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RIM’s PlayBook Tablet Pulled
October 16, 2012 by admin
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Models of Research in Motion’s PlayBook tablet have been yanked from online stores of some top retailers in the U.S. and Canada, a move one analyst said could mean that the company is gearing up for a successor tablet.
The PlayBook tablet is no longer listed on the online stores of consumer electronics retailers including Wal-Mart, Best Buy, RadioShack and Staples. The products are listed as being out of stock in Office Depot’s online store.
In the BlackBerry maker’s home country of Canada, only the 32GB model is available on the websites of retailers Futureshop and Best Buy Canada, at a discounted rate of C$149.99 ($153). The 16GB and 64GB PlayBook models are out of stock.
However, the tablets remain available on RIM’s own online store.
RIM did not respond to requests for comment.
The first PlayBook shipped in April 19, starting at $500 for a 16GB model, but has sold poorly since. PlayBook sales dropped to about 130,000 in RIM’s most recent fiscal quarter, which ended on Sept. 1.
Oracle Agrees To Support Itanium
Oracle has committed to supporting the Intel Itanium processor on servers, ending what has been a long running feud with HP.
Oracle’s announcement is well timed because it was just a few weeks ago that a court ordered it to do just that. It did say however, that it will appeal the court’s judgment.
This should put an end to what has been a rather grubby row between Oracle and HP that centered around whether or not the two firms have an agreement about developing software for the IA-64 architecture.
The row, which was not helped by former HP CEO Mark Hurd’s abrupt firing from HP and hiring at Oracle, pulled in Intel and saw Oracle force HP into admitting that it had a secretive deal with Intel for development.
Upon hearing the court’s decision in August, Oracle couldn’t resist taking another dig at HP and its insistence that Oracle continue supporting a processor that as far as it was concerned could die.
“We know that Oracle did not give up its fundamental right to make platform engineering decisions in the 27 words HP cites from the settlement of an unrelated employment agreement. HP’s argument turns the concept of Silicon Valley ‘partnerships’ upside down,” said Oracle spokeswoman Deborah Hellinger then. “We plan to appeal the Court’s ruling while fully litigating our cross claims that HP misled both its partners and customers.”
It looks like Oracle has no choice however, and in a statement it said that it will abide by the decision of the court.
“Previously, Oracle announced that it would stop developing new versions of its software on Itanium microprocessors. For example, that meant version 12c of the Oracle database due out in early 2013 would not be available on Itanium,” it said.
Will Facebook Go Lower?
September 6, 2012 by admin
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Facebook is still overvalued and analysts are starting to agree with us that the company could fall to about $13 a share.
SmartMoney’s Jack Hough is being quoted by Forbes as saying that Facebook should be worth about half what is now – about $29.52 billion, or just a tad over $13 per share. Hough compares Facebook to Google which trades at 3.6 times its projected revenues for 2014. Analysts expect Facebook to have $8.2 billion in sales that year which means you just multiply this figure by about three.
All makes sense and is a similar view to what I said when Facebook issued its daft IPO and people lost their shirts and underpants on the deal. Part of the problem is still that Facebook has not worked out a good way to make money from advertising and it has not got an effective mobile strategy.
HP Wants The Court To Bully Oracle
HP has asked California Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg to order Oracle to continue developing software for its Itanium servers.
HP and Oracle have been locked in a bitter legal dispute over Oracle’s decision to stop supporting Intel’s IA-64 architecture used in Itanium processors. Now HP has asked Judge Kleinberg to order Oracle to continue developing software for its Itanium servers until it stops selling them or the contract term expires.
Oracle claims its decision to stop developing for Intel’s IA-64 architecture was spurred on by Intel having made it clear that it intended to focus on its x86 Xeon processors. Intel has said that its Xeon processors are being edged into the market presently occupied by its Itanic chips.
