Acer, the world's No.3 PC brand, barely matched market expectations for its second-quarter results, hit by fast-eroding profit margins in its lowcost netbook PC stronghold.
The results underscored how Acer's consumer-driven focus is riddled with risks, although it remains relatively better off compared with peers Dell Inc and Lenovo Group, which are suffering due to their reliance on corporate demand.
Acer leads the pack in the netbook PC segment - one of the brightest spots in the technology sector this year with research firm IDC expecting shipments to jump about 127% this year in a largely steady overall PC market.
"Honestly, the results are very ordinary and even look like they missed it somewhat," said Vincent Chen, an analyst at Yuanta Securities."The key right now is how they perform in the coming months,especially with Windows 7 coming up."
Windows 7 is Microsoft's nextgeneration operating system, and the launch of any such software has typically led to a jump in PC sales.
Acer did not provide any outlook in its statement released after close of trading hours, but it has previously said it expects this year's second-half shipments to jump up to 40% from the first half.
Acer's net profit fell to NT$2.3 billion (US$70 million) in April-June versus NT$2.9 billion a year ago, hit by the economic crisis as consumers and companies rein in on their spending, and also the lower profits associated with low-cost netbooks.
A Reuters Estimates poll had expected an average net profit of NT$2.34 billion in the second quarter.
Revenue also fell, slipping 5% to NT$119 billion as Acer needs to sell as many as six netbook PCs to make the same amount of money as it would from a single regular notebook PC.
On a shipments basis, Acer was the strongest performer among the world's top five PC brands in the second quarter,with IDC estimating its shipments to have risen nearly 24% from a year ago,stronger than HP and Toshiba Corp.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
INDUSTRIAL INDESXES SHOW IMPROVEMENT SINCE JANUARY
Thailand's industrial indexes have improved significantly since the start of the year, with the July manufacturing index contracting only 9 per cent year on year compared to 25.6 per cent in January, according to the Industrial Economics Office.
The index in February contracted 23.1 per cent year on year, March by 23.1 per cent, April by 12.8 per cent, May by 12.4 per cent and June by 6.8 per cent.
Arthit Wuthikaro, director-general of the office, yesterday said the month-on-month figures had also shown improvement since February, when the index rose 0.5 per cent from January.
In March, the index expanded 14.2 per cent month on month. Due to political violence, the April figure contracted 8.7 per cent, before expanding 9.2 per cent and 6.6 per cent in May and June respectively.
The July index, however, dropped 1.3 per cent from June.
Arthit said that despite the July reversal, the index should return to positive territory soon due to new orders in several industries and many plants having to increase capacity as a result.
July capacity utilisation stayed at 57 per cent, well above the trough of 50 per cent in February.
Hard disk drives are one sector for which the manufacturing index has increased for three consecutive months, as manufacturers have been able to offer new products to customers. They are, however, concerned about a labour shortage.
In the first seven months of the year, the sector's output and distribution dropped 6.3 per cent and 6.5 per cent respectively from the same period last year. The sector is expected to show positive growth in the fourth quarter.
The frozen-food sector in July also enjoyed growth in manufacturing and sales.
The index in February contracted 23.1 per cent year on year, March by 23.1 per cent, April by 12.8 per cent, May by 12.4 per cent and June by 6.8 per cent.
Arthit Wuthikaro, director-general of the office, yesterday said the month-on-month figures had also shown improvement since February, when the index rose 0.5 per cent from January.
In March, the index expanded 14.2 per cent month on month. Due to political violence, the April figure contracted 8.7 per cent, before expanding 9.2 per cent and 6.6 per cent in May and June respectively.
The July index, however, dropped 1.3 per cent from June.
Arthit said that despite the July reversal, the index should return to positive territory soon due to new orders in several industries and many plants having to increase capacity as a result.
July capacity utilisation stayed at 57 per cent, well above the trough of 50 per cent in February.
Hard disk drives are one sector for which the manufacturing index has increased for three consecutive months, as manufacturers have been able to offer new products to customers. They are, however, concerned about a labour shortage.
In the first seven months of the year, the sector's output and distribution dropped 6.3 per cent and 6.5 per cent respectively from the same period last year. The sector is expected to show positive growth in the fourth quarter.
The frozen-food sector in July also enjoyed growth in manufacturing and sales.
MICROSOFT, AMAZON, YAHOO! ATTACK GOOGLE BOOK MOVE
Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo! joined an alliance on Wednesday oppoing the legal settlement which would allow Google to digitise and sell millions of books in a move the Internet giant dismissed as "sour grapes".
The three technology heavy-weights are maong the members of a coalition called the Open Book Alliance which expressed concern about "serious legal, competitive, and policy issues" surrounding Google's book-scanning project.
In a statement, the alliance said its members, which include the nonprofit the Internet Archive, publishers and library associations, will counter the Google book settlement "in its current form".
Google reached a class action settlement in October of last year with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers to a copyright infringement suit they filed against the company in 2005.
Under the settlement, Google agreed to pay US$125 million (Bt4.3 billion) to resove outstanding claims and establish an independent "Book Rights Registry", which will provide revenue from sales and advertising to authors and publishers who agree to digitise their books.
Alliance co-chairs Peter Brantley and Gary Reback said in a blog post that the settlented monopoly and price fixing cartel".
Google, whose book project is already facing anti-trust scrutiny from the US Justice Department, a court review and privacy concerns, dismissed the move by the coalition.
"This sounds like the Sour Grapes Alliance," it said in a statement. "The Google Books settlement is injecting more competition into the digital books space, so it's understandable why our competitors might fight hard to prevent more competition."
The three technology heavy-weights are maong the members of a coalition called the Open Book Alliance which expressed concern about "serious legal, competitive, and policy issues" surrounding Google's book-scanning project.
In a statement, the alliance said its members, which include the nonprofit the Internet Archive, publishers and library associations, will counter the Google book settlement "in its current form".
Google reached a class action settlement in October of last year with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers to a copyright infringement suit they filed against the company in 2005.
Under the settlement, Google agreed to pay US$125 million (Bt4.3 billion) to resove outstanding claims and establish an independent "Book Rights Registry", which will provide revenue from sales and advertising to authors and publishers who agree to digitise their books.
Alliance co-chairs Peter Brantley and Gary Reback said in a blog post that the settlented monopoly and price fixing cartel".
Google, whose book project is already facing anti-trust scrutiny from the US Justice Department, a court review and privacy concerns, dismissed the move by the coalition.
"This sounds like the Sour Grapes Alliance," it said in a statement. "The Google Books settlement is injecting more competition into the digital books space, so it's understandable why our competitors might fight hard to prevent more competition."
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Sony's e-reader goes wireless
Sony Corp plans to offer an e-book reader with the ability to wirelessly download books, injecting more competition in a small but fast-growing market by adopting a key feature of the rival Kindle from Amazon.com.
Sony's $399 Daily Edition would go on sale by December, Sony executives said Tuesday at an event at the New York Public Library.
The device has a seven-inch (17.5-centimetre) touch screen and will be able to get books, daily newspapers and other reading material over AT&T Inc's cellular network.
Sony has sold e-book reading devices with "electronic ink" displays in the United States since 2006, but has seen most of the attention stolen by Amazon.com Inc, which launched the Kindle with similar e-ink technology a year later.The latest version of the Kindle - which is not controlled by touching the screen - costs $299 and uses Sprint Nextel Corp's wireless network for downloads.
On Tuesday, Sony also began selling a "Pocket Edition" e-book reader with a five-inch (12.5-centimetre) screen, for $199, and a larger $299 touch-screen model. Neither has wireless capability,so both have to be connected to a computer to acquire books.
Though Sony is following in Amazon's footsteps by adding wireless capability,its e-book strategy differs in crucial respects.
The only copy-protected books the Kindle can display are from Amazon's store, and the only devices the store supports are the Kindle, the iPhone and the iPod Touch.
Sony, on the other hand, has committed to an open e-book standard,meaning its readers can show copyprotected books from a variety of stores,and the books can be moved to and read on a variety of devices, including cell phones.
Sony also announced on Tuesday that the readers will be able to load e-books "loaned" from local libraries. A library card will provide access to free books that expire after 21 days.
The library connection "would seem to be something Amazon would never embrace, so that could be a key differentiator," said Richard Doherty, director of research firm The Envisioneering Group.
The alliance with AT&T helps the Dallas-based carrier further expand the use of its wireless network beyond cell phones. Like other carriers, AT&T is looking for new avenues of growth now that almost every adult has a cell phone. In July, it announced that it would provide the connection to another upcoming e-book reader from Plastic Logic Ltd,which will use the e-book store of Barnes & Noble Inc.
"Reader owners won't be charged a subscription fee for wireless access,"said Steve Haber, head of Sony's US reading division.
Instead, the bookseller will likely have to pay AT&T for the wireless access, out of money it charges for the books, similar to the way Amazon pays Sprint. Sony's multi-store strategy makes that challenging."The Daily Edition will initially have wireless access only to Sony's e-book store," Haber said.
Sony said the names of the newspapers that will be available on the device will be announced later. The Kindle already offers 46 newspapers, including the New York Times , the Wall Street Journal and USA Today.
Sony's $399 Daily Edition would go on sale by December, Sony executives said Tuesday at an event at the New York Public Library.
The device has a seven-inch (17.5-centimetre) touch screen and will be able to get books, daily newspapers and other reading material over AT&T Inc's cellular network.
Sony has sold e-book reading devices with "electronic ink" displays in the United States since 2006, but has seen most of the attention stolen by Amazon.com Inc, which launched the Kindle with similar e-ink technology a year later.The latest version of the Kindle - which is not controlled by touching the screen - costs $299 and uses Sprint Nextel Corp's wireless network for downloads.
On Tuesday, Sony also began selling a "Pocket Edition" e-book reader with a five-inch (12.5-centimetre) screen, for $199, and a larger $299 touch-screen model. Neither has wireless capability,so both have to be connected to a computer to acquire books.
Though Sony is following in Amazon's footsteps by adding wireless capability,its e-book strategy differs in crucial respects.
The only copy-protected books the Kindle can display are from Amazon's store, and the only devices the store supports are the Kindle, the iPhone and the iPod Touch.
Sony, on the other hand, has committed to an open e-book standard,meaning its readers can show copyprotected books from a variety of stores,and the books can be moved to and read on a variety of devices, including cell phones.
Sony also announced on Tuesday that the readers will be able to load e-books "loaned" from local libraries. A library card will provide access to free books that expire after 21 days.
The library connection "would seem to be something Amazon would never embrace, so that could be a key differentiator," said Richard Doherty, director of research firm The Envisioneering Group.
The alliance with AT&T helps the Dallas-based carrier further expand the use of its wireless network beyond cell phones. Like other carriers, AT&T is looking for new avenues of growth now that almost every adult has a cell phone. In July, it announced that it would provide the connection to another upcoming e-book reader from Plastic Logic Ltd,which will use the e-book store of Barnes & Noble Inc.
"Reader owners won't be charged a subscription fee for wireless access,"said Steve Haber, head of Sony's US reading division.
Instead, the bookseller will likely have to pay AT&T for the wireless access, out of money it charges for the books, similar to the way Amazon pays Sprint. Sony's multi-store strategy makes that challenging."The Daily Edition will initially have wireless access only to Sony's e-book store," Haber said.
Sony said the names of the newspapers that will be available on the device will be announced later. The Kindle already offers 46 newspapers, including the New York Times , the Wall Street Journal and USA Today.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Game of denial
The Malaysian government announced then denied it intends to set up filters to block undesirable Internet content like its northern neighbour; on Friday morning, Information Minister Rais Yatim told newsmen he planned to put in filters to block all that "undesirable content";the following Thursday, after talking with Prime Minister, Najib Razak, Mr Yatim announced that existing laws were plenty strong enough to find and to prosecute actual sedition, fraud and child pornography, and he cancelled the country's calls for bids to supply an Internet filter system. China announced that it no longer planned to demand that all personal computers must have the flawed and official censorware program Green Dam ; Li Yizhong, minister of industry and information technology,said only schools and Internet cafes would be compelled to install the software; he actually said with a straight face it was only "to protect the children".
A week after fixing 18 security holes in Mac OS X,Apple Inc issued a security patch for the Bind Internet server standard, which allowed remote hackers to crash servers; Apple also issued a passel of security patches for the hackerfriendly Safari browser, Apple and Windows editions, including a nasty bug whereby a hacker could get Safari to list his malicious website as a Top Site.
Number 1 operating system peddlers Microsoft of America and No 1 yuppiephone tinkers Nokia of Finland announced a joint venture to port Microsoft Office to Nokia phones under the Symbian operating system; it's hard to imagine why anyone would want an office suite on a 2-inch screen, but apparently Nokia executives have convinced Microsoft they need the system to stomp and kick the nice BlackBerry maker Research In Motion .Microsoft announced that Office 2010 for the Apple Mac was on schedule,sort of, and should be ready for sale for the New Year's Eve shopping season next year ; well, that's 2010, right?A judge in Texas told Microsoft tostop selling editions of Word that use custom XML tagging technology; Microsoft lost a patent lawsuit over the XML format to the nice I4i firm, but it will appeal the ruling and won't stop selling Word for a day.Microsoft showed some photos of its new Zune HD, the music player that will certainly crush the Apple iPod; in a huge, shock surprise, the Zune prices will be held under iPod prices; it will have a web browser and the ability to copy high-def video to an HDTV (dock not included).
A British politician who would be prime minister wants to fine every person sharing a file illegally on the Internet to be find ฃ50,000, or 2.8 million baht in real money; Business Secretary Lord Mandelson of the Labour Party said he was "persuaded by the argument for tough laws" against all that piracy that's going on by seven million of his countrymen - after a dinner at the Greek island of Corfu, paid entirely by his close entertainment buddy David Geffen and the Rothschild bank.US President Barack Obama and his government ordered government-run Internet sites to resume dealing cookies to surfers, spurring major privacy concerns from serious civil liberties groups including the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Electronic Frontier Foundation; the groups also blamed private companies, principally Google ,for forcing government sites to use cookies in exchange for permission for the government to use its sites, such as posting videos on YouTube ; Vivek Kundra, the government's chief information officer, explained that the new policy is to improve customer service,but he was in such a hurry he forgot to explain what advantages the government was getting out of suddenly resuming its tracking of users.
Sara Morishige Williams, wife of Twitter CEO Evan Williams, provided graphic examples of "too much information"when she tweeted the birth of her child,minute by minute to 14,000 followers;things we didn't really have to know included "My water broke. It wasn't like Charlotte in Sex and the City . Now,timing contractions on an iPhone app"and "The Contraction Tracker was fun until the contractions got painful";thankfully her husband tweeted nothing.
The World Trade Organisation told China it had to stop censoring films,DVDs and books by funnelling all imports through state agencies; ruling on a suit brought by the United States, the WTO ordered China to open market access; the US claimed that by controlling such imports, China was increasing the demand for pirated goods.
In a report by OECD, the "developed"countries named and shamed the countries with the world's highest mobile phone charges: Canada, Spain and the United States, in that order; the lowest charges among the 30-member OECD were in Finland, with Holland and Sweden a tad higher.Toshiba moved to the dark side; after years spent inventing and championing the losing HD DVD format for high-density disks,Toshiba became a gracious loser and started making Blu-Ray players, now the standard but not yet fabulously popular.
