Electronic Business articles from January 2004

Electronic Business archives from January 2004

Leaving behind something bigger: Silicon Valley loses a pioneer.(Editor's Note)(Obituary)
January 1, 2004... A historic oddity little known outside the automobile industry: Henry Leland, the man who founded the Cadillac luxury car marque, also founded the Lincoln brand. The electronics industry's counterpart to this coincidence: Eugene Kleiner, one of...

Drive time for Infineon.(Letters)(Strategy Analytics ranks Infineon Technologies as second largest semiconductor supplier )(Brief Article)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2004... Your feature "The Drive for Silicon" (November 2003, page 52) was an excellent summary of how the technically demanding automotive market helps drive the electronics industry. One point missing from the report is the impact of extended...

Used but not useless.(Letters)(TIP Electronics president appreciates Jerry Mahoney's report on used equipment)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2004... Our company is made up of people who cofounded Comdisco Electronics and who left Comdisco as a result of its demise. Although our value proposition is slightly different from the one we developed at Comdisco, we buy sell and lease semiconductor...

Money madness.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2004... I think Bill Roberts' article on what companies are doing with their financial reserves ("Flashing Their Cash," November 2003, page 20) misrepresents what is going on. He talks about the semiconductor companies that have excess cash but glosses...

High marks from Marks.(Letters)(the ceo of Flextronics thanks the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2004... I really enjoyed your profile of me ("Michael Gets High Marks," December 2003, page 46). I think you did an excellent job of catching the "essence" of what I'm about. The pictures were great also. Thanks a lot. Michael Marks, CEO ...

Corrections.(Letters)(The CEO of Xerox)(Report from Goldman Sachs ranking coauthored by Reed Business Research)(Correction Notice)
January 1, 2004... In "Michael Gets High Marks," we erroneously referred to the CEO of Xerox as Ann Ford; Anne Mulcahy is the CEO of Xerox. Also, we cited a report from Goldman Sachs ranking contract manufacturers and should have disclosed that it was coauthored...

Electronic Business editorial and design awards.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... WINNER best overall issue business & finance/trade, 2003 Maggie Awards FINALIST best single editorial illustration/trade, best single editorial photograph/trade, 2003 Maggie Awards FINALIST best single issue, technology B-to-B...

The TV of tomorrow: will 2004 be the year of HDTV?(Chip Advisor)(high definition television)
January 1, 2004... Pundits play a little game at the start of each year, trying to guess how the year will be remembered. In the late 1980s, for example, each year was hailed as "the year of the CD-ROM"--and each year failed to see wide-spread adoption of that...

Will China enforce your intellectual property rights? Note a few facts before jumping into the biggest untapped market.(Commentary)
January 1, 2004... When it comes to protecting intellectual property, China has come a long way since it first bid for WTO membership. It has modified its laws drastically to comply with the agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). And...

Truth or consequences.(Management)(chiefs of electronic equipment firms shares their views on acquisitions )
January 1, 2004... The acquisition took place so long ago that time has eroded almost everything about it except the bitterness of the CEO whose EDA company was acquired. "We were told we were going to be an independent subsidiary;" the erstwhile CEO says today....

Catching the right (micro) wave: bad times for distribution could be a good time for startup RFMW.(Profile)(Radio frequency and microwave component distributor)(Company Profile)
January 1, 2004... The industry is crawling out of the worst downturn in its history. The market leaders in your business segment are consolidating or dropping like flies. You're distributing products that require a skill set that is--some say--tantamount to...

Shareholders take aim at executive pay: record number of proxy proposals includes several electronics companies.(Finance)
January 1, 2004... Activist shareholders last year filed a record number of proxy proposals related to executive pay, including several involving electronics companies. The Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC) reports 332 shareholder proposals related...

Seeing red over next-generation DVD: vendors squabble over two high-capacity standards.(Consumer Electronics)(Industry Overview)
January 1, 2004... Do consumers really need a next-generation DVD? Not yet, pundits say. But that hasn't stopped a group of electronics conglomerates from trying to set a standard for it. Two separate camps are jockeying to set the standard for a...

Will this expansion end ugly? The answer is yes, unless the industry's memory improves.(Economic Outlook)(its boom time for electronics industry but how far is the end)(Industry Overview)
January 1, 2004... Although the current electronics expansion cycle is only a few months old, it is not too soon to begin planning for its inevitable end in about three years. The end of the last expansion, in 2000, was ugly and painful. Some manufacturers did...

