Acer Planning Larger Tablet PC
Despite rumblings that the Tablet PC market is proving slow, perhaps very slow, to take off, look for Taiwanese PC maker Acer to plunge into the market next quarter with its second major offering. This one, we hear, will feature the industry's first 14.1-inch TFT LCD display. While some Tablet PC vendors, such as Toshiba and Motion Computing, do offer 12.1-inch screens on their products, Acer believes it’s found an Asian supplier that can provide the larger panels for a comparable cost structure. The company claims it has sold 35,000 units of its first Tablet PC since its launch in late 2002, and expects to ship at least 300,000 more in 2003. In addition, the company expects Tablets to contribute 20% of the company's total IT product sales by the fourth quarter of 2003.

TFT LCD Oversupply Threatens Smaller Players
If you think prices of TFT LCD panels are getting lower these days, there are signs they may be go lower. One analyst group predicts that the global large-size TFT LCD panel supply will measurably outpace demand in 2003. Supply should reach 95 million units this year, while demand will only hover at 85 million, making for an 11% gap. If that does happen, the drop in display prices would have a positive—at least from the customer’s point of view—impact on the final products, namely notebooks, monitors and LCD TVs. Some industry observers say this will put tremendous pressure on the small PC makers whose margins are already squeezed. Since consumer price sensitivity in the LCD market heavily influences sales, there might be an opportunity for large PC manufacturers to price some smaller rivals out of the market.

IBM pSeries Tests New Waters
We hear that IBM is taking its pSeries hardware line to a whole new audience: independent software vendors (ISVs) who target the mid-tier user market. Big Blue will aggressively promote the p630 and p650 servers, running AIX and Linux, before this segment of the developer community. In the past, the iSeries group was the only hardware organization within IBM to work closely with mid-market ISVs. The change is surprising because the pSeries hardware group has traditionally focused its efforts on the largest ISVs, or those selling into very large corporations. While mid-size companies sometimes get their software from these large ISVs, they also rely on many smaller regional and industry-specific ISVs. However, most of these developers have traditionally flown under the radar screen of the pSeries hardware group. Industry sources indicate that in 2003, this dynamic will change drastically. In a serious business development initiative, IBM has been lining up mid-market ISVs in order to ask them how it can help build their business on pSeries hardware. This migration will be supported on both AIX, IBM's proprietary Unix flavor, and Linux.

In-flight Internet Taking Off--Maybe
As Lufthansa launches its test of an in-flight, high-speed Internet access service called Connexion By Boeing, analysts are asking whether this is an innovation ahead (some would say maybe too ahead) of its time. Despite the gimmick factor, there’s real doubt in the marketplace about how many passengers are truly thirsting for in-flight Internet access, with airlines still needing to quantify issues such as equipment weight, flight duration, customer desires for "downtime," etc. into the online airline equation. Still, several of the more service-focused international carriers, such as Cathay Pacific and British Airways (which is running smaller tests of its own), are seriously exploring the possibilities. But regardless of how well the tests run, the consensus seems to be that it will be a good two years before there’s any kind of broad-based implementation of such services.

Jan 27 - Feb 1

Dell and Acer Go Widescreen
Not content to let Apple get all the widescreen glory, look for both Dell and Acer to soon produce notebook computers of their own with 17-inch-wide screens. Dell will unveil its new Inspiron performance notebooks with 17- or 15.4-inch screens sometime in February or March. Acer is also preparing to launch its new line of notebooks, with the 17- or 15.4-inch options, during the second quarter. Taiwanese display manufacturers are busy jockeying to produce these new high-end screens, with Apple already committed to Quanta and Dell signed to Compal. While the immediate impact of these new mega-screens remains unclear, the size of the new displays will definitely impact the form factor of the laptop, and could make these "portable" devices somewhat less portable. Another consideration for the mega-screen notebook is battery life and performance, as powering these new screens could impact the ability to run solely on battery power.

Embedded Wi-Fi, Security Hit the Chips
Rival chipmakers Intel and Transmeta are raising concerns again, but not with each other—this time, it’s software and WLAN hardware manufacturers doing the worrying. Industry observers say that the recent introduction of the Intel Centrino wireless mobile computing technology (complete with a new logo that reminds some of the MSN butterfly) should definitely have WLAN card vendors concerned. The new mobile processor micro-architecture sports inherent wireless capability. Meanwhile, Transmeta’s announcement that the latest version of its Crusoe chip will incorporate security functions has software and other chipmakers worried about the threat of embedded competition. Embedded Wi-Fi security, anyone? Watch for consolidation and specialization among the Wi-Fi card manufacturers similar to that of the modem, LAN, video card and audio card makers when those components migrated to Intel’s chipsets.

More Wireless Consortia Coming
Even as news filters out about Motorola, Proxim and Avaya unveiling another national Wi-Fi network partnership—hard on the heels of the much bigger launch last month of Cometa, the arrangement between AT&T, IBM and Intel—industry observers are already speculating on just who might be next to join forces to tackle this emerging arena. The most popular names tossed around currently are Nokia, Cisco, Symbol and Ericsson. Ironically, many of the analysts doing the speculating don’t expect this market to gain momentum for a while, maybe not until 2004. But for now, look for other brand-name companies to keep striking deals in the hope of leveraging each others’ specialties to deliver superior Wi-fi products and services.

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