Can Apple Save the Netbook?

Intel evaluating new netbook concepts, form factors

By Joel Hruska | Published: November 28, 2008 - 02:36PM CT

Netbooks have been one of the major success stories of 2008, but recent comments from Intel indicate that the company isn't satisfied with current device form factors. Speaking at a Raymond James IT Supply Chain conference last week, Stu Pann, an Intel VP of sales and marketing, admitted that Intel initially miscalculated the market segments that netbooks would appeal to.

• AMD may be planning its own CPU to compete with Nano, Atom
• Acer scales back Aspire One projections; notes strong demand
• Intel thrilled with Atom sales in a very tight market
• Ubuntu on Atom: coming soon to a subnotebook near you

"We originally thought Netbooks would be for emerging markets and younger kids... It turns out the bulk of the Netbooks sold today are Western Europe, North America, and for people who just want to grab and go with a notebook," Pann said. "We view the Netbook as mostly incremental to our total available market."...

Can Apple Save the Netbook?

Neil McAllister

Friday, November 28, 2008 5:40 PM PST

I'm a big fan of netbooks -- the compact, lightweight, inexpensive laptops pioneered by Asus with its Eee PCline. Small, rugged, and yet full-featured enough for Web browsing and other light computing tasks, my Eee PC 901 has become a treasured companion for business travel. But the cost of newer netbook models has crept up, and many vendors are now offering standard-sized notebooks at rock-bottom prices, making the value of netbooks less clear.

That's why I was excited to hear the rumors that Apple may be readying a low-cost netbook of its own, to debut in 2009. While other vendors scramble to keep up with the Joneses, Apple is well-known for creating innovative products that shake up staid categories. The prospect of an inexpensive mobile computer that melds the netbook form factor with technologies and concepts from the iPhone is intriguing. Could it really happen?

The netbook market could certainly use some innovation. Asus, the company that defined the category, seems to be heading the opposite direction. First it introduced the Eee PC 1000, which traded the older models' Lilliputian chassis for a more traditional laptop form factor -- and upped the price tag. Now comes news that the cost of the 1000 line will climb again, as the original 1000 series is due to be phased out in favor of the new 1002 model. Rather than innovating, Asus seems determined to back away from its original concept.

Not that the netbook category is likely to disappear completely. Sales have been solid enough that AMD has recently announced a low-powered chip to compete with Intel's Atom. In the current economic downturn, however, analysts are predicting an overall decline in microprocessor sales that could bite the low end of the notebook market.

Netbooks typically ship with underpowered CPUs, cheap onboard graphics, and no optical drives, which makes them poor choices for multimedia. A casual home user looking for an all-purpose PC would be better served by a sale-priced traditional notebook.

But a netbook could be ideal for a business user who wants a light satellite system to take on the road, without lugging their entire, accumulated work history along with them. The question is, are businesses really likely to buy two computers for their road warriors in today's economic climate, no matter how cheap netbooks are?

Asus seems determined to find out. Without releasing any details, Asus has let slip that it plans to offer a new Eee PC model for $199 next year. That certainly fulfills the "low cost" part of the netbook formula. But will the new machine still be more than a toy notebook, or will it cut too many corners to make it acceptable for business use?

Almost certainly it will, says Apple. The Motley Fool Web site quotes one Apple exec as saying during an October conference call, "We don't know how to make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk." If not, then whatever new portable Apple might be readying had better be innovative indeed if it wants to compete in this market.

MBE Certificate

Jason Chen on why the netbook market is dead in three years

Jason Chen, editor of Gizmodo, says...

Netbooks. They're small, light and portable--the seemingly perfect form factor for the constant traveler. They're selling so extremely well that every computer manufacturer CEO is asking their staff why they don't have a model (or three) of their own.

Christmas lists this year will be filled with one for each family member. So why do I think it's going to go the way of tablet PCs and be a niche seller at best? Here's why.

Netbooks are underpowered and underoutfitted. Units like the ASUS Eee PC or the Acer Aspire usually run in the single digit gigahertz range, with only enough RAM to handle a few simultaneous applications in Windows XP. You may claim that you only want to browse the web a little bit and do a little word processing, but websites these days are heavy, and the latest versions of Office take up more and more resources with every revision. Point being, get used to doing everything slightly slower on these things than you're comfortable with.

