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Is Apple In A Free Fall?
May 26, 2016 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
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Apple shares are continuing to fall as more investors realise that the share price is not going to go up any more.
For a while now people have been buying Apple shares with the expectation that they will always go up. This always was largely based on a fantasy created by the Tame Apple Press that assumed the company would keep coming up with new technology ideas which would always be successful.
However lately Apple has not come up with any new ideas and has taken to re-issuing its old phone designs. It has also been floundering in its key Chinese market. The company’s only new idea has been for content creation through its Apple Music streaming brand. The only problem with that is that the software has been killing off user’s iTune libraries. It has also been banned in China which means that hopes that Apple would make money there are still thwarted.
Shares of Apple dropped below $90 on Thursday for the first time since 2014 as Wall Street worried about slow demand ahead of the anticipated launch of a new iPhone later this year. Some more reasonable analysts even think that the iPhone 7 is going to be a disaster because it lacks any new tech and has the same design as the poor performing iPhone 6S
Component suppliers in Taiwan have confirmed that they have received fewer orders from Apple in the second half of 2016 than in the same period last year.
Rosenblatt Securities analyst Jun Zhang saidt that investors were getting negative data points about component orders and production forecasts, and the features on the new iPhone do not seem to be a big change from the 6S.
Apple briefly relinquished its position as the world’s largest company by market capitalisation to Alphabet – oh the horror.
At the close, Apple and Google each had market values of about $495 billion, according to Thomson Reuters data. In the past year, Apple’s market capitalization has fallen by more than $200 billion. Which just goes to show this whole value thing was an illusion.
Suppliers of iPhone components also fell, with Skyworks Solutions off 4.54 percent, Broadcom down 1.95 percent and Qorvo declining 1.76 percent.
Revenue from China slumped 26 percent during the March quarter. Apple faces increasing competition from Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi and Huawei selling phones priced below $200, Rosenblatt’s Zhang said.
Last week, Dialog Semiconductor, which sells chips used in iPhones and other smartphones, cut its revenue outlook due to ongoing softness in the smartphone market.
The Tame Apple press is trying to do its best to find analysts who recommend buying the stock claiming it is too cheap.However how much should you pay for an outfit which has milked its cash cow and has nothing new on the horizon.
Courtesy-Fud
Triada Trojan Aims For Android Devices
Kaspersky have found another scary trojan to wave under our noses and cause us to consider getting off the internet.
This one is called Triada and it targets Android devices with Windows-style malware swagger. Anyone running Android 4.4.4 and earlier is in trouble, according to Kaspersky, as they face an opponent created by “very professional cyber criminals” that can allow for in-app purchase theft and all the problems that come with privilege escalation.
And guess what? Android users dangle themselves in the way of the Triada threat when they download things from untrusted sources. Does no one listen to anything these days? Does it even matter? Kaspersky said in a blog post that the likely apps can “sometimes” make their way onto the official Android store.
There is something different about this attack. Kaspersky reports on a lot of these things, but Triada exploits Zygote, and that is a first.
“A distinguishing feature of this malware is the use of Zygote, the parent of the application process on an Android device that contains system libraries and frameworks used by every application installed on the device. In other words, it’s a demon whose purpose is to launch Android applications,” Kaspersky explained.
“This is the first time technology like this has been seen in the wild. Prior to this, a trojan using Zygote was known only as a proof-of-concept. The stealth capabilities of this malware are very advanced.
“After getting into the user’s device Triada implements in nearly every working process and continues to exist in the short-term memory. This makes it almost impossible to detect and delete using anti-malware solutions.”
The security firm added that the complexity of Triada’s functionality proves that professional cyber criminals with a deep understanding of the targeted mobile platform are behind the creation of this malware.
Kaspersky reckons that it is nigh on impossible to rid a device of the malware, and suggested that you might as well nuke your phone and start again.
Courtesy-TheInq
Enterprise Needs Driving Cloud Sales Boom
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The cloud continues to gain major ground, driven by enterprise storage needs.
Sales are way up for little-known manufacturers that sell directly to big cloud companies like Google and Facebook, while the market for traditional external storage systems is shrinking, according to research company IDC.
Internet giants and service providers typically don’t use specialized storage platforms in their sprawling data centers. Instead, they buy vast amounts of capacity in the form of generic hardware that’s controlled by software. As users flock to cloud-based services, that’s a growing business.
Revenue for original design manufacturers that sell directly to hyperscale data-center operators grew by 25.8 percent to more than US$1 billion in the second quarter, according to the latest global IDC report on enterprise storage systems. Overall industry revenue rose just 2.1 percent from last year’s second quarter, reaching $8.8 billion.
These so-called ODMs are low-profile vendors, many of them based in Taiwan, that do a lot of their business manufacturing hardware that’s sold under better known brand names. Examples include Quanta Computer and Wistron.
