Intel Cancels Low-Power Chips Aimed at Mobile Devices

As part of a restructuring announced last week, Intel reportedly is ending its SoFIA and Broxton projects and shifting the money to its 5G efforts.

Intel reportedly is ending its efforts around some chips aimed at smartphones and tablets as part of larger strategy to shift to areas that promise more growth.The chip maker, which last week announced it is cutting 12,0000 jobs and refocusing its efforts around such markets as the data center, Internet of things (IoT) and the cloud while reducing its reliance on PCs, is shelving its planned SoFIA and Broxton Atom chips for mobile devices. The SoFIA LTE and Broxton chips has been delayed but were most recently scheduled to be released this week.Intel had been late getting the systems-on-a-chip (SoCs) to the market, and there were reports that companies like Asus—which uses Intel processors in its ZenPhone smartphones—where lessening their dependence on the Intel products and turning more of their attention to ARM-based SoCs from the likes of Qualcomm.In a column on Forbes.com April 28, Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst with Moor Insights and Strategy, wrote that during a meeting senior Intel officials told him that they were ending their SoFIA projects—SoCs with integrated 3G and 4G wireless modems—and the Broxton chips for smartphones and tablets. The goal is to free up resources for Intel’s efforts around modems and 5G, Moorhead wrote.

“Intel has been showing some serious commitments to 5G deployment and penetration in the future, and they clearly believe that 5G is their opportunity to carve out a competitive advantage for themselves end to end in the future of mobility and in connecting the growing number of smart and connected ‘things’ to the cloud,” he wrote. “From my vantage point, Intel has a better chance in 5G than they do in low-end 4G mobile devices.”

Wells Fargo analyst David Wong, after attending a meeting with Intel CFO Stacy Smith, sent a note to clients saying that he expected there would be restructuring around the chip maker’s smartphone and tablet initiatives. Many of the projects impacted by the cost cuts and shifting priorities would come from Intel’s Client Computing Group (CCG), which includes PCs and mobile devices, Wong wrote, according to Barrons.”Within CCG, Intel plans on scaling back its investment in tablet and smartphone SoCs (system-on-a-chip)—we assume this refers to a reduction in investment in the SoFIA product line,” he wrote.Qualcomm is the dominant player in the 4G, and Intel, after being slow initially to respond to the rise of smartphones and tablets, has struggled to gain traction the in the space. Intel has spent billions over the past several years on its mobile chip efforts with little to show for it.In a post on the company bog April 26, Krzanich outlined the company’s strategy going forward, which was built on five core beliefs around the cloud, the IoT, memory and programmable chip technologies, 5G and the continued strength of Moore’s Law. Connectivity is the key to all these areas, the CEO wrote.”The fact [is] that providing computing power to a device and connecting it to the cloud makes it more valuable,” he wrote, pointing to autonomous cars as examples. “Connectivity is fundamental to every one of the cloud-to-thing segments we will drive. As the world moves to 5G, Intel will lead because of our technological strength to deliver end-to-end 5G systems, from modems to base stations to all the various forms of connectivity that exist today and will exist tomorrow.”The PC and mobile units have been a focus of Intel’s in recent months. In November 2015, Krzanich hired Venkata “Murthy” Renduchintala, who came to the company from Qualcomm, to be president of the new Client and IoT Businesses and Systems Architecture Group. Earlier this month, it was announced that two longtime Intel veterans—Kirk Skaugen, senior vice president and general manager of the CCG, and Doug Davis, senior vice president and general manager of the IoT Group—were leaving Intel. There also were reports that Aicha Evans, corporate vice president and general manager of Intel’s Communications and Devices Group, had resigned, though Intel never confirmed that and reports later in the month she had decided to stay.
Source: eWeek

Sprint Selling More Assets in Fight for Long-Term Profitability

Sprint is selling some equipment to raise $1.1 billion, while also receiving a $2 billion bridge loan for 18 months as it gathers more cash.

Sprint is continuing to corral a growing pile of cash liquidity by selling more of its network assets, this time for $1.1 billion, as it works to reverse a 10-year pattern of losses.In its latest deal, Sprint has signed a second contract with Mobile Leasing Solutions, LLC (MLS) to sell about $1.3 billion worth of unidentified network assets for $1.1 billion in cash in a lease-back arrangement, the carrier announced April 29. In addition, Sprint also announced that it has signed a deal for a $2 billion bridge loan for 18 months with Mizuho Bank that will provide additional cash. Both transactions are in addition to a $2.2 billion lease-back deal the company announced in early April that involved $3 billion of the company’s network cell towers, according to an earlier eWEEK story.The latest transactions mean that Sprint has secured about $5.3 billion in cash in April as it continues to try to reverse long-time losses and return to profitability.

In the most recent deal with MLS, the new lease-back arrangement will be accounted for as financing on its balance sheet, with its assets remaining in property, plant and equipment and continuing to be depreciated over their remaining useful lives, according to Sprint. The payments made to MLS under the lease-backs will be reflected as principal repayments and interest expense over the respective terms.

MLS was formed by a group of equity investors, including Softbank, and has obtained debt financing from several lenders, according to Sprint. Brightstar Corp. is again providing lease management and asset tracking for the transaction, as well as reverse logistics and device remarketing services.The 18-month bridge financing contract “provides Sprint with $2 billion of liquidity as the company continues to execute its turnaround initiatives, densify and optimize its network, and progress toward other financing transactions in the future,” the company said in a statement. The bridge loan can be expanded by up to another $500 million in additional money, if needed.A sprint spokesman could not be reached for comment by eWEEK on April 29, but the company said in its statement that it will address questions about the deal during its fourth quarter and full-year 2015 earnings call on May 6.Bill Menezes, an analyst with Gartner, told eWEEK that the latest Sprint lease-back effort “looks like more of the same—a need to raise cash for network expansion and to cover the costs of Sprint’s heavy promotional activity in acquiring customers.”The cash-raising work is also “a big reason Sprint decided to go big on device leasing … whether or not they’re feeling more financial pressure to do so will become clearer when we see their earnings next week,” said Menezes. “Back-to-back good quarters in terms of adding postpaid customers and improving profitability would seem to tell us the turnaround finally is getting traction. We’ll see.”Earlier this month, Sprint unveiled its plans for its original $2.2 billion cash infusion for a network gear lease-back. That gear will be bought back in 2018 when the company projects its financial standing will be improved. Essentially, these deals allow Sprint to raise large sums of cash at a time when it sees an opportunity for a turnaround, buoyed by growth in the number of its mobile phone subscribers, a company spokesman said earlier. The idea is that Sprint will be in a stronger financial position in the future when it pays the cash back.In January, Sprint reported revenue of $8.1 billion for the third quarter of 2015, while sharply narrowing its operating loss for the period to $197 million from $2.54 billion a year earlier and adding 501,000 new wireless postpaid customers. The wireless carrier’s third-quarter results portrayed a company that is still in transition as it fights competitors like Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile in a very volatile consumer market. 
Source: eWeek

OpenStack Summit Returns to Austin With Much Fanfare

AUSTIN, Texas—Back in July 2010, 75 developers gathered at the Omni hotel here for the very first OpenStack Summit. At the time, OpenStack was in the earliest stages of development. In April 2016, OpenStack returned to Austin in triumph as the de facto standard for private cloud deployment and the platform of choice for a significant share of the Fortune 100 companies. About 7,500 people from companies of all sizes from all over the world attended the 2016 OpenStack Summit in Austin from April 25 to April 29. In 2010, there were no users, because there wasn’t much code running, but in 2016, that has changed. Among the many OpenStack users speaking at the summit were executives from Verizon and Volkswagen Group. While the genesis of OpenStack was a joint effort between NASA and Rackspace, the 2016 summit was sponsored by some of the biggest names in technology today—including IBM, Cisco, Dell, EMC and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. In this slide show, eWEEK takes a look at some highlights of the 2016 OpenStack Summit.

Source: eWeek

Why the HP Chromebook 13 Is Worth a Closer Look by Business Users
By Don Reisinger  |  Posted 2016-04-29 Print

Don Reisinger is a freelance technology columnist. He started writing about technology for Ziff-Davis’ Gearlog.com. Since then, he has written extremely popular columns for CNET.com, Computerworld, InformationWeek, and others. He has appeared numerous times on national television to share his expertise with viewers. You can follow his every move at http://twitter.com/donreisinger.

Source: eWeek

Cypress Buying Broadcom IoT Wireless Business, WICED Brand

The $550 million deal comes as T.J. Rodgers, who founded the company 34 years ago, steps down as Cypress’ president and CEO.

Cypress Semiconductor has lost a CEO and gained an Internet of things business.On the same day that President and CEO T.J. Rodgers said he was stepping down after 34 years running the 7,000-person company he founded, Cypress officials announced they were buying the wireless Internet of things (IoT) business—from WiFi, Bluetooth and ZigBee products to the WICED brand—from Broadcom for $550 million.The acquisition, announced April 28, will strengthen Cypress’ position in a range of embedded systems markets, including automotive and industrial, as well as give it a stronger foothold in the consumer IoT market, according to officials. The deal will enable Cypress to build off what the company already is doing in the IoT space and give its more than 30,000 customers even more capabilities, according to Rodgers.”Cypress is a significant player in the IoT today because of our ultra-low-power PSoC programmable system-on-chip technology, but we’ve only been able to pair it with generic radios so far,” he said in a statement. “Now we have the highly regarded Broadcom IoT business—state-of-the-art WiFi, Bluetooth and Zigbee RF [radio frequency] technologies—that will transform us into a force in IoT and provide us with new market opportunities as well.”

The IoT is expected to grow rapidly over the next few years, and offers a broad array of opportunities for chip makers to supply silicon not only to the makers of the smart connected devices themselves, but also to the servers, networks, storage appliances, gateways and other devices that create the underlying infrastructure for the devices and the massive amounts of data they’re generating.

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich earlier this week reiterated his company’s focus on such markets as the cloud and IoT while reducing its reliance on PCs. Other chip makers, from Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia to ARM and its various manufacturing partners—such as Qualcomm and Samsung—also are making strong moves in the space.Cisco and Intel officials are predicting that the number of connected devices worldwide will reach more than 50 billion by 2020. The forecasts from other vendors and analyst firms vary, but all are predicting sharp increases in the numbers. Analysts with IDC are forecasting that spending on the IoT will grow 17 percent a year, from $698.6 billion in 2015 to almost $1.3 trillion in 2019.Broadcom, which was bought by Avago Technologies for $37 billion, in 2013 launched its WICED (Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices) portfolio for the IoT and wearable devices to give OEMs a platform on which to build their devices. The company also offered a WICED (pronounced “wicked”) software developer kit.According to Cypress officials, Broadcom’s 430-employee IoT business unit generated $189 million in revenue over the past 12 months. Stephen DiFranco, Broadcom’s IoT general manager, said he is pleased with the move to Cypress.”With our IoT connectivity products, Cypress will be able to provide the connectivity; the MCU [multicontroller], system-on-chip, module and memory technologies; and the mature developer ecosystem that IoT designers require, creating an end-to-end portfolio of embedded solutions and a single IoT design platform,” DiFranco said in a statement.According to the deal, Broadcom will continue building wireless connectivity products for devices and systems that aren’t related to the IoT, such as set-top boxes, smartphones and notebooks. The boards of directors for both companies have approved the deal, which Cypress officials expect to close in the third quarter.They’ll have to grow the business without Rodgers at the helm. The 68-year-old CEO said he is stepping down to help bring new people to the company, though he is remaining on the board and will help direct various projects.”I have always planned not to be spending most of my time in the last decade of my career immersed in the details of the operations, including those of the 7,000-person company that Cypress has become,” he said. “And, to be completely candid, the board and even the executive staff have urged me to bring new blood into operations.”The announcements came as Cypress officials released the company’s latest financial numbers. For the first quarter, Cypress saw revenue fall 6.8 percent as the company continues to absorb Spansion, the semiconductor vendor it bought last year for $4 billion. Cypress officials had said at the time of the acquisition that it expected to gain $180 million in synergies via the acquisition by the end of 2016. Through the latest quarter, the company achieved $150.4 million. 
Source: eWeek

HP Chromebook 13 Gets Performance Boost With Intel Core M Processors

HP’s latest Chromebook, which starts at $499, is aimed at consumers and business users who seek a thin, versatile and portable machine.

