Oracle Financial Services Data Warehouse hints at how Oracle, along with Microsoft and Salesforce.com, are aiming IT services at specific industries and tasks. – In the midst of the global recession, most businesses put a
lockdown on IT spending. No upgraded hardware or software, executives insisted,
until we find a way out of this mess. The problem or the opportunity, if youre
a software or hardware provider is that IT infrastructure continued to age in
…
Tech companies such as Facebook, Apple and Google asked their job applicants some very odd and revealing questions, according to IT careers expert Glassdoor.com. – Despite an economy still struggling to lift itself from the
ashes of a long-term global recession, recruiters expect a rise in
technology-job hiring activity in 2011, particularly in areas such as project
managers, developers and business analysts.
Accompanying with that rise is an uptick in job…
While smartphone sales are booming, low-cost and ultra-low-cost handsets are also expected to turn upward, says ABI, thanks to first-time users in China, India, Africa and Latin America. – Smartphone sales may be surging, but the opposite end of the handset
market is also expected to rise, fueled by emerging economies such as
those in China, India, Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia, ABI
Research reported Dec. 14.
With economies beginning to rebound from the global recession…
Microsoft reported strong results for the fiscal quarter, buoyed by strong sales of Windows 7 and Office 2010. But smartphones remain a looming question. – Microsoft announced strong results for its first fiscal
quarter 2011, with revenues of $16.20 billion and net income of $5.41 billion.
That represents a 25 percent rise in revenues over the same quarter last year,
when the company was combating the fallout of a massive global recession.
Net inc…
Microsoft gambled big that Windows 7 would help revive the company’s revenue and erase memories of Vista. One year later, sales suggest it won. – Microsoft was in a bad state last summer, just as its teams were putting the
finishing touches on Windows 7. The global recession had battered the company’s
revenues. Windows Vista, the company’s previous operating system, seemed
stigmatized in the wake of bad reviews and user complaints. If Wind…
Research firm Gartner predicts that worldwide enterprise software spending will increase through 2014. Despite that increase, though, North American spending is expected to slow by the end of 2010. – The worldwide market for enterprise software will increase
over the next year, as businesses begin to refresh their hardware and software
in the wake of the massive global recession. That prediction, in a Sept. 20
research note from Gartner, also suggests that enterprise-software spending in
Nor…
SAP reported rising software-related revenues and net profit, thanks to increased spending by business customers in the wake of a long-term global recession. SAP’s recent Sybase acquisition positions it to make an aggressive play in the mobile-software market. – SAP benefited from increased spending on
business software in the second quarter, reporting software and
software-related revenues of 2.26 billion euro ($2.9 billion) and a net profit
of 491 million euro ($638 million). Revenues experienced a year-over-year rise
of 16 percent, while net profit r…
Microsoft has taken an "all in" approach to cloud computing, but its revenues from software such as Windows 7 suggests it will need to leverage its traditional, more desktop-bound products for some time to come. – Microsofts quarterly revenues of $16.04 billion exceeded
many industry analysts expectations, and suggested that the economy–at least
the portion of it that purchases software is indeed slowly reviving from the
deepest global recession in a generation. However, a deeper analysis of those
results…
Microsoft is laying off a small number of employees as it begins a new fiscal year, according to a number of reports. The Windows maker cut 5,000 jobs in 2009, largely in response to the global recession. – Microsoft officials are not commenting on rumors that the company will lay
off a small number of employees following the July 1 beginning of its new
fiscal year, although online reports and blogs frequented by Microsoft
employees indicate that those cuts could already be under way.
In response…
Microsofts 2009 was headlined by the release of Windows 7, but 2010 will prove a no less momentous year for the company in terms of new products: whether Office 2010, the newest version of the long-running productivity suite, or Kinect, its new “hands-free gaming device” for the Xbox 360 franchise, Microsoft needs a number of new products to succeed if it wants to continue to revive its bottom line following the massive global recession. Windows Phone 7 and a new, slimmer Xbox 360 will also determine Microsofts fortunes. At a recent event in New York City, Microsoft offered up its latest consumer creations for media and analysts along with a selection of hardware devices produced by its manufacturing partners. – …
IDC is predicting that worldwide IT spending will jump 3.8 percent this year, to $1.47 trillion, after a recession-plagued 2009. Hardware makers will be the big winners, with spending on PCs, servers, storage and networking gear expected to soar. However, there are some areas of weakness, in particular in Western Europe and Japan, IDC said. – IT spending is rebounding in the wake of the global recession, with
businesses spending on everything from PCs and servers to storage devices and
networking equipment, according to market research firm IDC.
