Sponsoer by :

Thursday, August 18, 2011

In nod to IBM, HP overhaul minimizes consumers (AP) : Technet

Sponsored

In nod to IBM, HP overhaul minimizes consumers (AP) : Technet

In nod to IBM, HP overhaul minimizes consumers (AP)

Posted: 18 Aug 2011 10:02 PM PDT

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer Jordan Robertson, Ap Technology Writer – 1 hr 43 mins ago

SAN FRANCISCO – Hewlett-Packard Co. is surrendering in smartphones and tablet computers and has put its personal computer division up for sale, as new CEO Leo Apotheker tries to transform the Silicon Valley stalwart into a twin of East Coast archrival IBM Corp.

The restructuring contains an unmistakable message: HP has failed to cater to both consumers and corporations. As a result, it needs to exit most of its consumer businesses, just as IBM did six years ago.

The overhaul will have three parts:

• HP will stop making tablet computers and smartphones by October.

• It will try to spin off or sell its PC business, the world's largest. By the end of next year, HP computers could be sold under another company's name.

• The company plans to buy business software maker Autonomy Corp. for about $10 billion in one of the biggest takeovers in HP's 72-year history.

HP, the largest technology company in the world by revenue, will continue to sell servers and other equipment to business customers, just as IBM now does. Those businesses currently don't generate as much revenue for HP as PCs, but they have higher profit margins.

Apotheker would not say whether any jobs will be cut. HP plans to take a charge of about $1 billion for restructuring and related costs, some of which could go for severance payments. HP employs more than 300,000 people worldwide.

The changes announced Thursday are motivated by a shift toward an IBM-style business model, which is focused on selling to corporations and governments.

But the influence of Steve Jobs and Apple Inc. shouldn't be underestimated. Apple is the hottest consumer electronics company on the planet with its highly popular iPhones and iPads.

"Apple singlehandedly knocked HP out of the PC, smartphone and tablet business," Gleacher & Co. analyst Brian Marshall said in an interview.

Rather than remain locked in a futile fight with a company that seems to have found the magic touch on making hit consumer products, HP decided to whittle its competition to the other business technology specialists — namely, IBM, Oracle Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc., Marshall said.

The focus makes sense considering that Apotheker spent most of his career at German business software maker SAP AG, another company that catered to the technology needs of companies and government agencies.

"This is his bread and butter," Marshall said. "Now he has to deliver."

Investors appeared underwhelmed and sent HP's stock down $1.88, or 6 percent, to $29.51 during the regular trading session Thursday, after news of the changes leaked and HP disclosed them along with a quarterly forecast that was lower than expected. After the market closed, the stock fell another 10 percent to $26.61. It was a day the broader market declined, with the Standard & Poor's 500 index falling 4.5 percent.

Apotheker is seeking radical changes to help erase the stain of scandal and leave his imprint on a massive company he inherited last year. His predecessor, Mark Hurd, resigned under pressure a year ago, after an investigation found expense reports that were allegedly falsified to conceal a relationship with an HP marketing contractor.

In trying to ditch most of HP's consumer businesses, Apotheker is reversing a decade-long binge on computer hardware.

The area where HP has been most visibly lacking is mobile devices.

HP has been hopelessly outmatched in smartphones and tablets despite its $1.8 billion acquisition last year of Palm Inc., whose webOS software was the crown jewel of the deal. The software powered the fledgling TouchPad tablet and HP-powered smartphones that are being discontinued in Thursday's announcement.

The software was well-reviewed, but iPhones and iPads and smartphones running Google Inc.'s Android operating system have dominated the fastest-growing parts of the consumer technology market. HP was left in the margins. WebOS smartphones had a worldwide market share of less than 1 percent, according to Gartner.

HP will try to find ways to keep webOS alive, which could include using it in other devices such as PCs and printers or licensing it to handset makers, Apotheker said in an interview. He said he was disappointed with the designs of HP's mobile devices and believed the business would have required too much money to turn around.

"We have better opportunities to invest our capital," he said.

HP executives likely decided that "they were too late to the tablet market to make a dent," said Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin. "They recognized they did not have a high probability of success."

HP conceivably could try to license webOS for use in cars and consumer electronics devices made by other companies, Golvin said. But even that is challenging because Google is targeting many of the same markets with its Android system, which is free.

"This begs the question of how much longer it will be before the other shoe drops and they close the Palm business entirely," Golvin said.

The diminishing of the Palm business will be striking to many technologists.

Jon Rubinstein, the former CEO of Palm, said in December that Palm sold itself because executives realized the business could be small and successful, but couldn't sustain itself on its own in the long run.

Rubinstein, who was an Apple executive before leading Palm, said HP seemed to be the best choice because, given its size, it could help Palm bring its products to more people.

In PCs, HP is acknowledging that it needs to reverse course on a path begun two CEOs ago, under Carly Fiorina. She pushed through the controversial decision to spend $19 billion for Compaq Computer. That set the stage for HP's ascent to become the world's top PC maker.

PCs are HP's biggest revenue generator, but the business is also HP's least profitable, a result of falling prices for computers and brutal competition.

HP's effort to jettison its PC business is another concession to Apple's increasing dominance of consumer electronics, said Shaw Wu, an analyst with Ticonderoga Securities. The PC division also had become a drag on HP's stock even though it still accounts for about 15 percent of the company's earnings, Wu said.

