News and Analysis to 23rd March 2006
Hasta la Vista baby!
The long awaited Windows Vista operating system from
Microsoft will not be available before Christmas. This will have a shock wave
effect. The PC vendors were hoping that it would boost sales in Q4, a popular
time for consumers to make PC purchases. This will trigger weak Q4 results from
PC vendors and other vendors who benefit from the purchase of new PCs. This
will no doubt cause the market to go into freefall. January is the new release
date, though it is not clear which January.
Vodafone – It’s good to walk
Having failed to take root, mobile giant Vodafone is selling
its Japanese operation and so is pulling out of one of the worlds most advanced
telecoms market. In what might be considered a Sarin attack, CEO Arun Sarin has
ousted former CEO Chris Gent from the board. It will be interesting to see
whether upcoming chairman Sir John Bond can bring calm to this twister of an
organisation.
Sun – Virtual Storage Management
Sun’s $4bn acquisition of Storagetek in order to bolster its
storage credentials is not going to plan. A number of senior managers have left
its data management group, many of who were Storagetek appointees. This appears
to be as a result of cultural clashes within the merged organisations. But some
say that the lack of interest in storage within Sun’s senior management is
triggering this. Analysts IDC state
that the storage software market is continuing on its unabated double-digit
growth. So it might be worth Sun’s senior executives leveraging Storagetek’s
reputation by steering the merged storage division into storage software and
services, and leave hardware to someone else.
People-powered IT
Microsoft has made a conceptual leap from software to
people. No they haven’t moved into recruitment, they are just refocusing their
marketing, to the tune of $500m, on their people-ready vision. Quite rightly
they are emphasising the point that business is all about people, and software
is merely an enabler of people productivity. This is potentially a worrying
trend should Microsoft get into people in a big way. Imagine a future where IT
candidates are sent to clients with the pitch that they are .net (dotnet)
compliant, not just from a skills perspective, but neurologically.
Apple iPO
A bunch of ex-Apple executives have set-up shop as a venture
capital provider under the name Acquicor Technology. They believe there are
opportunities to be had in IP-based convergence, and are looking to provide
wisdom and cash to start up companies in that field. Watch out though. With a
name like Acquicorp, they may be looking to do more than providing seed
capital. Also given the founders’ pedigree, it may well be the case that pastel
shade technologies will get priority funding.
Tarnished Supply Chains
RFID, the short range wireless technology, also known as
electronic bar-coding, used to tag and track stock in a number of industries,
has the potential to transmit viruses, according to three Dutch researchers who
presented their findings at the IEEE International Conference on Pervasive
Computing. Surely it is now just a matter of time before governments are
announcing ‘safe commerce’ campaigns. Buyers will be told to take precautions,
and to avoid hanging around ‘public’ online exchanges for fear of picking up an
infection.
