News and Analysis to 12th January 2006
iMac and Intel chips
Apple’s Intel based iMac was announced with great fanfare at
the recent Apple MacWorld event in San Francisco. Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs is
looking to eat the lunch of Dell and HP. He is entitled to be in bullish mood
given that he forecasts revenues to be up 63% year-on-year. Everyone thinks
‘iPod’ when Apple is mentioned, but its Mac sales exceed those of the media
player. There is a danger that Apple might regard the business arena as
‘unfinished business’ and take its eye off its highly successful consumer
crusade. That would be good news for its digital entertainment rivals.
School’s out for Microsoft?
The UK Government is to review Microsoft’s school report in
respect of its educational licensing programme, with a view to considering
alternatives to MS Windows and MS Office. Value for money is at the core of the
review, as is a little warning shot across Microsoft’s bows to remind it not to
take its current relationship with the British Educational Communications and
Technology Agency (Becta) for granted. This review will require great judgment.
Youngsters entering industry with WordPerfect and PC-Dos skills over the next
decade will not enhance the UK’s chances of remaining competitive in what is a
ruthless global marketplace.
Sun doesn’t run with Google Pack
Google has put together a software bundle designed to irk
Microsoft. The so called Google Pack comprises Adobe Reader, Ad-Aware
anti-spyware, Firefox browser, Norton AntiVirus and Real Player media player
amongst others, and it’s free to download and install. Notably none of Sun
Microsystems’s software is included. The Unix box shifter has teamed up with
Google to irritate Microsoft. Sun’s OpenOffice has the potential to be a Voodoo
doll in respect of Microsoft’s Office revenues. So is it the case that
OpenOffice is going to be part of a second wave offensive, or is it that this
open source office suite unnerves Google’s brand managers from a quality
perspective?
Accenture morphs
Accenture posted strong earnings and revenue growth for Q1
fiscal 2006, up 12% quarter-on-quarter to a record $4.17bn. Notably its
outsourcing revenues surged 18% compared to its consulting business at 8%. Thus
it is on a collision course with IBM, CSC and EDS’s business models, where
outsourcing exceeds consulting revenues. I do feel sorry for the starry-eyed
young graduates that embarked on a career at parent Arthur Andersen, heads
filled with accountancy-centric hopes and dreams, only to find themselves
working shifts as an operator in the IT department at some unexotic government
agency outpost.
HP eyes CSC
According to the Wall Street Journal, Hewlett Packard is
planning to buy a piece of CSC. It has teamed up with Blackstone, a private
equity firm that appears to be stalking CSC. Blackstone previously attempted to
lift CSC with Lockheed Martin’s support last November, but failed as the US
Defence giant was only interested in some elements of the outsourcing prey. HP
would get the option to buy out Blackstone and any other equity partners at a
later date. This would pull HP in the right direction, as they need to get
deeper into services. Alternatively they could save themselves some money and
send a fleet of coaches to EDS’s car park where up to 20,000 staff are in the
process of being liberated.
China takes away US export title
The future has arrived. According to the OECD, China was the
largest exporter of IT services in 2004, surpassing the US for the first time.
In 1996 China’s total ICT market (exports and imports) was $35bn compared with
a predicted $450bn in 2005. Back in 1996 the US had a market that was 6 times
larger than China. How soon will it be before Mandarin and Cantonese are added
to the list of languages covered in Western Computer Science degrees?
