Market News

HP (HPQ)

HP today launched a range of services for small- to midsize data center operations that help improve efficiency, increase the flexibility of IT budgets and ensure service-level commitments.
With this portfolio of services from HP, owners of small- to midsize data centers can maximize business return on existing assets. These services will enable clients to take advantage of service-delivery models such as virtualization and cloud computing.

Feb 24 · 9:55:00 AM · Source: Company Press Release
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by Larry Etter

HP (HPQ)

HP announced it has appointed Tom Iannotti, currently managing director and senior vice president of Americas and Enterprise Business at HP, to lead HP Enterprise Services. Joe Eazor, who currently runs Enterprise Services, will become senior vice president of Corporate Growth Initiatives in the Office of Strategy and Technology at HP. Both changes are effective immediately.

Feb 24 · 9:52:00 AM · Source: Company Press Release
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by Larry Etter

Dell (DELL)

CIO Today reported that Dell’s fourth quarter was “disheartening,” due to a profit margin that was below expectations, which resulted in a 5% decline in net income despite an 11% increase in revenues. Dell’s earnings release attributed the margin issue to higher growth in its lower-margin consumer division (11%) than in its business division (9%).
Dell’s problem—having to trade off between growth and profitability—is due to the loss of its competitive advantage. The company’s spectacular growth and stock price appreciation of the 1990’s (the stock peaked in 2000) reflected the fact that Michael Dell had devised a fantastic new model for making desktop computers—building them to order. By minimizing parts and finished goods inventories as well as accounts receivable (because most customers ordered and paid for Dell’s PC’s over the Web in advance), the company was able to be both the lowest cost supplier of a commodity product (desktop PC’s), as well as be very profitable. But since then, laptops PC’s have grown faster than and taken share from desktops. This trend is expected to continue. Trefis.com estimates “that desktop sales declined from a peak of 153 million units globally in 2008 to 137 million in 2009. We believe that desktop unit sales will dip further in 2010 and slowly recover to 2009 levels” in 2016. In contrast, Trefis projects that “global notebook and netbook shipments to continue to grow from an estimated 157 million shipments in 2010 to about 230 million shipments by the end of” 2016. Unlike desktop PC’s, laptops are complex to manufacture and cannot be “built to order.” This requires Dell to have parts inventory, finished goods inventory, inventory in the distribution channel, and store inventory. As the company is seeking to expand its retail presence, the latter inventory will have to grow.

Feb 23 · 12:59:00 PM · Source: CIO Today
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by Stuart Skalka

Agilent Technologies (A)

Agilent Technologies Inc. said it has received a favorable decision in its trade secrets and breach of contract case against Advanced Materials Technology, Inc. and three of its employees. Agilent filed the lawsuit in January 2008 to protect confidential and proprietary information relating to its high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) technology.

Feb 23 · 10:33:00 AM · Source: Company Press Release
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by Larry Etter

Microsoft (MSFT)

Microsoft Corp. has announced it has signed a patent cross-license agreement with Amazon.com Inc. The agreement provides each company with access to the other’s patent portfolio and covers a broad range of products and technology, including coverage for Amazon’s popular e-reading device, Kindle™, which employs both open source and Amazon’s proprietary software components, and Amazon’s use of Linux-based servers.
Although specific terms of the agreement are confidential, Microsoft indicated that Amazon.com will pay Microsoft an undisclosed amount of money under the agreement

Feb 23 · 10:25:00 AM
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by Larry Etter

IBM (IBM)

IBM has announced it is creating smarter buildings, offices, and urban infrastructure worldwide. With intelligence embedded into the physical assets of an organization, IBM is helping clients create a command center to manage not only their data center and IT design, but also the physical assets as diverse as water mains, office equipment, door locks, printers, heating systems and fire hydrants.
IBM believes smarter buildings are key to the economic and environmental sustainability of urban environments.

Feb 23 · 10:22:00 AM · Source: Company Press Release
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by Larry Etter

IBM (IBM)

IBM today announced an enhanced strategy to help clients maximize benefits of virtualization with integrated service management by focusing on four key priorities: consolidation, management, automation and optimized delivery. This strategy is based on a comprehensive view of data center virtualization including servers, storage, networking, software and services.
Analysts believe worldwide revenue for virtualization related ecosystem is expected to exceed $46 billion by 2013, so this is a big move for IBM.

Feb 23 · 10:19:00 AM · Source: Company Press Release
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by Larry Etter

Intel (INTC)

Today’s New York Times has a very interesting article “For Chipmakers, the Next Front in a Costly War is in Smartphones,” which makes a case why leading semiconductor manufacturers Intel and GlobalFoundries are poised to take market share in smartphone processors. GlobalFoundries is the manufacturing division that AMD spun out last year, and will do the semiconductor manufacturing for other companies at “what is arguably the most advanced chip factory ever built.” Jim Ballingall, VP for marketing, stated “[t]he first one out there with these types of products [for smartphones] is really the one that wins in the marketplace.”
Regarding Intel, the article is correct that one of that company’s keys to its success has been its manufacturing expertise. While it is very expensive to build semiconductor foundries, doing so enables INTC to manufacture at the leading edge of cost and performance. (According to EETimes, Intel manufactures semiconductors at a line width of 45 nanometers, or billionths of a meter, going to 32 nm. http://www.eetimes.com/rss/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=223100024&cid=RSSfeed_eetimes_newsRSS) But it’s worth noting that while INTC has been spectacularly successful making X86 architecture microprocessors, it hasn’t matched that record with chips for other applications. As the article notes, Intel is competing against other companies producing ARM-architecture chips for smartphones, and INTC’s Atom microprocessors “can cost two to three times as much” and “consume too much power for many smaller gadgets.” The other problem for Intel is software—since the ARM is more common, there is more smartphone software written for it. Regading GlobalFoundries, I disagree with Mr. Ballingall to some extent. While leading edge manufacturers should be able to make chips with the best price/performance, that is not a sufficient condition "to win in the marketplace," or even a necessary one. The chips that win are the ones that power the smartphones that wind up being the most successful in the market, which are chosen by the consumers, wireless carriers and smartphone makers. There are many criteria for getting “designed in,” by the smartphone vendors such as Apple and Nokia, including cost, performance, vendor (including the ARM suppliers), features and architecture. And each time there’s a new smartphone, there is at least the possibility of a new design in process, so no designer or manufacturer of smartphone chips has an ongoing lock.

Feb 22 · 9:13:00 AM · Source: The New York Times
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by Stuart Skalka

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