D-Link is kicking off the year with a round of full day xStack Product Specialist Workshops to run in East Coast cities plus Auckland.
Staff Writers
Intel Decides To Slash & Burn Chip Prices By 31%
A week seems a long time in IT as was shown by Intel, which after posting a healthy profit last week has now decided to seriously slash the prices of its server and desktop processors.
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The company has listed pricing details for three Xeon chips, three Core 2 Duo models, and one Core 2 Quad.
What stood out the most was the 3.1GHZ E8500 which went from $US266 to $US183, amounting to a 31 per cent drop.
The E8400 received an 11 per cent drop from $US183 to $US163 and the three Xeon chips: 2.40GHz X3220 went down 12 per cent, the 2.13GHz X3210 also dropped 12 per cent in price and the 3GHZ E3110 scored an 11 per cent drop.
iPod's Double Profits For Warner Music
Despite their concerns about music piracy, the recording industry is making a motza from digital downloads.
The Warner Music Group almost doubled its first-quarter profits thanks to a Christmas Day downloading frenzy according to reports. The thing which will cheer recording industry execs more than their eggnog was that profits were up so much despite lower revenues.
Warner Music profits for the three months to December 31 rose to US$69 million, from US$36 million a year prior.
“Our digital revenue was up dramatically year-on-year, especially after MP3 players went live on December 25,” Michael Fleischer, chief financial officer, told Reuters. Fleischer revealed that costs for the quarter fell 6 per cent from a year earlier to $900 million, while revenue from the company’s recorded music business fell 2 per cent to $920 million, and revenue from music publishing fell 15 per cent to $131 million.
But the high margin digital music business more than made up any shortfall. With virtually no distribution costs digital sales rose to US$69 million (an amount equal to the company’s entire profit for the quarter). This was an increase of 30 per cent from the prior quarter and triple what the company sold in digital music a year earlier.
The company said that sales spiked significantly on December 25th as new iPod (and other MP3 player) owners hit the Internet to top up their new toys. The
Digital revenues were almost equally split between song downloads ringtones, said Fleischer.
NetComm Back In The Red
After a brief period in the sun ASX-listed networking and communications hardware vendor, NetComm has drifted back into a loss making position despite a 13.2 per cent increase in revenue for the half year to December 31st.
Although revenue increased by $10.3 million, the company still reported a small net loss of $392,000 due to its investments in new product categories.
“Our drive to increase market share resulted in a gratifying 13.2% growth in revenue over the previous year, although gross margins suffered during the campaign. Profitability is expected to improve in the 2nd half as supported by current data,” said David Stewart, NetComm’s Managing Director.
“The results from the Company’s previously stated initiative to progressively balance out its product offering with higher value, higher margin technologies targeted at the SME sector will see increased margins delivered over the next 12 months,” he said.
The company explained the EBITDA result was impacted by a number of one-off costs associated with the development of the company’s resources to address these new opportunities, such as developing more sophisticated products.
There were also costs associated with the establishment of strategic partnership with Octtel and the Dynalink/Askey acquisition which is designed to increase the company’s access to the
NetComm detailed where some of the money went in its Stock Exchange filing:
- $70,000 spent on M&A consultancy and legal fees for the acquisitions of Dynalink and Askey
Australia. - $200,000 spent on product development, testing and certification expenses for new SMB VoIP products developed under an alliance with Octtel Communications.
- $90,000 to redesign and relaunch product packaging, and to redesign the corporate web site with e-commerce capabilities.
- $150,000 to develop the NetComm Auto Provisioning System – a software solution that will reside on the servers of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) remotely configure their customers’ modems.
The Company also noted that its half-yearly consolidated balance sheet reflects some material changes as a result of the Dynalink and Askey acquisitions. Since the acquisition took place on December 21, 2005, no revenue from these companies has been recognised in the accounts.
However, the accounts show: A reduction in cash as NetComm absorbed the overdrafts of these two firms; An increase in receivables and inventory as the company absorbed the receivables and inventory of the acquired companies; and an increase in current liabilities which was also due to consolidating the two acquisitions into NetComm.
“These adjustments and investments are proceeding as planned,” said Stewart. “The Board and management of NetComm are confident that the company will see a return on its investments in Q3 and Q4 of this fiscal year. The company’s new product range will be released to market from the third quarter of the current fiscal year with additional revenue contribution to be reflected in the full year results.”
Victorian PC Panel
A PC and Notebook purchasing initiative from the Bracks Government hopes to save the State up to $20 million over the next five years
The plan may help save the environment too with demands placed on suppliers to recycle and reuse old computer parts. The purchasing panel, which permits only six companies to sell PC hardware to State Government Departments includes Acer, Dell, HP, IPEX, Optima and Toshiba.
