Description:
This blog is tangential to a range of high tech industries such as semiconductors, design services, EDA, mobile devices, electronic manufacturing services, wireless connectivity, computers etc. It put forwards analysis on markets, products and technology issues. The latest category added is ‘Green IT’ owing to the importance of Green technologies in current times.
Contents:
Outbound IVR to show growth over next five years
According to the recent datamonitor report "The Rise of Outbound Applications in an Economic Recession " outbound IVR is poised to be an area of tremendous growth over the next five years. Outbound interactive voice response (IVR) is the next generation outbound communication technology being adopted by enterprises today. As cost pressures rise in the uncertain economy and enterprises look to decrease call volumes, outbound IVR represents a tremendous area of growth over the next five years.
Outbound IVR applications are simpler than inbound IVR applications, and require less intelligence to determine end-user goals. Over the next few years, vendors will integrate outbound IVR applications with backend business logic and by taking advantage of all major customer touchpoints, notably email and SMS.
Greening of IT, The: How Companies Can Make a Difference for the Environment
IBM has just released a book titled "Greening of IT, The: How Companies Can Make a Difference for the Environment" by IBM Press. This is a nice strategy followed by IBM, to add an academic component to its green data center marketing eco-system.
Author John Lamb talks about the business case for green IT, set priorities, and overcome the internal and external challenges to making it work. He offers proven solutions for issues ranging from organizational obstacles to executive motivation and discusses crucial issues ranging from utility rate incentives to metrics. Along the way, you’ll discover energy-saving opportunities—from virtualization and consolidation to cloud and grid computing—and solutions that will improve business flexibility as they reduce environmental impact.
The book presents case studies, checklists, and more—all the practical guidance you need to drive maximum bottom-line value from your green IT initiative.
Green datacenters : game changer for Energy & Utility organizations
I recently watched this On-demand Green Datacenter webcast from IBM. With rising energy prices, energy use among businesses in the Energy and Utilities industry is in the spotlight more than ever. A key source of energy consumption in any organization is the data center. For this reason many Energy & Utility companies are now considering building Green Data Centers, both to meet their own business needs, and to be recognized as responsible custodians of an ever scarcer resource.
This green data center webcast talks about the benefits of focusing attention on managing increased compute demands, changing cost dynamics, data center lifecycle and power usage in the data center. It also talks about technologies, such as water-cooled systems and energy dashboards, to build a Green Data Center at your own pace and optimize business performance.
The link to the webcast is
http://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=registration.jsp&eventid=116313&sessionid=1&key=A4DB94CD6ED4813235CD998617778041&partnerref=IBM01&sourcepage=register ','','directories=0,location=0,menubar=no,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes,status=no,toolbar=no,width=800,height=800
Cisco consolidates its presence in server market with Rack Servers
Cisco this week extended its Unified Computing System data center convergence platform with rack mountable servers, saying the new form factor represents an "entry level" into UCS and more choice for customers..
When Cisco first announced its Unified Computing System (UCS) product portfolio earlier this year it was all about its 'B' series blade servers. Now Cisco is expanding its UCS product portfolio with a new 'C' series that includes three new rack servers, which are officially being announced at its Partner Summit now underway in Boston. Like the predecessor B-Series blades, the C-Series rack mount servers use X86 Intel Xeon 5500 processors and are optimized for Cisco's memory expansion and virtualized adapter technologies,
The addition of the UCS C-Series rack-mount servers to Cisco's data center strategy, which has seen the launch of a total of six products in the past 18 months, broadens the reach of its UCS, offering an entry point to the architecture while providing an upgrade path to full UCS attributes. UCS, which was launched in March, is Cisco's next-generation data center architecture that combines servers, storage access, virtualization and the network into a single fabric managed by one system.
UCS is designed to tightly integrate computing, networking, storage access and virtualization into a single platform. It features memory extension technology for scaling virtual machines (VM); virtual adapters to reduce the number of physical adapters in a server; embedded management; and service profiles designed to stay with a VM as it moves around an enterprise.
These Cisco advances rule out the participation of non-Cisco blade and rack servers in a UCS environment. Cisco has said previously that it has no plans to open up UCS to incumbent data center servers from Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM, Dell Inc. or Sun Microsystems Inc.
Microsoft office: Microsoft Office in No Danger From Competitors
According to latest research by Forrester Microsoft Office is still the most prevalent productivity suite among enterprise customers, but 2010 could see more adoption of competitive suites as companies ponder their next investments in this area, according to a new report by Forrester Research.
