February 2009 Archives

Why distributors should not cut inventory

By Richard Wilson on February 11, 2009 7:51 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
A component distributor I spoke with last week is, like many, feeling the pain of a market which is as much as 20% smaller than this time last year. Their response was to cut inventory. Sensible enough when bookings are falling and margins are being squeezed, but is it the right option?

I had lunch yesterday with the head of another component distributor and he said they were actually building up inventory and not cutting it. The reason being that at some point later this year when the market comes back, there will be business to be gained for those suppliers with inventory. Therefore, cutting inventory now is not necessarily the right the thing to do.  

No one said understanding the eonomics of the downturn would be easy.


Would the German government fall into that trap?

By Richard Wilson on February 9, 2009 11:33 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
The Digital Britain Report could be a lost opportunity for the UK because the government seems to have wimped out and not set the more ambitious and arguably necessary 100Mbit/s data rate target for the national broadband network. 

This is indeed a wide-ranging report from the government but we are dismayed to see that it spends as much time discussing digital content and the delivery of services as it does about network infrastructure.

Would the German government fall into that trap? We think not. 

Unlike most other national infrastructure, Britain's communications networks have been created, in the main, without direct public funding. The question is whether this will be enough to increase the capacity and quality of our digital networks to meet growing consumer and business expectations.

Despite the question of where the investment will come from, the biggest worry is that the government may have fudged the issue even before the process has begun.

Instead of aiming for a national broadband network capable of supporting 100Mbit/s data rates, as is happening in Japan and parts of Europe, the government has set the more modest target of 20Mbit/s for the whole country by 2012

Android can be used in non-mobile consumer products

By Richard Wilson on February 8, 2009 11:22 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Android may only be used in one mobile phone but interest in the wider consumer product development community is starting to grow.

Californian touchscreen start-up, Touch Revolution has created a custom software installation based on Android which can be used in a range of non-mobile consumer products. 

This indicates that developers are looking to use the open source Android operating system, created by Google, in products other than mobile phones, the initial target for Android. 

Broadcom is another company involved in Android-related developments and its Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/FM software interface has been integrated in the latest version of the Android operating system. 

The attraction for Broadcom is that the Android platform includes native support for its wireless chipsets. 

Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and FM technologies are all becoming features of mobile phones, but the short range wireless capability would also be applicable to non-mobile phone applications such as set-top boxes and TVs. 

But the key is that the Android platform is available as an open source project with an Apache 2.0 open source license option, which will ultimately open up the applications market.
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This page is an archive of entries from February 2009 listed from newest to oldest.

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