Channel Beat: Tablet Shipments Disappoint

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In this week’s top stories, tablet shipments stalled at 50.4 million units in the first quarter of 2014, according to IDC, and it could be the beginning of a rough year for the category.

IDC said the numbers, which show only 3.9 percent growth over the same period in 2013, are due to several reasons. Consumers are holding onto their existing tablets longer than in the previous year and people are using more large-screen phones.

Apple maintained the worldwide lead in tablets, shipping 16.4 million units, but even that number is down from 19.5 million units in the first quarter of last year.

In server news, Amazon is reportedly building a chip design center for its Amazon Web Services cloud business. The company reportedly hired several chip engineers who used to work at Calxeda and has posted several job listings on LinkedIn for a CPU and system architect for Amazon Web Services in Austin, Texas.

Amazon rival Google showcased a server motherboard using IBM’s Power8 chip, and HP unveiled a joint effort with Foxconn Technology Group to deliver a breakthrough in server price-performance for Internet giants such as Facebook and Amazon.