May, 2009

Dell said the company’s net profit dropped 63% to US$290 million (15 cents per share) in the first quarter of 2009, from US$784 million (38 cents per share) in the same period of 2008.

Without figuring in restructuring and real estate expenses, Dell which is based in Round Rock (Texas) and depends on selling laptop computers to businesses and government bodies, should have net profit per share of 24 cents.

During that period, the company’s revenue fell 23% to US$12.34 billion from US$16.08 billion, as revenue in all of its main businesses stepped down including the 34% fall in desktop computer sales and the 20% decerase in laptop computers PC sales.

Dell has spent years on trying to reduce its dependence on PCs by shifting its product mix toward data center equipment like server computers and storage systems. It has also tried to bolster its services segments and expand its consumer business.

At the same time, the company has since a long time before held several negotiations on making acquisitions, but it has decided to wait and see during the recession and not to take any significant step.

The company, which was founded by Michael S. Dell who is currently the company’s chief executive,  acknowledges that its cost structure has swollen in recent years, making it vulnerable compared to Hewlett and Acer of Taiwan.

Acer has low costs and this has proved beneficial during the depression as its lower prices have helped it gain market share. Technology analysts said, Acer is now tied with Dell as the second-largest PC maker in the world after Hewlett and Packard.

Microsoft is making a progress in challenging Google in the Internet search business by introducing a new search service called Bing, to replace Live Search which has replaced MSN Search.

The company has invested billions of dollars in those services and has been unable to halt Google’s growth. That is why Microsoft will introduce Bing because it will be able help people with complex tasks like shopping for a camera.

Bing is unique because when it turns into a verb like for instance, Xerox, TiVo or Google, it will be nice still. Branding experts said choosing the name of Bing is not only a good start but also the easiest part of the challenge facing the company, as most people turn to Google without even thinking about it.

But other branding experts said said Microsoft should have chosen a name that more directly connotes search, because Bing has no equity and cannot signal anyhing.

Palm Inc said it will launch its Pre smart phone in the next few days, which is expected to challenge Apple Inc’s iPhone as it will have new features like a media manager that is capable to download music directly from Apple’s iTunes.

Besides, the Pre smart phone will feature an Internet-based store like Apple’s iPhone App Store, where software can be downloaded onto the phone.

Palm and another smart phone maker Sprint will begin to sell their highly-anticipated Pre smart phone on June 6 as the two companies look for a hit device to reverse customer defections.

The touch-screen model was introduced by Palm to great fanfare in January. Billed as a competitor to Apple iPhone and the latest BlackBerrys, the Pre will cost $199 after a $100 mail-in rebate with a two-year Sprint contract
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Sprint, which has lost more than six million subscribers in the last six quarters, hopes the Pre will act as a strong retention tool for its wireless customers. Palm, of Sunnyvale, California, hoped that the device’s new webOS software will help it regain market share.

The Pre, which has a slide-out keyboard, includes features new to mobile devices such as the ability to open several screens or programs simultaneously. It will initially work only on Sprint’s network.

But the Pre faces stiff competition. Some analysts say Apple’s next iPhone could surface as soon as a June 8 event the company is hosting for developers.

Yahoo Japan Corp said it has launched a video delivery service called the “Douga (video) Channel” via “Yahoo! Japan for Aquos” online service for televisions starting May 27, 2009.

This service, which focuses on video programs provided on the “Official Channel” of its “Yahoo! Douga,” will be available for free on more than 3,000 videos, so there is no need to registrate membership or file any other application.

As the service is aimed at Sharp Corp’s “Aquos DS6 line” products, they are equipped with the revised version of Sharp’s GUI execution environment, named “Ex system,” for video. Yahoo Japan will deliver HDTV quality (4Mbps) contents encoded using the H.264 format and SDTV quality (2Mbps) contents to televisions.

Yahoo Japan is discussing on delivering fee-based video programs but has not determined the details yet, as it is striving to increase the number of users and intends to aim at one million television sets using the service early on. The company said it will deliver fee-based video contents and commercials in the future.

Reports said Yahoo Japan is discussing about delivering video programs owned by GyaO, that will be integrated with Yahoo! Douga in September 2009.

Handset manufacturers and wireless operators are striving to enter the mass market of social-networking sites, by making special cellular phones with social-networking software and have features of smart phones but at are sold lower prices.

The reason is that social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are popular and have been often accessed through sophisticated cellular phones like the iPhone and the BlackBerry. Unluckily, basic cellular phones are mostly prone to have awkwardly-designed Web browsers which are not capable to support fancy software.

So today wireless operators like AT&T Inc and Sprint Nextel Corp are struggling to improve access to the services by upgrading browsers on regular cellular phones and integrating Web-based applications made by companies such as Intercasting Corp, whose Anthem service lets users monitor and update several networking and messaging services at once. At the same time, Mobile email provider Good Technology Inc said it was acquiring Intercasting at an undisclosed price.

ComScore M:Metrics Inc said, about 15% of the 25 million US smart-phone users access social-networking Web sites almost every day, compared with about 3.6% of users of more basic feature phones.

Many smart-phone users download slick software that make it simple to upload Facebook photos or send updates by Twitter, the microblogging service. Lower-end phones don’t have the memory or processing power to run such software.

Developing new phones that can be priced for the mass market but include features of smart phones isn’t easy. Hutchison Whampoa’s INQ Mobile device comes loaded with Facebook software that ties into users’ address books, but to keep the cost down it lacks smart-phone features like a full keyboard and music player.

