Normally, summer - a period of quiet business activity in the IT-industry, and with the onset of autumn business life has intensified. But looking at the past months, you know that this year no summer slowdown in business, actually, was not. And the question arises: whether and, indeed, now wait a marked recovery? Personally, I have no answer ...Sun eve of change
Sun is can be bought one of the world IT-leaders, analysts believe. To promote this can collapsed capitalization companies, as well as reducing costs for large customers «big» servers - is based products Sun. The sharp fall in prices of shares Sun (YTD quotes the company fell by half - from $ 18 to $ 9 per share) sparked renewed old debates about the future of the company and options for the purchase of Sun any of the major players market.
Among the most likely buyers, many referred to as technology partner Sun - the Japanese manufacturer's server and telecommunications equipment Fujitsu, which may be interested in acquiring the technological baggage as Sun's hardware, and in the field of Open Source solutions. Another candidate, experts tend to believe HP, which, despite a number of steps to enter the Linux-market, failed to reach its considerable success, and through the acquisition of Sun could significantly expand the portfolio of Open Source solutions. The acquisition of Sun could be an unexpected and potentially a good course for Microsoft - both within the stated strategy of cooperation with the Open Source community, as well as more traditional strategies to address competing products. Eventually, Sun - the main sponsor of a draft free OpenOffice.org - the chief rival Microsoft Office - and the developer platform Java, struggling for market. NET.
However, top management of companies and a number of market analysts believe that with the current crisis in the U.S. economy holders of the shares of Sun were expecting even worse results. Despite the efforts of the company vozglavivshego Jonathan Schwartz, Sun is still in large part by the «big» servers, the demand for which has fallen as a result of cuts in big companies of their IT-budgets. However, Schwartz after taking control of Sun Scott MakNilli in 2006, has shown strong commitment to making the Sun's, first of all, the player software market. This was confirmed and the acquisition of companies MySQL - producer of the same DBMS, Innotech - producer of Open Source-decisions in the field of virtualization, a number of strong action for the development of the project Open Solaris and partnerships with other market players free software (such as Canonical). Actively promote the opening pooling and software developments Sun and their concentration around the Linux-community and around their own platform Open Solaris does not allow to speak about the lack of long-term strategy for Sun. However, luck and Sun's implementation of its strategy also is not guaranteed. But you can say for sure: developed by Sun technology and solutions still have an impact on the IT-market as a whole and the development of free software in particular.
Microprocessor cheaper
Intel Corp. added to the list of their products immediately, three low-cost processors, two of which were set up on 45-nano tehprotsessu. The first of them - Core 2 Quad Q8200, running at clock frequency of 2.66 gigahertz. It is equipped with 4-MB cache second level (the smallest amount in line) and supports a tire with a frequency of 1333 megahertz. Its price - $ 224 (for the purchase of 1000). The second processor - Core 2 Duo E5200 valued at $ 84. Its clock speed of 2.5 GHz, it has two gigabytes of cache, the second level and supports 800-megagertsevuyu tire. The third processor - Celeron D 450 - worth $ 53, equipped with 512-kilobaytnym second-level cache, runs at 2.2 GHz and supports 800 - megagertsevuyu tire. It is more manufacturers than the previous model - dvuhgigagertsevy Celeron D 440 worth $ 44.
The company followed the example of AMD and Intel also lowered prices on its Quad processors. Cost Phenom X4 9950 BE 140W - the most productive chip AMD - fell from $ 235 to $ 186. There was also cheaper processors Phenom X4 9750 and the Phenom X4 9650 - up to $ 156 and $ 134 respectively. There were problems with AMD processors Phenom X4, due to new chip architecture and manufacturing difficulties. This has allowed Intel to increase the gap between competitors by offering their own 4-nuclear processors. The current price declines, presumed to AMD and Intel, clearly lead to a new intensify competition between the two leading manufacturers of CPU.
Staffing issues
The company Alcatel-Lucent lead the people invited to the party. In particular, the new executive director, former head of BT Group PLC Ben Vervaaen to replace as Patricia Russo. At the chairmanship of the Board appointed a former director of space programs, the largest European aerospace corporation EADS Philippe Camus, successive Sergei Churuka. I recall that Alcatel-Lucent was formed after the absorption of the French mobile phone manufacturers Alcatel American company Lucent Technologies in November 2006. The restructuring, designed to make the combined company more competitive, has not been able to solve all problems, including increased costs and insufficient growth. As a result, in July this year, the company began its search for new leadership. Now, after the correct people are found, and announced the date change Churuka and Rousseau - October 1.
