Computacenter says “stumble in Germany” resulted in profit loss

Posted on March 12, 2013 by - News

poundsComputacenter has reported a four percent profit loss for the full year claiming it “stumbled in Germany”.

The British company said its profits stood at £71.3 million in 2012, compared to £74.2 million in 2011.

It blamed the loss on higher costs from new contracts, which bled into margins in the services business in Germany, its second-largest market by revenue.

And 2013 doesn’t look to be an easy road with the company claiming that this year would be dependant on the speed of recovery from the “problem contracts” in Germany, which it said was unpredictable.

However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom with the company reporting group revenues jumping 2.2 percent to £2.91 billion  compared to 2011’s  £2.85 billion.

Mike Norris, Chief Executive of the company said: “We expect 2013 to be a year of progress for Computacenter. While the Group financial outcome for 2013 will be dependent on the in-year performance of Germany and the speed at which we recover from our problem contracts, which is unpredictable, we are confident that these contracts will improve.

“More importantly, winning, contracting and taking on new contracts successfully, is more fundamental to the long-term growth of the business and its strategic development. This will be underpinned by our new Group operating model, which has taken effect in the UK and Germany, since the start of 2013.”

Dell signs secret pact with Icahn

Posted on March 11, 2013 by - News, Products

Michael DellMichael Dell’s plan to spin off Dell Inc has hit a serious roadblock.

Last week Carl Icahn revealed he owned a big chunk of Dell and hit out at the original private equity proposal in conjunction with Microsoft and Silver Lake Partners..

And today, it seems, Icahn has stepped up the pressure by threatening it with legal action unless it accepted his plans to pump fresh cash into the multinational.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Icahn has signed a confidentiality agreement with Dell. But, the Journal said, the special committee that Dell set up to consider its future is reluctant to take the Icahn routemap.

Instead, it appears to be hoping that others will come forward to its aid. A number of partners has been slated including Dell rival Hewlett Packard – but it appears unlikely that HP will take a punt.

Meanwhile, business continues as usual, with Dell making a couple of product announcements.  It is creating a mobile strategies division that will develop custom applications for corporations, and advise large enterprises about mobility needs.

And it continues to push into the cloud – announcing that Dell Boomi will offer a data management and integration system, using MDM tools based on software as a service (SaaS).

Tech execs still dislike Windows 8

Posted on March 11, 2013 by - News, Opinions

msWindows 8 has failed to rejuvenate the PC market and even hopes of a Win 8 tablet push are slowly evaporating. Jun Dong-Soo, the head of Samsung’s memory division, recently said Windows 8 is no better than Vista, which is pretty much the worst insult one can bestow on a Microsoft product.

Dong-Soo pointed out that the PC industry is still shrinking despite the Windows 8 launch and he also said Redmond’s Surface tablets aren’t doing well, which is hardly a secret. What’s more, Dong-Soo is not alone. Computerworld reports that an HP exec recently said that the Surface RT is too pricey, slow and not very nice to use.

Acer president Jim Wong also believes Windows 8 is not successful. However, Wong told the Wall Street Journal that he expects sales of Windows 8 touch enabled devices to pick up in the second half of the year. This does not mean that we will see tons of tablets, as it is more than likely that the bulk of Windows 8 touch devices will be Ultrabooks and hybrids.

Many are now looking to Redmond for some action, any action will do. IDC analyst Bob O’Donnell told CNET that it might be time for Microsoft to start thinking about some changes.

“There were certain decisions that Microsoft made that were in retrospect flawed. Notably not allowing people to boot into desktop mode and taking away the start button. Those two things have come up consistently. We’ve done some research and people miss that,” he said.

In retrospect, the decision to ditch the start button was probably a wrong call on Microsoft’s part, as many Windows users tend to be rather conservative and fear change. O’Donnell says it is time for Microsoft to rethink its design, relying on input from PC makers. He argued that Microsoft should change the OS, allowing it to boot to desktop mode, as many users simply dislike the new Metro UI.

However, Microsoft is is still not saying anything on design changes or possible price cuts. O’Donnell believes Windows 8 sales are “horribly stalled,” so it might not be too long before the company is forced to take action. In doing so, it will tell the world that its Windows 8 strategy was flawed, on top of its flawed tablet strategy. And smartphone strategy, search strategy, social strategy, consumer electronics strategy and just about every other botched idea that came out of Redmond since Vista.