It's like using a computer from 2003; you can get your tasks done if you wait long enough, but prepare to be there a while. And remember how I said Windows XP, not Windows in general? Yeah, you're not going to be really able to run Vista or Windows 7 on these things. Which is alright, actually, because any app that requires Vista or Win 7 will likely run like solidified puke on a netbook.

Netbooks are also usually uncomfortable as hell to use. Take a look at your current laptop. Its screen is most likely somewhere between 12 to 15 inches. Not as good as a desktop LCD of course, but you make do. Now imagine chopping off about 40% of that real estate. Those are the seven and nine-inch models. Then there's the matter of their liliputan keyboards, which cramp your fingers in a style reminiscent of Kathy Bates and her sledgehammer in Misery. Picture a grown man riding those automated kids' rides outside supermarkets.That's what you look like hunched over one of these things. You want small, but you don't want midget-sized.

Netbooks, even with the drawbacks of sub-par performance and miniature construction, would be bearable if you got SOME kind of trade-off for all the sacrifices you made. Battery life, for instance? Nope, not really. On average, you're seeing somewhere between two-and-a-half to five hours on them; the same two-and-a-half to five hours that you find in the market for regular-sized notebooks. What's the deal? Along with leaving out part of the brains of a notebook to get these down so small, manufacturers had to leave out its heart. (We're talking about its battery if this metaphor is getting a bit strained.)

Netbooks are still undeniably lighter and more portable than their properly-featured predecessors. So if that's the only feature you're really looking for in a laptop - the ability to be able to sneak one into prison inside your person - then by all means, netbook it up. 

But if you can wait a few years for decently-powered laptops to shave some pounds off their heft, you should. Models like the Apple MacBook Air, Samsung X360 andToshiba Portege R600 are the current best-bet in the trade-off between size and performance. On the other hand, you can afford about four netbooks for the price of just one MacBook Air.

Chunghwa Telecom reveals details of new value-added service platform to launch alongside iPhone 3G

Kaddy Chung and Ricky Morris, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Friday 21 November 2008] Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) on November 20 unveiled Hami, a package of free value-added services specifically designed for CHT 3G subscribers using iPhone 3G handsets. Hami will be launched alongside the iPhone 3G in December, according to CHT. The name Hami derives from the Chinese for honeydew melon, continuing the fruity theme of the iPhone, and was chosen as it sounds like "happy me" in English, according to CHT's explanation. (This "creative" use of naming is not uncommon in the local market.) More interesting, the fact that CHT has demonstrated Hami in action this week despite announcing it had inked the deal with Apple to distribute the iPhone in Taiwan only last weekend, is evidence that the companies must have reached an agreement some time earlier. Hami consists of 11 services including news, weather, stock market tracker etc., CHT indicated. CHT will set up an editing team responsible for producing audio/video and image content for Hami, the company noted. Although CHT has not yet announced pricing for the iPhone 3G and related services, it is speculated the telco will subsidize the handset to cost NT$0 for an 8GB model and NT$2,990 (US$90) for a 16GB model along with a two-year contract, according to industry sources. CHT currently offers the HTC Diamond at a subsidized cost of NT$2,990 alongside a NT$1,683 per month two-year 3G service contract. The company also announced recently a voice and 3G data tariff costing N$1,789 per month. As is typical for the Taiwan market, neither of these tariffs include any free call or data allowance, instead charges are deducted from the monthly subscription fee, before the company bills for any excess or ineligible charges (as defined by the contract). Chunghwa Telecom will offer Hami, value-added services tailored for its iPhone 3G users Photo: Kaddy Chung, Digitimes, November 2008

Corning to lay off 200 contract workers worldwide and 85 employees in Kentucky

from DIGITIMES: IT news from Asia

Corning has denied speculation that it would lay off salaried employees in Taiwan. But the glass substrate supplier has revealed that it plans to discontinue about 200 contract workers worldwide and lay off 85 employees at its Kentucky facilities in the US because of the impact of the global economic downturn on retail demand for LCD TVs and monitors.

HDMI Continues To Grow, While DVI Slides

The rapid rise of HDMI and the slow decline of DVI continued in 2008, reports In-Stat (http://www.in-stat.com). The primary driver of HDMI's success is the CE segment, with HDMI ports being found on 95% of the digital televisions (DTV) shipped worldwide in 2008, the greatest volume for HDMI in any product, the high-tech market research firm says. The vast majority of DVI shipments occurred in PC and PC peripheral markets. Digital visual interface (DVI) and high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI), are related, high-bandwidth, unidirectional, uncompressed digital interface standards.

