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  • Job Losses Expected At SanDisk


    SanDisk is about to announce job cuts of around 15 per cent of its staff – or between 450 to 500 employees.

    Quoting unnamed industry sources, Engadget reported today that the job losses were to reduce costs following a USD $155 million Q3 loss and sales that have sunk by 21 per cent year-on-year to USD $281 million.

    SanDisk has just announced a new technology that will allow solid state disk (SSD) drives to perform up to 100 times faster than they can now.

    Called ExtremeFFS (Flash File System), it will accelerate random write speeds by up to 100 times over existing systems.

    The technology will appear in SanDisk SSD drives from next year.

  • Interxion To Expand London Data Center


    Carrier-neutral data center expert, Interxion, is to expand the capacity of its London City data center for the second time this year.

    Growing customer demand for high power density infrastructure is behind the expansion.

    The new 400 m² of equipped space, scheduled for completion in Q1 2009, will have access to the data centers 13 megawatt power supply, allowing it to deliver exceptionally high density power configurations of up to 17.5 kW per cabinet position.

    In April, Interxion completed a 1,250 m2 build-out. The Interxion London data center also hosts a Point of Presence for the London Internet Exchange (LINX).

    Greg McCulloch, MD of Interxion UK, said the mix of City of London location, power and connectivity was proving highly attractive to customers.

    “The site is served by some 28 carriers and network partners in total, giving a wide range of connectivity options, and customers can reduce latency while enhancing network resilience and availability by peering directly to LINX.”

  • HDTV Was Too Far From HP's Core Business


    Hewlett-Packard is just the latest PC OEM to learn a lesson about straying from its core business, according to Michael Wolf, Digital Home research director at ABI Research.

    Wolf’s comments follow reports that suggest HP is about to cease production of its HP MediaSmart LCD TV range in favor of focusing efforts on their HP MediaSmart Connect extender.

    Citing the experiences of Dell and Gateway, he asserts that it’s hard for a PC company to make a business in living room consumer electronics.

    "What was interesting about HP’s business was their focus on next-generation network connected HDTVs, adding Media Center functionality and IP connectivity to all of their devices," he said in his blog.

    "I don’t think this exit is so much a judgement on the idea of Internet connected HDTVs as it is on the ability of a PC OEM to enter a business that is much different than its core PC business.

    "PC brands, particularly around high-end systems like an HDTV, haven’t been successful at transferring their brands."

    Wolf’s advice to others considering entering new markets is to start a wholly new brand.

    He said this allows consumers to develop their own fresh connotations around the new brand – rather than associating it with established brands linked to "IT" or "PC".

    Do you agree? Please send us your comments.

  • IT Decision Makers Unclear About Unified Storage

    Unified storage has yet to make an impact on IT decision makers, with few even able to define what it stands for and even less aware of the business benefits of implementation, according to a survey.

    The study was conducted by Gartner and ONStor among 1600 IT and business decision makers from four continents and over 37 countries who attended the recent Gartner Data Center Summit and SNW Europe.

    It found that only 58 per cent of those questioned were familiar with the term unified storage.

    Unified storage has been defined as a single integrated storage infrastructure that functions as a unification engine to simultaneously support Fibre Channel, IP Storage Area Networks (SAN) and Network Attached Storage (NAS) data formats.

    Despite this, of the 50 per cent who said they could define it, 43 per cent thought it referred to virtualised storage and 56 per cent believed it was a combination of back up and storage.

    Narayan Venkat, vice president of corporate marketing at ONStor, said more had to be done to ensure IT professional were better briefed about unified storage.

    “What is absolutely clear from these top line survey findings is that the market needs more education on the benefits of unified storage, and that is where the vendor community needs to join forces with analysts to drive this message home," he said.

    Other key findings highlighted:

    • 21 per cent of the same who had heard of unified storage believed it would deliver a lower total cost of ownership

    • A further 21 per cent believed it would provide a more flexible network moving forward

    • The ability to protect the current investment in infrastructure was only cited by 8 per cent and only 6 per cent felt it would reduce operating costs and capital expenditure

  • Future SIM Cards Capable of Mass Audio and Video Storage


    Infineon Technologies and Micron Technology have announced a joint-venture to develop high-density subscriber identity module (HD-SIM) cards with a capacity greater than 128MB.

    HD-SIMs combine high density with improved security functionality, which the firms say enables operators to offer graphically-rich, value-added services such as mobile banking and contactless mobile ticketing.

    Operators are also able to securely update or delete applications through their wireless network while new applications, services and settings can be downloaded or pushed to the HD-SIM at any time.

    Working in close technical collaboration, both companies are leveraging their respective expertise to architect modular chip solutions that combine an Infineon security microcontroller with Micron’s NAND flash memory with features designed specifically for HD-SIM applications.

    Micron will manufacture the NAND on 50-nanometer (nm) and 34-nm process technology.

    Dr. Helmut Gassel, vice president and general manager of the Chip Card and Security division at Infineon Technologies, said: "Infineon envisions a new role of future SIM cards that will be capable of audio and video mass content storage and even Flash card replacement."