Alvea Services launches Infrastructure Service

Posted on March 11, 2013 by - News

Hands across the waterAlvea Services has launched its Infrastructure Service, aimed at helping companies with additional virtual servers.

The managed security and cloud-based computing provider, says its new Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) has been designed for organisations that may need to vary their computing capabilities at a moment’s notice to match the changing needs of their business. Rather than have to invest in an IT infrastructure that may lie redundant when full capacity is not required, they are claimed to be able to use Alvea’s new service to quickly and easily provision additional virtual servers when they need them.

The company says this is is particularly important for project-based businesses, those that operate around seasonal fluctuations in demand or those that may need additional resource for testing or short-term data processing.

A key feature of the new service is its secure data seeding capability, either via encrypted hard disk or high-speed internet transfer, which allows businesses to move their data to the cloud quickly and securely. There is also a simple user interface to give clients instant provisioning of IT security and cloud services with a pay-as-you go model so that IT departments can react quickly to the changing needs of their businesses and only pay for the computing power they use.

The new service has been built around a UK-based data centre to comply with data “sovereignty” and security requirements and is operated by IT security and data centre management specialists.

The service is delivered and supported by a network of IT and security resellers that provide technical support and advice on how Alvea Infrastructure can be integrated into an organisation’s existing IT environment.

To demonstrate the service,  Alvea is offering businesses free trials of the service, for a limited period of time, and inviting them to ‘try before you buy’ to test out the flexibility of the new service.

PayPal launches iOS SDK

Posted on March 11, 2013 by - News

paypal-logoPayPal has released a new SDK for Apple’s iOS platform and the new kit is expected to speed up development, open up a host of new possibilities and make life easier for developers.

At the moment, iOS apps using PayPal have to redirect traffic to web based gateway systems, making the whole process more complicated, time consuming and slower. However, the new SDK should help integrate services in apps themselves, greatly reducing developers’ workloads.

PayPal CTO James Barrese hopes the new SDK will give developers more freedom to focus on innovating rather than handling the complex task of sorting out mobile payments.

“We listened when our developers said they wanted better capabilities from us, and now we’re doubling down on our developer programs to deliver the best tools in the industry,” he said.

Since the PayPal payment service will not be integrated into apps, consumer will be able to complete their transactions without leaving the app, greatly streamlining the process. PayPal also released a new API that should enable developers to integrate a clever card digitization feature. The new approach will let users simply take a picture of their cards, letting the app scoop up all the details from the photo, which is much easier than typing them in.

Best of all, PayPal claims its new Java Script PayPal button can be integrated into apps with just five lines of code, which is roughly a fortnight in developer parlance.

Review: Kyocera ceramic chef and paring knives

Posted on March 11, 2013 by - Fun Stuff, Products

KyoceraCutting veg, fruit and meat can be trying at the best of times.

Although there are several ranges of knives on the market, some just don’t cut the mustard, meaning carrots take on uneven lines and meat ends up different sizes.

For that rustic look, this may work, but if you’re looking for presentation worthy of Masterchef recognition then those serrated metal knives may just not cut it.

Kyocera’s ceramic knives are however, a cut above the rest. We looked at the Kyocera FK-2PC-WH3 – White Blades: 5.5″ Santoku and 3″ Paring Knife Set in our review.

The company, better known for its document products in the UK, offers a range of knives that literally cut through anything, leaving the clean tidy look reflective of their Japanese heritage.

To the naked eye these knives aren’t much to look at with a white blade so thin it almost looks plastic. There are no serrated edges and to those know almost nothing about knives, may wonder what the expensive price tag is all about.

However, remove them from their careful, prestige packaging and begin chopping and you’ll see they are well worth the pennies.

What looks like a flimsy plastic blade is sharper than most mother in law’s tongues, easily slicing through even the thickest of vegetables and toughest of meats – although we didn’t manage to try it out on horse.

The blades, which must be hand washed, are also totally impervious to acids, juices, oils, salts and other elements and unlike their metallic rivals will never rust.

The thin ceramic also means the knives weigh less than a normal one, making them easier to hold and use, as well reducing fatigue during repetitive cutting. In our opinion they are the best knives on the market, and with a lifetime guarantee and free sharpening are well worth the money.

Vietnamese outfit uses sex to sell flowers

Posted on March 11, 2013 by - Fun Stuff

vn-flower-shopA Vietnamese e-commerce startup has come up with an innovative, yet rather tasteless way to sell flowers. It sounds surprisingly liberal for a socialist state, but HappyEndings.vn is using sex appeal to sell flowers, with a ridiculous intro. Sex sells, even though the approach seems a bit upside down. Flowers shouldn’t be sold using sex – it should be the other way around.

