Just as Intel’s (NASDAQ: INTC) CEO Brian Krzanich opens the regular staff meetings before a dramatically reduced IDF2015 Shenzhen conference, it is a good time to review how government and enterprises don’t see eye to eye when it comes to strategic business.

China’s Tianhe-2 supercomputer is world’s fastest supercomputer, at 33 PFLOPS demonstrated and 55 PFLOPS theoretical performance.

Remember the Tianhe-2 machine at Guangzhou Supercomputer Center, the current World’s number one according to Top 500 Supercomputer list? Unlike some other China supercomputers – Tianhe-2 is fully Intel based machine,  the world’s largest assembly of Intel Xeon CPUs and Xeon Phi accelerators.

Even after Intel ‘opened the kimono’ and gave a nearly 70%  discount on its processors and accelerators, it has given Intel, and therefore US technology sector a major foothold in China and Asian region as such. Over the course of past two years, we were involved in a lot of discussions with Intel staff who were not privy to see the financial impact of the deal — and even argued our undoubtedly solid information. We’re not here to report how things should be, or are in marketing and investor presentations to its numerous staff, but how things really are.

During 2015, the Tianhe-2 supercomputer was supposed to be doubled in its size, up to 110 PFLOPs peak, again using the very same Intel processors and accelerators. Since now these are mature products with lower real manufacturing cost for Intel, they could finally make some real money.

Well, it was not to be: our tweety bird from the window chirped to us that Uncle Sam has put this supercomputer centre, together with National University of Defense Technology in Changsha, the system’s creators, and Tianjin centre, among others, on so a so-called “Denial List”, which prevents any high technology from the USA to be sold to these sites. Our sources used even harsher words.

Knowing that these several sites alone are expected to order some 250+ PFLOPS of compute in the next few years (around 500,000 top-end Broadwell-EP Xeon E5v4 processors, or  approximately $1 billion high margin list price) and they were THE Intel friendly ones, this is quite a loss to Intel, thanks to Uncle Sam.

But, what’s worse strategic loss in time is that, based on this decision as an excuse, indigenous China high end processor architectures can now push the government to gradually remove any dependence on US. This means just one thing: an AMD or Intel x86 processor technology is increasingly becoming errata non grata. Should the Chinese government react in force, it will give the Chinese vendors the blank check support to go all the way a developing their Alpha, POWER and MIPS processors for both the government and the mainstream commercial use.

You may think they are not up to the mark, but remember how fast British ARM architecture became the dominant processing architecture in the world. And this group doesn’t need to worry about the antiquated x86 ISA, worry about satisfying the dumbed down shareholder masses, or overpaying their marketing and sales staff, as well as the fat check, golden parachute-protected CxOs.

They have taken the best that the USA has developed (some of key Alpha, GPGPU and MIPS architects left US over the course of past four years, a lot of them due to non-renewed visas) and discarded due to corporate shenanigans, and the continued developing it much farther than anyone expected both on hardware and software side.

Five years ago, ShenWei showed a CPU that performed faster than the fastest GPUs of the time. Now, fifth generation is approaching, slotting between Tesla and FirePro GPGPUs and next-gen Xeon Phi accelerators. However, this is not an accelerator or a GPGPU – this is a CPU.

So, thanks to Uncle Sam, China might not have a 110 PFLOPS Intel based supercomputer but it definitely will launch a 100 PFLOPS system based on upcoming 64-core, TFLOPS-class ShenWei Alpha, with true blue CPUs possibly faster per socket then even the next generation Xeon Phi or Volta/Pascal-based Teslas.  Next, of course 100 PFLOPS Chinese POWER8 or 9 — (thank you IBM) and then possibly even Loongson MIPS – -it may come back into the high end field with renewed government support because of this Uncle Sam move. All are clean, elegant, scalable high end RISC architectures.

So who are the winners and losers from this?

NUDT and Tianhe may be the losers for now, but only short term. They will simply speed up their HPC ARM plan.

Intel comes out the big loser from this and a lot: who will want to do a phased deployment large x86 machine in China now, and worry about future phases? Then comes Uncle Sam himself: they lost even that little bit of influence on the high end China HPC. How is that for “cutting your nose to spite your face?”.

VR WORLD’s  Analysis: US government moves accelerate the Chinese CPU roadmap while curtailing juiciest sales for Intel and other US vendors.

The post Uncle Sam Shocks Intel With a Ban on Xeon Supercomputers in China appeared first on VR World.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is no stranger to the press. He’s appeared in dozens of interviews with major media outlets as well as an Oscar nominated documentary called Citizen Four.

But HBO funnyman John Oliver provided what is no doubt the toughest interview yet for Snowden. Granted there was plenty of light banter, such as if the NSA can intercept your “dick picks”, but there were a number of sharp, pointed questions on whether Snowden’s mass disclosure of documents was well-warranted whistleblowing or reckless behavior.

John Oliver – Edward Snowden interview

“How many of those documents have you actually read?” Oliver asked.

“I’ve evaluated all the documents that are in the archive,” Snowden responded.

Pressed he elaborated further: “I do understand what I turned over.”

But for Oliver that wasn’t good enough.

“There’s a difference between understanding what’s in the documents and reading what’s in the documents. Because when you’re handing over thousands of NSA documents the last thing you’d want to do is read them,” Oliver said. “So The New York Times took a slide, didn’t redact it properly, and in the end it was possible for people to see that something was being used in Mosul on al Qaeda.”

“That is a problem,” Snowden replied.

“Well, that’s a fuckup,” said Oliver.

The interview is hard hitting and well worth the watch. Check it out in the video embedded above.

The post John Oliver Grills Edward Snowden on ‘Last Week Tonight’ appeared first on VR World.

The end of the revenge porn phenomenon may be soon upon us, as a San Diego court recently sentenced revenge porn site operator Kevin Bollaert to 18 years in jail and a $10,000 fine. He was charged with identity theft and extortion for his role in revenge porn site ugotposted.com.

Bollaert was the operator of ugotposted.com, a site that encouraged jilted ex-lovers to post nude pictures of their former partner along with personal details such as name, address, and date of birth. Victims had to pay $300 to $350 to have the images removed. According to reports, Bollaert earned upwards of $30,000 from the removal fees.

“Sitting behind a computer, committing what is essentially a cowardly and criminal act, will not shield predators from the law or jail,” state Attorney General Kamala Harris told San Diego’s CBS8. “We will continue to be vigilant and investigate and prosecute those who commit these deplorable acts.”