INQ said it has sold 700,000 devices since November 2007, including the social-networking phone and a separate phone geared to the Internet-calling service Skype. Hutchison Whampoa’s 3 UK offers the INQ phone for $110 on a pay-as-you-go basis, compared with the US$545 price tag of the iPhone through rival carrier O2.

Hewlett-Packard Co (HP) is holding negotiations with Chinese cellular operators China Mobile Ltd, China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd and China Telecom concerning the plan to offer mobile broadband-enabled mini-notebooks called Netbooks including their services, that are expected to help expand HP’s sales outlest in China.

HP has introduced several new products in Beijing recently which included a notebook computer, the HP Mini 110 series, which has weight of 2.5 pounds with price of US$299.

China as the world’s second-largest PC market by shipments has seen that demand is likely to rebound, as HP notebooks recorded the highest growth category of its China PC sales, although HP has remained cautious about the company’s outlook.

HP’s sales grew more rapidly in China druring the fiscal quarter that ended on April 30, than the local PC market as a whole. HP’s gains in China reflected an increase in market share to 13.7% in the first calendar quarter from 10.9% in the previous quarter.

HP has made an important advancement during the last two years, faster than Chinese PC manufacturers like Founder Electronics Co which is the second largest vendor in the country after Lenovo Group Ltd. Today HP has service centers in 425 cities of Chinese, higher than 325 at the end of the previous year.

The company has emphasized four new products, and following its HP Mini 110 the company has launched an all-in-one computer called the HP Pavilion MS200 that will be sold at price that ranges from US$599.

H-P also has emphasized low prices as commercial and consumer PC demand has slowed world-wide because of the weakened economy.

The company booked 17% profit decline in its second quarter on revenue of US$27.4 billion and expects revenue of its PC division to fall by 19%. It seems that there will be no improvement in the current quarter, and the company expects revenue to decline to 5% during that period.

A report from a local news station in Houston said recently that many users have found that even only the moisture from their hands will cause iPhones to malfunction and the immersion sensors in the devices to trip - which means Apple would not replace the devices - even if they are under guarantee.

All of the people quoted in the report had used their iPhone while working out at the gym, and when they brought the now-broken devices to the Apple store, employees suggested that the water damage came from holding the phones in their sweaty palms.

It is nearly imposibe to criticize the wisdom of gripping any phone in our hands while we are running or working out, but exercising (pun intended) a little more caution when we use a $200 to $300 (subsidized) device might be in order.

Besides, users who have encountered this kind of problem are not completely out of luck, because Apple recently has introduced a new exchange policy for water-damaged devices that allows people to exchange them for a working unit for $199.

It remains somewhat pricey, and all replacement units are refurbished hardware, but it is better than nothing. As it is generally acknowledged, Apple should stop marketing the exercise aid potential of the iPhone, or improve its moisture resistance, but until that happens, think again if not you really need that phone by your side or not when you are pumping iron.

Number of Wii videogames made by outside publishers will be increased, including combat and sports titles that target serious players, in order to keep up the momentum for Wii console.

Nintendo Co, producer and owner of such videogames, said the company hopes to raise the percentage of games made by outside publishers to approximately 70% of the Wii’s library of games, up from about 55% today or about the same ratio as the split for its portable Nintendo DS device.

Nintendo said it has no plan to reduce the price of the Wii from US$250 which is the price since the first launching, because price cuts are merely short-term incentive and in the long run the company will need software to excite people.

The company has sold more than 50 million units throughout the world since the launching of Wii in November 2006, and much of its popularity was triggered by casual games that it has created itself. For instance, the Nintendo-developed Wii Play has been the top selling game, and the company has sold 10.7 million copies in the US, more than three times as many units as the top game by an outside publisher, Guitar Hero III.

Yet, Nintendo is now making a stronger effort in motivating publishers to make games for the Wii to ensure a steady flow of diverse games, and to achieve high levels of sales of hardware the company needs all genres in the market.

As a realization of the effort, Nintendo has taken an extraordinary step in permitting  videogame publisher Electronic Arts Inc (EA) to launch two sports games that take advantage of a brand new hardware accessory more than a month before Nintendo’s own marquee game is released.

EA plans to sell Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 in North America and Europe, packaged with the Wii MotionPlus, an attachment for the Wii’s wireless controller that makes it more sensitive to movement. In Europe, EA also plans to sell a second game, Grand Slam Tennis.

HP’s laptop computers more additions to its Mini HP netbook lineup coming with the 1101 and 110 XP / Mi. All three models sport a 10.1-inch widescreen LED, autosync software for easier connectivity to your primary laptop computers.

The laptop computers base on 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 / 1.66GHz N280 processor options with GMA 950 graphics, VGA output, 3 or 6 cell batteries, and 802.11b/g.

While the HP Mini 110 XP edition come with 1GB RAM and 160GB HDD or 32GB SSD, as well as optional WWAN and a Broadcom Crystal HD Enhanced Video Accelerator. HP claims will let you watch 1080p video smoothly on it.

If you used the Linux-based Mi, you can bump up to 250GB HDD and 2GB memory. The Mini 1101 is coming on June with a base price of $329, those will start at $279 with Mi and $329 if you want Windows XP instead. See more the HP Netbook images below.

Video demo of Sony BRAVIA internet on XBR9 and Z-series televisions with built-in Ethernet jack for accessing internet media and informational widgets based on the Yahoo platform. BRAVIA connected capabilities on a production set using Sony’s Xross Media Bar UI and Bravia remote control and the user experience on these Bravias consistent with Sony’s PS3 and PSP gaming consoles.