Sony has closed a significant portion of its offices in Europe and the US, with many employees now working from home, while also shutting down its Welsh manufacturing plant.
The outfit has said that its supply chain has been severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic, including its music business and electronics products arm. Other areas, such as gaming and financial services, however, have not felt the effects of the economic disruption as heavily.
as its channel director taking over from Andy Bass who cleaned out his desk last month.
Ashworth worked as UK MD at SMART and has the job of upping sales in Lenovo’s UK SMB business.
She said: “I am thrilled to be joining Lenovo which is such an innovative company and at a pivotal time in its performance journey. I’m very much looking forward to working with our channel partners to strengthen partnerships and support them in their delivery of tomorrow’s technology today. Lenovo is a strong, dynamic company with an excellent product portfolio and talented team. The refreshed channel programmes are helping to streamline processes for channel partners, and I’m excited about joining the company and supporting Lenovo’s ambition to grow the business alongside our channel partners.”
It looks like she means it.
Before her time at SMART, Ashworth was commercial sales manager role at the original Hewlett Packard and was a Sony general manager .
Of Ashworth’s appointment, Lenovo’s UK general manager Preben Fjeld said: “Our channel partners are fundamental to our continued growth plans and Jane’s strong background in channel sales, channel development and product management will further propel and energise the relationship with our partners in the UK and Ireland.”
The global 4K TV market is expected to reach $380.9 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research.
The beancounters claimed that the evolving nature of the consumer electronic industry, advancements in graphic engines of televisions, increased pressure on manufacturers to reduce prices, and popularity of the ultra-high definition technology and its advantages have fueled the demand for UHD televisions in the past few years.
Latest graphic processors permit advanced technical image formats and have improved the content quality significantly hence, they are widely used in production and distribution of UHD content. Customers are getting accustomed to using such contents, which is further anticipated to spur the market growth.
The 52-65 inches’ segment dominated the global 4K TV market in 2016 since this segment has a wide range of product offering at different price points. Moreover, the adoption of novel technologies, such as Quantum dot LEDs (QLEDs) and Super UHD (SUHD) and decreasing prices of 4K TVs are expected to catapult the segment demand over the forecast period.
Televisions belonging to this range have high penetration rates as compared to the others. However, the above 62 inches’ screen size segment is expected to witness the highest growth over the forecast period owing to the declining price trend of 4K TVs coupled with increasing disposable incomes of individuals globally.
The global UHD TV market is expected to witness a CAGR exceeding 20 percent from 2017 to 2025 owing to the changing consumer preference from HD to UHD technology along with increasing demand for high-end home products
Moreover, increasing penetration of ultra-high-speed internet, particularly in developed regions including metropolitan cities are expected to favorably impact the 4K TV market growth over the coming years.
The 52 – 65 inches’ segment accounted for the largest share in 2016, which is accredited to increasing penetration of 4K TVs in the higher economic class; however, with decline in TV prices the above 65-inch screen size segment pose high growth opportunities
The Asia Pacific region accounted over 40 percent of the overall revenue share in 2016 and is also expected to dominate over the forecast period owing to the huge adoption along with declining prices of 4K televisions
A few key players who captured a significant market share in 2016 were Samsung, LG Electronics, Sony, Hisense, and Sharp.
Fujitsu has decided on a divide and conquor strategy for its PC and smartphone business – although it has decided to divide itself, so we are not sure if it has got the hang of the concept.
Fujitsu is splitting its PC, both desktops and notebooks, business and its smartphonebusiness into companies of their own with their own long-winded name.
Those two companies will now be called Fujitsu Client Computing Limited and Fujitsu Connected Technologies Limited. These names do not appear to have been made up by the marketing department but rather the legal department.
The outfit said that “it has become increasingly difficult to achieve differentiation, and competition with emerging global vendors has intensified.”
Companies and subsidiaries are spun out to give them more leeway in creativity, R&D, and design. In practice, that might not always happen.
There is an even bigger rumored that Japan’s three biggest, but now struggling, PC makers will be merged into one. Toshiba, Fujitsu, and VAIO are in the process of negotiating a merger of PC businesses. Fujitsu’s split might make it easier for its PC division to make that move and it also might explain why they could not come up with a sexier name for the new company.
One of the noisiest outfits in the world has decided to invest in a bloke who knows a lot about the sounds of silence.
Apple has recruited Dolby executive VP Mike Rockwell and the word on the street is that he will be working out ways to make the overpriced toys sound and look a little better.