General enterprises aren’t buying many systems from these vendors, but the trends at work in hyperscale deployments are growing across the industry. Increasingly, the platform of choice for storage is a standard x86 server dedicated to storing data, according to IDC analyst Eric Sheppard. Sales of server-based storage rose 10 percent in the quarter to reach $2.1 billion.
Traditional external systems like SANs (storage area networks) are still the biggest part of the enterprise storage business, logging $5.7 billion in revenue for the quarter. But sales in this segment were down 3.9 percent.
Overall demand for storage capacity continued to grow strongly, with 37 percent more capacity shipped in the quarter compared with a year earlier.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/enterprise-storage-needs-driving-cloud-sales-boom.html
Is Acer Open To A Takeover?
Acer Inc founder Stan Shih said he would welcome a takeover of the struggling Taiwanese computer manufacturer after a drastic decline in its stock price, while warning any potential buyer would have to pay a heavy amount.
“Welcome,” Shih told reporters in response to a question about whether Acer would be open to a takeover. He added however that any buyer would get an “empty shell” and would pay dearly.
“U.S. and European management teams usually are concerned about money, their CEOs only work for money. But Taiwanese are more concerned about a sense of mission and emotional factors,” he said.
His remarks were first reported by Taiwanese media on Thursday and were confirmed by a company spokesman.
Acer has reported steep on-year sales falls in recent months, including a 33 percent drop in July.
It suffered a T$2.89 billion ($90 million) loss in the first six months of 2015, versus a slight profit in the same period last year. It booked losses for all of 2011, 2012 and 2013 amid cratering PC sales.
Its stock price has fallen by nearly half since early April.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/acer-warms-to-takeover-possibility.html
HTC To Go High-End
August 18, 2015 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
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Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp said it will eliminate some jobs and discontinue models as part of its strategy to focus on high-end devices to better compete with the likes of AppleInc and Samsung Electronics.
“The cuts will be across the board,” Chief Financial Officer Chialin Chang told reporters after HTC reported a second-quarter loss and forecast another for the third-quarter. “They will be significant.”
Chang said the cost reductions would extend to the first quarter of next year, but declined to give further details.
A pioneer in early smartphones, HTC has been dismissed by industry watchers as confused, unoriginal and uncompetitive.
The company has been losing market share over the past few years, hit by intense competition at the high-end of the market from the likes of Apple and Samsung Electronics while budget Chinese rivals have also eclipsed its low-cost offerings.
HTC shares have fallen 51 percent so far this year. The stock closed 1.69 percent lower before the results were announced.
Chang said HTC was banking on selling high-end models in emerging smartphone markets such as India, where he said the company has a 20 percent market share of phones priced between $250-$400.
Analysts, however, are less optimistic, saying HTC is likely to continue to struggle for the next four quarters at least.
“We believe HTC will keep losing share in the smartphone market and will keep losing money,” analyst Calvin Huang with Taiwan’s SinoPac Securities wrote in a recent research note.
Yahoo Unveils Livetext Mobile Messaging App
August 11, 2015 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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Yahoo unveiled a mobile messaging app that combines texting with live one-on-one video.
The app, named Livetext, is video calling with a twist: there’s no audio. To communicate, users type texts and emojis that are overlaid onto the screen during the call.
The app’s format might sound restricting, but Yahoo says Livetext will help users to communicate more freely. The lack of audio, the company says, removes inhibitions that people might feel when they otherwise receive video calls in public.
“We wanted to bridge the gap between the simplicity and ease of texting, with the live feeling of calling,” said Adam Cahan, senior vice president of video, design and emerging products at Yahoo, during the app’s unveiling at an event in New York on Wednesday that was webcast.
Livetext was developed from scratch at Yahoo. Its development was aided by Yahoo’s acquisition last year of mobile messaging app MessageMe, the company said Wednesday. It’s yet another messaging app in a sea of competitors like Snapchat, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
Still, Livetext is the latest attempt by Yahoo to provide a messaging app that resonates with users. It became available to download for free on Thursday for iOS and Android, in the U.S., U.K, Canada, Ireland, Germany, France, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Users will be able to text in English, French, German and Chinese using the app.
The app streams video only when two people are connected through the app at the same time. Users can search for friends in the app through their Livetext user name, or through the contacts list on their phone.
There is no time limit on calls placed through the app, and no way to save or archive the sessions. The video quality will depend on the strength of the data connection, although connections at 3G and above should suffice, Yahoo said.
It’s available on Android and the desktop, but not on iOS.
Acer Shifts Focus To IoT
Acer is still churning out PCs, but the Taiwanese vendor is far more bullish about the Internet of Things (IoT), a market the company doesn’t want to miss out on.