A week after fixing 18 security holes in Mac OS X,Apple Inc issued a security patch for the Bind Internet server standard, which allowed remote hackers to crash servers; Apple also issued a passel of security patches for the hackerfriendly Safari browser, Apple and Windows editions, including a nasty bug whereby a hacker could get Safari to list his malicious website as a Top Site.
Number 1 operating system peddlers Microsoft of America and No 1 yuppiephone tinkers Nokia of Finland announced a joint venture to port Microsoft Office to Nokia phones under the Symbian operating system; it's hard to imagine why anyone would want an office suite on a 2-inch screen, but apparently Nokia executives have convinced Microsoft they need the system to stomp and kick the nice BlackBerry maker Research In Motion .Microsoft announced that Office 2010 for the Apple Mac was on schedule,sort of, and should be ready for sale for the New Year's Eve shopping season next year ; well, that's 2010, right?A judge in Texas told Microsoft tostop selling editions of Word that use custom XML tagging technology; Microsoft lost a patent lawsuit over the XML format to the nice I4i firm, but it will appeal the ruling and won't stop selling Word for a day.Microsoft showed some photos of its new Zune HD, the music player that will certainly crush the Apple iPod; in a huge, shock surprise, the Zune prices will be held under iPod prices; it will have a web browser and the ability to copy high-def video to an HDTV (dock not included).
A British politician who would be prime minister wants to fine every person sharing a file illegally on the Internet to be find ฃ50,000, or 2.8 million baht in real money; Business Secretary Lord Mandelson of the Labour Party said he was "persuaded by the argument for tough laws" against all that piracy that's going on by seven million of his countrymen - after a dinner at the Greek island of Corfu, paid entirely by his close entertainment buddy David Geffen and the Rothschild bank.US President Barack Obama and his government ordered government-run Internet sites to resume dealing cookies to surfers, spurring major privacy concerns from serious civil liberties groups including the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Electronic Frontier Foundation; the groups also blamed private companies, principally Google ,for forcing government sites to use cookies in exchange for permission for the government to use its sites, such as posting videos on YouTube ; Vivek Kundra, the government's chief information officer, explained that the new policy is to improve customer service,but he was in such a hurry he forgot to explain what advantages the government was getting out of suddenly resuming its tracking of users.
Sara Morishige Williams, wife of Twitter CEO Evan Williams, provided graphic examples of "too much information"when she tweeted the birth of her child,minute by minute to 14,000 followers;things we didn't really have to know included "My water broke. It wasn't like Charlotte in Sex and the City . Now,timing contractions on an iPhone app"and "The Contraction Tracker was fun until the contractions got painful";thankfully her husband tweeted nothing.
The World Trade Organisation told China it had to stop censoring films,DVDs and books by funnelling all imports through state agencies; ruling on a suit brought by the United States, the WTO ordered China to open market access; the US claimed that by controlling such imports, China was increasing the demand for pirated goods.
In a report by OECD, the "developed"countries named and shamed the countries with the world's highest mobile phone charges: Canada, Spain and the United States, in that order; the lowest charges among the 30-member OECD were in Finland, with Holland and Sweden a tad higher.Toshiba moved to the dark side; after years spent inventing and championing the losing HD DVD format for high-density disks,Toshiba became a gracious loser and started making Blu-Ray players, now the standard but not yet fabulously popular.
Thai government gets creative
With the ambition of boosting the country's revenue from creative industry,the Government plans to allocate 18 billion baht to a "Creative Thailand"project strategy.
The budget will come from the Government's economic stimulus package 2.The Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa) and National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec) will draft plans to use IT to add value and promote Thai culture, art and performance, entertainment and fashion design, covering 15 industries worth nearly 800 billion baht, or 10-11 percent of Thailand's Gross Domestic Product.
There are several key ministries involved in Creative Thailand, ranging from the commerce ministry, industry ministry, science and technology ministry, to the information and communication technology ministry and the culture ministry, said Sipa Director Rungruang Limchoopatipa.
Digital content and software play an important role not only in creative industry itself but also as tools for transforming and uplifting the 15 industries.
There are strategic areas that Sipa will execute to achieve the government's policy push towards creative economy.The first area is research and development (R&D), which will see several hun-dreds million baht invested in a cloud computing centre to support all creative industries.
The agency will increase its capability in entrepreneurship and establish a Digital Creative Centre, with a budget of 600-800 million baht, to be a one-stop shop providing all necessary hardware and software to support creative industries that use IT in their core business.
The centre will also build networking,with 30 related domestic associations including government agencies such as Nectec, Software Park under National Science and Technology Development Agency, and others.
Interms of international cooperation, Sipa will launch the Association of Asia Creative Industry, featuring 10 member countries from the Asia Pacific region. This association will form an Asia Fund to invest in the coproduction of software and digital content.
For example, Japan and Korea may be responsible for story development and techniques, while Thailand could cover production processes and Singapore might be responsible for marketing.
The agency has discussed with Carnegie Mellon University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and IBM about joining hands on a new degree called "Creative Science Engineering Management" to build a new workforce of creative professionals blending science, engineering, art and management skills. The budget for the bachelor degree curriculum is set at 180 million baht.
Sipa will submit the project proposals and budget for 2 billion baht over the next three years to support its plan. For the fiscal year ending 2010, Sipa has already secured 200 million baht.
Meanwhile Nectec Director Pansak Siriruchatapong added that the agency,under Creative Thailand, will support R&D, especially in cloud computing, to facilitate digital content and animation as well as other creative industries.
Moreover, Nectec will use its technological expertise to add more valued to Otop products and Thai history and culture via digitised content.
For example, it will develop an e-museum and e-library to showcase the evolution and history of Thai culture.
If tourists views profile of a locally made product, including how it is made and its historical and cultural significance, its attractiveness to the potential buyer will increase.
The budget will come from the Government's economic stimulus package 2.The Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa) and National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec) will draft plans to use IT to add value and promote Thai culture, art and performance, entertainment and fashion design, covering 15 industries worth nearly 800 billion baht, or 10-11 percent of Thailand's Gross Domestic Product.
There are several key ministries involved in Creative Thailand, ranging from the commerce ministry, industry ministry, science and technology ministry, to the information and communication technology ministry and the culture ministry, said Sipa Director Rungruang Limchoopatipa.
Digital content and software play an important role not only in creative industry itself but also as tools for transforming and uplifting the 15 industries.
There are strategic areas that Sipa will execute to achieve the government's policy push towards creative economy.The first area is research and development (R&D), which will see several hun-dreds million baht invested in a cloud computing centre to support all creative industries.
The agency will increase its capability in entrepreneurship and establish a Digital Creative Centre, with a budget of 600-800 million baht, to be a one-stop shop providing all necessary hardware and software to support creative industries that use IT in their core business.
The centre will also build networking,with 30 related domestic associations including government agencies such as Nectec, Software Park under National Science and Technology Development Agency, and others.
Interms of international cooperation, Sipa will launch the Association of Asia Creative Industry, featuring 10 member countries from the Asia Pacific region. This association will form an Asia Fund to invest in the coproduction of software and digital content.
For example, Japan and Korea may be responsible for story development and techniques, while Thailand could cover production processes and Singapore might be responsible for marketing.
The agency has discussed with Carnegie Mellon University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and IBM about joining hands on a new degree called "Creative Science Engineering Management" to build a new workforce of creative professionals blending science, engineering, art and management skills. The budget for the bachelor degree curriculum is set at 180 million baht.
Sipa will submit the project proposals and budget for 2 billion baht over the next three years to support its plan. For the fiscal year ending 2010, Sipa has already secured 200 million baht.
Meanwhile Nectec Director Pansak Siriruchatapong added that the agency,under Creative Thailand, will support R&D, especially in cloud computing, to facilitate digital content and animation as well as other creative industries.
Moreover, Nectec will use its technological expertise to add more valued to Otop products and Thai history and culture via digitised content.
For example, it will develop an e-museum and e-library to showcase the evolution and history of Thai culture.
If tourists views profile of a locally made product, including how it is made and its historical and cultural significance, its attractiveness to the potential buyer will increase.
Windows 7 Thai release announced
Microsoft (Thailand) will launch the Thai version of Windows 7 on October 24,with the operating system pre-installed on 40 computer brands at 10 major IT chain stores.
Managing Director Patama Chantaruck said the company expects the formal launch of Windows 7 in Thailand is slightly behind the US launch die to development of Thai language support.
The 40 brands offering the preinstalled software will be both local and international models.
The 10 stores will also offer Windows 7 as separate software.
Staff at these outlets are already trained in compatibility testing, system upgrades and other Windows 7 concerns.
The company expects Windows 7 will be heavily subscribed-to even in the economic downturn because the new OS can run on netbooks, which are enjoying popularity.
Another key feature is security, such as BitLocker Drive Encryption, which gives system administrators control over how removable storage devices can be used and the strength of protection required.
These two features are especially attractive to banks, especially as Thailand's major banks are expected to migrate to Windows 7 within three months of the launch.
Microsoft has launched www.windows7thailand.com to demonstrate to users how to use the new OS. The site also connects with Facebook and Twitter,harnessing the potential of digital marketing through social networks.
The previous Windows release, Vista,currently commands around 30 percent of the Windows customer base, with its predecessor XP still much-preferred, with a 70 percent share.
The company has increased its marketing budget by 10 percent for the new fiscal year, which started last month, to support its major new product launches,and is targeting a revenue growth of 10 percent. The last fiscal year ended with a 22 percent growth for Microsoft, well above the industry average of 11 percent.
"Thailand is one of the five countries that has seen the highest growth, apart from Bangladesh, Vietnam, Argentina and Egypt," said Patama.
"The Thailand office has also subsidised internal expenses worth $600,000 (20.4 million baht) to localise support to channel partner-in-credit extension terms from 60 to 90 days and offer exchange rate protection."
Managing Director Patama Chantaruck said the company expects the formal launch of Windows 7 in Thailand is slightly behind the US launch die to development of Thai language support.
The 40 brands offering the preinstalled software will be both local and international models.
The 10 stores will also offer Windows 7 as separate software.
Staff at these outlets are already trained in compatibility testing, system upgrades and other Windows 7 concerns.
The company expects Windows 7 will be heavily subscribed-to even in the economic downturn because the new OS can run on netbooks, which are enjoying popularity.
Another key feature is security, such as BitLocker Drive Encryption, which gives system administrators control over how removable storage devices can be used and the strength of protection required.
These two features are especially attractive to banks, especially as Thailand's major banks are expected to migrate to Windows 7 within three months of the launch.
Microsoft has launched www.windows7thailand.com to demonstrate to users how to use the new OS. The site also connects with Facebook and Twitter,harnessing the potential of digital marketing through social networks.
The previous Windows release, Vista,currently commands around 30 percent of the Windows customer base, with its predecessor XP still much-preferred, with a 70 percent share.
The company has increased its marketing budget by 10 percent for the new fiscal year, which started last month, to support its major new product launches,and is targeting a revenue growth of 10 percent. The last fiscal year ended with a 22 percent growth for Microsoft, well above the industry average of 11 percent.
"Thailand is one of the five countries that has seen the highest growth, apart from Bangladesh, Vietnam, Argentina and Egypt," said Patama.
"The Thailand office has also subsidised internal expenses worth $600,000 (20.4 million baht) to localise support to channel partner-in-credit extension terms from 60 to 90 days and offer exchange rate protection."
IT lifestyle centre opened in Siam Square
Trendy tech-savvy users coupled with advanced IT technologies are driving the newest digital lifestyle centre in Thailand. Meanwhile, however, the majority of consumers are sticking with traditional computer stores that offer more affordable products.
The potential growth of IT products among the digital generation was the key factor behind the newly opened 500-million-baht "Digital Gateway" at Center Point in Siam Square, said Soammaphat Traisorat, Executive Director of TCC Land, at the official launch.
Its location connected with the mass transit system is an important indication that the centre sees a bright future despite the current economic circumstances that may have a minor affect on tourists visiting in the centre.
Over the next three years the company plans to allocate one or two trolleys for IT lifestyle products in a project called "Gateway Ekamai" connected to Ekamai skytrain station.
Wallapa Traisorat, Executive Director,said that the 8,000-square-metre Digital Gateway combined digital technology,entertainment and learning for a new generation. It is also the first IT lifestyle centre in its group portfolio of computer centres which includes Pantip Plaza in Pratunam.
The building itself looks like a space tunnel which links the present with the future. The centre showcases the latest interactive media.
The centre has also partnered with Microsoft to become the first "Clean Mall"- an IT centre without any pirated software.
There are other IT flagship stores like iStudio, which is the second largest in Thailand, and the biggest True Lifestyle Shop. In addition, Oakley has also opened its second largest outlet in Asia.
Wisanu Wangwisut, Managing Director of Thippatana Arcade, the developer and property manager of Digital Gateway,a subsidiary of TCC Land Group, said that the centre's visitor profile ranged from 13 to 29-year olds, the dominant age group in Siam Square, and expected 100,000 visitors per day.
The company's expansion plan includes Pantip Plaza Bangkapi, a traditional computer centre which will open this September. It also intends to find other potential areas for computer centres such as Bang Yai district and Charoen Krung Road.
Accharas Ouysinprasert, Intel Microelectronics (Thailand) Country Manager,said the establishment of digital lifestyle centres and specialist stores showed how developed and mature the computer market here had become.
For trendy users in the centre, price is not main issue in making decisions but the users are more interested in styles and designs which reflect their personalities. For instance, the prices of notebooks with the same speed CPU may differ because of the other features they offer which serve a variety of consumer lifestyles. For example, Atom processor that can be used in normal netbooks or gadgets, and Asus HTPC keyboard with a five-inch small screen display with built-in HDMI port.
The recent consumer ultra-low voltage platform which helps to produce new ultra thin and light notebooks ranges from 20,000-80,000 baht depending on the material, design and other unique features.
From a design perspective shape, colour and materials, even in dustless key-boards or automotive power light safe display can attract experienced users or second-time buyers.
Pornthep Watchara-Amnouy, Managing Director of ASUSTek Computer,said that the company has to help its retail partners to select mid to high end notebooks and gadgets to fit in with the profile of the centre.
Chan Chaovanich, Managing Director of Speed Computer which has three brand shops in the centre, said because of higher rental costs from others, this is the first time that its big three suppliers - Asus, HP and Intel- have supported the space cost.
Meanwhile Ekachai Sirijirapatana,President of IT City, one of the largest IT superstores in Thailand, said that within the next three years, IT centres should have space of more than 10,000 square metres in order to support a variety of products for customer needs.
IT is a highly competitive market which has lowmargins ranging from 6-13 percent, so the volume of sales is important.If this sells in high cost rental area it means more premium products to sell even it has a greater margin, the volume will not cover the expenses.
"I think the upcountry areas, especially those with local department stores that still do not have IT shops and growing demand from consumer as well as low rental price more attractive," Ekachai said.
The potential growth of IT products among the digital generation was the key factor behind the newly opened 500-million-baht "Digital Gateway" at Center Point in Siam Square, said Soammaphat Traisorat, Executive Director of TCC Land, at the official launch.
Its location connected with the mass transit system is an important indication that the centre sees a bright future despite the current economic circumstances that may have a minor affect on tourists visiting in the centre.