In numbers released May 24, IDC
is estimating that worldwide IT spending will grow 3.8 pe…
Coming out of the global recession, businesses increasingly are looking to virtualize the servers that theyre buying, according to IDC. More than 18 percent of all servers shipped in the fourth quarter of 2009 were virtualized, and virtualization software licenses jumped 13 percent.
– IT departments battered by the global recession last year are
increasingly adopting a “virtualize first” mentality, according to
research firm IDC.
In a report April 28, IDC analysts said that 18.2
percent of all servers shipped in the fourth quarter of 2009 were
virtualized, an increase from 1…
A report from research firm IDC predicts small business spending on IT will not return to 2008 levels until 2011. IDC predicts worldwide SMB spending on information technology (IT) will increase by 5.5 percent over the 2010-2014 period, significantly lower than previously forecast.
– While the impact of the global recession was no surprise, the extent
to which small and midsize businesses were adversely affected was
greater than anticipated, according to a report by research firm IDC.
As
a result, IDC forecasts worldwide SMB spending on information
technology will increase…
Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, Samsung, Apple and other OEMs will spend 13 percent more on microprocessors in 2010 than in the previous year, predicts a report from iSuppli. These numbers seem to show that semiconductor prices have stabilized, while demand for consumer and businesses electronics has increased.
– Hewlett-Packard,
Apple, Samsung, Nokia and other OEMs
are poised to spend 13 percent more on chips in 2010 than they did in 2009,
iSuppli predicted in a March 17 report.
In 2009, when the global recession led consumers and businesses to cut back
on buying electronics and IT equipment, OEMs spe…
Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein reports that Windows 7 has sold 90 million copies since its release in October 2009 and Microsoft predicts the beginning of an enterprise tech refresh in either 2010 or 2011. Although Microsoft has seen strong consumer spending on Windows 7, tight IT budgets in the wake of a global recession have limited business tech spending. Windows 7 adoption is growing in the United States, climbing to 7.57 percent in January.
– The Windows 7 operating system continues to sell strongly five months after
its release, but a tech refresh among businesses may take additional time to develop,
according to Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein.
Klein told those gathered for a Morgan Stanley investor conference Ma…
Worldwide chip sales increased about 47 percent from January 2009 to January 2010, according to the latest SIA report. The report found that demand for PCs, smartphones and automobiles helped drive the semiconductor market during the first few weeks of 2010.
–
While
many businesses are still dealing with the aftermath of the global recession,
the semiconductor industry is poised for a rebound as demand for PCs and cell
phones drives chip sales.
Worldwide
chip sales increased 47.2 percent from January 2009 to January 2010, according
to …
IT vendors will have new opportunities in financial markets institutions in 2010, according to research firm Ovum, thanks to increased need for IT infrastructure that can monitor and handle increased government regulations and compliance requirements. At the same time, however, continuing concerns over spending will limit the ability of these IT vendors to fully capitalize on growing needs for governance and compliance software. Both IT vendors and their client base have been wrestling with the effects of a global recession.
– It will be the best and worst of times for IT vendors
targeting the financial-markets space, according to a new research report from
research firm Ovum. Government intervention will necessitate that companies add
new layers of IT infrastructure to handle regulation and compliance issues; at
the …
SAP announced on Jan. 14 that its customers would now have a choice between SAP Standard Support and SAP Enterprise Support, each with different pricing structures. The announcement comes more than a month after the company delayed a decision on increasing customers’ maintenance fees, a plan that raised the ire of companies facing squeezed IT budgets in the wake of a deep global recession.
– SAP is now offering a
tiered pricing model for customer support, an apparent stand-down from
the business-software makers earlier plan to raise its entire user bases
maintenance fees. In addition, the company will keep its 2010 fees for existing
SAP Enterprise Support contracts unchanged from 20…
Singapore’s economy probably shrank this quarter after six months of growth as weaker manufacturing output cooled the island’s recovery from the global recession.
Gross domestic product contracted an annualised 2.1% from the previous three months, after climbing 14.2% from July to September, according to the median estimate of eight economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The trade ministry will release the data at 8 a.m. on Jan 4.
A global recession made 2009 the year of the netbook. Small, light and low-cost, these portables met the needs of price-pinched consumers and kept the overall PC market afloat. It was also a year that saw a proliferation of multitouch devices, both from Apple #151which even applied touch capabilities to its Magic Mouse #151and tied to Microsoft Windows 7, which arrived Oct. 22. The growing needs of small businesses were also addressed, with notebooks such as the Dell Vostro V13, and slim all-in-one desktops #151whether for power-requiring designers and gamers, or geared toward busy families #151debuted and impressed. Also noteworthy was the addition of phone maker Nokia to the ranks of PC competitors, which additionally include Sony, Lenovo, Gateway and Hewlett-Packard.
– …
