Monday, October 17, 2011

Powerwave Misses on Q3 Revenue Citing Delayed Wireless Rollouts

Powerwave Technologies released preliminary revenue estimates for its fiscal third quarter ended October 2, 2011, saying that it now anticipates that revenues will be in the range of $75 million to $79 million -- well below market expectations.

Powerwave makes antennas and base station components for network equipment manufacturers.

The cited a number of several factors, including a significant slowdown in spending by North American network operators, a significant reduction in activity with original equipment manufacturing customers, coupled with further weakness in several international markets, including Western and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East.

Ronald Buschur, President and Chief Executive Officer of Powerwave Technologies, stated that "From a global perspective, we believe that the current economic environment has caused operators to reduce or postpone their spending plans for the near term while they evaluate the macro-economic pressures in each individual market. The Middle East market has been significantly impacted by the political unrest throughout the region. In addition, in the North American market we believe that the uncertainty arising from the government's recent opposition to the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile, has led to delays in spending as these operators re-evaluate their capital spending plans."http://www.powerwave.com/2176.asp

Samsung and Google Unveil Nexus Ice Cream Sandwich Smartphone

Samsung and Google unveiled the new flagship GalaxyNexus smartphone at an event in Hong Kong.


Key features:

  • LTE and HSPA+ connectivity

  • 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED Screen with 720p resolution

  • 1.2GHz dual-core processor

  • Android 4.0 Ice Cream

  • NFC support

  • Wi-Fi hotspot

  • Facial recognition to unlock the phone

  • Tight integration with Google services, including GoogleTalk, Gmail, Google+, Google Maps, Android market

  • WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n

  • Built-in data usage tracking

  • Android Beam, which uses NFC technology to share content between nearby Android devices

  • Ships in November
http://www.samsung.com
http://www.google.com

Juniper Posts Q3 Revenue of $1.1 Billion, up 9% from 3Q10

Juniper Networks reported Q3 2011 revenue of $1,106 million, up 9% n a year-over-year basis, and down 1% sequentially. Net income was $83.7 million, or $0.16 per diluted share, and non-GAAP net income of $149.8 million, or $0.28 per diluted share, for the third quarter of 2011. Included in the GAAP diluted income per share for the quarter is a $0.02 dilutive impact associated with restructuring activities.


"Juniper executed well this quarter, and we are seeing strong customer interest in our new innovations in the data center, enterprise mobility and Converged Supercore," said Kevin Johnson, chief executive officer at Juniper Networks. "While the macroeconomic environment dictates we remain agile, Juniper is on the right strategic course to deliver continued growth."

Juniper's operating margin for the third quarter of 2011 decreased to 12.4% on a GAAP basis from 15.3% in the second quarter of 2011, and from 19.3% in the prior year third quarter. Included in the GAAP operating margin is a $16.8 million restructuring charge primarily related to workforce reductions.
http://www.juniper.net

ARM and TSMC Tape Out First 20nm ARM Cortex-A15

ARM and TSMC taped out the first 20nm ARM® Cortex-A15 MPCore™ processor. The next step is for ARM to optimize its physical IP technology to specific TSMC 20nm process technologies for Power, Performance and Area (PPA), driving the specification of the Cortex-A15 Processor Optimization Pack (POP). The companies noted that TSMC's 20nm process provides more than a 2X performance increase over preceding generations.
http://www.arm.com

RIM Unveils BBX -- its Next Gen BlackBerry Platform

Research in Motion introduced its next generation mobile platform for BlackBerry smartphones and tablets.


Key features of BBX include support for HTML5 with BlackBerry WebWorks, Adobe AIR, Native C/C++, and the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps. Apps built today for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet will also run on BBX.


The release date has not yet been specified.http://devblog.blackberry.com/

Verizon Wins 5-Year Cloud Deal with ARINC for Airline Check-in

Verizon has been awarded a five year contract to provide ARINC with cloud services through Verizon's Terremark IT services subsidiary for the delivery of ARINC's flagship airline check-in solution, vMUSE Enterprise.


ARINC's vMUSE Enterprise application will be migrated to Terremark's Enterprise Cloud solution, which will be served from its Network Access Point (NAP) of the Americas in Miami. ARINC also plans to locate its vMUSE Enterprise application in Terremark's NAP do Brazil in Sao Paolo, setting the groundwork for an IT services cloud-delivery model that can work effectively at any airport across the globe.
http://www.verizon.com

Telstra Shareholders Approve Decommission and NBN Plan

Shareholders in Telstra have voted to approve the company's participation in the roll out of the National Broadband Network (NBN), including the decommissioning of the company's copper network. The resolution on the NBN received the support of 99 percent of shareholders who have voted or lodged a proxy.