Over the next three years the company plans to allocate one or two trolleys for IT lifestyle products in a project called "Gateway Ekamai" connected to Ekamai skytrain station.
Wallapa Traisorat, Executive Director,said that the 8,000-square-metre Digital Gateway combined digital technology,entertainment and learning for a new generation. It is also the first IT lifestyle centre in its group portfolio of computer centres which includes Pantip Plaza in Pratunam.
The building itself looks like a space tunnel which links the present with the future. The centre showcases the latest interactive media.
The centre has also partnered with Microsoft to become the first "Clean Mall"- an IT centre without any pirated software.
There are other IT flagship stores like iStudio, which is the second largest in Thailand, and the biggest True Lifestyle Shop. In addition, Oakley has also opened its second largest outlet in Asia.
Wisanu Wangwisut, Managing Director of Thippatana Arcade, the developer and property manager of Digital Gateway,a subsidiary of TCC Land Group, said that the centre's visitor profile ranged from 13 to 29-year olds, the dominant age group in Siam Square, and expected 100,000 visitors per day.
The company's expansion plan includes Pantip Plaza Bangkapi, a traditional computer centre which will open this September. It also intends to find other potential areas for computer centres such as Bang Yai district and Charoen Krung Road.
Accharas Ouysinprasert, Intel Microelectronics (Thailand) Country Manager,said the establishment of digital lifestyle centres and specialist stores showed how developed and mature the computer market here had become.
For trendy users in the centre, price is not main issue in making decisions but the users are more interested in styles and designs which reflect their personalities. For instance, the prices of notebooks with the same speed CPU may differ because of the other features they offer which serve a variety of consumer lifestyles. For example, Atom processor that can be used in normal netbooks or gadgets, and Asus HTPC keyboard with a five-inch small screen display with built-in HDMI port.
The recent consumer ultra-low voltage platform which helps to produce new ultra thin and light notebooks ranges from 20,000-80,000 baht depending on the material, design and other unique features.
From a design perspective shape, colour and materials, even in dustless key-boards or automotive power light safe display can attract experienced users or second-time buyers.
Pornthep Watchara-Amnouy, Managing Director of ASUSTek Computer,said that the company has to help its retail partners to select mid to high end notebooks and gadgets to fit in with the profile of the centre.
Chan Chaovanich, Managing Director of Speed Computer which has three brand shops in the centre, said because of higher rental costs from others, this is the first time that its big three suppliers - Asus, HP and Intel- have supported the space cost.
Meanwhile Ekachai Sirijirapatana,President of IT City, one of the largest IT superstores in Thailand, said that within the next three years, IT centres should have space of more than 10,000 square metres in order to support a variety of products for customer needs.
IT is a highly competitive market which has lowmargins ranging from 6-13 percent, so the volume of sales is important.If this sells in high cost rental area it means more premium products to sell even it has a greater margin, the volume will not cover the expenses.
"I think the upcountry areas, especially those with local department stores that still do not have IT shops and growing demand from consumer as well as low rental price more attractive," Ekachai said.
Oracle-Sun deal gets green light
Software giant Oracle Corp has won US antitrust approval to buy computer maker Sun Microsystems,clearing a key hurdle in the companies'plan to close the $7.4 billion deal before the end of this month.
Oracle said last week that the deal cleared the US Justice Department with no restrictions.
The takeover also requires approval by the European Commission.
US officials in June said they wanted to scrutinise the deal over questions about Oracle's plans for licensing Sun's Java software, one of the world's most widely used computer languages. Since then, investors have been waiting to see how long that might delay the deal.
Analysts have said that the delay has worked to the advantage of Sun's two chief rivals in the server market, IBM and Hewlett Packard Co.
They have been courting Sun's customers during the past few months, trying to persuade them to change suppliers amid uncertainty about Oracle's plans for running the server business. Until Oracle closes the acquisition, it cannot say much about its strategy for Sun's hardware division.
Oracle said last week that the deal cleared the US Justice Department with no restrictions.
The takeover also requires approval by the European Commission.
US officials in June said they wanted to scrutinise the deal over questions about Oracle's plans for licensing Sun's Java software, one of the world's most widely used computer languages. Since then, investors have been waiting to see how long that might delay the deal.
Analysts have said that the delay has worked to the advantage of Sun's two chief rivals in the server market, IBM and Hewlett Packard Co.
They have been courting Sun's customers during the past few months, trying to persuade them to change suppliers amid uncertainty about Oracle's plans for running the server business. Until Oracle closes the acquisition, it cannot say much about its strategy for Sun's hardware division.
BSA to launch online campaign
In an attempt to reach the younger generation and IT savvy users, the Business Software Alliance will launch Super Hero online video campaign via YouTube throughout the Asia Pacific region including Thailand next month.
The video campaign aims to motivate the people to inform the authorities about illegal usage of software, according to Roland Chan, Business Software Alliance (BSA) Senior Director of Marketing, AsiaPacific.
Meanwhile the BSA will raise awareness through online and offline channels to attract more users calls to the BSA hotline (02-714-1010) for legal action against copyright violators to receive an award of up to 250,000 baht.
"Clearly, the recession has led some people to call the hotline as a way to make up for lost income and to ease economic pressures and cash rewards for anonymous tips about software piracy are gaining favour among corporate managers and employees," said Chan.
Each year Thailand has 500-1,000 calls to hotline numbers and this year expects to get more from the new activities. In the first eight months of this year police raided more than 60 companies suspected of netting more than 150 million baht in unlicensed software.
"Among the hotline tips we receive are those about companies using unlicensed dictionaries without paying fees to the Thai Software Enterprise. Utilities software such as antivirus software is still the most popular for illegal use."
Moreover, there is a new viable option for copyright holders to sue illegal users though the Thai Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court to compensate their losses.
In a recent case, the court awarded the maker of design and engineering software 1.8 million baht in damages.The decision was based on evidence that the defendant infringed the software developer's copyright.
The court arrived at damages of 1.8 million in consideration of the value of the software, plus interest owed the plain-tiff starting from the date on which the defendant began using the unlicensed software.
The case began in late 2005 when a police investigation and subsequent police raid at the company's offices discovered unlicensed software being used by employees. Following a conviction in the criminal courts, lawyers for the plaintiff brought a civil case against the defendant, which culminated in victory last month.
The defendant, a 100 percent Thaiowned company, has registered capital of approximately 150 million baht and annual revenue of approximately 250 million baht.
Leonard Yeung, Autodesk's Asean Licence Compliance Manager, said that the court's opinion demonstrates once again that there are criminal and civil liabilities to be faced by companies in Thailand that use counterfeit or unlicensed copies of software in their business practices.
This case represents the second decision in favour of software developers.In January,2009, Autodesk won a milestone case as the first software development company to bring legal action against a company accused of using its software without licensing. In that case,Autodesk was awarded 3.5 million baht by the Thai Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court.
Chan continues that it is possible that these two cases will encourage more software developers to take action at a civil level. However, fighting to this has high legal is costly and takes long process,which is why more than 50 percent of cases are settled out of court.
There are several positive signs to make Thailand piracy rate in 2009 reduce from central government policy and strong police enforcement and compensation to copyright holders.
A BSA-IDC study revealed that Thailand's PC piracy rate in 2008 was around 76 percent with a value loss of US$609 million, dropping two points from 2007 and 80 percent in 2006. Thailand ranks eight out of 19 Asia Pacific economies.
The video campaign aims to motivate the people to inform the authorities about illegal usage of software, according to Roland Chan, Business Software Alliance (BSA) Senior Director of Marketing, AsiaPacific.
Meanwhile the BSA will raise awareness through online and offline channels to attract more users calls to the BSA hotline (02-714-1010) for legal action against copyright violators to receive an award of up to 250,000 baht.
"Clearly, the recession has led some people to call the hotline as a way to make up for lost income and to ease economic pressures and cash rewards for anonymous tips about software piracy are gaining favour among corporate managers and employees," said Chan.
Each year Thailand has 500-1,000 calls to hotline numbers and this year expects to get more from the new activities. In the first eight months of this year police raided more than 60 companies suspected of netting more than 150 million baht in unlicensed software.
"Among the hotline tips we receive are those about companies using unlicensed dictionaries without paying fees to the Thai Software Enterprise. Utilities software such as antivirus software is still the most popular for illegal use."
Moreover, there is a new viable option for copyright holders to sue illegal users though the Thai Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court to compensate their losses.
In a recent case, the court awarded the maker of design and engineering software 1.8 million baht in damages.The decision was based on evidence that the defendant infringed the software developer's copyright.
The court arrived at damages of 1.8 million in consideration of the value of the software, plus interest owed the plain-tiff starting from the date on which the defendant began using the unlicensed software.
The case began in late 2005 when a police investigation and subsequent police raid at the company's offices discovered unlicensed software being used by employees. Following a conviction in the criminal courts, lawyers for the plaintiff brought a civil case against the defendant, which culminated in victory last month.
The defendant, a 100 percent Thaiowned company, has registered capital of approximately 150 million baht and annual revenue of approximately 250 million baht.
Leonard Yeung, Autodesk's Asean Licence Compliance Manager, said that the court's opinion demonstrates once again that there are criminal and civil liabilities to be faced by companies in Thailand that use counterfeit or unlicensed copies of software in their business practices.
This case represents the second decision in favour of software developers.In January,2009, Autodesk won a milestone case as the first software development company to bring legal action against a company accused of using its software without licensing. In that case,Autodesk was awarded 3.5 million baht by the Thai Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court.
Chan continues that it is possible that these two cases will encourage more software developers to take action at a civil level. However, fighting to this has high legal is costly and takes long process,which is why more than 50 percent of cases are settled out of court.
There are several positive signs to make Thailand piracy rate in 2009 reduce from central government policy and strong police enforcement and compensation to copyright holders.
A BSA-IDC study revealed that Thailand's PC piracy rate in 2008 was around 76 percent with a value loss of US$609 million, dropping two points from 2007 and 80 percent in 2006. Thailand ranks eight out of 19 Asia Pacific economies.
MS reveals power surge for cheaper handsets
Microsoft on Monday unveiled software that lets Twitter, Facebook and other hot Internet services be delivered to low-cost "feature phones" common in developing countries.
The US technology giant will debut OneApp in South Africa and hopes to swiftly roll it out in India, China and other countries where millions of people use feature phones instead of powerful smartphones.
Meanwhile, Finnish telecoms giant Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer, announced in Helsinki on Monday it would launch its firstever mini laptop.
The "Booklet 3G" will weigh just 1.25 kilogrammes and will measure just two centimetres wide, Nokia said in a statement.
It will use Microsoft's Windows operating system and have a battery life of up to 12 hours, the company added.
Nokia said it would announce the price and availability of its new pocket computer next month.
Amit Mital, corporate vice president of the Unlimited Potential Group and Startup Business Accelerator at Microsoft said "We designed OneApp from the ground up on feature phones with very limited memory and processing capabilities."
"OneApp will be able to help people do things they couldn't do before with their feature phone - anything from paying their bills to helping diagnose their health issues or just staying connected with friends and family."
Feature phones typically combine calling capabilities with one or two other functions such as playing music or games.
Such devices rely on General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) networks with users unable to browse the Internet and typically paying as they go to download data.
In contrast, smartphones are essentially pocket-sized computers with wireless Internet connectivity.
"With a GPRS-enabled cell phone,consumers can now be part of the app experience, which is taking the world by storm," said Mark Levy, joint chief executive of Blue Label Telecoms.
Microsoft teamed with Blue Label Telecoms to make OneApp part of a new "mibli" mobile service to be offered free in South Africa, according to Mital.
"We're particularly excited by the technology's capacity to transform near-ly any cell phone into a highly sophisticated, cost-effective and user-friendly transactional device," Levy said.
Feature phones are far more common than smartphones in emerging markets,according to Microsoft.
"Right now you have smartphones that are really expensive and feature phones that are free or near-free, and there is a grey area in the middle," said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley.
"This could close the grey area. It's a win for folks who didn't think feature phones were capable enough for them but didn't want to spend the money on a smartphone."
The rate of mobile telephone adoption in places such as India and China is meteoric, with a clear hunger for access to popular Internet services such as social networks and microblogging,Mital said.
OneApp hosts software "in the cloud"- as a service on the Internet - so a feature phone's scant power can be devoted temporarily to whichever applications people opt for, according to Microsoft.
"Think of it as a caching mechanism where the Internet is the place your data is stored and then, when needed,downloaded to the phone," Mital said.
"It means resources are only being used for a single application at any moment, lowering data charges, which is especially important in markets where people don't have all-you-can-eat data plans."
A standardised OneApp platform for applications should let developers take advantage of economies of scale, opening flood gates for new programs for feature phones, according to Enderle.
Currently, applications need to be customised for each model of feature phone. OneApp offers a standard for crafting applications.
Microsoft is talking with potential OneApp partners worldwide and did not disclose how it plans to make money from the feature-phone platform.
The US technology giant will debut OneApp in South Africa and hopes to swiftly roll it out in India, China and other countries where millions of people use feature phones instead of powerful smartphones.
Meanwhile, Finnish telecoms giant Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer, announced in Helsinki on Monday it would launch its firstever mini laptop.
The "Booklet 3G" will weigh just 1.25 kilogrammes and will measure just two centimetres wide, Nokia said in a statement.
It will use Microsoft's Windows operating system and have a battery life of up to 12 hours, the company added.
Nokia said it would announce the price and availability of its new pocket computer next month.
Amit Mital, corporate vice president of the Unlimited Potential Group and Startup Business Accelerator at Microsoft said "We designed OneApp from the ground up on feature phones with very limited memory and processing capabilities."
"OneApp will be able to help people do things they couldn't do before with their feature phone - anything from paying their bills to helping diagnose their health issues or just staying connected with friends and family."
Feature phones typically combine calling capabilities with one or two other functions such as playing music or games.
Such devices rely on General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) networks with users unable to browse the Internet and typically paying as they go to download data.
In contrast, smartphones are essentially pocket-sized computers with wireless Internet connectivity.
"With a GPRS-enabled cell phone,consumers can now be part of the app experience, which is taking the world by storm," said Mark Levy, joint chief executive of Blue Label Telecoms.
Microsoft teamed with Blue Label Telecoms to make OneApp part of a new "mibli" mobile service to be offered free in South Africa, according to Mital.
"We're particularly excited by the technology's capacity to transform near-ly any cell phone into a highly sophisticated, cost-effective and user-friendly transactional device," Levy said.
Feature phones are far more common than smartphones in emerging markets,according to Microsoft.
"Right now you have smartphones that are really expensive and feature phones that are free or near-free, and there is a grey area in the middle," said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley.
"This could close the grey area. It's a win for folks who didn't think feature phones were capable enough for them but didn't want to spend the money on a smartphone."
The rate of mobile telephone adoption in places such as India and China is meteoric, with a clear hunger for access to popular Internet services such as social networks and microblogging,Mital said.
OneApp hosts software "in the cloud"- as a service on the Internet - so a feature phone's scant power can be devoted temporarily to whichever applications people opt for, according to Microsoft.
"Think of it as a caching mechanism where the Internet is the place your data is stored and then, when needed,downloaded to the phone," Mital said.
"It means resources are only being used for a single application at any moment, lowering data charges, which is especially important in markets where people don't have all-you-can-eat data plans."
A standardised OneApp platform for applications should let developers take advantage of economies of scale, opening flood gates for new programs for feature phones, according to Enderle.
