HP reclaims top PC spot

Hewlett-Packard has reclaimed the PC market`s top spot from Dell Computer, according to fourth quarter figures released yesterday. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), PC shipments increased 4.9% to 38.8 million units last year, topping analyst forecasts of 4.4% growth.

PC shipments rose 1.5% in 2002, following a 4.2% decline in 2001, according to IDC. Gartner, measuring slightly differently, says overall shipments rose 2.7% compared with a 4% decline last year.

There was no clear winner in 2002 but Gartner gave the crown to HP with a 16.2% share, while IDC says Dell finished first. However, both firms showed HP losing market share compared with what HP and Compaq enjoyed separately last year, with Dell gaining about 20%. [Reuters]

Consumers and businesses can now get ready to buy 54Mbps wireless LAN products following interoperability testing by the Wi-Fi Alliance. The alliance has unveiled the first list of products built for the IEEE 802.11a standard that has passed interoperability testing in its lab. The standard uses radio frequencies in the range of 5GHz and allows for a maximum data rate of 54Mbps.

Previously, the Wi-Fi Alliance had only certified interoperability of products built to the 802.11b standard, which uses a band around 2.4GHz and a data rate of 11Mbps. Approximately 600 products from about 100 different vendors have received that certification, says Brian Grimm, a spokesman for the alliance. One of the products certified yesterday is dual-band, meaning it can work on both kinds of networks, depending on which is available. [PCWorld]

Geek.com reports that Microsoft is still shopping around for a graphical processing unit (GPU) provider for its next-generation Xbox. The name of the console might be Xboxnext, Nextbox, or simply Xbox 2, but it appears that just about everyone is losing money on the current Xbox, and many are speculating that Microsoft may have a difficult time convincing either ATI or Nvidia to sign up for the successor project.

Microsoft is reportedly offering very low royalty rates for the chip suppliers for the next Xbox. The company wants to keep the cost of this console as low as possible, and Nvidia is losing money on the Xbox deal. It now looks like whoever gets involved with the 'NextBox` - Nvidia, ATI, Intel, or AMD - will make little or no money on the deal. [Geek.com]

SAP AG has announced products and a strategy it hopes will establish it as a cross-platform Web services player, while avoiding direct competition with IBM or Microsoft.

SAP yesterday announced a data management product under its newly named Enterprise Services Architecture (ESA), which the company claims provides enterprise capabilities for Web services.

ESA extends the company`s existing mySAP offering and integrates with Microsoft`s .Net Web services architecture and IBM`s Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) 1.3-based WebSphere application server.

Underpinning ESA is NetWeaver, announced yesterday. SAP says NetWeaver provides tools, frameworks, patterns, rules and methodologies for SAP and partners to develop cross-functional business processes. [CBROnline]

This week on TechNiche:
NVidia readies video-recording boards
Palm changes handwriting recognition software
Nokia woos Linux developers
Intel adds dual-core to Itanium roadmap