Intel reports estimate-beating Q2 2014 profits of $2.8 billion, a 40% Y-o-Y increase, from revenues of $13.8bn-- growth the company attributes at least in part to healthier PC market, surprisingly enough.

"Our Q2 results showed the strength of our strategy to extend the reach of Intel technology from the data center to PCs to the Internet of Things," CEO Brian Krzanich says. "With the ramp of our Baytrail SoC family, we have expanded into new segments such as Chrome-based systems, and we are on track to meet our 40 million unit tablet goal. In addition, we hit an important qualification milestone for our upcoming 14nm Broadwell product, and expect the first systems to be on shelves during the holidays."

The PC Client Group sees revenues growing by 6% Y-o-Y to $8.7bn, and reports a quarterly microprocessor shipment record. The Data Centre Group is also going strong ($3.5bn revenues with 19% Y-o-Y growth) while the Mobile and Communications Group marks Chipzilla's failure to dent the mobile industry with declines of -83% Y-o-Y.

IBM believes current semiconductors will soon be unable to handle the demands of big data and the cloud-- and thus will invest $3 billion over the next five years to research potential replacements.

The first research program is in "7 nanometer and beyond" silicon technologies, and addresses the physical challenges faced by current semiconductor scaling techniques. Current semiconductors scale at 22nm, and while 14 and 10nm scaling projects "show promise" IBM says significant investment and research is required to scale down to 7nm and below.

"The question is not if we will introduce 7 nanometer technology into manufacturing, but rather how, when, and at what cost?" Big Blue says. "This new investment will ensure that we produce the necessary innovations to meet these challenges."

Hot on the heels of Apple’s business tools update at WWDC, and of the Jamf Software survey comes another report from a major enterprise software vendor highlighting the company’s gains in corporations. Apple resellers addressing the business market are well placed to capitalise on this huge opportunity.

VMware, the dominant virtualisation vendor to enterprises, goes as far as to suggest that the dominance of corporate end-user computing by Microsoft Windows is coming to and end, as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trends drive Apple ever further into these organisations.

Imago Group plc signs an agreement to acquire Vitec Distribution GmbH, a distributor of Polycom video conferencing solutions in Germany.

Vitec, based in Mainz, represents a number of audio visual and communications vendors including Polycom and is a specialist in video and data collaboration, digital signage and presentation solutions. Like Imago, Vitec has built a sizeable business based on delivering value added services, including consulting, project management, installation support and training.

“Video communications is an in Read more...

Avaya announces changes to its Avaya Connect channel partner program with revisions to the Silver, Gold and Platinum achievement levels and the introduction of 6 new Solution Experts designations.

The new Solution Expert designations are enterprise unified communications and contact centre, midmarket unified communications and contact centre, networking and video.

To achieve such designation in any areas partners need to acquire sales and design credentials, achieve specific revenue thresholds and show customer satisfaction.

As parts of its "multi-year transformation" AMD announces a business reorganisation-- previously separate businesses units, global operations and sales organisations will be consolidated into two business groups.

The two business groups are the Computing and Graphics Group (combines client, consumer graphics and professional graphics businesses) and the Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom Business Group (combines server, embedded, dense server and semi-custom businesses). Both groups include related product engineering and sales functions.

The company will implement the new structure on 1 July 2014. Newly promoted COO Dr. Lisa Su will be in charge of implementation.