Business Tech

Dell's profit falls almost 50 percent

Updated at 1:50 p.m. PST with comments from CFO Brian Gladden.

Dell's profit sank drastically during the final quarter of 2008.

The PC maker reported fourth-quarter revenue of $13.4 billion Thursday, a 16 percent drop from $15.9 billion reported the same quarter a year ago. Dell's profit for the quarter totaled $351 million, or 18 cents per share, compared to $671 million and 31 cents per share the year before. That's nearly a 48 percent drop in profit. Analysts had been anticipating earnings per share of 26 cents.

Dell had reported last month … Read more

Cisco sheds jobs as it 'realigns' business

Technology stalwart Cisco Systems has begun "realigning" its workforce and has confirmed that it has started laying off workers this week.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Cisco, which sells Internet gear to communications service providers and large companies, has laid off about 250 employees at its headquarters in San Jose, Calif., this week. Other jobs in offices throughout the U.S. and overseas were also cut, the company said.

Cisco's job cuts come as other large technology companies have also laid off workers amid the deepening worldwide recession. Microsoft has already announced 5,000 job cuts over the next 18 months. … Read more

VMware moves vCenter to Linux

CANNES, France--VMware will release future versions of vCenter, its flagship virtualization-management software, in Linux versions as well as for Windows, the company's chief technology officer said Wednesday.

Chief technology officer Stephen Herrod announced the move for vCenter, formerly called Virtual Center Server, in a keynote speech at the VMworld 2009 conference here.

"We have enabled vCenter Server to be installed directly on Linux," he said. VMware first said it would release a Linux versio of the management software at its last VMworld conference, in September.

"We have also released a (Linux) version of vCenter Server that … Read more

IDC, Gartner chime in on bleak chip forecasts

Market researchers IDC and Gartner made their cases on Wednesday for worsening chip sales in 2009, with both firms predicting that chip revenue will fall by more than 20 percent.

The worldwide semiconductor market will not recover until 2010, primarily due to a very weak fourth quarter, according to IDC. The market researcher expects a decline in global chip sales of 22 percent in 2009, due, among other things, to low chip factory utilization rates and price erosion.

Memory revenue (DRAM and NAND flash) should stabilize by the second half of 2009, but revenue growth will not return until 2010, … Read more

Salesforce.com squeezes $1B from the cloud

Salesforce.com showed Wednesday that cloud computing can produce serious money--but also that it's not immune from the current unpleasant economic climate.

For its fiscal 2009, which ended January 31, the San Francisco-based company reported revenue of $1.08 billion, a 44 percent increase. But for fiscal 2010, it lowered its forecast to a range of $1.3 billion to $1.33 billion.

In November, the company had forecast $1.35 billion to $1.36 billion, and analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect on average $1.325 billion for the year.

"We've slightly lowered the guidance range. … Read more

Intel CEO comments on Nvidia, economy, flash

Intel CEO Paul Otellini commented on competition with Nvidia, the economy, and the possible fate of its flash memory factories on Wednesday at a tech conference in San Francisco.

Otellini began by speaking to the fact that the global economic downturn has depleted inventories of chips. "I don't think there's much inventory out there. It's hard to imagine that there's a significant drop below this." He made his remarks at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference 2009, which was streamed live.

And moving quickly to the next generation of chip technology is critical … Read more

Intel moves against Psion for 'Netbook' trademark

Intel has filed for a declaratory judgment against Psion Teklogix in order to continue using the term "Netbook" generically. The legal filing also revealed, as a separate matter, that Google would prohibit search advertisements that include the term "netbook."

What's the difference between a Netbook and a notebook? More than the design, according to Psion Teklogix.

Psion "purports to be the owner of U.S. Trademark Registration No. 2404976 issued on November 21, 2000 for the mark Netbook for use in connection with laptop computer," according to an Intel legal filing in the … Read more

Novell, VMware push virtual appliances on Suse Linux

Novell and VMware have teamed up to work with software makers to develop virtual appliances based on Suse Linux Enterprise, the companies announced at the VMworld Europe 2009 conference in Cannes.

As part of the agreement, independent software vendors using VMware Studio to create virtual appliances for VMware's ESX hypervisor are being offered a "free evaluation redistribution of appliances" built on the Suse Linux Enterprise operating system, Novell and VMware said in a statement Tuesday.

In addition, the partners are helping third-party vendors to build Suse Linux Enterprise-based virtual appliances under the VMware Ready scheme, aimed at … Read more

As server sales tank, IBM still leads pack

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Server revenue worldwide fell 14 percent year over year to $13.5 billion in the fourth quarter, market researcher IDC said Wednesday.

IBM held onto the top share position with 36.3 percent of the market.

According to IDC's tally, worldwide server unit shipments in the quarter fell 12 percent from a year ago. The fourth quarter also represented the second consecutive quarterly decline.

For full-year 2008, global server revenue fell 3.3 percent to $53.3 billion, even as units grew 2 percent to 8.1 million. IDC … Read more