UK ISPs must block The Pirate Bay
30 April 2012
Last updated at 17:16
The Pirate Bay is hosted in Sweden, where it has an active supporter base
File-sharing site The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK internet service providers, the High Court has ruled.
The Swedish website hosts links to download mostly pirated free music and video.
Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media must all prevent their users from accessing the site.
“Sites like The Pirate Bay destroy jobs in the UK and undermine investment in new British artists,” the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) said.
A sixth ISP, BT, requested “a few more weeks” to consider their position on blocking the site.
BPI’s chief executive Geoff Taylor said: “The High Court has confirmed that The Pirate Bay infringes copyright on a massive scale.
“Its operators line their pockets by commercially exploiting music and other creative works without paying a penny to the people who created them.
“This is wrong – musicians, sound engineers and video editors deserve to be paid for their work just like everyone else.”
‘Compelling alternatives’
In November 2011, the BPI asked the group of ISPs to voluntarily block access to the site.
The request followed a court order to block Newzbin 2, a site also offering links to download pirated material.
The ISPs said they would not block the site unless a court order was made, as is now the case.
Virgin Media told the BBC it will now comply with the request, but warned such measures are, in the long term, only part of the solution.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
It will fuel calls for further, wider and even more drastic calls for internet censorship”
End Quote
Jim Killock
Open Rights Group
“As a responsible ISP, Virgin Media complies with court orders addressed to the company but strongly believes that changing consumer behaviour to tackle copyright infringement also needs compelling legal alternatives, such as our agreement with Spotify, to give consumers access to great content at the right price.”
The Pirate Bay was launched in 2003 by a group of friends from Sweden and rapidly became one of the most famous file-sharing sites on the web.
It allows users to search for and access copyrighted content including movies, games and TV shows.
No ‘extra pennies’
In April 2009, the Swedish courts found the four founders of the site guilty of helping people circumvent copyright controls.
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Peter Sunde of The Pirate Bay reacts to the 2009 conviction – Contains strong language
The ruling was upheld after an appeal in 2010, but the site continues to function.
The Pirate Party UK, a spin-off from the political movement started in Sweden that backs copyright reform, said this latest move will “not put any extra pennies into the pockets of artists”.
“Unfortunately, the move to order blocking on The Pirate Bay comes as no surprise,” party leader Loz Kaye told the BBC.
“The truth is that we are on a slippery slope towards internet censorship here in the United Kingdom.”
‘Pointless and dangerous’
Critics of site-blocking argue that such measures are ineffective as they can be circumvented using proxy servers and other techniques.
However, one analyst told the BBC that it was still worthwhile to take court action as it underlines the illegal nature of sites such as The Pirate Bay.
“I know it’s fashionable to say ‘oh, it just won’t work’, but we should keep trying,” said Mark Little, principal analyst at Ovum.
“We should keep blocking them – they are stealing music illegally.
“The biggest culprits of this, really, are the younger demographic who just haven’t been convinced that doing this is somehow morally uncomfortable.
“The principle that downloading music illegally is a bad thing to do has not been reinforced by schools or parents.”
But Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, called the move “pointless and dangerous”.
“It will fuel calls for further, wider and even more drastic calls for internet censorship of many kinds, from pornography to extremism,” he said.
“Internet censorship is growing in scope and becoming easier. Yet it never has the effect desired. It simply turns criminals into heroes.”
Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17894176#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
FCC: Google staff knew of Street View breach
The Google engineer behind the collection of wireless data by Street View cars told at least two colleagues – including a senior manager – about the controversial plans before it was released, a US regulator has found.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said in a report that the Google engineer told colleagues in 2007 that his Street View programme could collect private information including emails and text messages.
In a report published by Google on Sunday, the FCC said that five engineers were involved in implementing the Street View code but did not realise it could collect so-called payload data.
The engineer specifically told two colleagues, including a senior manager, that it was designed to collect this information in 2007 and again in 2008.
Google has faced criticism from regulators around the world for collecting private information from unsecured wireless networks via its Street View mapping cars between May 2007 and May 2010.
The company admitted publicly in May 2010 that it had collected the data, which the FCC said was not a breach of US laws.
