October 2010 Archives

The collapse of the microcomputer market at Christmas 1984 had dramatic consequences for the UK manufacturers - Sinclair, Oric, Dragon, Acorn and others.

Apple is the cleverest company on the planet and the wireless network operators are among the stupidest, so the result of an upcoming battle between the two is probably a foregone conclusion.

Magnetics have often been proposed as a basis for memory technology because they hold out the possibility of the universal memory - one which will apply to all situations.

TI is harking back to its glory days in deciding to take the analogue market by the scruff of its neck.

The Japanese often bemoan the fact that they are the Galapagos Islands of the innovation scene.

There is a possibility of debate over this, but extended recent research in America leads me to believe that the ten best cocktails are:

Despite BP, the Brits haven't lost all their cachet in the US.

"Completely out of place" - Mr.J.F.Coales

50 years ago today, this was the headline in a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of October 26^th 1960.

'This is brutal', Ed confides to his diary, '70 presentations in three weeks for this dog and pony show and I'm already being taken apart by these bastards.'

With the M&A season upon us, it is worth remembering some sage advice from the  Price WaterhouseCoopers book Five Frogs on a Log for this on the perils of M&A.

 Dick Skipworth, who founded Memec in 1974 and drove it to become the world's third largest distributor, recalls how he made the most expensive gamble in the company's history - expansion into the North American market.

Has high-tech industry got a role to play in the reduction of the deficit? George Osborne, struggling with the practical difficulties of making  the cuts which will aloow him to reduce the deficti, might ponder on this as an alternative to grinding the faces of the poor.

The seventh spin-off from Fairchild, and the only one out of 43 Fairchild spin-offs to be sued by Fairchild, was backed by a company which had made its money replacing railway engine headlights which had been shot out by Red Indians.

A BAN (body area network) created by an Android phone app can monitor heart, brain and muscle activity and transmit the information to a remote medical centre.

Thanks to Interbrand for this one - the world's ten best global brands valued from $70 billion for No.1 - Coca-Cola to $26 billion for No.10 - HP.

With CEOs getting twitchy over their fat cash balances and bankers whispering the joys of M&A in their ears, the takeover trail is becoming a favourite trek for CEOs.

Integrated semiconductor circuits will be components of future.

50 years ago today, this was the headline of a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of October 19^th 1960.

'With a month to the IPO, and on the verge of embarking on the three week road show, I feel I should have a word with the staff,' Ed confides to his diary.

Harry Sello, the Shockley and Fairchild alumnus who got SGS-Ates, the fore-runner of STMicroelectronics, into the planar silicon transistor business, has an interesting tale of going swimming with Shockley which is told in Bo Lojek's History of Semiconductor Engineering.

The thickies of the high-tech firmanent have always been the guys running the telecoms network operators.

In the latter part of the 19^th century, Hisashige Tanaka rented the upper floor of a temple and set up  Japan's first telegraphic equipment manufacturing company. He named it after himself - Tanaka Engineering Works.

Although discovered in Britain, it looks as if graphene may first be commercially exploited in America.

So what's with Actel-Microsemi?

Thanks to Forbes for this one - the Asian Top Ten companies measured by revenue:

With over $50 billion already spent on high-tech M&A in the US this year, CEOs would be wise to follow the first rule for acquirers: Do it quickly.

Fifty years ago, in 'Quote of the Week' in Electronics Weekly's edition of October 19^th 1960. the following observation was recorded.

"Often we have to spend money on developments that may never materialise - but this is not wasted money."

The remark was made by Harold Watkinson, the Defence Minister, in an address to the Tory Party Conference.

'A bit of a hoo-ha in the general managers' meeting today', Ed confides to his diary, 'the GM in charge of analogue asked: "Heard anything of Frank Bush lately?"'

Who's that guy who sold Intel's handheld platform group to Marvell in 2006?

There were once a couple of guys who started a speech recognition company.

The Japanese electronics manufacturers hunt as a pack, and when Toshiba announced its glasses-less 3D LCD panels earlier this week, it was a racing certainty others would follow.

As predicted at the time of the NXP IPO in August, investors have lost out in the after-market.

Thanks to CNN for this one: the ten most-watched videos on YouTube.

Today's news that the Manchester University scientists who invented grapheme have won the Nobel Prize for physics is wonderful.

Garages turn to electronics

This was the headline, 50 years ago today, in a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of October 5^th

Is it time to do for the European telecoms infrastructure equipment industry what was done for the European car industry in the 1980s?

'Trouble. Several new product lines are delayed,' writes Ed in his diary,  I'm going to kick ass on this one. I'm calling a special general managers' meeting.

It's always been a puzzle why you switch the telly on and it comes on, and you switch the PC on and you wait.

"Edison personified the value and importance of technologists," says David Potter, the founding CEO of Psion, "Edison used our understanding of sound waves  - the work of Boyle and others in the mid-19th-century - to record sounds. It was rather an extraordinary thing when you think about it, because up to then sound was something ephemeral - you couldn't capture it. You listened to it, and it was gone."

I have to say I do miss seeing, and hearing, Pasquale Pistorio on the semiconductor scene. He's a creator of energy and a force for good in the world.