TechEye |  |
- PC sales plummeted in the second quarter
- Car makers read the riot act to tech companies
- Apple shares plummet
- US blames China for government hack again
- Americans check their phones too often
- IBM leaps ahead of Intel
- Glass industry wants smart watches to do well
- Greek exit from euro to hit IT sales
- Worldwide semi sales to be worth $348 billion
- IBM bags $180 million cloud deal
| PC sales plummeted in the second quarter Posted: 10 Jul 2015 05:41 AM PDT
According to figures compiled by Gartner, that's the steepest fall since the third quarter of 2013 and it believes that shipments overall in 2015 will fall by 4.4 percent. The market research company believes there are many factors to explain the drop and that the decline is just a temporary blip. One the reasons for the decline is that the US dollar rose sharply against certain local currencies. The second reason for the decline is that Microsoft dropping support for Windows XP forced many enterprises to buy their PCs last year. And there's so much stock swilling around in the channel that the vendors aren't shipping PCs in the built up to the launch of Microsoft Windows 10. The three top players – Lenovo, HP and Dell – all showed declines of 6.8 percent, 9.5 percent and 4.9 percent respectively. Desktops showed a big decline in the USA, said Gartner. And, in EMEA, the overall PC decline amounted to 15.7 percent in the second quarter, aggregated by overstocking. |
| Car makers read the riot act to tech companies Posted: 10 Jul 2015 02:02 AM PDT
The technology companies want from the car makers – besides stonking profits and mark-ups – is the data they collect on car users. Apple and Google have been particularly clear that they want that data to do whatever they do with it — advertising, spamming and spying. However car makers are limiting the data they share with technology partners and are defending access to information about what drivers do in their cars. It is not out of a desire to protect users' privacy. The car makers are aware the vehicle data will one day generate billions of dollars in e-commerce, though they are just beginning to form strategies for monetising the information. According to Reuters , which is always ready to defend Apple's side of the story, some auto companies have specifically said they will not provide Apple and Google with data from the vehicle’s functional systems – steering, brakes and throttle, for instance – as well as information about range, a measure of how far the car can travel before it runs out of gas. Don Butler, Ford Motor executive director of connected vehicle and services said the company needed to control access to that data to protect our ability to create value from new digital services built on vehicle data. Ford is installing a proprietary system, Sync 3, in its cars that is designed to work with and supplement CarPlay and Android Auto. General Motors has told investors earlier this year that it expects to realize an additional $350 million in revenue over three years from the high-speed data connections it is building into its cars. Still to be answered, however, are questions concerning how comfortable consumers will be with sharing their personal information from the vehicle. In addition, state and federal regulators could impose limits on data-gathering and sharing. In this case the carmakers have an answer – users have been giving this data to Apple and Google for years and don't give a monkeys. At least now they are giving to people who are actually interested in their driving habits. I blame Microsoft, actually. |
| Posted: 10 Jul 2015 02:00 AM PDT
It is inconceivable that the shares should take a tumble after it was reported that sales of Apple's flagship iWatch had fallen by 90 percent, so the Tame Apple Press decided to blame China. The Chinese share market is suffering from a bad case of burst bubble and the Tame Apple Press logically felt that since China is a key market for iPhones the company would suffer. While that is true, many analysts in China had been suggesting that sales of expensive smartphones in China were slumping anyway and Apple was about to get a sales shock. Apple shares were down two percent at $120.15 in afternoon trade and have lost about four percent since July 1. Some investors fear that the turmoil could hurt consumer demand and the Chinese economy as a whole, after all it is impossible that the shine could go off Apple. Apple's favourite press agency Reuters quoted FBR analyst Daniel Ives as saying that China was poised to be Apple’s "high-octane fuel for the next few years, especially for iPhones" Given a lot of the dark clouds we are seeing in China, that has spooked investors, he claimed. Of course it was nothing to do with the Slice Intelligence that sales of the Apple Watch have dropped since its launch in April and the fact the product has not seen any significant boost for profits. One of the big difficulties here is that independent analysts and journalists who have not sold their credibility by advertising for Apple can't get their hands on data to tell what is really going on. If Apple was seeing a crash in iPhones in China and a general iWatch product failure, that would be enough in its own right to cause shares to fall. If the problem is being caused by the Chinese share market then why are all the stories about how it will affect Apple? |
| US blames China for government hack again Posted: 10 Jul 2015 01:59 AM PDT
The data lost covers millions of state sector employees including Social Security numbers and other sensitive information on 21.5 million people who have undergone background checks for security clearances. This is in addition to data on about 4.2 million current and former federal workers that was stolen in what the OPM called a “separate but related” hacking incident. Because many people were affected by both hacks, a total of 22.1 million people were affected, or almost seven percent of the US population. Lawmakers from both parties demanded OPM Director Katherine Archuleta’s removal. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, said President Barack Obama “must take a strong stand against incompetence in his administration and bring in a new leadership at OPM.” Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner said the technological and security failures at the Office of Personnel Management predate this director's term, but Director Archuleta’s slow and uneven response has not inspired confidence that she is the right person to manage OPM through this crisis. Archuleta said no one is going to quit and the White House said Obama retains confidence in her. As you would expect, the US government is blaming China which is handy because the Chinese government always denies it and no-one ever believes them. The allegation this time comes from Hillary Clinton who claimed that China was trying to hack everything that was not nailed down in the US. Clinton said the US must be “fully vigilant” about China’s military, adding that Beijing had stolen commercial secrets from defence contractors and “huge amounts of government information”. However if it was a Chinese hack, what would they get out of the personal data of millions of ordinary Americans? What is much more likely is that it is the normal team of Russian hackers wanting data to spam people. Clinton also has a political reason to slag off China. She was previously seen as being soft on the country when she was secretary of state. I blame Microsoft, actually. |
| Americans check their phones too often Posted: 10 Jul 2015 01:57 AM PDT
The poll, gathered by Gallup, said that eleven percent of respondents said they check their smartphone every few minutes and 41 percent said they check a few times an hour. Another 20 percent said they check about once an hour and 28 percent check less frequently. The Gallup survey included responses online or through the mail from 15,747 US adults who own smartphones in all 50 states from April 17 to May 18. It had a one percent margin of error. Young Americans checked their smartphones most frequently, Gallup said. Twenty-two percent of respondents from 18 to 29 said they checked their smartphones every few minutes, compared to three percent of people 65 or older, Gallup said. More than four out of five owners, 81 percent, said they keep their smartphone nearby almost all the time while they are awake and 63 percent said they keep the phone near them while sleeping, Gallup said. Gallup said the high numbers at night may be for people checking it before going to sleep and upon waking, or may reflect the phone’s use as an alarm clock. It could also because they are barking mad and want to make sure no one is trying to talk to them from the other side of the world.