Eighty percent of enterprise customers are still using some version of Microsoft Office for worker productivity and collaboration, with only 8 percent using alternatives, which include Sun StarOffice, Google Premier Apps, Lotus Symphony and Zoho, according to the report by Forrester analyst.
Virtual Events : An innovative marketing technique in tough times
In the current times, corporation are faced with the double edged sword. With shrinking marketing budgets the need to generate business is higly imperative. Tough times are the times when the real innovaters come up with break-through ideas.
The companies like Hewlett-Packard (HP), IBM, Cisco have been actively hosting virtual conferences,forums and other events. The 3D set-up of these conferences is a treat to watch, with booths, halls, presentations, seminars, demos, these appear to be more real than the real world events. Even from the standpoint of profiling the registrants, tracing their demographics, companies, interests, it is much more convient in the virtual world. And most importantly, it is highly cost effective for the hosts and the visitors.
Some of the recent virtual forums/conferences hosted or to be hosted are
HP - Live HP Virtual Conference- Discover how to save costs & boost competitiveness
Cisco - CIO Virtual forum - Navigating through dynamic times
IBM - Dynamic Infrastructure Worldwide Virtual Forum
IBM has relatively a good enough experience with the virtual world. It has created the enire green data center in Second life - a virtual world.
Apart rom this, companies are also exploiting the potential of webcasts and podcats in a big way. These are far more superior than the print or email communications. With the webcasts the viewers can actually view the spaeker online(not in cases where only audio presentations are made) and also participate in the session through their questions.
To conclude, these tough times can teach us a lot in the area of digital marketing
White Paper: The Benefits of Data center transformation with HP
There is this HP sponsored white paper from HP "The Benefits of Data center transformation with HP" which is based on reserach done by IDC.
IDC expects that for the next several years, there will be considerable investment in a datacenter "makeover" - not just in datacenter systems and technologies but in the actual facility itself. These changes are driven by escalating management and administration costs that place downward pressure on the ability of any organization to innovate. IDC research demonstrates the difficulties that organizations have prioritizing often conflicting business goals in this new IDC White Paper.
The white paper can be accessed at
www.cio.com/white-paper/489815/IDC_Whitepaper_The_Benefits_of_Datacenter_Transformation_with_HP
Intel showcases power efficient Moorestown platform at Computex 2009
Intel showcases its platform for mobile devices Moorestown at Computex 2009. Moorestone is part of the aggressive strategy that Intel has developed around Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs). Earlier this year, Intel introduced Moorestone at Intel developer forum in China. showcased the low-power innovations of Moorestown by comparing it to an Atom-based platform in a side-by-side demo.
Moorestown is comprised of a system on a chip, code-named “Lincroft”, which integrates the 45nm processor, graphics, memory controller and video encode/decode onto a single chip and an I/O hub codenamed “Langwell”, which supports a range of I/O ports to connect with wireless, storage, and display components in addition to incorporating several board level functions.
According to Intel Moorestown will be a catalyst for exciting and innovative developments that will extend the full Internet experience into the smartphone space with the Communication MID. It is likely to support a range of wireless technologies including 3G, WiMAX, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth and mobile TV. Intel has been collaborating with Ericsson for HSPA data modules optimized for the Moorestown platform.
Advocates of the MID argue that the devices provide an inexpensive way to get online to watch videos, send instant messages, email and use an assortment of applications without having to peck at the tiny keys on a smartphone or cart around a Netbook, which is basically a smaller, full-service PC.
One major value proposition of Moorestone is power, Intel claims Moorestown uses one-fiftieth the idle power of its predecessor, the Menlow platform. Intel is creating SOC chips that will be smaller and use less power but have enough processing ability to handle rich media content and video.
Intel is trying to take x86 architecture into a range of new markets software and tools around it. It would create synchronization among different set of devices.
Global semiconductor industry sales improved in April 09
Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported recently that worldwide sales of semiconductors rose to $15.6 billion in April, an increase of 6.4 percent from March when sales were $14.7 billion. April sales were 25 percent lower than April 2008 when sales were $20.9 billion. All sales numbers represent a three-month moving average of global semiconductor sales.
