LCD panel pricing rises slightly as companies boost purchases to mitigate risk from Japan disaster

EL SEGUNDO, USA: Despite feeble end-market demand in June for televisions and other products using large-sized liquid crystal display (LCD) panels, a slight increase in overall LCD pricing is expected this month as companies rebuild their inventories to serve as insurance against supply disruptions related to the Japan disaster, according to new IHS iSuppli research.

For each of the three main applications of large-sized LCD panels—i.e., televisions, monitors and notebook computers—pricing in June is projected to rise by an average of 0.2 percent, the first time all three applications have experienced an increase in 14 months dating back to April 2010.

The figure presents the IHS iSuppli forecast of global month-to-month pricing changes for large-sized LCD panels, described as those 10.1 inches or larger in the diagonal dimension.Source: IHS iSuppli, USA.

“Consumer demand for the major products using LCD panels, like televisions and computers, remains weak, especially in the United States and Europe,” said Sweta Dash, senior director for liquid crystal displays at IHS.

“Despite this alarming sales situation, pricing is on the rise for all of the major LCD applications with panel buyers replenishing their stockpiles in order to build buffer inventory, in case of further supply disruptions spurred by the Japan disaster, and as panel suppliers reduced utilization rates to control production. This is driving up pricing for panels in all major applications.”

For June, all three applications for large-sized LCD panels are expected to post slight increases, rising 0.1 percent for desktop PC monitors, 0.2 percent for televisions and 0.5 percent for notebooks.

This contrasts with previous months when pricing increased in only one or two of the panel applications—while prices in other areas fell steeply, dragging down the overall average.

Japan concerns drive panel sales
Buyers still are purchasing panels to mitigate the risk of any shortages of components used to make LCD panels following the Japan quake disaster in March. Japan is a major source of production of components for use in LCD panel manufacturing.

Furthermore, buyers are increasing their LCD purchasing as they prepare for the upcoming summer and back-to-school seasons, generally periods of hot activity for the market.

Nonetheless, some major brands continue to report high channel inventory. This is preventing the price increases from rising higher in June and keeping them at moderate levels during the month.

Demand remains a concern
The primary concern at present for the LCD market remains the sluggish state of demand among consumers in the United States and Europe, with several branded vendors lowering their second-quarter sales targets.

The weak end-market demand remains a distressing sign for future panel pricing. Several panel suppliers had planned to return to their full factory utilization rate in June as they were still receiving stable-panel demand. However, several brand vendors have lowered their second-quarter sales targets.

In one sign of potential trouble, the panel inventory replenishment efforts in China could slow in July, prompting panel suppliers to cut utilization rates of their fabs in June. Panel demand from international brands in particular will be critical to support panel pricing in the second quarter of 2011 and in the third quarter of 2011.

Panels on hand
Total large-sized LCD panel inventory in June is anticipated to stay at approximately 30 days, following a 5 to 10 percent increase in demand during May.

Among individual panel applications, notebook panels will show a slight price increase in June as branded vendors start ramping up production plans to meet annual and semiannual financial reporting periods. Panels in tight supply include the 14.0 inch size, owing to an upside in demand from China and the rest of Asia. In comparison, demand continues to lag for the 15.6 inch because of slow demand from the US and European markets.

For television panels, inventory is being controlled successfully by panel suppliers. Television panel demand in June is expected to grow about 10 percent compared with May, in anticipation of the hot selling season to come. For international brands, any increase in panel pricing will have to be borne and accepted, especially for models based on the older backlighting technology of cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL), the precursor to the newer light-emitting diode (LED) technology in more advanced panels today.

In monitors, price increases are expected to slow in June after having climbed 0.4 percent during each of the last three months. Pervasive weak demand continues to hobble the sector.

Source: IHS iSuppli, USA.

McAfee changes security landscape with new consumer mobile devices offerings

INDIA: McAfee announced the it is extending its mobile device portfolio for consumers with McAfee Mobile Security and McAfee WaveSecure Tablet Edition. These mobile device offerings change the mobile security landscape by offering security safeguards that help consumers secure their mobile devices for personal use, commerce and work.

According to a mobile security report released last week by McAfee and Carnegie Mellon University titled, “Mobility and Security: Dazzling Opportunities, Profound Challenges,” respondents named their top three security concerns to be the loss of personal or work data through the accidental loss of a device, physical theft of the device, or loss of their data due to their device “crashing.”

In addition, close to half of all respondents said they were using their smartphones both for personal use and work, demonstrating that consumers want more than just personal device security.

McAfee Mobile Security software, available for both smartphones and tablets, provides a comprehensive mobile security solution by combining three leading McAfee mobile security products: WaveSecure, VirusScan Mobile and SiteAdvisor for Android. It is ideal for users who want protection for their data and privacy in the event of loss or theft, protection against the growing threats of viruses and spyware targeting mobile devices as well as protection from Web based threats, such as phishing sites that probe for personal and sensitive information.

With McAfee Mobile Security, consumers can now access the following features and functionality in a single download:
* Back-up and restore data to help protect sensitive information and irreplaceable photos. Even if the device is missing, it can be backed up before it is wiped clean of information.
* Protection against misuse (such as excessive phone charges) as well as safeguarding personal data with remote locking capabilities.
* An audible alarm to help users find the device or disrupt a thief, and or pop-up a notification with instructions for returning the device.
* Remotely remove data from a lost or stolen device via the McAfee Web portal, mobile Web portal or via a SMS message from a buddy device.
* 24/7 real-time anti-malware protection against viruses, worms and spyware, Trojan horses and battery sapping malware
* Protection from malicious Web sites, phishing, identity theft, and credit card fraud when shopping online. SiteAdvisor software for Android provides color coded site ratings appear right next to the search results, allowing Android users to confidently browse and search the mobile Web.
* Management of mobile device protection allows consumers to quickly execute needed security tasks, backup, locate, wipe, etc.via the McAfee Web portal and simple device interface
* All backed by McAfee Labs with its 24/7 global presence and dedicated team of threat researchers.

The WaveSecure Tablet Edition offers Android users with WiFi the ability to find their missing device with alarm and location tracking, prevent misuse with remote lock and wipe and preserve important memories and personal data with remote backup, even from a lost or misplaced device. Users can also trigger an audible alarm to help them find the device or disrupt a thief, and send a brief SMS message with instructions for returning it.

“With device growth eclipsing PCs, consumers need tools to not only protect their personal information, but also to provide safeguards for business data should they decide to use that device for work,” said Todd Gebhart, senior vice president and general manager of consumer, small business and mobile, McAfee.

“It’s far too easy to leave a mobile device in a cab or at the airport, which can mean lost photos, contacts and other important content. Also, the threats to mobile devices are in many ways the same as in the online world. Beyond device lost or theft, users can be hacked, infected or phished on a mobile device just as easily as they can online.”

GETIT announces robust business plans to double business in Karnataka

BANGALORE, INDIA: GETIT Infoservices Pvt Ltd., the leader in directional advertising in Bengaluru and pioneers of Yellow Pages in India has announced the launch of getitFREEADS on voice, for the first time in India, along with GETIT SMS App and its foray into WAP service with ‘m.getit.in’ and ‘m.freeads.in’ as part of its growth plans in Karnataka.Getit in its next phase of expansion in Karnataka is targeting 100 percent growth this year. The company is targeting 20,000 SME advertisers. GETIT database has listings of over 0.5 million SME and utilities in Karnataka which is being enhanced to cover more businesses in existing locations and penetrate new towns. Getit is also planning to launch new mobile applications for its information services and is exploring alliances with various media companies.

Ramesh Gupta, founder and chairman, GETIT Infoservices, said: “GETIT pioneered Yellow Pages in India and introduced directional advertising to the country. Having completed 25 years in Karnataka, we are proud to launch a new media agnostic identity where information is available across new digital platforms as well as in print.”

Sidharth Gupta, CEO, GETIT Infoservices, added: “GETIT has serviced the Karnataka market for 25 years successfully. We have a presence in Bengaluru, Mangalore, Mysore, Hubli, Dharwad, Belgaum and other adjoining areas and we are the only company to service these markets.

“We are now introducing our integrated digital services to be able to bring a host of powerful services for consumers both in the metros and the mini-metros as well as to local businesses across Karnataka so as to help them grow their business and find new customers.

“We all are aware of the near 100 percent tele-density for markets that lead consumption. With the advent of 3G services, search is bound to shift to mobile devices and it is important that with our pioneering tradition we bring in products & services to capture these markets. That is why we are introducing a slew of apps, both for smartphones across all platforms as well as for low end phones so that all consumers can, with ease, have the power on their fingertips whenever they are searching for information and classifieds.

“This year, we expect to have 100 percent growth in markets across Karnataka in terms of number of businesses that will benefit from advertising on our services which will mean an overall revenue growth of over 65 percent.”

Bengaluru itself has released 19 issues of GETIT Yellow Pages directories. GETIT is the only information service provider that is present in Mangalore, Hubli, Belgaum, Mysore in addition to Bengaluru. The company has served 1000s of businesses and lakhs of consumers through our services, both in the b2b and b2c segments.

Global PC market

DUBLIN, IRELAND: The PC industry will celebrate its 35th year anniversary in 2010. From its humble beginning as hobby computer kits in the spring of 1975, the PC industry has come a long way.

In 1975, less than 50,000 PCs were sold with a value of about $60 million. From this limited start the PC industry has grown to unit sales of over 280 million units in 2009. PC retail revenue topped $330 billion in 2007 and 2008, but is in a declining phase due to continued price declines and a shift to low-cost products such as netbooks. The next table shows the tremendous growth of the PC industry in the last 30+ years. And the growth of the PC industry will continue, but at much lower rates than previously-at least in terms of unit sales.

