Irish startup Cubic Telecom mobile service is unique in providing low cost international mobile roaming for voice and data.
“Competitors in this space are United Mobile and Sim4Travel. But none of them have one SIM card with voice and data. Nobody has that at the moment. We’re unique,” said Cubic Telecom CEO Pat Phelan that we met yesterday at Qik’s offices in Redwood City.
Cubic Telecom, in partnership with the live mobile video streaming startup, just launched its first mobile global roaming SIM card – the Qik Roam – for the U.S. market.
“We enable companies to launch their own branded SIM cards,” explains Phelan.
But the 14-person Irish startup looks to rapidly increase its channel footprint in North America and seeks to partner with airlines, large travel sites, telecom startups, etc.
“We probably will do 50 partnerships this year… If someone has a large amount of travelers, we’re going to that market… It’s not an expensive programme [for startups] to get involved in, so if someone was in the travel space and a startup, we absolutely need to talk to them,” adds the telecom executive and an avid blogger.
Wall Street shrugged off Intel’s first-quarter results because of its lackluster forecast for revenue and margins to be flat in the second quarter.
Server chip sales have held up well, says Intel
But Intel offered some good news Tuesday that investors and the industry shouldn’t ignore. It said it sees an end to the slide in the personal computer market – with factory volume perhaps returning to normal by the end of the year.
“We are seeing signs that a bottom in the PC market has been reach,” said CEO Paul Otellini on a conference call. “I believe the worst is behind us” in terms of rising inventories.
Otellini’s upbeat outlook is not a stretch given the present state of the economy. In recent weeks, early signs of stability have been reported in industries as varied as retailing, automotive manufacturing, even home building.
Otellini said that while business purchases remain weak, consumer buying as rebounded and the strength of demand increases as the first quarter progressed.
By the end of the quarter, Intel’s factories were humming at faster than anticipated pace, and by the end of the year, typical seasonal patterns may return to the market, he said, referring to the back-to-school and holiday buying periods.
In fact, the company worries it may not have enough manufacturing capacity come December. What a change a couple months make.
Skype’s revenue is up. Its registered users top 400 million. Now eBay is eager to find out if investors will be willing to dial in.
The online auction house said Tuesday it would spin off Skype into an initial public offering expected in the first half of 2010.
Skype's new iPhone app has been popular
“But it’s clear that Skype has limited synergies with eBay and PayPal,” said eBay CEO John Donahoe in a press release. “We believe operating Skype as a stand-alone publicly traded company is the best path for maximizing its potential.”
Recently Skype’s founders have expressed interest in returning to the company. While eBay did not address future management, it did say current management, led by Josh Silverman, has made progress with the business.
Skype generated 2008 revenue of $51 million, up 44 percent. And registered users total 405 million at the end of last year, an increase of 47 percent.
Skype projects revenue to exceed $1 billion in 2011 – more strong growth.
If the IPO market shows any sign of life by next year, the company will be a hot prospect.
Anyone wanting to use their cell phone abroad should buy the Qik Roam SIM card to avoid the astronomic roaming charges
“Go mobile, not broke,” is the tagline of Qik’s new pre-paid SIM cards.
Unveiled today, the Qik Roam lets U.S. travelers make calls, send text messages and emails, browse the Web and stream live video from their mobile devices – in 203 countries for voice and 140 countries for data – and for just a fraction of the cost of international roaming.
Because Qik’s Roam is pre-paid, you won’t have a surprise when seeing your mobile phone bill after returning from your trip abroad. The service also allows to buy local phone numbers for countries you are traveling to and manage your account online.
“We launched the Qik Roam after our users said that it was prohibitive for them to shoot videos with their mobile phone when they were traveling abroad because of the high cost of international data roaming,” explains Bhaskar Roy, a Qik co-founder.
To make this possible – because Qik is not a telecom operator – the live mobile streaming video service partnered with Irish mobile virtual network enabler (or MVNE) Cubic Telecom which provides global low cost mobile cellular global roaming.
The Redwood City, Calif.-startup is the only distributor of Cubic Telecom’s service in the U.S. and the pre-paid SIM card can be bought here.
In a conversation with Bhaskar Roy, after the Qik Roam launch event – which was attended by no less than Ireland’s deputy Prime Minister Mary Coughlan ! – Qik’s co-founder admitted that despite hundreds of thousands of users, his company is still looking for a business model.
“Will be experimenting with business models sometimes this year,” said Roy.
Qik claims its video stream service supports close to 120 devices, including the “jailbroken” iPhone and is now integrated with numerous social networks including Facebook and Twitter.
Roy also confirmed that Qik will be on Google’s Android as soon as it supports video.
DigiTimes is reporting that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and two of its subsidiaries have been picked been picked for roles in making Apple’s next generation iPhone.
The scheduled launched of the new product? Mid 2009, the Taiwanese publication says.
TSMC will manufacture a power amplifer, a Bluetooth chip and an image senor. It’s Xintec subsidiary will take on packaging and testing chores, and VisEra will manufacture color filters.
The companies did not comment.
Here is a list of companies making parts for the phone: Samsung, Toshiba, Numonyx, Silicon Storage, TriQuint, Skyworks, Infineon, NXP and OmniVision.
Advertisers throttled back their search-ad spending during the first quarter. But March placements rose 6 percent, suggesting the market has stabilized for now.
The surprising data suggest that search continues to be a priority for companies as they look for ways to attract consumers.
The downturn altered the market’s dynamics in two ways. First, spending fell 13 percent from a year ago as advertisers recoiled from the difficult economic conditions, said Efficient Frontier. It was 3 percent lower than the fourth quarter.
But the lowered spending had a separate effect: it allowed marketers to raise their return on investment by a substantial 10 percent from the fourth quarter. Their advertising programs became more efficient as they honed programs to only the most necessary campaigns.
