Global CRM (customer relationship management) revenue grew 12.5 percent in 2012 to $18 billion, a rate three times that of all enterprise software segments on average, as companies look to acquire more business and serve existing customers better, according to a new Gartner report.

See comments attached to this news for more information about 2013 PC sales.

IDC also reports that the total market for smartphones, tablets, and PCs climbed 29 percent last year.

Samsung surpassed Apple in the market for smart connected devices last year as the Korean electronics giant's shipments of smartphones, tablets, and PCs more than doubled, a new report says.

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Android dominated smart devices in Q1, says Canalys

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Worldwide server shipments went up in the third quarter of 2012, but revenue from those sales dropped due to economic uncertainty in some parts of the world, research firm Gartner said in a study released on Wednesday.

Server shipments totaled 2.46 million units in the third quarter, growing by 3.6 percent compared with the same quarter last year. Server sales dropped year over year by 2.8 percent to $12.6 billion.

HP regained the top spot and Linux sales grew, but gloom prevails as revenue from server sales declined 12 percent year-on-year in EMEA region

Revenue from server sales declined by about 12 percent year-on-year in Europe, the Middle East and Africa during the first quarter of 2012, as vendors continue to suffer from a slowdown in server spending, according to market research company IDC.

See comments attached to this news for more information about 2012 Smartphone Sales.

More information on 2012 tablet sales. See comments.

Apple, Samsung Led Tablet Market in Q4-2012

Apple and Samsung Electronics led the tablet market in the fourth quarter of 2012, but new entrant Microsoft did not make it to the top five with its Surface tablet.

The market share of Apple also continued to drop in the quarter, IDC said on Thursday.

Recent news of Apple killing it with fourth-quarter earnings and holiday spending showing more people shopping online was re-confirmed today by market research company The NPD Group.

Their numbers show that these fourth-quarter trends actually held true for all of 2011.

In tablets, Android's star is rising but...

In the wake of a new report, are Android tablets now a serious threat to Apple's iPad? The quick answer is maybe, if Amazon Kindle Fire shipments pan out as expected.

While Apple iPad shipments are way up year to year (to 11.1 million from 4.2 million), Android's growth is huge (to 4.5 million from 0.1 million).

(Credit: Strategy Analytics)

Apple closing in on Nokia as smartphone leader.

As Nokia continues to shed market share, second-place Apple is inching closer to become the world's dominant smartphone vendor, according to IDC's latest Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.

See comments attached to this news for more information about 2012 PC Sales.

As PCs decline, it's Apple that's making real money from PCs

A blip on the radar for PC sales globally, Apple's Macs nonetheless make nearly half the industry's profits

Android has now surged past Symbian to become the world's top smartphone platform, says a report out today from research firm Canalys.

Global shipments of Android-based phones hit 32.9 million in the final quarter of 2010, pushing Nokia's Symbian down to second place with 31 million smartphones shipped.

Following its modest growth last quarter, the PC market saw its strongest quarter of the year, while managing to miss the expectations of research firms IDC and Gartner.

According to the Quarterly PC Tracker Survey released today by IDC, overall worldwide PC shipments grew 2.7 percent year-on-year during the fourth quarter, with Gartner reporting a slightly larger 3.1 percent as part of its quarterly report. Both numbers missed the firms' expectations, which IDC had predicted at 5.5 percent and Gartner at 4.8 percent.

It sells just a single smartphone, but Apple is now the world's fourth largest mobile phone supplier, according to the "Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker" report released yesterday by IDC.

According to research2guidance’s “Global Smartphone Application Report 2010,” the global smartphone applications market revenue crossed $2.2 billion dollars within the first six months of 2010.

This is in stark comparison to 2009’s $1.7 billion revenue. The latest report also stated that a total of 3.8 billion mobile applications were downloaded within the first six months compared to the 3.1 billion download in 2009.

HP unseated IBM as the top server vendor during the second quarter, as worldwide revenue rose 11 percent to $10.9 billion, according to IDC

Worldwide server sales posted their biggest jump since 2003 during the second quarter as Hewlett-Packard outsold rival IBM to take the top spot among server vendors, IDC said Tuesday.

Dell'Oro Group is a trusted source of market information regarding networking and telecommunications industries. Recently, the company reported that PBX market revenues have declined successively in the first quarter. It also predicted that the revenues are going to decline year-over-year for 2010. The revenues in the first quarter were impacted due to seasonality, economic slow down in Europe and customer pause prior to new releases.

Mobile phone and smartphone sales are on a roll, according to figures released Wednesday by market researcher Gartner.
In the first quarter, customers worldwide bought 314.7 million mobile phones, a 17 percent increase year over year. Smartphones sales specifically jumped 48.7 percent from the year-ago quarter, as 54.3 million units flew off the shelves.
Demand within mature markets and lower prices are part of the reason for the double-digit gains, Gartner said.

Unified messaging had a boon in 2009, with 29 percent year-over-year growth, according to a new analysis from Frost and Sullivan.
The market earned revenues of $953.7 million and shipped 9.99 million seats during the year.

The iPhone OS has overtaken Windows Mobile, moving into third place behind Symbian and BlackBerry, according to a Gartner study

Android and Apple's iPhone OS were the fastest-growing smartphone platforms in 2009, with sales of the iPhone OS overtaking those of Windows Mobile, research company Gartner said Tuesday. Symbian and Research In Motion's BlackBerry still lead the market, it said.

IDC says mobile vendors shipped 54.5 million smartphones in the fourth quarter, up 39 percent, but Apple iPhone shipments grew by 98 percent

Vendors shipped a record 54.5 million smartphones in the fourth quarter, 39 percent more than the 39.2 million shipped in the same quarter in 2008, IDC reported today.

Increased interest in smartphones have helped both Apple and Nokia expand sales by about 17 percent.

Nokia and Apple were the big winners as the sale of mobile phones rebounded during the fourth quarter. Consumers, meanwhile, stand to get more choice and better value for money as competition heats up, especially in the smartphone segment.

Apple and Nokia each control big chunks of the worldwide mobile market and are duking it out for more.
In the final quarter of 2009, Apple's iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPhone operating system reigned in markets in Western Europe, North America, Latin America, and Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, and nearby countries), according to an AdMob report (PDF) released Thursday.
Meanwhile, Nokia's mobile devices and the Symbian OS led in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe,