Thursday, June 13, 2019

Broadcom expects slowdown due to geopolitical issues and export restrictions

Broadcom reported revenue of $5,517 million for its second quarter of fiscal year 2019, ended May 5, 2019, a decrease of 4.7 percent from $5,789 million in the previous quarter and an increase of 10.0 percent from $5,014 million in the same quarter last year. Gross margin was $3,089 million, or 56.0 percent of net revenue. Net income, which includes the impact of discontinued operations, was $691 million, or $1.64 per diluted share. This compares with net income of $471 million, or $1.12 per diluted share, in the prior quarter, and net income of $3,733 million, or $8.33 per diluted share, in the same quarter last year.

Semiconductor solutions represent 74% of revenue, while infrastructure software represented 26% of sales.

"We executed according to plan in the second quarter with tailwinds from networking offsetting the anticipated headwinds from wireless," said Hock Tan, President and CEO of Broadcom Inc. "We currently see a broad-based slowdown in the demand environment, which we believe is driven by continued geopolitical uncertainties, as well as the effects of export restrictions on one of our largest customers. As a result, our customers are actively reducing their inventory levels, and we are taking a conservative stance for the rest of the year. We remain well-positioned across our various semiconductor and software businesses and are confident this portfolio of franchises will continue to drive sustained long-term revenue growth and increasing free cash flow."

"We achieved record free cash flow of $2.5 billion growing 20% year over year in the second quarter," said Tom Krause, CFO of Broadcom Inc. "Despite the challenging market backdrop and updated revenue outlook, we still expect to grow free cash flow by a double-digit percentage for the year. In addition, we remain focused on completing a total of $8 billion of share repurchases and eliminations in fiscal 2019.

On a conference call Hock Tan, President and CEO of Broadcom said:

A recovery had been expected in 2H19, but the U.S. / China trade tensions, and the Huawei ban in particular, has caused global equipment suppliers to cut back on orders. Global OEM customers are very nervous even though North American and European spending on networking remains robust. In the short term, the Huawei ban will be very impactful to the overall market because there are no other qualified vendors able to step up as OEM suppliers. If the ban remain in place for over 6 months or so, he expacts a re-balancing of market share as other global OEM increase orders with Broadcom to meet market demand.

For 2H19, sales are expected to the $17.5 billion, representing a decline in the high single digits. He noted that Broadcom's fundamentals remain strong, that the high-end networking silicon segment remains strong notwithstanding the Huawei ban. He said the company is well positioned for 5G and that he is pleased with the ramp-up of Wi-Fi 6.

http://investors.broadcom.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=203541&p=irol-IRHome


VMware to acquire Avi Networks for cloud load balancing

VMware agreed to acquire Avi Networks, start-up offering multi-cloud application delivery services. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Avi Networks, which is based in Santa Clara, California, delivers multi-cloud application services including a Software Load Balancer, Intelligent Web Application Firewall (iWAF) and Elastic Service Mesh. Avi’s central control plane and distributed data plane deliver application services as a dynamic, multi-cloud fabric which intelligently automates decisions and provides unprecedented application analytics and on-demand elasticity. Avi customers can dispatch services such as load balancing and web application firewall to any application using one centralized interface. Avi technology runs across private and public clouds, and supports applications running on VMs, containers and bare metal. The company claims hundreds of global enterprise deployments, including Fortune 500 companies representing the world’s largest financial services, media, and technology companies.

VMware said it will offer both built-in load balancing capabilities as part of VMware NSX Data Center, and an advanced, standalone ADC. Avi Networks will further enable VMware to bring the public cloud experience to the entire data center—automated, highly scalable, and intrinsically more secure with the ability to deploy applications with a single click.

“VMware is committed to making the data center operate as simply and easily as it does in the public cloud, and the addition of Avi Networks to the growing VMware networking and security portfolio will bring us one step closer to this goal after the acquisition closes,” said Tom Gillis, senior vice president and general manager, networking and security business unit, VMware. “This acquisition will further advance our Virtual Cloud Network vision, where a software-defined distributed network architecture spans all infrastructure and ties all pieces together with the automation and programmability found in the public cloud. Combining Avi Networks with VMware NSX will further enable organizations to respond to new opportunities and threats, create new business models, and deliver services to all applications and data, wherever they are located.”

“Unlike existing ADC solutions, Avi Networks’ distributed ADC is designed for modern data center and public cloud deployments, with an architecture that mirrors cloud principles,” said Amit Pandey, chief executive officer, Avi Networks. “Upon close, customers will be able to benefit from a full set of software-defined L2-7 application networking and security services, on-demand elasticity, real time insights, simplified troubleshooting, and developer self-service.”

Avi Networks cites customer momentum

Avi Networks has more than doubled its revenue and number of customers each year for the past three years.

The company says large enterprises are replacing their legacy ADCs (application delivery controllers) with the Avi software platform for both data center and cloud use cases. Avi claims hundreds of global enterprises, including the world’s largest financial services, media, and technology companies, are now using its platform. Instead of managing hundreds of physical or virtual appliances, Avi customers can dispatch services like load balancing and web application firewall to any application using one centralized interface. Avi’s technology effortlessly spans bare-metal servers and private and public clouds, making it a natural choice for hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

“There’s a reason we take so many customers from legacy vendors,” said Avi Networks CEO Amit Pandey. “We remain the only enterprise-grade solution that deploys consistently across all environments. In response, legacy vendors are developing siloed solutions for each environment or attempting to modernize through acquisitions. Meanwhile our architecture and controller technology are years ahead and getting better all the time. It’s no wonder that enterprises are choosing Avi Networks for their business-critical applications.”

Avi Networks also noted that it has also updated its platform with over 250 new features, including advanced controller and process analytics, client log streaming, and the release of Avi SaaS — the world’s first cloud-managed load balancing solution.

Avi pulls in $60 million including an investment from Cisco

Avi Networks, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, announced $60 million in new funding including investments from Cisco Investments along with DAG Ventures, Greylock Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Menlo Ventures.

Cisco resells the Avi Vantage Platform in markets around the world, and Avi closely integrates with Cisco ACI, Cisco’s intent-based networking and automation solution for the data center.

Avi Networks offers an application delivery controller (ADC) with a Software Load Balancer, an Intelligent Web Application Firewall, and an Elastic Service Mesh for container-based applications. The company says that as businesses shift their operations to clouds such as Azure and AWS, its intent-based software offers easier management, faster performance, greater elasticity, deeper analytics, and more powerful automation than legacy ADC vendors.

Avi also reports that it has tripled its bookings over the past year, with significant adoption by the Global 2000 and 20% of the Fortune 50.

This latest round brings Avi’s total funding to $115 million.

“Modern applications are driving a new urgency with which enterprises are automating their networks and application delivery systems,” said Amit Pandey, CEO of Avi Networks. “Cisco software and infrastructure are a cornerstone in this transformation. I am thrilled about this strategic investment from Cisco and our continued joint efforts to deliver the elasticity, intelligence, and multi-cloud capabilities that enterprises need.”


  • Avi Networks is headed by Amit Pandey, who joined the company as CEO in 2015. Previously, Pandey spent nearly a decade at NetApp in a wide range of executive positions, and followed that with two successful stints at startups - first as CEO of TerraCotta that was acquired by the European software giant, Software AG and next as CEO of Zenprise that was acquired by Citrix.
  • Avi Networks was co-founded in November 2012 by Umesh Mahajan, who previously was VP/GM of Data Center Switching at Cisco; Murali Basavaiah, who previously was VP Engineering at Cisco for NX-OS Software and Nexus 7000/MDS product; and Ranga Rajagopalan, who previously was Sr. Director of Engineering at Cisco and responsible for NX-OS systems/platform software for the Cisco Nexus 7000.

Germany completes 5G spectrum auction, raising EUR 6.5 billion

After 52 days and 497 rounds of bidding, Germany completed its auction for 2 GHz and 3.6 GHz mobile spectrum. A total of 420 MHz was auctioned off for €6.5 billion. Deutsche Telekom was the largest spender and newcomer Drillisch was also successful in acquiring spectrum.

"The end of the auction fires the starting gun for 5G in Germany. I'm pleased that four companies have acquired spectrum and will compete to expand the network for 5G. The spectrum is to be used not just for the new mobile communication standard, 5G, but also to improve mobile coverage in Germany. It is now up to the companies to put the spectrum to use quickly and to fulfil their coverage obligations," "said Jochen Homann, Bundesnetzagentur President.

Information on the auction and the results of the individual rounds can be viewed at http://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/mobilesbreitband.




IDC: Worldwide Spending on IoT to hit $1.1 trillion in 2023

IDC is predicting booming worldwide spending on the Internet of Things (IoT) with spending exceeding $1.0 trillion mark in 2022 and reaching $1.1 trillion in 2023.