A spokesman for Google said: “We decided to voluntarily make the entire document available except for the names of individuals. While we disagree with some of the statements made in the document, we agree with the FCC’s conclusion that we did not break the law. We hope that we can now put this matter behind us.”
Google was fined $25,000 (£15,300) earlier this month after the FCC said the company had impeded its investigation into the affair.
The FCC said in the report that for months last year Google wilfully and repeatedly obstructed its investigation by withholding certain documents.
Google’s supervision of the controversial programme was described by the FCC as minimal and it had not been reviewed by internal privacy lawyers despite a recommendation from “Engineer Doe” as early as October 2006.
One senior manager at Google pre-approved the engineer’s plans, the FCC said, while two colleagues were specifically told that Street View could collect sensitive information such as passwords, emails and internet browsing history.
“For more than two years, Google’s Street View cars collected names, addresses, telephone numbers, URLs, passwords, email, text messages, medical records, video and audio files, and other information from internet users in the United States,” the report said.
Google was found to have collected similar data from users in the UK, Netherlands, France and other countries where its Street View cars operated.
The FCC said that the engineer intended to collect and store the data for possible use in other Google projects. On at least one occasion, the engineer reviewed payload data to identify frequently visited websites, according to the report.
“The record also shows that Google’s supervision of the Wi-Fi data collection project was minimal … indeed, it appears that no one at the company carefully reviewed the substance of Engineer Doe’s software code or the design document.”
Google has apologised for the collection and last year said it would beef up its internal privacy policies as a response to the failure.
Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/30/google-street-view-breach-fcc
Samsung overtakes Nokia in phones
27 April 2012
Last updated at 07:51
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Lucy Williamson reports from Seoul on Samsung’s success
Samsung Electronics has overtaken Nokia to become the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.
Nokia took the top spot in 1998 from Motorola, but in the first quarter of 2012 Samsung shipped 93m phones compared to almost 83m by Nokia.
Samsung also reported its highest quarterly profit since 2008.
Net profit was 5.05tn won ($4.5bn; £2.8bn) in the quarter ending 31 March, up 81% from 2.78tn won last year.
Samsung is also the world’s biggest TV and flat screen maker.
“We cautiously expect our earnings momentum to continue going forward, as competitiveness in our major businesses is enhanced,” said Robert Yi, head of investor relations at Samsung.
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Bright future
The firm said its IT and mobile communications division, which manufactures the smartphones, made an operating profit of 4.27tn won during the period, as revenues in the division surged 86% from a year earlier.
Samsung will unveil the latest version of its Galaxy range of phones on 3 May.
The Galaxy range has been very popular and helped Samsung overtake Apple to become the world’s biggest seller of smartphones.
“The smartphone market has almost only two players, Samsung and Apple,” said Lee Sei-Cheol of Meritz Securities.
“Since its Galaxy3 phone is being unveiled in May, Samsung will keep enjoying sales growth in its mobile phone division.”
Profit call
Global demand for smartphones is expected to increase further in coming years, with research firm IDC forecasting that global smart phone shipments will rise by a third to 659.8 million units in 2012.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Samsung’s handset earnings may weaken in the latter half of this year, with the possible launch of Apple’s iPhone 5”
End Quote
Brian Park
Tong Yang Securities
Analysts said that given its robust growth and dominance in the sector, Samsung was well placed to benefit from this growth and boost its market share.
However, given the robust growth in the sector, other smartphone makers are also keen to introduce new products and tap into the fast-growing market.
Samsung is facing stiff competition from rivals such as US-based Apple, Finland’s Nokia, and Taiwan’s HTC.
Apple, which said earlier this week that it sold 35 million of its iPhones in the first quarter, is expected to launch a new version of its handset later this year.
Analysts said that as more models are launched, manufacturers may have to the cut price of their handsets in a bid to attract consumers, a move that may see profit margins shrink.
“Samsung’s handset earnings may weaken in the latter half of this year, with the possible launch of Apple’s iPhone 5,” said Brian Park of Tong Yang Securities.
Chip troubles
Another area of concern for Samsung is likely to be its chip manufacturing unit, which has been hurt by slowing global demand for personal computers.
The success of Galaxy range of handsets has helped Samsung offset falls in other units
The firm is one of the world’s biggest makers of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips, which are widely used in personal computers.
