Asia and Pacific: NEC develops 16X DVD+/-R chip set
By Martyn Williams, IDG News Service (Tokyo Bureau)
NEC Electronics Corp. has developed a chip set that will help pave the way towards DVD+/-R drives capable of 16X speed writing, the company said Tuesday.
The chip set consists of an analog signal processor, which is used to control the laser and servo systems of the optical pick-up unit, and a digital signal processor with ATAPI interface.
The two chips are offered in quad flat packages (QFP), which are thinner than conventional chips and better suited for use in slim drives used in notebook computers, NEC said in a statement. They also consume 10 percent less power than their predecessors.
In addition to 16X DVD+/-R, the chip set also supports DVD+/ -RW formats at 8X, said a company spokesman. NEC Electronics, which is based in Kawasaki near Tokyo, said it expects both NEC Corp. and Pioneer Corp. to use the chips in new rewritable DVD drives.
Volume production will start at the end of June and monthly production of 2 million [m] chip sets per month will be reached at the end of this year, said the company
Asia and Pacific: Toshiba: new Gigabeat hard-disk audio players
By Martyn Williams, IDG News Service (Tokyo Bureau)
Toshiba Corp. will launch three new models of its Gigabeat digital music player in Japan over the next three months and says it is considering launching the devices outside of Japan.
The new models will be available in three capacities: 5G bytes, 20G bytes and 40G bytes and a variety of color variations, said Midori Suzuki, a spokeswoman for Toshiba in Tokyo. The new models expand the current range which consists of a single model with 20G byte capacity.
A second major change in the Gigabeat range is the addition of support for Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Media Audio digital rights management technology, said Suzuki. With this new feature the player will be able to support music downloaded through a number of commercial Web sites. The player also supports other Windows Media, WAV and MP3 format files.
Toshiba has also added the ability to recharge the Gigabeat's battery from the power present on a USB connection. Fully charging the batteries takes around 3 hours via either the USB or AC adapter and once charged the battery provides enough power for up-to 11 hours of music playback.
A LAN adapter is also available as an option which allows the de-vice to be connected to a network and accessed as a virtual hard disk. Uploading music to the player has to be done through the Toshiba Audio Application software and this is available for Windows platforms only.
All three players are 76.5 millimeters wide and 89.5 millimeters high. The 5G-byte and 20G-byte models are 12.7 millimeters thick and weigh 138 grams and the 40G byte model is 15.7 millimeters wide and weighs 156 grams. The 40G-byte model is larger because its hard-disk drive is physically larger.(...)
Toshiba hasn't announced definite plans to sell the players overseas however the company is con-sidering it, said Suzuki. Like the current model, the new devices all support menus in Japanese, Eng-lish, German, French and Spanish. Support for German umlauts is a new feature added, she said.
Asia and Pacific: Roads authority exchanges for Sun and Mozilla
By Computerworld Australia staff
The New South Wales (NSW) state Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) will migrate 1,500 users across 120 offices from Microsoft Corp.'s Exchange to Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java Enterprise System messaging and calendar servers for e-mail and calendaring.
As part of the contract, the RTA will also deploy Sun's StarOffice productivity suite for word processing, spreadsheets and presentation development; the open source Mozilla browser will be used for accessing e-mail and calendar information. (...) "This is part of a A$1.5 million (US$1.1 million) project that will see new open source software deployed across 1,500 desktops within the RTA," NSW Minis-ter for Commerce, John Della Bos-ca said.
The RTA had been using and developing open source products as components to various corpo-rate systems for some years, Della Bosca said. (...) "The RTA expects to reduce desktop and server costs by at least 20 percent with the migration to Sun's open source-based Sun Java (Enterprise) System messaging server and StarOffice, the productivity suite based on open source initiatives. Savings of up to A$2 million per annum could be realized when the implementation of this technology is extended to connect up to half of the RTA's 7000 desktops in the next few years." (...)
America: PC vendors jump at the Grantsdale PCI Express
By Tom Krazit, IDG News Service (Boston Bureau)
Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), IBM Corp., and Gateway Inc. all plan to incorporate Intel Corp.'s newest 915G/P and 925X Express chipsets into upcoming PCs for both consumers and corporate customers, the companies announced Monday.
The 915P and 915G chipsets, formerly code-named Grantsdale, are expected to be the backbone of new mainstream PCs released over the next 12 months. The 925X is targeted at high-performance gaming and content creation PCs. Intel plans to transition from its current chipset technology to the 915 G/P and 925X chipsets over the next 12 months.
All three chipsets take advantage of the PCI Express interconnect technology, which speeds up the rate that data can travel around a system. They also support faster DDR2 (double data rate) memory and improved audio and video performance.
Intel also introduced six new processors Monday alongside the new chipsets. Most of the new PCs also feature the new 90-nanometer Pentium 4 processors coupled with the new chipsets. (...)
America: Slow Microsoft CRM pace frustrates partners
By Stacy Cowley, IDG News Service (New York Bureau)
After launching in a blaze of hype early last year, Microsoft Corp.'s CRM (customer relationship management) software is on a slower-than-expected development path, frustrating some partners and customers.
Microsoft now expects to have version 2 of the software ready in mid-2005, more than two years after it released the first version. In the interim, the company has issued point upgrades to fix bugs and expand functionality, but the current release, Microsoft CRM 1.2, still lacks features found in rival midmarket products.
