March 2009 data from the comScore Video Metrix service, shows that U.S. Internet users viewed 14.5 billion online videos during the month, representing an increase of 11 percent versus February.
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Hulu Continues Ascent in U.S. Online Video Market, Breaking Into Top 3 Properties by Videos Viewed for First Time in March
Fortune 500 Corporate Blog Adoption Slow and Steady According to Society for New Communications Research Chair Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes and Eric Mattson of Financial Insite
Most Fortune 500 companies do not utilize the blogosphere and social media according to a recent report by Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D., although some are taking on video and public blogging portals in an effort to grow in new directions.
California’s Current Crisis Exposes the Deeper Need for Statewide Reform
Propositions 1A – 1F are on the ballot for Statewide Special Election May 19, 2009. As California’s economic crisis continues, fiscal relief and support for reforming the state’s current financial problems are necessary.
Adify Media Launches to Give Brands Unprecedented Access to Adify-Powered Networks and Cox Media Properties
Adify announces a media marketplace for vertical ad networks placing them in competition with Yahoo and AOL. The private marketplace is designed to make the most of accountability while minimizing waste among their 89 million users.
San Francisco and Krakow are Sister Cities: Join In the Celebration and in Planning Future Events
The city governments of San Francisco and Krakow have agreed to establish a sister-city relationship.
Explosive growth for Opera Mini–usage up 157% year-over-year New State of the Mobile Web highlights Latin America
Opera has released its latest State of the Mobile Web report highlighting Latin America as the largest area of growth in usage and data transfer. Nigeria has seen a jump in use from the Opera mini of 4,000 percent page-view growth and almost 1,500 percent user growth since March 2008.
Microsoft Online Services Available for Purchase Worldwide
Today’s release of Microsoft Online Services and the Business Productivity Online Suite increases the ease of global access to Microsoft’s partner programs. Additionally, EDS, an HP company, has signed both a reseller agreement and a go-to-market agreement becoming Microsoft’s largest delivery partner for the Business Productivity Online Suite. more
comScore Study Highlights Rapid Emergence of Vertical Ad Networks for Reaching Engaged, Targeted Audiences
comScore released a new study of the collective reach of vertical ad networks including entities such as Adify Media, Federated Media, Glam Media and Travel Ad Network. The studies show an increase over the last year.
TARGET TO UNDERWRITE FREE SYMPHONY SILICON VALLEY OUTDOOR CONCERT SERIES AND SAN JOSE MARIACHI & MEXICAN HERITAGE FESTIVAL
Downtown San Jose gets a free outdoor performance boost from Target later this summer as the sponsor of the Pops series with the Silicon Symphony Silicon Valley and the San Jose Mariachi and Mexican Heritage Festival.
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CORRECTED: Reports of a Memory Market Recovery are Greatly Exaggerated
DRAM markets are reeling from over-supply and although NAND flash is doing better, there is concern that cutbacks in production will leave companies poorly positioned for an economic recovery..
El Segundo, Calif., April. 23, 2009—Concerned about their image as they face the specter of bankruptcy, many memory chip suppliers are attempting to paint a more optimistic picture of the business by talking up a potential market recovery. However, while overall memory chip prices are expected to stabilize during the remaining quarters of 2009, iSuppli Corp. believes a true recovery in demand and profitability is not imminent.
After a 14.3 percent sequential decline in global revenue in the first quarter DRAM and NAND flash, the market for these products will grow throughout the rest of the year. Combined DRAM and NAND revenue will rise by 3.6 percent in the second quarter, and surge by 21.9 percent and 17.5 percent in the third and fourth quarters respectively.
The attached figure presents iSuppli’s forecast of quarterly DRAM and NAND market revenue.
“While this growth may spur some optimism among memory suppliers, the oversupply situation will continue to be acute,” said Nam Hyung Kim, director and chief analyst for memory ICs and storage at iSuppli.
“For example shipments of DRAM in the equivalent of the 1Gbit density will exceeded demand by an average of 14 percent during the first three quarters of 2009. This will prevent a strong
price recovery, which will be required to achieve profitability for most memory suppliers.”
Painful oversupply
Due to a long-lasting glut of DRAM, the imbalance between supply and demand is too great for this market to recover to profitability any time soon.
“Even if all of the Taiwanese DRAM suppliers idled all their fabs, which equates to 25 percent of global DRAM megabit production, the market would remain in a state of oversupply,” Kim said. “This illustrates that the current oversupply is much more severe than many suppliers believe—or hope.”
Besides cutting capacity, which suppliers have already been doing, they presently have few options other than waiting for a fundamental demand recovery. iSuppli believes that another round of production cuts will take place in the second quarter, which will positively impact suppliers’ balance sheets late this year or early in 2010 at the earliest.
DRAM prices now amount to only one-third-level of Taiwanese suppliers’ cash costs. Unless prices increase by more than 200 percent, cash losses will persist for these Taiwanese suppliers.