Mind you, despite the cheeky name and tacky approach, HappyEndings.vn is a legitimate and serious e-commerce outfit. “Happy ending” doesn’t really have a lot to do with sex, it is a term used to describe a pleasurable ending to a massage in some parts of Asia. However, the site intro has a lot to do with sex.

The site takes a provocative angle when it comes to product categories as well. They are named cheap bastard collection, playboy collection and sugar daddy collection. The last is aimed at big spenders, while the “cheap bastard” one is clearly not.

Better yet, the consumers seem to be loving the in-your-face approach, with plenty of humorous and dirty comments, reports InsideRetail.Asia.

Tesco throws down price war gauntlet to the competition

Posted on March 11, 2013 by - News

tescoTesco is vying to get customers galloping back through its doors following the horse meat scandal.

The giant is also throwing down the gauntlet to its supermarket competitors, offering its customers automatic price comparison coupons.

From today the retailer will compare its prices on branded and own-label goods with those at Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s. It said its customers would receive their coupons after every buy if its prices were found to be higher than its competitors. Online customers will receive their vouchers via email.

The scheme, which is similar to Sainsbury’s Brand Match scheme, will offer customers a maximum of £10 in coupons per visit.

The company will also be going head-to-head with Asda’s “Price Guarantee” that offers to refund customers the difference, via a voucher, if an online price-comparison website does not show that their shopping is at least 10 percent cheaper than it would be.

However Tesco has stipulated that customers must buy more than 10 different products to be eligible to receive money off in its scheme.

Chris Bush, Tesco’s new UK boss, said the company was working hard to build a better Tesco and the ‘price promise’ was an important part of that.

Heavy drinkers get a jolt of brain juice from booze

Posted on March 11, 2013 by - Fun Stuff, News

boozebeltA study could comfort quite a few alcoholics in denial. It found that long term alcohol use boosts brain levels of acetate, an energy rich by-product of alcohol metabolism and it gives drinkers a nice jolt of energy for the few grey cells they did not manage to kill off yet.

The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation and it found that people who drank at least eight drinks per week stood to gain more brain energy from acetate than light drinkers, although eight drinks a week hardly qualifies as heavy drinking, but eight drinks at lunch does.

However, there is a downside, too. Study co-author Graeme Mason of Yale University believes the jolt could be responsible for giving drinkers more incentive to drink and that it might also explain why dropping booze is so hard, reports sciencenews.org.  Duke University biochemical geneticist Ting-Kai Li believes Mason’s hypothesis is good and that it proves previous assumptions that heavy drinkers absorb more acetate.

Acetate is usually associated with vinegar, which is often used as an excuse to justify the existence of salads. However, simply pouring more vinegar on salads won’t help. When people drink alcohol the brain breaks it down and pumps out plenty of acetate as a by-product. Although the brain prefers sugar, it can also burn acetate. Researchers proved their point by injecting sober volunteers with acetate tagged with a traceable atom. Then they measured how much acetate was used up in the brain and learned that heavy drinkers burn acetate at twice the rate of light drinkers. Mason likened the process to a bi-fuel car, which can run on ethanol once it runs out of petrol.

Mason said he was very surprised by the results, which proved his suspicions that people with high acetate levels would be tapping energy from it.

“The effect was way bigger than I thought,” he said.

Mason now wants to see whether administering some acetate could help addicts get over their alcohol withdrawal symptoms. However, he warns that people should not go out and start drinking vinegar to wane themselves off booze. People would have to ingest too much vinegar to get as much acetate as they would from drinking alcohol. Salads aren’t a very good delivery platform and simply chugging vinegar doesn’t work, either.

PM Cameron wants more apprenticeships

Posted on March 11, 2013 by - News

DCApprenticeships could become the “new norm” for school kids who choose not to get into debt by going to university if the Prime Minister has his way.

Clearly impressed by Donald Trump and Alan Sugar who have pushed these schemes into the limelight, David Cameron has said he now wants to see this training sitting “at the heart” of the government’s mission to rebuild the economy.

The PM will now call on the industry to make these schemes available to school leavers when he visits a training academy in Buckinghamshire.

The moves come as National Apprenticeship Week kicks off today. And it is clear Cameron wants to show he’s doing something for this, showing that his party is committed to helping teens get into work.

