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Electronix Express Newsletter
February 2006 Issue
Welcome to the February 2006 Issue of the Electronix Express Newsletter
1. Cell phone talking while driving on the rise
More people than ever are turning their cars into personal phone booths, with a million and a half drivers gabbing on cell phones at any given time. Women and young people are the most common yakkers.
About 10 percent of the people on the road during the day are using cell phones, up from 8 percent in 2004. Six percent of drivers were holding the phones to their ears, up from 5 percent last year.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which issued the report, recommends that motorists use cell phones while driving only during an emergency.
Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and the District of Columbia prohibit talking on hand-held cell phones while driving. Cities such as Chicago and Santa Fe, New Mexico, require handsfree devices in automobiles. But eight states -- Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma and Oregon -- bar local governments from restricting cell phone use in vehicles, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
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2. India's Looming IT Labor Shortage
No nation has benefited more from Corporate America's rush to outsource skilled work than India. Thanks to its seemingly limitless supply of low-cost engineers and other professionals, India now accounts for 65% of all information technology work performed offshore and nearly half of back-office tasks such as responding to computer help-desk queries and processing medical claims and credit-card bills. By 2010, India's revenues from such skilled work are expected to surge to $60 billion from $17.3 billion now.
India graduates around 350,000 engineers each year -- five times as many as the U.S. -- and a stunning 2.5 million university graduates overall. The country's entire IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) sectors now employ fewer than 700,000 people. So even the demand for such professionals doubles in five years, it would seem that India should have more than enough. However, without updated infrastructure and a better education system, the outsourcing mecca faces a dearth of qualified engineers.
If India doesn't take urgent action to reform education and build modern infrastructure, the nation could fall far short of its potential as an outsourcing haven. That's the conclusion of a new study to be released Dec. 16 by McKinsey and Co. and Nasscom, India's influential information technology trade association.
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3. Dual Core Dueling
The rivalry between computer processor semiconductor players got turned up a notch in 2005 as AMD beat Intel to the punch in several technology announcements. But even as the rivalry got revved up, the big news for the year, no matter how you looked at the space, was dual core.
Both companies put the laser focus on this architecture which holds the promise of providing the big increases in performance that customers have come to expect from processor makers as they move down the process nodes, but without incurring the leakage and heat penalties brought about through clock speed increases.
"We gained a lot of performance in the past by ramping up clock speed," said Matthew Wilkins, an analyst covering the processor space for iSuppli. "The fact that we haven't gotten to a 4 gigahertz Pentium indicates we've reached a barrier. It's those issues that made AMD and Intel look at dual core and multi-core chips."
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4. Technology after the bubble
When demand for technology recovers, in the next 18 to 24 months, technology providers will face a more challenging environment than the one they enjoyed during the boom years of the late 1990s. Information Technology vendors will have to help lagging companies not only to fix failed software installations but also to learn the lessons of companies that have successfully used technology to achieve competitive advantage. Valuable lessons for IT vendors can be learned from such leading companies like Dell, Schwab, and Wal-Mart when it comes to the use of technology. How can technology providers help less efficient companies weather the competitive market and get the most out of their investment dollars? Only time will reveal the answer.
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5. Broadband Users on the increase
With so many broadband providers disappearing after the dot-com boom, it might surprise casual observers that broadband itself has not met with indifference from Internet users. However the truth of the matter shows that broadband has enjoyed striking growth throughout the world over the past three years. This expansion has implications not only for providers of broadband access and content but also for companies beyond the telecommunications and media sectors.
The number of broadband users around the globe rose impressively during the past 36 months. By mid-2002 operational broadband networks had a reach of well over 300 million households in the world's 20 largest economies. More than 40 million households and businesses actually subscribed to broadband, and more than 100 million people around the world had access to it. It is actually on track to become one of the fastest-growing technology-based consumer offerings ever in certain markets. In the United States, broadband will likely reach the 25 percent penetration mark more quickly than either PCs or mobile telephones did.
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6. A computer Legend in the making?
When people in most parts of the world want to buy a personal computer, they usually think first of the well-known brands like Compaq, Dell Computer, and IBM.
However in China the brand of choice is called Legend. Never heard of it? Perhaps not for long, if Liu Chuanzhi the chairman of Legend Holdings has his way. Since 1984, Liu, has built his company into China's (and Asia's) number-one manufacturer of PCs, with more than $3 billion in revenue. Legend expects to double that figure in three years.
Although still controlled by the state, Legend is a public company, and its shares trade on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong.
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7. The Greater China high-tech highway
Economic ties between China and Taiwan are deepening. The entry of both into the World Trade Organization will remove barriers to investments and reduce tariffs. WTO membership will allow Taiwanese high-technology companies to shift their production and research facilities to China and enlarge the market for their goods. A McKinsey study projects that China's relations with Taiwan will probably grow even closer in many industries, especially high technology.
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8. World classroom: Schools on the Net
Corporations and consumers around the world are discovering the benefits of the information superhighway that connects people to one another and to a vast array of information resources. But what about schools? In this electronic age, few schools in the United States have computers, let alone network connections. Indeed, most do not even possess telephone lines to the classroom.
Policy makers, educators, and private sector leaders are beginning to raise this issue in public debate. But many questions remain. What would it take to connect schools to the superhighway? Would connection be technically feasible over the next five to ten years? How much would it cost? What would be the main challenges?
Connecting America's K-12 public schools to the national information infrastructure would be valuable and is achievable given effective leadership largely at the community level. The technology exists today, and the cost of installing and supporting it would represent a small portion of the public education budget.
The cost of connecting all public K-12 schools in the United States to the information superhighway including not only the connection, hardware, and content costs, but also essential professional development and support for teachers could range from 1.5 to 3.9 percent of the total national budget for those schools during the peak year of expenditure, depending on how much technology is deployed and how fast.
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