Category: News

Slow Ultrabook sales hurt NAND suppliers in 2012

Posted on February 11, 2013 by - News, Products

nand-chipsGlobal NAND memory revenue fell seven percent in 2012, on the back of lackluster Ultrabook sales.

Although demand for smartphones remains strong, IHS iSuppli reports that NAND industry revenue fell to $19.7 billion last year, down from $21.2 billion in 2011. IHS expects revenue to rebound this year and reach $22.4 billion. Sales should continue expanding over the next few years.

Apple’s iPhone gobbled up 10.5 percent of all NAND shipments in 2012. An average iPhone shipped with 24.5GB of NAND, which means most consumers still opt for the entry level 16GB model. All other smartphones combined used 10.5 percent.

Although there was plenty of growth in mobile, IHS iSuppli concluded that Ultrabook demand failed to meet expectations. Ultrabooks have had some success penetrating the consumer market, but overall adoption remains underwhelming.

On the whole, NAND production slowed sown in mid 2012 in order to stabilise and reduce inventory. IHS iSuppli now says manufacturers need to tightly manage their supply in the first half of 2013, as the first six months of the year are seasonally a weak period for the industry.

An increasing number of vendors are focusing solely on internal storage and ditching microSD slots in tablets and smartphones. While this trend might be good for NAND demand in the short term, emerging technologies such as cloud storage coupled with 4G could pose a challenge down the road.

Pivot3 signs EMEA distie deal with Avnet

Posted on February 11, 2013 by - News

avnettsPivot3 has signed on the dotted line to make Avnet its distribution partner.

The company, which deals in converged storage and compute appliances, has said under the agreement Avnet will distribute the Pivot3 vSTAC VDIproducts to its partner network across EMEA countries.

The Pivot3 vSTAC VDI appliance family is said to make VMware View deployments easy, affordable and channel friendly for the 100 to 2,500 desktop target market.

They are also claimed to eliminate the need for specialised IT expertise to configure and integrate separate SAN storage, servers and software into a VDI solution.

Ed Bateman, director of software, Wireless and Mobility Business Group EMEA at Avnet said the partnership would give resellers a product that was “simple, scalable and cost-effective” for their clients.

In support of the partnership, Pivot3 has a VDI Channel Ready program which it claims is  designed to maximise lead opportunity and qualification for Avnet resellers and product providers in EMEA.

It provides online tools for VDI self-configuration and ROI analysis. Additionally, prospects can “Test Drive” a live, hosted 300 to 400 desktop scenario complete with workload simulation, login storms, scale-out of desktops and performance reporting. The Channel Ready program is also designed to enhance sell-through with all VMware and Microsoft license revenues flowing to the resellers. In addition, deal registration is available to partners.

The Pivot3 vSTAC VDI is available now and is already said to have caught the eye of several leading enterprises across various industries, including healthcare, education, government and financial services. List pricing starts at $29,999.

Dell hints at more buys in open letter

Posted on February 8, 2013 by - News, Opinions

mikedellcloseupFollowing Dell’s acquisition of, er, Dell – taking the behemoth off the public market – CEO Michael Dell has penned an open letter to the company’s customers which promises “organic” and “inorganic” investment. Translation: Dell’s patent-packed Supermarket Sweep shopping spree will be ongoing.

At Dell Tech Camp, Amsterdam, last week, the company was very keen to assert the importance of acquisitions in its portfolio. Wyse, Kace, and the others were wheeled into Dell’s Software Group and it is clear from the time given to each that the company’s intended message was that it’s growing. It wants to continue to compete with HP and IBM in enterprise, and there are plenty of pre-packaged firms out there it believes it can pick up.

The letter opened by saying Dell’s agreement represents an “exciting new chapter for our company and for you, our customers”. Ultimately, more control in the paws of Michael Dell will define Dell at this transitional point in the company’s history.

“As always, our unwavering focus is on delivering a fantastic customer experience and creating value for your organisation,” the letter reads. “We believe that our proposed new ownership will provide long-term support to help Dell innovate, invest for growth and accelerate our transformation strategy. We’ll have the flexibility to continue organic and inorganic investment and drive industry leading innovation”.

Mentioning the past few years, Dell claimed that strategic execution has been “consistent”, and again mentioned that portfolio it has managed to swell. Considering the enterprise represents the overwhelming lion’s share of Dell’s products, services and technologies – will we see Mike pick Apotheker two from HP’s notebook under the latter’s short lived leadership? Some pundits guffawed when IBM dumped its consumer division, but it turned out to be for the better.

