More gloomy predictions for the IT market. Market research firm IDC just updated its forecast for world-wide IT spending in 2009, and suffice to say, it’s not pretty. The continued downward spiral of the economy has so hampered growth that IDC now sees world-wide IT spending growing by just 0.5 percent year over year, down from a November 2008 forecast of 2.6 percent growth.
The vicious beating the semiconductor industry has taken this past year is nearly over. But it will be three years until it recovers–and even that prediction is an optimistic one. So says Morris Chang, Chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, who believes the chip industry is “pretty close” to the bottom.
Given this morning’s morbid 2008 sales report from the Semiconductor Industry Association, the fact that chip equipment supplier Applied Materials lowered guidance for its first quarter is hardly surprising. Applied slashed its earnings forecast today, saying it expects sales for Q1 to suffer, thanks to the “deteriorating financial condition” of its customers.
So much for the semiconductor industry’s predicted late-2009 recovery. Annual world-wide sales of semiconductor chips declined for the first time since 2001, according to new metrics from the Semiconductor Industry Association.
Intel investors are this afternoon drowning their sorrows in shots of Mylanta now that the company has reported a steep drop in profit and overall sales for its fourth quarter. Profits plunged 90 percent to $234 million, or four cents a share, for the quarter. This in stark contrast to the same period the previous year, in which it earned $2.3 billion, or 38 cents a share.
As bad as predictions are for global IT spending during the next year, they’re not nearly as bad as what the industry experienced between 2001 and 2003. So when the Semiconductor Industry Association says worldwide sales of semiconductors declined more steeply in November than in October, well, we’ve seen worse, right?
Ugly news for the semiconductor industry: In 2009, it will suffer back-to-back years of declining revenue for the first time in its history. This according to Gartner, whose last official semiconductor outlook called for 2008 industry revenues to grow, if only a bit.
If life is a cement trampoline, then Fairchild Semiconductor just performed a flat back landing. It’s hand forced by those oft-cited “market conditions,” the company said Friday it is sacking 12 percent of its workforce in an attempt to reduce expenses and spread holiday cheer.
The semiconductor industry is widely considered a bellwether for the tech economy. So when the Semiconductor Industry Association starts sounding alarms over its outlook, it’s probably an opportune time to just stop tracking the tech investments in your stock portfolio. If you haven’t stopped tracking them already, that is.
It’s likely a challenge to program and a bitch to debug, but IBM’s new Roadrunner supercomputer is the most powerful in the world. With 12,240 cell processors typically found in Sony’s PlayStation 3 console and another 6,562 dual-core AMD Opteron chips, Roadrunner has been benchmarked at 1.026 petaflops (1.026 quadrillion calculations per second).
So that ugly downturn facing the semiconductor industry? Not going to be quite so ugly, say the folks at Gartner. After slashing its worldwide chip forecast from 6.2 % growth to 3.4% growth this past March, Gartner raised it by more than 1%. Seems the slowing U.S. economy hasn’t had as much of an impact on consumer electronics sales as the research outfit had feared.
Intel’s putting the mobile phone market on speed dial. Two years after selling off its chip business for mobile handhelds and cellphones to Marvell, the world’s largest chip-maker is turning its attention once again to the mobile phone market with dollar signs in its eyes.
Gaming piracy is as antiquarian a concept as PONG. So says Atari founder Nolan Bushnell. And who are we to disagree with the man who invented the world’s first (or second, depending on your view) video arcade game?
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
Don't miss a post! Sign up for our Daily Email and get AllThingsD.com delivered each day.
Get columns, blogs and video from D and All Things Digital on your iPhone. Download now »