However, demand for these chips has been declining as consumers turn to tablet PCs, which mostly use flash memory chips.
At the same time, falling prices have also hurt profitability in the sector.
Samsung’s memory-chip division saw its profits slide by 54% during the first quarter when compared with the same period a year earlier.
The company said it expected the demand for DRAM chips to rebound in the coming months, but warned that growing competition in the sector “will lead to a price decline”.
Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17865117#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
Investors circle Barnes & Noble as it plans Nook spin-off
Barnes Noble has had a troubled few years. Part of the problem is that it continues to be a tablet business with a chain of bookshops connected to it rather than the other way around – with the tablet and ebook reader business growing at a savage pace, while the bookshop dawdles. But it clearly needs a new owner, and to that extent the financial vultures are circling – and a particularly clever and ruthless vulture, in the form of Jana Partners, has acquired just under 12 per cent of the business, in a new share issue, so clearly a move approved by Barnes Noble management.
Increasingly the shareholding is narrowing into fewer and fewer hands, with the founder Leonard Riggio still owning 29.7 per cent, and John Malone’s Liberty with some 16.6 per cent of the stock, through his $204m rescue of the business last year. A number of companies have fought in the past over ownership and potential breakup of Barnes Noble.
The war for the fate and ownership of BN goes all the way back to 2008 when it was harassed by the corporate adventurer Ronald Burkle through a group called the Yucaipa Funds. It built a stock position which forced the company to adopt a poison pill, which was set to expire during 2012, which kept the Yucaipa holding under 20 per cent. This is what necessitated the Liberty rescue move in the first place.
Yucaipa had been buying in an environment where BN was valued at under $1bn, but had revenues which were around $6bn and growing rapidly, all due to the fact that company was close to having a negative net worth. That holding is still in place at 19.8 per cent and in recent months there has been further activity, with a further 3.3 million new shares (around 5 per cent) going to Dimensional Fund advisors in December, and in February two further new share transactions of 6 million and 3 million shares for FMR and F Asset Management. All this adds up to around 85 per cent of the company’s equity – leaving management and outsiders with the rest.
Clearly this is a jockeying for position prior to the company changing direction. Back in December, with the first of those recent investments, Barnes Noble began exploring strategic steps for the Nook as a separate business, on the back of more stunning Nook sales – up 70 per cent over the previously year.
By separating the Nook ereader and tablet business, Nook can take separate funding from Barnes Noble, and it has the potential to become a genuine contender to compete with both the iPad, but more importantly the Amazon Kindle Fire and its range of ereaders. Already the company is talking about taking the Nook outside of the US through strategic partners, which would bolster its sales significantly.
By adding Jana Partners’ involvement this week there is the potential for an even more convoluted deal. Jana owns a significant piece of McGraw Hill and has been pushing for its breakup as well, separating the text book publishing business from financial services
If the Nook, through the Jana connection, could be sold with a captive textbook market place, courtesy of McGraw Hill, as well as an arms-length bookshop relationship with Barnes Noble, the deal has the potential to create a mini-Amazon, and through internationalisation, a genuine force in eBooks as well as in tablets generally.
It now looks like the final financial pieces are being set in place to free the Nook from BN ownership, and turn it into either an independent consumer electronics play, or more likely, a quick sale to a consumer electronics major, as a new front in tablets, already popular and established in the US, with its own content platform.
Shares in BN climbed higher immediately on the news that Jana Partners had taken a stake.
If the Nook can be sold off or separately floated, it will provide a cash cow for BN – which will help Founder Riggio focus on the business he knows so well: book sales.
In the quarter ended 28 January, BN had revenues of $2.44bn, but made only $52m profit, and showed an $11m loss in the nine months of the year to date and it had just $27.4m in the bank – nothing like enough to run a major book retail empire.
Copyright © 2012, Faultline
Faultline is published by Rethink Research, a London-based publishing and consulting firm. This weekly newsletter is an assessment of the impact of the week’s events in the world of digital media. Faultline is where media meets technology. Subscription details here.
Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/29/investors_circle_barnes_and_noble_as_it_plans_nook_spin_off/
Samsung overtakes Nokia in phones
27 April 2012
Last updated at 07:51
Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
Lucy Williamson reports from Seoul on Samsung’s success
Samsung Electronics has overtaken Nokia to become the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.
