The world’s top mobile phone maker Nokia is eyeing entering the laptop business, its Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said in an interview to Finnish national broadcaster YLE on Wednesday.

“We are looking very actively also at this opportunity,” Kallasvuo said, when asked whether Nokia plans to make laptops.

Industry has rumored about Nokia’s possible plan to enter the PC industry since late last year, but Kallasvuo’s comment was the first official admittance of such plans.

“We don’t have to look even for five years from now to see that what we know as a mobile phone and what we know as a PC are in many ways converging,” Kallasvuo said. (continuare…)

Google Inc has added its voice to the case against Microsoft Corp as the European Commission probes antitrust charges related to the software giant’s Internet Explorer browser.

“Google believes that the browser market is still largely uncompetitive, which holds back innovation for users,” Sundar Pichai, Google vice president product manager, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.

Google introduced the Chrome browser last year, which has taken little market share. (continuare…)

The continued erosion of the global economy, including the prospect of negative GDP growth in many major countries, has led IDC to update its forecast for worldwide IT spending in 2009. The IDC Black Book now forecasts worldwide IT spending will grow by just 0.5% on year in 2009 in constant currency, down from a November 2008 forecast of 2.6% growth. If recent exchange rate trends continue, this will translate into a significant decline in revenues for US-based IT suppliers.

The greatest impact will be felt in global hardware markets, where overall spending growth will be negative 3.6% this year, led by a steep decline in outlays for servers, PCs, and printers/MFPs. In contrast, worldwide spending on software and IT services are each expected to grow 3.4% in 2009, down from 4.6% and 3.7% growth, respectively, in the previous forecast. Worldwide IT spending in 2009 will be US$1.44 trillion, said IDC. (continuare…)

Its sober, squared-off chassis may look uninspiring, but under the hood the Clevo D900F notebook is anything but shy.  The D900F packs a choice of Intel Core i7 processor with the X58 chipset, together with three 500GB hard-drives and NVIDIA’s G280 GPU with 1GB of memory.

As you might guess, this makes it very much a desktop replacement rather than an ultraportable.  That’s given Clevo room to slot in an HD-friendly 17.1-inch WUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD and a TV tuner, together with an HDMI output, Dual-Link DVI and eSATA, among plenty of others.  There’s also a Blu-ray burner.

Buyers will be able to choose between Intel’s  2.66, 2.93 or 3.2GHz Core i7 CPU, while RAM for the D900F is Intel’s Turbo memory with up to 8GB of DDR3 available.  Users will be able to choose between RAID 0, 1 or 5 for the three drives.  No word on pricing, but expect it to be expensive when it lands in Q4 2009.

Lacking the power of the D900F, but a whole lot happier with drops and falls, Clevo’s rugged 8.9-inch touchscreen slate uses the Intel Atom Z5×0-series processor and pairs it with a chassis that meets IP54 standards.  Provisionally known as the Clevo T89xM, the device is intended for outdoor workers such as engineers and surveyors.

As well as the 1024 x 600 touchscreen, D-pad controller and integrated speakers, there’s Bluetooth 2.0 and a fingerprint reader for security.  Clevo were showing the device with an attached hand-strap, which fits over the hand like a glove and allows for use of the device when walking.

No word on pricing for the touchscreen slate, but we’re expecting it to hit the market in early Q3 2009.  We’re hoping to have more specification details today.

China’s white-box notebook shipments have a chance to reach 500,000 units per month in the second half of 2009 as more makers join the market, according to market sources in China.

Current monthly shipments are around 200,000 units.

Many local makers of consumer electronics products such as DVD, digital music, and portable media players, and handsets have made moves to cut into the white-box netbook market, meaning total white-box notebook and netbook shipments are likely to top 3.5 million units in 2009, the sources estimated. (continuare…)

Nokia is currently in talks with Taiwan notebook makers and EMS companies for cooperation on its plans to possibly enter the netbook market, according to sources at Taiwan notebook makers. The sources have pinpointed Compal Electronics and Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) as the top-two potential partners.