A company Yahoo left two more top managers. Todd Teresa - senior vice president of Internet business Yahoo - resigned to take up the post of chief financier of Quantcast. The company also left Steve Boom - one of the senior leaders of Yahoo Mobile. According to official statements by Yahoo, these resignations are part of the ongoing restructuring of the Internet giant.
According to the updated terms of compensation to the second CEO Motorola Greg Brown in the event of the sale of the mobile unit of more than $ 2 billion will receive $ 5 million bonus. However, Brown is among the options - it is also permitted to receive $ 1.66 million shares and repurchase of securities by another $ 3.33 million will recall that Brown now divides the powers of executive director of the company with Sanzhaem Jakarta heads the wireless unit. The latter will also receive a certain number of shares in the event of the sale of its subordinate areas. In addition to financial bonuses Brown eligible for at least a month of rest and the right to use official aircraft for personal purposes.
Mobile
A well-known manufacturer of electronics and home appliances Japan's Sharp Corporation has announced a unit Mobile Business Group. The task of the new unit - the promotion and sale of mobile phones and smartphones Sharp production in foreign markets. The headquarters of Mobile Business Group will be in Yamatokoriyame (Japan) and will bring together under one roof, two new department: New Business Promotion Center and Wireless Convergence Promotion Center. According to official sources, through the reorganization of the company would try to increase sales of mobile devices overseas markets including China, Europe and the U.S. to levels comparable with its own market. Back in August, the company president Mikio Katayama said: «Over the next two years we plan to increase sales in the Chinese market to levels comparable with sales in Japan. A summer of 2009, the company would try to enter the mobile market in Europe and the USA ». At the same time the export is only about one-tenth of all manufactured by Sharp cell phones. All others remain in the domestic market Zambia.
Motorola Corp. is buying a private company AirDefense - one of the leaders in the security of wireless LANs. The company AirDefense is the developer of integrated security systems wireless networks - Wireless Intrusion Prevention Solutions (WIPS), - as well as software that allows corporate customers to protect their networks. Since its founding in 2001-m AirDefense company focuses on innovation: for example, she first proposed the system of round-the-clock monitoring and detection 24x7 (Monitoring and Wireless Intrusion Detection System). Decisions AirDefense to ensure the security of wireless networks, regardless of whether the use of any equipment vendor, they are built. After completion of the transaction AirDefense become a subsidiary of Motorola and will join the unit Enterprise Mobility business. Motorola Corp. intends to retain the headquarters of the company AirDefense in the city Alfaretta (Georgia), making it part of the infrastructure of Motorola systems market WLAN. The transaction, to which a number of regulatory and other taken in such cases, the conditions should be finalized within the next few months.
New purchase Mail.ru
Russian portal Mail.ru became the owner of approximately 30% of the shares «Mamba» - an online dating service. The value of transactions amounted to approximately $ 18 million «Mamba» working on a partnership basis: service dating from 8000 is available online resources, including Mail.ru. The partner usually receives 50% of revenues. To date, «Mamba» contains about 10 million questionnaires, 5 million of whom belong to active users. The daily audience «Mamba» of 839,000 unique users, the company earnings in the first half of this year reached 222 million rubles. The parent company ZAO «Meyl.ru» repurchased shares «Mamba» from the investment company «Finam», vladevshey 100% online service. Interestingly, the very purchase was completed a year ago. However, the deal is not announced it as a direct link with Mail.ru bad impact on relations «Mamba» with partners, many of whom are competitors Mail.ru. Now representatives of Mail.ru and «Mamba» confirm the deal, but
refused to comment on it. And in the opinion of the President of Association of «Internet and business» Alexei Belyaev, Mail.ru will use «Mamba» to move his Internet-pager «Agent@Mail.ru». In addition, the transaction will enable Mail.ru deeper integration «Mamba» in its portal, a dating agency, in turn, receive site, generating more than 40% of its traffic.
