signs the company may actually break even during the quarter. To pull itself out of the red, the company began to aggressively diminish its European inventory during the second quarter of the year, reducing the level down from 80 day's worth of stock to just a mere 20 to 30 days.
As of December, the company still resides as the #4 notebook supplier. However Wong believes there's still a good chance to return to its former #2 position in 2012 by focusing on product quality and consumer demand rather than pushing shipment volumes. The company will also need to focus on its performance in China.
On Thursday, the Acer president addressed the current shortage of hard drives, stating that he expects the company to suffer a supply gap of only 10 to 15-percent in the fourth quarter. Additional sources indicate that this may be due to hard drive manufacturers prioritizing brand vendors, leaving retailers scrambling for the remaining units. Manufacturers have estimated an overall supply gap of 30 to 35-percent globally.
At the "Music Business Crash" that served as the pre-opening for the NARM convention, held in the Century City Hyatt in Los Angeles May 10-12, the speakers helped to dispel one myth commonly held by the digerati press: that the internet has leveled the playing field making record labels obsolete.
The registration process for 'Bahrain eContent Award 2011,' is over and the jury has begun evaluation of the entries from different companies in the Kingdom vying for top IT honours, said the organisers.
Ingram Content Group Inc. today announced an agreement with Hachette UK, one of the largest and most diversified publishing groups in the United Kingdom, to archive and distribute the publisher’s e-content to partners worldwide through CoreSource®.
One of the most insidious aspects of recent Internet policy-making is that much of it is taking place behind closed doors, with little or no consultation -- think of SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and TPP. But there's another dangerous trend: the rise of "informal" agreements between the copyright industries and Internet service providers.
ISC invites institutions to submit funding proposals for projects to be funded as part of its e-content programme for 2008-2011. Funding of up to £275,000 is available for the digitisation of catalogues and manuscripts related to Islamic Studies.
Sony has shown off a pair of tablets that will launch later this year. The S1 is little more than yet another Honeycomb tablet in a Sony-designed box, with a 9.4-inch widescreen display and a wedge-shaped case.
The Asus Eee Pad Transformer is the cheapest 10 inch tablet with Google Android 3.0 and an NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor. But good luck getting your hands on the $400 tablet, because it’s sold out pretty much everywhere at the moment.
All tablets are e-readers, but all e-readers are not tablets. B&N recently released a software update for its Nook Color, which takes the full color, touch-screen e-reader and gives it some tablet-like features. At $249.95 it is less than half the price of an iPad 2 or Xoom, and it offers some significant benefits for normal, non-geeky readers.
Lenovo is putting ultrabooks in a new variety of positions with the IdeaPad YOGA, an ultrabook that is so much more.