Business, Financial & Legal - Page 312

During our visit to the Foxconn headquarters in Taipei today, besides looking at new products which the Taiwanese company has been busy developing in recent times, we had to ask a couple hard hitting questions.

We spoke with Andrew D. Ouyang and Sidney Tsai from the channel sales team - that's the folk who are responsible for marketing and selling its range of retail motherboards and othe products.

We asked Foxconn about the rumors floating around that Foxconn is going to quit the channel business of Foxconn branded and marketed products - and the question wasn't met with surprise. The answer we got that was that Foxconn are not quitting the channel business and that "we're still here", from Sidney Tsai.

Those seeking to make hi-def backups of their Blu-ray videos will have to wait a little while longer, but the option is in fact coming.

Last week the final specification for the AACS (Advanced Access Content System) for Blu-Ray was released, bringing provisions for making legal copies of Blu-ray content. While many have been waiting for the spec to be finalized, they are going to have to wait a little longer for the hardware that supports it.

It looks like nVidia's latest round of rebranding might come back to hurt them. In a move that many are saying is very misleading nV is rebranding the G92b (same chip that is going into the GTS240/250) as the GTX260 and GTX280 mobile.

Now it is nothing new for companies to rebrand, ATi, nVidia, Via just about everyone does it to some degree. Where the problem starts is that nVidia is labeling the G92b with the same naming convention as a much more advanced part. (GT200). This means that people searching for reviews or information on the GTX280M will also get reviews of the desktop part which is miles above the 55nm chip that will be used in the mobile part.

As of this writing there are rumblings of class actions suits and even legal action from states over this.

Read more here at Theo Valich's Blog.

Transmeta is once and for all a thing of the past as they were finally purchased by a Novafora.

This Israeli based Novafora has been around since 2004 and, according to their website, is devoted to delivering highest quality video on any display device, at anytime and anywhere. To do this they plan to build a family of video processors that are optimized for video and networks.

Having acquired Transmeta, the failed brain child of Linus Torvalds, they have some unique IP at their disposal. Looks like the system-on-chip market got some new competition.

Read more here.

Yesterday we published an article titled "BFG, A sinking ship?" and today spent a great deal of time following up with industry sources to uncover a tail spun out of deception and unethical business practices. For many months now a steady yet quiet flow of information has passed through the insider world of the industry, all leaving a negative impression of BFG and where the company is headed. At this point it is too early to draw a definitive line back to the sources of misinformation because it looks more like a draw by numbers picture than a clear snap shot.

More iPhone legal woes are popping up. This time it is the browser that is being subjected to litigation.

EMG Technologies is seeking damages as well as future royalties from the fruity company. All this over the way Safari Browses around the internet.

As the title of the EMG Technologies' patent suggests "Apparatus and Method of Manipulating a Region on a Wireless Device Screen for Viewing, Zooming and Scrolling Internet Content" it seems they have a lot of ground covered.

Read more over at TG Daily here.

Hot off the press, Digitimes is reporting that ABIT may begin phasing out its motherboard business after evaluating the success of its forthcoming Intel 4 series lineup of motherboard products. ABIT shipped three million motherboards in 2007 and while that may sound like a large number, it's a mere fraction of what the likes of ASUS and GIGABYTE ship. It had a goal of shipping six million motherboards this year but has since reduced its forecast.

Acer announced that it will acquire E-TEN Information Systems, a well known and respected manufacturer of smartphone mobile and handheld devices.

The acquisition has been accepted by all parties involved, and the undisputed takeover (to date) will go on, subject to the usual takeover procedures such as approval from shareholders and of course if the government regulators approve.

Acer over the last year has had a strong showing, with its acquisition of Gateway, and Packard Bell strengthening capabilities across their entire range of products, but in particular the mobile technologies. The acquisition of E-TEN will be another feather in the cap for the synergies of the hotly contested mobile devices arena.

Look for great things from the Acer group. The acquisition is expected to close during Q3 2008.
Read more here.

Palit's continuing trend to flourish the graphics card market with quality products at lower prices has allowed them to grow rapidly over the past few years in particular; as such they have swallowed up a multitude of smaller companies along the way, including none other than Gainward.

Now it looks like they're shifting their attention toward Galaxy which was established in Hong Kong in 1994, then went on to become add-in board partner for NVIDIA in 1999.

The first steps of an acquisition have apparently been made by Palit, this to help offload excess stock to the new subsidiary due to an over-ordering issue under the Palit branding.

Digitimes have the scoop.

Dell has launched a new range of PCs and notebooks for the Small Business market and the Vostro range looks to be quite a decent option for those looking for simple, but serious business machines. The desktop systems starts at US$319 for the mini tower version and the slim tower starts at $349.

Both of the desktop systems are based on the Intel G33 chipset. The basic model comes with a Celeron 420 and 512MB of RAM for either model, as well as an 80GB hard drive and a 16x DVD-ROM. You can of course as always configure your own system and Dell offers a wide range of options up to an E6700 processor and various graphics options.