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| Posted: 09 Jul 2015 08:16 AM PDT
That'a a heap ahead of Intel, which hasn't so far demonstrated that it has such technology. The breakthrough, said IBM, could mean 20 billion transistors could be placed on chips the size of a human fingernail. The researchers said they bypassed conventional semiconductor manufacturing wisdom and instead produced a number of breakthroughs including Silicon Germanium (SiGe) channel transistors and Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography at multiple levels. Last week, IBM span off its semiconductor division to GloFo but it still has a research agenda for chips and is pushing its Power platform. Currently servers use 22 nanometre and 14 nanometre technology and, said IBM, 10 nanmetre technology is close to becoming a mature technology. IBM believes that once seven nanometre processors roll out of the fabs, they could contribute to a 50 percent power/performance improvement for mainframe and power systems. IBM and SUNY Poly have a research centre at the Albany NanoTech Complex which has a half a billion dollar project. |
| Glass industry wants smart watches to do well Posted: 09 Jul 2015 08:01 AM PDT
According to IHS, because the markets for smartphones and tablets are maturing, industry revenue growth will fall prom 39 percent in 2013 to 11 percent this year. Terry Yu, a senior analyst at the market research company, said: "Although the average display size for tablets is increasing, simpler industrial design and weak device demand are causing average selling prices to fall quickly." He continued: "Cover glass makers are now pinning hopes on smart watches, as a way to shore up flagging revenue growth caused by the maturation of the smartphone and tablet segments." Smartphones still dominate demand in 2015 and will make up 63 percent of total revenues this year. IHS believes that demand for the Apple watch will cause demand for cover glass area to grow five fold this year – that's 33,000 square metres. "Sapphire glass used in wearable devices commands a premium price, so growth in that area would help shore up industry revenues," said Yu. However, as we reported earlier this week, the jury is still out to deliver its verdict whether smart watches are successful or unsuccessful |
| Greek exit from euro to hit IT sales Posted: 09 Jul 2015 06:46 AM PDT
And with the European Union possibly setting Greece adrift from the Eurozone, a report suggested that IT spend in the country is likely to plummet. IDC said that a Greek exit from the euro will see IT spending in the country drop by as much as 18 percent in 2016. Ut's not yet certain that Greece will leave the Eurozone, but even if it does reach agreement with the EU, that will still have a negative effect on IT spending because of loss of business confidence and will lead to a double digit decline in IT spend next year, IDC believes. IDC doesn't think, however, that there will be very much effect on other European Union countries. Right now, Greece only accounts for half of a percent of 2015 European IT spend, and is the worst performing Western European country. If Greece does wave goodbye to the euro, the software and services sector will be largely protected because of recurring maintenance fees and contracts spanning multiple years. |
| Worldwide semi sales to be worth $348 billion Posted: 09 Jul 2015 06:37 AM PDT
It predicts sales will hit $348 billion, which is only 2.2 percent up over the 2014 figure. Gartner had predicted four percent growth but the figures have been skewed by a strong US dollar in key markets. Jon Erensen, a research director at the market research company, said that there's usually a second quarter "bounce" in sales, but that hasn't happened this year. He said that it now is "dependent on a strong third quarter rebound, driven by Windows 10 and the ramp up to the holiday season". But it's not good news for Intel – the PC segment is showing the greatest decline, with production units down by 8.7 percent for the year. He said inventory in the PC market is high. "Any issues with the launches of Windows 10 or [Intel] Skylake in the third quarter of 2015… could lead to further decline." It's smartphones and solid state drives (SSDs) which are driving semiconductor growth, he said. The much hyped wearables market – which includes "smart watches" – will only represent one percent of total semiconductor revenues by 2019, he said. |
| IBM bags $180 million cloud deal Posted: 09 Jul 2015 06:28 AM PDT
CPG operates 15,000 miles of interstate pipelines across the USA. The deal includes services relating to the cloud, to mobile, to analytics and to security. CPG span itself off from infrastructure company NiSource at the beginning of its month and NiSource was already an IBM customer. But this deal will provide the technology infrastructure for CPG, which has assets worth about $4.6 billion this year. IBM will move CPG's IT and apps covering human resources, billing and finance, pipeline operations and IT management from NiSource's data centres into an IBM data centre based in Columbus Ohio. As well as the shift of data, IBM will also manage its IT environment including help desk, end user services, mobile device management, and operational analytics. |
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