Sunday, June 14, 2015

Cisco Prices $5 Billion of Senior Unsecured Notes

Cisco announced the pricing of five series of senior unsecured notes for an aggregate principal amount of $5 billion.

Of these notes, $900 million will mature in June 2018 and will bear interest at a floating rate equal to three-month LIBOR plus 31 basis points, $1.6 billion will mature in June 2018 and will bear interest at an annual rate of 1.650%, $1.5 billion will mature in June 2020 and will bear interest at an annual rate of 2.450%, $500 million will mature in June 2022 and will bear interest at an annual rate of 3.000% and $500 million will mature in June 2025 and will bear interest at an annual rate of 3.500%.

http://www.cisco.com

GSMA Urges Europe to Support 700MHz

The GSMA is calling on the European Commission to support Member States’ requests for release of the 700MHz band, preferably between 2018 and 2020 and potentially earlier for markets that are able to release it sooner, such as Finland, France, Germany and Sweden.  The industry association hopes the EC will accelerate the review of the sub-700MHz band, as the mobile and broadcast markets are evolving quite rapidly, as demonstrated by ongoing 5G research programmes in Europe.

Anne Bouverot, Director General of the GSMA, commented on the release of the European Commission’s (EC) summary of the results of the Lamy Report public consultation: “Allowing for flexible use of the UHF band will also mean the EC will be one step closer to achieving its Digital Agenda objectives of providing high-quality mobile broadband to European citizens.”

“A co-primary allocation will give Member States full flexibility to use UHF spectrum for both mobile and broadcast in the future. If mobile data continues to grow as predicted, national governments will retain the option of reallocating more spectrum to mobile if required. This flexible solution will protect consumer interests by empowering people in Europe to choose how they want to access content. It also supplies long-term guarantees for the future of digital terrestrial TV in European countries that rely on terrestrial broadcast services, ensuring a robust future for both industries."

http://www.gsma.com/

HGST Launches 10TB HDD

HGST, a Western Digital company, introduced the first enterprise-class 10TB (terabyte) hard disk drive (HDD) for next-generation active archive applications.

The host-managed Ultrastar Archive Ha10 SMR HDD is aimed at the densest server and storage systems.

The Ultrastar Archive Ha10 is the third of HGST's helium-based HDDs launched in less than two years. It leverages HGST's second generation HelioSeal platform and shingled magnetic recording (SMR). HGST said that by overlapping or "shingling" the data tracks on top of each other, higher areal density can be achieved within the same physical footprint.

The drive is rated at two million hours mean time between failure (MTBF), offers a five-year limited warranty, a 10-15 unrecoverable reduced bit error rate, rotational vibration safeguards, and 600K load/unload cycles.

The company noted that the initial rollout of the 10TB HDD is focused on cloud and OEM storage customers who have the in-house capability to develop the software required.

http://www.hgst.com/10TBnow

Hurricane Electric Connects 100 Internet Exchanges

Hurricane Electric has become the first Internet backbone in the world to connect to over 100 unique Internet exchanges.

Hurricane Electric said it runs the largest IPv6 network on the planet, as measured by the number of networks connected. Its fiber backbone has four redundant paths crossing North America, two separate paths between the U.S. and Europe, and rings in Europe and Asia. Hurricane Electric offers IPv4 and IPv6 transit solutions over the same connection at speeds including 10 Gbps and 100 Gbps Ethernet.

http://www.he.net

Elliott Sends Letter to Citrix Board of Directors

Elliot Management Corp. published an open letter to the Board of Directors of Citrix, saying it believes the company can achieve a notable increase in shareholder value by implementing a new management plan and undertaking structural reforms.

Elliot currently holds 7.1% of Citrix Systems' stock.

Specifically, Elliot said it believes that Citrix can achieve a stock price of $90 ~ $100+ per share by the end of 2016, which represents a rise of 50%, by improving its operational performance given that it great products in strong markets. One area of concern for Elliot is the company's cost structure, which has grown faster than revenues.

Elliot, which also criticized Citrix's product portfolio as too broad, is presenting a new operating plan for the company.

http://www.elliottmgmt.com

Raytheon Demos Advanced GPS OCX Capabilities

Raytheon demonstrated advanced capabilities of the Global Positioning System's Next Generation Operational Control System (GPS OCX)to key Defense Department and other stakeholders.

GPS OCX is the ground-based command and control system that will manage GPS satellites with significantly improved accuracy and precision, while providing higher levels of cyber protection.

"These successful demonstrations incorporating actual GPS OCX software reflect Raytheon's significant and continuing progress on this program and the growing maturity of this very complex system," said Dave Wajsgras, president of Raytheon's Intelligence, Information and Services. "Once delivered, this pathfinding, cyber-hardened ground system will significantly enhance the capabilities GPS brings to military, civil and commercial users worldwide," said Wajsgras.

http://raytheon.mediaroom.com/2015-06-12-Raytheon-Demonstrates-Advanced-GPS-OCX-Capabilities