The sheer size of the PC industry limits its growth rate, but the yearly worldwide sales will grow by over 36 percent in the next five years-from 281 million units in 2009 to nearly 384 million in 2014 or a 6.4 percent CAGR. Worldwide PCs in-use surpassed 1.3 billion units in 2009 and will reach nearly 1.9 billion units by year-end 2014. Worldwide cumulative PC sales topped 1 billion units in 2002 and 2 billion in 2007, and will surpass 4 billion in 2013. PCs in-use reached 281 million in the US in 2009 and will top 350 million in 2014.

PC revenue was growing slower than unit growth due to considerable price declines and is now declining due to lower unit sales growth than price declines. The worldwide PC revenues were $251 billion in 2000, which increased to over $333 billion in 2007. Worldwide PC revenue will decline to $300 billion in 2010, and will remain in this range for the next five years.

Zynga prelim IPO filing legitimizes social gaming market

EL SEGUNDO, USA: Zynga is expected to file the required S-1 financial form as a precursor to its initial public offering (IPO) during the next few days. Zynga’s S-1 will reveal the company’s incredible growth since its founding in 2007. IHS Screen Digest estimates Zynga content generated $544 million in 2010 from PC social network games alone—excluding the company’s activities in the mobile space, revenues from its own direct portal, and revenue from highly lucrative and one-off brand sponsorship deals.

“Although Zynga’s S-1 filing has been widely anticipated, the impact of this event is likely to be significant,” said Piers Harding-Rolls, head of games at IHS. “Not only will this preliminary filing completely legitimize the social network games market, which has experienced tremendous growth since its inception three years ago, it will also underline the game sector’s increasing shift away from a traditional product-based business to a digital, online and service-based growth opportunity. The filing will also demonstrate the games sector’s central role in growing and engaging users of social networks. I believe that Facebook’s incredible growth in users has been aided significantly by the rollout of its app platform, a central element of which is represented by gaming titles from Zynga and other companies.”

Global social gaming revenue exploded to $1.4 billion in 2010, up by a factor of 20 from $66.7 million in 2008, according to IHS. Revenue by 2015 will increase to $2.7 billion, or approximately double the total in 2010.

Zynga in 2010 expanded its leadership in the social gaming market based on the success of its CityVille and FarmVille offerings, new IHS Screen Digest research indicates. Zynga held a 39.1 percent share of the global market in 2010, a 4.2 percentage point increase over 2009. This represented the largest increase among the Top 5 operators.

Revealing Zynga’s performance will legitimize the use of freemium and microtransactional business models for games content in Western markets, Harding-Rolls added. Asian consumers are well-accustomed to buying virtual currency and items while playing online games, and there has been a shift toward using freemium models in massively multiplayer online games in the West as a result. However, exposure to Zynga’s 300 million monthly active users means mainstream adoption has been realized and will drive adoption of this monetization approach in the West.

Revenue details in the filing also will show the massive difference in scale between Zynga and its competitors in the social network games market. IHS Screen Digest estimates revenues for EA Playfish, the second biggest company in this games segment, to be between six to eight times smaller than Zynga’s. Like Blizzard with its dominant role in the massively multiplayer online games sector, Zynga’s scale will not be matched by another competitor in the medium term, but this fact is unlikely to deter some of the more tardy investors and startups from trying their luck as a result of Zynga’s performance revelations, in what is already a highly competitive segment.

Source: IHS iSuppli, USA.

NDS joins MoCA

SAN RAMON, USA: NDS, a leading provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV, has joined the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) as an Associate member.

NDS is engaged in a number of service provider projects featuring MoCA. NDS is responsible for the middleware and user experience in Liberty Global's planned Multimedia Home Gateway, which includes MoCA technology.

NDS is also a professional services and integration partner of MoCA Board member, Cox Communications. NDS was the prime integrator for Cox Communications' next-generation HD EPG, which included the implementation of Cox's MoCA-based multi-room DVR solution as part of the service.

"A significant number of our service provider customers are looking at rolling out whole-home entertainment networking solutions so now is the right time to join MoCA. The home network will likely be a blend of different wired and wireless networking technologies, and MoCA technology is a proven wired contender," said Jesper Knutsson, vice president and general manager of sales, NDS, Americas.

"NDS' decision to join MoCA underlines how important in-home networking is becoming for service providers. NDS' membership represents a significant first for MoCA: it is the first conditional access and middleware vendor to join the alliance," said Charles Cerino, MoCA president.

MoCA is the worldwide standard for home entertainment networking and the only standard in deployment in all three pay TV segments (cable, satellite and telco/IPTV). MoCA is included in the DLNA stack and the IEEE 802.1AS standard.

MS Noise expanded product line increases lab productivity by significantly reducing noise

EVANS MILLS, USA & GANANOQUE, CANADA: MS Noise of Sens, France, recently introduced an extensive range of soundproofing products for the analytical laboratory. The company has been delivering soundproof enclosures for vacuum pumps since 2004. Typical sound reduction is 12 dbA or more, or 50-75 percent reduction in noise.

Vacuum pumps, also known as roughing pumps, are commonly used for mass spectrometry, electron microscopy, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment. They are a significant contributor to annoying and distracting ambient noise in the laboratory.
Laboratories are much noisier than a typical work setting.

Excessive noise levels even below the OSHA standard increase hypertension, affect concentration and impair safety. As expectations for greater productivity in research, testing and contract labs accelerate, the more critical the need for better environmental conditions.

MS Noise soundproofing enclosures are solidly manufactured with 6mm thick ABS and 45-50 mm of heat-, oil-, and flameproof insulation material. Robust and quiet cooling fans dissipate internal heat build-up. The enclosures accommodate the entire device and have an internal buffer zone to prevent pump over-heating. Convenient slots and windows simplify installation and maintenance, and enable a clear view to check system status.

"Due to rising demand, MS Noise now offers soundproof enclosures for not only vacuum pumps, but also for water chillers, ultrasonic baths, nitrogen generators and more. Very soon we shall be delivering laboratory furniture with soundproofing capability built-in," stated Tim Hawkins, co-principal of FarHawk Marketing Services, distributor of MS Noise products in the USA and Canada. "Our goal is to be the single source for all sound reduction products for the analytical laboratory. MS Noise is very responsive to the needs of the customer.

"Customized enclosures are common, delivered in a timely fashion and are not overly expensive. Another example of meeting customer needs is the company's introduction of a vacuum pump oil drain kit that converts a difficult and messy task into a fast and clean one."

Worldwide cloud server revenue to reach $9.4 billion by 2015

FRAMINGHAM, USA: Eager to simplify their current IT environments and introduce new initiatives to enhance overall business value, IT leaders are embracing server cloud computing as a viable option for decreasing complexity by adopting converged systems that arrive pre-integrated and ready for use (private cloud) or are offsite entirely (public cloud). According to new research from International Data Cor. (IDC), worldwide revenue for servers deployed to public clouds will reach $3.6 billion in 2015 while private cloud server revenue will balloon to $5.8 billion.

"These evolutionary, and revolutionary, changes in IT deployment and business attitudes are having a profound impact on traditional IT environments," said Katie Broderick, senior research analyst, Enterprise Platforms and Datacenter Trends and Strategies.

"Cloud computing can dramatically simplify administrating and managing many companies' datacenters and position IT as a service organization for the rest of the company. Off-loading some of the more mundane tasks to the cloud (public or private) and freeing up manpower to focus on adding value to the business is critical to driving cloud adoption. But, up-front costs are real, and choosing the right vendor to manage or deploy an environment is equally important."

IDC's research found that public clouds are generally being built on simpler server hardware with a focus on energy efficiency, density, and cost control. The reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) for public clouds tends to be built into the software layer (through failover and virtualization). As a result, public cloud computing is a unit story with lower average selling values (ASVs) than an average x86-based server. IDC forecasts the number of servers shipped for deployment in public clouds will reach more than 1.2 million in 2015, representing a 2011-2015 CAGR of 21.1 percent.

In contrast, private cloud systems are being built on higher-end hardware with more memory, I/O bandwidth, and advanced CPU capabilities. Private clouds are also more reliant on the hardware for their RAS capabilities. Consequently, private clouds represent a value market with larger converged systems selling at higher ASVs than the average x86 system. IDC expects more than 570,000 servers will be shipped for deployment into private clouds in 2015, representing a five-year CAGR of 22.4 percent.

IDC Tech Outlook 2011 Emerging Markets Conference looks beyond BRIC

FRAMINGHAM, USA: The emerging markets of Asia/Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (CEMA), and Latin America are forecast to be among the growth leaders in information and communications technology (ICT) spending.

To understand and succeed in these markets, businesses and investors need reliable local knowledge and insight. On July 14th and 19th, the International Data Corp. (IDC) Tech Outlook 2011 Emerging Markets conference will feature some of the industry's most knowledgeable and trusted analysts from these markets, who will share their research and opinions on the most significant technologies, trends, and opportunities in these up and coming economies.

The two one-day events, to be held in San Mateo, California (July 14) and New York City (July 19), will provide an overview of emerging market opportunities by technology and geography. From the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) to the next set of fast-growth economies, the presentations will highlight some of the critical differences among three categories of emerging markets: Maturing (relatively developed), Mainstream (developing/emerging), and Incubating (immature/underdeveloped).

"The countries that are leading the recovery in IT spending are remarkably diverse and offer a wealth of opportunities, if one knows what to look for and how to proceed," said Philippe de Marcillac, IDC's Executive Vice President, International Business Units. "It's important to understand the dynamics that are driving growth and development in each of these countries, including cultural and demographic trends as well as economic ones. With analysts located in all the key emerging economies, IDC has first-hand knowledge of how these forces are playing out within a particular market."

