David Richards

Projector sales are starting to take off again according to GFK with a core market being the office and the purchase of short throw projectors. Sean Fellows, Account Manager at GfK Retail and Technology said “Projectors are now likely to become the flipchart of the digital age consequently demand is likely to continue to rise in the future.”

Projector sales are starting to take off again according to GFK with a core market being the office and the purchase of short throw projectors. Sean Fellows, Account Manager at GfK Retail and Technology said “Projectors are now likely to become the flipchart of the digital age consequently demand is likely to continue to rise in the future.”

He also said that changing working practices and budgets are resulting in a need for greater flexibility within the office. As a lot of work is done digitally, when coming to share this information the need for Projectors and other Audio Visual Equipment has increased.

While GFK Australia does not track office or SMB sales other than via mass market retailers research from IDC and Gartner does show that the SMB and large enterprise market are buying a new generation of projectors.

In the UK projectors have witnessed growth of 38% against the same period last year.Despite the impressive sales of Projectors in 2008, there has however been a noticeable slowdown in unit sales over the past couple month as business cut capital budgets.

Whilst businesses may aspire to equip all their meeting rooms with fully fledged AV suites, within the current trying economic climate this may be no more than a pipe dream. Many meeting rooms are simply too small to deploy a traditional projector with any real success and with a workforce becoming more mobile with the adoption of increasing numbers of Laptops, Netbooks and Smartphones, business technology is becoming more flexible and data projectors are certainly not slacking.

The value of a Portable Data Projector in the mobile workplace is incredibly advantageous, even more so for the new generation of Short Throw Projectors coming onto the market. A Short Throw Projector is defined by GfK as being able to produce an image larger than 1.5M from a distance of less than 100cm. With the benefit of portability and the added bonus of being less reliant on having boardroom sized meeting rooms in which to present, the flexibility of Short Throw Projectors makes them desirable to 21st Century business. This also has benefits within the home as living rooms are getting more compact and space is limited for large screen Televisions.

The latest GfK figures for the UK show that the volumes sold of Short Throw projectors are indeed on the rise, growth increasing on a month by month basis. In September 2008, 2.3% of all projectors sold within the UK were Short Throw models. Interestingly this growth is fuelled by new LCD Projectors, with 5.6% of all LCD Projectors sold in September being Short Throw models, compared to DLP models which contributed to only 0.2% share in the same period. This goes completely against the trend when one looks at the prevalent technologies in the total Projector market. DLP Projectors, which have the greatest volume share standing at 61% in September 2008, have grown massively from the position 12 months ago where they accounted for only 43% of volume sales and LCD Projectors dominated the market.

Sean Fellows said  “The adoption of Short Throw Projectors within the consumer channels are yet to be felt – probably due to the high average selling price. The price elasticity of demand is less elastic within a business than in the consumer market. Consequently the average consumer is unlikely to see the intrinsic benefits when they are able to purchase a large screen Television at a lower price. Nevertheless as the technology becomes increasingly price competitive, a fall in price by a couple of hundred pounds could see the adoption rate rise within the consumer channels”.

BlackBerry who at one stage were able to demand a premium price for their smartphones are back trying to capture the top end of the smartphone market with a new Android based device that makes an Apple smartphone look cheap.

Australian PC shipments grew 18 percent in the third quarter to 980,000 units, year-on-year – but despite the strong growth, this year’s Christmas shopping won’t be the boon that some in the industry are expecting.

That’s the message from Gartner Australia, which this week releases its Q3 PC market report. While PC sales increased for most vendors on the back of strength in mobile computing, Andy Woo, principal analyst at Gartner, says that vendors should remain cautious about consumer sentiment over the holiday season.

“The consumer sentiment is positive this Christmas, but growth will not be as significant as expected because of the competition brought by other devices,” he told CDN – apparently referring to popular gadgets like the Apple iPod and Sony PSP. “There will be more vendors competing for the wallet than ever before.

“We are talking about falling prices for plasma screens along with digital devices and digital cameras, which are all seen as complementary technology but unfortunately cannibalise the PC market. Overall Australian market share in Q3 was led by Hewlett-Packard with 17pc and unit sales up 30 percent, followed by Dell with a

13.2 per cent increase in unit sales, up 18pc. Acer scored a whopping 74 percent growth, largely based on its consumer laptop sales, taking its market share to 11.8 percent (see chart, page 1)

According to Woo, the market is now dominated by the consumer and SME space, which is driving a most of the growth for vendors. “The overall sentiment is fairly positive especially with SMEs, but in the enterprise space the market is reaching saturation and is very tough,” he says. “CIOs are not upgrading systems as much as before because there is not much of a compelling reason to do so, and they are hanging onto PCs longer. Lifecycles are lengthening.