HP, meanwhile, struggles with ‘restructuring’ and was forced to write down the insanity of its Autonomy buy. We’ll say it right now: it will be Michael Dell’s hated box-shifting label for whom the Dell tolls.

Customers confused by “SIM free” and “unlocked”

Posted on February 8, 2013 by - News

Old_chainCustomers buying “SIM free” Nokia Lumia 920 handsets from retailer Phones 4U have found much to their horror that they are locked into EE network and not “unlocked” like they expected.

Phone4U obtained the Lumia 920 as an exclusive deal in the UK for mobile operator EE. However it was also being sold SIM-free via Phones 4U.

According to PC Pro, the phones are locked to EE, Orange and T Mobile and has been offering refunds for those who expected the full “unlocked” experience.

Phones 4U has admitted that its marketing initially wasn’t clear enough about the difference between “unlocked” and “SIM free”.

Part of the problem appears that when Phones4U announced the handset at the end of October, everything was exclusive to EE.

It was advertised online and in-store as being SIM-free, not unlocked, however it started to queries that from users who thought SIM-free means unlocked.

Staff have since been “rebriefed”, and the website and sales material were altered. Since that time, the phone outfit has not had any complaints about it or queries about it,” a spokesperson claimed, although recent EE forum posts suggest sales staff are still confused about the difference themselves.

Customers were given a refund if they complained within 14 days, and anyone still affected would be dealt with on a “case by case” basis, she said.

Even if Phones4U wanted to unlock phones, it couldn’t and those who use a backstreet jailbreaker will void the warranty, the spokesperson added.
She admitted it was rare for phones to be SIM-free but not unlocked, saying she could think of no other phone on the store’s website with such conditions.

Fujutsu orders 5,000 to fall on sword

Posted on February 8, 2013 by - News

seppuku-p1000701Troubled Japanese electronics maker Fujitsu has announced that its wants 5,000 workers to dispatch themselves in the company carpark while PR bunnies throw cherry blossom in the air. Not literally, of course.

The company said that nearly three percent of its global workforce will have to surrender to the company’s vigorous restructuring, write a haiku of resignation  and clean out their desks.

Fujitsu is desperate to boost profitability by reshaping its computer chip business and its overseas operations.

In a statement, it said that the job cuts will be completed by the end of this fiscal year, next month, and will rely on early retirement, layoffs and “other methods”.

Meanwhile another 4,500 workers will be shifted to other parts of Fujitsu. There is a computer chip company being set up with Panasonic, which does sound better than the dole queue. It should be pointed out that Panasonic is not exactly in the best of health either.

Japan’s electronics sector, which has been flapping around on the floor of the IT industry like a bloated fugu fish waiting to be prepared, has been getting a boost lately from the the weakening yen. Still, 2012 will be remembered as the year that the Japanese government finally gave up Elpida Memory and the outfit filed for bankruptcy.

Nexus 4 shipments estimated at just one million units

Posted on February 8, 2013 by - Gossip, News, Products

nexus4-ceGoogle’s Nexus 4 has been on sale for three months, although one could argue that it has been on sale for a couple of weeks, since it wasn’t really available anywhere. For some reason, Google grossly underestimated demand for its latest vanilla Android phone, resulting in ridiculous shortages in every single market.

Android enthusiasts managed to work out that Google shipped just a million units in the first three months of sales, after four months in production.

Microserver market set to be a money spinner

Posted on February 8, 2013 by - News, Opinions, Products

HP-MicroServerCompanies interested in jumping on the next industry craze might want to have a look at what is being cooked up in the microserver market.

Analysts like iSuppli thinks that shipments of microservers will go up by three times this year. While that sounds like a lot, we are talking about a miniscule market now so a threefold increase is only 291,000 microservers.

But, if the pundits are right, this year will just be the start of something fairly bright and glorious which will start netting huge numbers of sales next year.

The forecast shows shipments increasing substantially each year until 2016. By then, it will represent one-tenth of overall server shipments.

For those who came in late, a microserver uses a bunch of densely-packed, low-power chips. The chips themselves are slower than an asthmatic turtle with a heavy load of shopping, but they can manage to do simple tasks without wasting power.

This makes them ideal for providing contact information on one website user. The bigger web-companies, including Facebook and Yahoo, and the banks are looking at them.

IHS says that Microserver shipments are going up faster than general servers and blade servers.
It will take a while for them to dent normal server shipments. To match that IDC estimates that microservers will have to come up with 8.4 million sales. It is worthwhile remember those are  last year’s figures and that companies were not buying due to the recession.

