Electronic Business articles from April 2003

Electronic Business archives from April 2003

Safer supply chains. (Editor's Note).(U.S. Customs Department's measures: the Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism and the Cargo Security Initiative)
April 1, 2003... The events of 9/11 clearly demonstrated just how vulnerable the wheels of commerce are to an external threat. Immediately following the attacks, authorities responded to the emergency by putting a variety of security measures in place,...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2003... WOMEN AND MINORITIES NEED APPLY I read Tam Harbert's editorial ["Open the boardroom window," January 2003, page 6] on boardrooms with great interest. I previously worked for an electronics/electrical company. The board of directors for...

Moore, Moore and more. (The Chip Advisor).
April 1, 2003... Each time the semiconductor industry passes another order-of-magnitude milestone, as with the transition from 130-nanometer to 90-nanometer feature sizes, we tend to look forward and wonder if we can do it again. No less an authority than...

New kinds of protection for intellectual property. (On the Law).
April 1, 2003... The worst nightmare of component or product designers is that their designs will be copied. Unfortunately, intellectual property laws do not always provide adequate protection. There are four classic categories of intellectual property...

The high cost of quality in global SMT manufacturing. (Commentary).(Industry Overview)
April 1, 2003... Typically, a new year brings a barrage of resolutions. My resolution is to open the minds of U.S. manufacturing electronics executives to the critical issue of the increasing cost of doing high-quality, surface-mount-technology (SMT)...

Cisco claims IP piracy: Cisco's first IP lawsuit is against a Chinese company. (Business Trends).
April 1, 2003... Exasperated by its repeated failure to resolve alleged intellectual property (IP) infringement outside the courts, Cisco Systems Inc., San Jose, CA, has sued Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Shenzen, China, accusing it of copying some of its...

From surviving to thriving: slimmed-down Agere Systems strives to regain profitability. (Profile).
April 1, 2003... John Dickson, CEO of Allentown, PA-based communications chip maker Agere Systems Inc. noticed a change late last year during the company's quarterly analyst conference calls. For much of the previous two years--as the communications industry...

Optimism abounds at the FSA: analysts' agreement about the long term tempered by short-term disconnect. (Foundries).(Fabless Semiconductor Association ()(Industry Overview)
April 1, 2003... When the Fabless Semiconductor Association (FSA) released its 10th annual survey on wafer supply and demand, on March 6, the results were so optimistic that industry and financial analysts initially wondered in which fantasyland the poll had...

Guiding through the fog: in an age of "poor visibility," do companies have any business giving earnings guidance? (Finance).(Industry Overview)
April 1, 2003... To guide or not to guide? Several major U.S. companies have stopped giving earnings guidance, and some analysts think it's time for other companies, including high-tech companies, to consider doing the same thing. Coca-Cola Co., AT&T Corp....

Hot stuff: DVD player sales hit record levels in 2002. (Consumer Products).(Industry Overview)
April 1, 2003... The hottest consumer item of the moment is going to stay hot, and that's good news for chip makers. Although the electronics industry had little to boast about in 2002, there were a few bright spots in the consumer segment. The DVD player...

Supply chain reality check: forecasts are now being compared with actual demand. (Distribution).(Industry Overview)
April 1, 2003... False starts on the recovery have made electronics executives leery, but they say they're ready for an upturn. And they've already learned a few supply chain lessons they can apply when the situation improves. In the past, predictions such...

Nokia's N-Gage shakes up gaming market: cell phone-based game player due in Q4. (Gaming).(2003)
April 1, 2003... Get ready for a battle in the portable gaming market. Nintendo Co. Ltd. has enjoyed a virtual monopoly for years, with its Game Boy series of handheld game machines. But it's going to get a fresh competitor in the fourth quarter of this year,...

Tough times for training: budget cuts send more companies to e-learning. (Management).(Industry Overview)
April 1, 2003... Don't train your people, and your company will f all behind. It's not a question of maybe--it's a dead-on certainty. But the equally loud lament heard from many high-tech managers is, "Where's the money supposed to come from?" One of the...

Tech execs need not apply: demand for technology talent will remain soft in 2003. (Staffing).(Industry Overview)
April 1, 2003... You could call it an example of the classic imbalance between supply and demand. Or you could just call it adding insult to injury. Demand is certainly down in the high-tech industry: There's an oversupply in everything from components to...

Survivor: Silicon Valley; ten tips from start-up CEOs facing the industry's new reality. (The Best Small Companies).(Industry Overview)
April 1, 2003... DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE NEW TV REALITY SHOW? Entrepreneurs launch startups during the biggest technology boom in history and then match wits to survive the biggest bust. In post-dot-com Silicon Valley, they must snare bucks from venture...

Bootstrapping is back: entrepreneurs dig deep and make personal sacrifices for their startups. (The Best Small Companies).
April 1, 2003... A FEW ENTREPRENEURS HAVE MANAGED TO LAUNCH STARTUPS during the worst downturn in electronics industry history, but not without paying a stiff personal price. Kevin Hotaling maxed out his credit cards and is still paying off his debt. Lauro...

