Looks like the worst is once again behind us. In remarks at the Intel Developer Forum on Tuesday, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said the PC industry is headed for recovery, albeit slowly.
Could the global semiconductor industry be heading for a much anticipated recovery? It’s starting to look that way. Chip sales rose in July for the fifth consecutive month on a month-to-month basis, according to the trade group, Semiconductor Industry Association. Which is not to say sales are robust; down 18.2 percent year-over-year, they’re abysmal, but they are showing continuing signs of recovery.
Apple is doing to the wireless industry what it did to the recording industry beginning back in 2001: Stealing its customer relationships. That’s the gist of an argument put forth this week by Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett, who believes that with the iPhone and App Store, Apple has upended the wireless market in much the same way it upended the music industry with the iPod and iTunes.
No big surprises here. The souring economy and related uncertainty in consumer and enterprise technology markets continue to drag the chip sector down into the mud. While world-wide sales of semiconductors in March rose 3.3 percent from February, they were down nearly 30 percent from last year.
If it is chip sales that will lead the recovery, don’t expect one for quite some time. World-wide sales of semiconductors slumped 30 percent to $14.2 billion in February, the Semiconductor Industry Association said Friday. That’s down 7.6 percent from January levels.
Sequoia Capital partner Michael Moritz often says that the best time to invest is when people are cowering under their desks. Google appears to have taken that message to heart because it’s launching a new venture fund at a time when the VC industry is busy practicing its duck-for-cover exercises.
In January, Wikipedia claimed nearly 97 percent of the visits that Web surfers in the United States made to online encyclopedias, according to research outfit Hitwise. MSN Encarta received 1.27 percent. Little wonder, then, that Microsoft is discontinuing it. The company announced Monday it would stop selling Encarta software by June and would shut down the encyclopedia’s MSN Web sites on Oct. 31.
Though it made no mention of a next-generation handset at its iPhone OS 3.0 preview last week, Apple is clearly hard at work on one. And if history is any guide, the company will bring it to market sometime in mid-June just as it did the iPhone 3G last year. And if history is any guide, this new iPhone will be a great improvement over its predecessor. So “100 percent confirmed” reports leaking out of AT&T claiming Cupertino is doing exactly that aren’t all that interesting.
Its hopes of rebuilding under bankruptcy protection effectively dashed by the ongoing financial crisis, Nortel is considering selling off its two biggest business units to rivals. Reportedly on the block: the company’s wireless-gear and office telecom equipment units.
A few weeks back, RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Sue warned that Nortel is facing a very bleak future. “Considering the worsening macro environment, Nortel’s challenged industry position, and concerns related to liquidity while the capital markets are basically closed, we think bankruptcy is a distinct possibility down the road,” Sue wrote in a note to investors. Looks like Sue was right, and the road to which he referred was a short one.
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.
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