Tag Archives: Computer Industry

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Growth in Smartphone Sales Belongs to Asia

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By Reuters

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AFP/Getty Images

By Jeremy Wagstaff
and Lee Chyen Yee

SINGAPORE — After five years of explosive growth sales of high-end smartphones have hit a plateau and the $2 trillion industry — telecom carriers, handset makers and content providers — is buckling up for a bumpier ride as growth shifts to emerging markets, primarily in Asia.

While carrier subsidies have helped drive sales of high-end devices in mature markets, the next growth chapter will be in emerging markets where cost-conscious users demand cheaper gadgets and cheaper access to cheaper services.

This year, the number of mobile Internet users in the developing world will overtake those in the developed world for the first time — growing 27 times since 2007, compared to the developed world’s fourfold growth, according to estimates from the International Telecommunications Union.

“The center of gravity in the mobile ecosystem is likely to shift from the United States and Western Europe toward Asia,” Mary Ellen Gordon, director at mobile advertiser Flurry, said in an emailed interview.

That shift is a challenge to profit margins at the likes of Apple (AAPL) and Samsung Electronics, which together sell half of the world’s smartphones. Both companies announce quarterly results this week.

Samsung has indicated its second-quarter operating profit will fall short of estimates as demand for high-end smartphones slows. Apple is also exploring cheaper iPhone models that come in different colors to tap the mass segment, sources have said.

Neither faces any kind of crisis. But, industry experts say, many users in mature markets who want a smartphone already have one. European smartphone shipments grew 12 percent in January-March from a year ago, the slowest growth since IT research-firm IDC started tracking the mobile market in 2004.

Asia: A Driving Force

Many of the new mobile users will be in Asia Pacific. The region will this year have more mobile Internet users than Europe and the Americas combined, ITU predicts. And there’s plenty of room to grow: fewer than 23 in 100 in Asia are mobile Internet users, versus 67 in Europe and 48 in the Americas.

“Asia will be the driving force of global growth for the next two decades,” says Scott Lee, head of Asia at Appsnack, a division of U.S. based digital advertising company Exponential Interactive.

The catch: much of this growth will come from users of devices that are up to 10 times cheaper than those in the developed world. Cheaper components, easy and fast access to latest versions of Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system, reference designs from chipmakers and falling prices of the chipsets themselves are pushing this, says Frederick Wong, a portfolio manager at tech-focused eFusion Investment, who owns four smartphones.

China, the world’s biggest mobile market — where only about a fifth of …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Might Former HP CEO Mark Hurd End Up Running Dell?

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By The Associated Press

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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Blackstone Group reportedly has been courting former HP CEO Mark Hurd to run Dell should Blackstone succeed in its bid to take the ailing computer maker private.

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE

SAN FRANCISCO — Is Michael Dell‘s attempt to gain more control over his company about to turn into a financial tug-of-war?

The answer could come Friday. That’s the end of a 45-day period that Dell Inc.’s board of directors set to allow for offers that might top a Feb. 5 deal to sell the personal computer maker to CEO Michael Dell and a group of investors for $24.4 billion.

With the deadline looming, buyout specialist Blackstone Group is emerging as the most likely candidate to trump the current bid of $13.65 a share.

Blackstone is so intrigued with the prospect of owning Dell that the firm has been courting former Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) CEO Mark Hurd to run Dell if it decides to mount a hostile takeover attempt, according to a person familiar with the situation. The person asked not to be identified because the discussions between Blackstone and Hurd are considered confidential.

Several other buyout scenarios tying Blackstone to Dell have been leaked to the media this week, another indication that the New York firm is mulling a bid that could scuttle the debt-laden deal that the company reached with Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners.

Dell Inc. (DELL) says Friday’s deadline for competing offers could be extended if its board believes other suitors would benefit from more time to examine Dell’s books and hash out other details. The company, which is based in Round Rock, Texas, has promised to provide extensive details about the sales process in regulatory documents that are supposed to be filed next week.

Many investors are convinced a higher bid is in the works. That’s why Dell’s stock price has remained above $14 for the past two weeks. The shares fell 19 cents Thursday to close at $14.14. Some analysts have even predicted Dell ultimately will be sold for $15 to $16 a share.

Southeastern Asset Management, Dell’s second largest shareholder after Michael Dell, has asserted the company is worth closer to $24 a share.

For its part, the four-member board committee that negotiated the current deal maintains it’s selling Dell at a fair price, one that reflects the dimming prospects for the PC industry as more technology spending shifts to smartphones and tablet computers.

The upheaval is siphoning revenue away from both Dell, the world’s third largest PC maker, and HP, the top PC maker. Both companies are trying to adapt by making more tablets and diversifying into more profitable areas of technology, such as business software, data analytics and storage.

The rivalry between Dell and HP makes …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Three's a Trend: Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Dell Founders Look to Take Companies Private

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By Rick Aristotle Munarriz

Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio. (Getty Images)

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After seeing their babies languish in recent years as publicly traded companies, several company’s founders are trying to buy back the businesses they launched.

Barnes & Noble’s (BKS) Leonard Riggio is the latest founder to make a move to privatize his ailing company. Riggio revealed on Monday that he wants to buy the company’s flagship bookstores.