While Bollaert isn’t the first revenge porn site operator to land in prison, he’s the first to be charged for his role in operating such a site. Hunter Moore, who ran the site Is Anyone Up? until 2012, was indicted in early 2014 for conspiracy, identity theft, and unauthorized access to a computer. Moore was paying a hacker by the name of Charles Evans to hack into email accounts of victims and extract nude pictures.

This looks like the beginning of the end of the revenge porn industry. Now that a precedent has been established in court to hand revenge porn site operators lengthy jail sentences, law enforcement and prosecutors should have no problem clearing out the rest of them. But, perhaps, some will take the initiative to shut down their sites first after seeing that their actions can have serious consequences.

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Internet.org, the brainchild of Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has the ambitious goal of “connecting the next 5 billion” Internet users by focusing on the emerging economies — the lower tiers of mobile users whose primary means of getting online is via mobile devices.

With a goal of having a presence in 100 countries within 2015, Internet.org sets foot in Southeast Asia through PLDT (NYSE:PHI), which operates the Philippines’ biggest mobile and fixed line network by subscriber base. According to estimates, only 38% of the country’s population had Internet access as of mid 2014. Meanwhile, mobile penetration rate has surpassed 100%, although only a minority are on smartphones.

Facebook’s effort to connect the otherwise underserved sectors of society is done in partnership with public and private organizations in its target countries. Internet.org vice president Chris Evans said in a keynote at the recently-concluded Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that the effort will essentially provide basic Internet services like access to educational and health information. But it also aims to be a feeder to other mobile services, as well, envisioning to “see more people coming online, buying data and voice and SMS bundles.”

Internet.org launched initially in countries like Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Colombia, Ghana and India. The Philippines launch marks the first Southeast Asian country that carries free basic Internet access through the initiative.

Through Internet.org, users can access a curated set of websites, currently numbering 24, which include sites like Wikipedia for news, Inquirer for news, Accuweather for meteorology and Jobstreet for job hunting (the list of services differs by market). As expected, the service will also provide free access to social networking staples Facebook and Facebook Messenger.

Access will be available to users within PLDT’s mobile brands, which includes SMART, Sun Cellular and Talk n’ Text. The biggest mobile network by subscriber base, the group counts about 71.2 million prepaid subscribers, which comprise about 90% of its cellular business.

Prior to the local Internet.org launch, PLDT already initiated its “Internet for All” campaign, which provided free access to mobile users, with 50MB daily allocation. While this is decidedly a small amount for most, it was deemed enough for basic access like instant messaging and light social networking.

“Smart’s partnership with Facebook is a big boost to our ‘Internet for All’ campaign, an advocacy we have been strongly pushing for,” says Smart president and CEO Napoleon L. Nazareno. “By launching Internet.org app with Facebook in the Philippines, we are making useful information within reach of millions of Filipinos.”

Earler this month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared some statistics on Internet.org, saying about 7 million people used the Internet for the first time through the service. In addition, the carriers involved also saw an upsurge in data subscriptions and usage of basic services, an indication that Internet.org does not only serve to enhance access to the underserved, but it also contributes positively to carriers’ business. Other companies, such as Nokia, are also finding ways to enable Internet access with inexpensive Internet-enabled devices for the emerging markets.

The post Internet.org Launches in SEAsia With Free Access to Essential Online Services appeared first on VR World.

Earlier today, Facebook (NASDAQ: FB)  unveiled Facebook Payments to allow friends to send free friend-to-friend payments over the social network messages. This service can be seen as the direct response by the largest social media network in the world, all to the likes of Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, unveiled a few months earlier. It also shows how the financial sector is developing rapidly, all without much input from the older well-established companies in the sector recently.

The first time you send or receive money in Messenger, you’ll need to add a Visa or MasterCard debit card issued by a US bank to your account. Once you add a debit card, you can create a PIN to provide additional security the next time you send money. On iOS devices you can also enable Touch ID. As always, you can add another layer of authentication to your account at any time. The payment system lets you just tap a “$” button to send some of your friends money on iOS, Android, and desktop messenger applications, all with zero fees. Facebook Messenger payments will roll out first in the U.S. over the coming months.

European and Asian users will have to wait for Facebook to roll out the service to them. In accordance to recent developments in the sector, this serves as a reminder how quickly things can revolutionize in certain areas overall. This Facebook payment system will undoubtedly have a great argument for a choice between similar payment systems worldwide.

If Facebook can work out an agreement with European Union law makers, this could very well mean the payment system becomes one of the most popular money transfer systems out there. The zero fee approach is offset by companies paying a certain fee when payments are made with this system. Facebook may have a different approach to this aspect, but we believe this will be what the social network does in the future for this issue. While intended for friends, we can see a great deal of use by possible client to client transfers, but more importantly later we can expect this payment system to roll out for companies too.

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Hello, how are you?

Yes, it is me, the guy who decided to get out of all the CPU or GPU tests and reviews almost a decade ago. And do I feel regret? Can’t I wait to jump right back into it like Michael Schumacher, God bless him, when he returned to F1 with rather mixed results? Trust me, and please believe me I don’t mean to offend anyone, but the days of motherboard reviews and sleepless nights spent trying and testing the latest and greatest PC components are gone for good.

Funny as it is, time has not stood still in the last eight years, since I finally turned my back on Tom’s Hardware, oh yes, with money in my pocket, yet that wasn’t and couldn’t have been the reason why I was oh-so tired of it all. True enough, there are still those who care about a new chipset, new motherboards, new graphics cards, even overclocking, but the numbers have dwindled and why? Because the PC is dying, along with it the notebook, go figure!

We are running out of excuses for building or buying a new PC system, a new motherboard, a juicier power supply and even a new graphics card. What is so power hungry that would justify the pain, the expense and the time spent on such a project? The latest computer game? Yes, for years that was the one last stand for the power users, but let’s be honest, how many really good games have been released in recent years? Do we really want to sink tons of money into the hottest new components, just to be bored to tears by yet another first person shooter with yet even greater graphics, but a thin or even idiotic story, or a totally dissatisfying end?

So what are we looking at today? Oh yes, there would be this company named Apple. It came out with the greatest gift to man, the first ever true smart phone. Boy did that revolutionise the world, hasn’t it? Today, years later, we are at the nth reiteration of the iPhone, we acknowledge the iPad, we look at all the Android devices, but do we still feel the excitement we experienced when 3dfx, long gone but not forgotten, released Voodoo2? Do you remember that time? Oh how pathetic it looks today, but weren’t we blown away back then? Are we shaking in excitement the same way over the iWatch, or Nvidia’s latest addition to the world or 3D-graphics? Not really, right?

