Technology Industry Archive

In its current anti-Apple marketing thrusts, Microsoft is creating a dangerous dilemma. Slowly but surely, the PC software giant is building the argument that PC prices should drive downward as fast as possible, and that its own considerable revenue cut should dwindle. As Tom Krazit at CNET has pointed out, Microsoft has played into Apple’s hands with the company’s latest...

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Back in October, Apple’s new process for making aluminum computer cases out of a single block received attention, and rightly so. No screws, stronger units, lighter weight, and cheap costs are a big plus for consumer and manufacturer alike. We should have known that wouldn’t have been the end of new case manufacturing. Apparently Apple has developed a related process to make handheld...

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Apple Computer has ordered an ungodly 100 million 8 GB NAND flash chips, driving speculation that Apple has something big up its sleeve beyond the next iPhone slated for release this summer. The move has also caused a flurry of activity in the distressed semiconductor manufacturing, and may result in new deal-making opportunities for Micron Technologies. There’s nothing unusual about...

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Sometimes you read the news and are surprised. Sometimes you nod at something you foresaw. And sometimes you scratch your head, wondering how people miss something obvious. In the gaming industry, there are some that understand pricing well, and then there’s Sony. For example, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata apparently had to come out and say that the company didn’t plan a price cut...

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Cisco’s decision to create a monolithic environment, and to sell servers in competition with HP, IBM and other erstwhile partners, was just the first salvo in a battle for domination of enterprise data centers. IBM’s aborted attempt to acquire Sun was the next logical retort, and as my colleague Erik Sherman notes, Dell has just raised $500 million in the debt market, perhaps to...

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Given current street prices on low-end PC components, manufacturers could probably build and sell a $100 PC, including a monitor, shattering the current PC price floor. Chances are that it will happen within the next 18 months. The first part of this realization stemmed from an observation by Marty Winston, long-time industry insider and editor of Newstips, a newsletter that goes to thousands...

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There’s plenty of evidence that Dell is planning a significant acquisition. The question is whether the target might be Sun Microsystems. Dell is no stranger to acquiring other companies, and at the end of March in Beijing, Michael Dell mentioned some of the targets: “We are focused on data centers, services, software, servers and storage. Those are likely areas for Dell to use its...

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The first quarter of 2009 was remarkably, if predictably, quiet where mergers and acquisitions in the tech sector were concerned. While it’s still too early to tell if the current run-up in stocks will unfreeze the M&A market, the first sector to see renewed activity may well be in IT security software. Traditionally active acquirers like Symantec and McAfee could be tempted to get...

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Salesforce.com introduced mobile versions of its software today in the hopes of upselling customers to more expensive versions of its offering. The so-called ‘mobile lite’ application supports Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and iPhone units and is free to some customers — but not all, despite the company’s claim that it’s bringing “enterprise cloud computing to...

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EMC is preparing itself for a coming war for the run of corporate data centers. EMC has steadily added by acquisition or internal development a range of tools allowing customers to manage access to content, storage capacity and infrastructure availability. The company also owns more than 90% 84% of VMware, the market leader in server virtualization, a hot technology touted as a way for...

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