"I think Microsoft CRM wasn't ready when it was released," said one customer, Jeremy Whiteley, who switched from GoldMine to Microsoft CRM, then switched back. (...) "I understand they're releasing a new, complicated pro-duct. I think there's potential if they do it right," he said. "We'll evaluate 2.0 when it comes out."
Getting 2.0 out the door will be a major milestone for Microsoft. Microsoft CRM was the first internally created product from Microsoft Business Solutions, the built-through-acquisitions group intended to gain Microsoft entry to the back-end business applications market. Microsoft already dominates in the operating system and desktop applications market; adding software to run sales, marketing, accounting and human re-sources systems opens up a new frontier for the company. (...)
"There are two areas that are really lacking something. One is the really small market, and the other is a viable, low-cost alternative, something that's not hosted, in the midmarket," said Yankee Group Inc. analyst Sheryl Kingstone. "Microsoft is doing okay - they're still generating interest - but they have to stay active in the market so that they don't look like they're not prioritizing it. A lot of their competition is becoming very active with the channel, and the channel is getting frustrated with Microsoft." (...)
Microsoft doesn't like to commit to release dates, and it only recently acknowledged version 2 wouldn't be finished this year. The update's feature set is still being determined, though Microsoft said it will include integration with Navision 4, an important addition for customers of the Navision applications Microsoft acquired. (...)
Microsoft claims 1,800 customers for its CRM software. In a recent report, Gartner Inc. rated the product "promising" but noted that "functionality gaps and an inexperienced partner network reduce its appeal to midsize businesses with more-complex, broader CRM needs." Despite those reservations, the research firm still ex-pects Microsoft to be a top-five CRM vendor by 2005. (...)
America: Gates mulled bailing out PeopleSoft
By Joris Evers, IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
One day after Oracle Corp. launched its hostile bid for PeopleSoft Inc., Microsoft Corp. Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates sent an e-mail to Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer suggesting that Microsoft come to PeopleSoft's rescue.
Microsoft could make a minority investment in PeopleSoft "to bolster their independence," Gates wrote in an e-mail on June 7, 2003. In return, the Pleasanton, California, business application vendor would have to make "a modest platform commitment."
At the time, PeopleSoft had already scolded Oracle's takeover attempt. (...) In the same e-mail, Gates told Ballmer "its (sic) time we bought SAP," referring to German business applications market leader SAP AG.
That Microsoft approached SAP last year about a possible takeover was revealed two weeks ago at the beginning of the trial between Oracle and the DOJ in San Francisco. The talks ended several months ago after Microsoft had decided the deal and the post-union integration would be too risky. (...)
Gates' suggestion for Microsoft to invest in PeopleSoft is the latest revelation in the trial in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The case so far has revealed Microsoft's eying SAP and Oracle's interest in Siebel Sys-tems Inc., BEA Systems Inc. and Lawson Software Inc., among other companies.
Europe: Boeing's in-flight broadband launches in Asia
By Martyn Williams, IDG News Service (Tokyo Bureau)
In-flight broadband Internet access was launched in Asia on Tuesday with the take-off of Lufthansa flight 715 from Tokyo to Munich, the airline said the same day.
The service is based on The Boeing Connexion by Boeing service and its launch in Asia follows Lufthansa AG's rollout on its flight between Munich and Los Angeles in May. The service uses a wireless LAN on board the aircraft and connects through a satellite link to offer passengers a shared Internet connection with downstream capacity of 5M bps (bits per second) and upstream capacity of 1M bps. (...)
Lufthansa will offer the service every day on its flights 714 and 715 each way between Munich and Tokyo. Users have a choice of two payment schemes: US$29.95 for the entire flight or $9.95 for 30 minutes of access and then a per-minute fee of $0.25.
(...)A number of other airlines are planning to begin offering the service this year. Three have signed agreements with Boeing: SAS AB's Scandinavian Airline Systems and Japan's All Nippon Airways Co. Ltd. and Japan Airlines System Corp. Another four have signed preliminary agreements: British Airways PLC, Korean Air, Singapore Airlines Ltd. and Taiwan's China Airlines Ltd. (...)
Africa: Gartner: Nature of growth in ICT market changing
By Computing SA staff South Africa
Gartner Inc. believes that, while the ICT market will continue to grow, the nature of that growth is changing. No longer will it be exclusively driven by developed nations, such as the U.S. and Europe. Increasingly, it will be developing countries, such as China, India and South Africa (SA), that will power the industry through this next phase.
This is because nations have young populations ready to jump onto the consumer ladder and adopt new technologies, says Debra Logan, symposium chair of the Gartner Symposium Africa/Itxpo. (...)
As predicted, 2003 saw the ICT market experience its first upturn since the bubble burst, and Gartner believes that this growth should continue until 2008, and most probably beyond. This sustained level of economic certainty gives business leaders a chance to catch their breath, and return to long-term planning. (...) . For Logan, security, outsourcing and governance represent the most critical issues facing local business decision-makers this year. (...)
"With new outsourcing relationships expected to increase by more than 30 percent this year, local businesses must find ways to take advantage of this to bring work to the country. Outsourcing presents an opportunity for SA to benefit from the global trend to transfer non-core services around the globe. (...)
Globally, increased regulatory pressure is being felt by CIOs and ICT professionals. Financial legislation, empowerment mandates and corporate governance models require that, even as the business cycle swings up again, companies have an effective and well-conceived ICT governance model in place. (...)