Business News Holding

Author: admin

  • LED Breathes New Life into Monitor Market

    Capitalizing on the slim form factor and energy savings potential, the use of LEDs in LCD monitor panels is growing rapidly, according to DisplaySearch.

    “Although the desktop monitor market is mature, panel makers and brands are working together to develop new features such as slimness and lower power consumption to rejuvenate the sector,” say the analysts.

    Panel makers are using LED backlights in mainstream monitor sizes such as 18.5”, 19”, 22”, and 23”/24”. Although LED backlight penetration in monitor panels was only 1.4% in Q3’09, current panel maker plans indicate that the penetration could reach 22% in Q3’10, assuming adoption by brands.

    According to DisplaySearch’s latest Quarterly LED Backlight Panel Shipment & Forecast Report, InnoLux was the leading supplier of LED backlit monitor panels in Q3’09, with 34.4% of unit shipments.

    Other panel makers producing such panels include LG Display, AUO, Samsung and CMO. Brands like Samsung, Dell, LG, Acer, Lenovo, BenQ and AOC began launching LED backlit LCD monitors ranging from 18.5” to 24” in Q3’09.

    DisplaySearch says in Q1’10, 20”, 23.6” and 27” panels will enter the market. In addition, there are small LCD TV sizes such as 26” that are adapting monitor panels, the LED backlight is also brining the attractions to this segment.

    TV brands like Vizio are promoting 18.5” and 23” LCD TV using LED backlit monitor panels, and more brands are expected to join in 2010.

    “LEDs have significant advantages over traditional backlights, such as power consumption, slim form factor, and product differentiation,” noted Brian Chen, DisplaySearch Research Director for TFT LCD & Materials and the author of the report.

    He claims while there are still some technical concerns such as brightness performance, the LED backlight premium in the LCD monitor is much smaller than LCD TV.

    “Meanwhile, the awareness of green technology and energy savings factors in LEDs has generated consumer demand. We are seeing panel makers and also monitor brands promoting LED backlights—resulting in panel makers’ aggressive target for 22% penetration in Q3’10,” he said.

  • Zhone Technologies Makes Impact with Telecommunications Platform

    The world of telecommunications is rapidly changing. The amount of information we are consuming on both personal and business levels is increasing and forcing the telecommunication companies to innovate, create, and deploy sustainable equipment allowing growth and ease of use.

    As higher levels of broadband are needed, the transition is leaving many service providers looking for a company that can offer an “all in one” answer to streamlining their offerings.

    Zhone Technologies specializes in multi cell service platforms selling to the service provider community globally. The company which pioneered the known as Broadband Loop Carriers (BLC’s) has just recently turned 10 years old.

    In those years they’ve seen the landscape for telecommunications change from the world of copper to the introduction and adoption of fiber. Most importantly though, they’ve always looked to the access market as an area where they need to focus their services in providing technology for all options available in market place. ADSL, BDSL, ESM, GPON, and active Ethernet.

    Growing revenues while maintain customers is what service providers look to do.

    In the Zhone

    Zhone prides itself in providing excellent customer service, but they also look at helping the service providers they work with provide the best experience possible. Their product is unique in the market, and one that stands the test of scalability and transition, as people move from copper to fiber.

    Zhone produces a platform where providers can service all technologies on same platform, unlike having to service multiple devices.

    “We’re also known to have the smallest most dense engineering boxes so service providers can get the most out of serving the most number of customers,” says Gerardo Lara, Director of Marketing at Zhone in an interview with smartphone.biz-news.com.

    The two factors that set Zhone apart from their competitors is their main drive to focus on two things for their customers, longevity, and cost savings.

    The high point is the engineering strategy that is a focal point for all technologies. Unlike others in the business offering copper services, the need for bandwidth is going up and fiber is a necessity. So when a company goes out to buy a multi platform box to service copper connections but grow into fiber, they don’t have to change their equipment entirely, they just remove the copper services. Transitions are easy and seamless. This ensures the longevity of the box since it’s scalable and will grow with the end users as their company grows.

    Having a dense platform is another win for Zhone. If you look at their latest platform, the MXK, if you were to do all GPON it’s possible to service up to 9,000 customers at once, off one platform. When you compare that to other comparable solutions it’s not as dense and companies have to buy more boxes, more cards, and overall becomes a expensive option. By reducing these costs, and having them only depend on one box, you’ve essentially saved them a lot of money.

