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Can MediaTek Challenge Qualcomm?
A top analyst has said that Qualcomm has nothing to fear from Media Tek’s announcement that it is gunning for the smartphone market.
Qualcomm rules North America and Europe while right now MediaTek is best known for being the leading player in the Chinese market. Now there are signs that MediaTek seems to have reached the maximum market share that they can achieve in China and will be looking to go after Qualcomm in other markets.
But Jefferies analyst Peter Misek views MediaTek’s cunning plan as more of a medium to long-term threat to Qualcomm versus a near-term threat.
He commented, “The high-end smartphone market is saturated and while we believe that pricing and subsidy pressure will become more severe globally, Qualcomm has significant opportunities through integration, iPhone 6, and royalty collections in China.”
Of course it is optimistic to think that the iPhone 6 will do well in China. Many analysts have lost their lunch money betting on Jobs’ Mob doing anything in China.
Cisco Launches I-O-T Security Contest
Cisco has leant its support to the Internet of Things (IoT) with a security competition.
The “Internet of Things Grand Security Challenge” will be offering prizes of up to $300,000 for innovations designed to close security loopholes surrounding internet-connected objects.
Because the IoT is a loose concept rather than a standard or protocol, the criteria for the solutions are quite far reaching, with a Cisco blog post citing that it will evaluate entries based on:
Feasibility, scalability, performance, and ease-of-use
Applicability to address multiple IoT verticals (manufacturing, mass transportation, healthcare, oil and gas, smart grid, etc.)
Technical maturity/viability of proposed approach
Proposers’ expertise and ability to feasibly create a successful outcome
We now live in a world where even the most benign objects are hackable and the numbers of devices involved will only increase, so it therefore will become imperative that the interconnectivity involved does not overstep boundaries of safety or privacy.
Sierra Wireless recently launched Legato, a Linux distro specifically engineered for the IoT, which actually plays up its capacity for gathering Big Data. Meanwhile the IT industry continues to be excited about the IoT with Intel claiming it will be the next major disrupter in tech.
Winners of Cisco’s security challenge will be announced this Autumn at the Internet of Things World Forum, with six prizes of between $50,000-$75,000 up for grabs, as well as the overall winner’s $300,000 bounty.
Does B&N Have A Buyer?
March 6, 2014 by admin
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Investment firm G Asset Management said on Friday that it had offered to acquire a 51 percent stake in either Barnes & Noble Inc or in the bookseller’s Nook digital business.
The little known firm said the proposal for Barnes & Noble as a whole would be for $22 per share, which would value the top U.S. bookstore chain at $1.32 billion. It comes after earlier proposal in November for $20 per share, its second.
G Asset, which not did detail how it would finance a deal, also made an alternative offer to buy Nook for $5 per share, saying spinning off the digital books and device business would create “substantial shareholder value.”
The latest offer for the whole company would value Barnes & Noble at $1.32 billion, while the proposal for Nook would value that unit at about $300 million.
The firm has previously pressed the company to spin off its Nook unit from Barnes & Noble’s bookstore and college units.
Michael Glickstein, G Asset’s Chief Investment Officer, and the only person listed on the firm’s website, did not immediately return a request for comment.
Barnes & Noble shares were up 5.8 percent at $17.75 in afternoon trading after going as high as $19.12 after the news was released, suggesting Wall Street analysts were doubtful a deal would get done.
A Barnes & Noble spokeswoman declined to comment beyond confirming that the company had received G Asset’s offer.
The original Nook device was launched in 2009 to help Barnes & Noble fend off Amazon.com Inc and allowed the retailer to win as much as 27 percent of the U.S. e-books market.
But the company lost hundreds of millions of dollars trying to keep pace with deep-pocketed rivals such as Amazon, Apple Inc and Google Inc. It has scaled back its Nook business and focusing more on content and software.
Two years ago, Microsoft Corp invested $300 million in the Nook unit for a 17.6 percent stake, valuing the division at $1.7 billion. In late 2012, Pearson PLC took a 5 percent stake in Nook for $89.5 million.
Dell Goes A4WP
Dell has become the first major PC OEM to join the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP) group, joining over 80 existing members Broadcom, Gill Electronics, IDT, Intel, Qualcomm and Samsung.
