Asia and Pacific: Trend Micro sees future in antivirus services
By Martyn Williams, IDG News Service (Tokyo Bureau)
Trend Micro Inc. expects network antivirus services to grow to make up a quarter of its revenue in three years as the threat posed by network worms such as Sasser continues to grow, according to the company's chief executive officer (CEO), Steve Chang.
The Tokyo-based company recently began selling its first hardware device designed to keep networks functioning while minimizing the disruption caused by computer worms. Last week, it announced a deal with Cisco Systems Inc. that will see the same signature-based worm-blocking technology built into Cisco's products.
The system can be managed remotely by Trend Micro and such services are likely to become a key business area for the future, Steve Chang, CEO of Trend Micro, said in an interview on Thursday.
"Our core competence and our bread and butter in the future is services," Chang said. "I think the income from services will become very important." Income from antivirus services accounts for around 8 percent of Trend Micro's total revenue, but Chang said he expects this to grow to 25 percent within the next three years.
He expects demand for network antivirus protection and services to grow as the threat from worms in-creases and computer networks continue to expand in complexity.
"The biggest problem for IT managers for the last two years has been that no matter what kind of security product they bought, it doesn't work against these (types of viruses)," Chang said. "So Trend Micro spent about $100 million to study this problem and finally, two months ago, announced our solution. It works at the network layer so that it can stop the virus and isolate it in the subnet."
The system works by attempting to contain any problems caused by a worm in a particular part of the network rather than let it spread throughout an entire system. (...)
Trend Micro's focus also extends to home users and in this area the company has been working with partners other than Cisco, Chang said. Its technology was in a broadband home gateway product demonstrated by Zyxel Communications Corp. at the Cebit trade show in Germany in March (...)
Asia and Pacific: SAP, Fujitsu expand alliance
By Martyn Williams, IDG News Service (Tokyo Bureau)
Fujitsu Ltd. and SAP AG are expanding their three-year old partnership, the two companies announced last week.
Under the expansion, Fujitsu plans to begin promotion of "Flex-Frame for mySAP Business Suite" and SAP's NetWeaver software packages to its customers around the world (...) FlexFrame is an implementation of SAP's adaptive computing model and allows several SAP systems to run on a single computer.
The technology was developed by Fujitsu Siemens Computers (Holding) BV in Maarssen, Netherlands, and is already in use with around 20 customers in Europe, said Stephan Rossius, senior vice president of SAP, at the news conference. (...) The FlexFrame system will go on sale in Japan in September. (...) Following the launch of the center and sales in Japan, Fujitsu plans to expand into other markets with FlexFrame and similar support centers.
The two companies hope their tight collaboration will lead to the sale of 300 systems combining Fujitsu hardware and FlexFrame with SAP's mySAP and NetWeaver software (...).
Asia and Pacific: Sony to update PSX game console/video recorder
By Martyn Williams, IDG News Service (Tokyo Bureau)
Sony Corp. will put two new versions of its PSX machine on sale in Japan in two weeks, the company said Wednesday. The PSX combines a hard-disk drive/DVD video recorder with a PlayStation 2 games console.
The two new machines are updates of products that went on sale in December, adding several new functions in software but no major hardware upgrades (...). The biggest change is in improved graphic functions. There is a new GUI (graphical user interface), and users can now choose to use one of 50 graphical DVD menu templates when burning content from the hard disk to a DVD. Users of the new machines can also edit content recorded onto the hard-disk prior to its burning onto a DVD. The company has added a graphical editing mode that mimics the appearance of a film roll to make editing easy. (...)
The DESR-5100 will have a 160 Gbyte hard-disk drive, while the DESR-7100 will have a 250 Gbyte drive. Both will go on sale in Japan on July 1; their respective prices will be US$672 and $863. The prices are slightly cheaper than those of the original models when they went on sale last year. (...) Owners of the original machines will be able to update the software in their devices to match the new models. The software update service will be available from July 15.
Sony says it plans to launch the PSX in other markets towards the end of this year or next year.
America: AMD clarifies dual-core processor strategy
By Tom Krazit, IDG News Service (Boston Bureau)
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) shed a little more light on its previously disclosed plans for dual-core processors Monday, announcing that it has completed its design for dual-core server and desktop processors and will ship products in 2005. Both dual-core processors will be based on the AMD64 technology(...). It includes 64-bit extensions to the 32-bit x86 instruction set as well as an integrated memory controller that helps AMD move to dual-core designs.
A dual-core chip is simply two separate processors on a single chip. In order to deliver the sharp increases in performance that have characterized the chip industry for over a decade, chip designers have been looking for another way to increase performance without in-creasing the chip's clock speed and therefore the amount of power it consumes.
The industry appears to have settled on dual-core designs as the way it will keep those performance gains going through the middle part of this decade. Sun Microsys-tems Inc. and IBM Corp. have already released dual-core chips for servers as a way to increase performance without resorting to faster clock speeds, and therefore increased power consumption.(...)