Rockwell has been involved in Dolby Vision which has been described as “state-of-the-art color display technology” is rather interesting and like we said, could end up helping Apple to improve upon its display technology in its product lineup.
Despite what the Tame Apple Press is claiming, he can’t take that technology over to Apple when he changes offices. Instead he will have to help the Apple genii come up with something themselves.
Apple has been hiring sound experts, including THX’s pioneer Tomlinson Holman along with some notable audio engineers it poached from Sony.
Apple is saying nothing of course, to admit it is hiring people from outside to help boost its sound quality is an admission that things are far from perfect. At the moment audio-nuts think that Sony is still running the best mobile sound and has been the leader since the Walkman.
Sony seems to be starting to recover from its period of falling profits and woe.
The Japanese consumer electronics maker said its official third-quarter operating profit was $1.5 billion, up 2.2 percent from what it thought it would get last month.
Apparently there was a boost to the bottom line by strong sales of sensors and videogames it also has been cutting back and looking down the back of the sofa for the odd penny or two.
Sony said that its earlier estimate wasn’t final, as Sony had not yet compiled accurate data for its Hollywood movie studio after a massive hack into its computer systems. On February.4 Sony said third-quarter operating profit was nearly double year-earlier and a sign that its nadgers were out of the fire and had an ice pack placed on them.
Sony said that including official results for the movie studio, quarterly revenue rose 6.5 percent from a year earlier.
Forecasts for the full-year ending March 31 were unchanged.
Sony shares have risen more than 30 percent so far this year on hopes of a turnaround, following a program of massive cuts in unprofitable segments and targeted expansion in lucrative areas such as sensors for smartphone cameras.
Fruity cargo cult Apple is convinced it can make a bob or two out of the television market, despite failing dismally in the past.
Boldly going where Intel and Microsoft have failed, Apple has been hinting that it would get into the telly business for a while now. However the Wall Street Journal thinks it has found evidence that the iPhone maker is in talks with programmers to offer a slimmed-down bundle of TV networks in the autumn.
Apple’s service would have about 25 channels, anchored by broadcasters such as ABC, CBS and Fox, and be available across all devices powered by Apple’s iOS operating system, including iPhones, iPads and Apple TV set-top boxes, the newspaper said.
Apple has been talking to Walt Disney, CBS, and Twenty-First Century Fox, and other media companies to offer a “skinny” bundle with well-known channels like CBS, ESPN and FX, leaving out the many smaller networks in the standard cable TV package, the Journal said.
Apple will charge $30 to $40 a month, plans to announce the service in June and launch it in September.
Apple is refusing to comment on the news until it has been hyped a little more and it can stage one of its Nuremburg rallies to promote the idea.
Several media companies are considering joining streaming-only services, or launching their own like HBO and CBS, to attract young people who do not subscribe to traditional pay TV packages. But programmers also fear the packages could become so popular that they undercut current, more profitable deals with cable companies.
Sony is rolling out competing services and it already has the inside measurement of the entertainment business.
Home audio systems are undergoing a sea change because of the popularity of mobile phones, according to a report from IHS Technology.
The analysts said that shipments of connected audio products – that includes wireless speakers, wireless sounders and connected AV receivers will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 88 percent.
In unit terms, that’s a rise from 1.5 million units in 2010 to close to 66 million units in 2016.
Paul Erickson, a senior analyst at IHS, said that its penetration of tablets and smartphones and streaming services including Spotify that are creating a shift in peoples’ perception.
“Consumers are seeking ways to wireless play audio from their mobile devices on speakers in the room they’re in, in multiple rooms in a household, and on speakers carried with the. This need will drive strong global growth in wi-fi and Bluetoosh connected speakers over the next few years,” he said.
Major players in the market will include Samsung, LG, Sony, Bose, Denon, and DTS.
And while prices for connected multi-room speakers are high, they will still be adopted by many people. Sony, Samsung and LG are all expected to put serious marketing bucks into the equation.
Famous for operating its reality distortion shield, Apple might have taken control of the Virtual Reality market with an ancient patent application.
Apple was granted a patent for a Gear VR-like mobile headset which would use a portable device (like a smartphone) as the primary display. However the patent is similar to Samsung’s Gear VR and a swath of VR smartphone adapters out there like Google Cardboard.
According to patent attorney, Eric Greenbaum the patent could kill off all competition for mobile VR headsets and patent troll the market to oblivion.
In 2008 Apple filed a patent for a “Head-mounted display apparatus for retaining a portable electronic device with display.”
