UK tech spending set to beat inflation

Technology spending in the UK is likely to increase at a quicker rate than inflation over the next 12 months, despite an uncertain economic climate.

According to research by the National Computing Centre (NCC), around 58 percent of companies will make inflation-busting increases to what they spend on IT.

The median growth rate for IT spending is predicted to be 4.9 percent, with the highest growth likely to be seen in the construction and health sectors.

NCC managing director Stefan Foster said the results of the survey suggest technology buyers are confident about future economics but are not being overly optimistic.

The NCC suggested Microsoft is likely to be one of the big winners, as companies look to refresh their desktop infrastructure, replacing Windows XP with Windows Vista.

XP currently dominates the marketplace with 71 percent of the businesses surveyed using it but, in two years' time, Vista is likely to make up around 75 percent of the market, according to the research.

Desktops may become less popular, with a 57 percent increase in the number of laptops and a 134 percent increase in the number of PDAs predicted over the next two years. According to the research, the number of desktops is set to fall by around two percent.

Companies are also looking to invest heavily in virtualisation, storage area networks and VoIP. Meanwhile the increasing popularity of the IT Infrastructure Library (Itil) is likely to fuel spending on business-process management apps.

Gartner recently recommended that companies start cutting technology costs in order to protect themselves from a predicted global recession.

The NCC's Benchmark of IT Spending 2008 survey included responses from 120 organisations, with a combined IT spend of more than £750m.

form : http://news.zdnet.co.uk/itmanagement/0,1000000308,39365234,00.htm

And The Winner of the Nintendo Wii is…

by Matthew Magain

I’m excited (and more than a little bit jealous) to announce that the winner of our SitePoint Reader Survey competition is…

Ivan Soria

Ivan is a designer, student and entrepreneur from Mexico, and his interests include motion media and video games. He’s the lucky winner of a Nintendo Wii and TWO copies of Guitar Hero III.

Ivan’s suggestion for improving sitepoint.com was selected from a pool of nearly 5,000 entries. Here’s what he wrote:

I would totally love to see a SitePoint desktop or web application where one could find some tools aimed at web design, coding and business. For example, it would be cool to have a CSS coder with quick access/interaction to the reference section.

But Ivan didn’t stop at just one idea — he had quite a few. For example, he had some ideas on the type of content that would make him visit sitepoint.com more often.

I think it would be useful to have a weekly featured digital/web artist, and to see his or her portfolio. I’d like to see SitePoint develop a finer aesthetic sense, rather than some having many tutorials. (I write this because I think of SitePoint as more a “thinking” or “philosophy” site, rather than practical learning — we all know where to go to learn our favorite design/coding package.)

Hmm, we actually had a greater number of requests for more tutorials, Ivan, so I don’t think you’ll see us easing up on that front. But we definitely plan to adopt your suggestion for more interviews and design case studies, as many others requested this type of content as well.

Of course, Ivan didn’t stop there:

I’d love to have everything business-related in one place. Some sort of journal, calendar or project management tool could be integrated into an online SitePoint application — an opportunity board where one could find a coder or designer in distress and collaborate for some freelancing projects; a message center on the top part of the homepage could be useful to notify if a new job/collab or business-related matter has arrived. This app or new section would be called My Site or My SitePoint. We could sign up and log in from SitePoint’s homepage, and also use it as a social networking tool, to build a strong community of web designers and coders.

Ivan’s idea is certainly an ambitious one, but it echoes a recurring theme — that you want SitePoint to become more customizable, more social and for the site to offer more tools that let you do your job.

Another idea I have for your site, a strong one, is to build a new section. A “How to” or “Case studies” section, where you take a successful, well-designed or marvelously coded site and try to explain the entire production (or a summed up version of it) step by step, focusing on the programming, design and business/marketing sides of it. This way we could learn from actual live commercial examples and apply some of your books or article knowledge (to our own projects).

This is another recurring theme in the responses we received — standalone articles are interesting, but complete, start-to-finish tutorials are more useful in allowing you to progress your skills, whether they be technical, creative or business-related. I’ll be talking more about some initiatives that we have coming up that will go part-way to addressing this.

I’ll be posting some more about the survey results in the coming week, but that’s enough for now. Please join me in congratulating Ivan!

TI News Indicates Nokia Weakness, Analysts Say

by Reuters

HELSINKI, March 11 (Reuters) - Shares in the world's top cellphone maker Nokia and several other European technology firms fell on Tuesday after Texas Instruments cut its first-quarter forecasts, citing a weaker 3G market.

Texas Instruments said the warning came after one of its key clients cut plans for 3G phone production for March.

Analysts said the 3G chip customer, which TI did not names, was likely Nokia, its biggest client for mobile chips.

Shares in Nokia tumbled as much as 6 percent and were 5 percent lower at 20.40 euros by 0826 GMT, helping to pull European technology index down 2 percent.

Citing weak wireless demand especially for third-generation high-end chips, TI cut its January-to-March quarter profit forecast and sales target ranges on Monday.

Brokerage Cazenove downgraded its recommendation on Nokia stock to "in-line" on the news, saying weaker demand for high-end 3G phones would likely hurt the Finnish firm's average selling price and earnings per share.

"We are usually careful about comments from Nokia's supply chain, but the scale of the downgrade at Texas Instruments and the precision of the comments make us conclude that demand for Nokia's 3G/high-end phones has decreased in the second half of the quarter," Cazenove analysts said in a note.

TI said demand was as expected for chips used in low-end phones sold in emerging markets such as China.

"TI's warning is about high-end, having little impact on volumes. I don't expect Nokia's volumes in the first quarter to disappoint," said Glitnir analyst Pasi Vaisanen.

Other technology shares were buffeted by the news as well.