"Apple is a such a fierce competitor that HP probably realized it was going to have to cut its losses," Wu said. "And it makes sense to cut your losses sooner than later."

The decision also makes HP's trajectory look similar to rival IBM's. A key player in building the PC market in the 1980s, IBM sold its PC business in 2005 to focus on software and services, which don't cost as much in labor and components as building computer hardware.

The acquisition of Autonomy mirrors a key element of IBM's transformation from stodgy mainframe seller into a software and services powerhouse, which has made IBM the envy of many large technology companies.

HP's net income increased in the fiscal third quarter, which ended July 31, but its lower-than-expected outlook for the current period weighed on the stock. The company, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif., also cut its full-year revenue outlook.

___

AP Technology Writers Michael Liedtke and Rachel Metz in San Francisco and Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this report.

Palm largely dead as HP shuts phone, tablet unit (AP)

Posted: 18 Aug 2011 09:13 PM PDT

By RACHEL METZ, AP Technology Writer Rachel Metz, Ap Technology Writer – 2 hrs 32 mins ago

SAN FRANCISCO – When Hewlett-Packard Co. snapped up Palm Inc. last year for $1.8 billion, it looked like the smartphone pioneer's last chance.

Palm was a year into a major turnaround effort but gaining little traction despite a hip, new CEO known for making the iPod a household name. It had high hopes for its latest handset, the Pre, which ran on the company's new, intuitive operating software, known as webOS. It needed a savior, and HP, which itself needed a boost in the mobile technology market, seemed like its best bet for survival.

It didn't work. With fierce competition from Apple Inc.'s iPhone and smartphones running Google Inc.'s Android software, HP's handsets running the webOS software developed by Palm have been just a blip on most consumers' radar screens. A tablet called the TouchPad, released in July and also running webOS, has also sold poorly.

The market seemed too tough for HP to forge ahead: The technology conglomerate said Thursday that it is shuttering its mobile device business, which includes the webOS-running smartphones and TouchPad.

The announcement came as HP said it also plans to sell or spin off its PC division. Together, the moves would take HP out of the consumer market, though it will continue to sell servers and other equipment to business customers.

Technology developed by Palm (a brand name HP has phased out) may still exist in some form. In an interview, HP CEO Leo Apotheker said the company was disappointed more with the hardware sales than the performance of the webOS software, which it will try to keep alive in some way. HP is studying its options, which could include licensing the software to handset makers or allowing them to use it for free as open-source software, as Google does with Android.

Still, for Palm, the decision sounds largely like a death knell that comes after nearly 20 years of mobile technology innovation, ownership changes and failed efforts to become a leader in the handheld market.

Palm, founded by Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins in 1992, helped create the handheld computing market with its Palm Pilot "personal digital assistants" in the 1990s. But after Palm reshuffled itself repeatedly — it was bought by U.S. Robotics, a modem maker that itself was bought by 3Com Corp. in 1997, and then spun off again as its own company in 2000 — other companies took control of the market. In 2003, Palm acquired Handspring — a rival startup Dubinsky and Hawkins created_ and spun off PalmSource, which made the PalmOS handheld computing software, as an independently traded company. Japan's Access Co. bought PalmSource in 2005.

Speaking to The Associated Press several months before HP announced it was buying Palm, Dubinsky said all the shuffling took "critical resources and attention from product development." And even though it happened years ago, she called the decision to spin off PalmOS a "huge strategic error."

"As RIM, Apple and Palm all have demonstrated, these devices need to be highly integrated hardware and software developments in order to optimize the user experience," Dubinsky wrote in an e-mail to the AP. "When Palm no longer could advance the OS, and had to create a new one, it lost several years."

By early 2009, Palm readied itself for a big comeback. At the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the company unveiled the stylish touch-screen Pre and webOS software, which at the time could do something the iPhone couldn't: run multiple applications simultaneously.

One more ingredient it hoped would revitalize the company was the addition of a leader who helped make Apple what it is today.

Just before the Pre's launch, Palm replaced then-CEO Ed Colligan with Jon Rubinstein, who spent a decade at Apple during that company's comeback run. Rubinstein, who started at Apple in 1997, was a pivotal figure behind the brightly colored iMacs and the iPod.

He came to Palm in 2007 as executive chairman under a deal in which Palm sold nearly a third of the company to private equity firm Elevation Partners (when HP acquired Palm, it bought out Elevation's stake).

But Palm's efforts turned out to be too little, too late. While many analysts and critics felt webOS and the Pre were good, consumers weren't biting. Subsequent smartphones released under Palm and, more recently, through HP, have also failed to impress shoppers.

Speaking at a tech conference late last year, Rubinstein said competitors simply innovated too fast for Palm to catch up.

"The world moved faster than we expected and we ran out of runway," he said.

Indeed, since Palm's comeback attempt, the popularity of the iPhone has only grown while phones running Android, which first hit the market in 2008, abound. According to research firm IDC, Apple took the top spot in the second quarter, while Samsung Electronics Co. — a big maker of Android phones_ took second place in unit sales. Nokia Corp. came in third, while BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. took fourth.

Rubinstein, currently a senior vice president of HP's personal systems group, said Palm studied a number of alternatives to being bought by HP. He said HP was a good choice because, as the largest computer company in the world by revenue, it could help Palm bring its products to more people.

