Category: Computers

Acer Passes Dell as World’s No. 2 PC Maker

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on October 15

We’ve seen this one coming for a while, and today it’s official: Acer has overtaken Dell to become the world’s second-largest PC company, with market share behind only HP. According…

Lenovo Still Struggles Outside China

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on August 06

Lenovo, China’s biggest PC maker, reported better-than-expected quarterly results today, a sign that the company is starting to benefit from a new strategy focusing more on the Chinese market. Lenovo…

China Censorship Software: From Bad to Worse

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on June 15

As if it weren’t already clear Chinese bureaucrats didn’t do their homework before mandating new censorship software for all Chinese PCs, over the past few days comes more news that…

China Backtracks from PC Censorship

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on June 11

Not to say I told you so, but it seems China is indeed stepping back from its new censorship policy for computers. As TelecomAsia’s Robert Clark writes here, the Chinese…

Could Lenovo and Acer Team Up?

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on May 21

More bad news for Lenovo. China’s top PC company today announced it lost $264 million in the quarter ended March 31. The loss was no surprise, given the awful state…

Acer’s Disappointing Earnings

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on April 29

Taiwanese PC maker Acer today reported profits for the first quarter were down 31%, to $60 million. As this Bloomberg article points out, that was below expectations; analysts were expecting…

Acer vs Lenovo: Battle Over?

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on April 13

Not too long ago, the hottest battle in the PC industry was between Lenovo and Acer: the biggest computer company in China up against the biggest computer company in Taiwan…

Lenovo’s Disappointing/Better-Than-Expected Earnings

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on May 22

Lenovo once figured it could leverage its PC strength in China and diversify into handsets. That worked about as well as Dell’s attempt to sell LCD televisions. (Have you seen…

Investors Hammer Taiwan’s Computer Makers

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on December 13

Just how dominant are the Taiwanese in the global PC industry? Here’s an impressive stat: According to DisplaySearch, Taiwan’s electronics companies make 89% of the world’s notebook computers. Problem is,…

Greenpeace targets Indian PC maker

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on September 06

If there’s any company that has a chance of becoming India’s answer to Lenovo, it’s HCL. The PC maker is the top local brand, second in market share only to…

No, Microsoft shouldn’t just ignore piracy in China and India

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on July 27

In this BusinessWeek story that was one of the most widely stories on BW today, Henry Chesbrough argues that Microsoft should just learn to stop worrying and love software piracy….

Intel and OLPC make nice

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on July 18

A few weeks ago, we reported here in BusinessWeek that archrivals Intel and OLPC – one a giant multinational, another a small non-profit, both trying to launch low-cost laptop computers…

Numbers Guys Out, Supercomputers In?

Posted by: Kenji Hall on June 28

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was said to have a gift for recalling the most arcane economic stats. Similar things have been written about billionaire investor Warren Buffet. The…

What is Mary Ma Talking About?

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on April 20

In an interview with McKinsey (which I found thanks to David Wolf’s Silicon Hutong blog), the chief financial officer for Lenovo says that “Chinese companies are better prepared to invest…

of (PS3) Cells and protein folding

Posted by: Kenji Hall on March 15

Researchers at Stanford University’s Folding@Home project will soon find out whether Sony’s PlayStation 3 can serve a good cause—as a tool to learn more about diseases. For years, Folding@Home…

Vietnam as an alternative to China

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on March 05

Back in the mid-1990s, then-Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui tried to steer local companies away from investing in China by encouraging them to look at Southeast Asia. The “Go South” strategy…

Lenovo’s American sales keep falling

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on February 01

Lenovo can’t seem to get many Americans to accept the idea of buying computers from a Chinese company. Today China’s No. 1 PC maker came out with its quarterly numbers…

Acer closes in on Lenovo

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on January 17

The feud between Steve Jobs and Michael Dell of course gets a lot more attention, but my vote for most interesting rivalry in the computer industry today is between Yang…

Thai troubles for the $100 Laptop

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on December 06

Has Thailand gotten off the $100 laptop bandwagon? That’s something that MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte hopes to find out soon. Negroponte is chairman of the non-profit One Laptop Per Child,…

Lenovo’s latest disappointment

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on November 09

More bad news for Lenovo. In a new setback for China’s leading PC maker, the company today reported that profits for the quarter ended September dropped 16%, to $38 million….

Where’s the hard disk?

Posted by: Kenji Hall on October 11

Fujitsu is tip-toeing into new territory. On Oct. 11, Japan’s second-largest computer maker announced that it would make a laptop that relies only on NAND flash memory, the chip-of-choice when…

Now Panasonic recalls 6,000 laptops

Posted by: Ian Rowley on September 04

The scale isn’t anywhere near Dell or Apple’s recent recalls, but Matsushita announced the recall of 6,000 Panasonic laptops in Japan on Monday. Once again, worries over lithium ion batteries…

Apple, Sony take hit in Japan over faulty laptop batteries

Posted by: Kenji Hall on August 30

For the second time in less than a week, Japanese authorities want answers about overheating laptop batteries. This time, it’s Apple Computer in the hot seat. The Ministry of Economic…

India says no thanks to the $100 laptop

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on July 28

Just a few days after the announced departure of the Intel exec overseeing the company’s efforts to launch low-cost PCs for the developing world (see this Asiatech blog post), another…

Lenovo’s State Dept setback

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on May 19

With right-wing critics in the GOP putting pressure on the State Department because of a deal to buy thousands of computers from China’s Lenovo, the Bush Administration has decided to…

Dell turns to Taiwan

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on May 09

As the bad news at Dell gets worse, its dependence on Taiwanese suppliers is increasing. Kevin Rollins, the CEO of Dell, was in Taiwan yesterday and told reporters that the…

Lenovo’s two-front war

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on April 21

Ever since he took over as Lenovo CEO in December, Bill Amelio has been busy repositioning the Chinese PC maker for the U.S. market. He’s launched a new line of…

Lenovo teams up with Best Buy

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on April 12

Lenovo’s U.S. push is gathering momentum. Not long ago, the Chinese computer maker launched a new line of desktops and notebooks, part of Lenovo’s effort to build up its U.S….

Samsung’s Flashy Future

Posted by: Moon Ihlwan on March 20

Samsung Electronics President Hwang Chang Gyu loves to liken the sudden growth in demand for flash chips to the California gold rush of 1849. Hwang, who runs Samsung’s chip division,…

The wireless standard that won’t go away

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on March 12

Give credit to the electronics mandarins in Beijing. When it comes to jump starting a home-grown tech standard for mobile computing, they refuse to take no for an answer. Two…

The mysterious case of HP and the Taiwanese

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on March 07

Today’s prize for maddeningly uninformative announcement goes to HP. The company’s regional office in Singapore on Wednesday morning sent out a press release touting a new partnership with Quanta, the…

Dell vs Lenovo heats up

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on March 02

Before becoming CEO of PC maker Lenovo in December, William Amelio was senior vice-president at Dell. Amelio had been head of Asia-Pacific of the Texas computer maker for four years…