Much has happened in my life in the last eight years. Today, I am the husband to a beautiful wife and the father of an amazing 6-month old boy. Family life has got me in its grip, and I would not want to have it any other way.  You know what upsets my little son the most? It’s mommy or daddy reaching for and staring into their smartphone, instead of giving him the attention he wants as well as deserves. Oh yes, I am a smartphone addict like the next man, but little Ciarán’s disdain for this device made me realise that this cannot possibly the future of mankind.

It makes us antisocial assholes – thank you so much Apple – and if we should believe that our future might go along the lines of the Terminator movies, then becoming antisocial would have to be the first step of humanity losing what it takes to differentiate itself from and be better than ‘the machines’. I am not gonna be a daddy who hands his child an iPad once he turns one and a half years old. I made that oath, and believe me, I am still as technology savvy and hungry as you remember me, but not at any price!

People asked me to talk about how the PC and other technology business evolved to what we are looking at today, but I better be careful, feeling a little bit of an outsider who hasn’t been invited to the hush-hush back rooms, the trade shows or intimate dinners with vendors for a long time. What I can see is Samsung going to produce everything, and the kitchen sink soon, focusing along with other Asian producers on creating yet the best copy of something invented by somebody else. I see Intel apparently busy digging its own grave, Microsoft also somewhat out of wits, the Taiwanese producers, Asus et al., concentrating on squeezing the last little bit of margin, so they can continue selling their stuff just that little bit cheaper once again, and Apple predominantly concentrating on making money, rather than creating something the world is really waiting for.

My dear friend Anthony, fellow dedicated daddy as well as technology editor, suggested I should write about VR and I would love to. When it comes to gaming, it seems to be the next big thing. However, I haven’t played with it yet, so who am I to comment? I’ll get my hands on one of those funky devices as soon as possible though, and I can’t wait sharing Anthony’s genuine excitement about this technology, … or not.

I have the request to give my view of what things will be like in 2030, and what to tell your child now in preparation for our glorious future. I used to be asked that kind of question a lot in bygone times, and my answer was always the same – I ain’t no oracle! I was just about to go there and embarrass myself, but the word count of my article made me reconsider, so why not wrap things up by speaking about the current state of computer journalism? Has it evolved, improved, withered? Well the landscape has changed, hasn’t it?

It feels very much as if all the good guys are gone, while the bad ones still remain. It has become more and more popular rewording press releases rather than doing research, hard work and arriving at one’s own point of view. I wish I could say why. If you allow me taking a wild guess, I would say it has plenty to do with balls versus greed. If it is money that you are after in this business, you cannot possibly say you’re searching for ‘the truth’ or ‘justice’ or – modestly – ‘the best interest of your reader’, can you? What it takes is drive, ambition, a certain level of fearlessness and inspiration. You have that and the money will come by itself. Just watch it arrive, nod if you have to and continue with your mission.

I have joined a team of people with ambition, balls and the determination to provide quality. I would not be writing this, would I not firmly believe in it. I never wanted to return to publishing, because it is a rather ugly business. However, things are going to change, and I have my own little idea how the publishing of old will be turned into something brand new and very exciting.

I have enjoyed writing this, certainly not exactly ground breaking or overly meaningful little piece and I can’t wait getting back into the scene and mixing things up my way. Give me a chance to assimilate all that I might have missed before I can give any kind of fundamental guidance. I’ll be there.

Tom’s back, for better or worse.

The post Thomas Pabst: Is the Computing Business Getting Boring? appeared first on VR World.

The last two years have been rife with reasons to be concerned about national cyber security in the United States: From Edward Snowden’s leaks regarding NSA domestic and international surveillance, to the allegedly North Korean attack on Sony Pictures, to a recent Russian attack on a White House network, to the GAO’s “high-risk” listing on the terrible gaps in U.S cybersecurity. It should therefore come as no surprise that we find the U.S government flailing to haphazardly establish various and poorly connected initiatives in a desperate attempt to stay above water in a brave new world.

The latest step in these efforts is the establishment of the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center. During a keynote at the Wilson Center in Washington D.C, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism Lisa Monaco said: “Currently, no single government entity is responsible for producing coordinated cyber threat assessments, ensuring that information is shared rapidly among existing cyber centers … and supporting the work of operators and policymakers with timely intelligence about the latest cyber threats and threat actors. The CTIIC is intended to fill these gaps.”

The “gaps” to which Monaco refers are really tremendous chasms between U.S agencies like the FBI, CIA and NSA which traditionally don’t like talking to one another. In the golden age of espionage, this could be a good thing that aided national security. But in the information age, more information is better, and sharing is the only way to improve national safety.

With an increasingly large number of organizations dedicated to handling the daunting task of keeping the United States safe from outside attacks, it is all the more paramount that they communicate with one another and stay organized and transparent.

“In the cyber context, we need to share threat information more broadly and to coordinate our actions so that we are all working to achieve the same goal,” said Monaco.

Just another agency

But not everyone is convinced that the CTIIC is necessary, or that it will really accomplish its stated purpose. One new member in a sea of acronyms, the CTIIC is considered extraneous by some, or a potential excuse for the government to collate and collect private information: not worth the $35 million it will cost to establish.

A huge influx of governemnt programs to fix a national crisis is an American tradition

Greg Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology is one such skeptic, and has been quoted as saying: “Given the number of other agencies that have cybersecurity threat integration responsibilities, it’s not clear that a new agency is needed.”

Speaking with The Guardian Norjem added, “We are keen to hear from the White House about the measures it will impose to ensure that this new agency operates transparently, with effective independent oversight, and does not become a repository for personal information unnecessary to counter cyber threats.”

What’s more, the CTIIC follows a familiar template, and is modeled after the National Counterterrorism Center which deals with terrorist threats at home and abroad.  The U.S government understands terrorism, and knows all too well how to fight it, and thinks that the same methods will help it to manage a cybersecurity crisis.

But the facts show this strategy is failing miserably. The CTIIC is not the first effort the U.S government has made in the last few years to improve public IT, as the government has already spent billions of dollars to manage the digital frontier – the Pentagon itself spends $5 billion every year on cybersecurity. And according to this month’s GAO report, national cybersecurity is still plagued by terrible problems, and words like “inadequate”, “inconsistent” and “partial” were used to describe the government’s efforts. Since 2006, the number of information security incidents reported by federal agencies to the US-CERT have increased by 1,121%

.

