Currently HP is talking to Big W about the expansion of the
Hewlett Packard brand into the mass retailer.

ChannelNews has been told that the Woolworths owned Company
is set to range the HP Stream notebook with the mass retailer tipped to place
an initial order for 5,000 units.

Meanwhile Microsoft is keen to get competitors to offer a
Windows based competitor up against the popular Chromebook in Australia,
pricing and specs appears to be an issue.

Several PC brands are also set to launch new PC models in
coming weeks.

According to Strategic Analytics shipments of “slate”
tablets will fall 13 percent this year and rebound by 5 percent in 2016, while
two-in-one tablet growth will jump 360 percent in 2015 before slowing to 48
percent in 2016.

Two-in-one tablets come with detachable keyboards as
standard equipment.

“The timing could not be better for two-in-one tablets as
Windows 10 makes the multi-mode computing experience smoother, Intel’s Skylake
processors hit the market at the end of 2015, and Windows tablets have become
more cost-competitive with Android tablets,” said Peter King, director of
Strategy Analytics’

Tablet & Touchscreen Strategies

  “Windows provides a
familiar environment for traditional PC vendors to compete in the tablet market
and also gives CIOs a higher level of comfort when considering higher-end
tablets in the commercial setting,” added King.

 Senior analyst Eric
Smith pointed out that suppliers have refined two-in-one tablets in the past
year to be affordable and functional. “There is plenty of headroom for the segment
to grow in the next five years as white-box vendors seek to differentiate their
low-cost products,” he said. 

 The growth
rate among two-in-one tablets will far outpace those of traditional slate
tablets, though from a smaller base, as they compete for the spot of the
secondary computing device in the home.” Global sales: Worldwide slate sales
will drop 6 percent in 2015, but two-in-one tablets will grow 393 percent. In
2016, slate shipments will rise 6 percent, and two-in-one shipments will grow
42 percent.