Friday, September 21, 2007

PC users migrating from CRT to LCD screens -- IDC

MANILA, Philippines -- Despite the expensive price tags, vendors of liquid crystal display (LCD) PC monitors are making a killing even in emerging markets like Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.

Four out of every five PCs in Asia Pacific are now LCD monitors, according to research analyst IDC.

According to IDC's PC Monitor Tracker, the number of LCD monitors sold in Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) during the first half of the year rose by 23 percent from last year, reaching more than 20 million units. In contrast, total sales of CRT monitors fell sharply by almost 40 percent during the same period.

The total number of PC monitors sold in the first half of the year totaled 25.9 million. Monitors bundled with new branded desktops accounted for 44 percent of the total.

Despite the price increase in LCD monitors due to higher panel costs, CRT to LCD migration continued to be seen in the developing countries, according to IDC.

South Korea's Samsung and LG, Viewsonic and AOC are the top suppliers of standalone LCD monitors along with PC vendors Lenovo and HP.

Taiwan and Hong Kong have the highest penetration of LCD monitors and thus, IDC predicts a decline in sales in these countries for the second half of the year due to market saturation.

Specifically, IDC's survey showed that 17-inch LCD monitors are the most popular but 19-inch monitors have begun selling more in Australia, Korea, New Zealand, China and Taiwan.

Bandwidth spawning growth of online video--Systimax

MANILA, Philippines -- As video over the Internet moves from YouTube to corporate boardrooms, it is seen to drive investment growth in data centers everywhere.

So is video the so-called killer application that takes advantage of explosion in Internet bandwidth? Mattias Peluffo, vice president for global technical support for cabling vendor Systimax, thinks so.

"It is clearly improving today's communications," Peluffo said in an interview during a recent press briefing held in Cairns, Australia.

The amount of video on YouTube alone -- and the number of people that access them – is already phenomenal. YouTube experiences 100 million video streams a day, Peluffo said.

Video is also becoming a business application in itself. Cisco Systems and HP recently introduced videoconferencing solutions -- called Telepresence and Halo, respectively -- that make use of the 1080p high-definition standard.

"High-res video is the killer application," said Peluffo, who also spearheads Systimax's thrust to new standards for transmitting data at faster speeds via copper and fiber cables.

He added: "Video resolution is increasing. In Japan, for example, broadcast station NHK is already working on ultra high definition, which is roughly 16 times better than 1080p."

Video eats up a lot bandwidth and thus, end-users are forced to invest in technology that allows their data centers to adapt to this trend.

Based on Systimax' projections, the market for structured cabling alone would amount to $1.5 billion by 2010.

A third of that will be spent upgrading old copper cables as end-users begin deploying IP-based networks, according to Dr. Ispran Kandasamy, Asia Pacific vice president and managing director for Asia Pacific.

Companies are also taking the issue of network downtime more seriously, equating it to monetary losses,' Kandasamy said.

"Clearly, future growth in networking is from a data center perspective," he said, citing biggest growth markets in China and India.

Creating summary slide with hyperlinks in Powerpoint

AFTER finishing your Powerpoint presentation, you can create a slide that lists the main sections of your presentation. With an agenda slide, you can jump to a related section in your presentation and then automatically return to the agenda slide. Heres how:

Creating Summary slides
1. Open your presentation
2. Go to View / Slide Sorter
3. Select the slides to be included in your summary. (Use the Shift key for multiple slide selection)
4. Click the Summary Slide button (icon with 3 little slides with an arrow pointing to a bigger slide)
4. PowerPoint will then create a summary slide from all the "Titles" of the slides you selected. It will be placed in front of the first slide that you selected.

Creating Hyperlinks
To create a hyperlink from a bulleted item after creating the summary slide:

1. Switch to Slide View (View / Slide)
1. Select the bulleted item from your summary slide
2. Click Slide Show / Action Setting
3. Under the Action setting dialog box, choose Hyperlink To
4. Select Slide under the dropdown menu
5. Choose the slide title that you want to jump to

Kiss your cell phone carrier good-bye

By Michal Lev-Ram, Fortune

(Fortune Magazine) -- You've probably been hearing a lot about unlocked mobile phones lately, especially in the context of the new Apple cell phone and AT&T, the device's sole service provider. Most iPhone owners seem to love the sleek device, but are less than thrilled with AT&T's slow network.