As it turns out, the mobile pioneer will largely cease to exist.

___

AP Technology Writer Jordan Robertson contributed to this report.

HP to pay $10B for Autonomy as it exits mobile (AP)

Posted: 18 Aug 2011 09:11 PM PDT

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke, Ap Technology Writer – 2 hrs 34 mins ago

SAN FRANCISCO – Hewlett-Packard Co. is buying Autonomy Corp. to expand its lineup of business software products as it lowers its profile in consumer electronics.

The acquisition, announced Thursday, comes amid a flurry of other dramatic moves that will reshape HP, the world's largest technology company by revenue. The shake-up will sharpen HP's focus on selling products and services to businesses and government agencies, instead of making gadgets for consumers.

Buying Autonomy will give HP another lure in the business market, where its chief rivals are IBM Corp., Oracle Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc.

Among other things, Autonomy makes search engines that help companies find vital information stored across computer networks.

HP CEO Leo Apotheker is paying a steep price to acquire Autonomy, which is based in Cambridge, England. It translates to $42.11 per share (GBP25.50). That's 64 percent higher than Autonomy's previous closing price. The $10 billion price tag is also 11 times greater than Autonomy's annual revenue of $870 million and represents about one-sixth of HP's current market value.

Autonomy's location outside the U.S. enabled HP to dip into its offshore stash of cash to pay for the deal. That's an appealing option for U.S. companies because they have to pay higher taxes on the money they transfer home. Microsoft Corp. is also using its offshore cash to buy Internet phone and video service Skype for $8.5 billion.

HP ended July with $13 billion in cash. The company didn't break down how much of that money was held offshore.

In a Thursday conference call, Sanford Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi questioned Apotheker about whether he was taking too big of a risk on Autonomy at a time when HP's stock is slumping badly. Even before they plunged in Thursday's extended trading, HP's shares were down by 30 percent since Apotheker became CEO last November. The stock ended the regular trading session at $29.51.

Apotheker defended the acquisition as a smart move and echoed some of the remarks he had made in a prepared statement. "Some acquisitions require heavy lifting, but bringing Autonomy into the HP world will be seamless and highly complementary," Apotheker said in that statement.

With 2,700 employees, Autonomy will continue to be run by its CEO, Mike Lynch, after the deal closes. That's expected to happen by the end of this year.

HP, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif., will be hoping the Autonomy deal works out better than its $1.8 billion acquisition of device maker Palm 13 months ago.

In a surprise move, HP disclosed plans to stop making smartphones and tablet computers running on Palm's software. HP also is looking to jettison its personal computer business in a sale or spinoff.

Holograms replace airline workers in Paris, are more patient than the real thing (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 18 Aug 2011 06:43 PM PDT

HP declares the discontinuation of webOS, remains mum on details (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 18 Aug 2011 06:00 PM PDT

Here's How To Reveal a Secret Facebook List of People You've Been Stalking (Mashable)

Posted: 17 Aug 2011 06:07 PM PDT

Charlie White Charlie White – Wed Aug 17, 9:07 pm ET

Install a little bookmarklet in your browser, and soon you'll be presented with a list of people you search for most often on Facebook. This reveals the data that gives Facebook some of its magic, where it's able to predict who you're searching for when you type names into the search field. And, it could be a bit embarrassing. It's perfectly safe, and it's also easy to install -- as long as you're not using Facebook with "https". Go to TheKeesh, drag the image (or drag this text link, the image wouldn't work for me) provided on that site to your bookmarks bar, go to Facebook, and click on the bookmark you've installed.

[More from Mashable: Facebook Begins Rolling Out New Left-Hand Navigation]

Suddenly, you'll see a long list of people's names, each with a corresponding number. You'll notice that the names at the top are those whom you search and interact with most often. It's mildly shocking to see a list, right there in your face, of those you stalk the most. And no, I won't show you my list.

How is this list ordered? According to Jeremy, purveyor of TheKeesh and the guy who discovered this capability and created the JavaScript to view it, "I can only guess, but it seems like they order it based on who you interact with, whose profile you look at and who you have recently become friends with." He adds, "Basically, you will find a list which is mostly who Facebook thinks you are Facebook stalking."

[More from Mashable: Madonna Resurfaces in Smirnoff Social Media Promotion]

Find out more about how this secret link was discovered and other interesting parts of the info about you that can be perused with this little piece of code by visiting TheKeesh. Two caveats: One, it might not be long until Facebook makes it so you can't see this information, and two, we're not sure if Jeremy's TheKeesh site can handle the boatloads of users who are about to go there to try this out.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

IBM pursues chips that behave like brains (AP)

Posted: 18 Aug 2011 10:55 AM PDT

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer Jordan Robertson, Ap Technology Writer – Thu Aug 18, 1:55 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Computers, like humans, can learn. But when Google tries to fill in your search box based only on a few keystrokes, or your iPhone predicts words as you type a text message, it's only a narrow mimicry of what the human brain is capable.

The challenge in training a computer to behave like a human brain is technological and physiological, testing the limits of computer and brain science. But researchers from IBM Corp. say they've made a key step toward combining the two worlds.

The company announced Thursday that it has built two prototype chips that it says process data more like how humans digest information than the chips that now power PCs and supercomputers.

