Things can only get better but recovery will be slow.
Analyst house Gartner has said that the effects of the recession have passed their worst in the electronics industry, but that recovery will be slow.
In a review of the industry, the company said that sales look to have stopped falling and worldwide demand is on the up. However, in some sectors sales won't reach 2007 levels until 2012.
“Almost all sectors of the electronic equipment market have now hit bottom and await signs of ‘first growth’ in comparison with the same quarter last year,” said Klaus Rinnen, managing vice president at Gartner’s semiconductor manufacturing group.
“The first signs of growth will be led by seasonal buying patterns in the PC market during the third quarter of 2009, although other major sectors will not begin to show first growth, year-on-year, until 2010.”
The PC market remains caught by poor demand from enterprises for hardware refreshes since the start of the year, but Gartner said that consumer demand, particularly in China and the US, was stronger than expected and was rising again.
Meanwhile the mobile market bottomed out in the third quarter of this year and will start to recover in the first quarter of 2010. It halved its earlier estimates of market shrinkage from eight percent to four.
“Although the first signs of recovery are starting to appear for the electronics industry, the damage from the current industry recession will be felt for a long time,” said Mr. Rinnen.
“This is seen in our current five-year semiconductor revenue forecast, which does not show recovery to 2007 levels until 2012. Vendors must prepare for significant changes in consumer buying behaviour, technology demand patterns and a changed supplier landscape.”
By David Neal Click here to view the full article at CRN Oct 14, 2009 7:51 AM
Cisco has announced plans to acquire Starent Networks, a provider of IP-based mobile infrastructure solutions.
The networking giant expects to use the US$2.9bn ($3.2bn) purchase to increase its presence in the growing mobile internet environment.
"We are very pleased that Starent will be joining the Cisco team, and we believe their products and engineering talent will greatly benefit our service provider customers as they build out their mobile internet offerings," said John Chambers, chairman and chief executive at Cisco.
Pankaj Patel, senior vice president at Cisco's service provider business, added: "Cisco and Starent share a common vision and bring complementary technologies designed to accelerate the transition to the mobile internet, where the network is the platform for service providers to launch, deliver and monetise the next generation of mobile multimedia applications and services."
Starent's strengths lie in core network functions and services that manage access from any 2.5G, 3G and 4G radio network to a mobile operator's packet core network.
"Combining Cisco's strength in video and IP with Starent's leading mobile infrastructure solutions creates a compelling portfolio of products that provides an integrated architecture to offer rich, quality multimedia experiences to mobile subscribers on 3G and 4G networks," said Starent president and chief executive Ashraf Dahod.
The deal is expected to close next year, when Starent will become the new Cisco Mobile Internet Technology Group under Dahod.
Cisco has posted further details about its upcoming line of server systems.
The company said that its new Unified Computing blade-mount servers would be joined by a line of rack-based systems and extension appliances which will ship in the coming months.
The three rack-mount servers will ship between November and will range from a US$2,589 model ($2,862) to an extended US$10,339 system. All three models will be offered under the banner of the UCS C-Series.
Cisco hopes that the addition of the rack-mount systems will help extend the reach of the Unified Computing platform.
The company first unveiled the programme in April with the effort of combining network and storage management with server virtualisation technologies.
"The Cisco UCS C-Series provides a cost effective entry point and a clear migration path to unified computing for our customers," said Prem Jain, senior vice president of server access and virtualisation for Cisco.
"This rack mount server form factor also opens the unified computing opportunity to a broader range of our channel partner community."
Meanwhile, the blade-based UCS B-Series server will be accompanied by a memory extension unit set to be released this month and an interface card for additional Ethernet connections slated for release in December.
Additionally, Cisco said that both the B-Series and C-Series servers would be fully certified for Oracle's RAC and Database software offerings.
With all of the recent news regarding the cost impact of increased fuel and travel costs to business not to mention the speed that the "green computing" trend band wagon (every man and his IT system seem to be jumping onto) appears to be picking up, it comes as no surprise that businesses will increasingly looking for real world conferencing and communications systems that can allow staff in different offices to communicate both in an effective and efficient way.
Until recently, efforts to deliver and implement video conferencing systems had (at best) been some what disappointing and at worst simply unusable. We've all been exposed to it at some point, the shoddy and difficult to use video conferencing solutions with less then usable clarity.
The scenario usually plays out something like this..
“The monthly ‘team’ meeting starts in 10 minutes and it is going to involve video conferencing with one or more interstate offices (forget overseas.. they can read about it later when someone finally emails out the minutes..) Even though the video conferencing system is supposedly so easy to use, a 12 year old playing GTA4 could set it up, there are at least 3 or 4 members of the team leaning over the system rubbing chins and pointing nervous fingers trying to figure whether they have to dial an internal extension or the full number of the interstate office to make the call… “does anyone know if we need to dial a 0 first?..” At this point other meeting attendees role their eyes and begin checking emails or wondering out of the meeting room..”
Eventually, the video conference starts, everyone is corralled back into the meeting room and the attendees in the other states all crowd in on the small desktop camera at their end in a vain attempt to be seen by everyone else in the main office on the low-end 32” display setup in a distant corner. Every few seconds, the display distorts, freezing part of someone’s face whilst their mouth keeps moving, which I’ll be the first to admit is a little humorous..
The audio breaks in and out and eventually (more often then not), the video conference is abandoned through frustration and the meeting resorts to an audio conference call...
For companies that have the dollars to spend (at least $220k per 3-screen installation), poor video conferencing experiences can be a thing of the past with Cisco's TelePresence solution.
Recently, Optus announced it had implemented the same solution its Melbourne and Sydney offices and another two-screen meeting point in the Sydney offices of its services subsidiary Alphawest (Optus hooked on Cisco TelePresence – AustralianIT).
In my opinion, the Cisco TelePresence solution is, for lack of a better word “stunning”.
In a nutshell, it requires at least a 5Mbs link between sites (although it is suggested that 6Mbs is more realistic). This is why I suggest that overseas video conferencing for many Australian businesses will simply be out of reach for sometime to come given the cost of maintaining such a service.
The system not only includes the displays, camera etc, but also includes the table as part of the solution. It has been specially designed to enhance the experience and to make it feel as if everyone is actually sitting at the same ‘virtual’ table, which I think is a nice touch.
In addition, the system:
Integrates three 65-inch high-definition plasma displays for life-size images at 720p and 1080p resolutions.
Specially designed, high-definition cameras provide high-quality, high-definition images, with superior eye contact and no user operation required.
Full-duplex, CD-quality audio facilitates a full, natural conversation with no perceivable latency. The clarity of the audio allows you and other participants to talk in relaxed or soft voices and still be heard as if you are all in the same room.
The specially designed, optimized environment offers high-quality lighting and sound treatment that works well within normal conference-room lighting, and provides comfortable seating for up to six participants in the room and up to 48 locations for multipoint meetings.
Integration with the network helps ensure reliability with high availability, security, and QoS for an optimal experience with every call. Highly secure communications are enabled through encryption of both video and call signalling.
Overall, it is simply impressive and such a far cry from a typical video conferencing solution that it does make one wince at the thought earlier systems and with the every increasing burden of fuel and travel costs, it can and does make sense for larger businesses to look at investing in such a solution, not to mention the “Green” badge that a businesses marketing team would kill for.