Thwarting the perfect crime: companies have used guns, guards and gates to fight crime--now they're adding gizmos. (Security).(like Locate Networks SnapTrack)(Industry Overview)
April 1, 2003... WHEN IT COMES TO CRIME, silicon is nearly good as gold. Last Christmas, a gang sliced open the padlock on a parked big rig north of the 101 freeway in Santa Clara, CA, quickly loaded the booty onto a nearby truck and drove off into the night....

Memory enhancement: a host of non-volatile technologies are vying with flash memory but so far no clear winner has emerged. (Semiconductors).(Industry Overview)
April 1, 2003... FOR DECADES, the semiconductor industry has searched for a "universal" memory chip that's cheap to manufacture" reads and writes data quickly, uses little electricity and retains its data even when its power is turned off. The last quality,...

Creating fair legislation for electronics recycling. (Commentary).
April 1, 2003... The management of computers and other electronics at the end of their useful life has become a significant concern to governments and communities in the United States and around the world. Product take-back and recycling legislation has been...

More information, more often: in this issue, we launch new sections and more timely coverage. (Editor's Note).
April 15, 2003... OUR MARCH COVER STORY, "How to Capitalize on the Downturn," reported on several bold electronics companies that are using these challenging economic times to prepare themselves for future competitive advantage. At ELECTRONIC BUSINESS, we...

The rise of telecom chip platforms: vendors adding software to improve differentiation. (Commentary).
April 15, 2003... DOWNTURNS CAN HAVE a beneficial effect on business practices. Telecomm equipment manufacturers are now experiencing this, as chip makers are moving to provide platforms, instead of just chips. Before the market decline, equipment makers...

Wanted: more Wi-Fi waves: more spectrum needed as the world goes wireless. (Business Trends).
April 15, 2003... With the market for Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) set to explode, U.S. industry and government are searching for ways to increase the amount of spectrum available for it. "Everybody realizes it's critically important to make more spectrum...

A most Able company: tiny contract manufacturer bucks industry's slumping trend. (Profile).(Able Electronics )
April 15, 2003... While most contract manufacturers (CMs) continue to struggle through the downturn, a few have increased revenue. The winners tend to be small companies willing to take customers in niches that don't interest the big guys. The CM industry...

Building a big rep with reps: Intel touts success of "extended sales force". (Sales Strategies).
April 15, 2003... Intel Corp. has dipped its toes into the outsourced-sales pool and says the water's just fine. For the first time since the program's launch four years ago, Intel is publicly discussing its use of manufacturer's representatives as an...

Fade to gray: gray market eroding IT vendors' profits. (Channel Issues).
April 15, 2003... As long as there are imbalances between supply and demand (and when aren't there?), there will always be a gray market for electronics. On the components side, there's been a gray market for as long as anyone can remember. And during times...

Huawei responds to Cisco allegations. (Jurisprudence).
April 15, 2003... HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES CO. LTD., Shenzen, China, says a request for an injunction to stop it from selling networking equipment in the United States is a groundless attempt to keep it out of the American market. The argument, in a brief filed...

Lies, damned lies and resumes: background checks get more vigilant. (Management).
April 15, 2003... It's amazing how many lies we see on resumes. Probably 15% of the background checks we do reveal significant problems, from falsified degrees to criminal records," says Bill Trau, a partner in the Cleveland office of executive search firm...

Corporate VC gets smaller but wiser: surviving corporate venture investors focus on strategic goals. (Finance).
April 15, 2003... Chalk up another victim of the dotcom collapse. Corporations have cut way back--more than 90%--on their involvement in the venture capital game over the past two and a half years. But the decline is leveling off, and the companies that remain...

Next-generation wireless hits the skids: carriers hold back on equipment spending, slowing the shift to 3G. (Cellular).
April 15, 2003... The momentum toward third-generation, or "3G," wireless digital data networks has been sluggish for several years. One of the reasons, says El Segundo, CA-based research firm iSuppli Corp., is that wireless carriers have taken on a lot of debt...

Volatility begets vacillation. (Business Barometer).
April 15, 2003... This month's polling of purchasing managers finds that the potential for war has been weighing heavily on the minds of professionals in the electronics industry. As the jobless rate climbs slowly, only one in 10 respondents believes that...

Graphics chip challenge: Nvidia and ATI battle for technology leadership. (Semiconductors).
April 15, 2003... IN THE HYPERCOMPETITIVE graphics chip industry, ATI Technologies Inc. scored a rare victory against archrival Nvidia Corp. last August, when, for the first time in years, ATI began shipping the world's fastest consumer graphics chip. Santa...