Currently, applications need to be customised for each model of feature phone. OneApp offers a standard for crafting applications.
Microsoft is talking with potential OneApp partners worldwide and did not disclose how it plans to make money from the feature-phone platform.
Hitachi Data Systems to focus on long-term sustainability
When it comes to enterprise-class data storage, doing more with less through virtualisation, data de-duplication and tiered storage now sounds more attractive than ever. The leader in storage virtualisation, Hitachi Data Systems is now taking that message beyond the data centre and has created models in a language that the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) can actually understand.
Speaking at a press release at the HDS user conference in Bangkok, HDS Chief Technical Officer Hubert Yoshida said that rather than simply cutting costs of equipment to make it possible for customers to continue buying during the slump, the focus is now on long term sustainability and providing the customer with the tools to measure and reduce the total cost of ownership.
He explained the now well known virtues of virtualisation (separating the application from physical hardware so it can move around), de-duplication (getting rid of copies and replacing them with a pointer to one set of data), dynamic provisioning (allocating only what is used and sharing the unused but promised storage space in a pool), and archiving (storing old, non-changing data that is rarely accessed on tier-three slow storage)before talking about how much of the focus this year is on getting that message across to the CFO.
One of HDS's researchers, David Merrill has a framework, a series of spreadsheets and documentation, that teaches the accountants how to understand the cost elements in storage and monitor them, known as Storage Economics.Today many costs such as power and cooling still go unmeasured and if they are not monitored, how then can the cost structure be optimised.
Merrill's framework consists of 33 different types of cost, how to set a target and how technology can help to reach that target. Once the target is attained,the model goes further to address sustainability.
"In this type of economy, we cannot wait three years, we need payback within the budget year and there are some quick payback things we can look for," Yoshida said.
At the top of the list is virtualisation.Implementing virtualisation has a direct impact on the cost of migrating applications. Instead of taking six to nine months to migrate a legacy application that is hard coded to its storage, this means it can be done over a weekend or two.
Away from the usual case studies of savings through virtualisation, Yoshida gave the audience a glimpse of how new technology was actually changing the game and bringing along huge savings.PayFormance, a US healthcare billing company, has used the HDS active ar-chive technology to run its billing application straight off the archive without using a database.
Archived information cannot be changed by definition. Healthcare information must not be changed by law,thus the complexity, cost and flexibility of a proper database was not needed.The system design, admittedly quite unique, saved PayFormance the cost of database licenses and trained database administrators.
One of the bigger savings in the model is the cost of risk. Here, Yoshida explained that virtualisation brings with redundancy and in a 128-way processor system,nothing would be affected if three or four processors were to fail. Conversely,traditional modular storage is akin to a pair of legs. If one is shot, nothing can be done until it has been fixed. The figures for downtime are also formalised and not a matter of guesswork, with risk managers in the financial services and trading industries carefully calculating how many millions of dollars each hour of downtime would cost the company.
Virtualisation also helps disaster recovery and business continuity as everything can be transferred to the DR site in one pipe rather than a dozen apps using a dozen different conduits with deference technologies.
HDS Senior Vice-President and General Manager for Asia-Pacific Kevin Egglestrom said that after the last 18 months of significant downturn, the economy is now showing signs of recovery as reflected in the equity indices and that he expects the Asia-Pacific region to lead the world recovery. That said, he noted that HDS has always done well in both good and bad times. For 2008, IDC figures said that the market in Thailand declined by six percent, but that HDS' market share was, more than six and less than,say,20 percent. One of his colleagues later confirmed that HDS had actually grown eight percent in the declining market last year, a double-digit delta.
In 2008, HDS also became the leader in the high end global storage market,ahead of EMC and IBM.
HDS country manager Thaweesak Saengthong spoke of how he was seeing an explosion in data needs from the government sector especially in security monitoring and mobile. For the first time in a generation, the economic situation is forcing banks to compete for customers and now they are launching campaigns to woo customers. The challenge here is flexibility and how to get the campaign to market soonest.
He also noted that HDS has won a contract with the Bank of Thailand and how HDS active archive solutions could have prevented the recent scandals regarding the tampering with the political party member register and making the servers stolen from government house worthless.
Speaking at a press release at the HDS user conference in Bangkok, HDS Chief Technical Officer Hubert Yoshida said that rather than simply cutting costs of equipment to make it possible for customers to continue buying during the slump, the focus is now on long term sustainability and providing the customer with the tools to measure and reduce the total cost of ownership.
He explained the now well known virtues of virtualisation (separating the application from physical hardware so it can move around), de-duplication (getting rid of copies and replacing them with a pointer to one set of data), dynamic provisioning (allocating only what is used and sharing the unused but promised storage space in a pool), and archiving (storing old, non-changing data that is rarely accessed on tier-three slow storage)before talking about how much of the focus this year is on getting that message across to the CFO.
One of HDS's researchers, David Merrill has a framework, a series of spreadsheets and documentation, that teaches the accountants how to understand the cost elements in storage and monitor them, known as Storage Economics.Today many costs such as power and cooling still go unmeasured and if they are not monitored, how then can the cost structure be optimised.
Merrill's framework consists of 33 different types of cost, how to set a target and how technology can help to reach that target. Once the target is attained,the model goes further to address sustainability.
"In this type of economy, we cannot wait three years, we need payback within the budget year and there are some quick payback things we can look for," Yoshida said.
At the top of the list is virtualisation.Implementing virtualisation has a direct impact on the cost of migrating applications. Instead of taking six to nine months to migrate a legacy application that is hard coded to its storage, this means it can be done over a weekend or two.
Away from the usual case studies of savings through virtualisation, Yoshida gave the audience a glimpse of how new technology was actually changing the game and bringing along huge savings.PayFormance, a US healthcare billing company, has used the HDS active ar-chive technology to run its billing application straight off the archive without using a database.
Archived information cannot be changed by definition. Healthcare information must not be changed by law,thus the complexity, cost and flexibility of a proper database was not needed.The system design, admittedly quite unique, saved PayFormance the cost of database licenses and trained database administrators.
One of the bigger savings in the model is the cost of risk. Here, Yoshida explained that virtualisation brings with redundancy and in a 128-way processor system,nothing would be affected if three or four processors were to fail. Conversely,traditional modular storage is akin to a pair of legs. If one is shot, nothing can be done until it has been fixed. The figures for downtime are also formalised and not a matter of guesswork, with risk managers in the financial services and trading industries carefully calculating how many millions of dollars each hour of downtime would cost the company.
Virtualisation also helps disaster recovery and business continuity as everything can be transferred to the DR site in one pipe rather than a dozen apps using a dozen different conduits with deference technologies.
HDS Senior Vice-President and General Manager for Asia-Pacific Kevin Egglestrom said that after the last 18 months of significant downturn, the economy is now showing signs of recovery as reflected in the equity indices and that he expects the Asia-Pacific region to lead the world recovery. That said, he noted that HDS has always done well in both good and bad times. For 2008, IDC figures said that the market in Thailand declined by six percent, but that HDS' market share was, more than six and less than,say,20 percent. One of his colleagues later confirmed that HDS had actually grown eight percent in the declining market last year, a double-digit delta.
In 2008, HDS also became the leader in the high end global storage market,ahead of EMC and IBM.
HDS country manager Thaweesak Saengthong spoke of how he was seeing an explosion in data needs from the government sector especially in security monitoring and mobile. For the first time in a generation, the economic situation is forcing banks to compete for customers and now they are launching campaigns to woo customers. The challenge here is flexibility and how to get the campaign to market soonest.
He also noted that HDS has won a contract with the Bank of Thailand and how HDS active archive solutions could have prevented the recent scandals regarding the tampering with the political party member register and making the servers stolen from government house worthless.
Geographic system services open up
The world of Geographic Information System (GIS) is promisingly opening up so users can enjoy using a range of software products, as ESRI has announced free web service of ArcGIS.
It is somewhat a new dimension in the industry, with ArcGIS offering the web service opening as an alternative for GIS professionals so they can create programs and develop add-ons for existing data and applications, according to ESRI (Thailand) general manager Krairop Luanguthai.
Speaking at Thai GIS User Conference 2009 last week, Krairop said rich Internet applications are going to be a new trend. Platforms like Javascript and Silverlight are new technologies for creating these interesting mashups; intuitive lightweight applications. These rich Internet applications are also going to be free for non-commercial users, NGOs,education and government agencies.
This will boost the GIS society and encourage a number of users to further develop and share applications. The Thai version of ArcGis Online is scheduled to launch in October.
"This offers many opportunities for creativity with this new media environment, with creative carto-graphy, spreading geographic knowledge everywhere," said Krairop.
"Many creative people can take those APIs and create interesting new approaches to create maps that are prolific on the Web."
He added that the result of Web APIs in Thailand would be more apparent a year from now.
ArcGIS Online, which is so far known only for content services, introduced a facility to have users share their layer packages and services in an integrated,free, online storage site in the cloud.They can take their data and define how it belongs to their group. Or they can choose to share it over the open Internet.
Krairop added that the ArcGIS online will probably not affect Google Earth because the user groups are distinct.Google does not concentrate GIS and users just view the map, while GIS online will evolve the GIS society leading the users and professionals to be GIS creators as they can thoroughly deal with the data. Those professionals can develop such programs as land management, natural resource management, goods delivery, and so forth, for free on the Web.
Krairop added that the GIS market continues to expand, with 20 percent growth this year. The company has a target this year of 12 billion baht, with GIS database system services being the major revenue generator. So far ESRI Thailand has developed GIS database for the public sector. Most customers -70 percent - are government agencies.
Having dealt with GIS systems in the public sector for 20 years, Krairop noted that they are often "on and off",leading to a problem of data accuracy.The policy has always changed in accordance with the shift of heads of organisations. Consequently, the operation lacks continuity."Databases are the most important of GIS systems and they need to be updated all the time so that data remains accurate,"he said.
ESRI Thailand, meanwhile, will file a lawsuit against two companies at MBK shopping centre who violated the company's software copyright.
It is somewhat a new dimension in the industry, with ArcGIS offering the web service opening as an alternative for GIS professionals so they can create programs and develop add-ons for existing data and applications, according to ESRI (Thailand) general manager Krairop Luanguthai.
Speaking at Thai GIS User Conference 2009 last week, Krairop said rich Internet applications are going to be a new trend. Platforms like Javascript and Silverlight are new technologies for creating these interesting mashups; intuitive lightweight applications. These rich Internet applications are also going to be free for non-commercial users, NGOs,education and government agencies.
This will boost the GIS society and encourage a number of users to further develop and share applications. The Thai version of ArcGis Online is scheduled to launch in October.
"This offers many opportunities for creativity with this new media environment, with creative carto-graphy, spreading geographic knowledge everywhere," said Krairop.
"Many creative people can take those APIs and create interesting new approaches to create maps that are prolific on the Web."
He added that the result of Web APIs in Thailand would be more apparent a year from now.
ArcGIS Online, which is so far known only for content services, introduced a facility to have users share their layer packages and services in an integrated,free, online storage site in the cloud.They can take their data and define how it belongs to their group. Or they can choose to share it over the open Internet.
Krairop added that the ArcGIS online will probably not affect Google Earth because the user groups are distinct.Google does not concentrate GIS and users just view the map, while GIS online will evolve the GIS society leading the users and professionals to be GIS creators as they can thoroughly deal with the data. Those professionals can develop such programs as land management, natural resource management, goods delivery, and so forth, for free on the Web.
Krairop added that the GIS market continues to expand, with 20 percent growth this year. The company has a target this year of 12 billion baht, with GIS database system services being the major revenue generator. So far ESRI Thailand has developed GIS database for the public sector. Most customers -70 percent - are government agencies.
Having dealt with GIS systems in the public sector for 20 years, Krairop noted that they are often "on and off",leading to a problem of data accuracy.The policy has always changed in accordance with the shift of heads of organisations. Consequently, the operation lacks continuity."Databases are the most important of GIS systems and they need to be updated all the time so that data remains accurate,"he said.
ESRI Thailand, meanwhile, will file a lawsuit against two companies at MBK shopping centre who violated the company's software copyright.
Apple to unleash Snow Leopard on Friday
Apple Inc's latest operating system software,Snow Leopard, will go on sale this Friday.
The Mac OS X version 10.6 software will debut at Apple's retail stores and authorised resellers nationwide. Apple's online store is now taking pre-orders.
Snow Leopard's release comes days before its promised September launch.It precedes by two months the launch of Microsoft Corp's next operating system, Windows 7.
Among Snow Leopard's improvements is built-in support for Microsoft's Exchange Server software, so Apple programs for e-mail, calendars and contacts could become more useful in corporate settings.
Apple said Snow Leopard is half the size of the previous version, freeing up to seven gigabytes of storage space when installed. It requires a minimum of one gigabyte of RAM and runs on Macs using an Intel processor.
Users of Mac OS X Leopard, or version 10.5, can upgrade to the latest version for $29 for single users and $49 for a family pack of five users. For Apple owners using the Tiger operating system,or version 10.4, on an Intel-based Mac,switching to Snow Leopard costs $169 for single users and $229 for a family pack.
Consumers who buy a qualifying Mac from June 8 to Dec 26 can purchase the Snow Leopard upgrade for $9.95.
The Mac OS X version 10.6 software will debut at Apple's retail stores and authorised resellers nationwide. Apple's online store is now taking pre-orders.
Snow Leopard's release comes days before its promised September launch.It precedes by two months the launch of Microsoft Corp's next operating system, Windows 7.
Among Snow Leopard's improvements is built-in support for Microsoft's Exchange Server software, so Apple programs for e-mail, calendars and contacts could become more useful in corporate settings.
Apple said Snow Leopard is half the size of the previous version, freeing up to seven gigabytes of storage space when installed. It requires a minimum of one gigabyte of RAM and runs on Macs using an Intel processor.
Users of Mac OS X Leopard, or version 10.5, can upgrade to the latest version for $29 for single users and $49 for a family pack of five users. For Apple owners using the Tiger operating system,or version 10.4, on an Intel-based Mac,switching to Snow Leopard costs $169 for single users and $229 for a family pack.
Consumers who buy a qualifying Mac from June 8 to Dec 26 can purchase the Snow Leopard upgrade for $9.95.
Province leads the way in mapping out the future
Suphan Burihas won an award for its effective implementation of GIS, writes Sasiwimon Boonruang
Many public organisations have adopted the geographical information system (GIS)as a tool for city planning and administration, with Suphan Buri being particularly successful.
This is due to its complete database system and network integration through every agency, according to Somsak Pureesrisak, the governor of Suphan Buri, Thailand's most successful province in terms of utilising GIS and MIS (management information system).
The principle is that the data must be updated by the data owners, said Somsak, adding that GIS has been implemented in every agency in the province.
Somsak suggested public agencies adopt the data carried out by the Public Health Ministry because village health volunteers have to collect both household and personal data. With a population of some 800,000, Suphan Buri has 174 health stations, where some 15,000 village health volunteers work.
"The village health volunteers' primary job is to visit the people, and they are close to the public. The data research carried out by these staff is extremely relevant because they really work in the field," he said.
Prior to 2005, Suphan Buri used the Health Centre Information System (HCIS) as the population database survey. Ten hospitals in the province have used five different hospital systems: Hos XP, Hospital OS, Khon Kaen , Mit Net and Stat Dispence. The big problem is the database systems cannot interoperate between hospitals and the health centres.