Nokia took the top spot in 1998 from Motorola, but in the first quarter of 2012 Samsung shipped 93m phones compared to almost 83m by Nokia.
Samsung also reported its highest quarterly profit since 2008.
Net profit was 5.05tn won ($4.5bn; £2.8bn) in the quarter ending 31 March, up 81% from 2.78tn won last year.
Samsung is also the world’s biggest TV and flat screen maker.
“We cautiously expect our earnings momentum to continue going forward, as competitiveness in our major businesses is enhanced,” said Robert Yi, head of investor relations at Samsung.
Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
Bright future
The firm said its IT and mobile communications division, which manufactures the smartphones, made an operating profit of 4.27tn won during the period, as revenues in the division surged 86% from a year earlier.
Samsung will unveil the latest version of its Galaxy range of phones on 3 May.
The Galaxy range has been very popular and helped Samsung overtake Apple to become the world’s biggest seller of smartphones.
“The smartphone market has almost only two players, Samsung and Apple,” said Lee Sei-Cheol of Meritz Securities.
“Since its Galaxy3 phone is being unveiled in May, Samsung will keep enjoying sales growth in its mobile phone division.”
Profit call
Global demand for smartphones is expected to increase further in coming years, with research firm IDC forecasting that global smart phone shipments will rise by a third to 659.8 million units in 2012.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Samsung’s handset earnings may weaken in the latter half of this year, with the possible launch of Apple’s iPhone 5”
End Quote
Brian Park
Tong Yang Securities
Analysts said that given its robust growth and dominance in the sector, Samsung was well placed to benefit from this growth and boost its market share.
However, given the robust growth in the sector, other smartphone makers are also keen to introduce new products and tap into the fast-growing market.
Samsung is facing stiff competition from rivals such as US-based Apple, Finland’s Nokia, and Taiwan’s HTC.
Apple, which said earlier this week that it sold 35 million of its iPhones in the first quarter, is expected to launch a new version of its handset later this year.
Analysts said that as more models are launched, manufacturers may have to the cut price of their handsets in a bid to attract consumers, a move that may see profit margins shrink.
“Samsung’s handset earnings may weaken in the latter half of this year, with the possible launch of Apple’s iPhone 5,” said Brian Park of Tong Yang Securities.
Chip troubles
Another area of concern for Samsung is likely to be its chip manufacturing unit, which has been hurt by slowing global demand for personal computers.
The success of Galaxy range of handsets has helped Samsung offset falls in other units
The firm is one of the world’s biggest makers of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips, which are widely used in personal computers.
However, demand for these chips has been declining as consumers turn to tablet PCs, which mostly use flash memory chips.
At the same time, falling prices have also hurt profitability in the sector.
Samsung’s memory-chip division saw its profits slide by 54% during the first quarter when compared with the same period a year earlier.
The company said it expected the demand for DRAM chips to rebound in the coming months, but warned that growing competition in the sector “will lead to a price decline”.
Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17865117#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
Intuit ups SMB cloud credentials with Demandforce buy
With the US tax season largely out of the way Intuit, makers of Quicken and TurboTax financial software, has paid $425m for SaaS marketing operation Demandforce to make a bigger play for the lucrative SMB cloud sector.
Demandforce has around 35,000 customers in the US and Canada and offers a package of marketing and communications tools aimed at using Facebook, Twitter, and other social and reputation sites to promote small businesses. The purchase is part of Intuit’s efforts to move beyond the financial sector and into a more full-service industry cloud vendor.
“This acquisition is right on strategy with helping service-based, appointments-based businesses retain customers, manage customers and retain their long-term reputation,” Kiran Patel, general manager of Intuit’s small business group told The Register.
He said a number of overseas vendors had expressed interest in using Intuit’s services, with Brazil named as a likely candidate. Intuit recently split with Aussie partner Reckon in an apparently unrelated move.
The buy, not Intuit’s biggest but certainly the largest in recent years, is intended to move the company out of a highly profitable niche SaaS sector into the bigger cloud world for SMBs. While the biggest vendors are concentrating on clouding up their enterprise customers, Intuit sees a good market in smaller businesses that wouldn’t attract the same interest from the big cloud players.
