There's a lot of attention being paid to tablets cannibalizing PCs. As we've said in the past, we think PC cannibalization from tablets is overstated. But the cannibalization phenomenon is real: We wrote in a June report (The Products That Lose When Tablets Win) that we expect tablet cannibalization to accelerate in the next six to 12 months as slightly less affluent consumers buy tablets and have to make tough tradeoffs. Several predictions we made in the report are already coming true. We made the call that:

"Portable game player sales will go off a cliff. Portable game players (PGPs) like the Nintendo DS already have huge penetration, so there's a natural saturation point that PGPs are reaching anyway. That saturation combined with cannibalization from tablets and smartphones, which fulfill the same casual, on-the-go gaming scenarios but also multitask with email and other applications, spells trouble for PGPs. The Nintendo 3DS is already reporting weaker-than-expected sales, and we expect this trend to continue."

Much to Nintendo's chagrin, this prediction is proving accurate, as Nintendo reported that its 3DS sales plummeted to 710,000 units this past quarter from 3.6 million units the quarter before.

In the June report, we also wrote that game console sales would not be negatively affected by tablets and could actually see a boost from increased interest in gaming as mainstream consumers find joy in games like Words With Friends and Angry Birds. 

We just published Forrester’s 2011-2016 US online leisure and unmanaged business travel forecast report (if your firm is a Forrester ForecastView subscriber, you may download the complete detailed forecast here). The forecast covers spending for airline tickets, hotel/motel accommodations, rental cars, cruises, and tours, with year-by-year amounts for each in the report. The forecast doesn’t include travel spending on mobile sites or apps, nor does it include ancillary product sales (such as airline checked baggage fees or hotel Wi-Fi) and destination activities and services, like sightseeing tours.

We believe several macro factors will affect the travel industry, and thus the revenue figures in our forecast, during the next five years. These include the state of the US economy and consumer confidence, a permanently high-priced energy environment (critical to the airline and cruise sectors), industry consolidation and the resultant restraint on industry capacity growth, and pricing, which we expect to remain relatively high thanks to capacity discipline (especially in the airline, hotel, and rental car sectors) and of course those high energy costs. We developed the forecast far before the current US debt ceiling crisis had become, well, a crisis. In preparing the forecast, we anticipated that though the US economy may be uneven, it would continue to recover, albeit at an uneven pace through 2012 (we anticipated that the US economy would be more stable from 2013 onwards).

A few highlights from the forecast:

Last week a lone blogger broke the news that not one but three fake Apple stores had sprung up in the city of Kunming in China, though it appears the problem is fast becoming a worldwide one for Apple to deal with.

It’s no secret that counterfeit goods are commonplace in China, and there are moves afoot to attempt to tackle this issue, at least online. However, this is a very different beast. There has been an explosion of commentary in the press about these fake stores, mostly focusing on the fact that they exist, and mostly failing to draw any comment for Apple.

Action has been taken. According to China Daily, “A local authority had previously said that two of the stores were suspended for not having business licenses. But the local industrial and commercial bureau confirmed to the Shanghai Morning Post on Tuesday that one of them had in fact obtained a license on June 22 and thus could stay open.”

The general tone of the various reports is that the stores are selling genuine Apple products bought wholesale through genuine channels, and that the only reason they would be closed down is because they didn’t follow local laws to obtain a retail license. Not because of any IPR infringement. This will be an interesting story to watch play out -- because if that turns out to be true, it sets a gloomy precedent for other retailers who may be suffering the same challenge.

With the increasing richness and complexity that digital channels and social media bring to the marketing equation, senior marketers increasingly realize that, to be relevant in shaping their brands’ interaction with customers, their teams need to embrace new technologies with the help of the IT group.

In my latest joint research effort with my fellow analyst Nigel Fenwick from Forrester’s CIO role, I explore how marketing and IT can successfully work together in enabling organizations to master the customer data flow.

Our early findings were not very promising . . . What clearly emerged from our interviews with CMOs and CIOs was how deeply ingrained the stereotypes about the two teams are. We heard that:

• IT is the department of “no” and does not care about customers or what’s happening in the market.
• Marketing is having all of the fun and spending money without rhyme or reason.