The system then changed to E-Care in 2006, with the focus on developing the database system of the health centres and covering information on patients and medicine. The GIS database of people and households has now been added to E-Care and the system has been used in the provincial health centres and district health centres.
"In the rural area, all data can be collected and the treatment and village visiting schedule can be checked over the web service," Somsak said, noting that the administrator can also view medicines are available, in what quantities, at each health centre.
However, another problem is that each health centre uses a different code for the same medicines. The computer programs of hospitals and health centres also are not integrated, which presents problems in data sharing between them.E-Care, which was used until 2008, has now been replaced by E-Health.
The governor, who has a background in engineering, has ordered the government agencies to consolidate all databases to solve the problem of data integration. The Hos XP has been chosen,allowing data integration among the agencies to become workable, whereby the health centres are the primary care units.
Besides checking the data via the web service, E-Health also allows the government to verify personal records through the data centre. Provincial health centres take care of he data of public health service reports, while the provincial hospitals collect medical records of patients.
Over the next year, the province plans to implement a patient fingerprint system. This will be useful for many bureaux such as the police as it can double up as a source to aid criminal investigations.
The governor pointed out that Thai people hold several multi-purpose cards:ID card, driving license, tax card, ATM card, social security card, and so on.
"Wouldn't it be smarter to have one person with one record, rather than one person with too many records," he suggested, noting that in the future,the data integration of those organisations - Provincial Administration department, Revenue department, Transport department, Social Security Office,Public Health Ministry, and so on will enable officials to work more efficiently, through the approach of "one person, one record".
The governor pointed out that the Land department has the data of landowners and deeds, and the province has further developed the data by applying GIS. The system enables officials to view details of houses, the data of family members and their occupations,because the residents in that home some case may be not the land owners.
MIS has been working with GIS through the matching-up of databases and pictures of household locations and the members of the families. Here, they apply GIS to link with the farmer database.
"We can connect further between the data of locations and the MIS and make use of them in many aspects,"said the governor.
However, he admitted that the GIS here is not yet perfect. There is the farming land data of the entire province and all the farming land locations, but it is not yet thoroughly understood what kinds of crops are grown at each.
Making use of the technology in Suphan Buri can answer many problems that the government today is dealing with. One example is to keep records of foreign workers; who they are and where they live. The global positioning system (GPS), aerial photographs,3D technology, and photos of the land location have been used to help verify alien workers, both legal and illegal.
The Labour Ministry needs measures to manage alien labour, by registering them and their family members. Somsak pointed out that Suphan Buri has some 8,000 registered alien workers. Including their family members, this means a total of around 20,000 foreigners legally living in the province. The health centres have records of these people and their data is stored on web application, which the immigration office has access to. Police can check alien records via mobile phone or computer, and the system can report to them via SMS, MMS or web service.
Suphan Buri is now working with Samut Sakhon province to implement the alien labourers' examination system with smart cards and fingerprint technology. The system is expected to be in place by next year."We are now studying if both technologies can be combined,"said Somsak.
To prove the persons' right to the land, Suphan Buri has applied aerial photography and then set the GPS. The system can therefore match house locations with owners, and how many households are in each location.
The province has already covered more than 500,000 plots of land.
This will help Suphan Buri to prove whether or not government policies such as rice pricing insurance and crop insurance are working.
Suphan Buri is now working with the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry to add to the database of public land of different types, such as national parks, mangrove forests and wildlife sanctuaries.
So far, the province's GIS system and aerial photographs have served the ministry in coping with the problem of water shade areas, forest areas and national reservation areas.
These will be used to prove the right of land occupation and examine incidences of public land invasion.
The governor pointed out the government's policy of land and property tax and community title deeds can be performed with less effort and greater accuracy once the public agencies have a good database to refer to and have use of GIS and MIS.
Suphan Buri province was recently honoured with the Special Achievement Award in GIS (SAG)2009, at the ESRI International User Conference, as it has made extraordinary contributions to the global society and set new precedents throughout the GIS community.
Several organisations have implemented GIS, but not as effectively as Suphan Buri, where the system has been integrated into day-to-day operations.
The GIS utilisation here leads to benefits for the public and the overall local administration, said ESRI (Thailand)general manager Krairop Luanguthai.
Many public organisations have adopted the geographical information system (GIS)as a tool for city planning and administration, with Suphan Buri being particularly successful.
This is due to its complete database system and network integration through every agency, according to Somsak Pureesrisak, the governor of Suphan Buri, Thailand's most successful province in terms of utilising GIS and MIS (management information system).
The principle is that the data must be updated by the data owners, said Somsak, adding that GIS has been implemented in every agency in the province.
Somsak suggested public agencies adopt the data carried out by the Public Health Ministry because village health volunteers have to collect both household and personal data. With a population of some 800,000, Suphan Buri has 174 health stations, where some 15,000 village health volunteers work.
"The village health volunteers' primary job is to visit the people, and they are close to the public. The data research carried out by these staff is extremely relevant because they really work in the field," he said.
Prior to 2005, Suphan Buri used the Health Centre Information System (HCIS) as the population database survey. Ten hospitals in the province have used five different hospital systems: Hos XP, Hospital OS, Khon Kaen , Mit Net and Stat Dispence. The big problem is the database systems cannot interoperate between hospitals and the health centres.
The system then changed to E-Care in 2006, with the focus on developing the database system of the health centres and covering information on patients and medicine. The GIS database of people and households has now been added to E-Care and the system has been used in the provincial health centres and district health centres.
"In the rural area, all data can be collected and the treatment and village visiting schedule can be checked over the web service," Somsak said, noting that the administrator can also view medicines are available, in what quantities, at each health centre.
However, another problem is that each health centre uses a different code for the same medicines. The computer programs of hospitals and health centres also are not integrated, which presents problems in data sharing between them.E-Care, which was used until 2008, has now been replaced by E-Health.
The governor, who has a background in engineering, has ordered the government agencies to consolidate all databases to solve the problem of data integration. The Hos XP has been chosen,allowing data integration among the agencies to become workable, whereby the health centres are the primary care units.
Besides checking the data via the web service, E-Health also allows the government to verify personal records through the data centre. Provincial health centres take care of he data of public health service reports, while the provincial hospitals collect medical records of patients.
Over the next year, the province plans to implement a patient fingerprint system. This will be useful for many bureaux such as the police as it can double up as a source to aid criminal investigations.
The governor pointed out that Thai people hold several multi-purpose cards:ID card, driving license, tax card, ATM card, social security card, and so on.
"Wouldn't it be smarter to have one person with one record, rather than one person with too many records," he suggested, noting that in the future,the data integration of those organisations - Provincial Administration department, Revenue department, Transport department, Social Security Office,Public Health Ministry, and so on will enable officials to work more efficiently, through the approach of "one person, one record".
The governor pointed out that the Land department has the data of landowners and deeds, and the province has further developed the data by applying GIS. The system enables officials to view details of houses, the data of family members and their occupations,because the residents in that home some case may be not the land owners.
MIS has been working with GIS through the matching-up of databases and pictures of household locations and the members of the families. Here, they apply GIS to link with the farmer database.
"We can connect further between the data of locations and the MIS and make use of them in many aspects,"said the governor.
However, he admitted that the GIS here is not yet perfect. There is the farming land data of the entire province and all the farming land locations, but it is not yet thoroughly understood what kinds of crops are grown at each.
Making use of the technology in Suphan Buri can answer many problems that the government today is dealing with. One example is to keep records of foreign workers; who they are and where they live. The global positioning system (GPS), aerial photographs,3D technology, and photos of the land location have been used to help verify alien workers, both legal and illegal.
The Labour Ministry needs measures to manage alien labour, by registering them and their family members. Somsak pointed out that Suphan Buri has some 8,000 registered alien workers. Including their family members, this means a total of around 20,000 foreigners legally living in the province. The health centres have records of these people and their data is stored on web application, which the immigration office has access to. Police can check alien records via mobile phone or computer, and the system can report to them via SMS, MMS or web service.
Suphan Buri is now working with Samut Sakhon province to implement the alien labourers' examination system with smart cards and fingerprint technology. The system is expected to be in place by next year."We are now studying if both technologies can be combined,"said Somsak.
To prove the persons' right to the land, Suphan Buri has applied aerial photography and then set the GPS. The system can therefore match house locations with owners, and how many households are in each location.
The province has already covered more than 500,000 plots of land.
This will help Suphan Buri to prove whether or not government policies such as rice pricing insurance and crop insurance are working.
Suphan Buri is now working with the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry to add to the database of public land of different types, such as national parks, mangrove forests and wildlife sanctuaries.
So far, the province's GIS system and aerial photographs have served the ministry in coping with the problem of water shade areas, forest areas and national reservation areas.
These will be used to prove the right of land occupation and examine incidences of public land invasion.
The governor pointed out the government's policy of land and property tax and community title deeds can be performed with less effort and greater accuracy once the public agencies have a good database to refer to and have use of GIS and MIS.
Suphan Buri province was recently honoured with the Special Achievement Award in GIS (SAG)2009, at the ESRI International User Conference, as it has made extraordinary contributions to the global society and set new precedents throughout the GIS community.
Several organisations have implemented GIS, but not as effectively as Suphan Buri, where the system has been integrated into day-to-day operations.
The GIS utilisation here leads to benefits for the public and the overall local administration, said ESRI (Thailand)general manager Krairop Luanguthai.
Nokia enters PC industry with netbook
The world's top mobilephone maker Nokia said on Monday it would start to make laptops, entering a fiercely competitive but fast-growing market with a netbook running Microsoft's Windows operating system.
Nokia had earlier this year said it was considering entering the laptop industry,crossing the border between two converging industries in the opposite direction to Apple, which entered the phone industry in 2007 with the iPhone.
Nokia has seen its profit margins drop over the last quarters as handset demand has slumped, and analysts have worried that entering the PC industry, where margins are traditionally razor-thin, could hurt Nokia's profits further.
"We are fully aware what has the margin level been in the PC world. We have gone into this with our eyes wide open," Kai Oistamo, the head of Nokia's phone unit, told Reuters.
"There's really an opportunity to bring fresh perspective to the PC world," he said, adding that Nokia would introduce extended battery life and continuous connectivity.
Nokia has produced PCs before, but divested the unit in 1991 when it started to focus on the mobile phone industry.
But Nokia's first netbook, the Nokia Booklet 3G, will use Microsoft's Windows software and Intel's Atom processor to offer up to 12 hours of battery life while weighing 1.25 kilogrammes.
Netbooks are low-cost laptops optimised for surfing the Internet and performing other basic functions. Pioneered by Asustek with the hit Eee PC in 2007,netbooks have since been rolled out by other brands such as HP and Dell.
"The question is: How will Nokia differentiate? This is already a crowded market. If they manage to differentiate it's going to give them competitive ad-vantage," said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi.
Research firm IDC expects netbook shipments this year to grow more than 127% from 2008 to over 26 million units,outperforming the overall PC market that is expected to remain flat and a phone market which is shrinking some 10%.
"Nokia will be hoping that its brand and knowledge of cellular channels will play to its strengths as it addresses this crowded, cut-throat segment," said Ben Wood, director of research at CCS Insight.
"At present we see Nokia's foray into the netbook market as a niche exercise in the context of its broader business."
Nokia's choice of Windows software surprised some analysts who had expected the company to use Linux in its first laptop.
Analyst Neil Mawston from Strategy Analytics said the technology choices were a good win for the US companies.
"We believe ARM and Symbian are among the main losers from the Nokia Booklet announcement," he said.
Nokia said it would unveil detailed specifications, market availability and pricing of its new device on Sept 2.
A source close to Nokia said the new netbook would use the upcoming Windows 7 operating system. Microsoft says a stripped-down version of Windows 7 will be introduced to netbooks the same time as its general release on October 22.
Local media reports in Taiwan have said that Compal, the world's No.2 contract laptop PC maker, has pitched netbook models to Nokia, but there has been no official confirmation from either side.
Nokia declined to comment on the manufacturer it uses.
Most of the world's top electronics brands typically do their own design work, but outsource the manufacturing process to contract manufacturers such as Compal and its larger rival Quanta.
Nokia had earlier this year said it was considering entering the laptop industry,crossing the border between two converging industries in the opposite direction to Apple, which entered the phone industry in 2007 with the iPhone.
Nokia has seen its profit margins drop over the last quarters as handset demand has slumped, and analysts have worried that entering the PC industry, where margins are traditionally razor-thin, could hurt Nokia's profits further.
"We are fully aware what has the margin level been in the PC world. We have gone into this with our eyes wide open," Kai Oistamo, the head of Nokia's phone unit, told Reuters.
"There's really an opportunity to bring fresh perspective to the PC world," he said, adding that Nokia would introduce extended battery life and continuous connectivity.
Nokia has produced PCs before, but divested the unit in 1991 when it started to focus on the mobile phone industry.
But Nokia's first netbook, the Nokia Booklet 3G, will use Microsoft's Windows software and Intel's Atom processor to offer up to 12 hours of battery life while weighing 1.25 kilogrammes.
Netbooks are low-cost laptops optimised for surfing the Internet and performing other basic functions. Pioneered by Asustek with the hit Eee PC in 2007,netbooks have since been rolled out by other brands such as HP and Dell.
"The question is: How will Nokia differentiate? This is already a crowded market. If they manage to differentiate it's going to give them competitive ad-vantage," said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi.
Research firm IDC expects netbook shipments this year to grow more than 127% from 2008 to over 26 million units,outperforming the overall PC market that is expected to remain flat and a phone market which is shrinking some 10%.
"Nokia will be hoping that its brand and knowledge of cellular channels will play to its strengths as it addresses this crowded, cut-throat segment," said Ben Wood, director of research at CCS Insight.
"At present we see Nokia's foray into the netbook market as a niche exercise in the context of its broader business."
Nokia's choice of Windows software surprised some analysts who had expected the company to use Linux in its first laptop.
Analyst Neil Mawston from Strategy Analytics said the technology choices were a good win for the US companies.
"We believe ARM and Symbian are among the main losers from the Nokia Booklet announcement," he said.
Nokia said it would unveil detailed specifications, market availability and pricing of its new device on Sept 2.
A source close to Nokia said the new netbook would use the upcoming Windows 7 operating system. Microsoft says a stripped-down version of Windows 7 will be introduced to netbooks the same time as its general release on October 22.
Local media reports in Taiwan have said that Compal, the world's No.2 contract laptop PC maker, has pitched netbook models to Nokia, but there has been no official confirmation from either side.
Nokia declined to comment on the manufacturer it uses.
Most of the world's top electronics brands typically do their own design work, but outsource the manufacturing process to contract manufacturers such as Compal and its larger rival Quanta.
Monday, August 24, 2009
HTC, China Mobile in smartphone deal
Taiwan's High Tech Computer Corp signed a memorandum yesterday with China Mobile Ltd, the world's largest mobile carrier, to jointly develop smartphones and tap the mainland's rapidly growing telecoms market.
Wang Jianzhou, China Mobile's chairman, said the Chinese carrier would invest 47 million yuan ($6.9 million) in the joint project and expects to develop at least seven models by 2010.
HTC, as the Taiwanese company is known, will design and develop the models, while China Mobile will provide customer service and support, according to Wang.
