Technology Industry Archive

I don’t think there’s another industry that sexualizes mergers and acquisitions quite like IT.  You wouldn’t think anyone would characterize the competition between EMC and NetApp over data deduplication vendor Data Domain as a “love triangle,” as veteran storage reporter Chris Priemesberger did, but that’s not the half of it. The hyper-professional Stacey...

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What is going on with companies and their distaste for the term netbook? Clearly this is a market that will be important. Intel is already seeing netbooks cannibalize 20 percent of notebook sales. That’s one big chunk of business. So you could understand how vendors of all stripes want in on the fun and, hopefully, market domination. Only the rebranding and repositioning in the market...

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Cisco’s latest plan to “grow, motivate and evolve” its sales channel partners to better emphasize virtualized data centers may sound like the type rah-rah that all tech vendors seem to undertake now and again. Usually it’s actually doublespeak for increasing sales volume by lowering the amount resellers can make on any one deal. But for Cisco, the issue is far more...

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My colleague Michael Hickins discussed the rumors that North Carolina was going to cut a huge tax break deal for Apple, which was planning a server farm in the state. Now it’s a go. The first part came Monday, when the state’s legislature approved the deal on a 40 to 8 vote. Then today, Governor Bev Purdue announced that Apple had chosen her state as the location for the data...

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Cisco’s attempted hijacking of the data center isn’t off to the greatest start. Speaking at the company’s partner conference in Boston today, Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior touted numbers that actually reflect pretty poorly on the company’s attempts thus far to convince customers to bet the future of their data centers on its vision of the Unified Computing System (UCS)....

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A recent report of just how much money a couple of Apple’s Manhattan retail store locations made (via AppleInsider) got me wondering about what the average company store made. On working out the numbers, I was stunned. You’d expect other retailers would line up at the company’s doors, begging for lessons. When I last reported on Apple’s financials, and how some...

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Microsoft doesn’t miss an opportunity to poor-mouth the economy these days, and I’m beginning to think that this posture isn’t a way of making excuses for lackluster performance, but actually a way of driving business. Today Bob Muglia, president of Microsoft’s key server and tools division, and a member of the inner circle that includes Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates,...

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We got the May job cut numbers from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, and the welcome trend of lowering job cuts continues overall. Unfortunately, the tech sector bucked the trend, more than doubling announced layoffs compared to April. Sector January February March April May Electronics 11,050 11,065 11,500 6,608 1,423 Computer 22,330 3,960 5,290 1,702 15,384 Telecom 13,056 5,666...

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Microsoft is making a big play at E3, the gaming trade show, about its strategy for the Xbox. I’m sure it was a polished explanation. Why not? It’s a strategy the company has been discussing for at least six years. The question is if the “new” push — whether on the part of Microsoft, Sony, Cisco, or anyone else – to dominate the living room is actually going to...

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There’s a lot of interest in getting questions answered on the Internet. And now there’s a flare-up between two of the companies in this space. Fluther has accused Maholo of wholesale theft of the company’s content, but the whole thing is shaping up as a cross between a business rivalry and a message forum flame war — which makes you wonder if this companies will grow up...

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