“From the outset, we said we would put any proposal to cooperate with the NBN to shareholders – we consider the vote today as the most important step in the process we commenced over two years ago. It is clear from this interim result on the resolution that, given the alternatives facing their company, both institutional and retail shareholders are supportive of our involvement in the NBN," stated Telstra Chairman Catherine Livingstone.


In her address to shareholders, Livingstone also noted some other interesting strategic trends:


Australia is one of the most penetrated smartphone markets in the world.


Data traffic on Telstra's networks has doubled in 2011, and is projected to increase 30-fold within 5 years and 1,000-fold within 10 years.


Telstra's growth areas – Media, Network Applications and Services, and Asia – now account for 19% of total sales revenues.


It is intention of Telstra's Board to maintain a 28 cent fully franked dividend for fiscal 2012 and fiscal 2013.


In 2011, Telstra has added an extra 659,000 service bundles, 1.7 million mobiles, 158,000 fixed broadband lines, and 914,000 new mobile broadband customers.
http://

Siklu Wireless Raises $19 Million for EtherHaul E-band radio

Siklu Wireless, a start-up based in Petach Tikva, Israel, raised $19 million in Series B funding for its EtherHaul E-band radios aimed at the mobile backhaul market.


The Siklu EtherHaul radio operates in the relatively new and unused E-band wireless spectrum (71-76 GHz, 81-86 GHz and 92-95 GHz). It delivers Gigabit speeds and is aimed at urban wireless backhaul of macro, micro and pico-cell.


New investors in this round include Amiti Ventures, Qualcomm and another undisclosed category leading strategic investor. They have been joined by all existing investors: DFJ-Tamir Fishman Ventures, Evergreen Venture Partners and Argonaut Private Equity. Ben Rabinowitz, Managing Partner at Amiti Ventures, will join the Board of Directors of Siklu. http://www.siklu.com

Infinera Posts Q3 Revenue of $104 Million

Infinera reported Q3 2011 revenue of $104.0 million compared to $96.0 million in the second quarter of 2011 and $130.1 million in the third quarter of 2010. GAAP gross margin for the third quarter of 2011 was 39% compared to 39% in the second quarter of 2011 and 50% in the third quarter of 2010. GAAP net loss for the quarter was $21.8 million, or $(0.21) per share, compared to net loss of $24.2 million, or $(0.23) per share, in the second quarter of 2011 and net income of $4.4 million, or $0.04 per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2010.


“We remain encouraged by our recent revenue performance and the momentum in booking activity as customers continue to address their increased bandwidth needs with Infinera-based networks,�? said Tom Fallon, president and chief executive officer. “Several factors are contributing to these trends-- our significant installed base, the broader application of our product line, our expanded sales force and a stronger focus at Infinera on key vertical markets and across geographies.�?http://www.infinera.com

Cisco Scales Data Center Fabric to over 12,000 10GE Ports

Cisco is scaling its Unified Fabric data center architecture to support over 12,000 10GE server ports in a single fabric using its Nexus series switches -- this is double the capacity of Juniper's Qfabric, according to the company. Cisco promises to deliver the solution at lower cost than its competitor as well.




The new data center fabric scalability is provided in second generation capabilities for Cisco FabricPath in Nexus 7000 Series and Nexus5500 switches.


The new Fabric 2 module and new high density L2/L3 10GbE F2 Series line card enable up to 768 Line Rate L2/L3 10GbE ports to be packed into a single Nexus 7000 Series chassis. Power is reduced to less than 10W per 10GE port.


The company is introducing the Nexus 7009, featuring a compact form factor (14RU) and high availability and virtualization support. Cisco also added new switches with sub-microsecond latency to the Nexus 3000 ultra-low latency switching series, and introduced a virtualized version of its ASA security appliance to deliver consistent security for virtualized and cloud environments. http://www.cisco.com

  • In March 2011, Cisco rolled out a series of updates and enhancements across its Data Center Business Advantage portfolio, including the Cisco Nexus 7000 family and Nexus 5000 Series, the new ultra-low latency platform Cisco Nexus 3000, Cisco MDS storage switches, the Cisco Unified Computing System, the Cisco Data Center Network Manager, and Cisco NX-OS, the comprehensive data center operating system that spans the Cisco data center portfolio. These enhancements included Fabric Extender Technology (FEX) -- enables customers to build a single, modular fabric that extends from Cisco Nexus switches to Cisco Unified Computing System servers to adapters and to virtual machines -- and Director-Class Multi-hop Fibre Channel over Ethernet.


  • In February 2011, Juniper Networks unveiled its QFabric architecture for collapsing multilayer data center infrastructure into a single, any-to-any fabric that unifies networking, storage and cloud computing resources. Initially, QFabric scales to 6,000 network nodes, allowing any network interface within the network to connect to any other interface in a single hop. Juniper achieves this 6,000 port switching fabric by decoupling the line cards on the central fabric and moving them out into the network using dual-homed fiber connections. The entire 6,000 node network is a single switch and can be managed as such.