“However, overall consumers are positive looking forward to Christmas but vendors should still remain cautious as growth will not be as significant over this next quarter.”

Gartner on November 15 will be providing further intelligence on the Down Under market at its ITXpo Symposium 2005.

Motorola and Cisco have teamed up to launch a new mobile seamless enterprise solution.

Motorola has announced that it is joining forces with Cisco Systems to deliver a seamless enterprise mobility solution that will include wireless local area networking (WLAN) Internet Protocol (IP) telephony and cellular phone technologies. The Motorola-Cisco solution aims to blend key features and benefits of mobile cellular, 802.11 wireless and enterprise fixed networks, and provide a single mobile communications device that bridges the physical and virtual-office environments.
The technologies will come together in the form of dual-mode cellular and Wi-Fi phones. The Motorola and Cisco solution will operate using 802.11 technology inside the enterprise and cellular telephony elsewhere. The solution will be available as an extension to the Cisco CallManager IP-based communications system, utilizing a standards-based interface, the companies said.
“The convergence of cellular and WLAN networks on a single device further enhances the value proposition of IP-based applications for the enterprise,” said Barry O’Sullivan, VP and general manager for the Cisco IP Communications Business Unit, in the statement. “A dual-mode solution will add a very important dimension to Cisco’s growing voice business.”

Motorola solution elements will include dual-mode devices and network mobility enabled by their Wireless Services Manager. Cisco will provide IP telephony and WLAN infrastructure. Motorola and Cisco said they plan to extend the initial solution offering to include additional Cisco CallManager features and deliver the Cisco IP Communications experience to enterprise workers whenever and wherever they are needed.Motorola and Cisco expect the dual mode solution to be available in early 2006

Virgin Mobile who recently sold their Australian subsidary to Optus will become the first operator in Europe to offer a mobile phone-based television service later this year.

Virgin Mobile who recently sold their Australian subsidary to Optus will become the first operator in Europe to offer a mobile phone-based television service later this year. BT Movio is providing the hardware for the service, which uses the DAB standard also used for digital radio. Five digital TV channels and 350 radio channels will be available at launch.

“BT is at the forefront of innovation and the BT Movio service is the first of its kind in Europe,” said Emma Lloyd, managing director of BT Movio. “By taking the leap into broadcast TV for mobile, Virgin Mobile will be able to offer customers a real live TV experience. We are delighted that they have chosen our platform.”

Existing handsets cannot, however, receive transmissions, but BT and HTC have developed a mobile capable of receiving the broadcasts, the Trilogy. It has a 2.2in screen and a range of other media driven features including removable storage and an integrated 1.3-megapixel camera. “Virgin Mobile customers will be the first people in Europe to watch real broadcast TV over their mobile phones,” said Graeme Hutchinson, sales and marketing director of Virgin Mobile.

“It’s not downloaded; it’s not looped; it’s real TV just like you get at home, and it’s real DAB digital radio with crystal clear sound.” A spokesman for Virgin said that the network is expecting mobile TV to be a big pull for consumers, and that Virgin is hoping to grab subscribers from other networks. Virgin has exclusive rights to the service at the moment but other carriers may be able to use the signal once the service is established.

Networking vendor D-Link has announced plans to switch its development focus to the recently approved draft 802.11n technology, which it expects to become ratified as a wireless standard in 2007.

The company said this week that it has been supporting the Enhanced Wireless Consortium standard which has now been adopted by the IEEE as draft 802.11n.

D-Link is “convinced” that the draft 802.11n standard paves the way for a clearer market and supports the development of interoperable products. The draft was approved last month and offers significant benefits such as interoperability between vendors.

It also facilitates the standardisation of optional and additional features such as dynamic 40MHz mode using dual channels for increased throughput, and packet bursting to enable higher speeds.D-Link plans to continue to support its Mimo range while developing a new draft 11n portfolio, featuring wireless broadband routers as well as CardBus, PCI and USB adapters. Once the final ratification for 802.11n is complete, D-Link expects large scale adoption as many customers have been holding off from upgrading to the proprietary Mimo technology in favour of waiting for the new wireless standard.