Goldman Sachs' latest IT spending survey is out and it looks a tech-spending recovery is on the way for 2010. To a large extent, the data suggests not so much that spending is dramatically higher, but that it has normalized at pre-recessionary growth rates, rather than contracting as it has over the past several months.
Goldman is cautiously optimistic about 2010 spending, noting that much of it depends on the macro-economic environment driving more business spending. And while most areas will see growth counter to 2009's downward spiral, some areas such as off-shore development will feel significant retraction.
Regardless, the sentiments are positive and dramatically different than Goldman's report from November 2008 where IT spending was in a total death spiral. What a difference a year makes.
A few key points from the report:
- With recessionary buying cycle clearly through the trough, the remaining question centers on the pace of recovery for 2010.
- Infrastructure, application development, and systems integration remain top spending areas, especially as CIOs start to consider newer technologies such as virtualization and cloud computing.
- There is pent-up demand in hardware most notable, positive for storage and server/PC refresh.
- The appetite for offshore services appears to be below trend at current levels.
- HP, NetApp, CommVault, Red Hat, Riverbed, and Salesforce.com are notable names showing positive upward momentum in our latest survey.
In software, Red Hat and Salesforce.com showed strengthened results with VMware and Citrix remaining top of mind, which Goldman believes to be a good indication of internal and external cloud deployments gaining momentum.
... Read more
Dell is now offering its ultra-hip Studio XPS 13-inch laptop with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed. It's nice to see Dell taking Ubuntu seriously enough to offer it as a standard option, but a bit disappointing to see that they are not offering the latest 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope release.
In light of Ubuntu's recent move to cloud services--offering Web-based file sync and sharing I'd like to think that this is just an early step in a partnership. Dell must recognize that there is a large untapped market opportunity for not just netbooks, but for the services revenue to manage devices and files.
On a less positive note, I have to imagine that fewer technical users would be confused as to why they should choose Ubuntu when the top of the product page clearly states "Dell recommends Windows Vista Home Premium." No company that cares about its customers recommends Windows Vista Home Premium (zing!).
(Via Engadget)
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Reviews have been mixed but the guys at Hispazone put the Eee Top through it's paces (in both English and Spanish) and I think it looks pretty amazing.
The part that really matters is the touch-screen that is demonstrated in this video.The reviewers seemed to be genuinely pleased with the whole experience:
Even with the snags we can get from the Eee Top, it will become a referent in tactile control for the domestic computers and will probably be a before and an after in what we know as domestic computer because this kind of interface "naturalize" the use of the computer making it more integrating and easy for the whole family.
I wrote last month about ASUS' Netbook domination. I certainly hope Dell, HP and Lenovo are paying attention
I've written in the past about how sub-notebooks are a great opportunity for Linux on the desktop. There is no need to run Windows (or MacOS for that matter) when you are using the machine primarily for browser-based applications.
I've been running Ubuntu on a Thinkpad X300 for the last 2 weeks and while it's still a bit too geeky, the issues I have run into appear to be largely due to the fact that IBM doesn't officially support Ubuntu (yet.) With the exception of Adobe Photoshop I have yet to run into any business reason why I can't use Ubuntu full-time.
In light of consumer response to Vista (not great if you haven't been paying attention) there is an opening for Linux to swoop in and grab some market share. The big hardware vendors just need to start playing along.
Sam Johnston, a member of the Cloud Computing group (Google Groups login required) posted that Dell had used "Cloud Computing" with TM in a press release and decided to do a little digging.
Oddly the application was not opposed and from what it appears on the Industry Standard it may be too late.
If Dell wins the application and enforces the trademark it could dramatically alter the cloudscape.
Notice in the filing below that there is no first-use date associated with the claim whereas there are a number of articles etc. prior to the filing date that use the "cloud computing" term.
From the trademark filing:
International Class: 040
Class Status: Active
Custom manufacture of computer hardware for use in data centers and mega-scale computing environments for others
First Use Date: (DATE NOT AVAILABLE)
First Use in Commerce Date: (DATE NOT AVAILABLE)
International Class: 042
Class Status: Active
Design of computer hardware for use in data centers and mega-scale computing environments for others; customization of computer hardware for use in data centers and mega-scale computing environments for others; design and development of networks for use in data centers and mega-scale computing environments for others; Consulting services for data centers and mega-scale computing environments in the fields of design, selection, implementation, customization and use of computer hardware and software systems for others; Consulting services for data centers and mega-scale computing environments in the fields of design, selection, implementation, customization and use of computer hardware and software systems for others
Basis: 1(b)
First Use Date: (DATE NOT AVAILABLE)
First Use in Commerce Date: (DATE NOT AVAILABLE)
Starbucks pioneered the notion that coffee should be $3 a cup, and its been a great business model. However, the company has been late to the party on 2 areas: lower cost options and better tasting coffee, the confluence of which has caused the stock price to sag as the repeat visitors dipped.
Now the company is now trying crowdsourcing as its way to the future. (Note to self: get Starbucks to put my blog excerpts on its coffee cups)
The new MyStarbucksIdea site reminds me of Dell's Ideastorm, which was in part the impetus for Dell to start offering laptops preloaded with Ubuntu.
... Read moreIn the quarter ended Nov. 2, Dell recorded sales of $15.65 billion, exceeding Wall Street's estimate by about $300 million and representing a healthy 9% increase from a year earlier. Net income jumped 27%, to $766 million.
Can we first just recognize that $15.65 billion is an absurdly large number?
But expenses as a percentage of revenue, a key measure of how well the company is managing costs, rose noticeably. Selling, general, and administrative expenses rose to 12.2% of revenue from 10.6% a year ago. Total operating expenses rose to 13.2% of revenue, up from 11.5% a year ago.
If you do the quick math, Dell's total operating expenses were about $2 billion. So, investors want Dell to reduce the number of employees (which makes sense in theory) in order to eliminate "low-value" work, which Dell CFO Don Carty said "We have more manual work going on than we need." This is the part that throws me.
First off, Dell is moving into services, which is obviously manual and second I was under the impression (and we have all been told for years) that the key to Dell's success is the supply chain buy->build process, a process that is highly manual.
Isn't the real question if the just-in-time manufacturing model is still a competitive advantage?
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