ConsumerIT - For Europe's High Volume PC Retailers, Distributors & Builders

18 December 2012 is the final day of trading for 79-year old British retailer Comet, after a so far fruitless month-long search for a saviour by administrators Deloitte.

Just 49 out of a total of 236 stores will remain open for the day with a firesale of remaining stock, a final gasp at raising at least some funds. The retailer's website is also all but down except for a location list for the last open stores.

The November Comet collapse is the most high profile British high street failure since Woolworths in 2008.

Potential purchasers are still being mentioned. Appliances Online is the most quoted name at the moment, while Dixons shows interest in a handful of stores as it hires 1000 former Comet staff into temporary roles and gives 200 more permanent jobs.

We already reported on a few Nokia Windows 8 tablet rumours over the past year-- now DigiTimes insists the company will "likely" reveal such a device in 2 months' time at Mobile World Congress 2013.

Originally meant for a Q4 2012 release, the Nokia Windows 8 tablet met delays due to the launch of Windows RT (the current supposed OS for the device) and the Microsoft Surface announcement.

A launch during MWC 2013 however makes sense-- Nokia will not have a big presence at CES 2013, making the Spanish trade show more ideal, perhaps.

DigiTimes sources point out the device will have a 10-inch display and carry a Qualcomm processor, with Compal taking over ODM duties. For the record, the previous DigiTimes rumours (from March 2012) mention a dual-core Qualcomm SoC and a first shipment of 20000 units.

Will Nokia find a market in tablets? And, more importantly, how will avoid butting heads with its partner, Microsoft?

Go Nokia to Resume Development of 10-inch Windows RT Tablet (DigiTimes)

Go Nokia Tablet Rumours Persist

Galaxy Note too big? Galaxy S III Mini too small? Samsung hopes it has all customer preferences covered with yet another smartphone size-- the 5-inch Galaxy Grand.

The Grand's TFT LCD touchscreen might be (err) grand in size, but it does not impress-- not 800 x 480 resolution. In comparison both Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II display resolutions clock at 1280x720.

Mind, this mid-range smartphone does have a few interesting features. Running on Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean), the Galaxy Grand comes with either 1 or 2 SIM-card slots, handles GSM and HSP+ networks and carries a decent 1.2GHz dual-core CPU and 8GB internal storage (expandable to 64GB via microSD card).

Cameras are identical to those in the Galaxy S III and Note II-- 8MP rear-, 2MP front-facing.

Go Samsung Unveiled Galaxy Grand

According to a Goldman Sachs report acquired by The Seattle Times, Windows lost massive share in the global compute market-- from being the OS of choice in 97% of all computing devices in 2000 to just 20% in 2012.

The reason for such a drop? The mobile device explosion, of course.

When one (as Goldman Sachs does) counts smartphones and tablets with laptops and PCs Google is 2012 platform leader-- Android OS resides in 42% of global computing devices.

Apple comes 2nd, with the combination of OSX and iOS taking over 24% share. Interestingly Apple share jumped massively during the 2004-2005 period (from 5% to 21%), a shift Goldman Sachs attributes to the "more mainstream adoption of non-PC consumer computing devices."

Microsoft follows with just 20% share.

Goldman Sachs describes 2012 as a "critical" year for Microsoft if the company wants to expand its share of the consumer compute market-- a market, one has to emphasise, is rather influential on an enterprise sphere in the days of the BYOD trend.