The chips represent a significant milestone in a six-year-long project that has involved 100 researchers and some $41 million in funding from the government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. That's the Pentagon arm that focuses on long-term research and previously brought the world the Internet. IBM has also committed an undisclosed amount of money.

The prototypes offer further evidence of the growing importance of "parallel processing," or computers doing multiple tasks simultaneously. That is important for rendering graphics and crunching large amounts of data.

The uses of the IBM chips so far are prosaic, such as steering a simulated car through a maze, or playing Pong. It may be a decade or longer before the chips make their way out of the lab and into actual products.

But what's important is not what the chips are doing, but how they're doing it, says Giulio Tononi, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who worked with IBM on the project.

The chips' ability to adapt to types of information that it wasn't specifically programmed to expect is a key feature.

"There's a lot of work to do still, but the most important thing is usually the first step," Tononi said in an interview. "And this is not one step, it's a few steps."

Technologists have long imagined computers that learn like humans. Your iPhone or Google's servers can be programmed to predict certain behavior based on past events. But the techniques being explored by IBM and other companies and university research labs around "cognitive computing" could lead to chips that are better able to adapt to unexpected information.

IBM's interest in the chips lies in their ability to potentially help process real-world signals such as temperature or sound or motion and make sense of them for computers.

IBM, which is based in Armonk, N.Y., is a leader in a movement to link physical infrastructure, such as power plants or traffic lights, and information technology, such as servers and software that help regulate their functions. Such projects can be made more efficient with tools to monitor the myriad analog signals present in those environments.

Dharmendra Modha, project leader for IBM Research, said the new chips have parts that behave like digital "neurons" and "synapses" that make them different than other chips. Each "core," or processing engine, has computing, communication and memory functions.

"You have to throw out virtually everything we know about how these chips are designed," he said. "The key, key, key difference really is the memory and the processor are very closely brought together. There's a massive, massive amount of parallelism."

The project is part of the same research that led to IBM's announcement in 2009 that it had simulated a cat's cerebral cortex, the thinking part of the brain, using a massive supercomputer. Using progressively bigger supercomputers, IBM had previously simulated 40 percent of a mouse's brain in 2006, a rat's full brain in 2007, and 1 percent of a human's cerebral cortex in 2009.

A computer with the power of the human brain is not yet near. But Modha said the latest development is an important step.

"It really changes the perspective from `What if?' to `What now?'" Modha said. "Today we proved it was possible. There have been many skeptics, and there will be more, but this completes in a certain sense our first round of innovation."

RIM's BlackBerry music service to launch soon (Digital Trends)

Posted: 18 Aug 2011 06:58 PM PDT

Trevor Mogg Trevor Mogg – Thu Aug 18, 9:58 pm ET

Following in the footsteps of Apple, Amazon and Google, Research in Motion is said to be close to launching its own music streaming service.

A Reuters report says that the new service will work with the company's BlackBerry devices.

According to "four people familiar with the plans," the Canadian company is in the final stages of negotiations with major music labels such as Universal Music Group, Sony Corp's Sony Music, Warner Music Group and EMI Group.

The new service is expected to work with BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) – RIM's popular instant messaging system believed to be used by some 45 million people – and allow users to collect and share songs with BBM contacts.

Sales of BlackBerry smartphones have declined in the US as the mobile market becomes ever more competitive, though the popularity of BBM has actually helped it to expand its market in other countries. As a result, RIM is hoping that the new music service will help to keep BBM fresh and in the spotlight, and help take the appeal of BlackBerry devices beyond their traditional business-user base.

Speaking to Reuters, Avian Securities' Matthew Thornton was skeptical about whether the introduction of a music service would tempt new users, though he believed it might help to prevent current BlackBerry smartphone owners from being distracted by offerings from rivals.

Although a RIM spokesperson declined to elaborate on news of the forthcoming music service, an announcement about it is expected to be made by September 5.

China Mobile talking to Jobs (Investor's Business Daily)

Posted: 18 Aug 2011 03:24 PM PDT

– Thu Aug 18, 6:24 pm ET

The iPhone maker's CEO Steve Jobs has met with the world's biggest mobile operator several times about introducing an iPhone based on its network standard. China Mobile (NYSE:CHL - News) has 7.44 mil iPhone users on its network despite not selling the smartphone via its retail network, company officials said. It operates a 3G mobile network based on its home-grown TDSCDMA standard that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL - News) doesn't support. Apple fell 3.8% to 366.05. China Mobile slid 1.5% to 47.80.

After a single tweet, air traveler gets a Morton's surprise at Newark airport (Digital Trends)

Posted: 18 Aug 2011 09:55 PM PDT

Mike Flacy Mike Flacy – 1 hr 50 mins ago

mortons-steak

When Peter Shankman joking tweeted that he would love to have a Morton's Steakhouse porterhouse waiting for him when he landed at the Newark airport, he probably didn't think anyone was listening. Shankman tweeted to the official @Mortons Twitter account before taking off from Tampa, Florida. He had eaten some grouper for lunch earlier that day, but didn't have any time to pick up a proper dinner before boarding his 4:30 p.m. flight.  Before the plan took off, Shankman simply asked for a porterhouse to be waiting when he landed.

mortonsEWRLittle did he know that someone in Morton's social media department was actively monitoring the account at the time. In the two and a half hours of flight time, Morton's corporate got approval to feed Mr. Shankman and ordered a porterhouse steak at a Morton's restaurant about 25 miles away from the Newark airport.