State-owned China Mobile has called its smartphones OPhone, an apparent attempt to compete with Apple Inc's hugely popular iPhone.
"China Mobile has for years purchased cell phones made by HTC to run with its second-generation network, and the new models will be for the cutting-edge third generation network," Wang said.
China is the world's most populous mobile phone market while Taiwan is a leading supplier of computers and semiconductors. China Mobile has tapped into the nascent 3G phone market using the home-grown TD-SCDMA standard.
The co-operation might benefit both sides, given China's vast market. But China Mobile must keep its smartphone prices down in order to attract more 3G users and that would cut into HTC's profit margin, said Vincent Chen, an analyst with Taiwan's Yuanta Core Pacific Securities Inc.
"China Mobile is apparently executing the mainland government's Taiwan friendly policy, but the real benefits to Taiwan remain to be seen," Chen said.
Wang said he would seek closer cooperation with other Taiwanese makers,including MediaTek Inc, a leading chipset designer, and will also buy laptops and e-books from Taiwan.
Wang arrived Taiwan on Friday for a nine-day visit amid a thaw in relations of the longtime foes, which split amid civil war in 1949.
The two sides have cemented closer business ties since Ma Ying-jeou became Taiwan's president 15 months ago. Seeking greater engagement with China, Ma has relaxed control on two-way investment and ended a ban on direct air and shipping links.
In April, China Mobile agreed to buy 12% of Taiwan's Far EasTone Telecommunications Co for NT$17.8 billion (US$529 million), but the deal has yet to receive approval from the Taiwanese government.
Wang Jianzhou, China Mobile's chairman, said the Chinese carrier would invest 47 million yuan ($6.9 million) in the joint project and expects to develop at least seven models by 2010.
HTC, as the Taiwanese company is known, will design and develop the models, while China Mobile will provide customer service and support, according to Wang.
State-owned China Mobile has called its smartphones OPhone, an apparent attempt to compete with Apple Inc's hugely popular iPhone.
"China Mobile has for years purchased cell phones made by HTC to run with its second-generation network, and the new models will be for the cutting-edge third generation network," Wang said.
China is the world's most populous mobile phone market while Taiwan is a leading supplier of computers and semiconductors. China Mobile has tapped into the nascent 3G phone market using the home-grown TD-SCDMA standard.
The co-operation might benefit both sides, given China's vast market. But China Mobile must keep its smartphone prices down in order to attract more 3G users and that would cut into HTC's profit margin, said Vincent Chen, an analyst with Taiwan's Yuanta Core Pacific Securities Inc.
"China Mobile is apparently executing the mainland government's Taiwan friendly policy, but the real benefits to Taiwan remain to be seen," Chen said.
Wang said he would seek closer cooperation with other Taiwanese makers,including MediaTek Inc, a leading chipset designer, and will also buy laptops and e-books from Taiwan.
Wang arrived Taiwan on Friday for a nine-day visit amid a thaw in relations of the longtime foes, which split amid civil war in 1949.
The two sides have cemented closer business ties since Ma Ying-jeou became Taiwan's president 15 months ago. Seeking greater engagement with China, Ma has relaxed control on two-way investment and ended a ban on direct air and shipping links.
In April, China Mobile agreed to buy 12% of Taiwan's Far EasTone Telecommunications Co for NT$17.8 billion (US$529 million), but the deal has yet to receive approval from the Taiwanese government.
Canon to restructure stepper division
Japan's Canon Inc said it planned to restructure its loss-making microchip stepper division by December,a move aimed at helping it better compete with ASML and Nikon Corp.
"Canon also aims to return to a trend of increasing profits each year in 2010,"Masahiro Osawa, a managing director,said in an interview yesterday.
The company, the world's largest digital camera maker ahead of Sony Corp and Nikon and a major manufacturer of copiers and printers that competes with Xerox Corp and Ricoh Co Ltd, posted its first annual operating profit decline in nine years in 2008.
"We have begun to see some encouraging signs here and there. We would like to make 2009 the floor for our earnings," Osawa said.
Following Osawa's comments, shares in Canon closed up 6.3% at 3,720 yen,its high for the day and outperforming the Tokyo stock market's electrical ma-chinery index which gained 3.7%.
Canon's microchip stepper division,which also manufactures LCD-making equipment and accounts for around 14%of revenue, posted an operating loss of 6.4 billion yen ($67 million) in AprilJune as chip makers reined in capital investment.
"The chip and LCD industries are in the midst of drastic changes ... we ourselves are starting to move to transform our business structure," he said, but declined to elaborate.
Canon trails ASML of the Netherlands and Nikon in chip steppers, multi-million dollar machines used to etch circuitry on to silicon wafers to make chips.
Canon last month posted a 72% fall in quarterly operating profit, also hit by sluggish demand for office machines and a firmer yen, but raised its full-year forecast by 6% to reflect more aggressive restructuring steps and a stronger-thanexpected demand for high-end digital cameras.
The restructuring moves included cutting 700 jobs at its chip-making equipment business and absorbing Canon Marketing Japan Inc's chip stepper sales and maintenance operations.
Osawa also said Canon plans to continue development of surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED) technology despite sharp falls in LCD prices,although more time will be needed for a commercial launch.
SEDs were once seen as promising next-generation flat displays, but steep price falls in LCD and plasma panels have raised concerns over the viability of the commercially untested technology.
"I believe SEDs have technological competitiveness. But LCD prices have fallen at a much quicker clip than we had anticipated," Owasa said."When it comes to costs and technological expertise for commercial production, we need some time to catch up."
"Canon also aims to return to a trend of increasing profits each year in 2010,"Masahiro Osawa, a managing director,said in an interview yesterday.
The company, the world's largest digital camera maker ahead of Sony Corp and Nikon and a major manufacturer of copiers and printers that competes with Xerox Corp and Ricoh Co Ltd, posted its first annual operating profit decline in nine years in 2008.
"We have begun to see some encouraging signs here and there. We would like to make 2009 the floor for our earnings," Osawa said.
Following Osawa's comments, shares in Canon closed up 6.3% at 3,720 yen,its high for the day and outperforming the Tokyo stock market's electrical ma-chinery index which gained 3.7%.
Canon's microchip stepper division,which also manufactures LCD-making equipment and accounts for around 14%of revenue, posted an operating loss of 6.4 billion yen ($67 million) in AprilJune as chip makers reined in capital investment.
"The chip and LCD industries are in the midst of drastic changes ... we ourselves are starting to move to transform our business structure," he said, but declined to elaborate.
Canon trails ASML of the Netherlands and Nikon in chip steppers, multi-million dollar machines used to etch circuitry on to silicon wafers to make chips.
Canon last month posted a 72% fall in quarterly operating profit, also hit by sluggish demand for office machines and a firmer yen, but raised its full-year forecast by 6% to reflect more aggressive restructuring steps and a stronger-thanexpected demand for high-end digital cameras.
The restructuring moves included cutting 700 jobs at its chip-making equipment business and absorbing Canon Marketing Japan Inc's chip stepper sales and maintenance operations.
Osawa also said Canon plans to continue development of surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED) technology despite sharp falls in LCD prices,although more time will be needed for a commercial launch.
SEDs were once seen as promising next-generation flat displays, but steep price falls in LCD and plasma panels have raised concerns over the viability of the commercially untested technology.
"I believe SEDs have technological competitiveness. But LCD prices have fallen at a much quicker clip than we had anticipated," Owasa said."When it comes to costs and technological expertise for commercial production, we need some time to catch up."
WORK CAN WAIT...YOU TRIED THE LOBSTER?
For India's hungry hordes of office workers, the old-fashioned work canteen is past its sell-by date. In the brave new world of IT and business outsourcing companies, sophisticated cafeterias now rule.
Salary slaves are set free at lunchtime with live kitchens, multi-cuisine offerings, brightly themed colour schemes with furniture and fixturs to match, vending machines, music system, TVs and the all-machines, music system, TVs and the all-important Internet connectivity.
"The availability of cafeterias and the upgrade fo services is like moving from Web 1.0 to 2.0," says Romit Dasgupta, director of Globsyn Business School. He adds that like many upgrades on the Net, it's also community driven.
Over at Google's India headquarters the story is the same. Here, the philosophy is "no employee pays for food" and the food served is often raved about, reviewed and compared to reputed restaurants.
According to Dasgupta, "These are basic innovations for providing psycholgical comfort to the talent pool. In a scenario where software experts anre spending long hours at their computers, it is a bbout providing them with the playround that allows themto come back and write those priceless codes."
And a superior cafe cn play a role in attracting that talent to a company in the first place. Though an IT professional's criteria for a preferred company to work for will include good projects, pay structure, interpersonal relationships and career opportunities, infrastructure facilities like cafeteries definitely appear on the list.
According to IBM's Rajeev Mathur, regional manager of site operations for South Asia, cafeterias "act as a retention policy and enable the organisation to keep employee moral and motivation igh".
The glass-domed cafeteria on IT giant Wipro's sprawling Kolkata complex is designed to satisfy everythingk from short snacking breaks to serious gastronomic urges. Brands like Baskin Robbins, Barista, Expresso and Java Green offer 24-hour service.
And with the vast choice comes subsidised prices. A peek into the IBM cafeteria at lunchtime reveals software workaholics catching up on a spread consisting of South Indian thalis, snacks of samosas and bhajis, soups, grilled sandwiches, pasta, pizza and noodles.
If the deliciously cold air-conditioning is not enough, you can beat the sweltering summer heat or the sultry monsoon by heading for the ice-cream parlour or the juice bars.
The counters at the cafeteria attract queues for feshly prepared food, with employees helping themselves to across-the-counter breakfast, lunch, evening snacks, dinner. Alternatively, they can order the regular berad and breakfast or items prepared at the onsite kitchen such as pizzas, dosas and meals of Indian, Chinese or fusion food, vegtarian or non vegetarian.
But, as Dasgupta notes, the choice and comfort has a higher objective than satis fying the appetities of workers: "In the case of IT giants like IBM and Wipro where there is a disconnect between various rungs, add-ons like cafeterias are the intermediaries that help keep the show ticking."
Salary slaves are set free at lunchtime with live kitchens, multi-cuisine offerings, brightly themed colour schemes with furniture and fixturs to match, vending machines, music system, TVs and the all-machines, music system, TVs and the all-important Internet connectivity.
"The availability of cafeterias and the upgrade fo services is like moving from Web 1.0 to 2.0," says Romit Dasgupta, director of Globsyn Business School. He adds that like many upgrades on the Net, it's also community driven.
Over at Google's India headquarters the story is the same. Here, the philosophy is "no employee pays for food" and the food served is often raved about, reviewed and compared to reputed restaurants.
According to Dasgupta, "These are basic innovations for providing psycholgical comfort to the talent pool. In a scenario where software experts anre spending long hours at their computers, it is a bbout providing them with the playround that allows themto come back and write those priceless codes."
And a superior cafe cn play a role in attracting that talent to a company in the first place. Though an IT professional's criteria for a preferred company to work for will include good projects, pay structure, interpersonal relationships and career opportunities, infrastructure facilities like cafeteries definitely appear on the list.
According to IBM's Rajeev Mathur, regional manager of site operations for South Asia, cafeterias "act as a retention policy and enable the organisation to keep employee moral and motivation igh".
The glass-domed cafeteria on IT giant Wipro's sprawling Kolkata complex is designed to satisfy everythingk from short snacking breaks to serious gastronomic urges. Brands like Baskin Robbins, Barista, Expresso and Java Green offer 24-hour service.
And with the vast choice comes subsidised prices. A peek into the IBM cafeteria at lunchtime reveals software workaholics catching up on a spread consisting of South Indian thalis, snacks of samosas and bhajis, soups, grilled sandwiches, pasta, pizza and noodles.
If the deliciously cold air-conditioning is not enough, you can beat the sweltering summer heat or the sultry monsoon by heading for the ice-cream parlour or the juice bars.
The counters at the cafeteria attract queues for feshly prepared food, with employees helping themselves to across-the-counter breakfast, lunch, evening snacks, dinner. Alternatively, they can order the regular berad and breakfast or items prepared at the onsite kitchen such as pizzas, dosas and meals of Indian, Chinese or fusion food, vegtarian or non vegetarian.
But, as Dasgupta notes, the choice and comfort has a higher objective than satis fying the appetities of workers: "In the case of IT giants like IBM and Wipro where there is a disconnect between various rungs, add-ons like cafeterias are the intermediaries that help keep the show ticking."
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Are you hungry for change?
In my last article, I shared the outcome of IBM's 2008 Global CEO Study. It seems, from this, that the business world has taken a 180-degree turn, and the world is becoming instrumented, interconnected and intelligent. So, how can organisations of different sizes, across different industries and geographies, become enterprises of the future?
The enterprise of the future has been identified as one capable of changing quickly and successfully. Instead of merely responding to trends, it shapes and leads them. It sees market and industry shifts as a chance to move ahead of its competition.
In fact, the enterprise of the future is hungry for change.
In IBM's 2008 Global CEO Study, eight out of 10 CEOs said their organisations were facing substantial change over the next three years. But their confidence in their ability to manage that change was not nearly as high. So how will CEOs fare in an increasingly frenetic environment? Will they be able to respond effectively?
The main changes highlighted by the study include:
Changes in world markets: The economices of developing nations are growing rapidly, driven by historic investments in fundamental business infrastructure. Enterprises are looking to tap skills and capabilities available all ovenr the world and to integrate their operations globally.
Changes in information technology: A new computing architecture enables pervasive instrumentation, unprecedented computing power and advanced analytics to transform oceans of data into insight and intelligence.
Changes in client needs: Companies are seeking to integrate advanced technology into their business processes and operations, not only to reduce costs, but also to enable innovation and growth.
In Thailand, I have seen dramatic changes in some organisations over the past few years. They have wanted not only to change themselves, but also to lead change. Thaoland Post is a good example. It is well known for having an efficient mail delivery service. But, being innovative, they've added anothekr service - Yummy Post- to deliver Thai food from all over the country. All customers have to do is call a special Yummy Post phone number and place their order. The company can generate higher revenue from this new service.
CP All is another interesting case. It runs Thailand's largest convenience-store chain, with more than 5,000 7Eleven stores around the country. As it operates in an increasinly "paperless" world, CP All decided to implement a new IT system to enhance the efficiency of its content-management system. The results? Its storage costs have dropped, helping CP All to reduce paper consumption. It is expected that the company will save Bt150 million within five years. The move also helps the company to save the environment, an important part of its vision as a responsible member of the Thai community.
Clearly, an ability to lead change is becoming more critical than ever. So are you ready? Is you organisation hungry for change?
THANWA LAOHASIRIWONG is country general manager at IBM Thailand. His articles appear in Hi! Managers on the third Friday of each month.
The enterprise of the future has been identified as one capable of changing quickly and successfully. Instead of merely responding to trends, it shapes and leads them. It sees market and industry shifts as a chance to move ahead of its competition.
In fact, the enterprise of the future is hungry for change.
In IBM's 2008 Global CEO Study, eight out of 10 CEOs said their organisations were facing substantial change over the next three years. But their confidence in their ability to manage that change was not nearly as high. So how will CEOs fare in an increasingly frenetic environment? Will they be able to respond effectively?