Demandforce won’t see many changes, being run as a subsidiary of Intuit, with no major redundancies expected besides the usual back office functions. The deal is expected to close next month and Intuit reports it should add a few points to its business for now.
“Demandforce will continue to be run by the same management team that built the company, and we are committed to pursuing our mission, preserving our culture of innovation, and delivering overwhelming value to our customers each and every day,” said Demandforce founder Rick Berry, who faces a very nice personal payday, in a blog post. ®
Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/27/intuit_cloud_demandforce_buy/
Microsoft ‘tried to influence consultation’
Microsoft is accused of trying to exert clandestine influence on a UK government consultation which could slash the software giant’s £700m income from the UK’s public sector.
The Cabinet Office has thrown out one “independent” expert who had been helping organise a public discussion on how to introduce free software into government – a move that has been calculated could save £600m annually – because he had not declared that he was also advising Microsoft directly.
On Thursday evening the Cabinet Office announced that Dr Andrew Hopkirk, who acted as a facilitator on some of the round tables, had not declared that he was also advising Microsoft directly on the consultation – a fact which the government department said “could be seen as a clear conflict of interest”.
As a result, the Cabinet Office has been forced to extend the consultation for a month, to 4 June. It was due to close next Tuesday 1 May.
Separately, Microsoft has also flown over Steve Mutkoski, a top lawyer who is its worldwide policy director on standards and licensing, from its Seattle headquarters to attend the meetings.
That has brought accusations that the software giant, whose Windows and Office programs are widely used in both central and local government and the NHS, is trying to influence the consultation and prevent any loss of revenues if the public sector were to switch away from products made by the US giant.
“Microsoft knows that if it loses the fight here, the UK government’s lock-in to its products will be weakened, and a major cash cow will be put increasingly at risk,” said Glyn Moody, an open standards advocate.
Although Microsoft’s Windows and Office are de facto standards in business, they are not free to use. Open standards advocates say that government should instead adopt free software products which are not tied to any one manufacturer, which would mean lower-cost alternatives could be used.
The outcomes of sessions led by Hopkirk will now be discounted from the consultation and re-run. But it has left a bitter taste among some advocates.
Richard Harvey, who works as a project engineer at Channel 4 TV, and is in favour of open standards, said when the consultation opened in February that “the open source community thought ‘fantastic, that policy hits the nail on the head, it’s a real win’. However no one reported this back, mainly due to a lack of knowledge on how these things work. This left a gaping hole for the corporate companies to exploit”.
Some of those opposing open standards are understood to have suggested that such products might still require payments to Microsoft and others due to royalties on the standards.
Harvey complains that companies such as Microsoft “are filling the consultation meetings with people discrediting open standards saying things such as how it prevents innovation and that it reduces interoperability and compatibility issues. Being large companies, they have the funds and resources to bring lawyers – and I mean a lot of lawyers – to the debate.”
Microsoft has an estimated annual revenue of about £4bn in the UK, or about 5% of its worldwide revenues. About £700m comes from the public sector, of which payments from central government makes up nearly half. Its Windows and Office divisions are hugely profitable, generating roughly 65% profit from revenues.
Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, hopes to cut costs in government, and the idea of using open standards software has been pushed within government for years – but with little success to date. Tom Watson, the Cabinet Office minister under the previous administration, unveiled a similar plan in February 2009 – but made no progress in trying to replace Windows and Office.
The Guardian was unable to contact Hopkirk before publication. In a blogpost for Computer Weekly about the event he facilitated, he wrote that the “gut feel” among the majority of the 16 attendees was that open standards would be “detrimental” to innovation and competition.
However, critics say the timing of the consultation, during a working day, would preclude those not paid to advocate non-free products. He also commented that “I do have a longstanding relationship with Microsoft purely on the basis of my consistently neutral, pragmatic, end-user oriented and supplier-agnostic perspective … I have not been asked to publicly or privately support any client brief or position in the government consultation.”
Maude has brought in Liam Maxwell, an outspoken former councillor at the Tory borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, to advise on how effectively the government could shift to open standards.
Maxwell has not commented on Hopkirk’s dual role, but sources within government told the Guardian that Maude had backed Maxwell in ejecting Hopkirk.