They also had to arrange for a driver to deliver the meal, track down Shankman's flight, figure out the gate where the plane was landing and have a tuxedo-dressed server waiting at baggage claim when Shankman departed the airplane. Shankman was shocked to find the server grinning when left the security gate and went onto rave about Mortons on Twitter as well as his personal blog. Even Shankman's cat got a few scraps of a delicious porterhouse after eating the meal back home.

However, Mortons likely reacted so quickly because Shankman has about 100,000 Twitter followers as well as being the author of a book about customer service through social media called Customer Service: New Rules for a Social Media World. Shankman attributes the fast response time to the fact that he's a consistent customer of the establishment and that the corporate arm of Mortons simply has a quality social media department. 

HP wants to sell its PC business, kill webOS: So what happens now? (Digital Trends)

Posted: 18 Aug 2011 06:20 PM PDT

Jeffrey Van Camp Jeffrey Van Camp – Thu Aug 18, 9:20 pm ET

hewlett-packard-headquarters

According to a press release today, Hewlett-Packard is discontinuing webOS and is looking for a "a full or partial separation of [consumer electronics division] from HP through a spin-off or other transaction." That's right, the number one PC maker in the world is essentially shutting, or selling, its doors. HP is looking for someone to buy its Personal Systems Group (PSG). This division is responsible for all consumer PCs, business PCs, handheld products like the Pocket PC, and TV-related devices like MediaSmart TVs and DVR products. Strange things are happening, people. Strange things. 

Apple takes HP's PC throne

This news comes just as reports are leaking that Apple may have stolen the top spot to become the number one PC manufacturer with its line of Mac computers and the massive success of the iPad. Hot Hardware reports that Apple took a 21.1 percent share of the PC market in Q2 2011, with 80 percent of Apple's sales of 13.6 million units for the second quarter coming from the iPad. HP, now in the number two spot, moved 9.7 million PCs in the second quarter. Dell, Acer, and then Lenovo rounded out the top five. 

So, why is HP planning to rid itself of its PC division? These sales aren't terrible. Well, it doesn't see a bright future in the space, apparently. With the PC space and smartphone space beginning to interbreed, traditional PC sales are stagnating (down 2 percent in Q2 2011) It's printing, enterprise, software, and services businesses hold a lot higher profit potential than PCs and tablets, which tend to have thin profit margins due to competition.

WebOS meets its demise

Then there's webOS. HP paid $1.2 billion to purchase Palm two years ago because it saw a future in webOS, but hasn't been able to capitalize on the platform. In February, HP announced three new webOS devices — the HP Veer, HP TouchPad, and Palm Pre 3 — and boldly stated that webOS would be integrated into all of its future PCs. As of today, that plan has been dissolved, likely due to poor sales of the HP Veer and HP TouchPad, two odd products that likely didn't take off more because of the hardware than webOS itself. Still, sales are everything. According to sources at Best Buy, the recently-launched TouchPad sold just 25,000 of its 250,000 initial shipment to the retailer. 

hp-webos

In its release, HP says it has no plans to continue development on webOS, but would consider licensing it out to other vendors, like those who make smart cars and appliances. Still, we have to wonder why any manufacturer would sign on to integrate an OS that has been publicly discontinued. Would you want a dead product?  

Lenovo and IBM all over again?

So what might happen if HP spins off its PC business? It could simply operate independently and continue to make PCs and other electronics for a long time. The more likely scenario, however, is that someone will buy HP's PC business, in a deal not unlike Google's recent Motorola acquisition. But forget Motorola for a moment. We've seen this before. In 2005, IBM made the decision to sell off its PC business to a Chinese company called Lenovo for $1.75 billion, an amount that seems paltry when compared to the mammoth $12.5 billion sale of Motorola Mobility. At the time of sale, IBM was the number three consumer PC manufacturer in the United States, but, like HP, IBM saw a brighter, more profitable future in the world of enterprise, computing architecture, and a number of other business and government related projects. 

At first, Lenovo relied heavily on the IBM name, but in the years since, it has increasingly relied on its own branding, relegating the IBM logo to the inside of its products, similar to the old "Intel Inside" branding that used to adorn PCs in the 1990s. Lenovo is currently the number five PC maker with 7.5 percent of the market, $4.8 million in Q2 2011 sales and 9.7 percent of total market share in 2010. For comparison, IBM's market share in 2004 was 5.5 percent. Lenovo has announced and released tablet computers outside the United States and has a good foothold in China, which will undoubtedly see a great deal of growth in the future. 

Who will buy HP's PC business?

So who is HP's Lenovo? Who will step up and buy the PC giant? Well the obvious first guess would be one of HP's competitors. Dell, Acer, Lenovo, and Toshiba could be interested in acquiring HP if the math benefits them enough. After all, in 2002, HP bought its way to the number one PC position with its purchase of Compaq computers. Compaq was the number one manufacturer from 1996 to 2000. By 2006, HP had taken back the top spot from Dell, reigned supreme from 2001 to 2005. It has held the top spot ever since.

