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HP Flogs Off Tipping Point

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As Hewlett-Packard’s split nears, the company is divesting its TippingPoint network security business unit, no longer considered to be core to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s mission.

Late last week, just ahead of HP’s historic corporate split, the company announced that it is selling TippingPoint to Trend Micro in a deal valued at US$300 million.

It’s the third time in a just over a decade that the network security vendor has had a new owner. Networking vendor 3Com acquired TippingPoint in December 2004, and HP bought 3Com in 2010, eWeek reports.

Trend Micro aims to combine some of its existing assets with the TippingPoint technologies to build a new Network Defence business unit.

Online Retail Hits $928m In March

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Online retail turnover in March contributed 3.1 per cent to total retail turnover, according the latest retail spending survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.With total retail spending up 0.4 per cent to A$24.94

billion in March, this suggests online retail spending for the month was around

$928 million.

The largest contributor to the overall rise was clothing, footwear and personal

accessories retailing, which rose 3.5 per cent in seasonally adjusted volume

terms in the March quarter, Stats says.

Overall spending on electrical and electronic goods at retail was up 1.2pc on

March 2015 figures.

Hyatt Cardholders Still On Alert

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The Hyatt Hotel chain has released further information about a hack on the company last year and warned that customers may be still under threat – particularly if dining in a Hyatt restaurant.

The hack was reported by US journalist Brian Krebs, who specialises in cybercrime reportage, in December. Hyatt provided a statement at the time, but Krebbs suggested that it was light on detail.

Hyatt now says that the threat net extends back to July 2015 and has left some cardholders still vulnerable.

“It appears that a good portion of breached data came from the restaurant side of the hotel chain’s facilities,” said Mark Bower, global director of product management at HPE Security. “These are often integrated PoS [systems] running applications in an environment that is not as secure as modern hardened payment terminals.”

Kiwis Glued To Their Screens

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New Zealanders are developing into a nation of addictive big- and small-screen watchers, a new Roy Morgan report suggests.Findings include:

– Some 76pc Kiwis now have a smartphone, and most stay glued to it. For instance,

some 53 percent of smartphone owners and 60 percent of tablet owners now surf

online while watching TV.

– Some 92pc say the Internet is their preferred media to use at least once on a

normal weekday-and no less than 22 percent use it all day.

– During the week, 77pc watch free-to-air TV shows via broadcast, 39pc record

shows, and 12pc watch catch-up.

 -The average Kiwi spends 8.5 hours on a normal weekday on TV, radio and

Internet (which includes “multi-media” time, such as online browsing

while watching TV or listening to the radio).

“With all this extra time spent using media, the proportion of Kiwis who

say there are ‘not enough hours in the day’ has also gone up: from 59pc in 2012

to 67pc last year,” Morgan reports. No wonder.

‘Error-Ridden’ Intel Fined $1.3 Billion

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Intel has told a European Union court that a US$1.33 billion fined the EU imposed on Intel for using rebates to block rivals is based on “inconsistent, simplistic and error- ridden analysis”.

The European Commission, the EU’s antitrust regulator, failed to provide the required proof to uphold its 2009 decision and ignored “potentially exculpatory” documents from a competitor, Intel lawyers said.

“Prosecutors cannot pick and choose what evidence to record and which to ignore,” said lawyer Nicholas Green.

The EU had levied its fine after finding that Intel impeded competition by giving rebates to computer makers from 2002 until 2005 on the condition that they buy at least 95 percent of chips for personal computers from Intel.

 

Microsoft Rocks Oz Business World With 26pc Cloud Price Hike

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Microsoft Australia has revealed plans to raise pricing of its Azure and Azure Marketplace by 26 percent from August 1. The move comes despite Google and Amazon in recent times cutting their prices for cloud services.

The move has brought an angry response from some corporate users, after they received the news in an e-mailed note from Microsoft.

“Effective August 1, 2015, local prices for Azure and Azure Marketplace in Australian dollars will increase by 26 per cent to more closely align with prices in most markets,” the Microsoft message said.

But the e-mail message also said customers or partners who had purchased Azure through enterprise agreements, enterprise subscription agreements, or server and cloud enrolments “have price protection on currently offered Azure services and will receive the better of their baseline price or the new market price.”

Microsoft partner and Micatin Software director Ron Pitts said on Microsoft’s developer network forum that he was “very disappointed that there will be a 26 per cent increase”. 

