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According to DRAMeXchange ultrabook shipments may exceed 30 million units in 2013, growing by 30% Y-o-Y thanks to price declines of components such as SSDs, displays and cases.

Also helping further ultrabook growth is increasing focus on processor development from Intel.

Pointing out 2012 as a challenging year for the general PC market is hardly news-- the analyst forecasts 2012 as the first year with negative growth for notebooks, with shipments reaching 186m units with -4.6% Y-o-Y decrease.

Ultrabooks will also fall short of expectations. TrendForce adjusts 2012 forecasts from 15m to 11m. The Intel form factor makes just 6.2% of the total notebook market, with the MacBook Air making 40% of the market.

However TrendForce predicts crucial declines in component costs for 2013-- SSD unit costs may fall by 25-30%, partly thanks to Intel efforts to standardise SSD modules via the NGFF (Next Generation Form Factor) standard.

Intel should also launch the Ultrabook-focused Haswell architecture and Shark Bay platform by H2 2013, allowing vendors to produce even better (and, more crucially, cheaper) ultrabooks.

When it comes to the overall notebook market, TrendForce forecast are less positive-- notebooks will only see 1.3% growth in 2013. Next year will also see the elimination of netbooks from the market, victims of continual cannibalisation from smartphones and tablets.

Go Ultrabooks to Grow Over 30% in 2013 (TrendForce)

HP will not make a smartphone on 2013, Meg Whitman says at the Gartner Symposium ITxpo 2012-- instead, the company is "more concerned about the pads."

However HP should take on smartphones from 2014 onward, since Whitman also claims "...we've got to, I believe, have the full array of devices." Whitman gives no further details on the future smartphone plans, meaning the OS of HP choice (webOS? Windows Phone? Android?) remains a mystery.

Whitman already mentioned HP has mobile plans last September in an interview with Fox Business.

Will HP enter the smartphone race too late? Perhaps, but then again one can never really guess which route the crazy smartphone market will take...

Storage vendor Seagate joins the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), the consortium of companies behind online movie locker service UltraViolet.

"As a DECE member, Seagate's expertise and perspective on cloud solutions and storage devices will help the organization to evolve those benefits," UltraViolet GM Mark Teitell remarks.

While UltraViolet is best known for streaming it also includes downloads-- meaning Seagate plans to have a foot in the door should the service become more popular with potential customers.

Not to mention UltraViolet content providers will also need more storage for their content servers...

Go UltraViolet

Private equity firm OpCapita officially puts Comet into administration, handing the ailing 236-store business to restructuring specialist Deloitte.

Next up for OpCapita is the "urgent process" of finding a suitable buyer for the retailer. In the meantime, all Comet shops will continue to trade and pay employees, even if the Comet website is currently out of action.

The retailer also suspended gift vouchers and refunds on faulty goods, much to the ire of customers-to-be. A firesale of remaining Comet store stock is also in the works.

"Our immediate priorities are to stabilise the business, fully assess its financial position, and begin an urgent process to seek a suitable buyer which would also preserve jobs," Deloitte joint administrator Neville Kahn says. Among the factors pushing Comet to the brink are suppliers unwilling to provide Comet with credit for the holiday season stock-up.

Deloitte also blames the failure on the lack of first-time home-buyers, a key customer segment for the retailer.

Less than a year ago OpCapita bought Comet for "an aggregate consideration of £2." It also received a dowry worth a tidy £50 million from former owners Kesa, who also kept the liability of paying out the Comet Benefit Pension Scheme.

Go Deloitte Appointed Administrators to Comet