Or maybe somebody else wants in on the PC market. Samsung, HTC, LG, Google (why not?), or another smartphone manufacturer could choose to buy into the PC market or increase their stake significantly. Samsung seems an especially good fit, as its PC sales have never reached the heights of its smartphone and feature phone sales. Maybe somebody from outside the industry all together plans to join. 

The PC market is alive and well

It's not like the PC market is dying. It's just evolving. Tablet computers are becoming an important sector of the market and are slowly merging with the traditional PC, a topic we just covered in Back to Basics – How smartphones and tablets are shaping your next PC. Overall, the space is still growing quite rapidly. Global sales of PCs have risen from 305.9 million units in 2009 to 346 to 350 million in 2010. 2011 sales will likely grow still, propelled by the growing tablet market. Want to know how fast computer sales have grown? In 2005, 218.5 million units were sold around the world. In 2000, only 134.7 million were sold, and in 1996, only 70.9 million computers were sold. We've gone from 71 million to 350 million in 15 years. For those with an open mind, the PC industry is a great place to be.

Don't fret the coming loss of HP, should such a thing happen at all. Companies rise and fall all the time. It's only when we stop seeing companies fail that an industry gets into trouble and complacency. The PC market will not shrink or hurt severely without HP branded products to fill retail shelves. If anything, this mix up will only speed up innovation and growth. HP will survive too, likely sinking into the background of the tech industry much as IBM has done. Years from now we consumers will hear about Hewlett-Packard from time to time and wonder just what the company actually does anymore. HP isn't going anywhere, it's just content being boring. It's had enough with the glitz of consumer electronics. It's gotten to the age where it just wants safer and larger profits.

MAX GO tops Android Apps of the Week (Appolicious)

Posted: 18 Aug 2011 02:30 PM PDT

RIM near BlackBerry music service launch: sources (Reuters)

Posted: 18 Aug 2011 05:51 PM PDT

By Yinka Adegoke and Alastair Sharp Yinka Adegoke And Alastair Sharp – Thu Aug 18, 8:51 pm ET

NEW YORK/TORONTO (Reuters) – BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is close to rolling out its own music streaming service that will work across its mobile devices, according to four people familiar with the plans.

The new service is likely part of an attempt by RIM to improve its BlackBerry Messenger service as it competes with the mobile media platform strengths of rival Apple Inc and Google Inc's Android.

RIM is in late-stage negotiations with major labels, including Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, Sony Corp's Sony Music, Warner Music Group and EMI Group. The new service is expected to be announced by Labor Day in the United States, September 5.

RIM has been enhancing its BlackBerry Messenger offering, popularly known as BBM, since announcing its "social platform" at last September's DevCon event where it unveiled the PlayBook tablet computer.

A RIM spokeswoman declined comment on the report but said BBM is one of the largest mobile social networks in the world.

RIM's BlackBerry smartphones have been hit by a sharply declining market share in the United States, even as the company has expanded sales in other parts of the world, partly because of BBM's popularity.

Analyst Matthew Thornton at Avian Securities said he doubted the music service would attract new users but might help the company keep its existing BlackBerry customers interested.

"I just don't think trying to replicate Apple is really going to change their situation near term," he said.

"For RIM it's going to be the new OS 7 product first and foremost ... and then it's about QNX and making that transition."

RIM has just launched an updated operating system on three new touchscreen devices intended to catch up with the technical specifications of Android and other rivals. The company plans to launch the first BlackBerrys using the QNX software, used on its PlayBook tablet, early next year.

The PlayBook comes loaded with the music store of 7digital, half-owned by HMV. 7digital's store includes some 13 million tracks, and purchases made via a PlayBook can be moved to other devices.

BlackBerry smartphones do not offer a RIM-enabled way to buy music, although audio and other files can be loaded onto the devices from a computer.

BlackBerry users can also download music apps from RIM's store, including Slacker, Rhapsody and Pandora.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company says some 45 million people use BBM, which allows BlackBerry users with data plans to pass text messages, pictures and other files to each other without incurring charges from their network carrier -- 70 percent of them use it daily.

Its latest version allows independent developers to incorporate BBM into their applications, meaning users can stay in a news, sports or games app while sharing it with their BBM contacts.

BBM is touted as a major attraction for younger BlackBerry users and customers in emerging markets because of its lower cost and immediacy. The service runs over RIM's proprietary network and tells a sender when a message has been received at the other end.

RIM's shares closed 3.8 percent lower on Thursday at $25.76 on Nasdaq and down 3 percent at C$25.49 in Toronto. The stock has lost more than half its value since the start of the year.

($1=$0.99 Canadian)

(Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Robert MacMillan and Rob Wilson)

Amazon increases streaming content to over 100,000 movies and TV shows (Digital Trends)

Posted: 18 Aug 2011 06:29 PM PDT

Mike Dunn Mike Dunn – Thu Aug 18, 9:29 pm ET

Amazon video on demandThe streaming video market just got a little more interesting. Amazon announced today that it now offers 100,000 movies and TV shows available for rent.  Sadly of the 100,000 titles available only 15,000 of those titles are in high definition.  In addition to movies and shows to rent Amazon now also has 9,000 titles to stream with an Amazon Prime membership.

Amazon instant offers two drastically different video watching services. The first is a video rental store like Apple TV, and the second is an unlimited streaming option like Netflix. Amazon isn't the leader in either field, but having both options available is a very powerful combination.