A thaw in telecom's nuclear winter: market for optical components starts to warm.(Components)
January 1, 2004... After three long years of plunging shipments and prices, the market for optical components will finally pick up in 2004, according to analysts. And that market will rise on a radically altered landscape of component vendors. Overall, sales...

Find new products and new suppliers at the China Sourcing Fair.(Directory)
January 1, 2004... China Sourcing Fair: Electronics & Components Date: April 13-15, 2004 Venue: Shanghai Mart, China Source direct from China Buy direct from a new community of suppliers in China Over the last decade, China's electronics...

Prepare for later arrivals.(Business Barometer)(Illustration)
January 1, 2004... This month's polling of purchasing managers shows that over a third believe that overall business conditions will improve in the next 30 days. Many are looking to pump-up order volumes as we edge our way into 2004. With a steady stock market...

Creating the audiovisual jukebox: integration and connection are the CES watchwords.(Semiconductors)(Consumer Electronics Show)
January 1, 2004... Consumer electronics fever burned so hot at one Florida Wal-Mart the day after Thanksgiving that a shopper actually was trampled by crowds clamoring to get one of the $29.87 DVD players the store had advertised. That was just one...

Accidental infringement: could intellectual property woes stifle innovative chip designs?(Electronic Design Automation)
January 1, 2004... The semiconductor industry is certainly no stranger to intellectual property (IP) issues. In an industry that's responsible for tens of thousands of patents, it's not surprising that there have been some IP squabbles over the years. However, IP...

Don't get burned by bogus parts: how you can minimize your exposure to counterfeit goods.(Supply Chain Management)(Independent Distributors of Electronics Association and The Electronic Resellers Association Inc. are trying to help identify counterfeit goods)
January 1, 2004... Every company has been burned by counterfeit components, says one industry insider. "If they tell you they haven't, they're probably lying," says Ken Stanvick, who worked 25 years in electronics manufacturing before cofounding consultancy...

LCD production shifts to TVs.(Supply Chain Management)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... Display makers' desire to satisfy the I high-end TV market may be leaving computer vendors in the lurch, analysts say. Even though TV screens currently account for less than 10 percent of the total market for thin-film-transistor liquid...

From rags to replenishment.(Supply Chain Management)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... The electronics supply chain may need to stock up on inventory now if demand trends hold positive. In Q3 2003--for the first time in nine quarters--year-over-year sales growth returned for the 108 North American companies Merrill Lynch tracks...

Imprinting the future of lithography: new credibility comes with inclusion in road map.(Capital Equipment)(International Technology Roadmap of Semiconductors includes imprint lithography)
January 1, 2004... With its inclusion in the International Technology Roadmap or Semiconductors (ITRS) last month, imprint lithography gained credence as a potential successor to optical lithography in the fabrication of silicon chips. That being true, however,...

The pace race? Will the industry lose: when Moore's Law outpaces demand, start thinking about new business strategies.(Future Shock)(Cover Story)
January 1, 2004... FASTER, CHEAPER, BETTER. Gordon Moore's now hoary insight that the density of chip doubles every two years has proven as predictable as the law of gravity, and there's no end in sight. Intel, IBM and others are already planning three...

Reversal of fortune: going private breathes new life into small companies battered by the stock market.(Going Private)
January 1, 2004... IN THE SUMMER OF 2002, after two and a half dreadful years, business was improving,, at IGN Entertainment, a gaming Web site. But to sustain its growth, this dot-com survivor needed to make acquisitions. At the time, its stock price vacillated...

A market in search of an identity: fingerprint biometrics have yet to find a high-volume application.(Biometrics)
January 1, 2004... With the emphasis on security since 9/11, with many nations launching national ID programs, and with the United States overhauling the way it tracks foreign visitors, you'd think that fingerprint biometrics would be booming. You'd be...

IT killed the CE star: dinosaurs of home electronics face a coming meteor.(Venture Pulse)(Industry Overview)
January 1, 2004... For a long time, proprietary consumer electronic devices ruled the home. But they could rarely talk to each other and were never upgradable. They had high prices, because of the high development and manufacturing costs of proprietary...