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Marvell’s Future Brightens
Marvell reported a more-than-expected 112 percent rise in profit, helped by strong demand from storage and networking companies, and said it expected its mobile business to pick up in the current quarter.
Marvell forecast first-quarter revenue between $870 and $910 million, which is above what the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street predicted. Chief Executive Sehat Sutardja said that in his company’s first quarter, he was expecting some revenue and unit growth for our 4G LTE mobile platform from multiple customers. Marvell said results were not so hot in the mobile business in the fourth quarter as some customers delayed product launches.
The company, which also makes communications and processor products used in mobile phones, said net income doubled to $106.6 million, or 21 cents per share, in the quarter ended February 1 from $50.2 million, or 9 cents per share, a year earlier.
Revenue rose to $931.7 million, beating analysts’ estimate of $901.1 million.
Marvell’s biggest customer is Western Digital which reported better-than-expected quarterly results in January, citing strength in its gaming and notebook business.
Marvell Loses In Court
A federal judge denied Marvell’s request to declare a mistrial in a patent infringement case in which a jury awarded $1.17 billion in damages to Carnegie Mellon University.
Carnegie Mellon sued Marvell in March 2009 over patents issued in 2001 and 2002 related to how accurately hard disk-drive circuits read data from high-speed magnetic disks. The suit involved nine Marvell circuits which incorporated the patents, and that the infringement let the Bermuda outfit blog billions of chips with its tech on board.
The damages award in December 2012 was one of the largest by a US jury in a patent infringement case. Marvell asked the judge to declare a mistrial and it claimed that Carnegie Mellon’s lawyer made improper, misleading and prejudicial comments during closing arguments that “inflamed” the jury.
US District Judge Nora Barry Fischer in Pittsburgh federal court disagreed and said that Marvell was trying to do what it could not do at trial convince the court to throw out this case and have another crack at it. Marvel has said that it will appeal so this case will run and run.
Marvell Outs New WiFi Chip
Marvell has shed some light on its new Avastar 88W8897 802.11ac low power WiFi chip. In addition to up to 867Mbps of WiFi transfer throughput, the new chip also integrates Bluetooth 4.0, near field communications (NFC) as well as Wi-Fi certified Miracast and integrated location engine. Aimed at notebooks, ultrabooks, tablets, gaming consoles and smart TVs, the new Avastar 88W8897 is expected to show up in various devices around this time next year.
The implementation of 802.11ac standard and Bluetooth 4.0 in the same chip is not something that we have not seen so far, but with NFC, it is certainly becomes a quite interesting chip. As noted, the new Avastar 88W8897 will feature 867Mbps of transfer throughput which is not as fast as we are other chip manufacturers but still faster than 802.11n. Marvell reckons that 802.11ac is still young but should become a big thing as of next year.
Marvell also claims that the Avastar 88W8897 SoC offers the highest level of integration available enabling a rest of bill of materials footprint reduction of 40 to 50 percent and cost reduction of 75 percent when combined to previous wireless solutions. The Wi-Fi certified Miracast, expected to be certified later this year, 802.11ac transfer speeds and Marvell’s dynamic rapid channel switching (DRCS) technology will allow users to stream video from a smaller device like tablet to a larger display while simultaneously surfing the net without losing the connection in 2.4GHz. The last, but not least, is the integrated location engine that enables accurate indoor positioning by implementing 802.11v time of flight protocol inside the hardware.
Will Cisco CEO Get The Boot?
September 20, 2011 by admin
Filed under Network Services
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Cisco has slashed its forecast revenue increase by more than half, while rumours circulate about the possible departure of its long-serving CEO.
Cisco previously expected to increase revenues by 12 to 17 per cent over the next three years, but it has revised this figure downwards to a much smaller five to seven per cent, according to the BBC. It expects profits, however, to be seven to nine per cent for this three year period, which is a healthy profit forecast for a company that has been struggling in the recent economic climate.
Cisco’s original optimistic outlook appears to have been founded on an overall view that the global economy would recover quickly, a view that is swiftly changing as many fear another dip into recession, particularly with the debt crisis in Europe. This negative outlook has likely had a strong impact on Cisco’s forecast, resulting in its far more modest growth expectations.
Cisco has also had some problems of its own to work out over recent months. In July it announed that it would axe as many as 15 per cent of its workforce, or 11,500 people, in addition to selling a Mexican set-top box factory to Foxconn. It also abandoned its Flip video camera business, with the loss of 550 jobs.
In April the company’s CEO, John Chambers publicly acknowledged that Cisco had lost its way, with fiscal third quarter profit down a massive 18 per cent. He called for a refocusing on areas in which the company is highly successful, such as networking, servers and cloud provisioning.
Cisco And HP At Odds Over Catalyst 6500
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It appears that HP is calling Cisco out on its advertisement that it’s new improved Catalyst 6500 switch is better than anything HP has to offer. As many IT professionals already know Cisco finally introduced the long-awaited upgrade to the very popular Catalyst 6500. The new Catalyst it equipped with Cisco’s Supervisor Engine 2T, a 2-terabit card which can manage 80 Gbps and triples the 6500′s throughput from 720 Gbps to 2Tbps and quadruples the number of devices that can connect to the network. These stats are based on literature from Cisco’s point of view. Cisco also states that an upgrade to Supervisor 2T on existing Catalyst switches would cost customers around $38,000. However, Cisco is saying if you went the same upgrade path with a comparable HP switch architecture; it would cost the customer more than $100,000 and would only give the customer 720 Gbps of throughput.
Cisco To Cut Thousands Of Jobs
Word the street is that router giant Cisco is about to cut 14 percent of it’s worldwide workforce which is thought to be around ten thousand people.
The reports are saying that seven thousand people will be given pink slips by the end of August; and the other three thousand unfortunate souls will take an early retirement option.
It seems as though many companies go this route when the executive team does not adjust to the changing technology market; they try to boost profits in the short-term by firing those who have worked so hard for the company. That said, the massive cuts are expected to save Cisco about $1 billion in 2012. A company spokesperson told Bloomberg that additional cost cutting procedures will also be instituted.