HP has unveiled the Chromebook 13, which is the company’s first Chromebook to include Intel’s 6^th-generation Core M processors for additional power and versatility for office workers, mobile business users and consumers.The Chromebook 13, which has a modern, all-metal design, can be configured with a choice of Intel Core M7, M5, M3 or Intel Pentium 1 processors, as well as up to 16GB of LPDDR3-1866 SDRAM, depending on the processor that is chosen. The machine features a 13.3-inch full HD anti-glare display (1,920-by-1,080 resolution) or an optional 13.3-inch quad HD+ display (3,200-by-1,800 resolution), 32GB of eMMC 5.0 internal storage and integrated Intel HD Graphics 515, which supports 4K video output.The system, which runs on the Chrome OS operating system, also includes a high-capacity 45-watt-hour battery that promises up to 11.5 hours of use on a charge, as well as USB-C fast charging using an included charging cord. The machine was announced by HP on April 28.The Chromebook 13 is 12.59 inches long, 8.64 inches wide and 0.50 inches thick, with a weight starting at 2.86 pounds, depending on configuration.

Also included are an integrated HP TrueVision HD camera; Intel Dual Band WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2×2) and Bluetooth 4.2 connectivity; a multiformat digital media reader that supports SD, SDHC and SDXC memory cards; two USB Type-C ports; a USB-A 3.1 port; and a headphone/microphone combo jack. Dual speakers, a backlit keyboard, a touchpad and B&O Play audio are also included.

Multilayer security features are included through a TPM 1.2 Embedded Security Chip that allows users to sign in with their Google credentials.The latest Chromebook is also the first from HP that can be used with an optional docking station so that it can be easily connected to dual high-definition displays, full-size keyboards, wired networks and more.The new Chromebook 13 starts at $499 and is expected to be available by the beginning of May.Through its Chrome OS operating system, the Chromebook 13 promises fast boot times, easy navigation and syncing, and multilayered security capabilities to share and access information from any location, according to HP. Also included in some configurations is a Lucid Sleep feature, which updates documents, emails and notifications while the HP Chromebook sleeps so data and messages are already updated whenever users are ready to resume working, according to HP. In addition, the HP Print for Chrome app is available, which enables local printing from Chrome OS devices to HP network and local printers in home or office environments.Last October, HP released two previous Chromebooks—the Chromebook 14 and the SMB- and education-targeted Chromebook 14 G4—to market, with Intel processors replacing the Nvidia Tegra processors that were used in previous models. Also added at the time was a new full HD screen option.The Chromebook 14 G4 could be purchased with a choice of Intel Celeron processors, while the standard Chromebook 14 was equipped with an Intel Celeron N2840 dual-core 2.16GHz processor.
Source: eWeek

Jitterbug Touch-Screen, Flip Phones Give Seniors More Options

Two new Jitterbug mobile phones—the touch-screen Smart and the traditional button-style, folding Flip—are now available from GreatCall, which offers mobile phones and service plans aimed at senior citizens who want easy-to-use devices without having to commit to service contracts. The Smart phone features a 5.5-inch, color, touch-screen display, modern looks and data capabilities, while the Flip phone features a 3.2-inch color HVGA TFT internal display, a 1.44-inch external color display and no Web searching capabilities. Monthly no-contract mobile service plans for the phones start at $14.99 for 200 minutes of talk, plus $3.00 for 300 texts, while data plans for the Smart handset start at $2.49 for 40MB. Data plans are not available for the Flip handset, which is not data-capable. Both phones are also available with premium calling plans that include GreatCall’s 5Star services, which connect callers with help in emergencies, 24/7 health information services and other extra-cost features. Peruse this eWEEK slide show for more details on the Jitterbug Smart and Flip phones.