Cyber threats and terrorism are apples and oranges: both fruits, but of completely different kinds. The U.S government is trying to manage a 21st century problem with 20th century solutions, much as the FCC has done by trying to regulate the Internet as utility. Leading technology companies are feeling the brunt of these moves, and Verizon released a satirical statement in morse code regarding the FCC’s new rules to emphasize the inadequacy of outdated methods where new problems are concerned.

So is the CTIIC good or necessary? Perhaps, with proper oversight, it could marginally improve the existing nature of U.S cybersecurity. But perhaps the time has come to stop thinking of ways we can glue the old system together, and come up with something better suited for the decidedly unique threats of the modern world.

The post Is the Newest U.S Cybersecurity Agency Necessary? appeared first on VR World.

CitizenFour, a documentary on Edward Snowden and the surveillance state by filmmaker Laura Poitras, took home the top Oscar for documentary features Sunday night with Lindsay Mills, Snowden’s girlfriend, accepting the Oscar on stage with Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald.

“The disclosures that Edward Snowden revealed don’t only expose a threat to our privacy but to our democracy itself,” Poitras said in her acceptance speech. “Thank you to Edward Snowden for his courage and for the many other whistleblowers.”

The bulk of CitizenFour is from footage Poitras shot over the course of eight days in Hong Kong, where Snowden first hid after making contact with Poitras and Greenwald. Once Snowden was offered political asylum in Russia, Poitras travelled there to interview him on his life after he revealed himself to the public.

Snowden sent his best wishes to Poitras for the Oscar win in a statement via the American Civil Liberties Union.

“When Laura Poitras asked me if she could film our encounters, I was extremely reluctant. I’m grateful that I allowed her to persuade me,” Snowden said in the statement. “The result is a brave and brilliant film that deserves the honor and recognition it has received. My hope is that this award will encourage more people to see the film and be inspired by its message that ordinary citizens, working together, can change the world.”

Poitras earned two previous Oscar nominations for her Iraq war documentary My Country, My Country, released in 2006, and 2010’s The Oath, about prisoners in Guantánamo Bay.

The post Edward Snowden Documentary ‘CitizenFour’ Nabs Oscar Doc appeared first on VR World.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Taiwan’s economy industrialized rapidly, by the 1990s becoming a high-income mature economy with a purchasing power parity (PPP) comparable to many first world economies.

Taiwan was able to do this partially because it was in the right place at the right time, but also because it built innovative companies. Taiwanese companies, with the advantage of speaking the same language, were the first into China as it opened up to the world, building with the help of Hong Kong capital, now-famous ODM/OEM firms like Foxconn (TPE: 2354) in Shenzhen, China, and at home in Taiwan the modern PC components industry with giants such as Gigabyte (TPE: 2376), Asus (TPE: 2357) and TSMC (TPE: 2330). These companies are the epitome of innovation; their respective markets didn’t really exist in the years before they were founded.

So it’s troubling when an executive from a Chinese company says that Taiwan must be more innovative and import Chinese thinking if it wants to remain competitive. During a recent Cheetah Mobile — a Chinese mobile app company with a significant presence in Taiwan —  press event in Taipei one of the company’s executives mused on stage that while Taiwan was a very important player during the PC era it lost a lot of opportunities during the mobile era because of the failure of its companies to adapt.

The CEO of Cheetah Mobile made similar comments at an event in Taipei in January, admonishing young Taiwanese for their lack of entrepreneurial drive and innovation in the workplace.

“If you go to any cafe in Zhonggguancun in Beijing, or CBD in Shenzhen, you’ll immediately hear people discussing startups and investments and dreams. In a cafe in Taipei, you’ll rarely hear this,” he is quoted as saying on stage. “Taipei lacks this energy and investment environment. So even if Taiwanese youth have dreams, how can they be fearless? There needs to be a base for fearlessness.”

This is slightly ironic, since a large part of Taiwan’s economic advantage is based on defining itself against China: Taiwanese companies are innovative, contract law is generally respected and the legal system is predictable, there’s a large educated work force to draw from.

But it’s also not incorrect, as even ministers from Taiwan’s government admit that the country is losing its edge. During a November speech to the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei, Taiwan’s Chang San-cheng, then the Minister of Science and Technology, called on young Taiwanese to become more innovative pointing out that the hyper-popular local message board PTT (analogous to Reddit in popularity) does not have a business model and relies on the support of a non-profit society.

Taiwan needs to revamp its industry to become more innovative and competitive. This begins at the top with changing the managerial culture to reward productivity, not working the longest, while figuring out how to give the bottom a fighting spirit to make it less complacent. At its best, Taiwan is more than capable of this. While the US Military Industrial Complex is prone to inefficiencies and delays, Taiwanese industry developed a domestic fighter aircraft for a reasonable cost that’s comparable to an F-16.

If Taiwan doesn’t regain its fighting competitive edge the results would be disastrous, pushing the island to economic irrelevance in fields it once dominated it. Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to this.

The post When China Lectures Taiwan on Innovation, Something is Wrong appeared first on VR World.

Qualcomm’s (NASDAQ: QCOM) legal battle with China’s National Development and Reform Commission came to an end Monday with the US semiconductor giant being hit with a $975 million fine and having new patent licensing rules imposed upon it.

In addition to a $975 million fine, Qualcomm agreed to offer new terms for standards essential patents related to its 3G and 4G technology. Qualcomm also agreed to change its royalty schedule to only receive 65% of the net selling price rather than the full selling price. Qualcomm also agreed to remove elements in its licensing contracts that Chinese authorities

Chinese authorities began investigating Qualcomm over allegations that the company was using its library of patents in China in a monopolistic fashion, and refusing to come to fair licensing agreements with local companies. The investigation began in late November 2013 and heated up late 2014.

While Qualcomm executives said they were “disappointed” with the sheer size of the fine, they also said that they were glad to have put any uncertainties behind them with regards to the company’s ability to conduct business in China. Analysts quoted in media reports say this agreement opens doors for further and new cooperation between Qualcomm and major handset players in China.

All-in-all this move by Chinese authorities was merely a play to extract money from Qualcomm in order to make its position in the market slightly less competitive when compared to local companies in the same business. This has become a common tactic in China in order to give local firms an edge (read more about that here). But Qualcomm paid the price, and it appears to be smooth sailing for the company now.

The post Qualcomm Gets Hit With $975 Million Fine in China appeared first on VR World.