IDC's Tech Outlook 2011 Emerging Markets conference will feature leading IDC analysts from outside the United States, who will provide new insights into their home markets in Asia/Pacific, CEMA, and Latin America. The presentations will explore a variety of socio-economic factors, including demographic trends, government-led development and investment initiatives, and emerging industries that are investing in technology. In addition, the analysts' comments will focus on the technologies, such as mobile devices, cloud services, and broadband connectivity, that are taking hold in these markets and accelerating the pace of development and modernization.

HID Global delivers multi-technology national ID cards to Saudi Arabia

BANGALORE, INDIA: HID Global, trusted leader in solutions for the delivery of secure identity, announced that Saudi Arabia has increased requirements for national ID cards based on the company’s LaserCard OSM (optical security media) technology. The multiple technology smart cards are issued to Saudi citizens for identification, e-government, and regional travel purposes.

“The Saudi Arabia program is a leading example of how a single card that integrates multiple technologies can deliver world-class protection and functionality,” said Uwe Ludwig, LaserCard’s vice president of sales in EMEA. “After six years, we are proud that the program continues to provide security and law enforcement authorities with a key asset in preventing counterfeiting and fraudulent use of vital documents.”

LaserCard, part of HID Global, is a trusted supplier of secure Government ID solutions that are at the forefront of advanced ID credential design, manufacturing, ID system integration and end-to-end support services. Together with its partners, LaserCard enables government customers to protect their borders, citizens and services, and helps commercial clients safeguard their employees and assets.

VMware intros vFabric 5 integrated application platform for virtual and cloud environments

INDIA: VMware Inc. has announced VMware vFabric 5, an integrated application platform for virtual and cloud environments. Combining the market-leading Spring development framework for Java and the latest generation of vFabric application services, vFabric 5 will provide the core application platform for building, deploying and running modern applications.

vFabric 5 introduces for the first time a flexible packaging and licensing model that will allow enterprises to purchase application infrastructure software based on virtual machines, rather than physical hardware CPUs, and to pay only for the licenses in use. This model will eliminate the decades old need for organizations to purchase excess software in anticipation of peak loads, incurring significant costs and allowing software licenses to sit dormant outside of peak periods.

The model in vFabric 5 more closely aligns to cloud computing models that directly link the cost of software with use, consumption and value delivered to the organization.

“Cloud computing is reshaping not just how IT resources are consumed by the business, but how those resources are purchased, licensed and delivered,” said Tod Nielsen, President, Application Platform, VMware.

“While application infrastructure technologies have advanced to meet the needs of today’s enterprise, to date, the business models have remained rigid and out of date. With the introduction of VMware vFabric 5, VMware will inextricably link the cost of application infrastructure software to volume utilized by the organization and the value delivered back to the business, helping all organizations advance further toward a cloud environment.”

World Micro opens Asian hub in Penang, Malaysia

ATLANTA, USA & PENANG, MALAYSIA: Electronics distributor World Micro Inc., has sealed an agreement with the Northern Corridor Implementation Authority (NCIA), the statutory body responsible for the development of the Northern Corridor Economic Region of Malaysia (Koridor Utara, or NCER) to formalize the opening of its Asian distribution hub in Penang, Malaysia.

Besides, three World Micro executives, including, World Micro CEO, Dan Ellsworth, and the company's Vice President of Global Quality, Art Ogg, an official signing event held Saturday, June 25 in Los Angeles, was attended by twelve senior delegates representing NCIA, the US-ASEAN Business Council, IDEA, the Independent Distributors Of Electronics Association, and MIDA, the Malaysian Industrial Development Authority.

World Micro's Asian presence is expected to improve Malaysia's ability to rid the global supply chain of counterfeit electronic parts through various training programs, provide excess inventory disposition programs to local and regional businesses and help support the economic growth within the region. Through the agreement, NCER is set to host World Micro's first overseas base in Malaysia.

World Micro, based in Atlanta, is a recognized leader in inspection, detection and abatement of counterfeit parts. Through collaboration with the NCIA, World Micro will conduct training, development and counterfeit awareness programs for small and medium enterprises as well as large multinational corporations throughout Malaysia.

"We are proud to welcome World Micro into NCER's ecosystem as its leadership in the electronic components distribution chain worldwide will contribute significantly to the continuous development of NCER. We look forward to leveraging World Micro's expertise to heighten process and quality awareness while building counterfeit detection skill sets," said Dato' Redza Rafiq, chief executive of the Northern Corridor Implementation Authority (NCIA).

NCER, which encompasses the northern states of Perlis, Kedah, Penang and the north of Perak, aims to leverage the traditional economic strengths of the northern region. The E&E Electronics and Electrical (E&E) sector features prominently within the NCER with companies such as AMD, Intel, Motorola, Plexus and Altera, having chosen it as a gateway to the world market.

"The Northern Corridor Implementation Authority or NCIA plays a vital role in ensuring that the NCER continues with its consistent and sustainable development, as a regional enabler, facilitator, and also business partner to the private sector; as well as a friend to the community," Dato' Redza added.

"This unique partnership will help make Malaysia a safe harbor for non counterfeit parts and a regional center of excellence in electronics manufacturing," said Dan Ellsworth, president and CEO of World Micro. "In addition, the new initiative will reduce costs devoted to logistics as Malaysian companies now often have their excess parts shipped to the US for inspection or disposition, then shipped back to assembly facilities in Asian countries," added Ellsworth.

Quarch Technology intros physical layer switches for storage interfaces

AVIEMORE, SCOTLAND: Quarch Technology Ltd announced a range of physical layer switches to complement their existing innovative range of storage test products. These new products allow the user to remotely and automatically switch connections between multiple host and target ports.

This release includes a 4-to-8 SAS/SATA 6Gb/s multiplexer and a 1-to-8 USB 3.0 SuperSpeed multiplexer. Automatable applications include hot-swapping between multiple devices and switching instrumentation into different paths of a system. These devices will make testing faster and more efficient for manufacturers.

Andy Norrie, technical director, Quarch, said: "Switching products are a great addition to the Quarch range, they are very easy to use and far more cost effective than anything else on the market today. Whether you need to switch in an analyzer or automate an entire motherboard test suite, these modules enable our customers to save time and money through automation."

The modules are transparent to hosts and attached devices. Their unique signal forwarding capability allows users to easily observe high speed data from multiple paths using a protocol analyzer, while causing minimal effect on signal timing. Modules include programmable signal conditioning, allowing equalization and de-emphasis to be applied on individual ports.

As with all Quarch products the modules are designed to integrate into existing test systems with minimal effort and a range of control interfaces are available to suit customer requirements.

AUO Slovakia module plant dedicated

HSINCHU, TAIWAN: AU Optronics Corp. announced the inauguration of AU Optronics Slovakia s.r.o. in Trencin, Slovak Republic. The ceremony was attended by AUO President of Display Business Operation Paul S.L. Peng, Slovak Prime Minister Iveta Radicova, Taipei Representative Nan-Yang Lee, and Trencin Mayor Richard Rybnicek.

As one of the two AUO production bases in Europe, AUO Slovakia will play a key role in the manufacturing, assembly, and selling of large-sized LCD modules for renowned TV set makers nearby, enabling more effective supply chain management.

"It gives me great pleasure to dedicate this facility and celebrate the important milestone in Europe," said Paul S.L. Peng, president of AUO's Display Business Operation. "With the establishment of AUO Slovakia, we are building an even more complete network with our clients to effectively deliver quality LCD products worldwide. We would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude for the full and continuous support from the Slovak government and Taipei Representative Office, Bratislava."

"We greatly look forward to the inauguration of the AUO Slovakia module plant, which is one of the country's major projects in collaboration with Taiwan," said Richard Rybnicek, Mayor of Trencin. "It is expected that the operation of AUO Slovakia will bring fresh impetus to Trencin, creating bountiful job opportunities and boosting the local economy."

AUO Slovakia is located in Trencin, a city in western Slovakia near the Czech border. The decision to establish a LCD module plant in Trencin was made in December 2009. The 200,000-square-meter (over 2 million square feet) construction project was completed in April 2011, with mass production took place in May and first shipment delivered in the same month. The plant will be able to reach a capacity of 240k per month by the end of 2011. With the joining of AUO Slovakia in LCD module manufacturing, high quality and value-added support will be offered to the European clients. When fully online in 2012, AUO Slovakia is expected to generate as many as 3,000 job offers.

AUO chose to set up its second European production base in Slovakia because of the country's unique strategic location, positive business investment climate, and competitive talent pool. The Trencin city is in a euro-zone country located in the center of Europe, which allows AUO to provide its clients with prompt support. The quality workforce also guarantees better products and services to AUO's global clients, helping them to better manage their supply chains.

It is expected that the inception of the LCD module plant in Slovakia will contribute to impressive growth for both AUO and Slovakia in the near future. Customers will also profit from the substantial synergies generated by this collaboration.

Leading high-tech companies convene to share brand protection strategies, best practices

LOS GATOS, USA: The Alliance for Gray Market and Counterfeit Abatement (AGMA), a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing the gray marketing, counterfeiting, software piracy and warranty and service abuse of branded goods around the globe, recently held their quarterly industry forum to discuss various topics related to brand protection issues. Hosted by Dolby Laboratories Inc. in San Francisco, the meeting featured interactive discussions and presentations focused on brand protection strategies and best practices.

Andy Sherman, Dolby's general counsel, opened the meeting by discussing the challenges intellectual property rights holders face, and the importance of organizations such as AGMA where IP rights holders can come together and share their experiences and best practices.

Following Sherman's presentation, Steve Jeffords, director of sales engineering and advanced support at Dolby, went on to describe Dolby's licensing business and the challenges faced by the company in enforcing licensing compliance. Jeffords shared the entire Dolby licensing process from implementation through the royalty model, including best practices related to contractual compliance and intelligence and enforcement tools.

A key focus for this meeting was to discuss recent legal victories in an effort to guide AGMA member companies through the often complicated litigation process. Cisco's Jeff Bonham reviewed a warranty and service abuse case which involved an estimated $33,000,000 loss for Cisco.