Acer held a news conference not for a new consumer product, but to promote an upcoming miniature PC that will be sold to developers.
The PC, called the aBeing One, will arrive in the third quarter, and is aimed at developers working in the IoT area. It’s designed to connect to smart home and wearable products, and act as a hub that can analyze incoming data from the devices.
The PC vendor has spoken to many IoT companies looking for an affordable hardware system they can develop on, said Robert Wang, a general manager with Acer.
“Fast-moving IoT developers keep running into this issue,” he said after Acer’s news conference. “Now they can buy from us.”
It’s a big change for the vendor, given that it once focused on selling consumer notebooks. However, with PC sales sagging and competition rife in the mobile devices area, the company has been shifting toward enterprise products.
That emphasis was apparent at this week’s Computex show in Taipei. Acer notebooks and tablets were still on display, but equal billing was given to itscloud computing business, which is starting to power IoT devices, not only from Acer, but also its clients.
In addition, Acer is hoping to pave the way for more third-party IoT devices. It has partnered with Canonical to install a version of Ubuntu on its aBeing product, so that the hardware can serve Ubuntu developers working on smart connected gadgets.
HTC To Make the Next Google Nexus Tablet
October 1, 2014 by admin
Filed under Consumer Electronics
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Google Inc has chosen HTC Corp to develop and deliver its upcoming 9-inch Nexus tablet, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Google had been mulling HTC as a potential Nexus tablet partner since last year and HTC engineers have been flying to the Googleplex in Mountain View in recent months to work on the project, the report said.
Google’s decision to pick HTC reflects its long-term strategy of building a broad base of partners from device to device to prevent any one manufacturer from gaining a monopoly, the report said.
That may also be one of the reasons why Google chose HTC over bigger rivals Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, maker of the Nexus 10 tablet.
Google and HTC declined to comment on the report.
HP’s Z-station Goes Nvidia
HP has added its Z Workstation family with a solution that delivers access via a virtual desktop route to workstation applications hosted in the data center.
Set to be available from next month, the HP DL380z Virtual Workstation enables organisations to provide remote access to workstation-class applications, even those calling for heavy-duty graphics, which allows them to keep data stored securely in the data centre wherever employees might be based.
As its name suggests, the HP DL380z is based on the same hardware as HP’s ProLiant DL380p server, a 2U rack-mount two-socket system based on Intel’s Xeon E5-2600 processors, which allows it to slot right into existing data centre infrastructure.
Where the HP DL380z differs is that it can be configured with up to two Nvidia Grid K2 graphics cards supporting the graphics firm’s Grid GPU virtualisation technology. This enables up to eight users to be hosted on each system, each with access to a virtual machine with GPU acceleration capabilities.
Jeff Groudan, worldwide director for HP Thin Client and Virtual Workstations, said, “For employees who work from A to B and everywhere in between, the HP DL380z allows them to access data that is securely stored in the data centre. Furthermore, the powerful HP DL380z is an always-on workhorse that can be used by businesses when not in use for virtual workstation sessions.
Remote access is delivered either by operating Citrix’s XenServer with its HDX 3D Pro technology, which the HP DL380z is certified for, or by utilising HP’s own Remote Graphics Software (RGS). The latest HP RGS release 7 adds the ability to have true workstation productivity from a tablet while bringing intuitive touch controls to non-touch applications, according to HP.
Either way, customers can provide engineers or other professional users with access to workstation-class applications from a variety of devices, including thin clients, laptops or tablets.
Pricing for the HP DL380z has yet to be confirmed.
HP & Foxcomm Head To The Cloud
May 20, 2014 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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HP and Foxcomm have announced a joint venture to create a line of cloud optimized servers for service providers.
The venture involving a non-equity, strategic commercial alliance will see the pair offering a range of products. Particulars and specifications are yet to be announced but the companies are aiming to target low total cost of ownership (TCO), scale and service.
This announcement is separate to the existing HP Proliant server portfolio, which includes the software defined server codenamed Moonshot.
HP CEO Meg Whitman said, “With the relentless demands for compute capabilities, customers and partners are rapidly moving to a New Style of IT that requires focused, scalable and high-volume system designs. [The partnership] will enable us to deliver a game-changing offering in infrastructure economics.”
News of the alliance will raise eyebrows at Apple, which reportedly returned an eight million unit shipment of iPhones to Foxconn last year, describing them as “dysfunctional” and “non-compliant”.
HP has had its own troubles recently, after settling two lawsuits this month, one to the former shareholders of Palm over its handling of WebOS, and another that revealed that HP executives were guilty of corruption in negotiations for lucrative contracts. Total payouts across the two settlements totaled $165m.
The HP joint venture with Foxconn will take effect from 1 May, when we hope to find out more details about what it will entail.