Qualcomm Posts Revenue of $3.62 billion, Raises Guidance

Qualcomm reported revenues of $3.62 billion for its third fiscal quarter ended June 26, 2011, up 34 percent year-over-year (y-o-y) and down 6 percent sequentially. Net income came in at $1.04 billion, up 35 percent y-o-y and 4 percent sequentially. Diluted earnings per share were $0.61, up 30 percent y-o-y and 3 percent sequentially.


"Qualcomm delivered strong year-over-year results again this quarter as our business performed well across all key guidance metrics. In addition, we successfully completed the acquisition of Atheros, positioning us to further expand our opportunities going forward," said Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, chairman and CEO of Qualcomm. "Looking forward, we continue to see healthy growth in CDMA-based device shipments of approximately 18 percent in calendar year 2011, and we are pleased to be raising our revenue and Non-GAAP earnings guidance for the fiscal year, driven primarily by strong global smartphone adoption and the addition of Atheros."


Some key metrics:

CDMA-based Mobile Station Modem (MSM) shipments: 120 million units, up 17 percent y-o-y and 2 percent sequentially.

March quarter total reported device sales: approximately $36.4 billion, up 44 percent y-o-y and down 9 percent sequentially.

March quarter estimated CDMA-based device shipments: approximately 170 to 174 million units, at an estimated average selling price of approximately $209 to $215 per unit.
http://www.qualcomm.com

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Nakina Systems Raises Funding for Network Integrity

Nakina Systems, which specializes in carrier grade management and network integrity solutions, has closed a new financing round led by Vengrowth Asset Management and VIMAC Ventures LLC. Terms of the round were not disclosed.


The company said four of North America's five largest service providers are using its network integrity solution.


"This funding event is a great vote of confidence from our investor base regarding the company's strategy to establish and dominate the emerging Network Integrity segment of the operations support system market," said Jay Borden, Nakina CEO. "We have delivered ten consecutive quarters of year-on-year bookings growth. In this environment, that's not easy. The acceleration of our order volume, the new accounts that we have added, and the new channels that are representing Nakina around the globe all testify that the company is on solid footing and on the path to sustainable growth and profitability."http://www.nakinasystems.com

• In May 2010, Nakina Systems, announced a global partnership agreement with Nokia Siemens Networks. Specifically, the Nakina Network Integrity product suite has been added to the Identity and Access Management offering of Nokia Siemens Networks to provide additional functionality that includes secure access, single sign on and security configuration audits. Both companies will support with these joint solutions their worldwide carrier customers.

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Zarlink Declines New Acquisition Bid from Microsemi

Microsemi Corporation announced a bid to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Zarlink Semiconductor for CAD $3.35 per share in cash. The deal has a total equity value of USD $548.7 million based on a fully diluted share count and represents a 40 percent premium to Zarlink's share price as of July 19, 2011, and a 43 percent premium to Zarlink's trailing 30 day average share price. Microsemi said this CAD $3.35 proposal exceeds every Zarlink closing share price over the last five years.


For its part, Zarlink issued a statement declining the offer. Zarlink noted that it received two previous unsolicited, non-binding expressions of interest from Microsemi dated May 20, 2011 and June 17, 2011 for CAD$3.00 and CAD$3.25 per share. The Zarlink Board, with the assistance of RBC Capital Markets and Canaccord Genuity, declined both of these previous offers, concluding that the Microsemi proposals significantly undervalued Zarlink and its future prospects and were not in the best interests of its stakeholders. Zarlink said this new offer of $3.35 per share does not change the conclusion.
http://www.microsemi.com
http://www.zarlink.com

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ZTE Plans 10 International Innovation Centers

ZTE announced plans to open 10 international innovation centers in partnership with several global telecommunications giants. The new innovation centers will be established in Europe and South America. The company also announced that it plans to establish additional innovation centers in China through partnerships with the nation's largest telecommunications operators.


"Because of the transformative shift in the industry, providers like ZTE must deeply understand and become involved in the business operations and demands of customers seamlessly and at a faster pace," said ZTE Executive Vice President Xie Daxiong. "The innovation centers under development by ZTE and its partners are a collective, proactive response to this change."http://www.zte.com.cn

• In early July, ZTE signed a memorandum of understanding with Technical University Dresden with the purpose of opening a research and development center in Germany. In China, ZTE has established collaborative research institutes with four research institutes and 19 universities including Beijing University and Tsinghua University.

