Future Outlook
The future of peripherals technology
The year that was saw printer resolution and speed doubling. The year that is will see technology move in a different direction, with Bluetooth expected to make a splash on the peripherals scene, predict Prashant L Rao & Akhtar Pasha

Market Analysis
Slow PC growth hampers peripherals market
Peripherals, like planets, have identities of their own, but are forever destined to be dependent on the star. So how did they perform in the year gone by when PCs didn’t do too well? And what does 2003 hold for them? Shipra Arora has some answers

Personal Storage options
Personal Storage options
Time was when all you had to worry about was making sure you had enough floppies, and that your hard disk was big enough for the software you wanted to run. That’s changed, says Prashant L Rao and we now have a multitude of storage options to choose from for our PCs

Ergonomics
Why is ergonomics ignored in India?
Worldwide, ergonomics is becoming increasingly important in the design and use of computer peripherals. In India it is different, with most people unaware even of the need for such devices. Srikanth R P talks to experts and vendors to get their views on the “why” of it

Trends
Will Indian users chant the MFD mantra?
Come to think of it, it’s surprising that the office equivalent of the two-in-one music system took so long to become a reality. But now it’s here, and the multifunctional device has begun climbing the charts. Stanley Glancy & Chitra Padmanabhan report

Printers
Peripherals move to the centre stage
With the advances in printing and imaging technologies, such peripherals are poised to assume a more important role in the IT infrastructure of an organisation, says V Krishnan

Digital Cameras
Digital cameras: The unconventional click
Alok Bharadwaj is of the opinion that most users stay away from digital photography because it seems complex and expensive. He says it is therefore imperative for vendors to get together and educate the user

Monitors
Taking in the bigger picture
The personal computer is no longer looked at as a mere office application tool. And as the Indian PC market matures, the customer is asking for innovations and value additions (read bigger monitors) for his PC. Sonal Anand gives us a clearer picture of the monitor market

Optical disk drives
ODDs: The emerging trends
CD-ROMs, CD-RWs, combo drives and DVD drives have all found a place in the everyday life of the Indian PC user. And trends suggest that ODDs are further penetrating into the PC user segment with steadfast consistency, says R Manikandan

Modems
An innovation called V.92
Dial-up technology still accounts for 70 percent of the market and so modems will remain the primary means to get on the Internet for several years. Rajiv U elaborates on the latest technology in the modem market called V.92