According to Bonham: "Historically, warranty and service abuse investigations have focused on the lack of a return, or the return of a lesser (genuine) product. However, this has shifted recently. Fraudsters are now returning altered or 'frankenstein' parts, which are legitimate-looking parts consisting of old and scrapped components that have been assembled to appear as actual 'broken' parts. The purpose is to receive genuine, refurbished parts to sell for profit on the gray market."

The defendants in the recent Cisco case involving this scheme were recently sentenced to pay restitution and serve a combined total of more than eight years in prison.

Michael Morrissey, a member of EMC's Corporate Investigative Services team, reviewed a recent "E-Fencing" case which began as an internal investigation, and ultimately resulted in the convictions of two former EMC employees and an EMC Value Added Reseller (VAR). An outcome of the legal proceedings was EMC's implementation of a ground-breaking compliance program that establishes measures to ensure that VARs do not improperly use manufacturer's updates for used equipment, and requires confirmation that their retailers are legitimate. This compliance program is expected to provide a model for all online equipment resellers in the future.

According to AGMA president, Ram Manchi: "AGMA member companies have been stepping up efforts to take legal action in the brand protection fight. There is much to be learned by sharing the details of these recent successfully litigated cases -- collectively, our efforts to protect intellectual property rights can make an impact on a much larger scale than individually."

UK mobile gambling revenue more than doubles in 2010

EL SEGUNDO, USA: The market for mobile gaming in the United Kingdom more than doubled in 2010 as the rising respectability of online wagering and the proliferation of smartphones attracted new users, new IHS Screen Digest research indicates.

Net mobile gambling revenue in the United Kingdom in 2010 rose to £41 million, up from £19 million in 2009. According to the UK Gambling Commission, the percentage of the UK population participating in remote gambling, defined as wagering via a communications medium such as the Internet, a telephone or the television, tied a record high of 13.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, up from 9.8 percent four years earlier in the first quarter of 2007.

Gambling goes legit
“The full implementation of the 2005 UK Gambling Act in 2007 helped change the public perception of mobile gambling by allowing online betting sites to advertise their services on television and radio for the first time,” said Ronan De Renesse, senior analyst, head of mobile, at IHS.

“During the past 12 months, there has been a rapid increase in advertising spending from mobile gambling operators and other wagering operations to promote their services. Partly because of this, the opinion of gambling has changed in the country. No longer does gambling conjure an image of a smoky betting shop hidden from the public. Instead, betting has crafted itself into a respectable enterprise by using ad campaigns featuring the endorsements of sports pundits.”

UK betting organizations Paddy Power, Betfair and Ladbrokes all have launched campaigns aimed at the new generation of smartphone users. And Blue Square, part of the largest UK gambling conglomerate the Rank Group, attributed 20 percent of its revenue from mobile gambling in 2010, a 300 percent increase year-over-year.

Smart wagering
The proliferation of the smartphone has helped the mobile gambling market to experience breakthrough years in 2009 and 2010. But with the launches of 4G and spectrum auctions coming in the upcoming months, 2011 looks to be a year where UK gambling operators reinforce mobile as a substantial source of revenue.

“Today’s mobile gambler is very different from the mobile gambler five years ago,” De Renesse said. “Previously, aesthetics and speed were sacrificed for accessibility over a variety of devices. Today, consumers want a quick, good-looking application that provides additional content and allows them to place bets, spin a roulette wheel or buy a bingo ticket with the same level of ease that they currently can find online. As a result, a new wave of speedy, glamorous mobile gambling applications is emerging, which can be promoted in the wider media with ease. IHS expects this trend to continue.”

Revenue boost
In other industries mobile handsets are cannibalizing tradititional revenue streams like mobile games. However, the same can’t be said when it comes to mobile gambling. Instead, mobile gambling is expected to increase an online user’s average revenue per user (ARPU) by 10 percent to 20 percent during the next couple of years.

This is due to location-based use. For example, with mobile gaming, a user can bet on a sports event at any location and doesn’t necessarily have to be at the event to do so. Plus, with live events being streamed more and more via mobile, users enjoy access to many more events that they can gamble on.

The majority of bets and stakes are taken from an account balance already established by a user—similar to Amazon or PayPal. However, with the growing popularity of e-wallets and e-commerce, as well as the rising use of m-commerce, these approaches may become a more common way of betting. Therefore, IHS does not believe that mobile operators will become billing centers for gambling.

Source: IHS iSuppli, USA.

FlashSoft secures $3 million in first round of funding to deliver flash virtualization software to enterprise IT

MOUNTAIN VIEW, USA: FlashSoft Corp., the Flash Virtualization company, announced its Series A funding of $3 million, led by Thomvest Ventures, and the introduction of the first commercial offering of software to enable enterprise flash as a cost-effective, server-tier computing resource. The company’s product, called FlashSoft SE, is commercially available today and is already being used in business-critical production environments by several customers. FlashSoft SE is available for free evaluation through a 30-day “Try Before You Buy” program.

Flash technology has gained traction in enterprise computing due to its ability to reduce input/output (IO) latency, and to increase scalability and performance for databases, enterprise applications and virtualization environments. The analyst firm Objective Analysis has forecast that shipments of enterprise SSDs will grow to 4 million units by 2015, more than 50 times the number shipped in 2010.

Despite the performance advantages of flash SSD, two barriers have inhibited its adoption in the enterprise. First, when used as primary data storage, flash memory cannot easily integrate with and leverage the benefits of existing storage systems infrastructure. Secondly, storing all of an application’s data on server-attached flash memory remains expensive. FlashSoft overcomes both of these objections.

FlashSoft SE is the first commercially available, all-software “tier minus one” solution for Flash Virtualization. Enterprise IT can now provide databases, applications and virtual machine environments with the performance benefit of having the entire data set on flash, with only a fraction of the data actually stored in flash. This innovation makes enterprise flash a cost-effective performance solution that works seamlessly with existing storage infrastructure.

In fact, FlashSoft actually reduces the IO burden on storage, producing even greater cost savings. FlashSoft’s technology is designed to deliver flash-grade performance within a standalone server, across server clusters, and throughout the data center.

Jays brings award-winning audio to the masses with new streamlined v-JAYS

SWEDEN: v-JAYS, the award-winning headphone from Swedish audio equipment manufacturer Jays AB (publ), is undergoing an update and re-launch at an even more attractive price.

v-JAYS headphones are defined by their clear musicality, ease of use and authentic approach to music and sound. With a prestigious victory at the Bristol Shows HiFi World Awards 2010, top-ratings in iCreate, The Sunday Times and host of Swedish and international awards since their launch, v-JAYS have successfully managed to convey the passion, innovation and pure love of music that form the basis of the JAYS brand.

The new v-JAYS model has been updated with a matt finish and completely new packaging, but is otherwise completely unchanged…except for the price. Due to the success of the model Jays is now able to reduce the price of the v-JAYS and offer the best possible audio quality to the widest possible audience. New model v-JAYS are launched on 6 July and during the first week will be sold exclusively in Sweden by CDON.COM.

“We are very pleased with how v-JAYS have evolved since their launch in 2009” says Rune Torbjörnsen, CEO of Jays AB (publ). “It’s not often that a product is still gathering momentum a few years after its launch. We’re proud to have developed v-JAYS all by ourselves with relatively little funding and we’re even more proud that the product has been able to speak for itself in a crowded international market.

“We know our success is thanks to the music loving users who have responded to our music obsessive brand-DNA and we’re grateful for their support. That we can now make v-JAYS even more accessible with a more attractive price is simply a natural part of our effort to share our passion for music and joy for what we do with as many people as possible.”

Link_A_Media Devices announces customizable controller platform for enterprise, client, hybrid and consumer SSD apps

SANTA CLARA, USA: Link_A_Media Devices (LAMD), a leader in the development of custom System on a Chip (SoC) solutions for the data storage market, announced the availability of its 6G SATA and PCIe, FlashLINK2 SSD controller technology platform. Using the FlashLINK2 platform, LAMD can develop and ship samples of a new, custom SSD controller product, complete with NAND management and host interface firmware, in as little as five months.

The FlashLINK2 is a highly scalable platform, capable of supporting a broad spectrum of SSD applications ranging from 2 Channels for Hybrid Hard Disk Drive and Consumer products to 16 Channels for the enterprise segment. It combines a highly robust data recovery sub-systems, based on LAMD’s second generation proprietary Adaptive DSP Error Recovery technology, with a data transport sub-system and user-customizable host interface block to deliver leading-edge Read/Write transfer speeds and throughput (IOPS), as specified below.

The Adaptive DSP Error Recovery is specifically designed to increase the endurance of current and future generation MLC NAND devices to meet the lifetime requirements of enterprise-class usage while maintaining high performance throughout the drive’s life. It achieves these key system objectives through the use of proprietary adaptive signal estimation methods and powerful on-the-fly error correction technology.

The FlashLINK2 platform comes with complete, qualified NAND management and host interface firmware to support all NAND Flash supplier interfaces, along with hardware design that uses patented micro architectures for error-correction decoder and sophisticated power management to deliver low power consumption.

According to Gartner Inc.’s latest research*, the enterprise SSD market will grow from 1.3 million units shipped in 2010 to over 11.6 million units in 2015, a CAGR of 54 percent. MLC flash based enterprise SSDs are predicted to be the fastest growing segment within this market.

“The endurance, performance and data integrity requirements for MLC flash based enterprise controllers are very stringent,” said Joseph Unsworth, Research Director for NAND and SSD at Gartner. “MLC flash technology is an imperative for driving enterprise SSD adoption through lower prices and companies that can provide solutions that are easy to integrate and have compelling benefits and cost structure will be increasingly attractive.”