The latest Hurun Global Rich List 2015 said that Want Want Group Chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) is the richest man in Taiwan.

Hurun said that Tsai owns a total asset of at least US$10 billion.

The ranking, which was made for billionaires around the world, was compiled and organized by Chinese magazine Hurun Report and sponsored by Star River Property, a Chinese luxury home builder. The annual ranking listed a total of 48 Taiwanese people on this year’s rich man chart. Among them, former Taiwanese vice president Lien Chan (連戰) is the only listed man who is not a businessman but owns a total asset of US$6.1 billion. In addition, Lien is also the first Taiwanese politician to be listed on the Hurun Report.

For those listed Chinese billionaires, the richest man is Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠), chairman of Hong Kong’s Cheung Kong Group (HKG: 0001), who has a fortune of US$32 billion.

 Hong Kong real estate tycoon Lee Shau-kee (李兆基) followed Li’s ranking as the second richest Chinese man with US$26.5 billion.

The richest man in China is Hanergy Holdings Chairman Li Hejun (李河君) with total assets of US$26 billion, followed by Dalian Wanda Group (HKG: 3699) Chairman Wang Jianlin (王健林) with US$25 billion and Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA) Chairman Jack Ma (馬雲) with his assets of US$24.5 billion.

Bill Gates, Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) co-founder, remains on the top of the chart with a fortune of US$85 billion. Carlos Slim Helu, Mexican telecommunications mogul, checks in the second place on the chart with his assets of US$83 billion, followed by American investor Warren Buffett with US$76 billion, Hurun said.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder for Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), is on the 7^th place with US$44 billion.

Hurun said that there are 2,089 people with a fortune of at least US$1 billion, including 537 Americans and 430 Chinese billionaires.

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More than two telecom operators, foreign and domestic, are interested in becoming the majority shareholder and the actual operator for the telecom company Taiwan Star, as the scandal-plagued food conglomerate Ting Hsin Group has been trying to sell its stakes.

Taiwan Star Chairman Wei Ying-chiao (魏應交), who also heads the Ting Hsin Group, confirmed on Feb. 2 that Ting Hsin will withdraw from Taiwan Star by selling its 52% stake in the telecom company.

Chunghwa Telecom (TPE: 2412) and Far EasTone Telecommunications (TPE: 4904) are the two potential buyers who have been confirmed for their contacting Ting Hsin for potential acquisition of its 52% stake of Taiwan Star. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (TPE: 2317) is also a potential buyer although the long-term supplier for Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has already owned the Asia Pacific Telecom (TPE: 3682). In addition, Ting Hsin also confirmed that Japan-based telecom operator KDDI (TYO: 9433) has been discussing the potential deal with them during the past few months.

When approached for responses, Taiwan Star declined to elaborate or reveal more details.

“It was inappropriate for my company to comment on a possible buyout o the stake owned by Ting Hsin at this moment,” said Cliff Lai (賴弦五) ,president for Taiwan Star.

In addition to Ting Hsin, Taiwan Star’s other shareholders are Cathay Financial Holding Co (TPE: 2882), which holds a 20% stake, Cheng Uei Precision Industry Co (TPE: 2392) and the Kingpo Group, which both have 10% stakes, and the CTBC Group (TPE: 2891), which has an 8% stake.

When approached, Cathay Financial Holdings President Lee Chang-ken (李長庚) said that the Taiwan Star stake it owns is part of its financial strategy and the company has no plan to make any change of it as of now.

Why is Ting Hsin selling its stake?

Ting Hsin was impacted by an edible oil scandal that was made front page stories last October, when its subsidiaries were discovered to be selling cooking oils containing ingredients unfit for human consumption. The scandal sparked outrage among local consumers, who launched a nationwide boycott of Ting Hsin’s products and services, including Taiwan Star.

The increasing condemnation of the conglomerate’s business practices have made it more difficult for the group to survive in Taiwan, while its cash flow was seriously affected at the same time. Ting Hsin then began to sell its shares of Taiwan Star, Taipei 101 and its flagship food unit Wei Chuan Foods Corp (TPE: 1201) because of its negative public image.

Wei Ying-chung (魏應充), Wei Ying-chiao’s brother and former chairman of Ting Hsin Oil and Fat Industrial Co, has been detained for the cooking oil scandal since last October but was released on US$3.22 million bail on Jan. 28. Changhua District Court decided to maintain its decision to grant bail to Wei and declined the appeal by prosecutors. The ruling came after the Taiwan High Court ordered the lower court to reconsider its decision to allow Wei to be released on the US$3.22 million. On Feb. 3, Changhua District Court again granted Wei’s bail but increased the amount to US$9.66 million.

In the meantime, the court also upheld its previous decision to release three other defendants in the case, including former Ting Hsin Oil and Fat President Chang Mei-fang (常梅峰), the company’s former acting chairman Chen Mao-chia (陳茂嘉), and Yang Chen-yi (楊振益), who owns the Vietnamese trading company Dai Hanh Phuc Co — on US$161,290 bail.

In November 2013, Wei Ying-chung was indicted on charges of fraud as part of an investigation into the 2013 Taiwan food scandal. In October 2014, prosecutors launched a separate investigation into the 2014 Taiwan food scandal, that alleged a unit of Ting Hsin International Group over sale of tainted cooking oil.

Investigators discovered that Cheng-I Food Co, a subsidiary company of Ting Hsin, was alleged for mixing animal feed oil with cooking oil and then selling it to the public.

Regarding Ting Hsin’s attempts to sell its 33.17% stakes of Taipei 101, no further decision or agreement was made as of press time, now that Ting Hsin has been trying to close the deal with Malaysia’s IOI Properties Group Bhd since last November, especially the case has been declined by the Taiwanese government, due to a policy that the major shareholder of the building should not be a foreign investment.

The real price of the deal was never confirmed but Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance estimated that Ting Hsin could have made profits of at least US$636 million but the group will only have to pay a tax amount of approximately US$33 million.

The Ting Hsin International Group, headquartered in Taipei and Tianjin, was established by Wei Ing-chou (魏應州), Wei Ying-jiao, Wei Ying-chung and Wei Ying-xin (魏應行) in 1958. As natives from Yungching Township, Changhua County, the Weis also own Wei Chuan, FamilyMart, and Master Kong instant noodles as subsidiary brand names under Ting Hsin.

Ting Hsin purchased 33.17% of Taipei 101’s shares and became the major shareholder for the building since 2009.

The post Local Telco Taiwan Star is Up For Grabs appeared first on VR World.

