Samsung set to shake the management dice

Posted on November 24, 2014 by - Moving People, News

Samsung rules the roostGiant Korean company Samsung looks set to shuffle its leadership following a year which has seen its mobile fortunes dip.

The Wall Street Journal, quoting people “familiar with the matter” is tipping the toppling of mobile head JK Shin – he’s the co-CEO of a company that has made in its time everything from motor cars to aircraft jet engines.

And if Shin loses his job, it could be to another co-CEO, BK Yoon, a man in charge of its TV and washing machine businesses.

The job could however go to its third co-CEO, Kwon Oh-hyun.  He’s a semiconductor man and also looks after Samsung’s display panels.

The reason why Samsung has this unusual triumvirate in place is because its chairman Lee Kun-hee had a heart attack this year and is out of play at the chaebol.

Samsung is under pressure from companies in China and in India that don’t have the large overhead it has in terms of manufacturing and headcount.

In the UK, heads have already rolled and the company is still looking to appoint a replacement after the last appointee only lasted a few months.

Intel to carry on subsidising tablets

Posted on November 24, 2014 by - News

Internet of ThingsThe attempt by Intel to penetrate the tablet market has cost it dear in subsidies over the last two years.

But it appears that the chip giant hasn’t given up the ghost on such a plan and, according to Taiwanese wire Digitimes, is likely to pour more cash into the venture.

Intel’s problem is that it has faced overwhelming competition on price from companies that use microprocessors from Mediatek and Qualcomm, based on designs from British chip designer ARM.

Even though Intel has several ARM licences, it declines to use those to compete and wants the market to realise the important part it plays in the mobile arena.  Or, to put it differently, Intel is a proud company and doesn’t want to lose face.

The subsidies to vendors have been aimed at tablets with screen dimensions of 10 inches and below, but Digitimes now says it may well extend those subsidies to tablets 12 inches and below.

Intel cannot afford not to be in the tablet business because it wants to be a key player in the so called Internet of Things.  Last week the chip giant said it was going to merge its mobile and comms businesses with its PC business, which will effectively disguise the hole in its profit and loss statements in the future.

EU to vote on Google breakup

Posted on November 24, 2014 by - News

euroflagzA motion to break up search giant Google will be debated in the European parliament this week.

That follows scrutiny of Google’s practices within Europe by antitrust regulators.

The vote, proposed by MEPs from Germany and Spain proposes that Google’s search business should be separated from the rest of its business activity.

But even if the vote goes against Google, the parliament doesn’t have the power to take it to pieces.  Nevertheless such a vote in favour would be a bad PR blow to Google, which has led a spin initiative in the last few months to convince Europeans that it isn’t evil.

What a positive vote might do is to put pressure on the EU’s competition commissioner to scrutinise Google more.

Google has argued that it is not anticompetitive and that it already has plenty of competition in Europe.  That hasn’t stopped publishers like News Corp and German publishing outfit Axel Springer getting irated about Google’s marketing clout.

BT in bid for O2. And EE

Posted on November 24, 2014 by - News

btlogoGiant telecomms firm BT confirmed it is in preliminary talks to buy O2 UK from Spanish giant Telefonica.

That’s something of an irony because BT spun off its Cellnet unit in 2002. It then renamed itself as O2 and sold itself to Telefonica for over £17 billion in 2005.

Telefonica confirmed a deal was in the cards and in a prepared statement said that it was in talks with BT. But it warned that “there is no certainty that a transaction will take place”.

The deal, however, is likely to be just for O2 UK, and may cost BT as much as £6 billion.  But, Reuters reports, BT is also talking to EE in the UK.

In a statement, BT agreed with Telefonica that talks were at a preliminary stage.

But that hasn’t stopped the price of BT’s shares shooting up on the Stock Exchange this morning.

Apple fudges book cartel rulings

Posted on November 24, 2014 by - News

Apple's Jonathan IveThe company which designer Jonathan Ive described a week or two back as built on integrity has finally agreed to cough up $450 million after it conspired with five publishers to hike the prices of e-books.

On Friday, US district judge Denise Cole told Apple it must pay $40 million to as many as 23 million people if it lost a hearing that showed it was liable under antitrust laws. But Apple is pushing for a fresh hearing and if it is unsuccessful it won’t have to pay anything.

And if that happens, the same judge may have to preside over the same case all over again.

Even though Apple agreed to settle the case in June, it can continue with an appeal  after it was found guilty last year  of conspiring to hike e-book prices and unfairly compete against Amazon.

Apple’s appeal is due to be heard in mid-December and if it is successful it might go to a new trial and continue to ramp up the cost of lawyers who have already racked up an estimated $20 million.

PCs ruin family life

Posted on November 24, 2014 by - News

A happy family - WikimediaSlow PCs mean people in the UK are wasting hours messing around with machines rather than doing more constructive things like cooking, going on a date, or even having a nap.

Those are the results from memory company Crucial, which surveyed 1,148 people in the UK in November this year.

The survey estimates that the average time a person finds herself or himself waiting for a slow device each day is 6.5 minutes, adding up to 45 minutes a week or 39.4 hours a year.