“We are very pleased to announce the availability of our proven FlashLINKTM2 SSD controller platform, which features our endurance enhancing technologies to enable the widespread adoption of next generation MLC Flash in data storage devices,” said Dr. Hemant Thapar, CEO, Link_A_Media Devices. “Our versatile platform is designed to enable our customers to suitably add their own hardware or firmware blocks to create custom controller products and deliver differentiated NAND-based system-level storage solutions. LAMD’s FlashLINK2 platform is significant because it enables manufactures to get to market quickly with a reliable, MLC flash based SSD.”

The FlashLINK2 SSD technology platform is comprised of customizable hardware intellectual property (IP) blocks and firmware modules, implementing a complete 6Gbps end-to-end NAND Flash controller. Unique FlashLINK2 platform technology dramatically improves the endurance, reliability, cost and performance of NAND Flash storage for all applications (enterprise, client (PC, notebook) and embedded mobile storage). LAMD is currently shipping MLC enterprise level products to a major OEM drive manufacturer.

Seagate storage for world's first tablets featuring hard drives

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Seagate is delivering hard disk drive storage for the world’s first handheld tablet computers with hard drives. The ARCHOS G9 8- and 10-inch tablets, announced in Paris, feature the Seagate Momentus Thin hard drive, a speedy notebook drive with a super-slim 7mm profile.

The performance and capacity of the Momentus Thin drive are the perfect complement for the cutting-edge speed of the ARCHOS G9 family of tablets that features the industry’s fastest dual-core 1.5 GHz processor and, on the strength of the Momentus Thin drive, gives users 250GB of capacity, eight times more than a standard 32GB tablet but at the same cost, making the ARCHOS G9 one of the tablet industry’s best cost-performance values.

ARCHOS 80 G9, the 8-inch product, and ARCHOS 101 G9, the 10-inch model, are scheduled to be available in late September. Estimated MSRPs for the ARCHOS 80 G9 and ARCHOS 101 GB tablets are $279 and $349, respectively, compared to competitive tablets starting at $499.

“Seagate continues to break new ground in the development of products and technologies that matter most to customers by delivering the Momentus Thin drive for these powerful ARCHOS tablets,” said Rocky Pimentel, Seagate chief sales and marketing officer. “The Momentus Thin drive gives tablet buyers a compelling option, providing great storage capacity and performance that dovetail with the processing power of the new ARCHOS products for great Android and multimedia experiences.”

The Seagate Momentus Thin hard drive is ideal for tablet computers and other ultra-portables, entry-level to high-performance laptop PCs, and slim consumer electronics devices. The world’s first 2.5-inch hard drive with a 7mm profile features:
• Seagate SmartAlign technology to smooth the transition to 4K sectors without the need for software utilities.
• 320GB, 250GB and 160GB capacities.
• 7200RPM and 5400RPM spin speeds with 16MB of cache.
• Optional: Government-grade encryption to protect computer data where it lives – on the hard drive – for powerful data security. (The Momentus Thin drive is FIPS 140-2 certified, delivering government-grade encryption, and conforms to the Trusted Computing Group Opal specification, developed to enable the ecosystem for self-encrypting drives and increase their adoption.)

Half of all major marketing automation vendors to develop apps specifically for Apple iPad by 2016

STAMFORD, USA: By 2016, 50 percent of all major marketing automation vendors will develop applications specifically for Apple's iPad, according to Gartner Inc. As more consumers purchase and use media tablets, such as the iPad, they are becoming increasingly prevalent in the workplace and enterprise vendors are responding accordingly.

"The initial use of iPads and tablets by marketers will be the extension of existing marketing applications, such as campaign management and marketing resource management (MRM) functionality, to be supported by the device, either disconnected or connected to the network and home-based application," said Kimberly Collins, managing VP at Gartner. "By 2014, 65 percent of major marketing automation vendors will extend 25 percent of their functionality to the iPad. MRM vendors will lead this charge with adaption of functionality for reviews and approvals. Marketing fulfillment vendors are likely to enable access to content via tablets as well."

"The biggest benefit includes the ability of marketers to work remotely while traveling, enabling them to complete tasks and projects faster, and in a more timely fashion," Ms. Collins said. "They also have fast access to content and collateral in the field. Cycle times can be greatly reduced, yielding increased staff productivity and decreasing program/campaign costs. Chief marketing officers (CMOs) and creative users will have the biggest need for remote access, followed by campaign managers and designers."

Analysts said CMOs and senior marketing leaders are the most likely to move to iPads exclusively for their work over the next couple of years, due to their visual appeal when meeting with other executives and more-limited processing requirements. Other personnel will be more likely to buy the tablets themselves in the short term, and to request support before the tablets become corporate standards.

Over the next three to five years, next-generation of iPad and tablet usage by marketers for internal tasks will focus on the development of existing or new applications to be fully used on the tablet, as opposed to partial functionality from existing applications used in the office. New marketing vendors may develop iPad-only applications for internal use by marketers.

E-commerce organizations are also being lured by the appeal of tablets and e-readers. E-commerce tablet and e-reader applications are nascent and evolving quickly, creating a new set of selling options for organizations. Gartner said that by 2014, 95 percent of e-commerce websites will have a tablet or e-reader presence. However, 40 percent will fail due to a lack of customer-understanding of their usage.

"It's crucial for organizations to understand what type of buying experience is needed by their users for tablet- and e-reader-based sales," said Gene Alvarez, research vice president at Gartner. "They will need to determine how many devices they will support, as they will be faced with not only supporting browsers and tablets, but also other mobile customer touchpoints. As a result, an organization's analysis of its customer base, and its usage of various different touchpoints are critical to its success in the new mobile world."

JTAG donates boundary-scan hardware, software and support to European Student Moon Orbiter (ESMO) project

EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDS: JTAG Technologies has donated boundary-scan hardware, software and technical support to the European Student Moon Orbiter (ESMO) project.

Set to be the first European student mission to the moon, ESMO is funded by the European Space Agency’s Education Office and sees the collaboration of 19 universities throughout Europe working with UK-based prime contractor Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd.

JTAG Technologies’ donations comprise a boundary-scan controller, JTAG ProVision application generation software and support from ALLData (JTAG Technologies’ distributor in Italy). The solutions are to be used by the ESMO project’s On-board Data Handling (OBDH) team, which is based at the University of Maribor in Slovenia.

Team Supporting Prof. Dr. Iztok Kramberger, comments, “We are planning to have two boundary-scan chains on the On-Board Computer’s processor cards – one chain for accessing the processor, the other for accessing an FPGA.”

A preliminary design review is scheduled for this summer, after which work will
commence on the development of the processor cards and the JTAG test environment.

Launch of the ESMO satellite is planned for late 2013 or early 2014 and the mission is to place a spacecraft in orbit around the moon, photograph the surface and send images back to Earth.

Peter van den Eijnden, MD of JTAG Technologies, adds, “We are delighted to be supporting ESMO and, by extension, rekindling interest in engineering, science and space exploration.”

Asia-Pacific software market to burst into life in 2011 with more than 8 percent growth

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA: The Asia-Pacific (AP) business software market will burst into life this year, when it will grow by 8.4 percent to hit $46 billion, according to Ovum.

In a new forecast, the independent technology analyst predicts recovery from the global economic downturn will begin in earnest this year for the sector, which did not grow at all in 2010.

The promising outlook means the business software sector will grow at a CAGR of 8.9 percent over the next four years, reaching revenues of $65 billion in 2015. The strong growth is driven by exploding volumes of data, increased enterprise mobility, the transition to cloud computing models and the emerging markets, such as huge demand in China and India, although the markets in Japan, South Korea and Australia are expected to show strong single digit growths as well.

The information management software sector will experience the biggest increase in revenues of all the business software areas. This area will grow at a CAGR of almost 11 percent from 2010 to 2015, as businesses grapple with spiralling volumes of data and try to extract business value from them.

Tim Jennings, Ovum chief analyst, commented: “As the global economy continues its recovery, the emphasis of IT investment is moving on from the traditional area of back-office automation and transaction processing, towards the exploitation of information to add value to the business.

“The volume of information within enterprises continues to grow at an astonishing rate and investment is needed both to manage this information, and to turn it into actionable intelligence, through technologies such as business intelligence and analytics.”

Ovum has also released a new vendor rankings analysis, which paints a picture of the companies that are dominating the software space. Microsoft continues to be the AP’s number one software company with more than 15 percent market share. It is followed by IBM, Oracle and SAP, in second, third and fourth place respectively.

Ovum principal analyst, Richard Edwards, commented: “Microsoft is still a major player and market maker, with revenues of $6.6 billion in 2010 in AP. The company has gained huge mass and velocity over the past 20+ years, and this looks set to sustain the company in the short and medium-term.

“However its level of innovation is not keeping pace with the rest of the market – it is doing just enough to stay in the game, but is not a star performer.”

Although information management software will experience the strongest growth, Ovum’s figures show all the sectors will enjoy a healthy outlook. The security software market will grow by a CAGR of 10 percent from 2010 to 2015, while applications software will grow by a CAGR of 9.7 percent for the same period.

Jennings continued: “Organisations are breaking away from the shackles of desktop IT, and providing mobile workers with access to systems from any location and any device. The mobile revolution will generate strong demand for mobile applications, as well as for the development and management platforms to support this shift.

“Although it is still relatively early days for cloud computing, growth will accelerate over the next five years, as organisations move further towards a software-as-a-service model and take their data centres towards the hybrid combination of public and private cloud infrastructure. This will generate new demand for both infrastructure and application services.”

The emerging markets will also make a substantial contribution to the strong growth the software sector is set to experience. Jennings added: “Emerging markets around the world have an insatiable appetite for technology-driven expansion, often unencumbered by the constraints of peers in mature markets.”

