While that continues, low-cost PC cameras will become increasingly attractive to consumers, spurring growth of second- and third-tier vendors which are expected to challenge market leaders Logitech and Intel, IDC is forecasting.
Windows 8 is designed to work well with touch-sensitive screens, but the displays add to the cost of a PC.
Moreover, while the cost of a desktop PC is flat, having changed little in the last five years, the cost of implementing VDI is falling quickly.
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Not only do these user-friendly, highly mobile devices cost less than a PC, they are also extremely powerful.
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Today, however, network computers are making a comeback as "thin clients, " and are currying favor with corporate customers worried about the escalating cost of maintaining large PC pools.
Wall Street worries that HP and Compaq won't find enough cost cuts in their slow-growing PC businesses.
There are no monthly fees for using the Slingbox nor is there any cost to watch your shows on a PC or Mac browser.
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The sensible cost-saving decision to merge its PC and printing divisions impacted its first half, but a Canalys survey of channel partners revealed that a large majority think this will have a positive (or neutral) effect on their future business.
NatSteel, a contract maker of motherboards, disk drives and PC peripherals, has low-cost plants in Asia, Mexico and Hungary.
Impress got their hands on an unofficially released MSI Wind PC (the mini-PC, not the low-cost laptop) and subjected the 1.33GHz Atom processor to a suite of standard tests.
That said, Wu notes that he remains concerned that the company is in a tough position fundamentally in the PC business, with low-cost players Lenovo and Acer encroaching on one one side, and Apple gaining ground on the other.
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His team figured out a way to control Stanford's network with a few low-cost switches, some software, and a single PC.
This opened the door for Honeywell, which started to make mainframes that were wholly compatible with IBM's products but cost less, and eventually, for the appearance of IBM PC clones.
According to Canalys analysts, if Windows 8 is to be a success, Microsoft will have to subsidize at least some of the extra cost that touchscreen hardware will add to a new Windows 8 PC.
In that case, Windows PC has lower initial purchase costs and the overall maintenance cost.
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Perhaps the expected sales don't justify the cost and that's a real shame as this potentially shuts some good PC manufacturers right out of the market.
By making the investments earlier in the year, Intel will accelerate touch so that most PC form factors will have it by 2013 and at a decent cost.
Many PC notebooks already have wireless networking built-in, using components that cost only a few bucks.
On the other side, Samsung has much more cost advantage since Samsung produce vertically almost anything from CPU to SSD, RAM, touch screen, TV, PC, tablet and smartphone all under one roof.
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