Crucial comes to the conclusion that given a population of over 55.5 million people here, that adds up to a total figure for the country of 2.13 billion hours.

Twenty seven percent of people in the UK don’t think they have a good tech-life balance, with half saying they spend mre time using technology at home compared to a year ago.

More than one in 10 people spend more time at home with tech than they do with their partner.

Roddy McClean, who works at Crucial, said: “A simple computer memory upgrade is quick and easy to complete and will speed up a slow laptop or PC.”  That, he thinks, will give people more time to keep their partner happy.

Video calling has its day

Posted on November 24, 2014 by - News

oldphoneComputer companies have been touting video calling as the perfect way to hold conference calls and important conferences since the 1990s, but now it seems it’s all happening under their noses.

A Gartner report said that over a third of people aged 18 or over now use their smartphones to make video calls.

And the number increases if you count people under the age of 18, it appears.

Gartner surveyed 6,500 smartphone users in Germany and the USA earlier this year and estimates that 50 million people in America use their smartphones to make video calls.  It also estimates that over eight million adult smartphone users in Germany do the same.

Software used includes Apple’s FaceTime, Microsoft’s Skype and Google’s Hangouts.

Gartner senior research analyst Atsuro Sato reckons that although the US results show higher penetration than Germany, it shows the shape of things to come in other territories too.

He said: “We believe one of the use cases that has seemed marginal for some time now warrants much greater attention.”

Government spyware threatens PCs

Posted on November 24, 2014 by - News

symantecAnti-virus company Symantec said it has uncovered a clever piece of spyware that was probably designed by a Western government.

The spyware, called Regin, has been around for about six years and is clever enough to steal your passwords, go onto your hard drive and resurrect deleted files, and take screenshots.

Apparently, according to a Symantec executive interviewed on the BBC 4 radio programme Today, it has hit PCs in Saudi Arabia, Ireland and Russia.

But she declined to say which Western organisation had invented Regin and let it loose on the online world.

Symantec thinks the malware has parallels with the Stuxnet worm, jointly developed by cyber warriors in Israel and the USA to mess up Iran’s nuclear programme.

AV companies are now hustling to get an antidote out against Regin.

Police swoop on cyber RATs

Posted on November 21, 2014 by - News

Officers from the NCAThe National Crime Agency (NCA) said it arrested five people in the UK in a coordinated international operation designed to net cyber crooks.

It said that raids it carried out over several days resulted in the arrest of people using tools called Remote Access Trojans (RATs).

Cyber rats who use RATs can control computers worldwide doing things like grabbing access to banking, turn webcams on and off, and use a person’s computer to join in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

People fall victim to RATs when they click on dubious links that install the software used by the crooks to control computers.

The people arrested in the UK include three people in Leeds, a man in Chatham, a 40 year old man in Darlington, and a 19 year old man from Liverpool.

Aside from the UK arrests, another 11 people were picked up by police in Estonia, France, Romania, Latvia, Italy and Norway.

Andy Archibald, deputy director of the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit said the illegal use of RATs “is a significant cyber crime threat. Suspected users of RATs are continuing to find that, despite having no physical contact or interaction with their victims, they can still be identified, tracked down and arrested by the NCA and its partners”.

He said anyone convicted of these crimes could find themselves in jail.

US warns of Chinese cyberwar again

Posted on November 21, 2014 by - News

HQ of the National Security AgencyThe head of the NSA told politicians at the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee on cyber threats that China could invade and close down vital American computer systems.

Admiral Michael Rogers,who runs the NSA, told the committee that China and one or two other countries could attack power utilities, aviation and financial firms.

China and other countries have the ability to enter these kind of systems and to shut down the networks.

This isn’t the first time the USA has accused China of mounting cyber attacks, but it’s something that the Chinese government resolutely denies.

According to Reuters, a foreign ministry representative said that China absolutely banned cyber hacking and accused the USA of making cyber attacks on it and other nations.

The NSA still harvests phone records in the USA but earlier this week a bill to regulate surveillance failed and the agency will wait until a law is passed before making any major changes in its strategies and tactics.

Lenovo maintains tablet push

Posted on November 21, 2014 by - News

Chess boardWhile both Apple and Samsung continue to dominate the branded tablet market workdwide, Chinese company Lenovo is beginning to make its presence known in the marketplace.

That’s according to preliminary shipment figures in the third quarter of this year supplied by ABI Research.

The market research company said that Apple and Samsung hog market share at 62 percent, but Lenovo is making its presence known in developing markets while other firms show growth of 124 percent compared to the same quarter in 2013.

ABI believes that while Apple has suffered declines in its market share, it could well regain the initiative in the current fourth quarter, largely due to the introduction of new iPad Air and iPad mini machines last October.

Jeff Orr, who runs the sector for ABI, said: “The pieces have been set for the end of year holiday 2014 tablet market chess match.  The advanced mature markets will once again be where the Apple versus Samsung duel occurs.  Don’t overlook the rest of the branded tablets vendors’ ability to deliver value based devices during this crucial shopping period.”

