Never Seen So Much Uncertainty Before, VMware Says

January 26, 2009

VMware said Monday that it sees no signs of an end to the freefall in information-technology spending.

First quarter will be quarter of indecision, says Paul Maritz

First quarter will be quarter of indecision, says Paul Maritz

The Palo Alto company is among the hottest firms in the software business with its industry leading virtualization products. But it is proving far from immune to the global economic downturn.

“All the indications we have is that the first quarter is going to be a quarter of indecision” as far as corporate budgets and IT spending go, said CEO Paul Maritz. “We’ve never seen this level of uncertainty before.”

VMware posted fourth quarter revenue of $515 million, up 25 percent and ahead of Wall Street expectations, and net income that grew 42 percent to $111 million. But its stock fell when it estimated first quarter sales would come it at $475 million with a 10 percent decline in license revenue.

“We don’t believe 2009 budgets have been finalized by our customers,” said CFO Mark Peek on a conference call.

The sputtering technology market is likely to continue into 2009 with spending more likely to take place in the second half of the year, he said.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Tech Policy Under Obama: Broadband, Net Neutrality, Diverse Ownership

January 26, 2009

The new administration’s Web site went up over the weekend and here is what America’s new, tech-savvy president has to say about technology:

Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age

Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age

*Protect the Openness of the Internet: Support the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.

*Encourage Diversity in Media Ownership: Encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media (and) promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints.

*Deploy Next-Generation Broadband: Work towards true broadband in every community in America through a combination of reform of the Universal Service Fund, better use of the nation’s wireless spectrum, promotion of next-generation facilities, technologies and applications, and new tax and loan incentives. America should lead the world in broadband penetration and Internet access.

*Invest in the Sciences: Double federal funding for basic research over ten years, changing the posture of our federal government to one that embraces science and technology.

“Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age.” Barack Obama, February 2007

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Netbook Sales Expected To Take Off

January 26, 2009

Netbooks proved the 2008 phenomenon in an otherwise unexciting computer market – the only bright spot when sales tanked toward the end of the year.

Sahipments of these inexpensive, lightweight and more energy-efficient laptops designed for wireless Web communications came to about 11 million for last year.

Sales estimated to triple this year

Sales estimated to triple this year

They appear ready to take off in 2009, perhaps finally cannibalizing sales of traditional notebooks, as some in the industry have feared but so far denied.

ABI Research estimates shipments of netbooks could come to nearly 35 million in 2009 and rise to 139 million by 2013.

“The advent of low-cost, power stingy x86 (processors, such as Intel’s Atom) and ARM processors were the technical keys,” says ABI.

“In recent years, the industry still expected smartphones to be more than they turned out to be, and most recently, MIDs (mobile Internet devices) were thought to be the next big mobile devices segment,” says Practice Director Kevin Burden.

What the techies overlooked was the compelling nature of price.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Just Over Half Of HD-Ready Households Get High Definition Television

January 26, 2009

So you’ve gone out and bought that big-screen TV – the sleek, black, 42-inch model ready to accept high-definition television signals.

Only 56% of US households with HDTVs get HD signals

Only 56% of US households with HDTVs get HD signals

Yet if you are like nearly one in two American households you don’t yet get the HD signal, with its crystal clear display and brighter colors.

According In-Stat, there are 39 million households in the U.S. with an HDTV set, but only 56 percent, or 22 million, of them view HD signals.

The reasons probably vary from the high cost of cable subscriptions to the regional lack of HD programming and the lack of awareness on where to find HD programming.

In-Stat found that globally there are 36 million households receiving HD signals. In Europe, it will be 2011 before 10 million households tune into HD signals.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Synaptics Bucks Down Trends To Post Solid Quarter In Desperate Tech Landscape

January 26, 2009

Even as technology bellwethers Microsoft, Intel and Samsung struggle, some technology firms continue to prosper.

Synaptics supplies technology for the Voodoo Envy laptop

Synaptics supplies technology for the Voodoo Envy laptop

One of them is Synaptics, the Santa Clara maker of touch-screen technology and sensors used in products such as the HTC G1 cell phone running the Android software from Google and the thin Voodoo Envy notebook.

Synaptics said last week that revenue for its second quarter ended in December rose 43 percent to $141.5 million and net income rose 49 percent to $21.2 million.

The results, including the highest revenue in company history, came as other technology companies talked of falling sales, slowing demand and layoffs.

Business in the mobile handset market, where touch-screens are hot as manufacturers imitate Apple’s iPhone, more than offset a relatively small decline in PC-based sales resulting from a weak notebook market, said CEO Francis Lee in a printed statement.

But even Synaptics is not fully immune to the economic slowdown. The company estimated revenue would rise a slower 12 percent to 24 percent.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Spam Is Coming Back, More Effective, Google says

January 26, 2009
Spam will reach November 2008 levels in 4 to 6 weeks

Spam will reach November 2008 levels in 4 to 6 weeks

In November 2008, email spam dropped a massive 70% when the rogue ISP McColo – which was hosting botnets – was taken down.