Enter some crafty tech geeks. They've found some creative ways to free, or unlock, the iPhone from AT&T (Charts, Fortune 500) so that it works on other networks too. These hackers, including a New Jersey teenager who used a soldering iron to crack the iPhone, have been grabbing headlines lately in part because it's not yet clear whether their actions are legal (by unlocking their iPhones, do users owe AT&T a hefty termination fee?).

apple_iphone.03.jpg
The only way to free the new Apple iPhone from AT&T's service is to hack into it. Other phones are already sold 'unlocked,' which lets you pick a carrier and a more flexible rate plan.
The future of wireless web
Vanu, Inc. wants to open the wireless web to more devices.

Guess what? Getting a cell phone to work on other carrier networks isn't that hard, nor do you have to be accused of thievery to get one. In fact, lots of phones are available unlocked - with the wireless industry's blessing.

You can buy one through an independent retailer - a mobile phone manufacturer like Nokia (Charts) or an online store that specializes in such devices - and then sign up for month-to-month service with a mobile operator of your choice.

Or you can ask your carrier to unlock your existing phone once your contract has ended. Most will agree to do it.

"We do unlock phones for people who want to do that," says Mark Siegel, an AT&T spokesperson. "We try to have a consumer friendly approach to it."

Unlocked phones have several advantages: You're not enslaved to a lengthy contract, and you can use them on multiple networks, including many of those found overseas. With a locked phone, however, you're stuck with one network and pricey roaming fees when traveling abroad.

Nicolas Bernadi, a Palo Alto-based managing director at European gourmet food manufacturer Frial, travels abroad about once a month and pays roaming charges of about $1 per minute with a locked phone.

"It's ridiculous," says Bernadi.

Unlocking a phone is easy, assuming your existing carrier agrees to do it. A rep simply punches in an electronic code that "frees" your device from the company's network.

Sound too good to be true? Well, there are a few catches: Not all phones, including some of the most popular ones like the iPhone, are sold unlocked (leaving it up to hackers to break the carrier's grip). And unlocked phones, at least the ones you buy directly from a carrier or an online retailer, don't come with those generous subsidies that can drive the price of a phone down to practically nothing.

Nokia's unlocked phones, for instance, cost a much as $750. The Treo 680 smartphone, which sells for $150 with a two-year wireless plan from AT&T, costs $400 if bought unlocked from its maker, Palm (Charts).

Similarly, the RAZR V3 from Motorola (Charts, Fortune 500) will set you back $170 for an unlocked version, compared to just $50 if you sign up with T-Mobile.

What's more, even though your phone now works on multiple networks, you'll still need to sign up with a carrier. The good news is, you can get a month-to-month contract, which can be cancelled at any time, with rates similar to standard two-year contracts.

But there's another drawback: To work, an unlocked phone has to run on a wireless standard known as GSM. While 85 percent of the world's mobile phones use GSM, that's not the case in the United States, where two out of the four biggest carriers, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel (Charts, Fortune 500) use a competing wireless standard known as CDMA.

Because of the higher price and the technical limits, unlocked phones are little more than a novelty in the United States. In western Europe and other parts or the world, where unlocked phones are hugely popular, consumers aren't accustomed to getting their phones dirt-cheap.

"People value their freedom in principle," says Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies, a Wayland, Mass.-based research firm. "But when you put it up against hard dollars, they'd rather take their enslavement."

Some analysts had speculated that Apple's entry into the cell phone market would mark a turning point for the wireless industry - and pave the way for more unlocked devices. If consumers were willing to shell out as much as $599 for an iPhone, the thinking went, perhaps the era of generous carrier subsidies would be over.

Or maybe not. Apple (Charts, Fortune 500) CEO Steve Jobs earlier this month slashed the price of the $599 model by one-third and discontinued the $499 version altogether, suggesting that consumers overall aren't ready to pay top dollar for their mobile phones.