Benu Targets Mobile Edge Gateways

Benu, a start-up based in Billerica, Mass., is building a new Mobile Edge Gateway (MEG) for 4G Evolved Packet Core (EPC) networks.


Benu's Mobile Edge Gateway (MEG) is a carrier-grade, purpose-built hardware and software platform that dynamically instantiates standard EPC network functions, including a Serving Gateway (SGW), PDN Gateway (PGW), Security (SeGW), and a full Service Edge Router (SER). Its architecture leverages a unique Secure Distributed Fabric that utilizes IP to create communication links between multiple MEGs and allows a single MEG to consolidate and align subscriber management traffic to the Control Plane, thus minimizing the number of northbound interfaces and elements. In essence, this virtualizes the intelligence layers of the 4G network to account for future applications and business models.


Benu said it is leveraging hardware acceleration to provide sophisticated intelligence, optimization, routing, and security with no performance degradation. Its goal is to maximize "good throughput" to enhance subscriber QoE and more efficiently utilize the mobile operator's RAN. The platform is also designed to provide robust security for macro and small cell aggregation and Internet backhaul.


Product release dates were not specified.


"As mobile devices become more capable, driving busy hour data rates higher, operators must rethink centralized architectures and embrace more intelligent, distributed architectures,�? states Dave Callan, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Benu. “Benu's innovative architecture and advanced technology distributes intelligence without distributing the complexity." http://www.benunets.com

  • Benu is headed by Dave Callan (Founder & Chief Executive Officer), who previously the founder and CEO of RiverDelta Networks (acquired by Motorola), a designer and manufacturer of broadband cable IP service delivery platforms. Benu's senior team also includes Michael Brown (Founder, President & COO), previously COO and Vice President of Business Development of RiverDelta; and Raj Duggal (Founder & Vice President of Engineering), previously Senior Director of 4G Wireless Gateway Development at Motorola and, prior to that, Vice President of Switching and Routing Technology at RiverDelta.

Motorola RAZR -- 7mm LTE Smartphone

Motorola Mobility has brought back its iconic RAZR brand in a new Android 2.3.5 smartphone measuring only 7.1mm at its thinnest. Verizon Wireless will begin carrying a 4G LTE version.


The new RAZR features:



  • WCDMA 850/2100/1900/900, GSM 900/850/1900/1800, HSDPA 14.4 Mbps (Category 10), EDGE Class 12

  • CDMA800,CDMA1900,LTE B13 700

  • dual-core 1.2 GHz processor

  • 1GB of RAM

  • Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread)

  • 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with 1080p video capture

  • Front-facing HD camera for video chat over 4G LTE, 3G or Wi-Fi

  • 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Advanced display

  • KEVLAR fiber back

  • Corning Gorilla Glass

  • Splash-guard coating

  • Front-facing HD camera for video chat over 4G LTE, 3G or Wi-Fi

  • Bluetooth 4.0 low energy

  • 32 GB memory: 16 GB on board and 16 GB microSD card pre-installed.



http://www.motorola.com

Vitesse Hits Milestone in EPON Optical Line Termination Ports

Vitesse Semiconductor has shipped more than five million of its VSC7716 burst-mode transimpedance amplifiers (TIAs) for Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) in Fiber-to-the-X (FTTX) applications.


"The VSC7716 is a field-proven TIA that exceeds IEEE Ethernet PON (EPON or GEPON) 802.3ah requirements, giving customers broad flexibility in FTTX applications," said Richard Interrante, director of product marketing for Vitesse. "The VSC7716's zero reliability failure rate in the field is further testament to the device as an industry benchmark solution."


The company noted that it holds the dominant share in the market for burst-mode EPON TIAs, as Infonetics estimates approximately 5.7 million EPON Optical Line Termination (OLT) ports to be shipped by 2012. http://www.vitesse.com

Investors Pour $250 Million into Dropbox

Dropbox, a start-up based in San Francisco, raised $250 million in Series B financing for its online storage service. Dropbox currently has 45 million users who are collectively saving one billion files every three days. The company offers 2GB of free storage for Windows, Mac, Linux and mobile users. Subscriptions up to 100GB available. The service easily lets users share large files will friends, classmates and colleagues. Dropbox is seeking to extend its service to consumer devices and applications.


The financing was led by Index Ventures and includes participation from new investors Benchmark Capital, Goldman Sachs, Greylock Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, RIT Capital Partners, and Valiant Capital Partners. Early investors Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, and Hadi and Ali Partovi also participated. Dropbox has received a total of $257.2 million in funding. http://www.dropbox.com

  • Dropbox was founded in San Francisco in 2007 by Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, both M.I.T. alums.