In a head to head battle with Netflix Amazon's streaming service we concluded that Amazon just wasn't quite ready to compete with Netflix. The main issues with Amazon's Prime streaming was the lack of hardware to view the content on, and the lack of content available. Amazon is taking steps to fix both of those problems, and at a price that Netflix can't compete with.

With all the news about Netflix increasing it prices it shines a light on the value of a Prime membership. Amazon Prime costs $79 a year which allows unlimited streaming of the content, and free 2-day shipping on most Amazon purchases. With one in five e-commerce shoppers using Amazon the Prime Membership pays for itself in saved shipping fees.

It still appears that Amazon needs to bolster its offerings and compatible devices for both its rental service and Prime membership. Amazon clearly is trying to change the landscape of streaming video content and it ultimately will be good for consumers. Having another big player to compete against our current titans of the industry will hopefully help lower prices and increase content for everyone.

 

British Airways cabin crew given iPads (Digital Trends)

Posted: 18 Aug 2011 10:25 PM PDT

Trevor Mogg Trevor Mogg – 1 hr 19 mins ago

Next time you're on a British Airways flight and you see a member of the cabin crew fiddling about on an iPad, don't think for a moment that it's Angry Birds they're playing.

The airline is in the process of issuing its flight attendants with the devices in the hope that it will improve customer service and make their more job more efficient. It also wants to cut down on the use of paper.

In a press release issued this week, BA said that if the current trial is a success, all senior cabin crew members will be given iPads in the coming months.

Flight attendants usually keep passenger information on a scroll of paper. With everything stored on the iPad, it will be much quicker to access a passenger's details, whether it concerns their meal preferences, travel arrangements or other such matter.

The press release explained: "It gives cabin crew a whole library of information at their fingertips including timetables, safety manuals and customer service updates. It also means any issues can be logged with ground-based colleagues around the network prior to departure so solutions can be delivered while the flight is airborne."

BA's head of in-flight customer experience, Bill Francis, said, "The iPad is already allowing us to offer a more personalised on-board service, but the possibilities for future development are endless."

Francis added, "We're receiving great feedback from cabin crew and customers already. It allows the crew to offer the thoughtful service they want to deliver and customers are treated as valued guests."

The iPad is being taken up by more and more airlines, with pilots also finding it useful. In May Alaskan Airlines became the first US carrier to replace flight manuals with Apple's tablet.

 

Image: Makaristos

HP may drop PCs, to buy Autonomy for $11.7 billion (Reuters)

Posted: 18 Aug 2011 06:47 PM PDT

By Poornima Gupta and Paritosh Pansal Poornima Gupta And Paritosh Pansal – Thu Aug 18, 9:47 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Hewlett-Packard Co may spin off the world's largest PC business, part of a wrenching series of moves away from the consumer market, including killing its new tablet and buying British software company Autonomy Corp for as much as $11.7 billion.

The moves underscore the problems plaguing personal computers and devices, HP's core business, and a decade-long search for direction by the original Silicon Valley garage startup, whose "HP Way" was once a model for businesses.

The iconic company associated with the birth of Silicon Valley also plans to kill WebOS-based phones and the TouchPad tablet, which was launched in June but has failed to excite consumers.

HP's third-largest acquisition ever and its potential departure from the PC arena sets in motion a transformation that recalls International Business Machine Corp's overhaul of the last decade.

The barrage of news, which forced HP to announce third-quarter earnings an hour early on Thursday, masked a sharp reduction in HP's estimates for full-year revenue and earnings that sent its shares down 6.1 percent to a 52-week low. They slid another 10 percent to $26.61 in after-hours trading.

HP Chief Executive Leo Apotheker is responding to mounting pressure to fire up growth just as global economic and tech-spending outlooks darken. Like other PC makers, it is struggling to come up with an answer to Apple Inc's iPhones and iPads, which are gobbling up PC market share.

"HP is at a critical point in its existence and these changes are fundamental to the success we all want," Apotheker told analysts on a conference call.

The announcement is the second this week to show how quickly technology companies are transforming as they jockey for position to cope with radical changes in consumer demand. Google Inc announced on Monday it was buying mobile handset maker Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, launching the Internet search and mobile software company into manufacturing for the first time.

HP "is saying 'I want to be more like IBM.' They divested their PC business and they got more involved in software," said FBN Securities analyst Shelby Seyrafi.

"The PC industry is a very challenged one because of the slow growth in that sector. For those companies like HP which don't have a strong tablet offering, they are victims of the encroachment of Apple's iPads and tablets on their notebook business. So they're vulnerable to losing share."

The acquisition of cloud search-software specialist Autonomy, which analysts say may draw rival bids, marks its boldest foray into the software and technology services after Apotheker came on board with a mandate to drive innovation.

A PC spinoff marks a historic shift for a company that Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard built into a sprawling $120 billion empire from a $538 garage operation in 1939.

"HP is recognizing what the world has recognized, which is hardware in terms of consumers is not a huge growth business anymore," said Michael Yoshikami, chief executive of YCMNET Advisors, a minor shareholder in HP. "It's not where the money is. It's in keeping with the new CEO's perspective that they want to be more in services and more business oriented."

LEO MAKES BOLD MOVE

Speculation has swirled for months that HP was no longer keen on keeping a PC business struggling with low growth and single-digit margins.