"HDMI is beginning to take off in mobile PCs as an interface that can operate in the PC or CE cluster," says Brian O'Rourke, In-Stat analyst. "In the near future, the interesting CE products to watch will be portable electronic devices, including camcorders, digital still cameras, and portable media players (PMPs). The interest of those products' vendors is being piqued by the introduction of smaller HDMI connectors."

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

• DVI-enabled product shipments will decline at an annual rate of 30% through 2012.
  
• HDMI-enabled product shipments will increase at an annual rate of 23% over the same period..

The research, "DVI and HDMI 2008: A Time of Transition" (#IN0804099MI), covers the worldwide market for digital visual interface(DVI) and high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI). It provides worldwide forecasts for DVI-and-HDMI-enabled product shipments and market segment penetration through 2012. It also includes analysis of how DVI and HDMI fit into the overall market for interface technologies.

Average Cost of Taking a Distribution Order is $140

Gross Margin Isn’t Enough

File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
Sales? Gross margin percent? Gross margin dollars? Other? How about net profit? .... The average fastener distributor has net profit before taxes of 2.6% ...
www.distributionstrategies.net/uploads/Gross_Margin_Isn_t_Enough.pdf 

$140 per order is the industry average cost to process an order. This includes the cost to take the order, pick, pack, ship, and invoice the order, carry the inventory and receivable, collections, overhead --- all operating costs spread across all orders

Distribution Channels: Understanding and Managing Channels to Market - Google Books Result

by Julian Dent - 2008 - Business & Economics - 368 pages
Net margin and operating margin The best measure of a distributor's overall profitability isnet margin as this shows the level of profit made from the ...
books.google.com/books?isbn=0749452560...

Acer's 24-inch P244Wbmii LCD monitor touts 1080p panel, twin HDMI inputs

from Engadget by Darren Murph

Further blurring the line between an LCD computer monitor and a bedroom HDTV is Acer, as its P244Wbmii boasts not only a 1080p (1,920 x 1,080) panel but also a pair of HDMI inputs. The 24-inch (TN) display features a 2-millisecond response time, 300 cd / m2 brightness, 20,000:1 contrast ratio and a VGA port for PC purists. Mum's the word on a price or availability, but all signs point to a Japanese first / only release.

dmedia G400 with WiMAX: MID or PND?

dmedia G400 with WiMAX: MID or PND?

from Engadget by Laura June

Apparently the dmedia G400 MID was announced at the WiMAX Expo in Taipei back in June, but this is the first we've seen of it, and solid information is still a little hard to come by. The device will boast a 800 x 400 touchscreen, WiMAX, HSDPA / WCDMA, and GPS radios, a microSD slot, and will come in both 3.8-inch and 4.3-inch configurations. From what we could glean, the system with run atop a SiRFprima CPU, though we haven't seen a lot (say, any) of MIDs using those chips. So, is this actually just a glorified PND? It's hard to say, but we hear the units will hit retail sometime in the beginning of 2009, though we don't know how much they'll cost or where they'll be available. 

Amazon's Give 1, Get 1 OLPC XO program now live

from Engadget by Thomas Ricker

You know the drill: for $399 you buy one OLPC XO laptop and a second is sent to a child somewhere in the developing world. Same deal as last year only now with the help of Amazon's powerful retail reach. Devices begin shipping in about 30 days -- a bit longer outside the US. Naturally you can also just gift the $199 laptop direct to a kid of OLPC's choosing. About the quickest way to become a donor short of meeting a hotel stranger in possession of roofies and a bathtub full of ice. 

Passive component sales to decline over 11% sequentially in 4Q

from DIGITIMES: IT news from Asia

Combined revenues of Taiwan-based passive component makers are expected to decline 11.5% sequentially in the fourth quarter as slow sales of end products have squeezed demand for passive components, according to market sources.

Cleveland Clinic picks Top 10 medical innovations for 2009

by Mary Vanac/Plain Dealer Reporter

Wednesday November 12, 2008, 10:56 AM

For the third year in a row, Cleveland Clinic doctors and consultants have picked the medical innovations they think will rise to the top next year.