Level 3 enables Extreme Reach to improve production and delivery of digital video advertising

BROOMFIELD, USA: Level 3 Communications Inc. announced that it has signed an agreement with Extreme Reach, a leading provider of video advertising solutions based in Needham, Mass., to support its production and distribution of digital video advertising. Extreme Reach will leverage Level 3's advanced Internet services in a new facility located in Burbank, Calif. that will facilitate the company's in-house production services and capabilities.

Extreme Reach is focused on the goal of providing advertisers with the world's largest video ad delivery network and the No. 1 TV and online video ad platform. Level 3's advanced IP network is designed to provide reliable and efficient connectivity, and Extreme Reach will use Level 3's services to optimize its digital delivery of advertising content in support of the company's initiatives.

"Our company is expanding rapidly, and we need a network partner that will not only grow with us, but also provide the level of service that enables us to expand our capabilities," said Tim Conley, COO of Extreme Reach. "Level 3's network services offer us a compelling solution for efficiently connecting our new Burbank production facility. Working with them will enable us to further optimize our business processes and improve our competitive position in the marketplace."

The new facility in Burbank is Extreme Reach's primary West Coast sales and service center and requires a network solution that will enable it to scale to accommodate a rapidly expanding clientele. Under the terms of the agreement, Level 3 is providing the company with high-speed dedicated Internet access (DIA).

"Our agreement with Extreme Reach illustrates the increasing influence of high-quality digital content as a communication tool in advertising and beyond, and this content explosion necessitates network solutions that support the intense bandwidth requirements." said Andrew Crouch, president of Sales for Level 3. "We are delighted that our network services are able to support Extreme Reach's customers' needs for a robust digital video advertising management and distribution solution."

Zynga launches first mobile game in multiple languages

INDIA: Zynga announced the launch of CityVille Hometown, the company’s first mobile game offered in French, Italian, German and Spanish.

A completely new game, CityVille Hometown has familiar game elements players know and love from CityVille but with a unique, small town twist. New residents will embark on adventures to create a bustling town, invite friends and in-game characters to be neighbors, and build out their communities.

As early as this week, CityVille Hometown will be available in English in Canada via the Apple App Store on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch and will be available globally in five languages in the coming weeks.

CityVille Hometown introduces players to characters Bert and his mother Gilda who welcome players and show them the basics of building a community. Kate, the friendly resident community manager will help players navigate their new hometown so they can begin to build, decorate, and for the first time - choose and name the citizens who will help them complete quests. The more players interact with the characters in their town, the more they will learn about their stories and help them achieve their own goals – a true community at work.

CityVille Hometown enables players to build their community of residents on the go and gives them access to their Facebook friends who play CityVille. Friends that play and connect on CityVille Hometown can swap resources and energy and send and receive special limited edition items if they prove to be exemplary citizens.

Zynga strives to provide its players with the best mobile social game experience possible anytime and anywhere. With a familiar look and playing experience to CityVille on Facebook, CityVille Hometown will offer players the chance to connect with friends on-the-go through building and customizing their towns and sharing resources. CityVille Hometown is the second mobile game to be launched this month following the roll-out of Hanging With Friends last week – the next game from the Zynga With Friends studio that adds a new twist to the classic game of Hangman.

Plextor unveils SATA 6Gb/s SSD

BANGALORE, INDIA: Plextor, a leading developer and manufacturer of high-performance digital media equipment, announced the immediate US availability of its new M2 Series SSD. Supporting the latest SATA 6Gb/s, the M2 Series SSD is currently one of the fastest SSDs available in the market.

Utilizing a Marvell 88SS9174 controller, this 2.5 inch SSD is available in three capacities: 64GB, 128GB and 256GB. The 256GB model provides sequential read rate up to 480MB/s and sequential write rate up to 330MB/s, allowing users to read and transfer data much faster compared to other SSDs with SATA II interface.

By incorporating Plextor’s Instant Restore technology and Global Wear Leveling algorithm along with Windows 7 TRIM command support, the M2 Series SSD is able to manage memories ever so efficiently to overcome the performance loss typically associated with prolonged usage.

Also featured, are the 128MB DDR3 cache buffer resulting in even faster response times for consumers, and the large cache also helps ensures each drive will provide reliable and sustained performance over time.

With a MTBF rate beyond 1.5 million-hour, the M2 Series SSD comes with Plextor’s three-year warranty and is bundled with Acronis True Image software, which gives users instant tool for disk cloning and backup.

LDRA slashes time and cost of certifying HC08/HCS08 to stringent avionics, medical and automotive standards

WIRRAL, UK: LDRA, the leader in standards compliance, automated software verification, source code analysis and test tools, delivers full certification capabilities for Freescale’s HC08 and HCS08 applications.

By exploiting the resources of the CodeWarrior IDE, LDRA enables developers to run host-style analysis and test generation on resource-constrained processors. Now, automotive, industrial and avionics applications using the HC08/HCS08 processors can automate testing and verification processes, reducing the cost of certification.

The HC08 and HCS08 fill an increasingly important role in cost-effective, low-power applications that must meet stringent certification requirements. Using the LDRA tool suite, developers can achieve programming compliance with industry standards, such as MISRA, IEC 61508, ISO 26262 and DO-178B, to the highest levels. The LDRA Tool Qualification Support Pack then documents the software development process, providing the qualified output needed for certification.

The integration of the LDRA tool suite with CodeWarrior for HC08 and HCS08 streamlines user interaction. With compiler and debugger control, developers gain easy access to data on the target that can be output to the host. In addition to providing static and dynamic analysis of the target via LDRA Testbed, test cases can be generated via LDRA’s TBeXtreme test case facility. These test cases can be generated and validated on the host and then rerun for qualification on the target.

“The most stringent certification standards consistently call for on-target analysis and verification,” noted Ian Hennell, LDRA Operations Director. “Achieving such detailed analysis on an 8-bit platform demands tools that are scalable and well integrated. The LDRA tool suite has consistently delivered sophisticated testing capabilities, even on tight, resource-constrained processors, such as Freescale’s HC08 and HCS08.”

Thanks to this integration, developers can control their application testing from the CodeWarrior environment. Developers can automate processes such as build, execution and coverage collection from the CodeWarrior IDE, allowing the LDRA tool suite to be used in the same way it would be on host targets. Using scripts, LDRA tools can control the CodeWarrior environment, providing data capture from the target via a device, such as P&E’s background debug mode probe. Similar control scripts can retrieve the data when using the simulator.

Muratec strengthens its presence in India

CHENNAI, INDIA: Muratec, a Japan based company started in 1935, offers better cost performance system solutions, is strengthening its presence in India through its associate company – Meiban Engineering Technologies. With the inauguration of the latest tech center in Bangalore, Muratec is eyeing a larger share of the Indian market for turn key projects for manufacturing automobile and sheet metal components.The tech center has been inaugurated by Yosuke Murata, executive VP, Murata, Japan, and is situated in JC Industrial Estate, Kanakapura Road over 9,000 sq ft. The tech centre acts as a demo center and will help Meiban in providing better quality sale support. Currently, Muratec‘s Sales turn over is slightly above Rs 30. crores in India and with the additional set up, aims to achieve Rs. 125 crores in four years time.

Takahiro Yamada, senior manager of Muratec Machinery Ltd, Japan, said: “India has always been a key strategic market for us. We see a great potential for our products in India. We would like grow four times the present share in sheet metal machines and three times in metal cutting machines in five years. We strive to achieve these targets by working closely with Meiban Engineering Technologies Pvt Ltd.”

A.V.Srinivasan, CEO of Meiban Engineering Technologies Pvt Ltd, said: “We are glad to be part of Muratec and with the addition of tech centre in Bangalore, we hope to achieve better heights. This initiative will help all our customers and make it easy to buy the product, as the customers can get a firsthand experience with the demonstration of the machines, besides training and service maintenance.”

Meiban Engineering supplies and services sheet metal machines which include the latest CNC AC Servo Turret Punch presses of various capacities. The company is also equipped to supply latest advanced Punch press tools from Japan. In the metal cutting division, the company serves with high end automated twin spindle chuckers for manufacturing automotive components, hydraulic components and bearing components. Meiban also supplies Rivetting machines and Key seaters from Muratec for the automotive industry.

As a supplier of industrial goods, Muratec strive to ensure that the products we develop to meet customer requirements also satisfy international quality appraisals. Murtac as a corporation is applying an international quality assurance system. For instance, the all Murata Machinery Divisions obtained ISO9001 certification for all processes, from development to manufacture and customer services.Through awareness and dedication to quality in the context of an integrated quality assurance system, enables us to offer customers products they can use with peace of mind.

NI LabVIEW for education software for high schools announced

INDIA: National Instruments announced the latest edition of its NI LabVIEW for Education software for high school, which integrates with classroom data collection and control devices to help teach science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) concepts to students.

The software is a full-function version of the industrial LabVIEW graphical system design software that is “skinned” and scoped appropriately for students. It is optimized for classroom use through instructional videos, tutorials, open-ended challenges and teaching resources created specifically for high school students and teachers.

“LabVIEW gives me the freedom to creatively inspire my students with authentic, real-world projects while using traditional lab equipment,” said John Sperry, engineering teacher at Anderson High School in Austin, Texas. “The software’s visual environment is easy for beginning students to understand, but also offers a very high skill ceiling so students can reach their full potential with the same technology that professionals use.”

LabVIEW for Education integrates with the NI myDAQ portable data-logging device, Vernier sensors and LEGO Education robotics platforms to provide a wide range of possibilities for teaching core science and math concepts through real-world applications.

“NI LabVIEW for Education is helping expand our Vernier classroom sensor platform into experiential studies of more advanced engineering applications,” said David Vernier, president of Vernier, a leading classroom technology company. “Now more than ever, we can help teachers easily incorporate exciting yet practical hands-on engineering education into their science classrooms.”