“This new panel will take advantage of the whole-of-government purchasing power to deliver the best possible outcomes for the State,” the Minister for Information and Communication Technology, Marsha Thomson.
“It will be mandatory for use across all Victorian Government departments, making early use of a new State Purchase Contracts Policy to guarantee full participation over the next five years.
Dell May Finally Sell AMD
After years of hard work, countless rumours and repeated failure, it seems likely AMD’s stellar marketshare growth in the US may finally force Dell to submit.
The latest rumours are strong, that Dell may do a deal to resell an AMD notebook as a prelude to a more extensive partnership including AMD Opteron servers. A deal could be done as early as next month say the rumours, though Dell executives are still denying there’s any chance of recapitulation.
However, the rebuttals fall short of definitive and Michael Dell is on record at this year’s CES as saying an AMD deal is “a distinct possibility”.
Then at last week’s Davos meeting in
Now a financial analyst, Doug Freedman of American Technology Research, is predicting an Dell will sign up to sell AMD processor systems and provides amore specific date. “We believe there will be an AMD/Dell deal announced very soon; more specifically, we believe it will come as early as March,” Freedman wrote in an update to his customers.
A deal at this point in time would be interesting as AMD has made significant marketshare gains on Intel thanks to a processor performance lead it has held for most of the past two years. This technology lead really paid off last year, but the company will be fighting to pull a rabbit out of a hat later this year as new Intel product looks set to leapfrog the junior player this year.
An Dell deal with AMD may be too little too late, though Michael Dell may see it as payback for Intel’s recent signing of Apple Computers which dropped the PowerPC processor and began offering systems based on the x86 architecture chips from Intel earlier this year.
Though a deal with Dell would be a major marketshare boost for AMD, the company has had a hard time signing the last major hold out vendor. Last year AMD accused Intel of anti-competitive behaviour forcing its customers, including Dell, to avoid AMD chips. The two chip-makers are currently in the discovery phase of an anti-trust court case likely to begin later this year.
AMD has also recently resolved a number of supply issues it had last year which would have prevented it from supplying sufficient processors to feed Dell’s potential volumes. With its latest Fab36 in
Samsung Heads to The Beach
It’s a rare chance for a geekoid technology journalist to venture into the freak show that is the competitive board-riding scene, but Samsung’s sponsorship of the Quiksilver Pro and Roxy Pro offered just such an opportunity. We couldn’t resist it.
To kick off a two year partnership deal with surf fashion label Quiksilver, brings Samsung into new territory for a consumer electronics brand.
The major sponsorship for the first events on the Foster’s Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Men’s World Championship Tour and the ASP Women’s World Tour, is the first of many events Quiksilver and Samsung plan for a deal that covers not only the Australian market, but ventures forth into France and the UK as well.
The 2006 Quiksilver Pro and Roxy Pro are running concurrently at Snapper Rocks in Coolangatta at the south end of
In support of the sponsorship Samsung is at the event showing off a range of wares it targets at the your demographic. MP3players, the Samsung MiniKet and its mobile phones form the core product offering, but the Samsung presence will no doubt attract plenty of interest with its pre-release demo of the Xbox 360 gaming console from Microsoft.
Samsung has partnered with Microsoft in the Xbox area and its display’s are the ‘preferred’ screens for use with the new console.
Though the 360’s hadn’t arrived when your correspondent was able to attend the surfing extravaganza, the opportunity to sit in on a press conference with the world’s greatest surfer, seven time world champ Kelly Slatter, more than made up for the lack of consoles.
Vowing this year to only turn up to the competitions on the tour he enjoys, Slatter is considering retirement and does not sound like a surfer chasing an eighth world title. But nearing his mid-30’s he’s now an old man in this sport and distractions such as a wave pool project he’s working on may mean this is his last year on the professional circuit.
Asked what preparation he had done in the lead up to this first event of the tour, Slatter revealed that he’d spent the last three months living in Hawaii, but had not really surfed much in the past few weeks, preferring to take it easy in the lead up to the demanding location.
Surfer press conferences are certainly different affairs than your typical consumer electronics press conference and the board shorts and thong uniform is not the only contrast. Though it is doubtful questions such as; “Will you recent romance have any affect on your future plans for retirement?” may well attract more than the non-of your business but I’ll answer you anyway reply from your average CE industry Marketing Manager.
Slater has recently been linked to ex- Leonardo DiCaprio girlfriend, Gisele Bundchen, a Brazilian model. “I don’t know if that has anything to do with you or anyone else in this room,” he said to the reporter who asked the question. That’s my business. It really doesn’t have any impact on what I’m doing,” Slater replied.