The Top 10 Medical Innovations for 2009 were announced today, the closing day of the Clinic's sixth annual Medical Innovation Summit.

10. A national health information exchange. A comprehensive system of electronic health records that are portable and link consumers, doctors, hospitals and other health services providers. This computerized system has the potential to replace paper medical files with digital records that could increase quality of medical care and reduce its cost.

9. Doppler-guided uterine artery occlusion. An experimental procedure that uses sound waves and a clamp to kill fibroid tumors in the uterus. This procedure, which is being tested at the Clinic among other hospitals, could be an alternative to uterus removal for some women.

8. Integration of diffusion tensor imaging. A noninvasive technology that allows neuroscientists to create two- and three-dimensional, color images of the brain. Scientists use the images to locate nerve fiber bundles that must be preserved during brain surgery.

7. LESS and NOTES applications. Laparoendoscopic single-site surgery pairs minimally invasive surgical techniques with a single incision in the patient's belly button. Natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery is incision-less surgery through a natural orifice, such as the mouth, vagina or colon. Both techniques reduce infection rates and pain, and speed healing among patients.

6. New strategies for creating vaccines for avian flu. Scientists are working to engineer effective vaccines against killer bird viruses, such as H5N1. Current vaccines are formulated to match the flu virus as it mutates. A new approach uses a mock version of the virus to trigger an immune response that protects a person from the virus.

5. Percutaneous mitral valve regurgitation repair. Repairing a leaky mitral valve in the heart -- the one-way valve that connects the left atrium to the left ventricle -- from the inside out. A special clip is threaded through a catheter in the femoral artery in the groin to the heart. The clip is clamped on the center of the mitral valve "leaflets," holding them together and restoring normal blood flow.

4. Multispectral imaging systems . A time- and money-saving imaging system that when attached to a standard microscope enables pathologists to see up to four stained proteins at a time. Pathologists look at protein distributions to understand tumors and other abnormal tissues. Now, scientists must look at one of these proteins at a time.

3. Diaphragm pacing system. An electric device that stimulates the diaphragm to contract and relax, enabling paralyzed patients to breathe without the help of bulky mechanical ventilators. These devices can help paraplegics lead more normal lives and reduce rates of ventilator-induced pneumonia, which kills half of the people who get it. Synapse Biomedical Inc. in Oberlin makes a diaphragm pacing device called NeuRx DPS.

2. Warm organ perfusion device. Developed in Europe and being tested in the United States, this device pumps warm blood through a donor heart. The heart naturally starts beating and continues to beat until it is transplanted. This action keeps the heart from decaying.

1. Use of circulating tumor cell technology. A technology that measures tumor cells that circulate in the blood. Results can help doctors understand how a cancer is progressing and how to adjust treatments in patients who have repeat cancer. 

Medical device testing enters a new era

11 November 2008

THE testing of vital medical devices like hip and knee replacements, pacemakers and stents received a boost this week as a new agreement was announced which will make it easier to get approved NHS patient trials underway.

Launched jointly by the Department of Health and the Association of the British Healthcare Industries, the model Clinical Investigation Agreement (mCIA) has been welcomed by the medical technology industry as timely and helpful in the current financial climate.

The mCIA covers all industry-funded medical technology trials in patients in NHS hospitals and removes much of the bureaucracy which is seen as a significant barrier to their efficient launch in the UK. Previously it was necessary for site-by-site reviews and local legal agreements to be drawn up before testing could begin.

Public health minister, Dawn Primarolo, explained: “The mCIA is the first time all UK health departments, the NHS and representatives from industry have agreed standard contract requirements for medical technology industry-funded trials and has been developed to enhance the UK clinical research environment for the benefit of NHS patients.”

The agreement is just one of a raft of measures introduced to improve the UK’s clinical research environment. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has already launched new services to speed up the assessment of clinical investigations for regulatory purposes and has launched an industry-focused advice service. In addition, the National Research Ethics Service has streamlined the process with committees of expertise on the ethical review of device studies and the Integrated Research Application System provides an electronic portal for the single submission of data required to initiate research.

John Jeans, industry co-chairman of the Ministerial Medical Technology Strategy Group, said: “We fully support the principle of the model agreement for medical device companies carrying out clinical investigations in collaboration with the NHS. This document should serve as another step towards enhancing the UK environment for medical device research and development.