If successful, Riggio — who already owns roughly 30 percent of Barnes & Noble — will acquire the namesake stores and the related BN.com…

Three’s a Trend: Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Dell Founders Look to Take Companies Private originally appeared on DailyFinance.com on 2013-02-26T05:00:00Z.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

5 Things to Watch This Week: Restaurants, PCs, Walmart, Rides and Soda

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By Rick Aristotle Munarriz, The Motley Fool

Red Robin Restaurant

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When the market reopens Tuesday after President’s Day, it promises to be a busy week. Get ready for earnings reports from casual dining chains and struggling PC makers, as well as holiday sales figures from the world’s largest retailer.

Here’s a preview of some of the news that will help shape the the week ahead on Wall Street.

1. On the Menu: Several restaurant chains will step up with their latest quarterly results. Bob Evans (BOBE), B.J.’s Restaurants (BJRI), Red Robin (RRGB), Texas…

5 Things to Watch This Week: Restaurants, PCs, Walmart, Rides and Soda originally appeared on DailyFinance.com on 2013-02-17T23:00:00Z.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Obama to Order National Defense Against Cyber Attacks Beefed Up

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By Reuters

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President Barack Obama plans to release a long-awaited executive order aimed at improving the nation’s defenses against cyber attacks as early as Wednesday, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The order, drawn up after Congress failed to pass cyber defense legislation last year, is meant to improve the protection of critical industries and infrastructure from cyber intrusions.

Concerns about cyber attacks, which have hit a succession of major U.S. companies and government agencies in recent months, also could be raised by Obama in his annual State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday evening.

One of the White House‘s major goals is to improve information-sharing about attacks among private companies, and between companies and the government.

“Our biggest issue right now is getting the private sector to a comfort level so they can report anomalies, malware, incidents within their network” without undue fear of being “outed” as victims, said FBI Executive Assistant Director Richard McFeely, head of the Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch.

The order is expected to give the Department of Homeland Security the lead role in protecting critical U.S. infrastructure, according to a government official who had seen a final draft of the order’s executive summary.

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DHS will be tasked with setting up a system for sharing cyber threats with private industry and be responsible for protecting critical infrastructure, the official said. Most of the critical U.S. infrastructure is run by private industry.

“We know the executive order isn’t going to go as far as legislation could or will go, but it’s a good start,” the official said.

Some Republicans had wanted the Department of Defense to play the lead role instead of DHS.

Cyber security experts say the executive order — which does not have the same force as a law — is a step in the right direction and indicates Obama takes the problem seriously.

“I think this can fairly be described as a down payment on legislation,” said Stewart Baker, former National Security Agency general counsel and a past assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security.

Stewart said he thought the executive order would make a difference in policy and practical terms “but whether it will provide practical protection from cyber attacks is still in doubt.”

The executive order will make it easier for people at private companies to get security clearances so classified information can be shared, according to earlier drafts that were leaked and posted online.

It will also make companies work with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to come up with sector-specific standards for cyber security and will then require companies to engage with their regulators to decide how those standards are implemented.

“Companies aren’t going to, at first, be required to do anything. These are voluntary standards, except …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

5 Biggest Winners and Losers of the Week in Business

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By Rick Aristotle Munarriz, The Motley Fool

Facebook

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It’s been a colorful week in the world of business, from a social network’s accidental hijacking spree to the timely rescue of a fading PC giant, and pink slips being passed out at a colorful animation studio. Here’s a rundown of this week’s biggest wins and loses.

Facebook (FB) — Loser
For a few minutes on Thursday night, a lot of people mistakenly thought that their computers had contracted a virus.

Visitors to many popular Internet websites found those pages redirecting within seconds to a Facebook error page.

What was going on? Well, if a web-surfer was also logged into Facebook — and with more than a billion active users of the social networking website, that’s always a large number of people — and visited a page with a Facebook Connect button (to post on the page or share its contents), they were redirected.

Facebook was savvy enough to fix the problem right away, but if Facebook Connect gives the social media giant the power to hijack external sites when things get buggy, the mishap may lead some webmasters to reconsider incorporating the feature in their pages.

Dell’s (DELL) Shareholders — Winners

After weeks of speculation about a deal, the country’s second largest PC maker is being taken private. There will naturally be some resistance to the $24 billion leveraged buyout. Shareholders will argue that they are being cashed out for far less than what Dell was worth in its prime. In the end, though, Dell is doing its public shareholders a favor.

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PC sales have been slipping for nearly two years, and that trend is not going to reverse anytime soon — if it ever does. Casual users continue their migration to smartphones or tablets that do nearly everything that consumers routinely used their desktops and laptops to do.

There will continue to be healthy demand for servers, especially as the global economy picks up, but Dell has been a laggard in the smartphone and tablet markets. It’s probably too late to catch up.

Pandora (P) — Loser

Pandora has been one of the Internet’s fastest growing companies, but the leading music streaming website is showing signs that it may have peaked.

Pandora posted its monthly metrics update this week. If you looked only at the press release, you would probably be impressed. Active listeners rose 38 percent over the past year to 65.6 million in January and listener hours soared 47 percent to 1.39 billion.

However, pull up the prior month’s metrics and Pandora has more active listeners — 67.1 million — and served up the same 1.39 billion hours of audio in December. In other words, usage remained the same but there were fewer listeners.

It would be easy to dismiss this as a seasonal thing. Folks have …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance