As we enter 2012 and the thunder around tablets starts to increase we once again offer some results that show that the industry is not in as dire shape as some would believe. Today, NPD released the 2011 results from our sales tracking in the U.S. Reseller market (primarily DMRs) and through major broad line distributors - and surprise - the PC market performed pretty well.
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Tags: commerical reseller, desktops, distributor, DMR, IT, notebooks, PC market, SMB
Commercial Technology | Stephen Baker, Vice President, Industry Analysis | 
January 25, 2012 6:16 am | 
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While NPD’s press release today from our SMB Technology Monitor highlighted the increased interest firms with fewer than 1000 employees have in acquiring tablets for their employees, this by no means equates to the death of the PC market. The combination, however, of the length of time since the Windows 7 launch, the need to spend on higher cost infrastructure, and the increased spending on tablets has clearly put a crimp on PC spending intentions, especially among the largest firms.
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All the tech blogs and pundits are beating their drums about the potential launch of the iPad 2 on Wednesday. Assuming that is what this event will introduce it would be much more worthwhile to concentrate on what is really important to the future of the iPad, and the tablet category in general. To-date all we have heard are the typical pronouncements and concerns about new processors, thinness, or what the screen resolution is. While all these elements are important the most important things to concentrate on for the long-term success of tablets are pricing and distribution, both of which are discussed minimally at best.
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A couple of months ago we talked about some distribution and reseller sales statistics which indicated that, at least as we exited 2009 sales growth had begun to pickup in the SMB focused channels that NPD tracks besides retail. As we are now through the first few months of 2010 we have seen this trend continue, in both our Distributor Track and our Commercial Reseller Tracking services. In both, revenue is tracking towards 2008 levels and showing substantial revenue growth over the depressed levels of 2009.
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At the DisplaySearch blog, my colleague Paul Gagnon examines the proposed Hulu subscription service and expresses concern that the service could be jeopardized by fearful cable stakeholders. Indeed, cable companies, such as Comcast, have likely been pressuring broadcasters such as NBC, which have in turn pressured Hulu to vigilantly block access to any device or software that is designed to display content on the television, as arbitrary as this “line in the sand” may be. A recent example of this was Hillcrest Labs’ Kylo TV browser that debuted at this year’s spring DEMO Conference, but which landed on its face because Hulu suddenly decided to block it.
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One of the open questions surrounding the iPad that has quickly come to the fore in light of the recent Amazon-Macmillan brinksmanship is to what extent the device will jeopardize sales of e-readers. This is particularly true of the market-leading Kindle, upon the metaphorical shoulders of which Steve Jobs said Apple stood.
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NPD today released some good news about sales to small and medium business through the reseller channel, what us old timers used to call the DMR (direct marketing reseller) channel. Sales in December were very strong, posting growth of 7 percent year-over-year, the first time this segment has shown positive growth in more than 15 months.
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