When is an Xbox 360 a Nintendo Wii?

When it's priced the same, for all intents and purposes, which it's looking like it just might be by late next week. Referencing "trade sources," MCV claims that Microsoft plans to drop the price of its entry-level Xbox 360 Arcade by as much as €50 ($76 USD). TechRadar.com adds spice to the rumor by avowing the drop and claiming it'll occur across Europe on March 14, sourcing "numerous UK retailers...who agree that the 360 price is set to be slashed on this date."

Altogether, the Xbox 360 Elite is poised to take a dive from €300 to €240, while the basic Arcade system, which lacks a hard drive, should drop from €200 to €150. That would technically make the Arcade cheaper than the Wii, which lists for €180.

Is it time to drop the price of the Xbox already? Let's see:

- Microsoft dumps HD DVD drive for Xbox 360 -- more of a psychological oops, but it leaves a ton of existing 360 owners in a lurch, and feeds a right or wrong public perception that something major associated with the Xbox 360 failed.

- Sony muscled past the 360 for the first time in January. I know, it shocked me too, and since Microsoft beat the pants off Nintendo and Sony each in software sales that month, I guessed it was Blu-ray sales driven. Which means Sony could be on the verge of a hardware sales turnaround that's not even games driven.

- The Xbox 360 has (or had) an absurdly high unit failure rate, i.e. the doleful "red ring of death," and enthusiast confidence on message boards and blogs is low, trending toward sardonic. Microsoft has performed minor miracles to rectify the situation and deserves full honors for being stand up about the problem, but first impressions (like possession) are nine-tenths law. Unreliable and expensive is of course a universe away from "bargain-priced" and "sufficiently revised."

- A considerable part of the Xbox 360's revenue model is Xbox Live and aftermarket online and/or casual game sales. Drop the 360 price into Wii territory and get your marketing team going toe-to-toe with Nintendo on the casual-online front and you just might redraw the battle lines. Nintendo may have found a new niche, but it remains a pretty monolithic one. The Xbox 360 (uniquely) has the economic and creative potential to mix and match hardcore and casual demographics. Figuring out how to market that message is Microsoft's game to lose.

So yeah, I think it's time to drop the price, unleash the new marketing campaigns, spin the monthly statistics to emphasize the company's forte (software revenue and critically acclaimed games), release a standalone Blu-ray player, etc. to get the system back on its feet, lest Nintendo continue to pull ahead based on sheer momentum, and Sony eradicate Microsoft's lead by virtue of movie player sales alone.

Will U.S. Xbox 360 prices follow suit? Grab hold of your wallet, then bet your bottom dollar.

Form : PC World

AMD's Stephen DiFranco talks channel

he only thing to do after you've spoken to the main channel marketing guy for Europe is to go global.

So HEXUS.channel tracked down AMD's overall channel boss at CeBIT 2008 and asked him what his priorities are for AMD's channel strategy this year.

"Our biggest aim can be summed up by saying we want to synchronise the solution at the system builder," said DiFranco. "It's not easy enough to build an AMD system right now."

That might seem like a surprising admission, but it is typical of the mea culpa approach AMD has taken to improving its channel relationships after a rocky 2007.

"You should be able to get parts more easily," he continued. "The channel is very fragmented, but the point at which it all aggregates is at the system builder level."  In other words, by focusing on making it as easy as possible for system builders to get hold of AMD kit and support, DiFranco hopes to remedy any supply and communication problems ocurring in other parts of the channel.

DiFranco indicated that he was aware that many smaller channel players are diversifying their activity to incorporate more SMB business.

"The desktop is still the backbone of the SMB market and the refresh cycle means that a lot of companies are upgrading around now," he said.

"But we're also trying to answer the question: 'why should an SMB ask for an AMD-based notebook. We've identified a need to communicate better with B2B resellers."

DiFranco also indicated that AMD is working on a dedicated B2B platform, but was unable to comment further on it for now. He did stress that AMD "needs to overcome 30 years of wintel", however.

Form : HEXUS.tv - London,UK

Intel memory chip prices drop double projection-CEO

By Duncan Martell

SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 5 (Reuters) - Intel Corp Chief Executive Paul Otellini said on Wednesday the company has seen price erosion for certain memory chips in the first quarter that is nearly twice what it had predicted.

Otellini said Intel's forecast for price erosion from the fourth quarter to the first quarter in NAND flash memory chips was 27 percent. The actual figure it observed is 53 percent.

The result of that pricing erosion was a "substantially lower product margin" and higher inventory write-downs.

Intel late on Monday cut its gross margin forecast for the current first quarter, citing weaker pricing on certain memory chips known as NAND flash memory, used in cell phones and digital music players.

That portion of the chip industry has been hit by over-capacity, some slowing demand among consumers, and intense price competition among Intel, its joint-venture partner Micron Technology Inc and Asian chipmakers.

Intel said on Monday it now expected a first-quarter gross margin of 54 percent, plus or minus a point, versus a previous forecast for 56 percent, plus or minus a couple of points.

Otellini also reaffirmed the chipmaker's plans for what he called an aggressive plan to move into what it sees as a rapidly growing market for PCs -- both desktop and notebook -- costing as little as $250.

"While we've gotten more efficient in the core business, we've put more investments in where we think the growth of the company is going to come from," Otellini said.

The company on Sunday announced it had picked "Atom" as the name for a new class of microprocessors aimed at the market it has dubbed netbook PCs, as well as emerging consumer devices.

Intel aims to have Intel chips spanning the digital market from so-called mobile Internet devices all the way to high-end computer servers that form the backbone of corporate networks.