According to Whitehall, more than 500,000 people started an apprenticeship between 2011 and 2012.  The Centre for Economics and Business Research have also claimed that  completed apprenticeships over the next 10 years could contribute up to £3.4 billion a year to the UK economy through productivity gains by 2022.

Cameron is expected to claim that schemes such as these give school leavers the chance to learn a trade and build their careers which in turn helps boost the economy.

He will also tell MPs that they need to look at how apprenticeships can be expanded so they are available to all.

External storage up despite PC downturn

Posted on March 8, 2013 by - News

hdd-hugeAlthough PC sales fell off a cliff last year, makers of external disk storage seem to have had a rather good year. According to IDC’s latest disk storage report, revenue increased 4.7 percent in 2012, with a 2.3 percent year-on-year increase in Q4.

Worldwide sales totalled $24.7 billion last year, and total disk capacity shipped during the year surpassed 20 exabytes, up 27 per cent over 2011.

“FICON attached array sales and network attached storage (NAS) both helped drive the factory revenue increase during the quarter as companies invested in storage required to support mainframe environments and to deal with the continued growth in unstructured data,” said Eric Sheppard, IDC storage research director.

The open networked disk storage market grew 2.6 percent year-on-year in Q4 to hi $5.7 billion in revenues. EMC maintained its lead with a 30.7 percent revenue share in Q4, trailed by IBM and NetApp with 15 per cent and 11.6 percent respectively. HP and Hitachi tied in fourth position with market shares of 9.3 and 8.8 percent respectively. However, HP and Hitachi were the only players in the top five to lose share in Q4 2012.

In the total worldwide disk storage systems market EMC reigned supreme with a 24 percent share, followed by IBM and HP, in a statistical tie for second spot with 16.2 and 16 percent respectively. Dell and Netapp ranked fourth and fifth.

Microsoft hands over Office 365 to resellers

Posted on March 8, 2013 by - News

msMicrosoft has lived up to its pledge made last summer by making cloud suite available through Open licensing from 1 March.

Resellers can bill customers directly for Office 365 eight months after the move was unveiled to applause at the vendor’s Worldwide Partner Conference  in 2012.

This mean that Office 365 will be available to partners on Open and Open Value licensing programmes from next month.

At the moment partners have to use a referral model for reselling Office 365 and get payments for what they sell, with Microsoft controlling billing.

But the new move will mean that resellers the chance to set their own margins and bill customers. It gives them the ability to control and bundle products.

This is important in cloud offerings where resellers show up and offer a one stop shop cloud operation.

It has been a long time coming. Some resellers were expecting to see the plan enacted by the end of the year particularly after Vole launched it with such a big fanfare.  Microsoft claims that the idea has a lot of support, so it is not clear why the plan was so delayed.

However Microsoft still might sail up the nasal passages of resellers by offering a different SKU which means that some customers may still be forced to bypass the partner on billing.  This could be confusing for many customers and resellers who might think they have a product that they don’t.

Sharp moves at the blunt end of financial disaster

Posted on March 8, 2013 by - News

calmaThere are some rubbing of paws in the Far East over Samsung’s odd move to invest in Sharp.

For ages the two have been rivals, so sudden moves to smoke a peace pipe is a bit like Apple and Microsoft saying that they had been mates all the time.

The move appears to mostly come from clever negotiating from Sharp which needs an alliance in flat-screen TVs and mobile phone handsets, but it also needs some cash badly.

Samsung appears happy to write a cheque for $111 million in exchange for a three per cent stake in the Osaka-based company. It is likely that it will see a return in its money by getting a stable supply channel of liquid-crystal display panels.

According to NPD DisplaySearch, Sharp has been a key supplier of 40-inch LCD panels to Samsung, shipping over 400,000 units per quarter as well as 200,000 units per quarter of 60-inch LCD panels.

A report into the deal said that Sharp started to ship 32-inch (LCD panels) to Samsung at the beginning of 2013.

This means that Samsung will be buying more than one million panels from Sharp and it does not want someone coming in and muscling in on its supply.

Samsung can concentrate on the development of the next-generation organic light-emitting diode displays (OLEDs), which it has yet to mass produce while keeping its foot in the door with a nice low-cost supply of LCD TV display panels from its new chum.

It also isolates Apple from its main panel supplier. Sharp is currently one of the top display panel suppliers for Apple as it produces displays for the iPhone at its Kameyama plant.

