“Quietly brilliant” . . . but with a pumpin’ bass

Last week’s news that HTC would purchase a majority stake in Beats Audio represents another step in the company’s quest for differentiation, which is a growing challenge in the Android mobile phone handset space. HTC’s main thrust up to this point has been its Sense “user experience” layer that pours on the visual eye candy. But with music and video playing a bigger role on cell phones, HTC clearly sees an opportunity to improve on the audio experience. Read more »

HP’s Veer Doesn’t Know Jack

One would be hard-pressed to find a stronger advocate of audio quality in the PC world than HP. The company’s engineers have worked with Interscope Records to license the Beats brand and tune the upper end of its PC line to meet the requirements of that brand. It’s also had a public association with Black Eyed Peas artists Will.i.am and Fergie and used this weekend’s GRAMMY awards for high-profile exposure to its new Everybody On campaign.
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To Print or not To Print, That is the Question

In a typically bad reference to very good Shakespeare NPD’s recently completed Wireless Printing Survey (and HP’s Innovation event a couple of months ago in NYC) force us to ask that age old question.
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When Traffic Makes Us Happy

In our private lives we all despise traffic. It slows us down and deprives us of making full use of our time. Too much (fill in the blank) in too little space. In our professional lives as a retail tracker we have the opposite view … traffic is good. Retailers love traffic. Sellers love traffic. Crowds are great. We all want more and more shoppers, because we all know more shoppers lead to more buyers.
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The Netbooks Are Coming! The Netbooks Are Coming! Oh Wait, No They Are Finally Here!

One of the biggest stress points of this holiday season in the PC business has been the status of the emerging class of small notebooks, dubbed “netbooks.” While netbooks have been around for about a year, until very recently, they were the province of the early adopter with a heavy ecommerce bent. According to NPD’s retail tracking service, 88% of all netbook sales were made in ecommerce between Q4 2007 and Q2 2008. Even in Q3, the largest notebook opportunity of the year, netbooks in ecommerce outsold those in traditional retail (2/3 to 1/3). But in October we finally got a taste of what the netbook market could really be as netbooks finally hit the volume opportunity of U.S. retail. In October, 60% of netbook sales were at retail, and unit volume nearly equaled the entire volume of Q3. To put the opportunity in real context, for those who think ecommerce sales are a significant netbook opportunity, the sales results for netbooks in Q4 2007 through Q2 2008 represented less than 1% of consumer notebook sales. Even in Q3, when sales began to appear in retail, netbooks were less than 2% of all notebook sales. Finally the October numbers show some real measurable volume with netbooks accounting for over 6% of consumer notebook sales and early November results show netbook sales at about 5% of total volume.

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