    Prototypes are expected to be available in the autumn of 2009 and will be sold in die form or in a chip card IC package.

  • Service Offers Camcorder Storage Solution


    The Photo Archival Company has launched a new archiving service that stores digital camcorder footage to Blu-ray Disc or DVD.

    Charles Laughlin, president and founder of The Photo Archival Company, said it would unlock millions of hours of video trapped inside today’s generation of no-tape camcorders that record to internal hard drive, external USB hard drive or flash memory.

    He said video footage could be preserved to produce long-lasting DVDs or Blu-ray Discs.

    "The recurring theme from a typical customer is that it is impractical for them to archive their digital footage first hand," he said.

    "For the average household, it can be a daunting task to spend the necessary time to tend to the successful creation of several DVDs or Blu-ray Discs just to continue filming."

  • Advertisers Need To Adapt To Mobile Internet


    Internet advertisers will need to create campaigns that work with multiple devices and display sizes if they want to benefit from growing mobile advertising revenue.

    That’s according to telecom analysts Berg Insight, who say a significant proportion of mobile advertising revenues will actually derive from mobile Internet users accessing conventional web sites.

    Smartphones will be the key device used to boost traditional Internet advertising revenues.

    Other predictions for the mobile advertising market included in Berg Insight’s report are:

    • Ad-funded business models will become a new paradigm in the discount MVNO segment of the mobile communications market. Price sensitive young consumers with low income will be most inclined to accept ads in exchange for voice minutes or text messages. Incidentally this group is also highly interesting for major advertisers.

    • Idle-screen will eventually become the largest mobile advertising channel. Virtually all consumers carry a mobile handset wherever they go and check out things on the display many times per day. Embedded advertising on the idle-screen and in the user interface would provide an unmatched exposure.

    • The current economic downturn will hold back revenue growth but not innovation. New unproven channels such as mobile media will see a negative effect from cutbacks in marketing budgets. However there is still going to be much innovation in the mobile space that will create new channels for advertisers to reach out to consumers.

    • Size will matter in the race for market leadership. Financial strength will be especially important if the market develops more slowly than previously anticipated. Existing digital and mobile industry players will have a major advantage over venture capital funded start-ups, many of which will have difficulties to find financing.

  • VoIP Solutions Used By Nearly Half of IT Firms


    Almost half of the IT organisations around the world have a VoIP network, according to a British Telecom study.

    BT’s survey of 267 global IT professionals showed that 48 per cent have a VoIP network at their work, up from 31 per cent in 2007.

    The UK telecoms company also found that a further 20 per cent are in the process of deploying VoIP solutions, with 71 per cent of these expected to be operational within two years.

    While most firms gradually replace their existing telephony systems with VoIP hardware, some install VoIP products or PBXs to replace ageing traditional PSTN systems.

    The survey found that the most important factors for firms considering a VoIP system are security, quality and reliability – a similar finding to surveys in 2005 and 2007.

    Demonstrating the ROI of moving from a PSTN system to VoIP services was listed by the highest percentage of respondents (27%) as the biggest hurdle to adoption of VoIP systems.

    "Cost is a critical factor when building a VoIP business case, but other criteria must take higher precedence when evaluating various implementation strategies and solutions," BT noted in its report.

    "Make sure you understand what your top requirements are, be they network reliability, voice quality or security, before committing to a strategy."

  • DIGITALK Now Certified "XConnect-Ready"


    XConnect, the world’s largest provider of VoIP federation peering services, has announced that the DIGITALK SIP Application Server has been certified XConnect-Ready.

    To obtain the certification the server had to complete interoperability testing based on SIP signaling and ENUM queries with XConnect Federations.

    Eli Katz, XConnect CEO, said the impact for customers would be to make VoIP federation-based routing quick, simple and easy.

    He said the certification ensures DIGITALK customers, such as Telfort, BT, and Cable & Wireless, will be able to rapidly connect to XConnect

    Peering Federations to reduce the costs of terminating VoIP calls to millions of telephone numbers in the XConnect registry.

    It will also protect their networks from spam-over-Internet-telephony (SPIT) attacks and reliably deliver new IP communications services across disparate and often separate mobile, wireline and IP based telephony networks.

    Justin Norris, managing director of DIGITALK, said the XConnect Ready certification is another way of ensuring that DIGITALK solutions enable integrated capabilities for the future.

    "The voice industry is moving towards Peering Federations that integrate peering and ENUM registry services to increase the efficiency of interconnection and routing, leverage new approaches to LNP, and deliver enhanced IP Communications services on more calls to their customers," he said.

    XConnect enables multi-media communication, reduces capex and opex and enhances call quality for service providers via its multi-lateral XConnect Alliance, DirectRoute and Private Federations services.

    XConnect Federations are carrier-neutral peering environments that deliver complete signaling interoperability, intelligent ENUM Registry services, and VoIP security for the interconnection of XConnect Members.

    These include voice over broadband providers, MSOs, and PTTs. The XConnect Ready Partner Program is an ecosystem of vendors and solution providers dedicated to facilitate service provider peering.