Already the big names in the chip industry are starting to come up with their plans for this big boom. Both Intel and ARM have announced that they are ready to come up with chips ready. The key was having 64-bit versions, which Intel was tooled up for while ARM wasn’t.

Now it looks like ARM is ready to come to the party and its partner AppliedMicro announced it will have something ready by the middle of the year.

Chief Financial Officer Robert Gargus told Reuters this morning he has been increasingly impressed this month with performance test results on new chips that include 64-bit features widely used in servers.

The company’s shareholders also like such talk. AppliedMicro stock has surged almost 80 percent since September. Gargus however seems to think that the serious revenue from microserver chips will not be around until next year. When they come through, those chips could account for as much as half the company’s business.

Intel is vying for a sizable cut with its Atom-based processor that uses just six watts. AMD snapped up SeaMicro, and Rackspace has already certified the new SM15000 for use in OpenStack.
Qualcomm and Samsung Electronics, which both use ARM’s technology to make chips for mobile gadgets, could also move into the microserver market and create a formidable challenge for AppliedMicro, analysts say.

Then there are the hardware makers who will be wading in for a slice of the pie. All up, there will be a lot of people who will want to make a pile out of technology before the technology becomes old hat.

Intel denies pay freeze claims

Posted on February 8, 2013 by - Gossip, News, Opinions

IntelIntel’s HQ  in Satan Clara has poured water over rumours that it has imposed pay freezes and left important vacancies open in a bid to save cash.

The comments from the company come following claims that the company was making these cuts in a bid to claw back the cash and make up its falling profits, which  dropped 27 percent in the last quarter.

Earlier this week the reliable sources told ChannelEye there had been “talk” of pay freezes, while vacancies that had been left open for months had yet to be filled.

When Intel was initially contacted regarding these claims, its press machines told us that the company didn’t “comment on rumour or speculations”,

However, it seems someone has had a change of heart – or woken from its media slumber, with the company now issuing a further statement.

It told ChannelEye today: “Just to follow up with confirmation from HQ.  [ChannelEye’s] report is false, there are no pay cuts or frozen hiring.”

We say watch this space.

Men become shopping lapdogs to their WAGs

Posted on February 8, 2013 by - Fun Stuff, News

ChihuahuaBritain is breeding a generation of men bearing thumbprints on their foreheads, if recent retail research is to be believed.

Gone are the days when men sat in the pub watching their sport and women took this opportunity to shop, with Debenhams claiming “a huge number of men” are using its free wi-fi in stores to catch up on the sport they are missing by shopping with their missus.

Sites such as BBC Sports, Sky Sports, LiveScore and YouTube were found to be the most popular, with the lapdogs telling Debenhams they were spending an average of thirty minutes on their mobiles checking the latest results, watching video clips and sharing their reactions on Facebook, while their other halves spent the cash.

The retailer has decided to cash in on these soft touches and their joined at the hip ladies, by offering “sport-starved men forced to miss the weekend’s big matches”,  Internet crèches”.

It’s promising its free wireless service to men who are waiting for their WAGs to spend the money and missing out on the range of sport events, including  Six Nations Rugby and Premier League football, taking place.

Men can grab a comfy chair in any of the retailer’s cafés where they can use the in-store Wifi to browse the internet free. They’ll also be treated to a free cup of tea or coffee so they can avoid being dragged around looking at clothes or having to wait outside the fitting room – is it just us, or does this totally defeat the point of going shopping together.

Helen Lacey, a spokeswoman for the company said men were “over the moon” that they could keep up-to-date with all the latest sporting news.

E-commerce spending hits $186bn in US

Posted on February 8, 2013 by - News

shut-up-and-take-my-moneyRetail e-commerce is still growing, in spite of economic volatility and a host of other concerns. According to comScore, 2012 was a record year for e-commerce outfits in the US. No doubt it will have a trickle down effect here in Europe.

Total e-commerce sales amounted to $186.2 billion and a quarterly breakdown shows that Q1 2012 was the fastest quarter, with year-on-year growth of 17 percent. Growth in the second and third quarters hit 15 percent and it slowed down to 14 percent in the holiday quarter.

On the whole, E-commerce spending saw double digit growth for the last nine consecutive quarters. Sales in Q4 2012 hit $56.8 billion, an absolute record, despite the fact that it fell somewhat short of expectations.

“2012 was a year in which – for the most part – e-commerce continued to grow strongly, despite an uneven macroeconomic environment showing signs of recovery but also cause for continued concern,” comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni said in a statement. “With e-commerce growth rates consistently in the mid-teens throughout the year, it is clear that the online channel has won over the American consumer and will increasingly be relied upon to deliver on the dimensions of lower price, convenience and selection.”

