Posted 01/06/09 at 03:41:39 PM by Andy Salisbury

In this tough economy just about everyone is feeling the strain. Car companies, internet business and the computer manufacturing industry have all felt pressure from the dwindling U.S. dollar, and because of this it’s expected that CES won’t be the monument that it has been in previous years.

CES 2009 is reporting that only 130,000 people will be attending this year’s show, down from the 141,000 that attended last year. The exhibitors aren’t showing up with the same force either, down from last year’s 3,000 to 2,700. Supposedly, there’s still plenty of room left at some of Vegas’ more convenient hotels, something that was blasphemy in past years.

It’s expected that this year’s show will mostly contain green gadgets, aimed at a frugal crowd. Items such as netbooks and OLED displays are expected to dominate just about every booth.

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Posted 12/29/08 at 11:13:05 AM by Paul Lilly

Despite a weakened economy, holiday shoppers didn't skip a beat this year, at least not at Amazon.com. The company reported it had never seen a better holiday shopping season in its 14-year history, which included 6.3 million items ordered on December 15th, or nearly 73 items every second. Between November 15 and December 10, Amazon sold a copy of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 about every 2.5 minutes. And in a particularly oddball statistic, Amazon.com says that the weight of all GPS devices sold from Black Friday through December was equal to that of 151 Mini Coopers. We don't know how many GPS units that breaks down to, but it sounds like an awful lot.

Nintendo's Wii console remained a hot seller, as did the Wii remote and Wii nunchuk controller. In consumer electronics, Samsung's 52" 120Hz LCD HDTV, the Apple iPod touch 8GB, and the Acer Aspire One 8.9" netbook with 160GB hard drive led the pack.

According to Comscore, heavy snowfall benefited online stores as shoppers chose to stay in rather than battle the weather and crowds.

"Online spending over the most recent weekend was clearly substantially heavier than the corresponding weekend nearest Christmas last year, which suggests that many consumers opted for the cozier confines of online shopping rather than having to brave the severe cold and snowstorms affecting much of the northern half of the country,” said ComScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

But even though this was Amazon's best holiday shopping season ever, ComScore estimates that through December 21, online shoppers spent $24.71 billion on the internet, down 1 percent versus the same period in 2007.

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Posted 11/20/08 at 10:13:51 AM by Paul Lilly

The DRAM industry knows well that the global economy is struggling, and so too would the processor market if not for the popularity of netbooks and Atom chip sales. But one company who apparently didn't get the memo that the economy is in shambles is Hewlett-Packard.

According to the company's fourth quarter results that were leaked on Monday, the OEM took in $33.6 billion in revenue in Q4 2008, representing a 19 percent jump from the same quarter one year ago, or 16 percent when adjusted for currency affects, Cnet says.

"HP delivered another solid quarter, as it continues to benefit from its global reach, diverse customer base, broad portfolio, and numerous cost initiatives," CEO Mark Hurd said in a statement. "Our ability to execute in a challenging marketplace differentiates HP, enabling it to increase share, expand earnings, and emerge from the current economic environment as a stronger force."

The news gives HP shareholders reason to cheer, who received $1.03 per share, excluding after-tax adjustments. Adjustments related to restructuring, in-process research development, amortization of purchased intangibles, and other acquisition-related charges knocked the figure down slightly by 19 cents per share, netting shareholders 84 cents per share.

The future looks bright as well. HP expects to pull in between $32 billion and $32.5 billion in the first fiscal quarter of 2009, and expects revenue for all of 2009 to be between $127.5 billion and $130 billion, with earnings per share between $3.38 and $3.53, or an adjusted $3.88 to $4.03.

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Posted 11/14/08 at 12:00:00 PM by David Murphy

If you haven't noticed the general collapse of the financial system around you, coupled with the massive switch to corporate cost-savings mechanisms (including a healthy dose of "rightsizing" by every company under the sun), then you need to stop playing Wrath of the Lich King and flip on the news.  Money is important, but perhaps never as important to the general corporate well-being as right now.

It's no surprise then that good ol' open source hardware and software platforms are being thrown into the mix now more than ever.  Semantic arguments aside, the open source movement is generally consider a cheaper, if not free alternative to proprietary, commercial software in the enterprise market.  But that doesn't mean that open-source software comes without a cost, nor are these companies necessarily immune to the financial movements of the technological industry. So where, then, does open-source development rest in the spectrum? Can these solutions do enough to save the bottom lines of big business?  Or are open-source companies just as doomed by a market slowdown as the software vendors on the other side of the fence?

Click the jump to find out!

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Software, open-source, hardware, proprietary, enterprise, business, market, recession