PC makers face up to tablet contest

Computer manufacturers of all sizes and descriptions have been pushing to get a piece of the ever-expanding tablet market created by the launch of Apple’s iPad in April last year.

The obsession with tablet computing will be on full display tomorrow as Computex, the world’s second-largest computer show, begins its annual five-day run in Taipei.

Research company CDC said Apple had a 73 percent share of the tablet market in the last quarter of 2010. CDC expects Apple to account for 70 percent to 80 percent of 2011 tablet sales that it predicts will reach 50 million units.

Besides tablets, Computex will feature corporate and home servers and other cloud-based computing equipment and services as then, a sector Taiwanese firms have recently entered to make up for shortfalls in PC sales.

Cloud computing involves running applications in web browsers. The cloud allows users to store and retrieve data over the internet whenever it is needed, instead of saving it on their own computers. – Sapa-AP