Apple in UK top 5

While UK PC sales slid by 5.1% in the first quarter of 2009, Apple's Mac sales grew 6.6% to take the company into the UK top 5 for the first time, replacing Fujitsu Siemens, reports Computerworld.

Apple's UK PC market share rose to 4.8% of all PC sales, according to figures from Gartner and PC shipments in the UK totalled 3 million units in the first quarter of 2009, a decline of 5.1% compared with the same period in 2008.

HP held onto the top spot with 22.2% of the market, despite a 6.8% decline.

Analysts believe the current economic climate will drive adoption of netbooks for corporate use in Asia, but IT users say netbooks are not yet positioned as enterprise products and therefore lack necessary vendor support, according to ZDNet Asia.

Reuben Tan, senior manager for personal systems research at IDC Asia-Pacific, says the time is right for netbooks to enjoy a bigger presence in the corporate market.

"Now if you talk about IT managers spending x amount of dollars to upgrade their IT infrastructure, that's being scrutinised very carefully," he pointed out.

Dell is offering WiMax wireless broadband technology for notebooks and mobile devices in its Studio 17 and Studio XPS 16 laptop models, according to eWeek.

The company is also working with Clearwire to increase the range of supported WiMax service within the US from its current areas in Atlanta, Baltimore and Portland, Oregon.

"Once it's available in more cities, you won't have to spend time looking for hot spots. Compared to mobile broadband, WiMax offers flexible service offerings," Lionel Menchaca, a spokesperson for Dell, wrote in the Dell corporate blog posting on 6 May.