    Copper to Fiber

    When asked when a company changes over from copper to fiber offerings, Gerardo says, “it’s not so much company to company where the decisions are made as much as it is country to country. In certain countries like the Middle East, they are going all fiber and skipping copper all together. In the US, there is a lot of mix use depending on the company and where they are located.”

    The return on the investment for fiber is what scares most service providers, because you have to dig and put down fiber which is the biggest cost associated with these services. New neighborhoods are prone to get fiber before anywhere else only because there is digging being done already, so copper become obsolete. If they build it, will customers buy it, is a key question that is being asked by service providers. The natural return on investment comes out to 3-5 years, but most would like to see that number reduce.

    Some markets like Japan and South Korea are exceptions to the rule, the return is more immediate because of how information is consumed by the population.

    Verizon is the most aggressive in fiber offerings, in the U.S.

    At the Ethernet Expo 2009 in New York, Zhone had the honour of being on the panel for “Think Tank – Carrier Ethernet Network & Service Management Strategies."

  • Almost Two Million Mobile WiMAX Subscribers Expected by End of 2009

    Larger-scale mobile WiMAX network deployments are finally becoming a reality, according to recent ABI Research report.

    The research shows Clearwire in the United States has already declared 173,000 subscribers, Yota in Russia has been growing at a decent rate reaching 100,000 subscribers in August and 200,000 in October, and PacketOne in Malaysia has reached 130,000 subscribers.

    “UQ Communications once expected to reach 300,000 subscribers by the end of 2009, but is behind schedule in its rollout and will fall short of that initial target. South Korea has seen KT’s and SKT’s subscriber numbers remain fairly stagnant, while these service providers prepare for another big push as a third WiMAX service provider comes to South Korea,” says the report.

    ABI Research predicts this handful of WiMAX service providers alone will account for a significant minority of the nearly two million mobile WiMAX subscribers expected by the end of 2009.

    "Mobile WiMAX service providers around the world find themselves in very different situations," comments ABI Research practice director Philip Solis.

    "Some are mainly focused on fixed services for homes and businesses, while others are jumping feet first into mobile WiMAX, offering a variety of external modems, laptops, netbooks and even handsets tied into HD multimedia services, as with Yota in Russia. Some have little fixed or mobile broadband competition, while others are competing directly against fixed and mobile broadband services.

    "Some, such as Japan’s UQ Communications, are behind their buildout schedules and subscriber expectations, while others such are Clearwire are increasing the pace of their deployments because of more-than-adequate funding. Still others such as Yota in Russia are exceeding all expectations. Some are remaining local, while others, such as Clearwire and Yota, are building networks in more than one country.”

    The research group also says that just as the mobile WiMAX market is starting to bloom, LTE networks from early movers such as Verizon Wireless and NTT DoCoMo are targeting the same potential customers.

    According to the analysts, LTE ecosystem will eventually be vastly larger than the mobile WiMAX ecosystem. “But just as LTE deployments start picking up in 2011 and 2012, some 802.16e service providers will begin upgrading their networks to 802.16m,” they say.

  • Skype For SIP Now Available in Beta

    Skype announced that it is opening up the Skype for SIP beta program. It allows businesses to utilize Skype for SIP with their existing SIP-based PBX or Unified Communications systems.

    Skype for SIP beta enables businesses to receive and manage inbound calls from Skype users worldwide on SIP-enabled PBXs by either connecting the company Web site to the PBX via Skype click-to-call buttons or purchasing online Skype numbers.

    It also lets companies manage Skype calls using existing PBX or UC system features, such as call routing, conferencing, phone menus and voicemail (without additional downloads).

    Skype Business Control Panel, a Web-based tool, allows a company to control its Skype usage from a single point and enables centralized billing, allocation of Skype Credit, subscriptions and online numbers to users. It also gives companies the ability to manage internal employee accounts.

    Companies using Skype for SIP must purchase a monthly channel subscription from Skype based on the number of concurrent calls being made or received. Each channel allows for one inbound or one outbound call at any given time.

    Incoming Skype calls to the SIP-enabled PBX or UC system are free of charge to the Skype user. Calls to landlines and mobiles made using Skype for SIP are billed at Skype’s standard per-minute calling rates.