Regardless of what you might think about the origins on The Pirate Party, there’s no denial that the movement resulted in a substantial number of votes across Europe. While it’s almost a given that the Pirate Party would have no success in U.S. (we doubt the well-lobbied legal system would refuse the registration of such political option) and many other ‘advanced’ parts of the globe – in Europe the situation is different.

The Pirate Party managed to enter European Parliament and several parliaments across Europe, and immediately begun with its campaigns to modify copyright laws. In a recent post on TorrentFreak, Rick Falkvinge, the founder of Pirate Party highlighted perhaps a key highlight in a short, not-even-decade old political initiative.

As noticed by Falkvinge, it is strange that the mainstream media failed to report that Julia Reda, representative of German Pirate Party is currently working on revising the copyright law in the European Union:

“The collateral damage to liberties has been immense, and has spilled far outside the net. In the US, people are complaining that copyright monopoly law is now unintentionally preventing them to modify items they legally own, such as cars or games consoles. They’re absolutely wrong: that was the exact intention with the most recent round of revisions to copyright monopoly law – to limit property rights and to lock people out of their own possessions. (The copyright monopoly is, and has always been, a limitation on property rights.)”

One such example of how EUCD and DMCA legislations were used was Neste Oil’s attack on Greenpeace by threatening the internet provider of Greenpeace. Then again, Europe always had different approach to copyright when it compares to the U.S. In 2005, European Commission refused to accept software patents which are at the core of many lawsuits in the U.S. and in front of the WTO.

If we forego the political boasting of the post, Falkvinge revealed that a Pirate Party member of the European and German parliament is working on the “European Union’s official evaluation of the copyright monopoly, and listing the set of necessary changes.”

What those changes might be remains unknown at this point in time, but if European Union adopts the report on April 16, 2015 (it needs a majority vote to pass), we just might see a very interesting change in dynamic in negotiations between MPAA / RIAA-led U.S. negotiators and the European Union. As a reminder, right now the members of U.S. is trying to create not just Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), but to create a single market between U.S. and the E.U.

Even if they fail in this attempt, there’s no denying that Pirate Party is creating an impact of copyright legislature. Time will tell how hard MPAA / RIAA-backed lobbyists can reply.

The post Pirate Party to Contribute Writing Copyright Laws in Europe appeared first on VR World.

2014 was an interesting year for Intel (NASDAQ: INTC). While the company remains wildly profitable, beating the estimates of analysts during the past quarter, it remains at something of an impasse regarding its pivot towards mobile and the Internet of Things.

For Intel, the PC Client and Data Center groups bring in the lion’s share of the company’s revenue and profit. Its IoT group is growing: in the third quarter of 2013 it saw a healthy growth in revenue of 14% year-over-year. But mobile is a different story. The division, despite some promising wins in 2014, is a perpetual money loser for the company. Largely due to Intel’s aggressive contra revenue strategy of paying vendors to include its silicon in devices, revenue shrank to $1 million from $353 million a year prior. In mid-November, Intel brass announced that the division would be absorbed by the PC client group in 2015.

Intel has a lot riding on its continued transition out of its traditional PC and desktop business. ARM’s traditional stronghold is mobile, and Intel needs to work on convincing the world there’s an alternative.

2015 will be an important year for Intel. This year the company made a big push to continue the diversification of its business, and 2015 will the the next act in this transition play.

In order to get a better sense of what to expect from Intel in 2015, VR World sat down with Intel’s David McCloskey, director of marketing and business operations for Asia Pacific and Japan, when he was in Taipei. Below are excerpts of the conversation.

VR World: What’s Intel planning for 2015?

David McCloskey: The overall theme for [next year] is the continuation of the overall immersive and much more personal computing experience. Within computing, the transformations we see continued to be powered by high-performing and lower-power types of devices. You see that continuing theme across the form factor. You saw that momentum begin during the second half of this year with things like compute sticks — which are all enabled because you have that combination of power and performance.

We’ll see more devices driven by the demand for power and performance.

VRW: Mobile chips typically have lower margins than Desktop and Server. How do you plan to generate more margins from Mobile?

DM:. As we’ve ramped Bay Trail, we’ve enabled lower price points, which is critical for regions like Asia, with the same or better margins. That’s the power of Moore’s Law, and advancements in transistors and microprocessor architecture.

Typically we get the question: ‘doesn’t that generate a sell-down, and how do you support your ASPs?’. The reality is, it’s a much different value proposition. We talked about the Core-M coming to help the 2-in-1 category, and in that 10-to-11-inch screen size it becomes a debate whether you’ve sold a tablet or you’ve driven an incremental unit from that stack.

Financially, it’s a great thing for us and it’s a great thing for users. And it’s probably not a sell-down from a 15-inch Core i5 notebook.

Within those underlying themes, the big thing about the computing transformation is the form factor explosion. These mini-PCs, the compute stick stuff, kinda came out of nowhere. The other underlying piece to that are the standards like wireless charging. That fundamental capability — especially scalable across gadgets and wearables up through notebooks — will completely reinvent the way we think about usage. Those capabilities will bring a new computing world which will drive business models.

The wireless charging example is akin to Centrino, where there’s a big infrastructure play and there’s a big business model opportunity that’s connected back to the technology.

Intel’s David McCloskey chats about 2015. (Photo: Jimmy Chuang/VR World)

VRW: The Internet of Things was a hot topic for Intel in 2014. What will we see next year in IoT?

DM: We’ve been in IoT for 30 years from an underlying compute perspective. The big challenge is that we’re looking to evolve. We just announced a few days ago a new set of standards of security in order to help scale up. The three big challenges for IoT are the interoperability, security, and scalability. What we think will help us get to the orders of magnitude of billions of devices, and zetabytes of data, is solving those three issues. I think the advancements we are making in addressing the interoperability, addressing security, and addressing scalability.

VRW: Can you describe how Intel is working with software vendors to push out this new vision for computing?

DM: For us it goes back to scalability. Two of the key players we announced in the IoT space are NTT Data in Japan and Tata Consulting Services in India. We do all of our normal work with Microsoft, in terms of their embedded OS, Enterprise, client and so forth. But for us the scale opportunities is through these two SIs.

Stepping up the value chain, our hope is that working with the likes of an NTT Data, TCS, Accenture, etc, there’s much more ability for those guys to pull those value chains together and for us to get the scalability.

VRW: Let’s look back at the past year in the mobile segment. How was 2014 for Intel?

