Tablets on the rise as laptops fall

Article first published as Tablets on the Rise as Laptops Fall on Technorati.

Here we go again. 

The San Jose Mercury news is reporting that IDC (Intl. Data Corp) predicts 2013 will bring more bad news for the PC.  The de facto barometer of consumer markets has revised its latest estimate for yearly PC sales downward.  What was expected to be a 1.3% decline has now been  projected to be more like 7.8%.

The blame is placed squarely on an increase in tablet sales.  With 229.3 million expected this year IDC has gone so far as to predict tablet sales to outpace the entirety of the PC market by 2015.

Unfortunately, the news is both obvious and misplaced. 

Comparing sales of the Galaxy Note to a laptop is akin to comparing a fine wine to a 44 ounce fountain drink.

Tablets are consumer devices more on par with their Smartphone cousins than any laptop.   In a market sense they are disposable.  Conversely, laptops and the PC market in general operate on a much longer replacement cycle.  It's not uncommon, for example,  for the average tech savvy consumer to purchase 2 tablets during the lifespan of one laptop.

These days nobody would seriously consider paying upwards of $1000 for a laptop just to browse the web and check their email when a $300 tablet will do.  It's a given that such mundane mobility tasks have been ceded to the smart device market.    

As such, the decline of PC market share is to be expected but isn't quite the death knell the tech punditry keeps drumming on about.  Rather it's a realignment of markets defined by their functionality instead of their volume and that's as it should be.

A Surface Pro is not a competitor to any IPAD even though both claim a tablet form factor.  Their purposes are distinct and so are their customers.

In a sense, the  cheap, underpowered laptop of yesterday is the progenitor of today's tablet which now occupies it's place in the market.  A classic case of technological evolution and natural selection if ever there was one.

WalMart's a dirty word...

A funny thing happened while I was writing a Newegg.com product review...

I know WalMart has a bad reputation but I didn't know it was this bad...

Click the Images for a larger view.

Cord Cutting or A La' Carte, in the End it's All the Same

Article first published as Cord Cutting or A La' Carte, in the End it's All the Same on Technorati.

Last week Senator John McCain (R-AZ) took to the Senate floor with a proposal that seeks to lower your cable TV bill.   His proposal is to allow anyone who has cable or satellite television service to do something previously unheard of in the industry.  That is, only pay for what they want to watch.

A belief shared by McCain's colleague across the aisle, Senator Jay Rocefeller (D- VA)

"...rather than being able to pick smaller packages or choose the channels they want, consumers are still forced to purchase larger and larger packages of channels no matter how few they actually watch. This says to me that the market isn't working."

The Senate Commerce committee is scheduled to take up McCain's bill in a hearing on Tuesday (5-14.)

McCain's assertion is based on a solid premise.  Look at any cable or satellite TV provider and you find that all their programming is bundled into packages or tiers.  The only a la' carte options you have are for the so-called premium stations like HBO or Showtime which by themselves can cost an additional $10 a month or more and in some cases also come as part of a bundle.

Gone are the days of $20/mo basic cable.  A subscriber can easily find a bill of $50 or more per month with no premium channels.   Add HBO and a few HD channels and that bill is closer to $125.

In the end you ultimately end up subsidizing channels you don't watch.  That's because providers negotiate not with HBO or AMC but rather their parent companies like Viacom and Time Warner.  It's an all or nothing deal that can cause a disagreement over licensing fees on one channel to affect a dozen others.  That's why a tiff between a service like DirectTV and Viacom leaves subscribers with multiple blank channels instead of content. 

Cable industry lobbyists are against McCain's proposal claiming it's a "lose-lose" for both customers and providers as evidenced in an official statement from the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.

"As countless studies have demonstrated, subscription bundles offer a wider array of viewing options, increased programming diversity and better value than per channel options,"

Of course that assumes that the "wider array" is something you actually care to watch.  Even if you don't,  you're going to pay for it anyway and that's the logic of their claimed "win-win."

This is the rationale that's led to cord cutters who've turned primarily to online media sources like NetFlix and Hulu.  Unfortunately, legitimate online sources still can only offer a fraction of the content enjoyed by the traditional delivery model.  Unless you've got an HBO subscription, for example, you're not going to see "Game of Thrones" on the same day it airs unless you turn to illegitimate sources.

That's due to a reluctance of channel owners like Viacom to embrace online options that would lead to greater consumer choice but a less predictable revenue model.    It's flawed logic, however.

If you're a cord cutter it's probably not of any great consequence to you  about what happens to pay TV subscription rates but you're going to be affected all the same.   

With online bellwethers like YouTube launching paid channels it may seem like online TV options are poised to offer what traditional pay TV won't.    If the industry is forced into the a la' carte model, however, online TV will soon end up looking like it's broadcast predecessor.

You may be able to pick and choose from a few sources but likely run headlong into the same bundling schemes as traditional pay TV.  That's because the channels don't own the content, their parent company does and it's up to them to decide how it gets distributed. 

Add in the more targeted paid online options and soon you'll be paying as much if not more than if you'd never cut that cable.  Lest we forget data caps imposed by most Internet providers that could result in a nasty surprise in that bill if you enjoy HD content.

In short, the old guard of broadcast television has nothing to fear as one way or another we'll still end up paying more no matter how we choose to view their content.