LabVIEW for Education includes the following primary benefits:

-- Students gain experience with the same software used by professional engineers and scientists.
-- New vision module helps students use USB webcams for advanced image manipulation and motion tracking.
-- Ideal for integration with robotics classes and competitions.

National Instruments collaborates with leading curriculum developers including UTeach Engineering, The Infinity Project and Ergopedia to provide complete solutions for implementing accredited courses based on LabVIEW. LabVIEW for Education was developed in conjunction with the Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach.

MindTree launches MWatch - Integrated IT infrastructure management platform

BANGALORE, INDIA: MindTree Ltd has launched MWatch, an Integrated IT Infrastructure Management Services Platform. MWatch provides CIOs and IT Infrastructure Managers with a built-in monitoring and management tool encompassing their entire infrastructure from desktops to servers, increasing IT and service efficiencies and reducing costs.

“There is a plethora of disparate tools and processes today to manage different elements of any IT infrastructure, resulting in fragmented and inefficient operations,” said Ram C. Mohan, SVP and Head, Infrastructure Management & Technical Support, MindTree. “MWatch is a secure platform that facilitates consolidation and provides a complete view of the infrastructure, enabling CIOs to optimize IT performance, streamline work flows and eliminate unnecessary expenditures.”

MWatch is an intelligent service enabler for MindTree’s managed services and is available for both on-premise and cloud based infrastructures. Its deployment is backed by MindTree’s built-in security framework, ENACT (Environment Access Control terminal). The platform is based on ITIL v3 guidelines with event, incident, problem, configuration and change management integrated with service desk support.

It features a correlation engine and a built-in knowledgebase, which maps infrastructure elements to specific services for proactive problem solving. This platform will help CIOs get an analytical insight on their IT spend and will also offer compatibility with third party tools to protect investment. MWatch automates standard operational activities, eliminating daily manual processes and errors. It also improves governance with a common dashboard for services, intelligent integration of a federated database, enterprise-wide pre-processed reporting, and framework compliance tracking.

David Roth, MD, Information Technology, The Carlyle Group launched MWatch at Bangalore. He said: “We expect the monitoring and management capabilities of the MWatch platform, with its ITIL processes, and MindTree’s 24x7 support, deliver tremendous value to the IT infrastructure of The Carlyle Group. We plan to leverage the platform to manage our servers and core applications around the globe which will allow us to increase operational efficiencies and stability.”

Biswajeet Mahapatra, research director, Gartner, said: “Customers can derive more value from BSM tools that have a good service modeling capability that can be enhanced and extended by integrating other existing IT Operations tools and products. This enhancement and extensibility is only possible when it backed by good experience and expertise in implementation and integration of infrastructure and application management.”

Bluetooth SIG adds Apple and Nordic Semiconductor to board of directors

KIRKLAND, USA: The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) announced two new members to its board of directors from Apple and Nordic Semiconductor.

Leaders in their perspective markets, Apple and Nordic join household names Intel, Motorola, Lenovo, Nokia, Microsoft, Ericsson AB, and Toshiba on the Bluetooth SIG board. These companies, plus the more than 14,500 additional Bluetooth SIG member companies, will drive Bluetooth technology’s expansion into platform and sensor markets.

“We see the importance of platform development and ultra-low power sensor silicon for Bluetooth technology and believe guidance and board participation from Apple and Nordic, industry leaders in these perspective fields, is essential,” said Michael Foley, executive director of the Bluetooth SIG. “We have set the ambitious goal of shipping five billion devices in 2015 – to get there we must continue to build a technology that will offer a simple and secure solution that can be found everywhere, in every type of device. These additions to our board will ensure we succeed in new markets we have targeted for growth.”

The way consumers utilize digital devices is undergoing a fundamental shift – mobile phones, laptops and tablets, TVs and even cars now stand to serve as hub devices that capture data from small sensors monitoring everything from footsteps, heart rate activity, blood pressure and sugar levels to house temperature.

Hub devices turn that data into useful information at the application layer, then may push that information to the cloud. Apple and Nordic understand this shift; insight from Apple on platform development and Nordic for sensor silicon demands will ensure a smooth growth trajectory of Bluetooth v4.0 into these new areas.

Nordic Semiconductor’s Svein-Egil Nielsen brings extensive experience in R&D as well as his entrepreneurial spirit to the Bluetooth SIG. Nielsen’s vast understanding of the ultra-low power space and its demands will help guide continued development of the Bluetooth v4.0 specification.

“Bluetooth technology has been the main R&D focus at Nordic for the last six years and we are now in a position to enable new and exciting products for consumers,” said Svenn-Tore Larsen, CEO Nordic Semiconductor. “With our success in ultra-low power wireless technology, we know the market, applications and the customers. Nordic is proud to have the opportunity to extend this knowledge to the Bluetooth community.”

Apple and Nordic’s two-year appointments were agreed upon by unanimous vote of the current board of directors and will officially begin on July 1, 2011.

USB made easy with workshops from Avnet and NXP

PHOENIX, USA: Avnet Electronics Marketing Americas, a business region of Avnet Inc., has teamed up with NXP, and announced the launch of its latest Speedway Design Workshop, USB Made Easy.

Featuring hands-on labs with Avnet’s team of field application engineers (FAEs), USB Made Easy teaches designers how to develop USB applications based on NXP’s fully scalable Cortex-M USB portfolio. These Speedways begin in July and are offered in multiple cities across the United States. Registration is $99.00 and space is limited.

Featuring NXP’s low cost LPCXpresso development platform, this course will show how NXP microcontrollers are making the task of developing USB enabled devices faster and speeding time to market. The LPCXpresso labs will be focused on the Cortex-M0 LPC11U00 and pin-to-pin compatible Cortex-M3 LPC1300 microcontroller series.

The LPC11U00 is the latest addition to the Cortex-M0 family, featuring a highly configurable, full speed USB 2.0 device controller; bringing unparalleled design flexibility and reliable USB connectivity for consumer electronics and mobile devices.

DisplayLink receives $8 million financing

PALO ALTO, USA: DisplayLink, the leading provider of networked display technology for multi-monitor and USB-connected computing, has announced that it will receive eight million dollars of new financing in a fourth round investment, with an option for an additional six million if needed.

The Palo Alto-based company did not disclose the investors providing the new capital. DisplayLink has previously received financing from Atlas Venture, Balderton Capital, DAG Ventures, DFJ Esprit and WTI. The company has raised a total of $68 million.

“DisplayLink has received another vote of confidence from the investor community with this new round of financing,” said Graham O’Keeffe, DisplayLink chairman. “Strong growth continues in our markets for USB graphics adapters, universal docking stations, and monitors in both the corporate and consumer segments. There are now close to four million USB graphics users, with SuperSpeed USB 3.0 catching on quickly. This financing will help DisplayLink to rapidly deliver compelling new products for these markets.”

DisplayLink intends to continue its product development and innovation, particularly in the SuperSpeed USB and wireless-enabled categories. According to a research report from In-Stat entitled “USB 2011: SuperSpeed Comes to Market,” nearly 80 million SuperSpeed-enabled devices will ship in 2011. DisplayLink has already been recognized as a leader in the SuperSpeed category, capturing a CES 2011 award for its enabling technologies.

“DisplayLink continues to benefit from the support of some of the world’s leading venture capital groups,” said Dennis Crespo, executive VP of marketing and business development for DisplayLink. “With this investment, we are well-resourced to further grow our PC peripherals business, particularly in zero-client computing. This market has been fueled by the recent introduction of Windows Multipoint Server 2011, with DisplayLink supporting a growing number of customers and partners in this category.”

SGI Altix supercomputer system at NASA achieves petaflop scale

International Supercomputing Conference 2011, FREMONT, USA & HAMBURG, GERMANY: SGI has announced that NASA’s Pleiades supercomputer system, built with SGI Altix ICE technology, has achieved more than one petaflop/second in sustained compute performance based on the LINPACK performance benchmark, and has now moved into the #7 spot on the June 2011 Top500 list of supercomputer sites in the world.

The Pleiades system is run by the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames Research Center, and represents NASA's state-of-the-art technology for meeting the agency's supercomputing requirements, enabling scientists and engineers across the nation to conduct modeling and simulation for NASA missions.

NASA’s Pleiades system contains 182 SGI Altix ICE compute racks, consisting of 111,104 cores of Intel Xeon processors. The system now contains 185.3 TB of total shared memory, two SGI InfiniteStorage 15000 RAID arrays, and 5.1 petabytes of storage. This new configuration is built on the largest InfiniBand cluster in the world, containing a partial dual-plane 11D hypercube InfiniBand network topology plus seven Lustre file systems.

Named after the astronomical open star cluster of the same name, NASA’s Pleiades system now consists of three generations of SGI Altix ICE, three generations of Intel Xeon processor series, and two generations of InfiniBand, all managed as a single system, demonstrating the power and flexibility of Altix ICE to span multiple generations.

“We congratulate NASA on this profound achievement,” said SGI CEO Mark J. Barrenechea. “The Pleiades system demonstrates that the standards-based technologies in Altix ICE have the potential to scale to the levels of the largest supercomputers in the world, thus setting the stage for the exascale computers of the future.”

“The close partnership of NASA, Intel and SGI over the years has resulted in the world-class capability available today on the Pleiades system,” said Rupak Biswas, chief of the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. “We look forward to even more exciting discoveries as we extend NASA’s high-end computing capabilities in the future.”

“NASA’s Pleiades system highlights both the scalability of Intel Xeon series processors and the growth of our relationship with NASA and SGI,” said Raj Hazra, general manager of High Performance Computing at Intel. “Being based on a standard x86 programming environment means that a wide range of users can benefit without the need for porting their code, and we look forward to the exciting discoveries that this new Altix ICE system configuration that NASA has developed will bring to the world.”