ABI produced the following data for the top three vendors worldwide:

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Via to return to X86 CPU business

Posted on November 21, 2014 by - News

Shanghai skyline - WikimediaAfter keeping a low profile over the last few years, it appears that Taiwanese firm Via is planning to re-enter the mainstream PC market in the next year.

According to an interview in Taiwanese wire Digitimes, the company has a joint venture with the government of Shanghai and is deploying X86 based microprocessors along with graphics chips.

Company rep Timothy Chen told the wire that the company will return to the PC market in the second half of next year.  Via has a licence from Intel to design and produce X86 CPUs that lasts until 2018.

Its revenue streams right now include payments from chip dynamo Mediatek, USB 3.0 chips, and digital signage. It is also expected to make money from its GenieNetworks CDMA licensing business.

Despite those revenues, said Digitimes, Via turned in net losses in the third quarter.  Chen said that there were delays to embedded system business and a number of one off engineering expenses.

Infosys forced Apple to pay more for less

Posted on November 21, 2014 by - News

8eea64e0563590b07a4d93537eb2851fSome top Infosys executives have cleaned out their desks and been escorted from the building after it was discovered that the outfit had been daring to overcharge the margin king Apple.

Infosys, India’s second-largest IT services exporter, said on Tuesday it had fired Abraham Mathews, chief financial officer of its Infosys BPO unit, for failure to comply with the company’s code of conduct.

Infosys BPO chief executive officer Gautam Thakkar resigned on “moral grounds” and would leave the company on November 30, Infosys said. It did not give details about the charges against Mathews.

“The financial irregularities are not material in nature and the company has already made required disclosures. The company has taken disciplinary action on employees,” the company said. The irregularities in Infosys BPO’s dealings with Apple came out during an internal audit.

Though the audit showed that the financial impact of the wrongdoing on the company was minimal, Infosys decided to take a tough stance to demonstrate its “zero-tolerance policy for any improper conduct,” he said.

Reports from India suggest that six more people will be fired soon after investigations revealed that they had produced inflated invoices and allegedly overbilled Apple for many months.

The thought of Apple being overcharged for a service that actually cost a lot less, strikes us as a little ironic and would be confirmation of the doctrine of karma, if we believed in that sort of thing.

Infosys earlier this year brought in Vishal Sikka as its new CEO to chart a new strategy for the company, once a trendsetter for India’s more than $100 billion IT outsourcing industry. Infosys has struggled in recent years to retain staff and market share, the fact it has to fire a few cannot help things.

Bricks and Mortar turned over by Amazon scam

Posted on November 21, 2014 by - News

supreme_court_backs_walmart_over_closedstore.jpeg.size.xxlarge.letterboxBricks and Mortar outfits in the US have been warned against competing against online retailers, after a fraud emerged which cost Walmart thousands.

Walmart had been running a deal, where it promised to match any price found online.

However some customers worked out that the only thing they needed to show Walmart was an Amazon advert.

All they did was register an account which created an official looking Amazon page with a bogus advert on it.

Few Walmart employees appear to have verified the legitimacy of these online deals and many customers were able to buy PS4 gaming systems for $90.

Walmart should have known better. Consumerist found that Sears accidentally listed several Nintendo consoles on its site for $60. Members of Twitter and Reddit communities posted pictures of receipts documenting that Wal-Mart had accepted these fake Amazon listings.

Intel has a perky bottom line

Posted on November 21, 2014 by - News

Intel-logoIntel’s bottom line is looking a little cheery thanks to the fact that the death of the PC was overstated and people are buying them again.

Intel said that its revenue outlook for 2015 was above what the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street expected and it was even going to raise its dividend.

Intel claimed that its revenue will grow by a mid-single digit percentage next year which is not what we usually associate with a middle digit.

Analysts on average have been forecasting 3.4 percent revenue growth for 2015.

Chairman Andy Bryant said he saw progress in Intel’s strategy of staking out a big chunk of market share in tablets this year by offering manufacturers subsidies to use its chips.

“I’m not going to tell you I’m proud of losing the kind of money we’re losing but I’m also going to tell you I’m not embarrassed by it like I was a year ago about where we were,” Bryant said. “This is the price you pay for sitting on the sidelines for a number of years and then fighting your way back into the market.”

Intel expects gross margins in 2015 to be 62 percent, plus or minus two percentage points. Analysts on average expected 63 percent gross margins for 2015 and 2014.

Capital spending next year will be about $10.5 billion, the company said, compared to about $11 billion expected in 2014.

Intel also said it would increase its dividend by six cents to 96 cents on an annual basis.

Intel’s results point to the death of the industry myth, put about by the Tame Apple Press that the iPad had killed the PC and everything was going mobile. We said that mobile was a parallel development and that PC sales slumped due to a downturn in the economy coupled with the fact that PCs were lasting longer and there was no need to upgrade.

CEO Brian Krzanich said Intel was on track to exceed its goal of seeing its chips used in 40 million tablets this year. That strategy made Intel the No 2 tablet chip supplier in the June quarter, according to market research firm Strategy Analytics, but it cost the company billions of dollars in subsidies.