The fourth quarter was also the first time e-commerce spending reached 10 percent of total US retail spending, excluding food, gas and auto sales. The top performing product categories in Q4 were digital content and subscriptions, consumer electronics, toys and hobbies, apparel and accessories, followed by books and magazines. Each category grew at least 15 percent compared to 2011.

comscore-ecommerce

ICT sector goes backwards

Posted on February 8, 2013 by - News, Opinions

First_Beauty_PageantIn a time when the ICT sector is banging on about equality, companies are still trying to cash in on the girl geek status.

This time, Datanews has taken the industry back to when girls were famed for their love of pink phones and fluffy gadgets, creating the title of ‘Young ICT Lady of the year’ 2013 as part of its ‘She goes ICT’ competition.

The beauty pageant, disguised under the tech umbrella saw 27 “talented and ambitious” women fighting it out for the title that was won by Karen De Smet, UMAX project manager at Itineris.

She beat off competition from Katty Verresen from RealDolmen and Mercedes Diaz – we can’t be sure this wasn’t a stage name – from Accenture after being “grilled” by the jury on why she should win.

Karen De Smet graduated from Suma Cum Laude with a Master’s in Business Engineering in 2009. She started her career as a functional consultant at Itineris but as a result “curiosity” she began learning about different sectors within the company and by the end of her first year, was already acknowledged as a consultant with high potential.

A few months later she took on the combined role of Functional Lead and Release Coordinator for one of the largest utility players in the Dutch market (Eneco).

When the job opening for Functional Solution Architect for a project at E.ON arose; Karen’s name quickly popped up on the shortlist of potential candidates.

Her new role entailed guarding and ensuring the overall perspective of the end-to-end product envisioned by and for E.ON.

Today, Karen is the project manager at E.ON, where she successfully implemented the Itineris’ UMAX “solution” for utility suppliers together with her team of Itineris consultants.

Canon snaps up IrisLink

Posted on February 7, 2013 by - News

Canon logoPrinting powerhouse Canon is bidding to take over all shares of scanning and document managing company I.R.I.S. Group SA, which runs irisLink.

There has been talk for some time over a potential takeover,but it has today officially entered a public takeover bid for all shares, warrants and stock options. The acceptance period runs from 6 February and ends 20 March 2013.

Offer price per share is EUR 44.50. Canon bought a 17 percent stake in the company in July 2009. According to an official statement, the deal will allow the two to “cooperate more closely” in developing technology – so it seems that IrisLink will still exist as it is but with Canon cracking the whip.

Iris president Pierre de Muelenaere said in a statement that Iris’ portfolio should complement Canon’s strategy nicely. The board of directors and management are unanimously supporting the bid so it looks like a sure thing. Sitting here in Louvain, Belgium, In a lengthy keynote, Muelenaere is highlighting the cloud and managed services, the latter which made the company become “more international” over 2012.

“Our customer doesn’t need a product anymore, they need a solution,” Muelenaere said.
Denis Hermesse, CFO, said that over the last year there has been a very difficult business background. He quoted a recent IMF release that revised the world economic outlook down again, particularly in the countries that do business with Iris. Customers need to “identify expense reduction” and that is the background over 2012.

Despite that, Hermesse pointed out that the company’s gross margin at EUR 61.4 million – revenue was EUR 100 million, and otherwise the company was stable over 2012. There has been a 12 percent increase with VARs and BPO, with Hermesse pointing out this is repeated growth. In the Canon segment, Iris increased the business by 15 percent. “We still have some cash,” Hermesse said, while Muelenaere added that over 2013 the company will be investing in growth initiatives, that 2012’s results were satisfactory, but he hopes 2013 will be better.

 

Zycko prepares for Flash flood

Posted on February 7, 2013 by - News

flash_gordon (1)The demand for Enterprise class SSDs is going to grow like topsy according to value-added distributor Zycko.

The outfit has just signed a partnership deal with Micron to provide its Client, Enterprise SATA and Enterprise PCIe SSD solutions to channel resellers.

David Galton-Fenzi, Zycko’s group sales director said that as the price of SSD drops and performance increases, the technology will take a leading role in data access and storage.

The SSD enterprise market has grown year-on-year and against this backdrop, Zycko has been looking for a manufacturer who can give it the products for its client list.

Meanwhile Micron wanted a partner to develop the enterprise market for its products. “In that sense the timing and nature of this partnership is perfect. There’s a gap in the market that Micron can fill with its cost-effective SSD solutions, known for their exceptional quality, low-latency and reliability,” said Galton-Fenzi.