DM: There are two things: We said we wanted to ship 40 million units of tablets. We’re going to ship 40 million units of tablets.

Next, what we didn’t expect is that we’d build a phone business at the same time with Asus as a lead partner. We’re really pleased with the ramp and what Asus has been able to do with us. For tablets and phones as well. The underlying point there, especially in the phone sector, is that we’ve been able to dispel this myth of the Intel Architecture [being ill-suited] in phones in terms of battery life and heat. There’s no question typically about the performance we’d bring, the question is can you fit it into the form factors.

If you shift that out of 2014, the issue becomes how do you build on that momentum.

VRW: Thanks for your time.

This interview has been edited and condensed. 

The post Intel’s David McCloskey Looks Ahead at 2015 and Back at 2014 appeared first on VR World.

Here is the daily roundup from Japanese consumer tech and tech business websites for November 12, 2014.

TDK launches high bias voltage, high effective capacitance ‘singing’ capacitors
TDK Corporation announces the release of a new line of CeraLink ceramic capacitors aimed for switching regulators and snubber circuits. While standard ceramic capacitors often sacrifice effective capacitance to achieve high bias voltage, this new capacitor features both high bias voltage and effective capacitance.

Fuji Electric showcases wearable tech for long-distance work support systems
Fuji Electric and Fuji IT have recently opened a reference exhibit for a new glass-type wearable tech at Tokyo’s Monozukuri NEXT 2014 event. The new wearable concept was designed to aid workers at job sites, by combining human instruction and cloud-based data to provide active assistance via transmitted information.

Acer releases new entry-level Aspire E in Japan
Acer Japan announces the launch of a new Aspire E (ES1-512-F14D) notebook PC by the end of this week. This Aspire E is an entry level 15.6-inch screen laptop aimed at casual personal users, and will be catered with an introduction price of about $330.00.

Google opens gadget exhibit at Roppongi
Google recently showcased all of its recent products and developed gadgets at a ‘touch and try’ event, which was held at a café in Roppongi, Tokyo. Among the items exhibited were the Nexus 6, Nexus 9, Android Wear, a few Chromebook models and Chromecast.

IBM proposal introduces new program for Japanese middle school students
IBM Japan held a seminar and workshop earlier this week that centered on the topic of societal and education-based changes in accordance to changes in technology. Together with the Association of Corporation and Education (ACE), the company proposed a new educational program aimed at Japanese middle school students, which introduces big data analytics into the system.

KDDI’s historic trans-pacific feat wins IEEE milestone award
Major Japanese telecom company KDDI (formerly KDD) receives recognition as it is awarded with the IEEE milestone for its participation in the development and deployment of the historical Trans Pacific Cable 1 (TRANSPAC-1 or TPC-1) network.

HP estimates Japan cyber crime losses at $6 million
According to a research made by HP Japan, at least 31 major companies and business in Japan suffered financial losses due to cyber crime. With an increase of almost 76% over the past 3 years, the total losses were estimated to be about $6 million.

The post Singing capacitors, Google exhibits, Cyber Crime Losses: The Headlines in Tokyo For November 12 appeared first on VR World.

Taiwan remains a powerhouse of innovation, but struggles to properly commercialize this innovation in the highly competitive technology sector was the topic of a speech made by Taiwan’s Minister of Science and Technology at an American Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Taipei Tuesday.

Comfortably navigating his speech in English, the Cornell-educated Chang San-cheng, who was appointed to lead the Ministry of Science and Technology after it was renamed from the National Science Council earlier this year, contrasted during his speech Taiwan’s sweep at global innovation exhibitions such as iENA and INPEX with its failure to produce a homegrown commercially successful Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) or Facebook (NASDAQ: FB).

“The United States has its Microsoft, Apple, and Google but none of those companies are from Taiwan,” he said. “Business models are one ingredient of innovation. Taiwan is good at coming up with new inventions, but very few of them are commercialized.”

The homegrown giants that Taiwan has grown to be world class, namely Acer (TPE: 2353) and Asus (TPE: 2357), have failed to adequately adapt to market changes making the two companies much less important players than they were in their prime.

He also gave the example of the inability PTT’s owners — a hyper-popular local web forum that’s roughly analogous to Reddit — to develop a business model for the forum. Instead the forum, a household word amongst the under-40 set in Taiwan, has continued to rely on support from National Taiwan University in order to survive.

“Over the years none of the students from National Taiwan University ever thought about commercializing PTT. One might say that if you commercialize PTT you will loose a forum to freely publish your ideas,” he said. “But if you look at Facebook, nobody at Facebook ever interferes with the way you publish your ideas. Commercialization and free expression of ideas are not a contradiction.”

Reorganizing the academy

Chang cited the need to reform Taiwan’s post-secondary education system as one of the building blocks to reboot Taiwan’s competitiveness. There’s a big gap between the needs of industry and what academia produces, he said, explaining that this wasn’t something unique to Taiwan but rather a first world problem.

“Taiwan is not alone in facing this issue, but Taiwan has a much bigger problem as Taiwan’s industry does not have research capability that’s as good as competitors in Europe or the United States,” he said.

While many many universities have effective research partnerships with industry, there is still work to do in better aligning the two. Too many professors have very niche impractical research fields, he said, giving an example of one political scientist at a university in Taipei whose sole research field was the electoral system of a certain state in the United States. The state in question has no major economic or cultural connection to Taiwan, but this professor would get funding to publish multiple papers per year on it.

The post Chang San-cheng Wants to Reboot Taiwan’s Competitiveness appeared first on VR World.

Here is the daily roundup from Japanese consumer tech and tech business websites and news publications for November 11, 2014.

Rohm develops ultra low energy biosensor
Rohm Semiconductor Japan, in cooperation with Kobe University, develops a wearable, all purpose biosensor. The new biosensor has a very low energy current value of 38 microamperes, which is about only a fifth of what current biosensors use.

Sony showcases its 147-inch 4K display projector
Sony (TYO: 6758) unveils its newest ultra-high end display, the VPL-GTZ1. Like its predecessor, it is a display projector with a 147-inch screen size, and uses its proprietary 4K Silicon X-Tal Reflective Display technology. It will be catered to business entities at an estimated price of about $47,000.000.

Sharp’s Japanese tea machine gets an award
Ocha Presso, Sharp’s (TYO: 6753) product line of automatic Japanese tea making machines, has won this year’s Food Action Nippon Award. The award given was in the research, development and new technologies category, earning points for its overall efficiency and innovative build design.