The main changes highlighted by the study include:
Changes in world markets: The economices of developing nations are growing rapidly, driven by historic investments in fundamental business infrastructure. Enterprises are looking to tap skills and capabilities available all ovenr the world and to integrate their operations globally.
Changes in information technology: A new computing architecture enables pervasive instrumentation, unprecedented computing power and advanced analytics to transform oceans of data into insight and intelligence.
Changes in client needs: Companies are seeking to integrate advanced technology into their business processes and operations, not only to reduce costs, but also to enable innovation and growth.
In Thailand, I have seen dramatic changes in some organisations over the past few years. They have wanted not only to change themselves, but also to lead change. Thaoland Post is a good example. It is well known for having an efficient mail delivery service. But, being innovative, they've added anothekr service - Yummy Post- to deliver Thai food from all over the country. All customers have to do is call a special Yummy Post phone number and place their order. The company can generate higher revenue from this new service.
CP All is another interesting case. It runs Thailand's largest convenience-store chain, with more than 5,000 7Eleven stores around the country. As it operates in an increasinly "paperless" world, CP All decided to implement a new IT system to enhance the efficiency of its content-management system. The results? Its storage costs have dropped, helping CP All to reduce paper consumption. It is expected that the company will save Bt150 million within five years. The move also helps the company to save the environment, an important part of its vision as a responsible member of the Thai community.
Clearly, an ability to lead change is becoming more critical than ever. So are you ready? Is you organisation hungry for change?
THANWA LAOHASIRIWONG is country general manager at IBM Thailand. His articles appear in Hi! Managers on the third Friday of each month.
Friday, August 21, 2009
DNA DESIGN BASIS FOR FUTURE MICROCHIPS
IBM says it is looking to "DNA origami" for a powerful new generation of ultra-tiny microchips.
The US computer giant has collaborated with California Institute of Technology researchers to develop a design for microchips that mimic the way chains of DNA molecules fold, allowing for processors far smaller and denser than any seen today.
"This is a way to assemble an electronics device of the future," said Bill Hinsberg, manage of the lithography group at IBM's Almaden Research Centre in California.
"It offers a potential way to construct nano-scale devices. The industry has always gone in the direction of making things smaller, because that opens the realm of possibilities.
A tenet of the chip industry is Moore's Law, a history-backed belief that the number of transistors that can be placed on a computer circuit doubles every two years, enabling smaller but increasingly powerful computing devices.
Lithography is a common method of making computer chips that have shrunk to contain technology measuring a mere 22 nanometres, or 22 one-thousand-millionths of a metre.
The DNA origami method can allow for chip features as small as 6 nanometres, IBM said.
"At some point, it gets more difficult to get smaller," Barnett said. "We've pursued DNA origami as a way to assemble an electronic device of the future."
DNA origami chips would have vastly increased data storage capacity, leading to smaller, faster and smarter devices, IBM said.
"It took a couple of years, but once you figure out how to do it, it's easy," said lead IBM researcher Greg Wallraff.
The US computer giant has collaborated with California Institute of Technology researchers to develop a design for microchips that mimic the way chains of DNA molecules fold, allowing for processors far smaller and denser than any seen today.
"This is a way to assemble an electronics device of the future," said Bill Hinsberg, manage of the lithography group at IBM's Almaden Research Centre in California.
"It offers a potential way to construct nano-scale devices. The industry has always gone in the direction of making things smaller, because that opens the realm of possibilities.
A tenet of the chip industry is Moore's Law, a history-backed belief that the number of transistors that can be placed on a computer circuit doubles every two years, enabling smaller but increasingly powerful computing devices.
Lithography is a common method of making computer chips that have shrunk to contain technology measuring a mere 22 nanometres, or 22 one-thousand-millionths of a metre.
The DNA origami method can allow for chip features as small as 6 nanometres, IBM said.
"At some point, it gets more difficult to get smaller," Barnett said. "We've pursued DNA origami as a way to assemble an electronic device of the future."
DNA origami chips would have vastly increased data storage capacity, leading to smaller, faster and smarter devices, IBM said.
"It took a couple of years, but once you figure out how to do it, it's easy," said lead IBM researcher Greg Wallraff.
Sluggish PC, printer ink sales hurt HP
Hewlett-Packard Cos 19% drop in quarterly profit shows that the company still relies heavily on printer ink and the troubled personal computer market, despite the aggressive transformation its undertaking to branch out and encroach more on rival IBM Corps turf.
IBM, which ditched its PC division as part of a major facelift over the past 15 years, now makes most of its money from software and services. With its $13.9 billion acquisition last year of technology services company Electronic Data Systems, HP now too is heavily invested in services they are its biggest revenue and profit generator.
But HPs latest quarterly numbers,reported on Tuesday after the market closed, show the companies are still very different.
HPs profit dropped in large part due to ongoing weakness in sales of PCs and printer ink two areas IBM isnt in.Still, HP edged past Wall Streets profit and sales forecasts something CEO Mark Hurd has done most quarters in his 412years at HPs helm.Expectations were high going into Tuesdays report: HPs stock has risen 75% since March. Although the results edged out analysts estimates, investors sent shares down 96 cents, or 2.2%, to $43 in extended trading. The stock closed Tuesdays regular session up 85 cents,or 2%, at $43.96.
The numbers were good and the guidance is a relief, said Jayson Noland,an analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co Their commentary though is what I would focus on: conditions are stabilising,and some of the cyclical businesses should show a rebound next year.
But HP offered no big surprises, ho hum, he added.I dont expect the stock to do much one way or the other.(The stock) has been very strong.
Ink has long been HPs cash cow, but is coming under pressure from generic,cheaper brands. HPs revenue from printing supplies, which includes ink, was down 13% in the three months ended July 31.
HPs PC division posted an 18% sales decline, despite improvement in consumer spending, strength in China, and a 2% increase in unit shipments.
The discrepancy is explained by the fact that PC makers have been slashing prices, a trend that has also hurt HPs rivals.
HP has been reluctant to call a bottom in the PC market, as chip maker Intel Corp did in April one of the first bullish signs about a turnaround in that sector.
Were encouraged I think by the stability that were beginning to see in the market, but were not yet at a point where were ready to call it a turn,Hurd said on a conference call with analysts Tuesday evening.
Cathie Lesjak, HPs chief financial officer, said in an interview that PC demand appears to have stabilised.
She said the decline in printing supplies revenue was mostly caused by currency fluctuations and changes in the way HP manages inventory at resellers.
HPs printer division makes up 21%of its overall revenue. The PC division makes up 31%.
In the latest quarter, HP earned $1.64 billion, or 67 cents per share, compared with $2.03 billion, or 80 cents per share,a year earlier.
Excluding one-time items, HP earned 91 cents per share, a penny better than the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.
Sales fell 2% to $27.45 billion, slightly ahead of analysts projections for $27.26 billion. Sales would have risen 4% were it not for currency fluctuations.
The combined HP-EDS had $8.47 billion in services revenue in the latest quarter. Its hard to compare that to last year, though, because the numbers HP has released dont compare directly yearto-year.
HP says thats because EDS wasnt a part of HP at this time last year, and the companies are still being integrated.
IBM, which ditched its PC division as part of a major facelift over the past 15 years, now makes most of its money from software and services. With its $13.9 billion acquisition last year of technology services company Electronic Data Systems, HP now too is heavily invested in services they are its biggest revenue and profit generator.
But HPs latest quarterly numbers,reported on Tuesday after the market closed, show the companies are still very different.
HPs profit dropped in large part due to ongoing weakness in sales of PCs and printer ink two areas IBM isnt in.Still, HP edged past Wall Streets profit and sales forecasts something CEO Mark Hurd has done most quarters in his 412years at HPs helm.Expectations were high going into Tuesdays report: HPs stock has risen 75% since March. Although the results edged out analysts estimates, investors sent shares down 96 cents, or 2.2%, to $43 in extended trading. The stock closed Tuesdays regular session up 85 cents,or 2%, at $43.96.
The numbers were good and the guidance is a relief, said Jayson Noland,an analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co Their commentary though is what I would focus on: conditions are stabilising,and some of the cyclical businesses should show a rebound next year.
But HP offered no big surprises, ho hum, he added.I dont expect the stock to do much one way or the other.(The stock) has been very strong.
Ink has long been HPs cash cow, but is coming under pressure from generic,cheaper brands. HPs revenue from printing supplies, which includes ink, was down 13% in the three months ended July 31.
HPs PC division posted an 18% sales decline, despite improvement in consumer spending, strength in China, and a 2% increase in unit shipments.
The discrepancy is explained by the fact that PC makers have been slashing prices, a trend that has also hurt HPs rivals.
HP has been reluctant to call a bottom in the PC market, as chip maker Intel Corp did in April one of the first bullish signs about a turnaround in that sector.
Were encouraged I think by the stability that were beginning to see in the market, but were not yet at a point where were ready to call it a turn,Hurd said on a conference call with analysts Tuesday evening.
Cathie Lesjak, HPs chief financial officer, said in an interview that PC demand appears to have stabilised.
She said the decline in printing supplies revenue was mostly caused by currency fluctuations and changes in the way HP manages inventory at resellers.
HPs printer division makes up 21%of its overall revenue. The PC division makes up 31%.
In the latest quarter, HP earned $1.64 billion, or 67 cents per share, compared with $2.03 billion, or 80 cents per share,a year earlier.
Excluding one-time items, HP earned 91 cents per share, a penny better than the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.
Sales fell 2% to $27.45 billion, slightly ahead of analysts projections for $27.26 billion. Sales would have risen 4% were it not for currency fluctuations.
The combined HP-EDS had $8.47 billion in services revenue in the latest quarter. Its hard to compare that to last year, though, because the numbers HP has released dont compare directly yearto-year.
HP says thats because EDS wasnt a part of HP at this time last year, and the companies are still being integrated.
HP'S Q3 PROFIT MEETS TARGET
Hewlett-Packard's CEO gives bullish outlook as economy improves
Hewlett-Packard, the world's largest personal-computer maker, reported tjhird-quarter profit tha tmet analysts' estimates after job cuts and other expense reductions helped make up for sluggish technoloy demand.
Excluding some costs, profit was 91 cents a share in teh quarter end July 31, Hewlett-packard said in a statement yesterday. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg anticipated 90 cents.
Chief executive officer Mark Hurd cut salaries, eliminated workers and reduced marketing expenses to counter the slump n technology spending.
Revenue from computer services grew, boosted by Hewlett-Packard's US$13.2 billion (Bt450.5 billion) acquisition of Electronic Data Systems.
"Services revenue is up big, and that shows me that heyy will constinue to grow that business an the integration is growing well," said James Brehm, an analyst at the research firm Frost and Sullivan in San Antonio. "If HP is any indication, we may be turning the corner economically."
Third-quarter net income dropped 19 per cent to $1.64 billion, or 67 cents a share, from $2.03 billion, or 80 cents, a year earlier. Sales fell 2.1 per cent to $27.5 billion in the period. Analysts had estimatd $27.3 billion.
"It's just a bunch of good numbers, we beat the revenue and we beat the EPS[earnigns per share]," Hurd said in an interview. "When you look at the companies that have been reporting, it's good news to see someone beat a revenue number in general." Revenue this quarter will grwow about 8 oer cebt frin tge orevuiys three months, the company said, suggesting about $29.6 billion.
Excluding some costs, profit will be about $1.12 a share. Analysts on average anticipated sales of $29.8 billion.
Revenue from printers and supplies, such as ink, fell 20 per cent to $5.7 billion. Printer shipments dropped 23 per cent. Profit from that business was $960 million, yielding a margin of 17 per cent.
Third-quarter revenuein Hewlett-Packards' server and storage business declined 23 per cent to $3.7 billion. Sale in the PC u nit fell 18 per cent to $8.4 billion last quarter. Unit shipments climbed 2 per cent.
The operating profit margin in the business narrowed to 4.6 per cent, fromo 5.7 per cent a year earlier.
Hewlett-Packard took the PC market lead from Dell in 2006, and has expanded that edge every quarter since then.
The company relies on a network of 80,000 retailers, including the Best Buy and Wal-Mart Stors chains.
To attract more price-conscious shoppers, the company has expanded into netbooks, stripped-down laptops that typically sell for less than $400.
In the calendar, second quarter Hewlett-Packard's PC shipments rose 2.8 per cennt, giving it a 19.6 - per -cent share of the worldwide market, according to gartner. That contrasted with a 17-per-cent drop in PC shipments for dell, which reports its earnings on August 27.
EDS helped Hewlett-Packard increase services revenue 93 per cent last quarter to $8.5 billion. The profit margin was 15 per cent, up from 13 per cent a year earlier.
The business, which accounts for about 30 per cent of sales, earns higher profit margins than Hewlett-Packard's hardware divisions.
The company ranks second to International Business Machines in that market.
Hurd is expanding in other areas as well. Teh company's ProCurve is challenging Cisco Systems in the newtworking-equipment field.
"I feel very good about HP being the beneficiary of great tings when this economy turns aroudn," hurd said.
"In these kind of economies, good companies can perform."
AT A GLANCE
Chief executive officer Mark Hurd cut salaries, eliminated workers and reduced marketing expenses to counter the slump in technology spending.
Revenue from computer services grew, boosted by Hewlett-Packard's $13.2 bilion (Bt450.5-billion) acquisition of Electronic Data Systems.
"It's just a bunch of good numbers, we beat the revenue and we beat the EPS [earnings per share]," Hurd said in an interview. "When you look at the companies that have been reporting, it's good news to see someone beat a revenue number in general."
"I feel very good about HP being the benficiary of great things when this economy turns aroud," Hurd said.
Hewlett-Packard, the world's largest personal-computer maker, reported tjhird-quarter profit tha tmet analysts' estimates after job cuts and other expense reductions helped make up for sluggish technoloy demand.
Excluding some costs, profit was 91 cents a share in teh quarter end July 31, Hewlett-packard said in a statement yesterday. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg anticipated 90 cents.
Chief executive officer Mark Hurd cut salaries, eliminated workers and reduced marketing expenses to counter the slump n technology spending.
Revenue from computer services grew, boosted by Hewlett-Packard's US$13.2 billion (Bt450.5 billion) acquisition of Electronic Data Systems.
"Services revenue is up big, and that shows me that heyy will constinue to grow that business an the integration is growing well," said James Brehm, an analyst at the research firm Frost and Sullivan in San Antonio. "If HP is any indication, we may be turning the corner economically."
Third-quarter net income dropped 19 per cent to $1.64 billion, or 67 cents a share, from $2.03 billion, or 80 cents, a year earlier. Sales fell 2.1 per cent to $27.5 billion in the period. Analysts had estimatd $27.3 billion.
"It's just a bunch of good numbers, we beat the revenue and we beat the EPS[earnigns per share]," Hurd said in an interview. "When you look at the companies that have been reporting, it's good news to see someone beat a revenue number in general." Revenue this quarter will grwow about 8 oer cebt frin tge orevuiys three months, the company said, suggesting about $29.6 billion.
Excluding some costs, profit will be about $1.12 a share. Analysts on average anticipated sales of $29.8 billion.
Revenue from printers and supplies, such as ink, fell 20 per cent to $5.7 billion. Printer shipments dropped 23 per cent. Profit from that business was $960 million, yielding a margin of 17 per cent.