“The better-than-expected 6.4 percent sequential increase in April sales was driven by moderate improvements in a number of end-demand drivers and inventory replenishment,” said SIA President George Scalise. “The PC market – a major consumer of semiconductors – has been stronger than predicted earlier in the year. Consensus forecasts currently project that PC unit sales in 2009 will decline by about 6 percent compared to earlier forecasts of a decline in the range of 12 percent. Analysts are also more optimistic about cell phone unit sales, which are now projected to decline by around 7 percent compared to earlier forecasts of 15 percent. PCs and cell phones account for nearly 60 percent of all semiconductor consumption,” Scalise stated.
SIA noted that the worldwide automotive market, which accounts for about 7 percent of total semiconductor sales, remains weak. Corporate information technology spending has also lagged normal patterns as companies have lengthened replacement cycles. The consumer electronics sector presents a mixed picture: analysts project increased unit sales of digital televisions and hand-held game players and lower unit sales of most other consumer electronics products.
“Visibility remains limited,” Scalise continued. “Two consecutive months of sequential sales growth may be an indication of a return to more normal seasonal sales patterns in some market sectors, albeit at lower sales levels than last year,” Scalise concluded.
IBM, Syracuse University, New York State to Build One of the World's Most Energy-Efficient Data Centers
According to a latest press release by IBM, Syracuse University, IBM and New York State have entered into a multiyear agreement to build and operate a new computer data center on the University's campus that will incorporate advanced infrastructure and smarter computing technologies to make it one of the most energy-efficient data centers in the world. The data center is expected to use 50 percent less energy than a typical data center today, making it one of the "greenest" computer centers in operation.
The project will focus on the actual infrastructure of the data center itself, not just the computer hardware and software. A key element will be an on-site electrical co-generation system that will use natural gas-fueled microturbine engines to generate all electricity for the center and provide cooling for the computer servers.
The $12.4 million, 6,000-square-foot data center will incorporate IBM's latest energy-efficient computers and computer-cooling technology. SU will manage and analyze the performance of the center, as well as research and develop new data center energy efficiency analysis and modeling tools.
IBM and SU will create a liquid cooling system that will use double-effect absorption chillers to convert the exhaust heat from the microturbines into chilled water to cool the data center's servers, with sufficient excess cooling to handle the needs of an adjacent building. Server racks will incorporate IBM's Rear Door Heat eXchanger "cooling doors" that use chilled water to remove heat from each rack far more efficiently than conventional room-chilling methods. Sensors will monitor server temperatures and usage to tailor the amount of cooling delivered by each Rear Door Heat eXchanger--further improving efficiency.
IBM will provide more than $5 million in equipment, design services and support, which includes supplying the electrical cogeneration equipment and servers such as IBM BladeCenter, IBM Power 575 and an IBM z10 systems. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) is contributing $2 million to the project.
IBM intends to showcase the data center and its energy-efficient technologies to help clients design new data centers or improve their current operations.
Smartphones are poised to grow at 20% over next five years
According to the latest report by research firm In-Stat, Smartphones are heading towards the mainstream. Unit sales of smartphones have been growing faster than the overall market for cellphones. According to In-Stat, this trend is expected to continue through 2013, based upon increased user demand.
In the survey from this report, the demand in the US grew by a factor of five from the levels found between 2005 and 2007. This demand is primarily driven by greater competition for mobile applications that add capabilities. New and prospective smartphone buyers are drawn to new mobile applications, even though the median number of applications downloaded for all platforms, including the Apple iPhone, is relatively modest—below five applications per user for each platform.
After a period of slower growth owing to uncertain economic conditions, the smartphone market will grow over 20% annually over the next five years.
This report includes:
-Forecasts and market shares for smartphone OS sales to 2013
-Global sales of smartphones by region
-Global upside potential and threats to the smartphone market
-Approaches to ensure security of smartphones and cellphones
-End-user research of non-users of smartphones
-Buying behavior for different smartphone platforms
-Non-user interest in buying smartphones
-Changes in attitudes regarding preferences for features and applications
Freescale to come up with android powered Netbooks
Early this year, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Freescale Semiconductor announced expanded ecosystem support for its ARM-based netbook computers. Freescale also unvieled the list of operating systems suporting the platform. Google's Android mobile operating system, being most notable of them, others being Phoenix Technologies and Xandros (use by Asus in its Eee PC netbooks).
Google introduced Android in 2007 as a software system for mobile phones. Android being popular among device manufacturers and telecom operators who tailor feature-set of the OSes, is likely boost Freescale’s chances for success. Freescale is also working on 3G connectivity capabilities via collaboration with Wavecom and Option.
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