Japanese yen pulls down consumer tech market
A statistical financial report from Japanese consumer tech marketing analysis firm BCN has revealed that Japan’s digital consumer electronics market slightly went down in the past two months. The observed reason for the decreased market sales was the price adjustment of standard commodities, as the Japanese yen value plummeted over the same time period.

Yahoo Japan cuts down on mobile tech services
Yahoo Japan (TYO: 4689) announces that it will soon end some of its lesser used mobile tech services. Starting from November this year to April next year, a total of 12 smartphone applications, three PC-based web services, and two mobile phone services will no longer be active for its current subscribers.

Evernote collaborates with Nikkei for Evernote Context
Evernote opens a partnership agreement with major Japanese economics media company Nikkei, to publish its articles into Evernote’s recently launched Context feature. Evernote has already announced that it has raised $20 million for the collaborative project, with both companies expecting its execution as the year 2015 arrives.

Asus relaunches Chromebox in Japan
Asus Japan relaunches Chromebox locally, this time catered for personal users. Along with its launch, a new line up of Chromebook models is also slated for local release on the same date.

The post Eye on Japan: What’s Making Headlines in Tokyo For November 11 appeared first on VR World.

MediaTek (TPE: 2454) announced late Thursday that it had posted a 6% rise in profits quarter-over-quarter, earning $435 million in the third quarter of 2014.

The chip designer’s revenue for the period rose by 6.2% to $1.8 billion. Wall Street had expected slightly more, and the revenue growth comes in at the low end of the guidance issued by MediaTek last month. The company said that it was expecting growth between 5-13%.  The company also reported that its profit margin fell 0.5% from a quarter prior to 49.1%.

MediaTek’s CFO Ta Wei Ku said during an earnings conference call that MediaTek missed expectations because of a faster than expected transition to 4G from 3G.

“I think for the third quarter numbers, in general, the smartphones are maybe a little bit softer than – relatively speaking, while we’re giving out the guidance, 5% to 13%,” he said during the call. “I guess most likely, it’s because the 3G and 4G transition actually happened actually pretty strong in the third quarter. And for 4G products, currently for third quarter, the major product we have is still dual-chip solution.”

MediaTek executives said that they expect the company’s profit margin and earnings to dip in the next quarter as it spends more money on research and development in order to better compete in the baseband market.

The post MediaTek Sees Profit Rise 6% in Q3, But Misses Expectations appeared first on VR World.

Korea’s LG (KRX:066570) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) have expanded their patent truce until 2023, as LG announced today that it had extended its patent sharing deal with Google — first signed in 2006 — to 2023.

“The two companies’ cooperation was strengthened for innovative product and technology development,” Lee Jeong-hwan, director of LG Electronics Patent Center, said in a press release.

“We’re pleased to enter into this agreement with a leading global technology like LG,” added Allen Lo, Google’s deputy general counsel, in a statement. “With the strategic cooperation with LG Electronics, we will be able to focus more on developing products and services for our customers.”

The agreement allows both companies access to a broad library of each other’s patents. LG will gain access to patents relating to Google’s handling of encryption and data processing on Android, as well as a bevy of other patents related to the tablet PC and Internet of Things (IoT) space. In return, Google will have access to some of LG’s touchscreen patents as well as other undisclosed hardware patents.

The agreement between the two companies has likely been extended to fend off a Apple vs. Samsung mega-suit. But it will also allow the two companies to compete in growing fields beyond the traditional smartphone space.

LG also has a patent sharing contract with Sony’s (TYO: 6758) mobile phone division.

The post LG and Google Expand Patent Deal appeared first on VR World.

Everything started with one partnership. For almost three years, Lenovo (HKG: 0992) and NEC (TYO:6701) have been in cooperative agreement, as both companies attempt to reach the top of the PC market in Japan. While Lenovo is already the leading PC manufacturer in the world, one Japanese opinion lays out a few more points: three short but important reasons that might just complete Lenovo’s enclosure of the market in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Extension of Lenovo’s partnership with NEC

At the beginning of October this year, Lenovo extended its partnership with NEC by 10 years, pushing the two companies’ contract until 2026. NEC was once Japan’s primary PC distributor, until changes to the Japanese PC market eventually led the company to just hold about a fifth of the country’s PC market shares today. The partnership with Lenovo, which was established last January 2011, worked well to keep its ailing business alive.

But what does this contract extension have to do with Lenovo’s business plans in Japan? The NEC brand is still a well established name in Japan, having its roots way back during the 1970’s. Even with its falling PC business today, it still provides other IT services and products. The strong combination of Lenovo’s international PC dominance, and NEC’s traditional popularity as a PC brand, helped the two companies gain a firm grasp on the country’s PC market (especially within the business and enterprise sectors). In other words, the partnership provided more benefits than what was initially expected.

Decision to preserve the NEC brand

Connected with the extension of the two companies’ partnership is Lenovo’s decision to preserve the NEC brand. As mentioned earlier, the status of the brand was pivotal in securing a significant PC market share in Japan, thus forming the primary reason for this decision. However, more than just maintaining the name, preserving the NEC brand also means that a different marketing approach can be used using two separate brands.

Lenovo could have easily phased the NEC brand out by completely acquiring the company after the contract expires in 2016. However, the company instead chose to extend the contract, albeit at a condition that Lenovo’s shares would be increased by 66.6% (from 51%), and NEC’s shares reduced to 33.4% (from 49%). This opportunity allows NEC to still operate as a separate brand, with its own line of products and services.

Separate establishment of Lenovo Enterprise Solutions

Focusing on the other side of its business operations, Lenovo had also opened a deal with IBM to acquire its x86 server business. The establishment of Lenovo Enterprise Solutions recently was the first step to this, using the newly established business arm to open Japan’s PC server market.

The strange point in this is that NEC is also a player in Japan’s server market, and was in fact the highest share holder by 23.6% last year. Lenovo’s decision not to place the business under the partnership’s wing was a move to keep NEC as the highest share holder in the country’s PC server market. Separation of Lenovo Enterprise Solutions would allow continuation of its operations as another business entity, keeping the server product line up for Lenovo’s ThinkCentre brand (which was also acquired from IBM) still open to the Japanese tech market.

Lenovo’s determination to win over the Japanese PC market may not completely depend on its partnership with NEC, but in conclusion, NEC’s reputation as a brand seems to have been too good for the company to pass up. It could also be a matter of tradition however, making sure that the brand is still there for more years to come.

The post This is How Lenovo Wins Japan appeared first on VR World.