Dell’s membership means it could soon be developing mobile devices that do not require a wired power adapter to charge.
The A4WP aims to standardise wireless power transfer using near-field magnetic resonance technology called “rezence”, which seeks to liberate mobile devices from wired chargers, charging multiple devices simultaneously without the need to dock the devices.
“Power levels and charging speed will meet the expectations of today’s ‘always on, always connected’ user,” the A4WP said. “Users can simply ‘drop and go’ their devices onto a charging surface without the hassle of accurate positioning or alignment.”
Along with the news that Dell will jump on board to unshackle users from the curse of wired chargers, A4WP is also introducing a secondary, higher-powered project focusing on wirelessly charging electronic products from 20 to 50 watts, like ultrabooks, laptops, and mid-powered appliances.
“Dell’s addition to the Alliance signifies the importance of defining a wireless power standard that spans these higher power levels thus expanding the range of electronics beyond smartphones,” the group added.
A4WP said it believes the development of magnetic resonance technology will improve the customer experience when it comes to charging and will bring the capability into more homes and businesses over the next few years.
It also said that its development of wireless charging technology will help benefit both industry and consumers as the specification powers broadly adopted wireless technologies such as Bluetooth Smart, “which simplifies development and manufacturing”.
Samsung Joins OpenPower
Samsung has joined Google, Mellanox, Nvidia and other tech companies as part of IBM’s OpenPower Consortium. The OpenPower Consortium is working toward giving developers access to an expanded and open set of server technologies to improve data centre hardware using chip designs based on the IBM Power architecture.
Last summer, IBM announced the formation of the consortium, following its decision to license the Power architecture. The OpenPower Foundation, the actual entity behind the consortium, opened up the Power architecture technology, including specs, firmware and software under a license. Firmware is offered as open source. Originally, OpenPower was the brand of a range of System p servers from IBM that utilized the Power5 CPU. Samsung’s products currently utilize both x86 and ARM-based processors.
The intention of the consortium is to develop advanced servers, networking, storage and GPU-acceleration technology for new products. The four priority technical areas for development are system software, application software, open server development platform and hardware architecture. Along with its announcement of Samsung’s membership, the organization said that Gordon MacKean, Google’s engineering director of the platforms group, will now become chairman of the group. Nvidia has said it will use its graphics processors on Power-based hardware, and Tyan will be releasing a Power-based server, the first one outside IBM.
Sony Exits PC Business
Sony will unload its struggling PC business to a Japanese investment firm, the company said Thursday, raising the possibility that the “Vaio” brand could all but disappear from markets outside Japan.
Tokyo-based investment fund Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) will operate the Vaio PC brand under a newly established firm and initially sell PCs in Japan only.
In another reform aimed at bolstering its restructuring efforts, Sony also said it would turn its beleaguered TV business into a subsidiary.
The moves come as Sony said it now expects a net loss of $1.1 billion for the year to the end of March, a reversal of its October profit forecast.
Vaio, which Sony introduced in 1996, looks set to vanish from most markets, at least for short term, as the new company will initially concentrate on selling consumer and corporate PCs in Japan. Whether or not Sony will continue to produce products under the Vaio brand remains to be seen, Sony said.
Although Sony is selling its PC business, it will continue to produce tablet computers, part of its renewed focus on mobile devices including smartphones.
Sony did not put a price on the sale. Sony will take a 5% stake in the new firm, it said.
Sony will stop making and selling PCs after its 2014 Spring lineup launch, but about 250 to 300 Sony staff, including some from a subsidiary that produces TV sets, cameras and computers at factories in Japan, will be hired by the new company, which is to be based at the hub of Sony’s current PC business in Japan’s Nagano Prefecture.
Meanwhile, Sony said it will turn its TV business, which has faced a decade of losses, into a wholly owned subsidiary by July 2014.
Google Moves into Conerencing
February 18, 2014 by admin
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Google Inc introduced a videoconferencing system for businesses on Thursday, the Internet search company’s latest attempt to generate revenue from corporate customers.
Google said it was partnering with Asus, Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell to offer a specialized version of its Chromebox PC that comes with videoconferencing gear, including a video camera and speakers.
