Worldwide Laptops

The fast-moving personal computer (PC) industry is known for falling prices and continuous innovation. While the desktop PC has rapidly moved 

The Wall Street Journal described the laptop trail around the globe. The article notes that the customer ordering a Hewlett-Packard laptop via the HP Web site transmits an order to Quanta Computer Inc. at its plant in mainland China. Quanta is a Taiwanese company and until 1991 was forbidden to do business on the mainland. But competitive pressure caused the barrier to fall, and the shift from Taiwan to China was rapid, rising from 4 to 90 percent of production in four years. By the time of the article, Quanta had become China s second-largest exporter, producing about a quarter of the global laptop total. 

The nine leading brands for laptops outsource considerable amounts of their requirements to Quanta and its competitors. For the base product, the range is half or less for Toshiba, IBM, and Sony, and over 90 percent for HP, Acer, Gateway, Apple, and Dell. The article notes that much of this work was formerly done in home countries before competition made migration to China a necessity. The article also notes that IBM s decision to hang on to its own production had caused losses in the business that forced its sale to China s Lenova Group. Lenova, in turn, relies on contract manufacturers. 

The brand-name companies retain control over parts of the supply chain. Dell, the developer of the direct sales model, retains final assembly responsibility at its own plants amounting to 60 to 70 percent of the cost. HP retains control over the design and sources key components itself. 

The Quantas of the world are squeezed. This is reflected in the narrow margins for Quanta. Despite revenues of more than 10 billion. Quanta had a profit margin of 3.6 percent, forcing it to diversify into nonlaptop lines to increase margins. Quanta s effort to add more value to its products is evidenced by funded research at MIT in the United States and Aalborg University in Denmark. 

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Worldwide Laptop in Section 7.4.1 on globalization describes supply chains for laptops in greater detail. 

APUs are manifold. They reach from the small scale such as traffic lights or standalone measurement instruments over the medium scale such as laptops to the larger scale such as the automotive and leisure industry (e.g. boats and caravans). In the last couple of years the worldwide research and development focus has moved from the drive trains to APUs, which is the less challenging task concerning system dynamics and start-up time. 

Market and companies forecasts on the introduction of fuel cells, including DMFC, have been generally very optimistic and, so far, none has managed to achieve the targets. For instance, the worldwide total available markets for micro fuel cells for 2011 estimated by Darnell Group in 2003 [69] were (measured in millions of units) 36 for camcorders, 70 for digital cameras, 608 for mobile phones, 102 for laptops, and 79 for PDAs. However, the penetration forecast of fuel cells also reported by Darnell were used to estimate the percentage of the total available market expected... 

Last week, shortly after we developed computers and landed the first man on the moon, we learnt how to clone DNA and engineer the genetic blueprint of any living cell. Only yesterday, a worldwide Internet - supported by search engines - allowed us to explore terabytes of information at the touch of a button on our newly developed laptop computers, wireless hand-held devices and smart phones. Thanks to these devices, irrigation of vineyards and the operation of large, complex wineries can now be controlled remotely by sophisticated computer networks, artificial intelligence and robotics. 

Compared with conventional batteries such as lead acid, Ni-Cd, and Ni-MH, Li-ion batteries provide higher energy density and higher power density. Since the Li-ion battery was introduced in 1992, a huge worldwide market has developed for portable cell phones and laptop computers. In 2000, Li-ion batteries represented half of the worldwide rechargeable battery market with a value of 3 billion, and still growing. 

The last three fields of apphcation are currently under heavy research, development, and marketing worldwide. This statement is especially stressed for secondary lithium-ion cells and batteries that currently are booming. After their successful and increasing use in mobile equipments such as mobile phones, tablet computers, and laptops as well as in electric tools, lithium-ion batteries for battery-electric or hybrid-electric vehicles are beginning to reach... 

Moreover, sourcing processes are also carried out at the laptop distributors as well as at the desktop retailers place. Here, laptops and desktops are sourced for further distribution. Regarding the distribution processes, they are carried out at various places in this example. However, the desktop distribution center and the laptop distributor represent the assembly point for the worldwide distribution of the products. The plan process associated with the planning activities required to operate the supply chain are conducted at the headquarter. The source returns as well as the deliver return processes are not carried out in this specific example. 

The first commercial application for high volume MEA production will be for small portable electronics, which is driven by ever increasing power requirements and for longer duration energy sources. The US Fuel Cell Council, which has over 115 corporate members, has forecasted that the fuel cell market for small portable electronics will be 2 billion by 2011 with the potential of a 70% market penetration into the lithium ion battery market by 2007. To get a better understanding of this market size it is also forecasted that there will be 1.6 billion cell phone subscribers in 2007 worldwide, 76 million laptop shipments in 2007 and 37 million shipments of PDAs (personal digital assistants) in 2007. 

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