Apple and Nokia in battle of business models


Strategist Francis McInerney recently posted an item on his “blog of corporate strides and stumbles” on how a showdown between Apple and Nokia might play out now that Apple is releasing its iPhone in Europe.

McInerney is a fan of both companies, and gives both companies’ management teams high marks. But he does seem to think Apple (AAPL) is better positioned than No. 1 cellphone maker Nokia (NOK).

McInerney is pretty a pretty deep dude, so we’re probably oversimplifying his argument, but he seems to be suggesting Apple’s strength is that it has created a digital platform for consumers to manage their content and entertainment; distribution of its devices is a secondary concern.

Nokia, on the other hand, relies on phone operators to distribute its devices. McInerney compares Nokia to auto makers (ouch!) who must rely on dealers to sell vehicles, instead of going direct to consumers. (This certainly is the case in the U.S., but in other markets where Nokia is a dominant player, such as China, customers can buy their devices separately from their phone service.)

To compete with Apple, McInerney says, Nokia must essentially become more Apple-like.To be fair, Nokia has recognized the need to move in this direction, and it has launched Ovi, a suite of Internet services that will include a digital music store it aims to launch later this year.

Also, perhaps we should put this battle into context: This is a battle for the very high end of the market. It is an important market, but it is by no means the only market Nokia serves. There are plenty of potentially profitable customers in emerging markets such as India and China (and not necessarily the low end of the market) not to mention the U.S., who simply want a device for voice and text communications.

Nokia, by McInerney’s own analysis, certainly seems in a good position to serve those markets, especially relative to, say, Motorola. (MOT)

Broadband speeds under scrutiny

Broadband speeds under scrutiny
Speedometer
What broadband speed are you clocking up?
Broadband speeds in the UK are much slower than advertised by internet service providers, a study by Computeractive magazine has found.

Some 3,000 readers took part in speed tests and 62% found they routinely got less than half of the top speed advertised by their provider.

It is the latest in a series of questions over the way net firms advertise broadband services.

Regulator Ofcom said it was aware of the issue and was "investigating".

Testing times

The figures were gathered from more than 100,000 speed tests that the 3,000 respondents carried out to build up a picture of their average net-browsing speed on ADSL lines.

Statistics about net users in the UK show that half of current broadband users receive ADSL services that should run at speeds between one and four megabits per second (mbps).

The other 50% are on deals offering up to eight mbps but the tests revealed that, in reality, very few achieve the top speeds.

"This problem has been building for a while with a growing gulf between what is advertised and what is delivered," said Paul Allen, editor of Computeractive.

"The adverts often have super-fast broadband in huge lettering with the "up to" clause in very small print," he said.

Phone jack, Eyewire
Broadband is often not as fast as advertised
"Users who have taken the test were surprised at the size of the gulf," he added.

Some 28% of the 3,000 respondents who took the ADSL speed test found that they received less than a quarter of their maximum advertised bandwidth.

While consumers may currently not notice their sluggish connections, this could change thinks Mr Allen.

"Previously it has not been a massive issue but in the coming year we are entering the net TV age and video content is bandwidth-hungry," he said.

Mr Allen called on regulator Ofcom to provide an independent speed test to anyone who has signed up to receive broadband.

Speaking for the telecommunications watchdog, a spokesman said: "We are looking at this issue. It is not a huge driver of complaints but it has come on to our radar screen."

"It's about the difference between the headline rate and the rate received," he said.

The spokesman said Ofcom was working with the net industry and other organisations such as Which to investigate the extent of the problem and what can be done about it.

"Once we have carried out this work we will assess what options might be available to tackle it," he said. The results of the investigation would be made available in the "near future", said the spokesman.

Fast chance

Research by market analysts Point Topic sugggests that, in many areas of the UK, few people will be able to get the fastest broadband speeds.

Only 5% of the population will be able to enjoy speeds of 18Mbps. More than half will only be able to get 8Mbps.

Screen shot of YouTube
People are using more bandwidth-hungry applications

Ofcom was also working with the Advertising Standards Authority to keep an eye on how net service firms word their marketing materials.

"We make sure broadband advertising does not advertise speeds that cannot be guaranteed," he said. "They have to make it clear that there is a best possible speed rather than an average speed."

