Displaying items by tag: PCs

Hynix Fabs 1 and 2 in Wuxi, China were engulfed in flames today after a chemical fire broke out. The fire was large and in many of the pictures circling the internet the buildings appeared to be totally immolated. When the news of the fire broke it was estimated that as much as 30% of world memory production were destroyed. This led to much speculation about memory shipments and prices as well as how long the consumer electronics industry will be affected.

There has been an interesting shift in the market over the last few months as we watch another former AMD engineer/executive return to the fold. AMD has announced that Raja Koduri will be bringing his graphic expertise back to AMD. Koduri was preceded by Mark Papermaster and Jim Keller who both left Apple for AMD last year. These returns are interesting in that Apple was once seen as the company to work for and, according to many analysts, had an almost unlimited earning and growth potential. However, after the death of Steve Jobs Apple has slumped and the once loud predictions of Apple reaching $1,000 per share are long gone as the stock continues to drop.

According to information released by CNBC, Microsoft is reportedly in talks with Michael Dell and private investment fund Silver Lake Partners to assist them in taking Dell, or in purchasing all shares in the company so they would have full ownership. [Ed – this plays into some rumors we have heard]

Microsoft has fallen from the position of the biggest technology company on the block. That title now belongs to Apple. As such, they have had to adjust their market strategy. As the PC market has matured, and aged, new technologies have come to replace the desktop, and even the laptop. Tablets, phablets, and smart phones are all the rage, and are good at what they do. To make a bad situation worse (for Microsoft), Apple now has a 12% share of the PC market, up from 3% 10 years ago.