    The company informed that they have created special introductory price for the monthly channel subscription of $6.95 per channel.

  • Comcast and GE Form Venture and Take Control of NBC

    Comcast and General Electric announced that they have signed a definitive agreement to form a joint venture that will be 51 percent owned by Comcast, 49 percent owned by GE and managed by Comcast.

    The joint venture will consist of the NBC Universal businesses and Comcast’s cable networks, regional sports networks and certain digital properties and certain unconsolidated investments.

    A portfolio of cable networks and regional sports networks will account for about 80 percent of the new venture cash flow, including USA, Bravo, Syfy, E!, Versus, CNBC and MSNBC. The campanies assure the joint venture will be financially strong “with a robust cash-flow-generation capability.”

    GE will contribute to the joint venture NBCU’s businesses valued at $30 billion, including its cable networks, filmed entertainment, televised entertainment, theme parks, and unconsolidated investments, subject to $9.1 billion in debt to third party lenders.

    Comcast will contribute its cable networks including E!, Versus and the Golf Channel, its ten regional sports networks, and certain digital media properties, collectively valued at $7.25 billion, and make a payment to GE of approximately $6.5 billion of cash subject to certain adjustments based on various events between signing and closing.

    According to Jeff Immelt, GE Chairman and CEO, the combination of Comcast’s cable and regional sports networks and digital media properties and NBCU will deliver strong returns for GE shareholders and business partners.

    “NBCU has been a great business for GE over the past two decades. We have generated an average annual return of 11 percent, while expanding into cable, movies, parks and international media. We are reducing our ownership stake from 80 percent to 49 percent of a more valuable entity. By doing so, GE gets a good value for NBCU. This transaction will generate approximately $8 billion of cash at closing with an expected small after-tax gain,” he said.

    Comcast also announced the creation of Comcast Entertainment Group (CEG), which will house Comcast’s interest in the joint venture and will stand alongside Comcast Cable, which operates the company’s traditional cable business.

    Headquarters for the business will remain in New York. The joint venture board will have three directors nominated by Comcast and two nominated by GE.

    Jeff Zucker, current president and CEO of NBCU, will be CEO of the new joint venture and will report to Steve Burke, Comcast Chief Operating Officer. Zucker said, “I’m genuinely excited that I will be leading this wonderful organization, along with the Comcast team, at this important time in our history."

  • Micron First To Deliver Native SATA 6Gb/s SSD

    Micron claims it has raised the performance bar for SSDs with the launch of its RealSSD C300 SSD, the industry’s fastest for notebook and desktop PCs.

    While benchmark tests have shown that the C300 SSD is the fastest PC SSD leveraging the industry standard SATA 3Gb/s interface, the SSD performance is further boosted by natively supporting the next generation high-speed interface – SATA 6Gb/s, according to Micron.

    “While some drive architectures require a trade-off between throughput-sensitive and IOPS-sensitive data streams, Micron’s core design and higher speed interface provides advantages for both,” the company says.

    The C300 SSD leverages the SATA 6Gb/s interface to achieve a read throughput speed of up to 355MB/s and a write throughput speed of up to 215MB/s. Using the common PC Mark Vantage scoring system, the C300 SSD turns in a score of 45,000 from the HDD Suite.

    “Hard drives gain little performance advantage when using SATA 6Gb/s because of mechanical limitations,” said Dean Klein, vice president of memory system development at Micron.

    “As a developer of leading-edge NAND technology, along with our sophisticated controller and firmware innovations, Micron is well positioned to tune our drives to take full advantage of the faster speeds achieved using the SATA 6Gb/s interface. The combination of these technology advancements has enabled the RealSSD C300 drive to far outshine the competition,” he added.

    The RealSSD C300 drive was designed using micron’s established 34nm MLC NAND flash memory. Bringing another first to SSDs, Micron’s 34nm MLC NAND supports the high-speed ONFI 2.1 standard and it’s expected to ensure the NAND performance keeps pace with the faster SATA 6Gb/s interface.

    The drives will be available in 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch form factors, with both drives supporting 128GB and 256GB capacities. The company informed they are currently sampling the C300 SSD in limited quantities and expects to enter production in the first quarter of 2010.

  • LG Rolls Out 3D LCDs with Full HD Resolution

    LG announced the world’s first commercial launch of 3D LCD panel boasting full HD resolution.