A Microsoft spokesman told the Guardian: “Microsoft isn’t against open standards”, and added: “Using just one standard isn’t necessarily the best approach. There’s a sense that by mandating on form of standard, that doesn’t give government the flexibility to choose the right product for a particular situation.”
Microsoft’s spokesman said that the adoption of open standards “wouldn’t adversely affect Microsoft’s business. None of the standards being discussed [by the government] would adversely affect Microsoft’s business.”
Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/27/microsoft-government-consultation
Samsung overtakes Nokia in phones
27 April 2012
Last updated at 07:51
Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
Lucy Williamson reports from Seoul on Samsung’s success
Samsung Electronics has overtaken Nokia to become the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.
Nokia took the top spot in 1998 from Motorola, but in the first quarter of 2012 Samsung shipped 93m phones compared to almost 83m by Nokia.
Samsung also reported its highest quarterly profit since 2008.
Net profit was 5.05tn won ($4.5bn; £2.8bn) in the quarter ending 31 March, up 81% from 2.78tn won last year.
Samsung is also the world’s biggest TV and flat screen maker.
“We cautiously expect our earnings momentum to continue going forward, as competitiveness in our major businesses is enhanced,” said Robert Yi, head of investor relations at Samsung.
Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
Bright future
The firm said its IT and mobile communications division, which manufactures the smartphones, made an operating profit of 4.27tn won during the period, as revenues in the division surged 86% from a year earlier.
Samsung will unveil the latest version of its Galaxy range of phones on 3 May.
The Galaxy range has been very popular and helped Samsung overtake Apple to become the world’s biggest seller of smartphones.
“The smartphone market has almost only two players, Samsung and Apple,” said Lee Sei-Cheol of Meritz Securities.
“Since its Galaxy3 phone is being unveiled in May, Samsung will keep enjoying sales growth in its mobile phone division.”
Profit call
Global demand for smartphones is expected to increase further in coming years, with research firm IDC forecasting that global smart phone shipments will rise by a third to 659.8 million units in 2012.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Samsung’s handset earnings may weaken in the latter half of this year, with the possible launch of Apple’s iPhone 5”
End Quote
Brian Park
Tong Yang Securities
Analysts said that given its robust growth and dominance in the sector, Samsung was well placed to benefit from this growth and boost its market share.
However, given the robust growth in the sector, other smartphone makers are also keen to introduce new products and tap into the fast-growing market.
Samsung is facing stiff competition from rivals such as US-based Apple, Finland’s Nokia, and Taiwan’s HTC.
Apple, which said earlier this week that it sold 35 million of its iPhones in the first quarter, is expected to launch a new version of its handset later this year.
Analysts said that as more models are launched, manufacturers may have to the cut price of their handsets in a bid to attract consumers, a move that may see profit margins shrink.
“Samsung’s handset earnings may weaken in the latter half of this year, with the possible launch of Apple’s iPhone 5,” said Brian Park of Tong Yang Securities.
Chip troubles
Another area of concern for Samsung is likely to be its chip manufacturing unit, which has been hurt by slowing global demand for personal computers.
The success of Galaxy range of handsets has helped Samsung offset falls in other units
The firm is one of the world’s biggest makers of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips, which are widely used in personal computers.
However, demand for these chips has been declining as consumers turn to tablet PCs, which mostly use flash memory chips.
At the same time, falling prices have also hurt profitability in the sector.
Samsung’s memory-chip division saw its profits slide by 54% during the first quarter when compared with the same period a year earlier.
The company said it expected the demand for DRAM chips to rebound in the coming months, but warned that growing competition in the sector “will lead to a price decline”.
Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17865117#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
Intuit ups SMB cloud credentials with Demandforce buy
With the US tax season largely out of the way Intuit, makers of Quicken and TurboTax financial software, has paid $425m for SaaS marketing operation Demandforce to make a bigger play for the lucrative SMB cloud sector.
Demandforce has around 35,000 customers in the US and Canada and offers a package of marketing and communications tools aimed at using Facebook, Twitter, and other social and reputation sites to promote small businesses. The purchase is part of Intuit’s efforts to move beyond the financial sector and into a more full-service industry cloud vendor.
“This acquisition is right on strategy with helping service-based, appointments-based businesses retain customers, manage customers and retain their long-term reputation,” Kiran Patel, general manager of Intuit’s small business group told The Register.