While average megabit pricing for DRAM will rise during every quarter of 2009, it will not be even remotely enough to allow suppliers to generate profits in this industry. The industry needs a dramatic price recovery of a few hundred percentage points to make any kind of impact.
iSuppli is maintaining its “negative” rating of near-term market conditions for DRAM suppliers.
Confusing picture in NAND
The picture is a little more complicated in the NAND flash memory market.
Pricing for NAND since January has been better than iSuppli had expected. However, iSuppli believes this doesn’t signal a real market recovery.
Most NAND flash makers are continuing to lose money. The leading supplier, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., seems to be enjoying the current NAND price rally as prices have almost reached the company’s break-even costs. However, all the other NAND suppliers still are losing money.
“While the NAND market in the past has been able to achieve strong growth and solid pricing solely based on orders from Apple Computer Inc. for its popular iPod and iPhone products, this situation is not likely to recur in the future,” Kim said. “Even if Apple’s order surge, and it books most of Samsung’s capacity, it would require a commensurate increase in demand to other suppliers to generate a fundamental recovery in demand.”
However, iSuppli has not detected any substantial increase in orders from Apple to other suppliers. Furthermore, Apple’s orders, according to press reports, are not sufficient to positively impact the market as a whole.
It doesn’t make sense for major NAND suppliers Toshiba Corp. and Hynix Semiconductor Inc. to further decrease their production if there is a real fundamental market recovery. This means supply will continue to exceed demand and pricing will not rise enough to allow the NAND market as a whole to achieve profitability. The NAND flash market is in a better situation than DRAM at least. However, the market remains challenging because fundamental demand conditions in the consumer electronics market have not improved due to the global recession.
One of the reasons why the price rally occurred is that inventory levels have been reduced in the channel and re-stocking activity has been progressing. Overall, memory suppliers will begin to announce their earnings shortly and iSuppli will remain cautious about the NAND flash market until we detect solid evidence, not just speculation, of a recovery.
iSuppli is remaining cautious about the near term rating of NAND market, holding its negative view for now, before considering upgrading it to neutral.
“Production cuts undoubtedly will have a positive impact on the market in the future. However, it’s too early for to celebrate. iSuppli believes the surge in optimism is premature. Supplier must be rational and watch the current market conditions carefully to avoid jumping to conclusions too quickly,” Kim concluded.
comScore Media Metrix Ranks Top 50 U.S. Web Properties for March 2009
comScore, Inc. released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at the top online properties for March 2009 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. The Internet continues to see increased use for planning vacations, organizing finances and the next “tweet meet” and update opportunity.
Keynote Announces LoadPro 2.0, the World’s Most Powerful Load Testing Service for Web Sites & Applications
LoadPro 2.0 by Keynote is released today with enhanced features to the world’s most powerful Web site load testing solution delivered as a turnkey managed consulting service.
LogLogic Signs Agreement to Acquire Exaprotect
LogLogic expands their enterprise management with the acquisition of Exaprotect today. Already a leader in log management, compliance management and security management solutions, the addition of Exaprotect’s enterprise security, threat and security configuration change management solutions to create the industry’s most complete security management suite powered by log data.
AMD Offers Glimpse of the Datacenter’s Future with Game-changing Server Platform Roadmap
AMD announces their 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ EE processor today. The new processor by AMD is their lowest x86 quad-core server power band and designed for dense data environments such as cloud computing and web servers. New features include a virtualization suite as well as power management capabilities.
Cisco SaaS/Collaboration News
Software-as-a-Service expands today upon news that Cisco is extending it’s SaaS market to the enterprise. The challenges of maintaining policy control and continuing collaborations as employees become more mobile and interactive are addressed as an example with Cisco’s WebEx. In addition to security features, the Cisco WebEx Collaboration uses intelligent routing based on location, bandwidth and availability to accommodate more than 200,000 WebEx meetings every day.
RSA Conference: Transcript - RSA President Art Coviello’s Keynote
The 2009 RSA conference is being held in San Francisco. Today, Art Coviello (an industry veteran) delivered some words about his vision for inventive collaborations and the need for entities to work together in order to better protect IT systems. Here is some of his keynote address.
Social media and new media experts gather at NewComm Forum in San Francisco April 27-29
This promises to be the largest gathering of thought leaders in social media, new media, and communications of 2009. It is organized by the Society of New Communications Research, a Palo Alto based think tank, with than four years of research. . .
A scene to be seen: San Francisco museums and performing arts groups combine cocktails and culture
Nightlife in San Francisco is crossing over into arts and culture spaces typically known for day trips and permission slips. Some museums and organizations are opening their doors for more “adult” activities after hours transforming their spaces into hot spots for socializing…maybe even learning something new over drinks.
Pricelock
In Silicon Valley, Pricelock is looking to protect customers against the volatility of fuel prices. This could be especially helpful to large fleet owners and those whom need gas and diesel to be predictable for budgeting. Their price protection strategy comes from technology and business partnerships and they may expand into other commodities in the future.
Microsoft Knowledge Base: Made in China
With the economy struggling to create new jobs, Microsoft has found a way to keep their Knowledge Base project going by downsizing and relying more on their resources overseas.