    Although full HD 3D images have been developed for contents such as video games, movies and animations, 3D display products with full HD resolution were unavailable in the market.

    According to LG, the commercial launch of its full HD 3D LCD panel is expected to “help to boost development of high resolution 3D contents while allowing users to view true-to-life 3D images.”

    The new product is a 23-inch 3D monitor LCD panel for use with shutter glasses that delivers full HD resolution. LG syas it offers picture quality that is almost twice as crisp as HD 3D displays currently available in the market.

    The panel adopts the company’s proprietary technologies such as “high performance 3D exclusive controller” capable of processing more than twice as much image data as other HD 3D LCDs and “copper bus line” to improve on the resolution and picture quality, as LG claims.

    In addition, the panel is able to reproduce both 2D and 3D images, meaning that users can switch back and forth from 2D and 3D modes.

    The 3D display market is expected to grow at rapid pace as the industry players are shifting their focus from two-dimensional to three-dimensional technologies.

    The Korea Communications Commission recently announced plans to start a trial service for the world’s first full HD 3D terrestrial broadcasting from the second half of 2010. A launch of trial services for 3D satellite broadcasts had been also announced earlier in Japan and the UK.

  • Mobile Business Advertising Made Easy with Peperoni Mobile

    Doing business on the web is vital, the next major step is doing business on the go, and that requires mobility.

    Mobile content is catapulting companies into an entirely new market of individuals consuming content as they move from place to place. Companies making their content mobile are seeing huge results compared to those that have not taken that step.

    Peperoni Mobile & Internet Software is a company that is offering a complete mobile solution for businesses. Their site states that “Peperoni develops and operates solutions for mobile communities, online shops and individual software solutions.”

    Smartphone.Biz-News.com recently had the pleasure of interviewing Marcus Ladwig, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Peperoni and discussing the use of mobility services, how businesses are expanding, and what the future has in store for businesses and Peperoni alike.

    Smartphone.Biz-News.com: Share with us a little about Peperoni Mobile & Internet Software and what mobile platforms you support.

    Marcus Ladwig: Peperoni is a Wireless Application Service Provider focused on Mobile Web 2.0 applications. Our mobile social networking and site building platform peperonity.com works browser-based and is supported by a number of small clients. This means that anyone with a mobile internet-enabled handset can use our services via the built-in WAP or WWW browser. It does not matter what make and model the handset is – our platform automatically selects the optimum display available for that device to make best use of its capabilities. peperonity.com is available both in WAP and Web and supports 11 languages right now. It’s really a worldwide service.

    Marcus Ladwig

    What type of business can be done via your platform and when a company would consider using your services?

    peperonity.com offers advertisement slots all over the platform. Companies can reach their target audience easily by advertising to our mobile social services and tap into formerly unaddressed target audiences. We offer attractive CPM and CPC advertisement models and we are open for sponsorships, whether for particular devices or in certain sections of the platform.

    Share with us your thoughts on the explosion of the mobile market.

    With more and more web services offering mobile extensions and more web-centric people becoming aware of the mobile world, the market is growing at a rapid pace. What’s also important is that all participants in the mobile market make clear what their USP is in mobile and what kind of audience they are addressing. But it’s good to be finally taken serious as an industry sector.

    Do you see the future of business being handled more on mobile devices, as opposed to computers and laptops, or do you see mobile devices only remaining as a supplementary tool to existing platforms?

    I don’t think it’s a question of either this or that – mobile and PC are two different worlds and like with TV and PC business, there are and will be brands that are successful on TV, others are on PC’s and there are those that make use of both media. But there will always be a particular medium firstly associated with it. For example, CNN is a TV station but also has a sophisticated website. EBAY is a website but has a mobile extension. peperonity is a mobile platform with a web interface and so on. Mobile is the 4th screen besides Print, TV and Online and therefore, cross-media brands will need to include mobile into their portfolio in order to be taken seriously …

    How do you compare business done via mobile devices between Europe, Asia, and the United States?

    To me it seems as if European customers are the most willing to pay for extra services, while Asian customers make up for the most usage. US customers seem quite over-fed with advertising bringing click rates and ad prices down. Plus, European and US markets face the problem of lower conversion rates as customers still associate mobile with being ripped-off by some strange subscription-based ring tone services.

