Worldwide PC shipments totaled 74.4 million units in the second quarter of 2014 (2Q14), a year-on-year decline of -1.7%, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. The results reflect the smallest decline in global PC shipments since the second quarter of 2012 when declining shipments of mini notebooks combined with a surge in tablet sales to disrupt the PC market.

Buoyed by both continued business PC replacements and returning consumer interest, the preliminary results for 2Q14 are markedly better than the projected decline of -7.1% for the quarter. Despite the end of Windows XP support in early April, it appears many Windows XP migrations continue to take place. Most major vendors saw solid growth, and early indications also point to desktop shipments being stronger than expected in some areas, signaling continued business buying. The consumer side also appears stronger than expected, with growing activity among the lower-priced models as well as Chromebooks.

Technology industry leaders Atmel Corporation, Broadcom Corporation, Dell, Intel Corporation, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., and Wind River, are joining forces to establish a new industry consortium focused on improving interoperability and defining the connectivity requirements for the billions of devices that will make up the Internet of Things (IoT).

The Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) is focused on defining a common communications framework based on industry standard technologies to wirelessly connect and intelligently manage the flow of information among personal computing and emerging IoT devices, regardless of form factor, operating system or service provider.

Worldwide PC monitor shipments totaled nearly 33.7 million units in the first quarter of 2014 (1Q14), a year-over-year decline of -0.4%, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Monitor Tracker. IDC expects worldwide shipments to continue on their current trajectory, slipping to 106 million units for the full year 2018.

"Despite the overall decline, the shipment totals were stronger than the forecast of 31 million units," said Phuong Hang, Program Director, Worldwide Trackers at IDC. "Geographically, Japan and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) regions delivered the largest gains during the first quarter while Dell and HP both experienced solid shipment growth."

At a conference in early June, AMD accidentally disclosed its upcoming FirePro W8100 professional graphics card, ahead of its launch. A cut-down of the FirePro W9100, the W8100 is based on the 28 nm "Hawaii" silicon, that's binned for higher durability. It features 2,560 GCN2 stream processors, 160 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and a 512-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 8 GB of memory. Compare those to the 2,816 SPs and 16 GB memory of the W9100. The core on the W8100 is clocked at 825 MHz, at which, it puts out single-precision floating point performance of 4.2 TFLOP/s. The dual-slot card is built on a red PCB that's unlike anything AMD built Radeon brand cards out of. It draws power from two 6-pin PCIe power connectors, is shorter in length than the consumer R9 290 reference board, and features a back-plate, to cool memory chips on the reverse side of the PCB. The card supports DirectX 11.2, OpenGL 4.4, and Mantle. It will likely be positioned against NVIDIA's Quadro K5000, at the US $2,500 range. It will also be one of the GPU options in Dell's Precision T7800 workstations.

Dell's Alienware division has previously confirmed working on a Steam Machine and now the fruits of that work have entered the spotlight at E3. Alienware Alpha is a Steam Machine-like Mini PC that is designed for living room gaming without actually utilizing Valve's Steam OS or its (delayed) Steam Controller.

Alpha comes with Windows 8.1 pre-installed and makes use of a Console-mode UI allowing users easy access to Steam Big Picture. The system will be bundled with an Xbox 360 controller and will have a base price tag of $549. For that amount you get an Intel Core i3 (Haswell) processor, 4 GB of DDR3-1600 memory, a 2 GB NVIDIA Maxwell-based graphics card (GTX 750 Ti maybe?), and a 500 GB hard drive. Higher-priced configurations include Core i5/i7 processors, 8 GB of RAM, and 1/2 TB HDDs.

Designed for flexible productivity and personal entertainment, Dell today unveiled its new Dell Venue 7 and Venue 8 tablets, Inspiron 11 3000 Series 2-in-1, Inspiron 13 7000 Series 2-in-1, Inspiron 20 3000 Series AIO, and announced the worldwide availability of the new Dell UltraSharp UZ2715H, UZ2315H, and UZ2215H Multimedia Monitors. The new products include innovative form factors and connectivity options that will liberate families, students, and professionals alike to work when they need to and play when they want.

"The Dell Venue tablets and Inspiron 2-in-1s are designed to be essential companions to power projects, provide entertainment, and share meaningful moments with family and friends," said Sam Burd, vice president and general manager, Dell Personal Computing Product Group. "Dell customers have more flexibility than ever before to have their technology move with them throughout the day and become a seamless part of their lives."

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) today announced the election of new Board of Directors leadership. Alan Kobayashi of MegaChips has been elected Board Chair; Syed Athar Hussain has been re-elected Vice Chair; and Richard Hubbard of Texas Instruments has been elected Secretary/Treasurer. The new leadership slate will serve one-year terms of office.