Mellanox FDR InfiniBand to deliver PetaScale performance for Europe’s fastest supercomputer

International Supercomputing Conference 2011, HAMBURG, GERMANY: Mellanox Technologies Ltd, a leading supplier of end-to-end connectivity solutions for servers and storage systems, announced that its recently introduced end-to-end FDR InfiniBand connectivity products have been selected by the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) to provide world-leading connectivity performance for its upcoming SuperMUC supercomputer.

Scheduled for full deployment in 2012, the SuperMUC system will utilize the performance power of IBM servers with onboard Mellanox FDR ConnectX®-3 InfiniBand mezzanine adapters and next-generation Intel Xeon processors, all connected and managed via 36-port and 648-port Mellanox FDR InfiniBand switches, software and copper and fiber cables.

“Implementing over 110,000 processor cores in a single system requires an efficient interconnect with industry-leading performance and scalability,” said Dr. Herbert Huber, head of the HPC system management group at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre. “Utilizing Mellanox’s FDR InfiniBand, the SuperMUC system will provide the European science community with world-class supercomputing performance for their most compute-demanding simulations.”

“We are proud to have our end-to-end FDR InfiniBand products selected by the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre for their next-generation Petaflop supercomputer,” said John Monson, VP of product marketing at Mellanox Technologies. “Mellanox FDR InfiniBand technology delivers the needed performance, efficiency and scalability for building the next generation of leading HPC platforms, and will set the standard for Exascale computing.”

Mellanox’s next-generation ConnectX-3 FDR InfiniBand adapters, SX-6000 series switch systems, Unified Fabric Manager (UFM), Mellanox OS (MLNX-OS), software accelerators and FDR copper and fiber cables deliver the highest level of networking performance while reducing system power consumption. The combination enables cost-effective networking topologies for high-performance computing, financial services, database, Web 2.0, virtualized data centers, and cloud computing.

SGI to deliver breakthrough Exascale computing solution

International Supercomputing Conference 2011, FREMONT, USA & HAMBURG, GERMANY: SGI has announced plans to deliver next generation supercomputers with Intel Many Integrated Core (MIC) architecture, based on Intel x86 architecture, and announced a strategic development partnership with Intel Corp. to deliver such systems.

For too long, petaflop (defined as one thousand trillion floating point operations per second) computing has been reserved for the top 10 organizations in the world. Today’s announcement is designed to drive wide industry adoption of petaflop computing, as well as take a quantum step forward towards exascale computing. Integrating Intel MIC architecture into future SGI Altix ICE servers is expected to result in the following* computing breakthroughs:

* Up to 10X increase in compute density.
* Up to 7X decrease in power per flop.

Intel MIC architecture features many small, low-power cores and familiar programming standards, and is expected to extend aggregate performance across the die to enable faster analysis of more complex data sets and compute problems.

“SGI recognizes the significance of inter-processor communications, power, density and usability when architecting for exascale,” said SGI CTO Dr. Eng Lim Goh. “The Intel MIC products will satisfy all four of these priorities, especially with their anticipated increase in compute density coupled with their familiar x86 programming environment.”

SGI has a long history of bringing accelerators into its platforms to solve the world’s most complex compute problems. As the size of applications continues to increase, accelerators provide alternatives from the perspective of density and performance per watt. A key part of its exascale strategy, integration of Intel MIC architecture allows SGI to offer acceleration options that alleviate the need to learn and port to a different development environment. Intel MIC technology also allows legacy codes to quickly enjoy the benefits of its architecture.

“Intel MIC architecture is designed to address one of the biggest HPC and future exascale computing challenges – software compatibility and ease of programming for fast processing of highly parallel applications,” said Anthony Neal-Graves, Intel VP and GM, Many Integrated Core (MIC) Architecture.

“Intel is pleased to have SGI, the company with a rich history of innovation in service of the HPC industry, as a partner in bringing MIC technology to the marketplace. This recognizes Intel® Many Integrated Cores architecture as a future solution addressing the needs of HPC community.”

Personalized Media Communications and Cisco in broad patent licensing accord

SUGAR LAND, USA: Personalized Media Communications, LLC (PMC) has entered into a patent license agreement with Cisco covering the full range of Cisco products and services.

The non-exclusive agreement includes PMC’s full suite of patents and any new patents issued in the future. PMC’s patent portfolio relates back to an initial filing in 1981, with over 50 new patents issuing since 2010 that have terms lasting until at least 2027. Financial terms of the licenses were not disclosed.

As part of the agreement, PMC will dismiss its patent litigation against Cisco’s Scientific Atlanta subsidiary pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

John C. Harvey, an inventor of the PMC technology and its founder said: “We spent almost thirty years developing and patenting the technology that is now emerging fully. Cisco, by obtaining the license, recognizes the value of PMC’s patent portfolio. With this behind us, PMC can now focus on its many other opportunities.”

XConnect launches video interconnection exchange (VIE) to accelerate adoption of global video calling

LONDON, UK: XConnect, the leader in next-generation interconnection and ENUM-directory services, has launched the global Video Interconnection Exchange (VIE) – the world’s first neutral federation for exchanging video calls across networks, operators, service providers, B2B exchanges and vendors.

With multiple applications, services and platforms, video communications is a thriving but fragmented community. VIE (pronounced “Vee”) will resolve interoperability and interconnection challenges by enabling secure, scalable and multi-protocol interworking between disparate video communities, exchanges, networks and devices.

VIE will make video calling as easy as making a voice call – whether using a laptop, desktop, tablet or mobile phone – from anywhere in the world.

By connecting video “islands,” VIE will dramatically accelerate worldwide mass-market adoption of video calling and conferencing by service providers, enterprises and consumers.

VIE launches with five operators, based in the United States and EMEA. Members include telepresence providers, as well as fixed, mobile and Web 2.0 video service providers.

Through one connection to VIE, video-enabled operators will gain immediate multilateral interconnection to each other, with full configurability, control and policy.

Video-enabled operators will significantly boost their video reach globally, leading to an increase in end-user video usage. This increase will help drive revenue and margin growth, delivering competitive advantage and faster customer acquisition.

XConnect’s secure and scalable Interconnect 2.0 services enable next-generation interconnection that supports end-to-end IP sessions. The company uses its advanced ENUM registry technology and provides interworking and transcoding to assure preservation of video sessions. VIE will reduce the cost and operational overhead of interconnecting video services across networks, vendors and platforms.

“Whether users are at home, in the office or on the go with their smartphones or tablets, global demand for video calling is exploding,” said XConnect CEO Eli Katz. “However, today, video services are confined to separate islands, limiting video calling to users within an operator, vendor or platform video community.

“The lack of interconnection between video islands hinders mass adoption of video communications,” Katz added. “XConnect’s VIE is a scalable, secure and policy-based video-interconnection service from a proven, trusted and neutral interconnection partner.”

“Telio is very excited to be a member of XConnect’s Video Interconnection Exchange,” said Telio CTO Alan Duric. “Having already successfully launched video calling, back in 2007, we are now moving to the next level by joining VIE. This will enable us to offer global, cross-network video calling to our customers, by removing the technical burden and challenges of interworking with other video-enabled networks.”

“In our view, a technology-neutral platform for enabling high quality, secure cross-network communications services would go a long way toward encouraging usage of new IP services,” said Andrew Kitson, Senior ICT Research Analyst at Business Monitor International (BMI). “Removing the interconnection constraints of legacy networks will lead to greater and optimised availability and usage of value-added services, such as high-quality cross-network video calling.”

Brocade distinguished with multiple best of show grand prix awards at Interop Tokyo 2011

NEW DELHI, INDIA: With intense competition and more than 130,000 attendees at Interop Tokyo 2011, Brocade won top distinction for its industry leading Brocade MLXe core router and Brocade VDX Data Center Switch.

The Brocade MLXe Series router was selected from more than 300 highly competitive networking solutions for the Special Prize: Infrastructure Building Products and Grand Prix: ShowNet Product Section. Additionally, the Brocade VDX Ethernet fabric switch also won the Grand Prix: People’s Choice for the show.

The Interop Best of Show awards were created to help network architects and administrators shorten the evaluation process in assessing new technology products. By identifying innovative new products at Interop, the awards assist network decision makers by highlighting solutions that will maximize the business value of their IT infrastructures. The Interop People’s Choice Award is selected over the course of the three day event where attendees cast their vote for the product and solution they deem as most innovative.

“We are honored to be recognized for multiple awards at Interop Tokyo,” said John McHugh, chief marketing officer for Brocade. “The selection of Brocade for Best of Show award demonstrates our leadership in delivering comprehensive networking solutions to the world's most demanding enterprise and service provider customers. Brocade’s MLXe and VDX networking solutions provide the necessary foundation to transition customers to a world where information and applications are available anywhere.”

The flagship Brocade MLXe core router, part of the Brocade MLX Series routers, is designed to enable cloud-optimized networks by providing industry-leading 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE), 10 GbE, and GbE wire-speed density; rich routing capabilities like IPv4/IPv6, MPLS and Carrier Ethernet.

Built with a state-of-the-art, sixth-generation architecture and terabit-scale switch fabrics; the Brocade MLX Series has a proven heritage with nearly 10,000 deployed worldwide. By leveraging the Brocade MLX Series, mission-critical data centers can support more traffic, achieve greater virtualization, and provide high-value cloud-based services using less infrastructure—thereby simplifying operations and reducing costs.

The Brocade VDX Data Center Switches are specifically designed to improve network utilization, maximize application availability, increase scalability, and dramatically simplify network architecture in virtualized data centers. By leveraging Brocade VCS technology, the Brocade VDX builds data center Ethernet fabrics—revolutionizing the design of Layer 2 networks and providing an intelligent foundation for cloud computing.

Whether organizations want to enhance their classic hierarchical network architectures, deploy flatter scale-out fabrics for virtualized data centers, or converge networks, the Brocade VDX delivers the innovative technology to enhance and simplify their networks.