Tag: China

Broadcom VMware deal has big trouble in China

Broadcom wants to close its $61bn deal for VMware in a couple of weeks, but the deal is in peril with Chinese government regulators.

Three people told the Financial Times that Beijing is threatening to block the merger, even after it has cleared regulators around the world, in retaliation for new US trade rules that prevent China from receiving advanced chips from Nvidia and Micron.

The US this week announced tougher measures to limit China’s access to high-end chipsets that could fuel breakthroughs in AI and sophisticated technology for its military. The US restrictions hit China, Russia and Iran and blacklisted a Chinese chip designer.

Forrester principal analyst Tracy Woo said it was unlikely China would follow through on its threats to block the deal and was more likely just trying to rain on Broadcom’s parade.

China is nicking our tech

British and USA spooks are warning tech companies about the threat of Chinese espionage.

Christopher Wray, the FBI director, and Ken McCallum, the MI5’s director general, stood alongside each other at the MI5’s London headquarters to warn businesses that China is “set on stealing technology from other nations” and to stress the magnitude of the threat it poses.

“The Chinese government is set on stealing  technology, whatever it is that makes industry tick, and using it to undercut your business and dominate your market”, Wray said.

A little trouble from nig China

There are rumblings from behind the bamboo curtain which could indicate a push from China to export services and promised to share locally developed technology with the world.

In a speech delivered yesterday at an event called the “Global Trade in Services Summit of 2021” China’s President Xi Jinping said China will change rules for its services sector.  The move will bring them into line with international norms and make it harder for the US and UK governments to complain about.

“We will create more possibilities for cooperation, by scaling up support for the growth of the services sector in Belt and Road partner countries and by sharing China’s technological achievements with the rest of the world”, Xi said.

China is currently a net importer of services, but is rated the world’s second-finest destination for outsourced labour thanks in part to workers being well-educated.

Arrow denies Chinese military connection

Arrow has denied Chinese military connections after one of its subsidiaries was named and shamed in a draft sanctions document by the US government.

One of the distie’s Asian units, Arrow Asia Pac, has found itself on Donald Trump’s list of outfits requiring US businesses apply for a licence before they can export certain products to firms listed.

Arrow’s subsidiary appears in the document as a “military end user” but the distie has denied any links to the Chinese military and called its inclusion on the list, which is yet to be formalised, an error.

Consumer electronics could suffer supply chain issues for a long time

Consumer electronics could suffer from supply chain problems for a long time due to the rapid shut down of China’s manufacturing during the Corona Virus outbreak.

GlobalData’s report, COVID-19 Impact on Consumer Electronics – Thematic Research, notes when COVID-19 broke out in China, the country was quick to slow down its production, eventually ceasing all manufacturing as the country went into lockdown. This had a drastic effect on supply chains across the world, as many industries, including the consumer electronic sector, are heavily reliant on components that are manufactured in China and could no longer access these resources, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

Lenovo moved production outside China

Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang said his outfit had moved production outside China to other areas to keep the flow of devices running after the country was crippled by the coronavirus.

In a statement Yang said that he had been amazed at the dedication his teams have shown to keeping its partners and customers informed and ensuring its operations are running as smoothly as possible.

Yang said he was not surprised, because he had seen teams pull together and deliver for customers in many difficult situations.

Europe should adopt joint 5G approach

The chancellor of Germany today called for European countries to adopt a common front on the future of 5G.

Reuters reports that Angela Merkel told German politicians that individual countries taking their own stance on relationships with China could lead to disaster, not for China but for Europe.

Her message obviously refers to Chinese company Huawei, blacklisted by the USA because of concerns its 5G equipment could pose a security threat.

America has so far failed to provide evidence for this.

The US administration has urged its allies to avoid using Huawei kit, but European countries appear to be reluctant to follow suit.

MTI Wireless Edge scores second Chinese contract

Photo of China from satellite - Wikimedia CommonsMTI Wireless Edge scored its second new contract win within a week.