Efficient Frontier, a search-engine marketing firm, says this improved return on placements led advertisers to increase spending 6 percent in March.
During the first quarter, market share shifted little among the top search vendors. Google search’s share of spending fell 0.9 percent while Yahoo’s search gained 1 percent.
Google made up the ground it lost as its content network gaining 1 percent of market share.
Trend Micro wants enterprises to rethink their endpoint security strategy by giving away the latest version of OfficeScan
With Trend Micro‘s OfficeScan 10, constantly updating your antivirus software for the latest malware infection is now a thing of the past.
File reputation is the main innovation of this latest incarnation of the Cupertino, Calif.-company’s enterprise antivirus solution released today.
OfficeScan 10 takes the burden of updating the malware list and analyzing each file on the PC, off from the local machine and on to its security cloud, the Smart Protection Network (SPN).
Enterprises also have the option to run a “private” cloud (using the publisher’s SmartScan Server) to which PCs will connect to, instead of Trend Micro’s SPN.
The new cloud-centric technology reduces by 20 percent the antivirus software footprint on each PC, compared to previous versions, while offering 20 percent better protection overall.
“For 20-years, the pattern file (the database of all the bad files in the world) has always existed on the endpoint… In 2008, Trend Labs, our malware research arm, saw 800 new unique malware threats every single hour. In 2009, we expected that to grow to 1,500, and by 2010, there will be 25,000 threats per hour! And it’s a nightmare for IT administrators who have to check that each PCs are updated with the latest pattern file, ” explains Ron Clarkson, Trend Micro’s director of Endpoint Security.
No more downloads of antivirus updates
With OfficeScan 10, there are no updates being downloaded on users’ PCs; which now query the malware database residing on the enterprise’s private cloud or on SPN. A solution that should greatly simplify the work of the IT staff, thus reducing the overall cost of management.
“Traditional security approaches make it very hard for IT administrators to predict ressources utilization at an endpoint over a period of time… 800 new malware every hour, eventually is going to take a toll on the ressources on the endpoint. But with our new technology, these ressources used by the antivirus software still grow but by only 1 or 2 percent a year,” said Clarkson.
Because all the PC’s security (email, Web, file) is now done in the cloud, latency could be the major inhibitor of Trend Micro’s antivirus solution. “We think we solved this issue by providing a hybrid solution with both a private cloud, behind the enterprise’s firewall, and our SPN public cloud managed by us,” adds Clarkson.
To entice companies to move to its newest architecture, Trend Micro is giving away the standard version of OfficeScan 10 to all its current customers. An advanced version is also available for $30 per endpoint (PC, laptop, smartphone).
Here’s a video excerpt of our conversation with Clarkson about the OfficeScan 10 release and why a cloud offering makes sense:
An interesting story in the EE Times highlights the difficulties ARM is experiencing as it tries to bring the full Internet to ARM-based netbooks.
ARM chips are in numerous Internet devices, but the latet version of Flash is not
ARM is battling Intel on this crucial front of the computer and mobile-device wars. Intel hopes to push into ARM’s traditional market with its low-power, low-cost Atom chip – and so far has had noted success with low-cost laptop-like netbooks.
Intel claims its greatest advantage is that its x86-based computer chips work well with Net technologies, such as Adobe’s Flash.
ARM responded last fall by ageing to work with Adobe to bring the lastest version of Flash to ARM-based mobile devices.
But EE Times says it continues to struggle with poor video support for its devices and with software fragmentation. Half a dozen or so variants of Linux run on ARM devices and there are no standards for how they interact with Web-based applications.
People are working hard to bring Flash to ARM, which would improve video support, says the EE Times.
Signs are dribbling in of an improving market place for computers and consumer electronics, even if demand for cellular handsets remains an unknown.
Broadpoint AmTech Analyst Doug Freedman more upbeat about back-to-school and holiday seasons
Doug Feedman of Broadpoint AmTech said on Monday he remains “positive” about computer and consumer electronics sales as he looks toward back-to-school and year-end holiday seasons this year.
Communications may not be seeing the same momentum, but cell phone manufacturing in March and the second quarter could be better than expected, he said.
Freedman is not the first analyst to point to greater market stability. Pundits have been saying for weeks that manufacturers began replacing depleted inventories in March, lifting orders for component suppliers.
But his commentary is an early suggestion that the second half of the year might be better than feared. He made his projection as he previewed Linear Technology’s earnings expected on Tuesday, and it comes on the same day Seagate said its quarterly business was better than anticipated.
Some venture capitalists describe the present fundraising environment as the worst in memory.
Here are the statistics to back up their claims. The quarter saw only 40 funds raise money from limited partners, the lowest number since the third quarter of 2003.
Source: Thomson Reuters, National Venture Capital Association
In total, just $4.3 billion was gathered, according to Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association. This was up from $3.5 billion in the fourth quarter (not surprising), but down 51 percent from $7.1 billion a year ago.
Only three new funds were formed, compared with 21 in the first quarter of 2007.
The devastation could have a long lasting impact on the industry, since funds last 10 years and provide the fuel for entrepreneurial companies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere around the world.
The NVCA tried to put the best face on the numbers. Two distinct dynamics are taking place, says Mark Heesen, NVCA president:
“First, the majority of venture firms are not actively fundraising at this time because they have either recently raised a fund and are investing those dollars or are waiting until market conditions improve. Second, despite the recession, venture firms with solid track records continue to be able to secure sizable commitments from limited partners.”
The top two funds were raised by August Capital Management ($650 million) and Bain Capital Ventures ($475 million).
Can anyone @IBM fix the WiFi network at #IOD11 ? It's been terrible for the past 2 days and everybody I talked just can't stand it anymore 3 months ago
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