The announcement has also been welcomed by the Association of British Healthcare Industries (ABHI). Its chief executive, Peter Ellingworth, told HES: “This agreement has been the result of a great deal of work by the Department of Health, the industry and NHS stakeholders. The new agreement for both regulatory and post-market medical device studies will fulfil the need for a document that has the confidence of all parties in order to streamline the administrative process of getting approval for clinical investigations underway at NHS sites. It should also help with the goal of making the UK a world-class environment in which to conduct clinical research on innovative medical technologies.”

Like Roaches, Broadband Over Powerline Doesn’t Go Away

from GigaOM by Om Malik

By now even I am tired of pointing out that broadband over power lines as a viable broadband option just doesn’t work. Many including Google have spent millions of dollars to make a go of this technology with microscopic success, but that doesn’t stop others from trying. My friend, Karl Bode in October said that 2008 was the year BPL died. Apparently not. Now there is news that International Broadband Electric Communications, a startup to sign-up electric cooperatives in rural US where there are no broadband options.

The technology involves sending data on the same wires that provide electricity. Every half a mile or so, a device clamped to the line perpetuates the signal…The key innovation introduced in the past few years, Blair said, is the ability to remotely control the devices fixed to power lines. That way it can be told to switch frequency when it meets interference.

IBEC has signed up IBM who are going to get $9.6 million to provide and install the BPL equipment on a network that would reach 340,000 homes in Alabama, Indiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The venture’s promoter and CEO Scott Lee says that the cost of the network would be as much as $70 million, an amount that they have received as $70 million in low-interest loans from the Department of Agriculture. I gotta be honest — this is going to be money down the drain.

China market: 3Q08 B2C transactions reach nearly 2.24 billion yuan

Press release, November 12; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Wednesday 12 November 2008]

In the China market, sales transactions of B2C online shopping during the third quarter of 2008 reached a total value of 2.24 billion yuan (US$327 million), increasing by 25.6% on quarter and 88.2% on year, according to China-based consulting company Analysys International.

Of the total sale value, 849 million yuan or 37.9% was due to IT, communication and consumer electronics products and 394 million or 17.6% to publications, Analysys indicated. 360buy and 139shop were the top-two web portals for the former category of goods with market shares of 47.6% and 15.9% respectively, while DangDang and Joyo (Amazon in China) were the top two for the second category with market shares of 46.0% and 36.8%, Analysys added.

 Related stories

China market: B2C and C2C transactions top 1.8 ans 25.7 billion yuan in 2Q08 (Aug 6)

China market: More people online buy women's clothing than PCs, says survey (Jul 7)

China market: B2B e-commerce valued at nearly 1.1 billion yuan in 1Q08 (May 6)

China market: B2C sales at nearly 1.3 billion yuan in 4Q07 (Feb 25)

China market: B2C sales value to grow to over 13.5 billion yuan in 2011 (Dec 26)

China market: B2C transactions valued at almost 1.2 billion yuan in 3Q07 (Dec 5)

China market: 2Q07 B2C transactions valued at 1.135 billion yuan (Sep 5)

Foxconn, Quanta - Taiwan CM and Foundries Fighting Low Margin Business

Quanta might cut component orders to Foxconn, says paper

from DIGITIMES: IT news from Asia

Due to Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) aggressive deployment into the notebook OEM market, including taking orders for Apple's MacBooks from Quanta Computer, Quanta is considering canceling part of its component orders to Foxconn, according to a Chinese-languageEconomy Daily News (EDN) report citing a report by JP Morgan.

Taiwan DRAM makers may have net profit margin of -72% in 2008

from DIGITIMES: IT news from Asia

Taiwan's major DRAM makers may see their overall net profit margin fall to -72% in 2008, with combined losses of NT$112.5 billion (US$3.42 billion), according to the Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center (IEK) of the Taiwan government-backed Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). Domestic players' less price competitiveness and shrinking consumer demand worldwide have resulted in the worst downturn in Taiwan's DRAM industry.

Gold price plummets again as hedge funds rush for the exits

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on October 23

There’s still plenty of fear and even panic evident in stock markets around the world but the safest of safe havens, gold, isn’t getting much love. In trading today, gold dropped below $700 an ounce for the first time in over a year, marking a huge retracement of the multi-year rally that saw the precious metal peak at an all-time high of over $1,000 back in March.