The integrated memory con-troller and Hypertransport interconnect technology allow AMD to produce a similar amount of performance from one dual-core chip as provided by a dual-processor server.
AMD's technology is designed to connect up to four Opteron processors without a chipset as required by other processors. AMD's dual-core server processors will share a single memory controller. This won't create a bottleneck because a server with two Opteron chips, and therefore two memory controllers, already has more than enough memory bandwidth required to run that system. (...)
The dual-core chips will work with current socket technology in motherboards that are rated for the specifications of the dual-core chips. A BIOS change will be required, but otherwise the chips will work in the same sockets as single-core Opterons. AMD will also continue to offer three power ratings for its dual-core server processors. The company currently offers chips rated at 30 watts, 55 watts, and 89 watts, and will continue to do so for dual-core chips..The dual-core server chips will launch in the middle of 2005, while dual-core desktop processors will follow in the second half of 2005.
America: Cisco reshuffles content networking business
By Paul Roberts and Stephen Lawson, IDG News Service (Boston Bureau)
Cisco Systems Inc. is shaking up its content networking organization. The company disbanded its Content Networking Business Unit and is moving people and technology from that group into its Multiservice Customer Edge Business Unit (MCEBU), according to company sources.
The move may eventually bring more advanced features, such as content caching and load balan-cing, to the company's switches and routers and underscores lagging fortunes for a long list of technologies Cisco purchased during the Internet boom, according to industry experts.
Employees in the Content Networking Business Unit were told that content networking products, including the company's line of Content Services Switches and Content Engines, will now be managed by the MCEBU, which develops so-called "converged networking" products. These products include voice and data applications that can be deployed on standard Cisco hardware platforms such as the Cisco 2600 and 3600 Series multiservice routers, according sources within Cisco. (...) Although detailed plans for merging the two groups were not provided, CNBU employees were told that there was a need for development expertise in areas such as Linux programming and content management in the MCEBU, which is looking to build more sophisticated features for handling Layer 5 and Layer 6 level transactions into its core routing hardware. Among other things, MCEBU executives mentioned offering high-level features, such Web content acceleration and filtering, using plug-in "blades," as opposed to custom hardware platforms, the source said.
Europe: Enterprise Wi-Fi: stand by for price implosion
By Peter Judge, Techworld.com
Enterprise wireless LANs are about to crash in price, according to an analyst's report. Hardest hit will be the traditional stand-alone access points from vendors like Proxim Corp., and security gateways or "appliances," such as those from Vernier Networks Inc. or Bluesocket Inc.
Enterprise access points, which include better security and manageability than the consumer products, have held their price, but that cannot continue, warns Gabriel Brown, chief analyst at Unstrung Insider, whose pricing survey came out this week. Enterprise access points cost around £250, while consumer access points can now easily be found for £35 or less.
"802.11b has been all but abandoned for the enterprise," said Brown. The 802.11b enterprise ac-cess points cost an average of £220, he said, but those products still on the market are basically end-of-life designs. 802.11g access points cost an average of £310, while multimode (a/g) access points cost £458, though that differential won't stay for long, says Brown. Cisco still manages to charge a premium, with access points listing at £700, although the street price is likely to be two thirds of that, says Brown.
Appliances, like Vernier's and Bluesocket's are "superseded" by wireless switches, said Brown, so price competition will get more intense there. "In the appliance/gateway sector, prices are getting hammered," said Brown.
Finally, wireless switches still sell for a premium. Systems currently sell for between £400 and £600 per port (a port on these systems is roughly equivalent to an access point), making them comparable in price to stand-alone access points, and a good deal when management and other functions are taken into account. (...)
However, those prices won't last: "The basic problem is the plethora of competitors, combined with the paucity of real product differentiation," said Brown. Prices will fall, to boost volumes, he predicted. (...)
Europe: New light shed on Apple US resellers case
By Macworld.co.uk staff, Macworld.co.uk
Illuminating details relating to action brought against Apple Computer Inc. by unhappy U.S. Apple Authorized Resellers have been made available online.
Individual resellers are suing Apple over claims that it sells merchandise to its own retail stores for less than it charges Apple resellers.
An amended complaint filed with the Superior Court of the County of Santa Clara by one of the complainants - Macadam Computer Inc. - sheds light on the finer points of the case. It includes complaints of breach of contract, fraud, false advertising, and de-famation, among others.
The 66-page document includes the claims: "Apple would replace perfectly good working RAM memory chips informing the end user that the dealer had sold the customers defective RAM which Apple's upgraded software had specifically deactivated thereby enabling Apple to sell additional products to the consumer that were not necessary."
Macadam claims to have "suf-fered damages in an amount to be proven at the time of trial, but no less than $7,500,000", as a direct and proximate result of Apple's conduct. "We expect to be in court on June 22 for a case-management conference, and hope the judge will be setting a date for trial soon," said Thomas Armes, co-founder of TellOnApple.org.
TellOnApple.org was created by a group of former Apple Authorized Resellers as a means to document and share any unethical or illegal business practices of Apple. The organization says its goal is to change Apple for the better.