Through its wireless irrigation control unit, MTI Wireless has signed a contract worth over $3 million in China with an unnamed client.

The order is expected to be delivered in full within five years, and is the largest MTI Wireless has ever received.

Dudi Shani, the general manager of the Mottech Water Solutions unit, said: “We are delighted with this strategic agreement, which demonstrates a maturation of our business in China since our decision to open a local subsidiary and following the investments made in this region in recent years.

US/China trade war will harm smartphone shipments

The US and China  trade war will hurt global smartphone shipments in 2019, according to Canalys.

The research outfit predicts that smartphone shipments will reach 1.35 billion units this year, representing a 3.1 percent year-on-year decline.

Chinese manufacturer Huawei has been a key figure in the dispute between the two superpowers, with the US last month banning the vendor from using American components and code for its products. It then issued a 90-day reprieve in order to prevent huge disruption to Huawei’s supply chain and users.

China winning security battle

Chinese tech companies are increasingly strengthening their presence the security business, challenging the historical American dominance.

According to GlobalData’s list of top five venture capital (VC) funded security technology companies the  US and China security technology companies shared honours in the list.

However, China-based Yitu Technology emerged as the leader and attracted largest VC funding in 2018. While the three US-based companies among the top-five raised a total of US$489 million, the two Chinese companies collectively raised US$479 million during the year.

Lenovo pulls up its channel socks

Screen Shot 2018-10-11 at 11.27.37At a keynote speech at the Canalys Channel Forum yesterday, analyst-in-chief Steve Brazier said Lenovo had a poor set of tools for its partners and made decisions too slowly.

But senior executives at Lenovo told ChannelEye this morning that it’s already taken significant steps to turn that position round.

Lenovo said it recognised its tools and processes weren’t perfect, but said it had been investing and making improvements. It’s committed to speeding up the way it works with resellers and investing money to improve the matter.

“We’re turning things round – we need a more sophisticated way of helping the channel.”

Lenovo recognised that it’s a big investment that it has to undertake. It’s been working on the project for 12 months.

“We have further to go but we are making progress. We [now] have the ability to give split second decisions on deals and on pricing.”

It claimed it was getting good feedback from its distributors and channel partners on the improvements it’s already made.

It recognises that it needed to be more collaborative at sharing material with partners and need to be more agile and have a bespoke method of getting its product message tailored to the customers that they’re pitching to.

* The company said it is likely to be protected in the event of a continuing trade war between the US and China. It has a factory in China but also in other territories and has the ability to switch production if it needs to.

Box-shifter’s rebellion – top Western brands overrun by the Chinese

1900-intl-forces-including-us-marines-enter-beijing-to-put-down-boxer-rebellion-which-was-aimed-at-ridding-china-of-foreigners-When IDG announced its list of the top brands for 2017-you could not help but notice that most of them are Chinese.

While there were lots of brands from elsewhere collecting gongs many were Chinese brands, such as Haier, Changhong, Hisense, TCL, Huawei, BOE, Lenovo, Midea, Gree, Skyworth, Coolpad, iFlytek and Sharp.

IDG works with the beancounters at IDC to conduct professional and comprehensive evaluation of the performance of global electronic brands in the past year by combining the third-party data, network voting and evaluation by jury, consisting of experts from famous global manufacturers or institutions. The evaluated aspects include the industrial status, international strategy and deployment, brand image, market scale and operating profits of global electronic brands.

But this year saw the domination of the Chinese. Among “2017-2018 Top 10 CE Brands”, Chinese brands include Haier, Changhong, Hisense, TCL, Huawei, BOE, Lenovo, Midea, Gree and Skyworth. Furthermore, TCL, Changhong, iFlytek, Hisense, Coolpad, Sharp, MEITU and iQIYI also won various special awards for their products.