What’s going on? On the one hand, the risks that investors typically try to use gold to counteract — inflation and a weakening dollar — are diminishing. And at the same time, a lot of big investors that used borrowed money to juice bets on commodities including gold are pulling back and unwinding their trades.

Consider these two graphs which plot the price over the past three months of the SPDR Gold Trust (Symbol: GLD) against the Powershares DB US Dollar Index Bullish fund (UUP) and the United States Oil Fund (USO):

The rising value of the dollar and the cratering price of oil have helped reassure investors that, at least for now, inflation and currency devaluation aren’t big risks ahead. In fact, much of the worry of late is of deflation and depressions.

Gold is acting as it almost always does, moving in the exact opposite direction of the value of the dollar. In large part, you can blame the slowing world economy for that. With many nations, not just the United States, now facing recessionary times, the dollar looks a little more appealing as a place to ride out the storm. And demand for all sorts of commodities used in industry is plummetting, hurting both commodity prices and the currencies of commodity producers like Canada, Norway and much of Latin America.

But another explanation behind the recent moves of all these currencies and commodities is the unwinding of a popular and, no doubt, highly-leveraged trade used by hedge funds, Wall Street firms and other big investors. For the past few years, it was a great idea to borrow money in currencies with low interest rates, like the US dollar, and invest either in commodities or in currencies from major commodity producers. As long as interest rates stayed low and the dollar stayed weak while commodity prices kept rising, the trade paid off. But when the dollar began rallying and the economic outlook deteriorated, that bet was a huge loser. With added pressure to pay back borrowed money from credit crunched lenders, the big players had to exit their positions in a hurry.

None of this is to say that the markets are always right. With the U.S. government putting trillions of dollars on the line to restore faith in the banking system, the future value of the dollar has to be in question and the possibility of rampant future inflation can’t be discounted. There’s also been a huge disconnect between the falling price of gold futures contracts and seemingly insatiable demand for gold bullion coins and bars from retail investors around the world. That suggests there may be plenty of the kind of fear that pushes gold prices higher waiting for the short-term selling to end.

Mobile Internet Devices (MID) - Business Models by In-stat and TI

This Tuesday, November 11, 2008 at 11:00 AM Central Time. Please join In-Stat’s Jim McGregor, Principal Analyst and Research Director, for the fourth and final webinar in this series at 11:00 AM CST (9:00 AM PST) on November 11, 2008. Jim will be moderating an hour-long webinar featuring a live video Q & A discussion with industry experts on the most critical issue for the mobile Internet: what will be the business models that allow for competition, innovation, and profitability in all parts of the value chain. Joining Jim will be: Seshu Madhavapeddy, general manager of Texas Instruments’ Mobile Internet Device business Michael Woodward, vice president of AT&T responsible for smart device and laptop products Bob Sullivan, the President and CEO of Sullivan &Associates Among the topics of discussion are the following: What are consumers more willing to pay for: devices, content, and/or services? What are potential business models? Pay-as-you-go services vs. unlimited access Revenue sharing between content and service providers Subsidizing the cost of devices with the service or content Subsidizing through advertising revenue Closed devices and dedicated service plans vs. open devices and multi-unit service plans And the plethora of other options and combinations Do new devices and services cannibalize existing devices and services? Other issues that may impact business models and adoption rates, such as Digital Rights Management (DRM)

Trouble Returns to the Land of Telecom

from GigaOM by Om Malik

The credit crunch and the slowing economy is beginning to impact everyone from mobile phone makers to phone companies. The economic woes are now spreading to other parts of the telecom food chain, taking down everyone from equipment makers to chip companies. And this is just the start… trouble has once again returned to the world of telecom. Earlier this month, Cisco Systems came out with an unusually downbeat forecast. The company, whose sales have traditionally seemed to defy gravity, admitted its numbers were going to fall for the first time in five years. Meanwhile its book-to-bill ratio — a key metric of future sales strength — has already dipped below 1.0.

“We are seeing customers, not just in the financial, automotive or retail sectors, but across most of our enterprise industries, facing what they view as a very challenging business environment,” Frank Calderoni, Cisco’s chief financial officer, told Wall Street analysts on a conference call. The problems, he said, have spread worldwide.

Cisco is widely considered to be a bellwether of the telecom and infrastructure sector. Its gloomy outlook, therefore, proves just how negatively affected the industry at large will be by the vise-like grip of the economic downturn.

