According to IDC, global shipments of personal computing devices (PCDs)-- namely traditional PCs and tablets-- are to reach 392.5 million units, a -3% decline, a trend expected to continue until at least 2023.

The analyst predicts 2023 shipments will reach 367.7m units at a CAGR of -1.6%.

That said, the dollar value of the 2019 market is set to remain "roughly flat" at $237 billion despite the unit decline. This is due to a 2.6% increase in ASPs for the entire market brought about by new technologies such as thinner bezels on notebook screens, as well as ongoing demand for high-end gaming PCs. In addition, the commercial segment is set to bring an uplift for 2019 ASPs as many enterprises are replacing PCs before the early 2020 end of Windows 7 support.

Despite being a popular topic among supply chain leaders, blockchain is still to find suitable use cases-- leading to what Gartner dubs "blockchain fatigue" among blockchain-based supply chain initiative due to a lack of strong use cases.

According to the analyst, no less than 90% of all blockchain-based supply chain initiatives will suffer from blochain fatigue by 2023. In addition, a November 2017 - February 2018 Gartner survey of user wants and needs shows only 19% of the 303 global respondents rank blockchain as "very important" for their business. Furthermore, only 19% have invested in the technology. This is due to supply chain blockhain projects are very limited, and do not match initial enthusiasm for the technology in supply chain management.

Fujitsu looks to the future as it announces the completion of a "Post-K" supercomputer-- an exascale machine designed in collaboration with the Japanese Riken research institution, to be launched sometime in 2021.

The K supercomputer is a massive machine housed in the Riken Advanced Institute for Computational Science (R-CCS) campus in Kobe, Japan. It was built by Fujitsu in 2011, and features over 80000 nodes using Sparc64 VIIIfx processors, a derivative of the Sun Microsystems Sparc processor developed prior to the 2010 acquisition of Sun by Oracle.

According to IDC, the EMEA traditional PC (desktops, notebooks and workstations) market is down by -2.7% Y-o-Y in Q1 2019-- a "softer" decline bringing shipments of 17. million units.

Helping improve the situation in the market is the commercial segment, since shipment growth clocks at a healthy 6% Y-o-Y with both notebooks and desktops "doing well." The same cannot be said for consumer shipments falling by 12.6% Y-o-Y as both segments see double-digit declines. In some regions, such as W. Europe, commercial growth is strong enough (10.7% Y-o-Y) to offset consumer segment  (-8.9%) to bring about overall growth (2.8%).

"An exceptional commercial performance kept the W. PC market afloat," IDC remarks. "Despite component shortages and troublesome macroeconomic conditions in some of the major economies, Windows 10 refreshes, ongoing mobility adoption, and the fulfillment of backlogs drummed up a strong commercial appetite that vendors were ultimately able to satiate."