Graphics grab. (Chip Sets).
April 15, 2003... WHEN INTEL CORP. introduced the first integrated graphics controller for its Pentium 4 processors last year, it nearly tripled its share of the worldwide market for desktop PC graphics chips. Now, as the Santa Clara, CA-based company prepares...

Will Intel's Centrino deliver? (Mobile Technology).
April 15, 2003... LED BY A $300 MILLION marketing campaign, the Centrino, from Intel Corp., Santa Clara, CA, hit the streets last month and left some industry players wondering if the mobile platform's bite was bigger than its bark. Although the product's...

802.11 standards do battle. (Wireless Networking).( )
April 15, 2003... WIRELESS TOOK CENTER STAGE last month with the Centrino launch of Intel Corp., Santa Clara, CA, but behind the scenes, questions began surfacing about 802.11b versus 802.11g. Broadcom Corp., Irvine, CA, an Intel competitor and longtime...

EDA turns to the channel: Mentor uses distribution databases in design tool. (Supply Chain Management).(Mentor Graphics)
April 15, 2003... IT DOESN'T TAKE MUCH to derail a hot new product introduction. One incorrect component selection at the front end of the design cycle can make product manufacturing grind to a screeching halt. But a lot of component-selection problems can...

Contract manufacturers manage risk. (Components).(Industry Overview)
April 15, 2003... RISK MANAGEMENT IS RAPIDLY becoming a central theme throughout the boardrooms of contract manufacturers, which are still reeling from the write-downs of the last boom. In the past six months, virtually every contract manufacturer has come...

Buying boom or selling surge? EDA consolidation represents the end of an era. (Electronic Design Automation).(Industry Overview)
April 15, 2003... FOR DECADES, EDA HAS been a hotbed of entrepreneurial fervor, with start-ups bursting into prominence like fireworks at a 4th of July parade. Today, however, EDA looks more like a flea market than a holiday celebration, with the big vendors...

After Verilog. (Language).
April 15, 2003... EDA VENDORS are converging on System Verilog as the next step in designing increasingly complex chips, but whether the development language goes far enough to meet the future needs of developers remains a giant question mark. System...

Funding rejuvenates EDA market. (Investment).
April 15, 2003... WHILE EVERY OTHER ASPECT of the electronics industry is suffering major cutbacks, EDA is the only segment still able to attract venture funding. And despite the major consolidation the EDA space is undergoing, the number of start-ups is still...

Outsourced software will reign supreme: most cell phone software will be developed by third parties within two years. (Special Editorial Section).
April 15, 2003... IT'S DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN for the electronics industry. Computer companies were the first to learn the lesson that they shouldn't be in the software business. They developed proprietary operating systems for their boxes, but technological...

Canon shoots a challenge across ASML's bow: it wants to overtake not one, but two, strong competitors. (Capital Equipment).
April 15, 2003... ONCE UPON A TIME, the Dutch lithography tool company ASML, Veldhoven, The Netherlands, spun out of its much larger parent, ASM International, and managed to overtake its Tokyo-based rivals Nikon Corp. and Canon Inc., to become the No. 1...

Act global, think local: distributors adapt techniques learned in Europe to expansion in Asia. (Top Distributors).
April 15, 2003... For more than a decade, North American distributors have been on a global march, targeting new markets and expanding their services. Component suppliers want worldwide sales support from the channel, and component buyers want to do more...

What was able to link everything from designers to suppliers to manufacturers to customers? And, along the way, especially enjoyed linking up the warehouse.
April 15, 2003... IT'S E-BUSINESS. AND IT'S TURNING ELECTRONICS COMPANIES INTO MODELS OF EFFICIENCY. Everywhere in the electronics industry today, collaborative e-business is simplifying operations, improving quality control and cutting costs. It's...

Rambus gets a face-lift. (Management).
April 15, 2003... CEO Geoff Tate had a problem. Customers were unhappy. The stock was sagging. PR was awful. And, to add insult to injury, even some Wall Street analysts stopped paying attention. Apparently no one likes a company that won't play nicely with...

Recession - resilient: how Microchip produces profits through thick and thin. (Management).
April 15, 2003... MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY INC. was hurt by the electronics industry downturn, just like all other chip companies, but that's where the comparisons end. Since bottoming out in June 2001, the Chandler, AZ-based developer and manufacturer of...

Bush's man in Silicon Valley: high-tech veteran and Republican fund-raiser Floyd Kvamme helps advise the White House on technology policy. (Interview).(Interview)
April 15, 2003... One morning in 1996, Jean Kvamme did something she'd only done a few times during her 44-year marriage to Silicon Valley venture capitalist Floyd Kvamme--she called her husband at the office and insisted on interrupting him in the middle of a...

Cable compatibility for control freaks: the fight over the digital living room begins. (Commentary).(Column)
April 15, 2003... SOMETHING WAS LOST amid the self-proclaimed huzzahs for the recent landmark digital cable compatibility pact between TV set manufacturers and cable television operators. That something was a firm commitment to the deal from the cable industry....