ALKHOBAR, 5 August 2003 — We start off today with a request targeted at the Arabic literate IT users on our planet from Bob Lebling, supervisor, Electronic Publishing, Saudi Aramco:
“This weekend we staged a ‘soft launch’ of our new Arabic-English bilingual website, SaudiAramco.com (http://www.saudiaramco.com). This site contains more petroleum-related content than any other Arabic-language website. It is also the world’s first Arabic website to feature the sophisticated enterprise portal software and content management system of BroadVision (http://www.broadvision.com). The bilingual website was developed totally in Saudi Arabia, with a technical and content team that included more than 70 percent Saudi nationals.
“We’d appreciate it if you would visit the Arabic side of the website and check out its features. Please feel free to tell your colleagues about the site. To access the Arabic version, use the language box in the upper left-hand corner of the homepage. Please let us know how the site works for you, and what improvements and/or corrections you think it may need. We want to correct as many errors or bugs as possible before the official launch of the site, tentatively planned for next week. Many thanks for your help!”
Next up, in response to last week’s instructions on the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” search at Google.com, regular reader Andy Smith advised that everyone should also have some fun with Google’s Language Tools.
At google.com click “Language Tools,” which is off to the right of the search box. Scroll down to the section that reads, “Use the Google interface in your language.” This option enables you to use the Google interface in real-world languages other than English such as Afrikaans, Gujarati and Xhosa. You may also select certain fantasy languages such as Elmer Fudd, Hacker, Klingon and Pig Latin. Simply click on the language name to change the interface, and enjoy.
Now we move on to the main theme of the day — the sales of desktops and notebooks in the Middle East market. Preliminary data released by IDC, showed that PC shipments grew by 9.8 percent in Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) in the second quarter 2003 compared with the same quarter last year.
Growth came in slightly above forecasts, as the EMEA market responded positively to aggressive pricing activity. IDC claims that the market remains constrained by economic uncertainty. Aggressive marketing campaigns from both international and local vendors, coupled with the depreciation of the dollar against the euro, have clearly helped to drive down prices in EMEA and stimulate demand. Declining prices, however, continued to affect revenue growth.
Corporate spending, although gradually picking up as expected, remained cautious. IDC found that some renewals are taking place and companies have directly benefited from lower prices. The small and medium business segment continued to be a key battlefield and major volume focus for both international and local vendors.
According to IDC, consumer sales were once again driven by strong demand for portable PCs, supported by growing entry-level offerings and fierce competition in the retail channel. Notebooks drove overall PC sales across the region, recording stronger than anticipated results with over 30 percent unit growth, assisted by price erosion and fierce competition across both business and consumer channels.
As anticipated, many vendors carried on policies of clearing notebook stocks to make way for Intel Centrino-based systems. Notable currency fluctuations and sustained declines in component prices, as well as for memory and hard drives, helped to drive down notebook ASPs, fueling the price war on mobile systems.
IDC observed that although demand is picking up, as renewal cycles were bound to take place across all segments, the market remains primarily driven by pricing actions. IDC believes that business demand will continue to improve in the second half of the year. However, as price declines will remain a major volume generation weapon, the prospects of a return to healthier growth in revenue terms is in question.
According to IDC’s preliminary numbers, HP retained the lead in EMEA and posted double-digit growth in the second quarter. Aggressive pricing actions placed HP as a major competitive force for all other players during the quarter. Effective marketing campaigns and channel support, as well as a strong notebook product line, also contributed to HP’s performance in the region.
Dell outperformed the market. IDC noted that Dell recorded another outstanding quarter, with 31 percent year-on-year growth and strong double-digit results across all form factors. Dell continued to implement an effective acquisition strategy in the corporate space. The company also gained share in the SMB and consumer markets, and expanded strongly outside Western Europe.
Fujitsu Siemens displayed a soft quarter, as the vendor remained affected by strong competition from HP, Dell, and Acer. Nevertheless, Fujitsu Siemens recorded healthy sales in the business segment as well as in the notebook space. IDC found that this was thanks, in part, to a continued focus on mobility and effective channel support.
IBM regained the fourth position in the overall ranking, but this is compared with a weak quarter last year. IDC concluded that IBM’s positive performance was nevertheless encouraging and was the result of competitive pricing across all business segments. However, IBM faces strong competition from all other vendors across all form factors.
Acer recorded outstanding results in EMEA, with over 24 percent growth. The vendor dropped back to fifth position in IDC’s overall ranking, but regained the number two spot in the portable market behind HP. Acer’s performance was driven by strong SMB and notebook sales across the region.
It is interesting to note that this preliminary IDC release made no mention of Toshiba, even though this vendor has a powerful presence in the notebook segment. Toshiba does not produce desktops and consequently does not compete in that market segment. This affects the company’s IDC PC vendor ranking. Recently, Toshiba has also had concerns with the market continuing to depend on a third party for market performance reports.
After IDC released its preliminary Q2 report, Toshiba, on July 28, put forward the following statement from Dubai.
“Toshiba, the world-leader in mobile computing, will disclose Middle East sales volumes from the second quarter of this year, a move unprecedented in the region’s IT industry. The 2003 second-quarter figures are due in early August. Traditionally, manufacturers have been prepared to reveal only market share percentages as quantified by the independent research group IDC.
“By stating actual figures and not simply percentages, we believe we will enable customers to make a more informed decision on which brands are delivering satisfaction,” said Ahmed Khalil, Middle East regional manager, Toshiba’s computer systems division.
“Although competitors may not be quite so willing to disclose sales volumes, we are confident that the figures will underline market acceptance for Toshiba brands. We expect that other manufacturers will follow our lead, so that customers for the first time will have comprehensive information on the size of the market and actual sales.”
IDC has made a fortune out of selling reports created from other company’s numbers. In the days before the Internet there was a purpose in such reporting, since it was difficult to collect all the needed figures. But now, IDC’s quarterly reports may sometimes be confusing and lead to incorrect market perceptions from both consumers and corporate shareholders. Toshiba must be congratulated for having the courage to reveal their sales volumes, for better or worse, directly to Middle East consumers and businesses.
We end today with some comments from Arab News’ readers about the substandard English found at many websites.
“There is a saying, ‘The first impression is the last impression.’ Those who post poor quality English at their websites lack awareness and motivation. Some people believe that if something is working, then why bother to improve it? They can’t visualize that if they put in a little more effort, that they would get a better return; not just in revenue, but also in increased trust and admiration from the market.” — A. Paracha
“Once I bought a toy race car for my son that had been manufactured by an Asian company. The assembly instructions, while written in English, were difficult to understand. Poor spelling, poor grammar and poor vocabulary combined to make assembly of the toy a nightmare. I never bought anything from that company again. On the Internet there are so many competing companies and websites that there just isn’t a reason to struggle through a website displaying information in poor English.” — Vic Thomas
“If you find a website that has good information to share, but the English at the site is poor, write to the web master. Give him examples of the problem. In some countries, the English known by much of the population isn’t standard English. If the site belongs to an NGO or a charity organization you might want to help out by offering to correct the text for them. English language ability is just one skill among many in our world.” — Sozan Mohannadi
(Comments to: [email protected])