“Hosting Azure stuff in the Australia datacentres is now uneconomical when compared to Singapore or the US,” he said, adding: “I’m sure a lot of other people will be shocked with a 26 per cent increase.”

David Markus, MD of Melbourne-based Combo suggested in a blog that Microsoft had made the move on the basis of a stronger US dollar – and questioned the decision. 

“This is a justification that is easy to make when sitting at a board table in America,” he said. “But I would love to hear . what the Australian market place thinks of this – given the technology being used is sitting on Australian soil in local datacentres and the set-up cost is a sunk cost.”

Tablet Shipments Drop 15pc

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Global tablet shipments declined 10 percent sequentially and more than 15 percent year-on-year to reach only 45.76 million units in the second quarter, according to Taiwan-based Digitimes.

Major markets felt the impacts of weak currencies; mid-range to entry-level large-size smartphones continued to cannibalise tablets; and vendors saw high inventory, Digitimes says.

Numbers of tablet shipments from white-box players dropped 16.6 million units or more than 10 percent sequentially, with demand for these devices greatly impacted by large-size smartphones and competitive products from brand vendors, Digitimes says.

Market leader Apple’s iPad shipments declined to 10.3 million units, still well ahead of everyone else. Digitimes predicts Apple will end production of the current iPad mini in the near future, launching a new version in Q4.

Non-Apple brand vendors shipped 18.86 million tablets, down 7.4pc sequentially. Samsung and Lenovo were the second and the third largest, behind Apple, followed by Microsoft in fourth place.

IT Stocks Boom As Wall St Embraces Technology Giants

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Wall Street investors are enthusiastically banking on another boom in the technology industry, but this time pundits say it’s not going to develop into a speculation bubble.

Last week’s higher-than-expected earnings from the top US tech companies are driving the stockmarket back into the black and giving investors hope that the global economy will grow – just not in the way they expected.

With Apple expected to report top level earnings later this week, investors are looking at the prospect of a record trading day on the Nasdaq 100. Apple is expected to report US$51.1 billion in revenue, a 21.3 percent increase compared to last year, with shares in the iPhone maker tipped to rise by as much as five percent by the end of the week.

Investors meanwhile are genuflecting to other tech giants Alphabet (read Google), Amazon and Microsoft, after they led a US stocks recovery out of the worst correction in four years.

The S&P 500 Index and the Nasdaq 100 both ended the week on a high and the scramble for tech stocks is expected to continue when Wall Street opens tonight (Monday, AEST). The Nasdaq is just 4 percent from its record high, recorded back in the heady tech-boom days of 2000.

According to the Wall Street Journal, half of the 10 most-valuable US public companies are now technology outfits, led by Apple, Alphabet and Microsoft – and, with the reporting season trumpeting upbeat earnings in the sector, big investors want to be part of the action.

Last week alone Microsoft stocks rose 10 percent, their largest gain since October 2000, Alphabet (n?e Google), gained 7.7pc and Amazon.com added 6.2pc.

The companies all posted earnings above expectations as the companies move into cloud services, grow datacentres and customers move operations online.

Amazon Web Services’s cloud-computing business has grown 78 percent annually, while Microsoft’s competing Azure service grew more than 100 percent year-on-year, generating nearly US$5.9 billion in revenue.

It’s not such good news for tech start-ups, however, with investment firms downgrading their valuations. Of 49 US start-ups with IPOs in 2014, 11 are now trading below their per-share value.

But another positive move has been consolidation in the chip industry, with last week’s US$19 billion takeover bid from Western Digital for SanDisk  pushing its stock up 70 percent. – Chris Castellari

Aussie Court Cracks Down On Online Betting Operation

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The Federal Court has found that Bet365’s Australian and UK companies engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct when offering “free” online bets to new customers, in proceedings brought by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

Bet365 is one of the world’s largest online betting providers. The ACCC claimed that Hillside Australia and Hillside UK between March 2013 and January 2014 had breached the rules with a promotion headed “$200 free bets for new customers”.

“Their relevant conduct was misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive and also involved the making of false representations,” Justice Beach has ruled.

“The free bet offer was directed at new customers, which included inexperienced gamblers and young people.”

Some of the conditions the ACCC was concerned about included a condition under which customers had to gamble a deposit and bonus three times before being able to withdraw any winnings. For example, a customer who made an initial deposit of $200 and received $200 then had to gamble $1200 before being able to withdraw any money.

The ACCC notes there will be a further trial in relation to a penalty expected to be paid by Bet365.