Cisco - TABPI

NEWS&ANALYSIS
the
buzz
TECHNOLOGY
NEC desktop:
Cool and quiet
NEC ANNOUNCED IN NEW
York last week what it
calls the world’s first
water-cooled PC system—which
also
promises to be one of
the quietest.
The desktop PC’s
water-cooling system uses
liquid to cool off the CPU,
enabling operating noise to be
suppressed to about half that of a
conventional PC that uses a cooling
fan, or about 30 db, according
to company officials.
The machines, due this week,
come in two models: the
Valuestar TX server and the
Valuestar FZ desktop.
FINANCIALS
PC group fuels
HP’s second quarter
HEWLETT-PACKARD EARNED $659
million on $18 billion in revenue
for the second quarter, fueled in
large part by its PC group and
SCO’s implication of wider claims
could turn Linux into an intellectualproperty
minefield.
18 eWEEK n MAY 26, 2003
NEC’s desktop PC is the world’s
first water-cooled system.
printing division.
The numbers represent a
$100 million jump in revenue
over the previous quarter.
Chairman and CEO Carly
Fiorina said the company’s focus
is on building the business rather
than absorbing Compaq
Computer.
“We still have a lot to do, but I
feel confident that HP is no
longer an integration story,”
Fiorina said during a conference
call with analysts and reporters.
For the quarter ended April 30,
HP’s Personal Systems Group—
which includes such devices as
desktop PCs and laptops—made
$21 million in profit on $5.1 bil-
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
DOSI position paper on the SCO-vs.-IBM complaint
lion in revenue. Fiorina said the
gains made on the commercial
side of the ledger were offset by
seasonal weakness in the consumer
business.
BUSINESS
Does IT matter
anymore?
A MAY HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
article by Nicholas Carr claims
that, due to technology commoditization,
“IT doesn’t matter” as a
strategic advantage.
“By now, the core functions of
IT—data storage, data processing
and data transport—have become
available and affordable to all,”
the report said. Turning expenditures
on technology into the costs
of doing business is an evolution
similar to that of the steam
engine, the telegraph, the telephone
and the internal combustion
engine. Similarly, the report
said, overinvestment in technology
in the 1990s echoes overinvestment
in railroads in the 1860s.
The scary question is whether
“people have already bought most
of the stuff they want to own,”
said Bill Joy, chief scientist and
co-founder of Sun Microsystems,
who was quoted in the article.
Vendors that are evolving to survive
in this commoditized environ-
BY THE NUMBERS
ment include Microsoft, which
turned its Office software suite
into an annual subscription service.
That is a “tacit acknowledgement
that companies are losing
their need—and their appetite—
for constant upgrades,” the report
said.
PEOPLE
Oracle turns to
Wall Street analyst
ORACLE IS PLUGGING MORGAN
Stanley analyst Charles Phillips
into one of the company’s top
positions, the company
announced this month.
Phillips will become executive
vice president in the office of the
CEO and will report directly to
Chairman and CEO Larry Ellison.
The analyst, who’s reported on
the software industry for Morgan
Stanley since 1994, will focus on
customer-facing activities, partners,
corporate strategy and business
development, officials said.
Phillips has been ranked the
No. 1 enterprise software industry
analyst by Institutional
Investor magazine each year
since 1994, Oracle officials said.
He has also been recognized as
one of the Top 50 black professionals
on Wall Street by Black
Enterprise Magazine. ´
RDBMS new-license revenue
Worldwide revenue estimates for 2002 (in $ billions)
$7.5
$6
$4.5
$3
$1.5
0
2.4%
IBM Oracle Microsoft NCR Others
9.7%
14.3%
39.7%
33.9%
2001 REVENUE 2002 REVENUE
Source: Gartner Dataquest (May 2003)
9.2%
18%
33.9%
36.2%
2.7%