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Key Senator Weighs in Against AT&T + T-Mobile Merger

Citing "substantial harm to competition and consumers," U.S. Senator Herb Kohl, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, announced his opposition to the proposed acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T.


In an open, seven page letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Kohl argues that the mega-merger would not be in the public interest and that it violates antitrust laws. Kohl's top concern is market concentration -- if the merger goes through, AT&T and Verizon Wireless would hold the vast majority of the subscribers, as well as control over the backhaul infrastructure needed by competitors entering the market.


In addition, Senator Kohl said he is not persuaded by the argument that T-Mobile lacks spectrum for 4G services, or that the merger would significantly improve access in rural areas.


Finally, he states that the merger would reverse the historic triumph three decades ago of breaking up the Bell System monopoly.http://kohl.senate.gov/ATT-TM%20LT%20to%20DOJ%20and%20FCC.pdf

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Alcatel-Lucent Explores Options for Enterprise Business

Alcatel-Lucent is actively exploring strategic options for its Enterprise business. The company is holding meetings with employee representatives of its Enterprise business. No decision has been made on the options being explored and there is no certainty that this review will result in any change to the Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise business.
http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

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Thrutu Enables Sharing Between iPhones and Androids

Thrutu, a division of Metaswitch Networks, released an iPhone version of its mobile communications app for in-call digital sharing.

The Thrutu app lets users share interactive content and media during a phone conversation, including photos, location on a map and contact information. Significantly, Thrutu users can share this interactivity across platforms, enabling iPhone users to share photos, location and contact info with Android users.


In addition to Android and iPhone, Thrutu is planning a BlackBerry release soon. The app is also available from Metaswitch as a branded application for carriers. Thrutu has racked up more than 250,000 Android downloads to date.


Thrutu is based in Palo Alto, California. http://www.thrutu.com http://www.metaswitch.com

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Traffic Control Network Upgrades to Ethernet/Copper with Actelis

WYDOT, the Wyoming Department of Transportation, is using Actelis Networks' Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) networking solution to revamp the state capital's transportation network, which serves nearly 60,000 Cheyenne residents. Actelis'ML690 aggregation switches, ML622 and ML680 EADs were deployed across the city's copper network to provide real-time troubleshooting and monitoring capabilities.


Specifically, WYDOT is using Actelis' ITS solution to backhaul data from wireless vehicle detection systems. Pucks located on the ground transmit vehicle presence data wirelessly back to a receiver and then this data is transported by Actelis' ITS solution back to the Traffic Operations Center (TOC), where it is used to synchronize traffic lights and ensure the smooth flow of traffic.


The existing copper network is used to communicate with any traffic controller, at any intersection, from any location. Previously, WYDOT had been using 1,200 baud modems, radio systems and multiple protocols. The new network used Actelis' high-speed, Ethernet-based ITS solution.


"We took a giant step forward with Actelis' ITS solution," said Jerry Downs, State Electrical Engineer for Operations at WYDOT. "The number one goal was the ability to easily communicate with all of our traffic controllers, which enables us to improve the efficiency of how we move and monitor traffic throughout the city... We looked at fiber as an alternative solution, but with the results we observed with Actelis, a fiber-optic network could not be justified. With Actelis' ITS solution, I am getting the speeds and reliability I need, so why would I want to spend that kind of money on fiber? It just didn't make sense." http://www.actelis.com http://www.dot.state.wy.us/wydot/

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Dell Acquisition of Force10 Provides Entry to Open Clouds for Data Centers

Dell agreed to acquire Force10 Networks with an aim of expanding its data center solutions portfolio. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Dell said its strategy over the past three years has been to develop an integrated stack of leading server, storage, networking and services resources. The vision calls for an orchestration of the underlying server, storage, and network resources in an open fashion, agnostic of whether they are physical or virtual, local or remote, Dell or ecosystem-provided. The acquisition of Force10 and investment in networking is seen as a natural complement to Dell's strength in the server market.


Force10, which is based in San Jose, California, is nearly a $200-million company, based on trailing 12 months revenue, with approximately 80 percent of its business in North America and operating in over 60 countries worldwide. Force10's Open Cloud Networking is based on open standards, automation and virtualization.


Dell said that like past acquisitions of Compellent and EqualLogic, it is committed to maintaining and growing Force10's channel program. Force10's customers include leading Web 2.0 and Fortune 100 companies, Internet portals, global carriers, leading research laboratories and government organizations with some of the world's most demanding network environments. http://www.dell.com http://www.force10networks.com

• In April 2011, Force10 Networks introduced its Open Cloud Networking (OCN) vision for cloud and conventional data centers built on open architectures, open automation, and open ecosystems.
  
