Printer sales decline

Worldwide hardcopy peripherals shipments declined 17 percent year over year to 32.6 million units while revenue from these shipments fell 13 percent to $15 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008 (4Q08), according to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker. This was the second consecutive quarter that the worldwide hardcopy peripherals market experienced a decline in shipments.

“IDC expects the market to bottom out in 2009, in response to the international economic crisis, and then start a recovery in 2010,” said Alyson Frasco, director, US Hardcopy Peripheral Trackers & Forecasts.

According to Phuong Hang, program manager, Worldwide Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker, “Over the next year, vendors will employ several strategies to weather the downturn. The battle will continue in the channel as vendors seek to gain go-to-market strength and capacity. Vendors will also focus on offering cost-cutting and productivity enhancements to customer’s existing document infrastructure as well as driving managed print services.”

The inkjet market remained the dominant segment in 4Q08, with 22.8 million units shipped, but it was also hit the hardest, declining 18 percent year over year. Monochrome laser was the second largest technology segment with 7.2 million units shipped and a year-over-year shipment decline of 17.3 percent. Color laser shipments, the third largest segment, was essentially flat year over year, and was the only segment not to experience a decline in the quarter.

The MFP, or all-in-one printer market remains the dominant product type in the overall hardcopy peripherals market with 63.3 percent of the 20.7 million unit shipments in 4Q08, and was the least impacted of the product types with decline of 12 percent year over year.

HP remains the leading vendor in the total hardcopy peripherals market with 41 percent share, down from 43 percent in 4Q07. The brightest spot for HP was the color laser MFP segment, where HP grew unit shipments 82 percent year over year and gained nearly eight points in market share. Canon did quite well compared to its competitors in 4Q08 and remained the number two vendor in the hardcopy peripherals market. Canon’s unit shipments declined only eight percent year over year, resulting in an increased market share of 19 percent, up two points from 4Q07. Epson rounds out the top three with 15.4 percent market share in 4Q08, an increase from 14.8 percent in 4Q07.

Brother took a distant fourth place in the hardcopy peripherals space, with 6.2 percent market share. However, Brother’s units shipments grew, year over year, across Asia/Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa in both single-function printers and MFPs. Lexmark rounds out the top five worldwide market players, losing nearly two points in total market share this quarter to 4.7 percent.

Microsoft wins one, loses one

In the third week of March, for the first time, Microsoft’s Windows Vista consistently broke 30 percent share of the operating system market in the United States according to research by StatCounter. “Based on daily data, Windows Vista has only topped 30 percent a few times before and only for a maximum of three days running. That was the first time it has broken through 30 percent on a weekly basis suggesting that it is gaining some consistent traction in the US,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO and founder, StatCounter. However, he added that the data suggested that there was still resistance to Vista in the business market. “The data illustrates clearly that Vista peaks at the weekends while XP peaks during week days.”

Uptake of Vista in the US is offset by statistics showing the use of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) is slipping in Europe. Mozilla Firefox 3.0 became the most popular web browser in Europe last week, overtaking Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 for the first time on a weekly basis. Firefox 3.0 took 35.05 percent of the European Web browser market followed by 34.54 percent for IE 7.0.

“The move is partly explained by a small switch from IE 7.0 usage to IE 8.0 but also by growing market share overall by Firefox 3.0,” said Cullen. “The data shows that Firefox is closing the gap and is now just 10 percent behind all IE versions in Europe.”

Gaming continues at the office

The US stock market is declining and the nation's unemployment rate has reached its highest level in decades, but it’s not stopping many American workers from playing online games while on the job. In fact, economic woes and ongoing threat of job loss have only increased online gaming levels.

According to a survey conducted by Candystand.com, 58 percent of respondents admit that the economy has impacted their job in some way, yet more than half claim they now play more online games at work than ever before. Consulting firm Basex estimated that American businesses lose $650 billion annually from workplace distractions.

Professor Robert Bloomfield, who oversees the doctoral program at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, is not too surprised by all the goofing off. “Behavioral research has shown, time and time again, how difficult it is for people to put off instant gratification even when the long-term costs are high. So I am not surprised that people would put their jobs at risk for a few moments of fun,” he said. “Also, a tough economy is forcing people to spend much more of their time online. They are using collaboration tools like WebEx and Skype to save travel costs for their current job, or they are using social networking sites like LinkedIn or Facebook if they are building connections should they need a new job. Either way, the temptation of online gaming is only a click away.”

Online social networking guide

Clara Shih, the developer of Facebook’s first business application, Faceconnector, has published a practical guide for executives and professionals who wish to understand social technologies such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn, and how to take advantage of them for sales, marketing and innovation. In “The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff,” Shih, a Stanford-educated entrepreneur, lays out a practical 60-day action plan for positioning a company of any size, in any industry, to benefit from using social networks. The Facebook Era has a companion book site at http://thefacebookera.com.

According to Computerworld, nearly one-fourth of companies surveyed by ChangeWave Research are now using Web 2.0-social networking software in some form, and another eight percent intend to do so within the next year.

The Facebook Era is Shih’s second stint as an author. She co-authored “Using New Media,” commissioned by UNESCO to help teachers, parents and school administrators in developing countries use digital media to adopt best practices and distribute high-quality content and curriculum. That booklet may be downloaded free from www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/archive/publications/EducationalPracticesSeriesPdf/Practice_15.pdf.