The first Chromebox for meetings to be available is made by Asus and goes on sale in the U.S. on Thursday for $999, Google said. Customers can also pay a $250 annual service and management fee, though the first year is included in the product’s sales price.
The product uses Google’s free Hangouts video chat technology to connect up to 15 separate video streams from users in different locations.
The product will put Google in competition against Cisco Systems Inc and Polycom Inc, which make the video conferencing systems used by many corporations.
The world’s largest Internet search engine, Google makes the vast majority of its revenue from advertising. But Google also sells services to corporate customers, including special versions of its online apps such as email and word processing, as well as Chromebook laptops aimed at business users.
Disney To Lay Off Workers
February 14, 2014 by admin
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Walt Disney Co is making plans to lay off several hundred people in its interactive unit, the division that includes gaming products and the Disney.com website, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week.
The job eliminations are expected to begin after Disney releases its quarterly earnings today, the Journal said. Playdom, a social gaming business Disney acquired in 2010, is one division expected to see cutbacks, the newspaper said.
Disney is trying to turn around the interactive unit, which has about 3,000 employees. Its new Infinity video game enjoyed strong initial sales after its release last August, helping the division report a $16 million profit for the quarter that ended in September, an improvement from the $76 million loss a year earlier.
A Disney spokeswoman had no comment.
Facebook Goes Ten
February 12, 2014 by admin
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Facebook plans on celebrating its 10th birthday today, an occasion likely to spur an outpouring of reflection on its past and speculation about its future.
Mark Zuckerberg launched “Thefacebook” from his dorm room at Harvard University on Feb. 4, 2004. The site was conceived as a way to connect students, and let them build an online identity for themselves.
It has since expanded to cover a large swath of the planet, with more than 1.2 billion people — one-seventh of the world’s population — using its site on a monthly basis, according to the company’s own recent figures.
Zuckerberg reflected on the 10-year milestone at an industry conference in Silicon Valley this week. Not surprisingly, at the start he never envisioned Facebook becoming so large or influential. After launching the initial version, “it was awesome to have this utility and community at our school,” he said at the Open Compute Project Summit.
He figured at the time that someone, someday would build such a site for the world. “It didn’t even occur to me that it could be us,” he said.
Since then, Facebook’s site and its business, now a public company, have changed dramatically. There are now more than a trillion status updates, text posts and other pieces of content stored within its walls — the company is trying to index them as part of its Graph Search search engine.
The company was slow to react to the important mobile market, and when it went public in 2012 investors were skeptical it would be able to monetize its service on smaller screens. But this week it reported that more than half its ad revenue now comes from mobile devices.
All the while, Facebook is making its ad business smarter, using targeting tools to show ads it deems most relevant.
The company is also experimenting with new ways to present content. Next week it will release Paper, an iPhone app that provides a new way to share photos and published articles.
It’s part of a larger effort Facebook hinted at this week to release a variety of standalone apps for different tasks.
The company is also trying to bring the Internet to more people in the world, an effort that’s part philanthropy and part business sense as Facebook aims to reach its next billion users. Asked this week why he launched the project, called Internet.org, Zuckerberg suggested he feels a weight of responsibility.
“There aren’t that many companies in the world that have the resources and the reach that Facebook has at this point,” he said.
Microsoft Buys Parature
Microsoft Corp said that they it will acquire cloud-based software maker Parature Inc, which assists businesses in managing help desks and provide other customer support services.
Parature’s software helps businesses provide automated customer service, manage online discussion boards and forums, and conduct online surveys.
The company’s customers include Ask.com, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, International Business Machines Corp and Saba Software Inc.
Microsoft did not disclose the terms of the deal.
The acquisition will boost Microsoft’s Dynamics unit, which makes business software and counts Mattress Firm Holding Corp, Pandora Media Inc and Nissan Motor Co as customers.
Cloud computing, a broad term referring to the delivery of services via the Internet from remote data centers, is a favorite with businesses because it is faster to implement and has lower upfront costs than traditional software.
Oracle Corp said in December that it would buy web-based marketing software maker Responsys Inc for about $1.39 billion to bolster its cloud computing offerings.
Salesforce.com Inc, the biggest maker of online sales management tools, said in June that it would pay $2.5 billion for marketing software maker ExactTarget, which helps companies reach customers on social networks through mobile devices.