Sources told Reuters in June that private equity firms from Blackstone Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts to TPG Capital would like HP to break up and sell them some of its units, arguing that the world's No. 1 PC maker and tech powerhouse is stretched too thin.

Spinning off the PC division, run by personal systems group chief Todd Bradley, would mark one of the biggest makeovers for the company since 1999, when it spun off its measurement and components businesses to form Agilent Technologies.

The moves would turn a company that in some ways tried to mimic Apple into a devout follower of IBM, dropping a tablet with innovative software, checking out of the PC business and embracing the software and services Big Blue today embraces.

HP has twisted and turned before, including controversial former CEO Carly Fiorina's acquisition of PC maker Compaq in 2001, which a spinoff would undo.

"If HP spins off their PC business ..., maybe they will call it Compaq?" Dell Inc CEO tweeted after the news emerged.

Some alternatives HP is exploring include hiving off its PC business into a separate company through a spin-off or other transaction that would likely be tax-free to U.S. shareholders. HP expects the process to be completed within 12-18 months.

Apotheker, however, made it clear that its printing unit -- also the target of spinoff speculation -- was very strategic to the company.

Apotheker, a former chief of European software giant SAP AG, had been expected to drive an expansion of the company's relatively small but very profitable software division -- including through major acquisitions.

Cambridge, England-based Autonomy counts Procter & Gamble Co among a long list of major corporate customers that use its software to search and organize unstructured data like emails. It said the offer values its fully diluted share capital at as much as 7.09 billion pounds ($11.7 billion), were a clutch of convertible bonds to be exercised. Under the agreement, Barclays Capital will provide debt financing to help bankroll HP's acquisition.

The British firm's CFO, Sushovan Hussain, is on a visit to California, a source told Reuters.

"HP would be buying this as part of a refocus of the business on software," said Tim Daniels, technology, media and telecoms strategist at Olivetree Securities. "Clients now don't have a problem accumulating data, the problem is the structuring of it. Eighty percent of the data on the Web now is unstructured: video, pictures, emails, etc."

KILLING THE TOUCHPAD?

HP's Personal Systems Group also includes smartphones, tablets and the WebOS operating system, pulling in about $41 billion in revenue but only about 13 percent of profit.

HP's decision to discontinue the TouchPad -- which hit the store shelves in July with much costly fanfare -- follows poor demand. It was discounted by $100 a month after it was launched in a market dominated by the iPad. WebOS came with the $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm last year.

"There were also a lot of missteps, such as launching it a month before it was ready and pricing it the same as the iPad 2," said Current Analysis' Avi Greengart. "It was a great operating system. Everybody was pulling for it but a lot of people weren't buying it."

Going forward, HP expects further pressure on its revenue and cut its full-year forecast for the third straight quarter.

HP now expects full-year revenue of $127.2 billion to $127.6 billion, down from a previous estimate of $129 billion to $130 billion. It also cut its earnings per share estimate to a range of $3.59 to $3.70, down from its previous estimate of at least $4.27 per share.

Barclays Capital and Perella Weinberg are advising HP, while Qatalyst Partners, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, UBS and JPMorgan Chase are advising Autonomy.

HP also named John Visentin as executive vice president of its services group. Ann Livermore, former HP Enterprise unit chief who was managing the services unit on an interim basis, will move over to the company's board.

(Additional reporting by Megan Davies and Sinead Carew in New York, Bill Rigby in Seattle, Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco, Victoria Rowley, Georgina Prodhan and Paul Sandle in London; Writing by Edwin Chan; Editing by Richard Chang and Carol Bishopric)

EA limiting digital and physical launch copies of Star Wars: The Old Republic (Digital Trends)

Posted: 18 Aug 2011 10:27 PM PDT

Mike Flacy Mike Flacy – 1 hr 18 mins ago

Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic

Electronic Arts is planning on putting a cap on the amount of players that will be able to access Star Wars: The Old Republic at the launch of the MMORPG this fall. While no specific number has been announced, there is an exact target of player volume that can be reached with a combination of physical and digital sales of the game. Once that cap is reached, Electronic Arts will halt sales of digital copies and wait until server performance can be stabilized to continue selling the potentially popular title. Official reps for Electronic Arts didn't indicate how long the server upgrade process would be between sale periods.

ea-origin-logo-banner-610x147Since digital sales will be limited to the Origin store, it should be a simple procedure for Electronic Arts to halt sales of the game. It's possible that this move will be perceived by the public as artificially limiting the supply of the Star Wars title to increase demand over time. Fans of the game could potentially become annoyed if the title is unavailable shortly after launch. In addition, this move could backfire on Electronic Arts if the game is heavily preordered, but falls prey to negative reviews from the gaming press which reduces the chances of future sales. 

The launch date of the game is currently unannounced, but the game will be going into beta testing in September with selected weekends that will allow players to try out the MMORPG. Bioware and Electronic Arts are expected to announce a fall date for the launch of the game to take advantage of the lucrative holiday shopping season. Assuming physical copies aren't limited from being activated like digital copies once a player cap is hit, it's also possible that the price of physical copies could skyrocket on third party sites like eBay and Craigslist. If Electronic Arts does plan to cap all copies of the game until servers are capable of handling the load, copies that are purchased for the holidays may not work once received.
at 11:59 PM

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

My Blog List