Alan Kobayashi, VESA's new Board Chair, is Fellow & Executive R&D Management for DisplayPort Group at MegaChips Technology America. Based in San Jose, CA, Mr. Kobayashi has served in a variety of senior corporate technology roles, and he has been an author of VESA's DisplayPort Standard and served as Chair of the DisplayPort Task Group, the Leader of the organization's PHY/Link Layer Compliance Sub-groups, and as a VESA Board member. Mr. Kobayashi holds several dozen patents in the area of A/V transport and display.

"VESA's work developing standards and establishing compliance test protocols is of strategic importance to the entire video display ecosystem," explained Alan Kobayashi. "I hope to help guide the organization as we continue to enhance our existing, widely adopted standards, while also developing solutions for the industry's emerging video challenges."

Dell today announced new sustainability initiatives designed to increase the ways that its IT solutions make lasting contributions to the planet. Dell is the first in the IT industry to introduce carbon-negative packaging, through a partnership with Newlight Technologies, inventor and manufacturer of AirCarbon. Dell also is the first to use UL-Environment certified closed-loop recycled plastics in the manufacturing of computers, in partnership with Wistron GreenTech, a global original design manufacturer and one of Dell's official environmental partners. The independent, third-party verification of a closed-loop plastics process establishes the first industry standard for closed-loop and supports a circular economy for IT.

Earlier today, at Fortune Brainstorm Green, Dell CEO Michael Dell said today's announcement is the next milestone in Dell's 2020 Legacy of Good plan, which includes 21 ambitious sustainability and social goals Dell is committed to reaching by 2020. The overarching goal is to ensure that the good that comes from Dell's technology will be ten times what it takes to create and use it. "We have a long-standing commitment to conduct our business responsibly," said Mr. Dell. "Air Carbon packaging and closed-loop recycled plastics are terrific innovations and big steps forward as we work with our customers and partners toward our 2020 goals."

Dell has once again expanded its popular UltraSharp line of monitors, this time with three models that are aimed towards office use due to their video conference capabilities. Named UZ2215H, UZ2315H and UZ2715H, the new 21.5-inch, 23-inch and 27-inch monitors respectively feature a built-in 2 megapixel camera, dual (Omni-directional) microphones and two built-in 5 W speakers.

Dell's displays use IPS panels and have a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, an 8 ms GTG response time, a 1,000:1 contrast ratio, a two-port USB 3.0 hub, and D-Sub, dual HDMI and DisplayPort 1.2a outputs. The UZ2315H and UZ2715H are selling in the US for $299.99 and $449.99 while the UZ2215H can be found in Hong Kong at HK$2,399 (~ 309 USD ).

Intel Corporation and other companies today introduced a new lineup of Chrome devices, including the first designs using Intel Celeron processors based on the Bay Trail-M system-on-chip (SoC). A new class of Chromebooks based on the 4th generation Intel Core i3 processor were also unveiled. The announcements were made at a press conference in San Francisco hosted by Navin Shenoy, vice president and general manager of Intel Mobile Client Platforms Group and Caesar Sengupta, vice president, product management, Chrome OS at Google as well as representatives from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, LG Electronics USA and Toshiba.

"Intel has grown to become the No. 1 microprocessor in Chrome systems," said Shenoy. "We've been working on five generations of Chrome and after Google, Intel is the largest contributor to the Chromium OS. Intel chips are the first and only to support 64-bit Chrome OS. This deep history and investment combined with our stellar Bay Trail and Haswell SoCs mean Intel can offer the best performing devices at every price point in the Chrome category. When people are shopping for Chrome devices, they should look for Intel Inside."

Dell cloud client-computing today at Citrix Synergy 2014 announced additions to its industry-leading cloud client portfolio with the Dell Wyse 5000 series all-in-one thin client, the Dell Wyse quad display 7000 series thin client and the Dell Wyse Xenith 3 zero client for Citrix. Dell also announced a new version of its end-to-end VDI offering, Dell Wyse Datacenter for Citrix XenDesktop, which accelerates deployment time and improves manageability with the addition of Dell Foglight for infrastructure monitoring.

"More than 200 million people interact with Dell Wyse solutions every day-from ATMs to kiosks to classrooms to hospitals. We continue to raise the bar for thin client manageability, security, performance and value, as well as lead the way with innovative form factors and OS support," said Steve Lalla, vice president and general manager, cloud client computing, Dell. "When these new portfolio additions are combined with Dell's data center infrastructure solutions for Citrix, customers from a broad range of industries can improve security, better protect their content, and sharply reduce ongoing costs - all while delivering the computing experiences their people demand."