Sharp can’t be too choosy about where its money is coming from. It wanted to raise millions from Foxconn, last year. But the deal fell through because the companies could not agree on the stock price and because Foxconn wanted to tell Sharp what to do.

Even after the deal with Samsung signed, the company still needs more investment. There is talk that either Intel writing a cheque but that might stuff up Sharp’s agreement with Qualcomm to manufacture next-generation LCD panels for smartphones in return for cash investments from Qualcomm.
As it is Qualcomm is already giving Sharp a contract in return for a three per cent stake in the firm once the project is completed.

 

How the big boys killed Google and Apple’s TV

Posted on March 8, 2013 by - News, Opinions

5d5ff59c-434d-11e2-989b-12313d1f5c43About a year ago you could not read anything in the tech press about how the big names were pressing into the telly industry.

Google and Apple were all outed as being likely to become big players. Their channel partners waited, after all there was some big dosh to be made in joint operations, and suddenly there was nothing.

Google pulled off a big “oh look a badger” and started talking about Google Glass while Apple instructed its Tame Apple Press to start writing meaningless pieces about watches instead.
So what happened to the television being the cure for Apple and Google’s woes?

According to Forbes it was some dark satanic practices being carried out behind closed doors in the Far East.

But in the old days control the TV meant you might also control other household functions, like remote control of the air conditioning. Microsoft was early into TV operating systems for that reason.

Its logic is that the TV market is owned by Korean manufacturers and in particular Samsung, and by LG and they are making their plans grander by the minute.

LG recently bought WebOs from HP, specifically for use in smart TVs while Samsung already has a smart TV project that has sucked up developers of iOS, Windows and Android.

For Apple and Google to get into this market they have to do something pretty sexy in a channel where they are an innocent Shirley Temple doing a rounding redition of “good ship lollypop” before a convent of Nuns.

Apple looked at the competition, saw how good it was, and thought “Nah lets stick to making toys.” Google on the otherhand has been a bit more shifty.

The Web OS purchase was bad news for Google TV, but it exposed the extent of Google’s plans. In the beginning the company courted a number of big TV manufacturers for Google TV, with the idea of having the system embedded in a wide variety of TV sets.

It spoke to Sony, which was one of the first to make Google TVs, LG came on board for the second generation, and Samsung seemed to be ready to go Google as well by early 2012.

However a year afterwards Samsung’s Google TV never materialised and Sony stopped selling and now, LG is buying its own smart TV operating system. This means that Google is stuck to a companion box and is snookered.

So why have the big players gone all Altair’ on Google? It appears that it might not be Google, but the operating system that it runs on which has the big Asian names miffed.

For a while now there has been muttering that Android has become too powerful. The moaning has not just come from the Chinese Government, which is looking to build its own Red Friendly operating system, but Google’s partners too.

Some of that was Google’s fault, in buying Motorola, but there are some other reasons too. The first is that many are terrified of returning to a situation where one operating system has control over the market. Although Android is Open Source it still operates at the will of Google.

What is starting to look possible is that Samsung could use Tizen and LG will use Web OS.
The interesting point here that recently Intel revealed its TV plans. It is coming in late, and really few people will care, but it looks like it means that it will not only have to do it without Samsung or LG. True it could run its TV on WebOs or Tizen but that is not normally its style. It probably thought it could come in with Android and everything would be home and hosed. Only it wasn’t.

Argos to take on Asda, Tesco in contract phone space

Posted on March 8, 2013 by - Gossip, News

argos-logoArgos is planning to launch a contract phone offer and go toe to toe with Tesco Mobile and Asda Mobile. The retail giant will trial its service by offering online contract deals and phones in more than 200 stores across the UK starting in April. If all goes well, a second trial of SIM-only phones will also launch, reports Mobile Today.

The move comes as sales of pre-paid phones continue to tumble and Argos faces more competition from Tesco Mobile, Asda Mobile, Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4u. If all goes well and contract sales prove sufficient, Argos plans to enter talks with carriers to set up its own MVNO later this year.

Argos is reportedly already hiring account managers for ‘Argos Mobile’, as that’s apparently the working name for its MVNO. Former Vodafone UK manager Ben Murr is apparently playing a major role the effort.

Analysts believe Argos could pull it off, as it already has a sizable customer base and might make inroads in the entry level and mid range market. In all likelihood, Argos will try to focus on value driven contract deals. There is room for high end gear, but Argos will probably go for the penny pinching crowd.