However, according to a blog post from Google’s Message Security business unit – formerly known as the Postini anti-spam service – spam levels are now up by 156% since then and the total spam volume will be back to pre-McColo levels within 4-6 weeks.

Google statistics showed that the average unprotected user would have received 45,000 spam messages in 2008 (up from 36,000 in 2007).

The Postini Message Security network processes and culls spam from more than 2 billion enterprise email connections per day and claims to block 99% of spam received.

“Spammers are upgrading their own infrastructure replacing the former command and control technology with P2P encrypted botnets,” explains Adam Swidler, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Google Message Security.

Since acquiring Postini in September of 2007 for $625 million, Google has used the anti-spam and anti-virus service to protect Gmail users, as well as more than 40,000 businesses, or about 15 million employees.

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Posted by TechPulse 360

Venture Capital Investing Plummets In The Fourth Quarter

January 24, 2009

Venture capital investing collapsed in the fourth quarter with spending on startups falling 45 percent from a year ago.

According to a report released Saturday morning, only 818 deals were done during the volatile three months and $5.4 billion invested, the lowest amount since the first quarter of 2005.

For all of 2008, VC’s placed $28.3 billion, 8 percent less than 2007 and the annual decline since 2003, said the report from the National Venture Capital Association, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Thomson Reuters.

The findings parallel a similar study released a week ago by Dow Jones VentureSource.

The reports suggest that as the financial crisis gripped Wall Street and corporate product demand began to unravel, VCs sharply slowed their activity in face of market uncertainty.

There are few signs of a dramatic reversal ahead.

The fourth-quarter dip hit most industries, from life sciences to software to Internet companies. In software, VCs funded the fewest number of companies since 1997. Internet investing fell 26 percent,

Even investments in clean-tech startups dropped 14 percent to $909 million. Sixty-two deals were funded.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Sony And Samsung Feel The Sting Of The Worldwide Downturn

January 23, 2009

Sony and Samsung added to the uncertainty over technology product demand by reporting losses for the final quarter of 2008 amid slowing economic conditions.

Falling prices lead to red ink at Samsung

Falling prices lead to red ink at Samsung

Samsung Electronics on Friday posted its first quarterly loss since it began reporting quarterly finances in 2000. The company added that 2009 would be a difficult year.

Sony said late Thursday it had experienced its first annual loss in 14 years and that it would accelerate cost cutting

Both companies have dealt with falling consumer demand and soft prices for products such as LCDs and chips.

Samsung is the world’s largest manufacturer of flat-panel TVs, liquid crystal displays and memory chips. While its loss was relatively modest – about $14.4 million – the company said it had not escaped the global economic downturn.

In contrast of its other businesses, Samsung said mobile phones turned in a good quarter, rising to a record despite a 5 percent drop in the handset market. Nevertheless, trouble is ahead. The handset market in developed countries will decline by at least 10 percent in 2009 to 2004 levels, the company said.

Samsung has announced a major restructuring.

Sony, which makes Bravia LCD televisions and the PlayStation 3 game machine, said weak demand, the stronger yen and restructuring costs contributed to its loss.

The company will respond with a restructuring, doubling its cost-cutting target for the year.

Also reporting a loss on Thursday was South Korea’s LG Electronics.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Intel Chairman And Former CEO Barrett To Retire

January 23, 2009

Craig Barrett will retire from Intel’s board in May, ceding his position as chairman to longtime director Jane Shaw.

Craig Barrett led Intel through the dot-com downturn

Craig Barrett led Intel through the dot-com downturn

Barrett, 69, rose through the manufacturing ranks at the world’s largest chip maker to become CEO in 1998. From the top office, he directed the company through the devastating dot-com downturn, employing the same invest-in-manufacturing strategy current CEO Paul Otellini is using today.

During a 35-year career at Intel, Barrett worked alongside Andy Grove and co-founder Bob Noyce, bringing to the company the expertise he developed as an associate professor in the material sciences and engineering department at Stanford University.

Since he left the CEO role in 2005, he has been focused on policy and strategic issues.

He helped institute a practice at Intel called “copy exactly,” where proven manufacturing procedures are replicated factory to factory to assure consistent plant performance.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Memory Chip Maker Qimonda Files For Bankruptcy

January 23, 2009

A victim of the worldwide recession and the falling price of memory chips, German semiconductor maker Qimonda filed for bankruptcy on Friday.

Questions raised about continued production at Qimonda

Questions raised about continued production at Qimonda

The company had been in bailout talks with Infineon, which has a 77.5 percent ownership stake, the German state of Saxony and a Portuguese bank. The plan would have given it cash through the end of the year.

Qimonda blamed falling chip prices for scuttled the deal. The price of DRAM memory chips used in computers fell more than 70 percent last year.

According to Dow Jones, suppliers have already begun to halt shipments of supplies and materials to the ailing firm, a sign it might not continue to operate. With the memory chip business still plagued by overcapacity, the closing of the Qimonda factories would be welcome by other chip makers.

Infineon spun off Qimonda in 2006.

1 Comment | chips, government, news | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet

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