Source: eWeek

Mobile Workplaces Boost Employee Engagement, Productivity

Six in ten employees said mobile technology makes them more productive, while more than four in ten believe it causes their creativity to rise.

There is a measurable link between more mobile-first working environments and an increase in employee engagement, according to a global Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) study sponsored by Aruba Networks.The study showed that companies rated by employees as pioneers in how they support mobile technology saw a rise in productivity (16 percent), creativity (18 percent), satisfaction (23 percent), and loyalty (21 percent), when compared to organizations that were poorly rated at supporting mobile technology.Six in ten employees said mobile technology makes them more productive, while more than four in ten (45 percent) believe it causes their creativity to rise.The survey also found 42 percent of employees say that the ability to access information quickly and easily has the greatest impact on their productivity levels.

Currently, 54 percent of companies are providing access to the company network from any mobile device to support working anywhere in the office or remotely.

“Without careful planning, IT could face some pitfalls. The first is around corporate security. Additionally, businesses and CIOs need to be clear on acceptable use policies that accompany this newfound freedom of the mobile workforce,” Chris Kozup, vice president of marketing for Aruba, told eWEEK. “Many companies have well-ingrained systems of measurement – think performance management – tied to the old guard of fixed working. In other words, management systems must adapt to the new style of working or risk a high level of conflict within the organization.”Simply put, a manager who has a 9-to-5 or time card mentality could be at odds with a new mobile-optimized working environment where employees should be evaluated based on their output and results, rather than time spent physically at their desk.”While the technology is widely available to enable a mobile experience, the business must not lose sight of the need to reskill managers to adjust as well,” Kozup explained.The ability to work anytime, anywhere is seen as having the single-biggest impact on employee productivity, with 49 percent of respondents saying it has the greatest impact on their productivity.”Mobile technologies and working styles will continue to dominate over the coming years. Common devices like desk phones will join the likes of the cassette tape as technologies of yesteryear,” Kozup said. “This will be driven by the next-generation digital workforce who use mobile devices in ways that are beyond conventional. We are seeing our leading customers embrace digital workplaces in which they are often completely rethinking the concept of work. Most of these initiatives center on the need to move away from fixed working environments to far more open and collaborative workspaces.”
Source: eWeek

BYOD Security Management Still an Issue for Businesses

The Bitglass survey found just 14 percent of organizations have successfully deployed mobile application management (MAM) solutions.

Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of organizations, led by the financial services sector, support BYOD for all or some employees, according to a Bitglass survey of more than 800 cyber security professionals across five major industries.However, relatively few organizations are able to control access to corporate data, remotely wipe devices or enforce device encryption.The survey, which included respondents from financial services, technology, health care, government and education organizations, found just 14 percent have successfully deployed mobile application management (MAM) solutions.”The level of concern with respect to security in BYOD is really no different than with other types of IT systems,” Rich Campagna, vice president of products at Bitglass, told eWEEK. “Regulated industries such as healthcare and financial services require that large numbers of users handle personally identifiable information, and the success of their business depends on their ability to protect customer data. The fact that these users are often mobile and demand BYOD access makes security particularly challenging.”

He noted fewer than half of organizations are doing anything other than password protection on BYOD devices – even choosing to forego policy basics like remote wipe and encryption.