    You’ll be speaking on Dec. 7th at the Mobile Monday event in Switzerland, share with us the topic you’ll be speaking about, and will you be showcasing anything at that event?

    The topic of my presentation will be "Keys to successful community growth with mobile" and I will be talking about success factors in mobile social networks, how platforms converge and what challenges and opportunities social services are facing in a changing environment with spoiled customers. One of the highlights I will be showing will be our new and completely refurbished web interface which we hope to be launching in the beginning of 2010.

  • Samsung Begins Volume Production of 30-nm-class, 3-bit MLC NAND Flash Chips

    Samsung announced that it commenced the industry’s first volume production of 3-bit, multi-level-cell NAND flash chips using 30-nm-class process technology at the end of November.

    The chips will be used in NAND flash modules accompanied by Samsung 3-bit NAND controllers to initially produce 8 GB microSD cards.

    According to Samsung, three-bit MLC NAND increases the efficiency of NAND data storage by 50 percent over today’s pervasive 2-bit MLC NAND chips and provides consumers with effective NAND-based storage that can be applied to USB flash drives in addition to a range of micro SD cards.

    The company claims mass production of 30nm 3-bit NAND will significantly raise the portion of NAND flash memory production devoted to high densities (32Gb and above), designed to accommodate increased video usage.

    Samsung also announced other NAND advancements – the industry’s first mass production of its 30-nm-class, 32 Gb, MLC NAND memory with an asynchronous DDR interface.

    The company said it began shipping initial production of its DDR NAND to major OEMs at the end of November.

    DDR NAND is expected to raise the read performance of mobile devices requiring high-speeds and large amounts of storage space. Samsung’s new DDR MLC NAND chip, which reads at 133 Mbps would replace single data rate MLC NAND, which has an overall read performance of 40Mbps.

    Use of 30nm-class DDR NAND enables premium memory cards to register 60Mbps read speeds, at least a 300 percent performance gain compared to SDR NAND-based memory cards with an average 17Mbps read speed.

    According to market research firm Gartner Dataquest, the global NAND flash memory market is forecast to be worth US$13.8 billion in 2009 and reach US$23.6 billion by 2012.

  • XO Unveils New Enterprise SIP

    BroadSoft and XO Communications announced a new enterprise-class, multi-site SIP trunking solution offered by XO.

    XO Enterprise SIP is an enhanced SIP trunking service offering for large enterprises, that enables them to transform their distributed PBX/PSTN interconnection to a “more centralized and cost-effective” VoIP solution.

    According to the companies, enterprises can deploy a centralized IP-PBX in one or several primary locations and deliver VoIP services to other sites across their network. Businesses can also configure trunk capacity across their network, providing each site with on-demand access to unused call capacity.

    “This will greatly reduce capital expenses and operating costs of managing voice services and equipment at each location,” says BroadSoft.

    Based on the latest release of BroadWorks, XO Enterprise SIP uses Enterprise Trunking feature set of the BroadWorks VoIP application platform to “simplify management of VoIP services” and ensure business continuity across an enterprise’s network.

    It provides support for multiple, redundant SIP trunk groups per PBX/IP PBX, enterprise-level call capacity and "bursting" in support of multi-site enterprise environments, new caller ID screening features for enterprise least-cost-routing and improved interoperability with non-SIPconnect compliant IP PBXs.

    XO Communications currently uses BroadWorks to support its flagship XO IP Flex and XO SIP integrated access service offerings targeted at the small and mid-sized business market.

    The companies say large enterprises with multi-site locations such as banks, international financial institutions, retail stores and professional services firms, have unique requirements when it comes to SIP trunking deployments.

    “It is often the case where a single, large IP PBX provides for an entire 50,000 person organization; therefore, loss of PSTN connectivity can have a major impact on business operations,” they claim.

    "SIP trunking is a strategic decision for large enterprises today. Supporting more than half of the Fortune 500, XO Communications required a solution that could not only meet the stringent reliability and diverse topology requirements of their large enterprise customers, but also provide cost certainty and dynamic, on-demand scalability," said David Bukovsky, vice president of products at BroadSoft

    Vince Margiotta, vice president of product marketing at XO Communications assures that XO Enterprise SIP eliminates the inefficiencies of legacy voice services in a managed IP network environment.