"There have been some smaller indicators, but this is the first big vendor to warn," said analyst Hannu Rauhala from Pohjola.

Shares in Texas's rival chip makers Infineon were trading 1.3 percent lower in Frankfurt, while STMicroelectronics stock fell 1.4 percent.

"In our view, STM stands to be the most impacted in Europe as it has focused on 3G and above technologies with little exposure to the low end," Credit Suisse analysts said in a note to clients. TI cut its first-quarter earnings per share forecast range to 41 cents to 45 cents from a target of 43 cents to 49 cents issued on Jan. 22. It now sees revenue of $3.21 billion to $3.35 billion versus an earlier target range of $3.27 billion to $3.55 billion.

Analysts on average had expected earnings of 46 cents per share on revenue of $3.4 billion, according to Reuters Estimates. (Reporting by Tarmo Virki; Editing by Quentin Bryar)

Nokia Asked to Repay EU60 Million by German State

By Andreas Hippin

March 11 (Bloomberg) -- Nokia Oyj, the world's biggest maker of mobile phones, was asked by the German state of North Rhine- Westphalia to repay almost 60 million euros ($92 million) in state aid for a factory it plans to close.

The state-owned NRW.Bank demanded Nokia return 41 million euros of aid plus interest until March 31 because it didn't create enough jobs in a mobile-phone factory in the city of Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia's economic ministry said in a statement distributed by fax today.

If Nokia doesn't pay by the end of this month, NRW.Bank will take the company to court, it said. According to the statement, this is the highest repayment demand against a single company in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The Finnish company asked to discuss the repayment demand last week, the ministry said, adding that ``a date for talks will be offered in the coming days.''

Nokia spokesman Arja Suominen didn't immediately return a call from Bloomberg News seeking comment.

Nokia shares fell 1.16 euros, or 5.4 percent, to 20.32 euros as of 11:47 a.m. in Helsinki, valuing the company at 80.9 billion euros. Texas Instruments Inc., the second-biggest maker of chips that run mobile phones, said yesterday demand for chips used in handsets that can download music and access the Internet was lower than it anticipated.

Form : http://www.bloomberg.com/

NRW claims €60m from Nokia

Nokia had announced in January that it would close its manufacturing plant in Bochum, Germany. This will result in the loss of 2,300 jobs and has infuriated the German publics and government alike.

Today, NRW Bank sent Nokia a demand note over nearly €60 million -- the subsidies plus interest -- to be paid by March 31. Otherwise the bank would take legal action to secure payment. The state economy ministry claims that Nokia has failed to fulfill conditions under which it had to create a minimum of 2860 permanent jobs.

It said in a statement that Nokia last week called for a discussion of the state's demand for repayment, and that "a meeting will be offered in the next few days." Espoo, Finland-based Nokia said it was "astonished" by NRW initial effort to recall the subsidies, and argued that it "not only fulfilled the conditions of the agreement, it exceeded them."

Form : http://www.evertiq.com/

Integrity Solutions Achieves Nokia Expert Partner Accreditation

“We are pleased to announce that Integrity Solutions has been accredited as an Nokia Expert Partner”, explains Catriona MacGregor, Channel Account Manager at Nokia. (Pictured)  “Like ourselves, Integrity Solutions is committed to maintaining technical and market leadership and they have a proven track record and skill set to architect, design and plan for enterprise security projects”.

 
As an accredited partner, Integrity Solutions will benefit from the Nokia Expert Partner programme.  Benefits include elite brand identification and prioritised access to advanced training opportunities.  Benefits to Integrity Solutions’ customers include highly competitive pricing of Nokia products and accredited engineers to implement them.
 

“We have always believed in high levels of continual training for our team and the maintenance of exceptional standards of service for our clients”, says Eoin Goulding, Managing Director of Integrity Solutions. (Pictured) “The addition of Nokia Expert Partner to our solutions portfolio significantly enhances our competitiveness in the marketplace”.

Form : http://www.irishdev.com/

North Rhine-Westphalia confirms report demanding 60 mln eur from Nokia UPDATE

FRANKFURT (Thomson Financial) - The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) has confirmed a press report saying it is demanding around 60 mln eur worth of subsidies and interest from Nokia in connection with the closure of its Bochum plant, dpa reported.

The state's Economy Ministry said the state-owned NRW.Bank had been asked to claim back the subsidies Nokia had been granted in 1998 and 1999 together with interest 'without delay'.

'The entire amount is therefore nearly 60 mln eur, to be paid by March 31,' it added.

The press report in Handelsblatt also said that the request will be sent to the company, adding that NRW will consider filing a suit against Nokia should it fail to pay the sum by the end of March.

In January, Nokia announced that it will close its Bochum plant this summer, saying it is too expensive to operate there. The bulk of its production is being transferred to a lower-cost Romanian factory, which starts up this quarter. judith.csaba@thomson.com jcs/rfw/cs1/ra

Form : http://www.hemscott.com/

Asus Unleashes it's Wood: Bamboo Computers at CeBit

The Asus EcoBook was the first computer concept I'd ever seen clad in bamboo. But since then, the idea has looked like it might take off. The highly treated bamboo is non-flammable, lightweight, and, unlike every other computer out there, not made from petrochemicals.

Unfortunately, there have been some questions raised recently about whether bamboo is indeed greener than plastic. But there's no doubt that, just by virtue of it's natural look, it appears green. The good news is that Asus is looking at more than just its materials when trying to green its products. The innards of their new computers are labeled for easy repair and recycling and they're some of the first laptops that are truly upgradeable, instead of being semi-solid slabs that are all-but-impossible to upgrade and self-repair.

But the bamboo, it seems, is pretty much a symbolic statement. Though, I have to admit, it's a nice one.

Via Engadget