“It seems that in an effort to support the demands of mobile users, security has been thrown out the window,” Campagna said.The report found that 62 percent of healthcare organizations see compliance as a top security concern, due to HIPAA’s stringent requirements.Notably, organizations across all sectors were concerned with data leakage – including 81 percent of financial services organizations, 90 percent of health care organizations and 79 percent of education organizations.Higher education lagged behind other industries in enforcing essential risk-control measures–just 18 percent of those surveyed have access controls in place, and just 29 percent have the ability to remotely wipe devices.In addition, just 14 percent of organizations have adopted MAM tools since their introduction in 2010, with most respondents citing employee privacy concerns and usability issues as top challenges to adoption.”All too often, when we see employees pushback on MDM tools due to privacy, deployment challenges or user experience issues, a decision is made to allow that user to bypass those controls, prioritizing access over security,” Campagna said. “The root cause is the fact that the industry has tried to shoehorn a tool best suited for managed device security into BYOD.”The report also found that device encryption was supported in only 36 percent of educational institutions, 56 percent of financial services organizations and 57 percent of health care organizations.
Source: eWeek

Rubrik Strengthens Security in New Converged DM Appliance

Rubrik’s r528 provides users with complete on-site data backup and protection, data encryption at rest and in-flight, and rich data services at a global scale.

Rubrik, the rather impertinent startup that merely wants to replace in one day all conventional data backup-and-recovery point products that have taken 30-plus years for other companies to develop, has added more new functionality to its new-gen data-management system.The Palo Alto, Calf.-based company on April 26 unveiled what it described as the IT industry’s first security enhanced, converged data-management appliance. By converged, Rubrik means that if someone broke out all the functionality in the new Rubrik r528’s 2U-size box as separate software components, it would need a 20U-footprint to contain it all. In the past, single-purpose servers were standard; not so anymore.The r528 provides users with complete on-site data backup and protection, data encryption at rest and in-flight, and rich data services at a global scale, to go with a lot of other functionality. It can be configured to work with cloud systems.Security is a Priority

But the most important function Rubrik brings to data backup is security. This the r528 has in spades.

“With the amount of digital data projected to grow to 1 trillion gigabytes by 2020, and a growing trend in data breaches, it is imperative that businesses apply the highest security standards to all their data,” CEO and co-founder CEO Bipul Sinha said. “We developed the r528 to ensure data is encrypted both in transit across a network and at rest to meet the security needs of our enterprise and public sector customers.”Rubrik’s r528 appliance provides high-level encryption and security with the delivery of FIPS 140-2 Level 2 certified hardware. With self-encrypting HDDs and SSDs, flexible key management options, and physical tamper evidence, the r528 provides a high level of FIPS certification in the backup and recovery industry.The r528 is a 2U appliance with two commodity x86 nodes that protects up to 300-plus terabytes of source data and comes pre-configured with Rubrik Converged Data Management.What the New Appliance Brings to the TableKey benefits of the Rubrik platform, according to Sinha, include unlimited replication; a policy-driven management engine; recovery with near-zero RTO and elastic RPO; and action-oriented reporting.Ransomware is a rapidly growing criminal tactic that Rubrik mitigates with its system. In 2012, one of the largest regional banks in the United States “lost” its backups containing the personal account information for more than 260,000 customers. Thus, it is crucial for companies to take the necessary steps to protect data from end-to-end, not just where they think attacks may happen.  “Ransomware is a highly profitable crime, and there aren’t many reliable security-only based options to avoid this and mitigate risk,” Adam Goldberg, a member of Rubrik’s product management team, told eWEEK. “So we think that businesses can really change the game here and use secure on-site backups to eliminate the hostage situation that’s present with ransomware.”If you look at the recent Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital case (in which the hospital paid $17,000 to get its data restored), that’s just one example. Huge sums of money are being paid all over. IT needs to eliminate the divide between data protection and security, so they can always ensure access to their business-critical data. The r528 is our first step in that direction.”Top-Flight Builders of the ProductRubrik is built by key engineers behind Google, Facebook, VMware, and Data Domain.The company has raised more than $51 million from Greylock Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and enterprise IT luminaries, including John W. Thompson (Microsoft Chairman, Symantec Former CEO), Frank Slootman (ServiceNow CEO, Data Domain Former CEO), Dheeraj Pandey (Founder and CEO, Nutanix) and Mark Leslie (Leslie Ventures, Veritas Founding CEO).Rubrik appliances are globally available through the company’s solution partners. For more information, go here.
Source: eWeek