TCL C6 won “Global Smart TV of Audio-Visual Experience Award of the Year”, Hisense U9 won “Global Best Display Tech Gold Award of the Year”, CHANGHONG CHiQ-Q5R won “The Best Designed Television of the Year”, CHANGHONG CHiQ-Q5T won “The Best Frame-Integrated Television of the Year”, SHARP LCD-70SX970A won “8K Innovation Technology Contribution Award”, iFlytek won “The Excellent Leader of Artificial Intelligence Industry of the Year”, SHARP AQUOS S2 won “The Best Full Screen Smartphone Innovation Award”, BlackBerry KEYone won “Global Business Security Mobile Phone of the Year”, Coolpad COOL M7 won “The Best Fashion ID Design Award”, MEITU V6 won “The Best Photography Smartphone of the Year” and Coolpad Dynobot won “The Best Kid’s Smart Watch Innovation Award of Technology”.

Chinese invest in British IP business

Beijing-cityguide-statue-xlargeChina’s Galaxy World Group  has announced a $30 million strategic investment in the British developer of intellectual property-based business, the IP Group.

The deal will be sorted out by 18 August 2017 but it will see Galaxy cooperate with the IP Group in various fields including potential co-investment in IP Group’s portfolio companies and continued exploration of further collaboration in both China and the UK.

Three other institutions are also joining this round as new investors – renowned Singaporean investment firm Temasek Holdings, British asset manager M&G and Australia’s Telstra in addition to support from IP Group’s existing shareholders.

IP Group is a listed British company that commercialises intellectual property from the world’s leading universities and research institutions.

The IP Group team has spent many years developing its approach to identifying attractive intellectual property (“IP”), nurturing and building businesses around such IP and then providing capital and support along the journey from “cradle to maturity”.

IP Group works in close cooperation with many top universities in countries including the UK, the US, Australia, and New Zealand.

According to IP Group’s announcement, the funds raised this time around will be used to support cooperation with elite universities around the world to commercialise outstanding intellectual property. Since its founding, IP Group has a proven track record of success with the gross internal rate of return (IRR) on its portfolio approximating 19 per cent and has created more than 2,000 new jobs.

Maodong Xu, the chairman of Galaxy Group, said: “The strategic investment into IP Group marks an important step for Galaxy to build a global entrepreneurial growth network. The cooperation with IP Group would enable us to quickly introduce cutting-edge technological projects in fields including the Internet, big data and AI from global top universities and will, in the form of co-funding, help these projects be in shape for a strong foothold in China.

In this way the world’s state-of-the-art research findings would be converted into technology products and applications so as to propel China’s industries to incorporate the Internet and smart technologies”.

Apart from its UK office, Galaxy Group has set up offices in countries including the US and Israel. The group’s global entrepreneurial growth network has already taken shape. By offering fundamental entrepreneurial services and playing the role of co-founder and industrial investor superpower, Galaxy Group’s network empowers start-ups with a highly friendly platform and helps them grow and compete in a better environment.

 

Chinese tech exports fall as trade war predicted

eclipse-chinaThe place where most tech gadgets are made is suffering from a fall in exports for the second year in a row.

Shipments are falling in the face of persistently weak global demand and officials voicing fears of a trade war with the United States this year.

Next week China’s leaders will see if President Donald (Prince of Orange) Trump will make good on a campaign pledge to brand Beijing a currency manipulator on his first day in office, and starts to follow up on a threat to slap high tariffs on Chinese goods. This will of course hit technology goods hard with most of them being made in China and exported to the US.

The world’s largest trading nation posted gloomy data  with 2016 exports falling 7.7 percent and imports down 5.5 percent. The export drop was the second annual decline in a row and the worst since the depths of the global crisis in 2009.

China’s trade surplus with the United States was $366 billion in 2015, and Trump could seize on in a bid to bring Beijing to the negotiating table to press for concessions. A sustained trade surplus of more than $20 billion against the United States is one of three criteria used by the U.S. Treasury to designate another country as a currency manipulator.

China is likely to point out that its own data showed the surplus fell to $250.79 billion in 2016 from $260.91 billion in 2015.

Trump’s trade policy will likely motivate US businesses to move their manufacturing facilities away from China which China might counter by moving to high end manufacturing which will cut costs.

