Summit Notebook
Exclusive outtakes from industry leaders
Intel, HP: TVs should get smarter
Intel, Sony and Google are expected to unveil on Thursday a “smart TV”: an Internet-ready, super content machine that — if the hype is to be believed — will let viewers watch Celebrity Apprentice, tweet, and respond to emails at the same time. On Wednesday, Intel’s sales and marketing chief — while keeping his cards close to the vest — couldn’t resist a little plug for the general concept of Internet TVs.
“The smart TV category is going to take off. It just makes all the sense in the world,” Thomas Kilroy told the Reuters Global Technology Summit. “Why would you want to compromise when you’ve got a nice big screen, you’re watching TV and you want to access information and keep that program on instead of bringing in another device. ”
“It’s our belief that there’s going to be a fundmental shift that happens every 30 to 40 years or more…and it’s about to happen with televisions,” he added. “I actually remember the black and white days. I remember in my house when we went from black and white to color and my gosh, what an experience.”
It remains to be seen if Google TV — tech blogs have already dubbed the product Smart TV — will transform the media consumption landscape. But the idea is sure getting traction.
HP’s imaging and printing division chief later jumped in – unprompted — to outline the very same vision of having multiple screens on one Internet-connected TV, much like the holographic displays dreamed up in Tom Cruise’s “Minority Report”.
“We’re dumbing down the TV — it should be a content device,” HP’s Vyomesh Joshi argued.
from MediaFile:
HP: Think before you ‘dis’ print(ing)
All those reminders to "think before you print" and the use of the email for most official correspondence might make you believe the office printer is no longer so important. The reality, however, is that we print more than ever, according to Vyomesh Joshi, Executive VP of Hewlett-Packard's imaging and printing group, who sat down with the Reuters Global Technology Summit in San Francisco.
The truth is, even company executives don't realize might be surprised much printing and printing-related is going on, he says.
IT managers will have absolutely no idea how much they spend on imaging and printing... On average, 6 percent of their revenue is spent on imaging and printing.
There are 50 trillion pages printed every year. A lot of people think we're going to the paperless office... 1984 was the first article about the paperless office and the reality in 2010 is 10 times more paper is used than in 1984.
Which means workers everywhere still continue to struggle with paper jams.How many Paper Jams, you ask? According to Joshi:
Twenty-three percent of all the helpdesk calls are about printing.
(Photo: Reuters)
‘String of pearls’
”String of pearls” could have different meanings.
It is how MphasiS Chief Executive Ganesh Ayyar refers to the Indian IT services provider’s strategy of going for small to mid-size acquisitions. The bigger ones can become a “noose around your neck”, Ayyar said.
The company, 61 percent owned by Hewlett-Packard, is buying the India-based IT services arm of troubled U.S. insurer American International Group. Ayyar, who spoke to us about the company’s “ambidextrous approach” to business, indicated today that any future acquisitions would be in the AIG ballpark.
DELIVERY CAPACITY
Ayyar also told us that MphasiS was close to opening its first offshore global delivery center outside India. He offered us no color, telling us to “let it remain a monochrome.” All we know for now is that this center will be in a low-cost emerging market. Your guess is as good as ours.
@ V Leeas opposed to the Chinese who never copy anything or violate a single intellectual property patent, right?
Dell’s enterprise chief pooh-poohs netbooks
Netbooks: flavor of the month? Not according to Dell’s Steven Schuckenbrock.
The PC giant’s head of enterprise sales was quick to point out flaws in the stripped-down, no-frills mini-computers that have garnered rave reiews for their ultra-portability and anywhere-connectivity.
“Netbooks are a secondary device. The user experience of a netbook is just not as good. It’s slower than a conventional notebook computer,” Schuckenbrock said at the Reuters Global Technology Summit in New York.
Perhaps that’s why Dell was slow to get into a space dominated early on by aggressive Taiwanese upstarts like Asustek. Dell, the once-preminent U.S. personal computer manufacturer, which has steadily given away market share to rivals from Hewlett Packard to Lenovo, unveiled its first netbook only in September.
Schuckenbrock, however, acknowledged that the netbook was an ideal device for non-demanding consumers. “I carried one with me on the road this week to check it out. A great device. Light, easy to use. But a different performance. If I’m in my office, it’s probably not gonna work.”
Which is fine by some investors. Dell had endured criticism from the Wall Street community for appearing at times to see-saw between different and sometimes contradictory corporate strategies, from its initial tardiness in latching onto the netbook craze to its flirtation with the hand-held device market.
This isn’t all that suprising really – Intel are also downplaying the usability of netbooks out of fear that netbook sales will cannabalise sales of more expensive notebook computers. The fact that netbooks would serve 90% of consumers perfectly well seems to be of no consequence to the heads of marketing (who are realising a little too late that they’ve shot themselves in the foot when it comes to long term sales by jumping on the netbook bandwagon)!
