Taiwan's PC makers search for new cash cow

Taiwan's PC makers are restless. The once ubiquitous product of multibillion-dollar companies like Acer and Asus is in steep decline, and there's no clear replacement in sight.

In 2015's second quarter, global PC shipments fell 9.5 percent year-on-year to 68.4 million units, according to research firm Gartner. That decrease was the sharpest in almost two years. Gartner forecasts PC shipments will fall 4.4 percent overall in 2015.

"The decline was more severe than expected," said Helen Chiang, associate director of research firm IDC's Taiwan office, noting distributors are reducing inventory ahead of the release of Microsoft's Windows 10. She said PC sales during the second quarter of 2014 were especially brisk as consumers upgraded their computers ahead of Microsoft ending support for Windows XP, adding that no similar revenue driver exists now.

The PC market has flagged since 2012 as consumers increasingly access social media through mobile devices and businesses slow their computer replacement rate to reduce costs, analysts say.

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With PC sales on the decline, Acer's 2015 Q2 shipments fell 27 percent year-on-year.Sarah Tew/CNET

Those falling sales are hitting the bottom lines of Taiwanese PC makers hard. Acer reported net losses in 2011, 2012 and 2013 before returning to a slim profitability in 2014.

But in the second quarter of 2014, Acer's PC shipments fell to 4.3 million units from 5.9 million units, a decrease of almost 27 percent year-on-year, according to IDC. The company posted a profit of just New Taiwan dollars (TWD)$2 million ($79,000) for the April-June quarter, while its consolidated revenue fell nearly 19 percent year-on-year to TWD$128.2 billion ($4 billion) in the first six months of the year.

Tied with Acer as the 5th-largest PC maker, Asus is faring better. In the second quarter, its PC shipments fell to 4.3 million units from 4.7 million units the previous year, an annual contraction of 7.7 percent, IDC said. Asus reported a net profit in the quarter ending June of TWD$4.66 billion ($145 million), a decrease of 3 percent year-on-year. But its revenue of TWD$99.4 billion ($3.06 billion) rose 4 percent from a year earlier.

Fortunately for Taiwanese vendors, declining shipments do not spell the demise of the PC, said Tracy Tsai, a research director at Gartner in Taipei. "The decline has to stop somewhere," she asserted. "There is no alternative to the PC at the enterprise level -- or for consumers who need a device on which they can work."

In the future, the PC market will be flat and "very replacement driven," she added.

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Asus are faring better, though its Q2 net profit declined 3 percent year-on-year.Andrew Hoyle/CNET

Meanwhile, Asus has shifted its focus to mobile devices. The Taipei-based company is accelerating shipments of its low-priced ZenFone range -- especially to emerging markets -- in a bid to break into the world's top ten handset vendors by market share. At an August product launch in Brazil, chief executive officer Jerry Shen said Asus expects to ship 30 million to 40 million smartphones in 2016, up from 17 million to 25 million this year. Asus reckons that its mobile-devices revenue will surpass its core PC business in 2018.

"Smartphones can be a new revenue driver for Asus, but with their average selling price declining, to what extent remains to be seen," said Jade Cheng, a mobile communications analyst at the Taipei-based Market Research & Consulting Institute (MIC).

As the handset market is increasingly saturated, Asus is also targeting the more nascent connected devices market. In contrast to other Taiwanese vendors, Asus has given its business units "plenty of space to develop cloud services and IoT [Internet of Things] solutions," said Charles Chou, a senior analyst at MIC. "We believe Asus is going to have more in the pipeline, such as smartwatch-centric applications."

For its part, beleaguered Acer is trying to reinvent itself as an enterprise software and cloud services provider. In June, Acer announced it would invest $4 million to build a cloud-computing centre in China's massive southwestern municipality of Chongqing, where it has manufactured notebook computers since 2011. The centre will be used to promote Acer's abPBX plus communications network for businesses and aBeing One, a hub for file sharing among different operating systems, the company said.

Acer can use the Chongqing center as a test market for its cloud services, said Chiang. If the centre is successful, the company can use it as a jumping-off point for regional expansion, she added.

Acer is right to reduce its reliance on the ailing consumer PC market, said Tsai of Gartner. "But it has a long way to go. Acer is not known for its enterprise solutions."

At the same time, she notes Asus' focus on smartphones may not be sustainable. As smartphone penetration increases, the replacement rate will slow, and "the situation will eventually not be so different from what we have in the PC market now," she says.