The patent describes a device which sounds an awful lot like Gear VR and other VR smartphone adapters. Eric Greenbaum, told Road to VR that the Apple patent may have broad ramifications for mobile-device based head mounted displays.” Which I take to mean, Apple could have a case on their hands if they wanted to challenge Gear VR or similar devices in court.
He thinks that Jobs’ Mob may have pressed to get the patent through the system after Gear VR was announced.
Greenbaum warned that Apple has not yet announced a plan to build any VR products. However their patent filings indicate a strong interest in the field and I would expect them to be planning something.
This Apple HMD patent is significant. I would say it introduces potential litigation risks for companies that have or are planning to release a mobile device HMD.
There is no duty for Apple to make or sell an HMD. They can sit on this patent and use it strategically either by enforcing it against potential infringers, licensing it, or using it in forming strategic partnerships.
In other words, Apple without actually inventing anything could take control of the entire market. It could cherry pick the best technology out there and then release its own product.
The CEO of Sony said that the company will boost investment in its PlayStation and camera sensors business over the next three years.
But Kazuo Hirai said today that it may well exit the smartphone business and divest itself of its TV unit too.
Sony has already got out of PCs and is engaged in restructuring which have seen thousands of people made redundant.
Hirai told reporters in a briefing that his goal was to make Sony profitable – it expects to turn in an operating loss for its financial year, which ends on the 31st of March.
Earlier this week, Sony released its intelligent glasses – which have no guarantee of making returns following Google’s decision to go back to basics on its own version of the devices.
Video games, camera sensors and entertainment are all areas which are profitable, but Hirai is tacitly saying that Sony isn’t the giant it once was, when whatever it launched set the scene for others to follow.
It’s little surprise that Sony is getting out of smartphones. Samsung and Apple rule the roost but manufacturers in mainland China are selling smartphones at knock down prices with razor thin margins – that’s already had an effect on Samsung’s profits.
While Google is sitting back and having a think about the smart glass project it initiated, it appears that Sony is pressing ahead with its SmartEyeglass, a product that will set you back a not so very cool £600 or so.
The glasses come with a software development kit (SDK) so you can sit down and code away to your hearts content, and supports the Android operating system.
The glass include a three megapixel camera, a microphone, weigh 77 grammes, and include a number of features familiar to smartphone users such as gyroscopes, compass, image and brightness sensors, according to the BBC, which adds they come with a controller, to be worn on the body, with loudspeaker, a touch sensor and a battery.
You’ll also be able to see text on the lenses in green.
The CEO of Apple doesn’t think much of smart glasses, according to the New Yorker. He told that magazine that people wouldn’t want to wear them.
President Barack Obama is to meet CEOs in Silicon Valley today to canvass their views on ways to improve existing cyber legislation.
That’s in the wake of massive attacks on healthcare company Anthem and Sony.
According to Reuters, Obama is expected to say that government and the private sector need to cooperate better to meet the challenges of cyber attacks.
A White House representative said that the idea is that if the USA gets it right, more people and companies worldwide will do business with America.
But while Obama will meet some CEOs, some will pointedly stay away including Google, Facebook and Yahoo. They don’t think that the US has done enough to protect their customers from NSA surveillane.
Obama wants Congress to pass a law giving liability protection to companies that share their data about security.
Giant South Korean chaebol Samsung had 22.8 percent of the LCD TV market last year, outstripping the second Korean player, LG Electronics.
Electronics giant Sony appears to be pulling out of its death spiral.
The consumer electronics firm said on Wednesday preliminary results showed that operating profit had doubled to $1.52 billion in the October-December quarter, while sales rose 6 percent.
This was well ahead of what the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street expected and they rushed from their expensive loos screaming “buy, buy, buy.”
To be fair, the company is not home and hosed yet. In fact it could not even be said to be at the front gate contemplating a nice hot bath and a rigorous toweling down.
Sony also forecast a preliminary full-year net loss of $1,44,841,1900 but since this was better than the than its forecast last October estimating a net loss of $ 1,959,616,100 for the year no one appears to be quibbling.
The company had said it would delay announcing the official results for the third quarter as its Hollywood studio struggled to recover from a massive hacking of its computer systems. The company, in the midst of a restructuring, said on Wednesday its Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai would announce a “new business strategy” on February 18.
The company will cut 2,100 jobs in the unit by the end of the next fiscal year through March 2016, including around 1,000 cuts already announced.
Sony’s image sensors have emerged as one of its best performing product lines in recent quarters.
Apple and Samsung were the biggest buyers of semiconductors in 2014.
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