The ASA has investigated several cases of misleading promotions, most recently asking Bulldog to make it clear in its adverts that speed was dependent on how far away from the exchange people lived.

It ruled that broadband providers could use the words "up to" 8Mbps when describing services as long as customers were likely to get close to those speeds.

A survey last month by consumer group Which found that consumers with services promising speeds of up to 8Mbps were actually getting an average speed of 2.7Mbps.

There are many variables that determine the speed of a connection, including how far away from the telephone exchange the line is, how many others are using the line at the same time and the quality of the wiring within a home.

The tool used in the study is available for download from the Computeractive website. It was developed by advice service Broadband Choice.

Computeractive has also launched an e-petition on the Downing Street website, asking the government to force net service firms to provide clear information about the typical speed users will receive alongside the maximum speed.

Jobs fears as euro gets stronger


Money changer exchanges euros for dollars
The dollar has been weakening against the euro in recent weeks
More cuts may have to be made at Airbus if the euro continues to remain strong against the dollar, an executive at the European planemaker has warned.

Chief operating officer Fabrice Bregier told French radio station BFM a further 1bn euros may need to be added to a savings plan based on a $1.35 euro.

On Friday the euro hit a fresh record high against the dollar of $1.4120.

Airbus may also have to buy more goods in the dollar zone - where it currently buys about half its supplies, he added.

Buying more goods in the dollar zone would help lower costs as it would mean cheaper prices.

"If the euro remains durably at $1.45, that would mean we had to find one billion euros in additional savings under Power 8 [restructuring plan]," he told the French station.

"Our reply to a strong euro is, first to be more competitive, second to buy more in the dollar zone," he added.

The euro later dropped down to slightly below $1.41. Meanwhile it rose to a one-and-a-half year high against British sterling, of 70.20 pence.

New projects threatened

European industrialists are concerned that the euro's rise is hurting exports and could lead to job cuts in European manufacturing.

US DOLLAR WEAKNESS
The greenback has hit fresh lows against the euro at $1.4120
It fell below one Canadian dollar for the first time in more than 30 years
One British pound was worth $2.0173 at one point, close to 26-year highs
The falling dollar pushed up spot gold prices to $739 an ounce, not seen since 1981
Since September 2003, the US dollar has lost about 25% of its value against sterling

And Mr Bregier said that if the euro remained high it would "not allow us to invest in new projects".

The euro gains on Friday came a day after breaching the psychologically-important $1.40 mark.

The euro has been strong since US rates were cut to 4.75% on Tuesday.

This and a warning from Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke on Thursday that the US housing market crisis might deepen prompted the dollar falls.

Analysts have said the impact of the falling dollar on European consumers and businesses may be mixed.

Eurozone consumers may benefit from cheaper prices for some imported goods, while input costs for eurozone firms may fall as oil, metals and many raw material prices are quoted in dollars.

However, while the strong euro may cut some import costs, it could also have a negative effect on exports as European-made goods become more expensive in the US.

The US is Europe's largest trading partner.

The fall in the value of the dollar could also hurt growth in Asia, with the US being the largest market for China, Korea, and other Asian exporters.

HSBC closes US sub-prime division

HSBC closes US sub-prime division
HSBC
HSBC says it will continue to offer some sub-prime loans
Banking giant HSBC is to close part of its US sub-prime mortgage business, cutting 750 jobs in the process.

US subsidiary HSBC Finance is shutting its Decision One unit at a cost of $945m (£468m), as it becomes the latest firm hit by the crisis in the sector. Despite the move, HSBC said it would continue to offer some sub-prime mortgages through its US branches.

Back in February, HSBC was one of the first lenders to warn of rising default levels in the US sub-prime sector.

'Tough decisions'

The 750 job losses will be spread across Decision One's two offices in Phoenix, Arizona, and Charlotte, North Carolina.

"It's no longer sustainable and not the right place to allocate capital in the future," said HSBC chief executive Michael Geoghegan.

"We said we would make tough decisions and we have done exactly that."

In March HSBC stopped buying mortgage loans from other financial bodies to reduce its exposure to potential defaults.