Contrary to Nokia’s strategy of outsourcing mostly OEM orders for its handset business, the company is considering a joint design manufacture (JDM) strategy for its netbook products, the sources noted. (continuare…)

Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) and Hewlett Packard (HP) will together invest US$60 million to establish a PC manufacturing plant in Turkey, according to a Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) report.

The plant will mainly supply HP’s PC demand in markets in the Middle-East and Europe.

Intel plans to launch two new ultra low voltage (ULV) CPUs by the end of March this year mainly targeting the company’s consumer ultra low voltage (CULV) platform for ultra-thin notebook products, according to sources at notebook makers.

The two CPUs are the Core 2 Duo SU9600 with a core frequency of 1.6GHz and priced at US$289 in thousand-unit tray quantities, and Core 2 Solo SU3500 at 1.4GHz and US$262.

The two CPUs join the previously launched SU9400, SU9300, SU3300 and Celeron 723 under the CULV product line. All can be pared with the GS45 IGP chipset. (continuare…)

Battery provider Boston-Power has announced that it is expanding production capacity of its Sonata rechargeable Li-ion batteries through a strategic partnership with Hong Kong-based GP Batteries. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Under the five-year agreement, GP Batteries will dedicate its Li-ion battery factory in Taiwan exclusively to produce Sonata batteries, using technology and materials supplied by Boston-Power. The company also indicated that its factory will double monthly production in 2009, but did include any shipment figures.

Boston-Power and GP Batteries will also undertake a joint R&D effort to expand the capacity and performance of Sonata cells.

In December, Boston-Power announced that its Sonata batteries would be used by Hewlett-Packard (HP) in the notebook maker’s HP Enviro Series Program. HP is expected to begin shipping Sonata batteries this quarter, Boston-Power added.

Inventec has announced that it will invest 230 million Japanese yen (US$2.37 million) in Japan-based Kohjinsha (KJS). The investment will raise the company’s holdings in Kohjinsha from 42.75% to 61.69%, according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report. Having taken a majority stake in the notebook vendor, Inventec plans to increase its OEM orders for KJS’s mini-notebooks from the current 60% to 80%.

Psion

Intel

Intel has joined the fight against Psion over the “netbook” trademark, arguing that the public already uses the term in a generic manner to represent “extensions of the notebook category, smaller computers purpose-built for mobile Internet access,” according to the Courthouse News Service. The chip-maker also pointed out that Psion trademarked the term for for a line of notebook computers that has been out of production since 2003. In a similar filing, Dell asked the US Patent Office to revoke the “netbook” trademark. The company also cited the discontinued product line, while claiming that Psion has no plans to start building the systems again. (continuare…)

Silicon Valley-based VisualOn, a provider of multimedia solutions for mobile devices, has said that its multimedia solutions have found their way into a number of OEM/ODM device makers, including High Tech Computer (HTC), Mitac International, Quanta Computer, Wistron, as well as Research in Motion (RIM).

The company is now pushing sales of its advanced multimedia software to the first-tier handset vendors such as Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Sony Ericsson, according to company CEO Yang Cai. (continuare…)

Acer has relaunched the Gateway brand in Europe, restyling the cow spotted direct supplier as a channel only brand pitched at SMEs.

Gateway Professional consists of three parts: the Gateway brand’s residual value in Europe, a restricted set of notebook, desktop and server products, and a specially-recruited channel which gets a remote management service to sell to its SME customers alongside the kit.

The market segment is the mid-sized business where dealers influence sales more than the product brand. Acer is looking for VARS and system integrators (SI) and offering them a simplified business process, one distributor per country, no retail or e-tail competition for the Gateway Professional brand, good margin – which everyone promises – and an added value service to sell as their own and which should deliver recurring revenue. (continuare…)

JUST WHEN YOU thought things were slowing down in the industry, Intel brings out not one… but two, yes two, new logos. Our lawyers have warned us that people who have weak hearts can’t take that much excitement, so we will only describe the second one – for your safety.