China has a few weapons of its own. Beijing announced even higher anti-dumping duties on imports of certain animal feed from the United States than it proposed last year. It is also likely to protest to the IMF

This war of words will weaken investor confidence not only in the US and China.

China’s December exports fell by a more-than-expected 6.1 percent on-year, while imports beat forecasts slightly, growing 3.1 percent on its strong demand for commodities which has helped buoy global resources prices.

 

IDC says the channel must embrace the DX economy

chinaflagBeancounters at IDC have been telling the Chinese channel that it must rush to embrace the digital transformation (DX) economy and what applies there, should really apply to Blighty.

China’s economy has entered a period of transformation and both the governments and businesses alike are actively seeking new growth modes. Digital transformation (DX) of business, backed by the latest ICT technologies, is the answer.

IDC forecasts that digital transformation will attain macroeconomic scale over the next three to four years, changing the way enterprises operate and reshaping the global and Chinese economy. This is the dawn of the “DX Economy”.

Kitty Fok, Managing Director of IDC China, said: “DX will be a top priority for all business in the coming decade. Executives must adapt to the new rules of competition and accelerate DX process; meanwhile IT executives must take up new roles, transforming IT department into a strong technical partner. Executives of ICT vendors must be aware of their customers’ new demands, changing from its role of tech support to a DX partner for customers. ”

China is expected to continue growing steadily in 2017, with GDP growth of more than six percent.

IDC predicts that the Chinese IT market will expand by 2.3% in 2017, entering a period of adjustment.

Personal device market is likely to remain flat whereas the enterprise infrastructure hardware market is expected to grow 7.3 per cent in 2017. The Software market is forecast to expand 7.5 per cent, while the IT service market to grow 8.7 per cent. Growth in the traditional hardware, software and services is likely to slow, but rapid growth of 15 per cent or higher is forecast for markets that are associated with innovation accelerator technologies (3D printing, robotics, cognitive system, Internet of Things, AR and VR, and the next generation security) and the 3rd Platform (cloud computing, big data, mobile, social).

IDC said that we are looking at the dawn of the DX Economy and that by 2020, 50 per cent of China’s Top 1000 companies will see most their business depends on their ability to create digitally-enhanced products, services and experiences.

There will be mass customization to accelerate business transformation: By 2018, the top 10% of China’s industry leaders will develop the ability to allow customers to build custom product and service bundles. By 2018, Chinese companies investing in IoT-based operational sensing and cognitive-based situational awareness will see 40 per cent improvements in the cycle times of impacted critical processes.

Information-based products and services will start gaining popularity. In 2018, one fourth of China’s Top 1000 companies will gain the revenue from information-based products. By 2020, the demand for digital-related services will account for 30 per cent of total worldwide services spending.

Crowd-funding to improve startup’s success rate, IDC said. By 2019, China’s Top 500 firms and lots of internet companies will use Kickstarter-like methods to allocate capital to 10 per cent of new projects, aiming to increase their new product introduction success rates by over 30 per cent.

Digital revenue streams will drive business growth. By 2019, 20 per cent of China’s IT projects will create new digital services and revenue streams that monetise data. More than 20 per cent of CIOs will shift primary focus from physical to digital and move away from BPM and optimisation by 2018.

 

There will be more self-adaptive security and risk management. The Chinese will tighten policy on security and controllability, driving investment on IT security by governments and large state-owned enterprises to grow by 15 per cent on average annually. By 2018, half of CIOs will help drive global risk portfolios that enable adaptive responses to security, compliance, business, or catastrophic threats.

The new wave of cloud computing (dubbed Cloud 2.0) will facilitate ICT ecosystem revolution. IDC said that by 2020, 40 per cent of all enterprise IT infrastructure and software spending will be for cloud-based offerings.

“The Cloud will morph to become distributed, trusted, intelligent, industry-focused and channel-mediated. By 2018, the number of Industry Collaborative Clouds will be more than 40; by 2020, more than half of China’s Top 100 will be digital services suppliers through ICCs,” IDC said.