Today Dell introduced new Inspiron 14, 15 and 17 5000 Series laptops, its Inspiron 20 3000 Series and 23 5000 Series All-in-One (AIO) desktops just in time for the Back-to-School season. These new laptops and desktops are designed with power and comfort features aimed at helping people achieve through every phase of their lives. Powerful processors, massive hard drives, and responsive 10-finger touch displays up to Full HD resolution are some of the options designed to meet the needs of consumers' diverse lifestyles. New features that make life easier include 20GB of Dropbox cloud storage for sharing, saving and collaborating, and facial recognition software to make using password-enabled web sites safer. All of these products seamlessly fit into your life on your terms.

"Students and parents alike want technology that helps them to be successful in their personal and educational pursuits," said Ray Wah, vice-president, Dell Consumer PC Group. "Our new Inspiron laptops and AIOs are a smart investment for families, providing the latest technology for productivity and entertainment in thin, space-saving designs."

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 73.4 million units in the first quarter of 2014 (1Q14), a decline of -4.4% year-on-year, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. Although still in decline and with continuing weakness in consumer and emerging market segments, the preliminary results are slightly better than a projected decline of -5.3%.

Similar to the latter part of 2013, the upside in the first quarter arose primarily from demand in mature commercial markets. Commercial refresh projects, which had already been protracted, received a last push from the impending end of Windows XP support, particularly in Japan. In addition, slowing demand for tablets seems to have helped constrain previously drastic cutbacks in notebooks. Nevertheless, emerging regions continued to post weak results, with growth in Latin America and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan)(APeJ) falling even faster than recent declines as both economic conditions and continued tablet penetration stifled PC shipments.

Dell today announced the launch of both the Latitude 14 Rugged Extreme notebook and the Latitude 12 Rugged Extreme convertible notebook for customers who require powerful solutions that can survive unforgiving conditions.

"With new ground-up design and industry-first innovations, the Latitude 12 and 14 Rugged Extreme mark the beginning of a renewed and expanded commitment by Dell to the rugged space," said Kirk Schell, former officer, United States Navy and vice president, commercial PCs, client solutions group, Dell. "The Rugged Extreme line is backed by the Latitude promise of reliable, secure and manageable commercial PCs and can move easily from the boardroom to the battlefield or wherever the job takes you-an assurance unmatched by the competition."

Microsoft Corp. and Dell announced a patent licensing agreement allowing the companies to share technology and build on each other's innovations. It is the continuation of a nearly 30-year business relationship between Microsoft and Dell to deliver world-class technologies to consumers.

"Our agreement with Dell shows what can be accomplished when companies share intellectual property," said Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of the Innovation and Intellectual Property Group at Microsoft. "We have been partnering with technology manufacturers and vendors for many years to craft licensing deals, instead of litigation strategies."

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, announced today that its 1.6 terabyte (TB) NVMe (non-volatile memory express) solid state drive is featured in the new Dell PowerEdge R920 server. Together, Samsung and Dell are the first in the world to ship PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) SSDs using an NVMe protocol, enabling customers to get results faster.

"We have been working closely with Dell to optimize the storage capabilities of the PowerEdge R920, and believe that our NVMe PCIe SSD provides the best enterprise storage solution, offering ultra-low latency and surpassing the IOPS (input/output operations per second) performance of currently available SSDs," said Jim Elliott, corporate vice president, memory and SSD marketing, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. "Samsung will continue to take the initiative in accelerating growth of the NVMe PCIe SSD market for green IT investment by providing NVMe PCIe solutions with high performance, density and scalability."

Total worldwide PC monitor shipments were slightly below 35.0 million units in the fourth quarter of 2013 (4Q13), a decrease of -0.4% compared to the previous quarter yet 2.9% more than forecast, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Monitor Tracker. The -3.8% year-over-year growth in 4Q13 was largely due to declining PC desktop sales.

"Dell and HP both saw increases in unit shipments for the worldwide PC monitor market for the second time in a down year," said Jennifer Song, Research Analyst, Worldwide Trackers at IDC. "At a regional level, EMEA experienced the largest positive growth during the fourth quarter, with Italy and Spain posting the biggest gains."

Dell today introduced a new mobile workstation category with the Dell Precision M2800, a 15-inch mobile workstation offering ISV-certified and optimized performance and dependability at a breakthrough price. Starting at $1,199, the lowest price available for 15-inch mobile workstation, the Dell Precision M2800 helps to bridge the gap between business-class laptops and mobile workstations by offering an affordable ISV-certified system with professional graphics and processors. Engineers, designers and video editors now have access to the right tool to perform their critical functions with the speed, accuracy and reliability of a Dell Precision workstation.