Third-quarter revenuein Hewlett-Packards' server and storage business declined 23 per cent to $3.7 billion. Sale in the PC u nit fell 18 per cent to $8.4 billion last quarter. Unit shipments climbed 2 per cent.
The operating profit margin in the business narrowed to 4.6 per cent, fromo 5.7 per cent a year earlier.
Hewlett-Packard took the PC market lead from Dell in 2006, and has expanded that edge every quarter since then.
The company relies on a network of 80,000 retailers, including the Best Buy and Wal-Mart Stors chains.
To attract more price-conscious shoppers, the company has expanded into netbooks, stripped-down laptops that typically sell for less than $400.
In the calendar, second quarter Hewlett-Packard's PC shipments rose 2.8 per cennt, giving it a 19.6 - per -cent share of the worldwide market, according to gartner. That contrasted with a 17-per-cent drop in PC shipments for dell, which reports its earnings on August 27.
EDS helped Hewlett-Packard increase services revenue 93 per cent last quarter to $8.5 billion. The profit margin was 15 per cent, up from 13 per cent a year earlier.
The business, which accounts for about 30 per cent of sales, earns higher profit margins than Hewlett-Packard's hardware divisions.
The company ranks second to International Business Machines in that market.
Hurd is expanding in other areas as well. Teh company's ProCurve is challenging Cisco Systems in the newtworking-equipment field.
"I feel very good about HP being the beneficiary of great tings when this economy turns aroudn," hurd said.
"In these kind of economies, good companies can perform."
AT A GLANCE
Chief executive officer Mark Hurd cut salaries, eliminated workers and reduced marketing expenses to counter the slump in technology spending.
Revenue from computer services grew, boosted by Hewlett-Packard's $13.2 bilion (Bt450.5-billion) acquisition of Electronic Data Systems.
"It's just a bunch of good numbers, we beat the revenue and we beat the EPS [earnings per share]," Hurd said in an interview. "When you look at the companies that have been reporting, it's good news to see someone beat a revenue number in general."
"I feel very good about HP being the benficiary of great things when this economy turns aroud," Hurd said.
Social security
Whoever called them "social networks" must be having a second and third thought after a week of decidedly un-social activity around them; Russians... well, all right people at machines that seemed to be in Russia launched sustained denialof-service attacks that literally knocked Twitter off the air entirely for several hours, and almost did the same to Facebook and the blogging site Live Journal ,which become so slow they were almost unuseable; Georgian blogger Cyxymu said credibly it was all about him- the Russians hate that he tells the truth about the Russian-Georgian spats and war so much, that their e-vigilantes tried to close down all his platforms;the hackers used botnets to launch the attacks; those are machines (possibly yours) that have been hijacked by hackers by a variety of methods including fake email and malicious websites; used typically to mail billions of spam, they are so powerful that they only can be used for good, for evil or for being decidedly unsocial.
Then there are the US Marines, not known as a group to be all that sociable anyhow; their officers ordered all Marines off Twitter and Facebook ; in their typically diplomatic manner, the Marine commanders explained:"These Internet sites in general are a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user-generated content, and targeting by adversaries."
That could be why the National Football League , comprising the major US gridiron clubs, ordered all US professional football players not to use Twitter ;the multi-millionaire sportsmen will be fined $1,701, or 58,054 baht,(it's the NFL's maximum) per Tweet; or maybe NFL officials simply want to flaunt their control of content. The same could be said for the international sports network ESPN , which informed its employees they are banned from sending any sports-related news over Twitter and Facebook without written permission;violators can be fired on the spot.
Apple Inc has done a lot to make the name iPhone a synonym for phone,but the spiffy appliance actually only has an 8 percent share of the smartphone market; just as impressive as the propaganda machine, however, is the accounting office; Bernstein Research reported that in the second quarter of the year, the iPhone and its 65,000 apps (1.5 billion downloaded) had accumulated 32 percent of all profits in the smartphone niche. Google CEO Eric "I Know Jack" Schmidt resigned as a director of Apple Inc ; US regulators said they might well sue Schmidt and Apple for a conflict of interest and attempted monopoly anyhow.
Google announced yet another microscopic upgrade to its quick but faltering Google Chrome web browser;this time, Chrome comes with 29 skins to compete with the 20,000 for Firefox .Apple Inc released Mac OS X 10.5.8,which marginally increased security for Appleholics and makes the AirPort networks work.
Google bought the Internet video specialists On2 Technologies for $106.5 million; the purpose of the deal is to use On2's technology which allow better quality video, all part of the Google hope it can improve YouTube enough to make money from it. US media tycoon Rupert Murdoch of News Corp said he was just kidding about how news wants to be free; beginning almost immediately, you will pay to see the Times (of London) online, or you won't see it;Murdoch said he also will add charges to websites for his other newspapers;it's hard to figure why anyone would pay to see news on the Internet, and not as hard as it is to figure why Murdoch and others believe we will.
Microsoft paid enough money to feed all the world's orphans for weeks in order to make Patrick De Schutter and French friends at Office.com go away and move their website to ContactOffice.com, because Microsoft needs Office.com more than the orphans; in fact Microsoft wouldn't say what it paid for the domain name, and pretended there was some sort of mystery over what product it might promote there;hint: Office 2010 will be partly based on the web, and is in final development at the moment.
Publicis Groupe of France, one of the world's largest advertising companies, paid Microsoft $530 million in cash and stock for Razorfish , Microsoft's "preferred provider" for Internet advertising; the purchase, however, was more significantly an advertising deal,where Publicis agreed to spend grazillions on advertising through Microsoft over the next five years.
Microsoft held its chin up and its upper lip stiff as it came to Asia to promote the abysmally unpopular hosted messaging and small-business aid Business Productivity Online Suite,which some argue does not need the "B" in the initials BPOS; Allison Watson,corporate vice president for Microsoft's worldwide partner group, said in Singapore than Asians will be much faster than farangs in seeing the greatness of BPOS and joining on; the service actually offers free domain names, websites and more for small and medium businesses,and it will likely be a key part of Microsoft's plans to offer more online services like Microsoft Office.
Florida resident Keith R. Griffin told the judge that he did not download 1,000 images of child pornography; he said his cat would jump on the keyboard and by accident hit the keys to download the photos; the detectives knew he was lying, wrote a Wall Street Journal columnist, because cats never use the keyboard commands - they prefer the mouse.
Then there are the US Marines, not known as a group to be all that sociable anyhow; their officers ordered all Marines off Twitter and Facebook ; in their typically diplomatic manner, the Marine commanders explained:"These Internet sites in general are a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user-generated content, and targeting by adversaries."
That could be why the National Football League , comprising the major US gridiron clubs, ordered all US professional football players not to use Twitter ;the multi-millionaire sportsmen will be fined $1,701, or 58,054 baht,(it's the NFL's maximum) per Tweet; or maybe NFL officials simply want to flaunt their control of content. The same could be said for the international sports network ESPN , which informed its employees they are banned from sending any sports-related news over Twitter and Facebook without written permission;violators can be fired on the spot.
Apple Inc has done a lot to make the name iPhone a synonym for phone,but the spiffy appliance actually only has an 8 percent share of the smartphone market; just as impressive as the propaganda machine, however, is the accounting office; Bernstein Research reported that in the second quarter of the year, the iPhone and its 65,000 apps (1.5 billion downloaded) had accumulated 32 percent of all profits in the smartphone niche. Google CEO Eric "I Know Jack" Schmidt resigned as a director of Apple Inc ; US regulators said they might well sue Schmidt and Apple for a conflict of interest and attempted monopoly anyhow.
Google announced yet another microscopic upgrade to its quick but faltering Google Chrome web browser;this time, Chrome comes with 29 skins to compete with the 20,000 for Firefox .Apple Inc released Mac OS X 10.5.8,which marginally increased security for Appleholics and makes the AirPort networks work.
Google bought the Internet video specialists On2 Technologies for $106.5 million; the purpose of the deal is to use On2's technology which allow better quality video, all part of the Google hope it can improve YouTube enough to make money from it. US media tycoon Rupert Murdoch of News Corp said he was just kidding about how news wants to be free; beginning almost immediately, you will pay to see the Times (of London) online, or you won't see it;Murdoch said he also will add charges to websites for his other newspapers;it's hard to figure why anyone would pay to see news on the Internet, and not as hard as it is to figure why Murdoch and others believe we will.
Microsoft paid enough money to feed all the world's orphans for weeks in order to make Patrick De Schutter and French friends at Office.com go away and move their website to ContactOffice.com, because Microsoft needs Office.com more than the orphans; in fact Microsoft wouldn't say what it paid for the domain name, and pretended there was some sort of mystery over what product it might promote there;hint: Office 2010 will be partly based on the web, and is in final development at the moment.
Publicis Groupe of France, one of the world's largest advertising companies, paid Microsoft $530 million in cash and stock for Razorfish , Microsoft's "preferred provider" for Internet advertising; the purchase, however, was more significantly an advertising deal,where Publicis agreed to spend grazillions on advertising through Microsoft over the next five years.
Microsoft held its chin up and its upper lip stiff as it came to Asia to promote the abysmally unpopular hosted messaging and small-business aid Business Productivity Online Suite,which some argue does not need the "B" in the initials BPOS; Allison Watson,corporate vice president for Microsoft's worldwide partner group, said in Singapore than Asians will be much faster than farangs in seeing the greatness of BPOS and joining on; the service actually offers free domain names, websites and more for small and medium businesses,and it will likely be a key part of Microsoft's plans to offer more online services like Microsoft Office.
Florida resident Keith R. Griffin told the judge that he did not download 1,000 images of child pornography; he said his cat would jump on the keyboard and by accident hit the keys to download the photos; the detectives knew he was lying, wrote a Wall Street Journal columnist, because cats never use the keyboard commands - they prefer the mouse.
World title for Thai
A Thai student has triumphed over the largest field of competitors ever in the annual Worldwide Competition on Microsoft Office
Kankawin Kowsrihawat, 17, was the winner of this year's World Champion in Word 2007 contest. In its eighth year, the 2009 Worldwide Competition on Microsoft Office boasted more than 80,000 student competitors from 53 countries, who participated in local, national and regional rounds before culminating in the world championship in Toronto, Canada.
"After I heard I was the winner, I was very glad," said Kankawint, who received a grand-prize scholarship fund of US$6,500 (221,000 baht).
After graduating from high school, he plans to continue his education and study computer science.
The Worldwide Competition on Microsoft Office has grown steadily since its inauguration in 2002 as a regional event in Asia. All told, more than 250,000 students from all over the world have competed for the coveted title of World Champ in its eight-year history.
Kankawin Kowsrihawat, 17, was the winner of this year's World Champion in Word 2007 contest. In its eighth year, the 2009 Worldwide Competition on Microsoft Office boasted more than 80,000 student competitors from 53 countries, who participated in local, national and regional rounds before culminating in the world championship in Toronto, Canada.
"After I heard I was the winner, I was very glad," said Kankawint, who received a grand-prize scholarship fund of US$6,500 (221,000 baht).
After graduating from high school, he plans to continue his education and study computer science.
The Worldwide Competition on Microsoft Office has grown steadily since its inauguration in 2002 as a regional event in Asia. All told, more than 250,000 students from all over the world have competed for the coveted title of World Champ in its eight-year history.
Microsoft, Nokia collaborate
Microsoft and Nokia,in a challenge to Research in Motion's Blackberry, announced Wednesday that Microsoft Office software will be available on smartphones made by the Finnish company.
The software and mobile phone giants said that from next year, Nokia would include Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile on its smartphones, followed by other Office applications.
"This agreement represents an important milestone for both companies and the industry," Stephen Elop, the president of Microsoft Business Division,said in a conference call with reporters.
"It's the first time Microsoft will develop rich Office Mobile applications for another smartphone platform," he noted, adding that the two companies have identified several other areas for future joint collaboration.
"With more than 200 million smartphone customers globally, Nokia is the world's largest smartphone manufacturer and a natural partner for us," Elop added in a statement.
"Today's announcement will enable us to expand Microsoft Office Mobile to Nokia smartphone owners worldwide and allow them to collaborate on Office documents from anywhere," he said.
Microsoft and Nokia said the agreement will allow Nokia smartphone users to view, edit, create and share Office documents and use such popular Microsoft programs as Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote.
"Together with Microsoft, we will develop new and innovative user experiences for employees of small and large businesses alike," said Kai Oistamo, Nokia's executive vice president for devices.
Microsoft and Nokia both stressed their commitment to their rival mobile telephone operating systems, Windows Mobile and Symbian.
"Nokia and Microsoft do compete in some areas and we will continue to do so," said Elop."At Microsoft we remain deeply committed to Windows Mobile."
Oistamo emphasized his company's commitment to Symbian and said Microsoft's productivity applications will add "tremendous value to Symbian."
Asked whether the alliance was intended to counter the growing popularity of Apple's iPhone, Oistamo said it was aimed more at the Blackberry, whose email capability is a favourite of office workers worldwide.
"It is really about creating a formidable challenge for RIM rather than anybody else," the Nokia executive said.
Nokia is the world's leading manufacturer of mobile phones and holds a 45 percent share of the smartphone market, according to the latest figures from research firm Gartner.
But the Finnish company has been facing increased competition in the smartphone business from the iPhone and Blackberry.
Microsoft also faces competition in the mobile phone operating system sector from Google's open-source Android software and free Web-based programs.
Gartner analyst Nick Jones said the agreement was good for Microsoft.
The software and mobile phone giants said that from next year, Nokia would include Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile on its smartphones, followed by other Office applications.
"This agreement represents an important milestone for both companies and the industry," Stephen Elop, the president of Microsoft Business Division,said in a conference call with reporters.
"It's the first time Microsoft will develop rich Office Mobile applications for another smartphone platform," he noted, adding that the two companies have identified several other areas for future joint collaboration.
"With more than 200 million smartphone customers globally, Nokia is the world's largest smartphone manufacturer and a natural partner for us," Elop added in a statement.
"Today's announcement will enable us to expand Microsoft Office Mobile to Nokia smartphone owners worldwide and allow them to collaborate on Office documents from anywhere," he said.
Microsoft and Nokia said the agreement will allow Nokia smartphone users to view, edit, create and share Office documents and use such popular Microsoft programs as Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote.
"Together with Microsoft, we will develop new and innovative user experiences for employees of small and large businesses alike," said Kai Oistamo, Nokia's executive vice president for devices.
Microsoft and Nokia both stressed their commitment to their rival mobile telephone operating systems, Windows Mobile and Symbian.
"Nokia and Microsoft do compete in some areas and we will continue to do so," said Elop."At Microsoft we remain deeply committed to Windows Mobile."
Oistamo emphasized his company's commitment to Symbian and said Microsoft's productivity applications will add "tremendous value to Symbian."
Asked whether the alliance was intended to counter the growing popularity of Apple's iPhone, Oistamo said it was aimed more at the Blackberry, whose email capability is a favourite of office workers worldwide.
"It is really about creating a formidable challenge for RIM rather than anybody else," the Nokia executive said.
Nokia is the world's leading manufacturer of mobile phones and holds a 45 percent share of the smartphone market, according to the latest figures from research firm Gartner.
But the Finnish company has been facing increased competition in the smartphone business from the iPhone and Blackberry.
Microsoft also faces competition in the mobile phone operating system sector from Google's open-source Android software and free Web-based programs.
Gartner analyst Nick Jones said the agreement was good for Microsoft.
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