Otellini also said at the company's headquarters in Santa Clara, California, that he expected Intel to start shipping more chips using 45-nanometer chip-making technology in the third quarter than those using the previous 65-nanometer chip-making technology.

"It's as aggressive as we said a year ago and on track," Otellini said.

Sean Maloney, head of worldwide sales and marketing for Intel, said at the meeting that inventories of chips, chipsets and other components that Intel tracks are in line.

"There isn't really any significant build-up of inventory," Maloney said.

Stacy Smith, Intel's chief financial officer, said he has been pleased with the progress Intel made in the last two years in restructuring Intel and ensuring that its operating profit margin would grow at a faster rate than revenue growth.

"The goal is to continue that," Smith said. "I think we're very well positioned for growth."

He also said that he expects Intel's dozen or so chipmaking plants around the world to be running at about 90 percent of capacity in 2008 and 2009, a figure he called ideal because it leaves Intel some flexibility to crank out more chips if demand is stronger than expected. (Editing by Gary Hill and Braden Reddall)

From : Guardian - UK

Intel: Flash Business Will Work 'One Way Or Another'

SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Intel CEO Paul Otellini today attempted to clarify the company's situation surrounding NAND flash memory one day after a Q1 financials warning clobbered the semiconductor market.

On Tuesday, Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) warned that its Q1 gross profit margin would slip from 56 percent in prior guidance to 54 percent, and attributed this to weakness in the flash memory market. Intel said this was due to slumping prices.

Otellini, speaking to financial analysts here at Intel's headquarters, clarified the statement that hit his company's stock on Tuesday, as well as the rest of the semiconductor sector.

Intel had forecast the price erosion from Q4 2007 to Q1 2008 would be 27 percent, when it ended up being 53 percent. This had the double impact of hurting not only products in manufacturing, but those already done and in inventory.

However, he also noted that Intel has shipped twice as many flash memory bits as it did in Q4. So while Intel is suffering price erosion, it at least has a chance to make up for it in volume.

Intel is addressing this problem by focusing on higher value segment adds, particularly solid state drives (SSDs). The newest notebooks, like Apple's Mac Air, use SSD drives, and Intel can offer not just NAND flash but controllers and power management.

"We will be moving into solid state drives in mid-year to give insulation against commodity markets," he told the gathering of suits in the auditorium. "I have made a personal commitment that this business will not be a drag on Intel Corporation. We're going to fix it or make sure it's profitable one way or another."

The Internet Opportunity

As to other areas, Otellini said that thanks to Intel's restructuring over the past two years and new cost structure, the company is "in a good position to go after new markets." He sees the Internet as the fundamental driver of the business, because "only" one billion people are online so far.

Intel hopes to see the online population reach two billion over the next several years and expects to get there by selling more devices to enable more people to get on the Internet. That's not just PCs, it's all devices, and they will need a richer experience as visual Internet experiences like YouTube and Second Life demand more processing power.

By the end of Q1, Intel expects to have 72 45nm SKUs on the market, 29 in server products, 22 on desktop, and 21 in mobile. Otellini confirmed Dunnington as a six-core multiprocessor Xeon chip that will allow for 24-core servers, and said Nehalem was on track for a later 2008 release. To prove it, he announced his entire slideshow was running on a Nehalem-powered box.

Intel has high hopes for mobility, a market it felt would pass 50 percent of PCs sold in 2009 when IDC was saying 2010. Otellini noted that consumers are driving notebook sales with just under 50 percent of purchases, and said that will go up as the cost of parts comes down.

A million free hours

This year marks Intel's 40th anniversary and Otellini announced an interesting way of celebrating it. Intel employees will donate one million free employee hours to assist in their community. "This is our giveback for turning 40," said the CEO.

Otellini was followed by Sean Maloney, executive vice president and general manager of sales and marketing, who said that despite talk of a slowdown, particularly in servers, he expects growth to continue. He pointed out that Google, Yahoo and MSN make up eight percent of the Internet server hardware population, and they will not be going to virtualization, which is often thought to be a reason for slowing server sales.

Datacenters need more processing power. Data intensive tasks like financial processing have seen their processing needs go up eight fold, while oil and gas companies went from nine teraflops of processing power in 2003 to 180 in 2007.

Maloney said that the consumer market is changing to include more handheld devices, and that Intel's new Atom processor, codenamed Silverthorne, will be the chip that takes the company into that market. "Silverthorne can take us into a number of markets we've looked at for a number of years but never could go after," he said.

Form : InternetNews.com - USA

Free WiFi internet for Nokia Nseries mobiles in NZ

Kiwis with Nokia's high-end NSeries mobiles can now get free wireless internet access on Kordia's metro WiFi network.

State-owned enterprise Kordia's WiFi network covers areas such as some university campuses, cafes and shopping districts in the country's major cities.

Nokia said the free internet offer, which starts today, will run for at least six months and also includes Nokia's business-oriented E-series models, such as the E90.

Form : Stuff.co.nz - New Zealand

Samsung India signs exclusive agreements with former Nokia distributors

Samsung Telecommunications India is strengthening its distribution and retail network as it aims to double its market share to 15% by December. The company also signed exclusive agreements with around 40 former Nokia distributors.

 

The company hopes to increase its penetration level from present level of 55% to 85%.

 

Samsung India Country Head Sunil Dutt said that many retailers are now moving to Samsung’s fold as Samsung Mobile Privilege Partner (SMPP) and said he expects the SMPP retailers to grow four-fold this year from the current number of 100.

Form : TelecomTiger - New Delhi,India