A new update to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Semiannual Internet of Things Spending Guide shows the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for IoT spending over the 2019-2023 forecast period will be 12.6%.

"Spending on IoT deployments continues with good momentum and is expected to be $726 billion worldwide this year," said Carrie MacGillivray, group vice president, Internet of Things, 5G, and Mobility at IDC. "While organizations are investing in hardware, software, and services to support their IoT initiatives, their next challenge is finding solutions that help them to manage, process, and analyze the data being generated from all these connected things."

Highlights:

  • Discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing, and transportation will account for nearly a third of worldwide spend total in 2023. 
  • The consumer market will be the second largest source of IoT spending in 2019, led by smart home and connected vehicle use cases. With the fastest five-year growth rate across all industries (16.8% CAGR), the consumer market is forecast to overtake discrete manufacturing to become the largest source of IoT spending by 2023.
  • Hardware spending is dominated by module/sensor purchases. 
  • Software will be the fastest growing technology category with a five-year CAGR of 15.3% with a focus on application and analytics software purchases.
  • More than three quarters of all spending on IoT platform software – middleware that provides the device management, connectivity management, data management, visualization, and applications enablement for connecting IoT endpoints – will go toward software packages that integrate and support devices, applications, data schemas, and standards of a single industry. 
  • By the end of the forecast, nearly one-third of IoT software spending will go toward public cloud deployments, compared to less than 20% spent on cloud deployments in 2018.
  • The United States and China will account for roughly half of all IoT spending throughout the forecast, followed by Western Europe and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan and China). 

AddOn introduces Optical Time Domain Reflectometer tester

AddOn Networks introduced an Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (OTDR) testing solution that detects problems within optical fibers.

AddOn’s EON-NSV-OTDR devices rapidly locate and report any faults in an optical fiber link. The solution can be configured to provide real-time monitoring of jitter and latency. AddOn’s new solution also tests the layer-2 and layer-3 services that may be running over it, and includes custom hardware for the generation of test traffic, loop-back and analysis.

“In our role as a trusted partner in the networking ecosystem, we are constantly seeking out ways to add compelling value to our ever-growing portfolio of optical solutions,” noted AddOn’s CTO Patrick Beard. “Our customers need assurance that their networks are offering stable, secure, uninterrupted connectivity and data security – and our EON-NSV-OTDR solution provides the peace of mind they are seeking.”

http://www.addonnetworks.com

Renesas develops Processing-In-Memory Technology for AI chips

Renesas Electronics has developed an AI accelerator that performs CNN (convolutional neural network) processing at high speeds and low power to move towards the next generation of Renesas embedded AI (e-AI), which will accelerate increased intelligence of endpoint devices.
The company says its first test chip featuring this accelerator has achieved the power efficiency of 8.8 TOPS/W.

Renesas developed the following three technologies for the new AI accelerator: a ternary-valued (-1, 0, 1) SRAM structure PIM technology that can perform large-scale CNN computations; an SRAM circuit to be applied with comparators that can read out memory data at low power; and a technology that prevents calculation errors due to process variations in the manufacturing.

https://www.renesas.com/us/en/about/press-center/news/2019/news20190613.html

ADTRAN’s Eric Joyce Elected to FTTH Council Europe as Board Member

Eric Joyce, ADTRAN Business Development Manager for the EMEA Region, has been elected to the FTTH Council Europe as board member and working committee chair.

Incoming FTTH Council Board President Kees de Waard said, “We are in a period of technology change and the way this process will be managed will be crucial in ensuring that no citizen is left behind. Eric’s leadership as a member of the board and as the Chair of the Market Intelligence Committee will provide the stewardship required to help us advance our goals for the organisation and for Europe.”

ADTRAN EMEA and APAC CTO Ronan Kelly recently completed his second term as FTTH Council President.

In addition to announcing the results of its annual election, the FTTH Council Europe adopted its working programme focused on engaging with EU and national policy makers as a constructive contributor.

SEOWON offers CBRS 4X4 MIMO Outdoor CPE

South Korea-based Seowon introduced a line of LTE CPEs for the 3.5 GHz, Citizens Broadcasting Radio service (CBRS) market. The company has received FCC Part 96 approval for the devices.

Seowan anticipates wide deployments of wireless broadband in fixed wireless access, private LTE, etc.- including an approval of FCC Part 90. Currently, Seowon is performing tests with major telecoms and cooperating with SAS (-Spectrum Access System) suppliers.

Seowon also launched an NB-IoT module, which supports Cat.M, NB-IoT and Sigfox.