AT&T’s Ralph de la Vega, CEO of that company’s mobility and consumer markets division, told me that anything related to the housing market was going to be in trouble. What that means is that the demand for broadband connections, voice lines and video services is going to slow drastically. Why? Because the growing number of new homes translated into strong demand for new communications services such as cable and broadband.

Now that the housing market has ground to a halt, sales of such services are going to decline, which in turn means that the service providers — from AT&T to Time Warner Cable — are going to have a tough time spending more dollars on their infrastructure. And that is going to impact sales at equipment makers...

Layoffs Come to Telco Land

 Big job cuts are not just for startups. The grim reaper has started to take its tool on the telecom ecosystem. We have already reported about the job cuts at Nokia (600) and Motorola (3,000) and Nortel is likely to cut about 10 percent of its work force. The malaise has started to spread to component makers. For instance, JDSU cut 400 jobs, shut down seven R&D centers and three plants. Anadigics, a Warren, N.J.-based broadband wireless and wireline chip maker cut 15 percent of its work force. ST-NXP Wireless has cut its workforce by 500. All these companies are reacting to the broader market declines and slowing demand from consumers. Vodafone, one of world’s largest telecom operators, is looking to cut jobs soon.

Apple and Asustek reduce notebook outsourcing by 20-30% in 4Q08, says paper

Apple and Asustek reduce notebook outsourcing by 20-30% in 4Q08, says paper

from DIGITIMES: IT news from Asia

Apple and Asustek Computer recently reduced their notebook outsourcing for the fourth quarter this year by 20-30% impacting the two vendors' main OEM partners Quanta Computer and Pegatron Technology, according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report.

Most first-tier notebook makers see on-month revenue increase in October

from DIGITIMES: IT news from Asia

Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics and Wistron all saw on-month revenue increases in October this year despite the falling economy, although Inventec's financials dipped slightly.

Intel Hopes for Healthy Growth in Medical Devices

GigaOM by Stacey Higginbotham

If mobile Internet devices don’t work out, Intel is also making inroads in the personal health market. The chipmaker today launched a patient monitoring device and online interface to connect doctors and their patients remotely. This is an industry Intel has targeted for years, but because of a host of reasons, a market where the company has never gained much traction.

The Intel Health Guide product gained FDA approval in July, surmounting one of the obstacles technology faces as it enters the human body, but it still has to gain market acceptance. Aside from FDA approval, medical tech needs to gain acceptance by caregivers, patients and health insurers. Getting all three stakeholders behind a new product or a new way of delivering health care is tricky. Because the end users of the device don’t typically pay for the systems, it’s a far more involved process than simply convincing a device manufacturer that your chips, software or component works best for their particular application.

Intel’s launching trials in the U.S. with Aetna, Erickson Retirement Communities, Providence Medical Group in Oregon and SCAN Health Plan, proving that Intel knows it needs to get the technology buyers on board before trying to explain the value to doctors and educate patients. I’ll keep my hopes up, because I do believe technology can deliver great benefits in the healthcare sector for everyone involved. However, I also know that getting accepted is difficult — and that acceptance only the begining. Once the stakeholders sign on to such a system, businesses and policy makers need to address questions of securing the information, as well as the ethics of remote monitoring. But the potential for huge growth as Baby Boomers age and the multiple types of chips such systems will need make it a market that’s hard to ignore.

Comprehensive Intel Health Guide seeks to provide in-home health monitoring

from Engadget by Darren Murph

Filed under: Desktops, Misc. Gadgets

In-home medical monitoring systems are far from new, but everyone takes notice when a firm like Intel formally announces that it's diving in headfirst. According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, Intel is gearing up to launch a series of trials with health-care organizations in order to "show whether the new tools bring improved results in treating conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease." More specifically, the Intel Health Guide -- which includes a "simplified computer and software system that are designed to help elderly people and other patients monitor and manage their conditions at home" -- will connect to medical equipment and thentransmit that information with specified individuals (namely health professionals) over the 'net. Admittedly, the initiative is far from being implemented in non-trial form, but it should be good to go by the time you start forgetting things and kvetching about the taste of your tap water.

Intel inside your medical care

from CNET News.com | Tech news blog

In-home device from the chipmaker will gather data and dispense advice remotely to chronically ill patients.