  
  
  Force10's OCN framework represents a new way to build, scale and manage data centers powered by a new family of centralized and distributed core switches, a top of rack (ToR) open cloud switch and automation software. The solutions address cloud, conventional, virtualized, and non-virtualized data centers.
  
  
  Three key elements of the OCN architecture include:
  
  
  Open Architecture – OCN enables standards-based open architectures that are interoperable with competitors offering customers a choice in how they build their core and top-of-rack elements in the data center. New building blocks for these open architectures include:
  
  
  
  
  
  • The new Z9000 distributed core switch, which enables highly scalable, leaf-and-spine data center architectures, is one of the smallest and least expensive core switches ever offered. Designed in a 2RU form factor, it delivers 128 10 GbE ports for 2.5 Tbps of switching capacity in 1/10 the space and with 1/20 the power consumption at 1/5 the price of competing products. The Z9000 switch will list for $175,000 and will be available for customer shipments in July 2011.
  
  
  
  • The new Z9512 is a centralized, chassis-based switch that delivers 9.6 Tbps of switching capacity in half a rack. For more conventional data center cores, Force10's new Z9512 is a chassis-based switch that offers 480 line-rate, non-blocking 10GbE ports, 96 line-rate, non-blocking 40 GbE ports, and 48 line-rate, non-blocking 100 GbE ports in a 19RU form factor. At 9.6 Tbps switching capacity and an initial 400 Gbps per-slot switching capacity (four times the slot capacity of other switches), sub-5 microsecond latency and an 8-Gigabyte packet buffer for each of its 12 line cards, the Z9512 delivers industry-leading performance in a centralized core switch. It could be used for centralized data center cores, aggregation of flat Layer 2 topologies, or aggregation of hierarchical Layer 3 topologies as well as for multi-service deployments incorporating Gigabit Ethernet, 10 GbE, 40 GbE, and 100 GbE. The Z9512 switch will be available in the second half of 2011 and pricing will be configuration dependent.
  
  
  
  • The S7000 Open Cloud Switch is a next-generation ToR device that incorporates 3-in-1 ToR convergence of switching, storage, and application processing capabilities. The switch has the ability to run third-party applications directly. It supports both Ethernet and storage traffic. It supports Data Center Bridging (DCB) and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). The S7000 can be configured as an FCoE transit switch or FCOE gateway. The S7000 Open Cloud Switch will be available in the second half of 2011.
    
  
  
  
  • New FTOS advanced software features including TRILL (Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links), DCB (Data Center Bridging), EVB (Ethernet Virtual Bridging), and VEPA (Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregation).
  
  
  Open Automation 2.0In Q3, Force10 plans to open the "ScriptStore", an online resource and forums that will allow users to purchase automation scripts and share techniques for automating Force10 products. In addition, Force10 has enhanced the Open Automation Framework with port profile support, EVB/VEPA, and HyperLinks.
  
  Open Ecosystems – partners in the compute, storage, applications and orchestration domains to ensure standards-based interoperability for its OCN solutions.



• In 2009, Turin Networks merged with Force10 Networks. The deal combined leading equipment suppliers for the service provider and enterprise data center markets. Turin Networks was a leading provider in the wireless backhaul aggregation market with products deployed in more than 60 thousand North American cell sites. Force10 Networks offered high-performance equipment for data centers.

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AT&T: Cloud Computing Significantly Cuts Energy Demand

Cloud computing can lead to immense energy saving for U.S., according to a new study by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), "Cloud Computing: The IT Solution for the 21st Century," conducted by independent analyst research firm Verdantix and sponsored by AT&T. The researchers calculate that by 2020, large U.S. companies that use cloud computing can achieve annual energy savings of $12.3 billion and annual carbon reductions equivalent to 200 million barrels of oil.


Verdantix conducted in-depth interviews with multi-national firms—including Aviva, Boeing, Citigroup and Juniper Networks— in diverse sectors. All study participants had adopted cloud services for at least two years. Many of the firms interviewed reported cost savings as a primary motivator, with anticipated cost reductions as high as 40 – 50 percent.https://www.cdproject.net/en-US/WhatWeDo/Pages/Cloud-Computing.aspxhttp://www.att.com

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