Apart from the sun, the surf and the scenery, the Quiksilver Pro is also a demonstration of some pretty serious technology. The event is held right on the beach at
Though not a stranger to sports sponsorship, Samsung’s edition to the sponsor list for clothing labels Quiksilver/Roxy for this event is a bit of a turn up. Technical Marketing manager, for Samsung’s AV division, John Fragiadakis told Smarthouse the relationship was surprising comfortable considering the obvious clash of corporate cultures, where the CEO is more likely to wear at-shirt than cufflinks.
Fragiadakis said the Quiksilver acknowledged that
The synergy between the companies is already demonstrated through both parties sponsorship of the Australian Winter Olympic Snowboarder Torah Bright and her most recent Olympic efforts in
Other sports sponsorships we have seen from Samsung include the Sydney Roosters, and A-League Football team Melbourne Victory. Globally, Samsung also supports Chelsea Football Club and major league sports identities such as Wayne Gretski (US National Ice Hockey) and is the global Wireless Communications partner for the Olympic Games.
In return for what Fragiadakis said was a “substantial amount of money” Samsung is putting up in sponsorship, the company will also gain access to Quiksilver and Roxy merchandise, exclusive video content and imagery, exposure on the Boarding Pass TV Program and access to Quiksilver athletes for promotional and PR purposes.
From February 28th check out the Quiksilver and Roxy Pro footage captured by Samsung at:
BigPond Cuts Wireless Broadband
Telstra has cut pricing on its wireless mobile Internet connection plans and introduced the country’s first timed usage subscription in response to what it calls competitive pressure.
The announcement came late yesterday after wireless broadband network operator Unwired announced it would enter the
The new plans start with an entry level 10 hours access at 512Kbps for just $29.95 per month. This compares to the previous entry level of 256Kbps for 200MB of downloads priced at $69.95. That plans now costs just $49.95.
In addition to the lower usage costs, BigPond is flexing its marketing muscle offering new customers up to 12 months half-priced access and $129 off the price of the PC card required to access the service. The card normally retails for $299.
The new pricing levels apply only to the full mobile service using a PC card. The desktop modem plans remain unchanged.
Telstra BigPond Plans are now as follows.
- Speed: 512/64 Kbps, Usage: 10 hours, Price: $29.95
- Speed: 512/64 Kbps, Usage: 20 hours, Price: $49.95
- Speed: 256/64 Kbps, Usage: 200MB, Price: $49.95 (previously $69.95)
- Speed: 256/64 Kbps, Usage: 1GB, Price: $79.95 (previously $99.95)
- Speed: 512/64 Kbps, Usage: 400MB, Price: $79.95 (previously $99.95)
- Speed: 512/64 Kbps, Usage: 1GB, Price: $109.95 (previously $129.95)
Excess usage on time based plans, 80c for 5 minutes. Excess usage on MB usage plans 30c
OneTouch Gets Speed Boost With FireWire
Maxtor is now offering a OneTouch II drive with a FireWire 800 interface for Apple Mac or PC users with a FireWire port.
Actually, the FireWire 800 Edition features a triple interface for universal connectivity so can be connected using either FireWire 800, FireWire 400 or USB 2.0 interface.
Using FireWire, the drive delivers up to 800Mbit per second data transfer rates to quickly transfer and store high-resolution graphics, digital audio/video, heavy multimedia files, photos and more.
“The Maxtor OneTouch II, FireWire 800 Edition supports our strong following of creative professionals who need reliable, high-performance storage” said Edwin Tien, Country Manager,
FireWire 800 provides twice the bandwidth of FireWire 400 and is 66 times faster than USB 1.1. Coupling the interface with the Maxtor OneTouch II drive’s 300GB capacity and 16 MB buffer, users can transfer and store their digital content at blazing speeds.
The OneTouch II drives come bundled with Maxtor’s DriveLock security software and a version of EMC Dantz Retrospect Express HD software for backup and restores.
Using the FireWire interface, the Maxtor OneTouch II drive is fully bootable on a Mac computer running OS X system software. No additional software or hardware is required.
The Maxtor OneTouch II, Fire Wire 800 is priced at $399 (RRP) for the 200GB and $499 (RRP) for the 300GB version.
Jaycar Opens New Store In The West
Jaycar Electronics has announced the launch of a new store, located at Midland in Western Australia.
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The 260m2 open plan designed store has been completely fitted with a huge interior featuring interactive displays to reflect the Jaycar Electronics brand.
Midland Store Manager Jarrom Frazier, with over 11 years electronics experience says he is looking forward to developing the new store and working alongside his team of three customer-focused staff.
“Working for Jaycar Electronics enables us to interact with customers and pass on our own knowledge and ideas. It is satisfying to help individual’s complete do-it-yourself projects themselves and then see the results.”
The range of products are available at the Jaycar Electronics Midlands store includes quirky gadgets, electronic components, car and home audio, power products, automotive accessories as well as alternative energy, security, computer and outdoor products.