HP disputed Oracle’s claims of Itanium reaching the end of its life and it emerged that HP had a contract with Intel to support the chip. However, and perhaps most damaging for HP, was a release of emails between Intel and HP that seemed to suggest that Intel had enough of Itanium and that HP was having to all but strong-arm Intel into continuing to produce Itanium processors.
Intel’s Itanium Processor Available Until 2022
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HP will have access to Intel’s Itanium processor until 2022, according to Intel’s Kirk Skaugen.
Skaugen, who used to be VP of Intel’s Datacentre and Connected Systems Group, testified under oath during the HP versus Oracle lawsuit that HP and Intel had an arrangement that “enabled HP to have access to the Itanium microprocessor through 2022, and that HP could extend even longer”. Skaugen’s testimony was submitted as part of court documents filed on 23 April and gives some indication of how long both HP and Intel were expecting to push Itanium.
Oracle, which has been involved in an increasingly bitter spat with HP over Itanium and the hiring of its current co-president and former HP CEO Mark Hurd, claims Intel’s Itanium was on its way out, alleging that HP mislead it and customers, leading to its decision to drop support for the IA64 architecture.
However, according to HP, “Oracle resorts to mischaracterising HP’s statements, taking them out of appropriate context, or misstating the relevant timeline.”
HP claims Skaugen’s comments show that when HP said Itanium had a long future it wasn’t lying. “By any measure, all of HP’s statements regarding the length of its roadmap and the future of the Itanium microprocessor were true,” HP said in documents filed with the court.
Skaugen’s comments are something of a surprise, not because they show an agreement between HP and Intel – HP already admitted that one existed – but the length of Intel’s commitment to HP on Itanium and the fact that HP could extend it.
HP’s language suggests that it, as the customer, had the upper hand in the contract with Intel, with the firm saying, “Intel was committed by contract to continue producing Itanium microprocessors”. Skaugen’s testimony in court supports HP’s claim.
SanDisk Hurt By Weak Demand, Supply Glut
April 10, 2012 by admin
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Flash-memory maker SanDisk Corp warned that tepid demand from mobile phone manufacturers and a glut in supply that has led to lower prices are putting a dent its revenue margins.
The maker of NAND chips — used as storage memory in smartphones and tablets — has recently seen demand taper with some of its key customers scaling back orders.
Smartphones and tablets have caused a boom in NAND production, but SanDisk’s customers have not all done equally well from the explosion in mobile gadgets.
“Anybody who is not a Samsung or an Apple is burning through some (mobile) handset inventory,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Doug Freedman said.
“Until we get the PC market, tablet market and handset market back buying, we’ll see an oversupply situation.”
SanDisk’s weak outlook mirrors warnings from rival flash-memory makers, who have also blamed weak prices and demand for their disappointing results.
Late last month, Micron Technology said it was facing persistently low prices for memory chips and posted a wider loss. Toshiba Corp, Japan’s biggest chip maker, also posted a drop in quarterly sales at its electronics devices business, which includes semiconductors, hit by lower prices for memory chips.
SanDisk in January expressed concerns about weaker demand weighing on sales in the first half of this year and forecast lower-than-expected revenue for the first quarter.
The Milpitas, California-based company, which is set to report results later this month, said its gross margins for the January-March quarter will come in below its prior expectations of 39-42 percent, hurt by lower prices for its chips.
Did HP Really Need Intel?
Back in the day HP said it chose Intel to co-develop Itanium due to its process technology, as it didn’t have the cash to fund next generation fabs.
Intel has often been the butt of Itanium jokes, but HP invested as much, if not more into the enterprise. Kirk Bresniker, CTO of HP’s Business Critical Systems told The INQUIRER that HP needed Intel’s manufacturing capability. Bresniker said HP’s decision to partner with Intel was due to the firm realising it couldn’t afford the VLSI manufacturing process iteration needed for developing competitive chips.