Shock and awe in logo form

With all due speed, we bring you a logo that even Hal* would feel privileged to wear while killing Dave, the new Centrino logo. Impressive hardly describes it, so we will hardly describe the new i7 logo. Think the same thing with Core i7 where Centrino is written, and the blue parts are white, white parts blue.

There you have it, you can die happy now. The new logos are everything you dared dream about, and more. They almost Rox0r, but fall a little short because the E isn’t dropped. Ah well, there is always time when the Core i8s roll out.

While Intel’s sales were flat in 2008, Taiwan was one of the few geographic regions where sales increased. According to the chipmaker’s recently released annual report, revenues from Taiwan increased about 15% in 2008 to US$9.9 billion, while the company’s overall sales of US$37.6 billion were down a slight 2%. Leading the way in terms of sales growth in 2008 for all geographic regions was the Americas (outside of the US), where sales were up 16.5%. Japan was the only other sales region that saw growth in 2008, at a slight 1.5%.

Taiwan accounted for more than 26% of Intel’s sales in 2008, up from 22% in 2007. (continuare…)

With netbook players planning to launch 11.6-inch models later this year, LCD panel makers are gearing up for production of related LCD panels in the third quarter utilizing 5G plants, according to market sources.

Several netbook vendors such as Acer and Asustek Computer are planning to lunch 11.6-inch netbooks with 1366×768 resolution panels, the sources noted.

Vendors plan to differentiate between their 10.1-inch and 11.6-inch models with clear boundaries in price and functionality, the sources added.

Garmin has reported sales of US$1.05 billion for the fourth quarter of 2008, up 20% sequentially but down 14% on year. Gross margin was 41.1%, representing a slight decline from 44.3% in the third quarter and 41.8% in the same period of 2007. Sales in 2008 totaled US$3.49 billion, up 10% on year with a better-then-expected gross margin of 44.5%.

Garmin’s total sales reached 6.4 million units in the fourth quarter of 2008 and 16.9 million units for the whole year, growing 15% and 38% on year, respectively.

While the PND market has slowed, Garmin continued to experience unit growth in both the North American and Asia‐Pacific regions in the fourth quarter and market share gains around the globe, said Min Kao, company chairman and CEO. According to an independent market research report, Garmin’s global PND market share stood at approximately 35% at the end of the third quarter. Garmin estimates its market share increased further in the fourth quarter, Kao added. (continuare…)

Quanta

In order to save cost and increase efficiency, Quanta Computer is planning to outsource notebook chassis fabrication to Ju Teng International Holdings, a Hong Kong-listed chassis maker. Quanta will then finish the notebooks by installing key components such as the CPU, optical disc drive (ODD), hard drive and motherboard, according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report.

Quanta has already outsourced similar work on notebook orders from Sony, Apple and Acer to Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) since second half of 2008. The strategy could help boost Quanta’s gross margin and save time, while also shifting the responsibility of gathering components over to the chassis makers. The new strategy is expected to become Quanta’s standard operating model, noted the paper.
Compal Electronics is also evaluating the strategy, added the paper. (continuare…)

Intel is making a push into cloud computing with forthcoming changes in its Nehalem server line aimed at large data-center deployments.

As part of that initiative, the company earlier this week outlined hardware and software updates that it said will lead to energy savings and offer the scalability necessary for cloud-computing services.

Intel hopes to provide technology for low-range and midrange servers that can share workloads effectively if demand for a cloud application spikes, said Jason Waxman, general manager of high density computing at Intel. Server deployments would depend on resources needed by each cloud, with some requiring faster network connections or more memory. For example, hardware needs of a multimedia-intensive service like Google Earth would differ from those of an e-mail service like Gmail, Waxman said. (continuare…)