"Dell has found a way to disrupt the market and remove barriers for a certain set of customers who require a workstation experience yet are constrained by budget," said Jon Peddie, president, Jon Peddie Research. "The M2800 brings forth a tremendous opportunity to address a gap in delivering an entry-level workstation with strong performance and ISV certifications to run demanding, mission-critical applications, at a great value."

Dell today announced the appointment of Thomas W. Sweet as senior vice president and chief financial officer of Dell. Mr. Sweet, 54, currently vice president, corporate controller and chief accounting officer, succeeds Brian Gladden, who has served as senior vice president and chief financial officer of Dell since 2008. Mr. Gladden, who has chosen to pursue career interests outside of Dell, will remain at the company through the end of February, working closely with Mr. Sweet to ensure a seamless transition.

"Tom has been a key leader in our corporate finance organization for 16 years. His knowledge of our business, versatility as a finance leader and his strategic insights are valued by leaders across the company," said Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive officer of Dell. "I am delighted that Tom will be joining our leadership team to help lead Dell through our next chapter and help me position the company for long-term success."

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 82.2 million units in the fourth quarter of 2013 (4Q13), representing a year-on-year contraction of -5.6%, a shade better than the forecast of -6.0% growth, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker.

For the full year 2013, unit shipments declined -10.0% from 2012, a record drop reflecting the changes in mobility and personal computing affecting the market. While commercial purchases helped to prevent a larger decline, the consumer side remained weak.

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 82.6 million units in the fourth quarter of 2013, a 6.9 percent decline from the fourth quarter of 2012, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. This is the seventh consecutive quarter of shipment decline.

"Although PC shipments continued to decline in the worldwide market in the fourth quarter, we increasingly believe markets, such as the U.S., have bottomed out as the adjustment to the installed base slows," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "Strong growth in tablets continued to negatively impact PC growth in emerging markets. In emerging markets, the first connected device for consumers is most likely a smartphone, and their first computing device is a tablet. As a result, the adoption of PCs in emerging markets will be slower as consumers skip PCs for tablets."

Announced about a month ago, Dell's first 28-inch monitor with a 4K resolution (3840 x 2160 pixels) has now been confirmed to arrive in stores in two weeks' time (on January 23rd), priced at $699. Known as P2815Q, this Ultra HD display is said to feature an IPS LED-backlit panel and a stand allowing pivot and height adjustment.

Dell hasn't shared much in terms of specs but if it's similar to the company's other 4K offerings, the P2815Q should have an 8 ms response time, a 1,000:1 contrast ratio, and HDMI and DisplayPort (maybe even mini DisplayPort) connectivity.

Total worldwide PC monitor shipments were more than 35.0 million units in the third quarter of 2013 (3Q13), an increase of 4.5% compared to the previous quarter and 1.2 million units more than forecast, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Monitor Tracker. Year-over-year growth was -8.6% in 3Q13, largely due to the ongoing decline in PC sales.

"Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan)(APeJ), Western Europe, and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) outperformed the overall market in the third quarter and increased their regional market shares," said Jennifer Song, Research Analyst, Worldwide Trackers at IDC. "China and India were the top growth drivers within APeJ, while Germany and Russia were the leading country markets in Europe."

Dell today announced the expansion of its robust portfolio of next generation learning solutions with the Dell Chromebook 11, an affordable and highly-portable Chromebook designed to facilitate integration of technology in the classroom for teachers, students and administrators. Wrapping into Dell's end-to-end education portfolio, the Dell Chromebook 11 is a laptop that is fast, secure and allows easy-to-manage access to applications and content.

The Dell Chromebook 11 joins Dell's next generation learning solutions that deliver an optimal combination of platforms, education content and secure IT efficiency that schools and universities are seeking to personalize the learning experience and improve student outcomes.

Dell is on a roll. After announcing its 28-inch UltraSharp P2815Q and 24-inch UltraSharp UP2414Q, both of which feature Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) display resolutions in the 16:9 aspect-ratio, the company is turning its attention to the newfound 21:9 ultra-wide aspect-ratio. Expreview unearthed plans for a new 34-inch display, with an unusually high resolution that could woo away some of the Ultra HD crowd. The new U3415W from Dell offers a native resolution of 3440 x 1440, which has the same Y-axis as WQHD (2560 x 1440 pixels), albeit much wider. Basic math would tell you that it's still a staggering 40 percent lower pixel count than Ultra HD. The U3415W reportedly features an IPS LCD panel made by LG. The display should offer a decent middle-ground between currently $400-ish 27-inch WQHD monitors, and four-figure >30-inch Ultra-HD ones taking shape.