He said a number of overseas vendors had expressed interest in using Intuit’s services, with Brazil named as a likely candidate. Intuit recently split with Aussie partner Reckon in an apparently unrelated move.
The buy, not Intuit’s biggest but certainly the largest in recent years, is intended to move the company out of a highly profitable niche SaaS sector into the bigger cloud world for SMBs. While the biggest vendors are concentrating on clouding up their enterprise customers, Intuit sees a good market in smaller businesses that wouldn’t attract the same interest from the big cloud players.
Demandforce won’t see many changes, being run as a subsidiary of Intuit, with no major redundancies expected besides the usual back office functions. The deal is expected to close next month and Intuit reports it should add a few points to its business for now.
“Demandforce will continue to be run by the same management team that built the company, and we are committed to pursuing our mission, preserving our culture of innovation, and delivering overwhelming value to our customers each and every day,” said Demandforce founder Rick Berry, who faces a very nice personal payday, in a blog post. ®
Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/27/intuit_cloud_demandforce_buy/
Samsung overtakes Nokia in phones
27 April 2012
Last updated at 07:51
Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
Lucy Williamson reports from Seoul on Samsung’s success
Samsung Electronics has overtaken Nokia to become the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.
Nokia took the top spot in 1998 from Motorola, but in the first quarter of 2012 Samsung shipped 93m phones compared to almost 83m by Nokia.
Samsung also reported its highest quarterly profit since 2008.
Net profit was 5.05tn won ($4.5bn; £2.8bn) in the quarter ending 31 March, up 81% from 2.78tn won last year.
Samsung is also the world’s biggest TV and flat screen maker.
“We cautiously expect our earnings momentum to continue going forward, as competitiveness in our major businesses is enhanced,” said Robert Yi, head of investor relations at Samsung.
Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
Bright future
The firm said its IT and mobile communications division, which manufactures the smartphones, made an operating profit of 4.27tn won during the period, as revenues in the division surged 86% from a year earlier.
Samsung will unveil the latest version of its Galaxy range of phones on 3 May.
The Galaxy range has been very popular and helped Samsung overtake Apple to become the world’s biggest seller of smartphones.
“The smartphone market has almost only two players, Samsung and Apple,” said Lee Sei-Cheol of Meritz Securities.
“Since its Galaxy3 phone is being unveiled in May, Samsung will keep enjoying sales growth in its mobile phone division.”
Profit call
Global demand for smartphones is expected to increase further in coming years, with research firm IDC forecasting that global smart phone shipments will rise by a third to 659.8 million units in 2012.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Samsung’s handset earnings may weaken in the latter half of this year, with the possible launch of Apple’s iPhone 5”
End Quote
Brian Park
Tong Yang Securities
Analysts said that given its robust growth and dominance in the sector, Samsung was well placed to benefit from this growth and boost its market share.
However, given the robust growth in the sector, other smartphone makers are also keen to introduce new products and tap into the fast-growing market.
Samsung is facing stiff competition from rivals such as US-based Apple, Finland’s Nokia, and Taiwan’s HTC.
Apple, which said earlier this week that it sold 35 million of its iPhones in the first quarter, is expected to launch a new version of its handset later this year.
Analysts said that as more models are launched, manufacturers may have to the cut price of their handsets in a bid to attract consumers, a move that may see profit margins shrink.
“Samsung’s handset earnings may weaken in the latter half of this year, with the possible launch of Apple’s iPhone 5,” said Brian Park of Tong Yang Securities.
Chip troubles
Another area of concern for Samsung is likely to be its chip manufacturing unit, which has been hurt by slowing global demand for personal computers.
The success of Galaxy range of handsets has helped Samsung offset falls in other units
The firm is one of the world’s biggest makers of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips, which are widely used in personal computers.
However, demand for these chips has been declining as consumers turn to tablet PCs, which mostly use flash memory chips.
At the same time, falling prices have also hurt profitability in the sector.
Samsung’s memory-chip division saw its profits slide by 54% during the first quarter when compared with the same period a year earlier.
The company said it expected the demand for DRAM chips to rebound in the coming months, but warned that growing competition in the sector “will lead to a price decline”.
Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17865117#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