Chiang sees major challenges ahead for all of Taiwan's vendors in the post-PC era. "It's no problem for them to produce any kind of hardware," she said. "But they still don't have a good understanding of vertical integration and the end user. You need to understand those things to create successful IoT applications."

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Taiwan's PC makers search for new cash cow

By news → jeudi 17 septembre 2015

Horizon: How video games can change your brain

The video game industry is a global phenomenon. There are more than 1.2 billion gamers across the planet, with sales projected soon to pass $100bn (£65bn) per year.

The games frequently stand accused of causing violence and addiction. Yet three decades of research have failed to produce consensus among scientists.

In laboratory studies, some researchers have found an increase of about 4% in gamers' levels of aggression after playing violent games.

Image captionA growing body of evidence suggests video games can affect the brain's development

But other research groups have concluded factors such as family background, mental health or simply being male are more significant in determining levels of aggression.

What is certain is that science has failed to find a causal link between video games and real-world acts of violence.

But away from the controversy, a growing body of work is beginning to show these games in a different light.

Psychologists split over whether video games can make you violent

Motor skill

Dr Henk ten Cate Hoedemaker is the man behind Underground.

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Media captionUnderground's creator explains how it can help train keyhole surgeons

In the game, players must guide a child and her pet robot out of a mine.

But this is no ordinary game. Dr Hoedemaker is a keyhole surgeon, and Underground is designed to hone the skills of his profession.

Players use adapted controllers that mimic the tools used in surgery - and those who perform well in the game also do better in tests of their surgical skills.

Visual abilities

Around the world, other researchers are investigating the potential hidden benefits in video games.

At the University of Geneva, Prof Daphne Bavelier has compared the visual abilities of gamers and non-gamers.

In one test, subjects must try to keep track of the position of multiple moving objects.

She has found that individuals who play action video games perform markedly better than those who do not.

Prof Bavelier's theory is that fast action games require the player constantly to switch their attention from one part of the screen to another while also staying vigilant for other events in the environment.

Image captionProf Bavelier found action video gamers were better than other people at remembering which smiley faces in an experiment were blue

This challenges the brain, making it process incoming visual information more efficiently.

Brain growth

At the Max-Planck Institute of Human Behaviour, in Berlin, Prof Simone Kuhn also researches the effects of the video games on the brain.

In one study, she used fMRI (functional MRI) technology to study the brains of subjects as they played Super Mario 64 DS, over a period of two months.

Remarkably, she found that three areas of the brain had grown - the prefrontal cortex, right hippocampus and cerebellum - all involved in navigation and fine motor control.

Image copyrightNintendo

Image captionVolunteers had their brains scanned to study how they were affected by playing Super Mario

The visual layout of this game is distinctive: a 3D view on the top screen and a 2D map view on the bottom.

Prof Kuhn believes having to navigate simultaneously in different ways may be what stimulates brain growth.

Keeping sharp

Arguably the most exciting field of research is exploring the potential of video games to tackle mental decline in old age.

While electronic "brain training" games have long had enormous popular appeal, there is no hard evidence playing them has any effect beyond improving your score

But at the University of California, San Francisco, Prof Adam Gazzaley and a team of video game designers have created a game with a difference: Neuroracer.

Image captionProf Gazzaley believes pensioners can improve their ability to multitask if they play the right kind of video games

Aimed at older players, it requires individuals to steer a car while at the same time performing other tasks.

After playing the game for 12 hours, Prof Gazzaley found pensioners had improved their performance so much they were beating 20-year-olds playing it for the first time.

He also measured improvements in their working memory and attention span.

Crucially, this showed that skills improved through playing the game were transferable into the real world.

Image copyrightNeuroracer

Image captionNeuroracer players had to steer a vehicle and react to different signs at the same time

To test whether off-the-shelf games might bring similar benefits to elderly players, the BBC's Horizon programme recruited a small group of older volunteers from a sheltered housing complex in Glasgow.

They learned to play a popular karting game, clocking up about 15 hours each over five weeks. Their working memory and attention spans were tested before and after.

On average, both these scores increased by about 30%.

Although this was only a small test, larger scientific studies will continue to explore the effects of playing video games.

Image captionHorizon challenged some pensioners to play a Sonic the Hedgehog karting game

Prof Gazzaley believes we are only just beginning to tap their potential.

"I'm intrigued with the idea that in the future a psychiatrist or neurologist might pull out their pad and instead of writing down a drug, writes down a tablet game times two months, and uses that as a therapy, as a digital medicine," he says.

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Horizon: How video games can change your brain

By news → mercredi 16 septembre 2015