The read speeds of the Micron Enterprise PCIe SSD are perfect for the rigorous virtual I/O demands of the current breeds of optimised data centres.

“It’s clear the SSD market is going to quickly grow and Zycko’s reseller network will be well positioned to help their enterprise customers benefit from best-in-class SSD technology,” Galton-Fenzi added.

He said that SSDs were reaching a price tipping point where the technology is becoming part of every major business storage network.

HMV to shut 66 retail shops across Britain

Posted on February 7, 2013 by - Moving People, News

hmv-administrationHMV’s administrators announced Thursday that 66 retail stores across Britain will close their doors over the next two months.

HMV, which entered administration in January, currently operates 220 stores in the UK. Deloitte said the affected stores employ 930 staff, but no fixed date has been set for their closure yet.

Staff quickly took to Twitter, talking about redundancies made across HMV offices and distribution centres.

Deloitte, HMV’s administrator, is in talks with restructuring specialist Hilco about a possible takeover of HMV. Hilco is said to be in talks with suppliers and HMV’s landlords, as part of an effort to save about half of the shops in the UK, Express reports.

“This step has been taken in order to enhance the prospects of securing the business’ future as a going concern,” Nick Edwards, joint administrator at Deloitte, said. “We continue to receive strong support from staff and are extremely grateful to them for their commitment during an understandably difficult period.”

HMV became a hugely profitable enterprise following the introduction of CDs and cheap video tech in the eighties. It quickly expanded around the world, opening shops in North America and on the continent. Its retail operation peaked in the naughties, with 325 shops up and running. However, HMV failed to recognise the threat posed by online distribution to its traditional retail approach and by the late 2000s it was in more trouble than it could handle.

HMV is not the first retail outfit to face collapse due to online competition. Camera chain Jessops and DVD rental business Blockbuster were forced to close last month.

The HMV stores set to close over the next two months are:

England: Ashton-under-Lyne, Barnsley, Bayswater, Bexleyheath, Birkenhead, Birmingham Fort, Blackburn, Boston, Bournemouth Castlepoint, Bracknell, Burton-upon-Trent, Camberley, Chesterfield, Croydon Centrale, Durham, Fulham, Huddersfield, Leamington Spa, Leeds White Rose, Loughborough, Luton, Manchester 90, Moorgate, Orpington, Rochdale, Scunthorpe, South Shields, Speke Park, St Albans, St Helens, Stockton-on-Tees, Tamworth, Teesside, Telford, Trocadero, Wakefield, Walsall, Walton-on-Thames, Wandsworth, Warrington, Watford, Wellingborough, Wigan, Wood Green, Workington

Scotland: Dumfries, Edinburgh Fort, Edinburgh Gyle Centre, Edinburgh Ocean, Edinburgh Princes Street, Edinburgh St James, Falkirk, Glasgow – Fort, Glasgow – Silverburn, Glasgow Braehead, Kirkcaldy

Northern Ireland: Ballymena, Belfast Boucher Road, Belfast Forestside, Coleraine, Craigavon, Derry, Lisburn, Newry, Newtownabbey

Wales: Wrexham

Retailer scorns Blackberry’s “sold out” claims

Posted on February 7, 2013 by - News

blackberry-z10UK retailers have rubbished claims by the mobile phone maker formerly known as RIM that its white Blackberry has sold out.

BlackBerry boss Thorsten Heins buzzed enthusiastically that the BlackBerry Z10 white model is completely out of stock after only being launched last week.

While retailers have said that the BlackBerry Z10 has seen an exceptional first sales week it was not quite what BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins painted, when he claimed that the white version was sold out already and the black was hard to stock up again.

Mobile retailer Phones 4u has confirmed that while over 55 percent of its 680 stores sold out of the BlackBerry Z10 over the launch weekend, the lighter hued handset is, unlike Heins’ comments suggested, still available.

In fact Trusted Reviews said that if you are prepared to do the leg work you can easily find one. In the UK London-based Phones 4u outlets are the exclusive supplier for the white BlackBerry Z10.
Oxford Street has both colours and was telling worried punters that they did not have to run to pick one up as they had shedloads out the back.

Regent Street only had the white BlackBerry Z10 left.

Heins does need the Z10 to be a success, but does seem to be overestimating how well it is doing. Analysts claiming Heins is attempting to boost the hype surrounding the new device, particularly as many of them think that the phone is too little too late to save RIM, er Blackberry.

Scott Hooton, Chief Commercial Officer at Phones 4u said that while a few stores did sell out of the Blackberry Z10 on launch weekend, but the outfit replenished its stock within hours.