Bresniker said, “It is really an extension of the CISC processor that led us to partner with Intel on the Itanium. We knew we weren’t going to be able to maintain the investment levels neccessary to continue to fund deep sub-micron fabs.”
Until HP’s foray with Itanium, the firm was known for its PA-RISC systems, some of which Bresniker designed himself back in the early 1990s. Bresniker said, “We got to the point of microprocessor development and more importantly the economics of fabrication environments and realised we were facing transition to the deep sub-micron [fabrication processes] and potentially writing billions and billions of dollars worth of cheques for fabrication, and part of the impetuous for us to partner with Intel on the Itanium design was that we wanted to have access to the world’s number one microprocessor silicon fabrication.”
While HP continued with PA-RISC chips well into the new millennium, HP’s decision to offload the work of actually producing chips onto Intel could be seen as shrewd move, and one that firms such as AMD did a decade later. The cost of process node iteration is getting ever higher, which is something that Intel itself admits.
Not surprisingly, Bresniker wouldn’t be drawn on the demise of Itanium, though HP did announce Project Odyssey late last year, which effectively mixes and matches the firm’s Itanium kit with Intel Xeon servers. He did admit that the firm had to go towards x86 in the mission-critical market, Bresniker was quick to point out that while Intel is porting more features from the Itanium chip, not everything will be moved over.
Does Yahoo Have a Buyer?
December 8, 2011 by admin
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Blackstone Group and Bain Capital are putting together a bid for all of Yahoo Inc with Asian partners in a deal that could value the Internet company at about $25 billion, a source familiar with the discussions said on Wednesday.
The potential bid by the group, which would include China’s Alibaba Group and Japan’s Softbank Corp, has not yet been finalized, the source and two other people familiar with the matter said.
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, whose primary interest is in buying back a 40 percent stake owned by Yahoo, is keeping its options open and said it has not decided whether to participate in a bid for all of Yahoo.
“Alibaba Group has not made a decision to be part of a whole company bid for Yahoo,” Alibaba Group spokesman, John Spelich, said in an emailed statement on Wednesday.
Yahoo’s shares, which closed at $15.71 on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, gained 6.4 percent to $16.72 in after-hours trading, valuing the company at more than $20 billion.
WebOS Lives
October 13, 2011 by admin
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HP is aiming to keep WebOS alive by putting it on printers.
The firm has discontinued its WebOS devices such as the Touchpad tablet and Pre 3 smartphone but WebOS will appear on new products, according to Pocketlint. The operating system (OS) will come on the Designjet line of HP printers.
An HP spokesperson said, “HP is currently investigating using WebOS on its Designjet range of professional printers.”
It’s likely that the OS will come on consumer printers at some point in the future, too. The following statement also hints that it could appear on products other than printers.
“HP is 100 [per cent] committed to producing print solutions that meet our customer needs and we will continue to drive innovation to ensure our products and solutions meet market demand. We built our printing franchise based on being OS agnostic – we have been and will continue to be agnostic to meet our various customer needs. As webOS plans develop we will continue to evaluate how and if we incorporate it into our future products.”
HP’s PC Division Decision This Month
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HP will decide on the future of its PC business this month, according to a statement from its newly installed CEO.
While it was under the Apotheker captaincy the firm announced rather shocking plans to dump the PC business. Okay, it didn’t explicitly say that, rather it said that it would consider selling it or spinning it off, which apparently meant something else to HP than it did to normal people.
According to Bloomberg, new HP CEO Meg Whitman sprinkled a little more colour into the HP PC business tapestry, and in a conference call said that the firm is almost ready to say what its plans are.
It’s likely that shareholders and the board are still reeling from the suggestion, but the extra time will give HP room to decide on what it wants to do with the still profitable, but boring hardware arm.
While it was under Leo Apotheker’s rule the firm had given itself the deadline of the end of the year for a decision, but presumably sick of people asking her, “what are we going to do with the PC business?”, Whitman has bought the decision forward.