Lenovo passes Dell to become world's No 2 PC maker

--Lenovo replaces Dell to become world's 2nd-largest PC maker

--Lenovo Chief Executive Yang Yuanqing says the company will keep pursuing acquisitions to boost growth

China's Lenovo Group Ltd. LNVGY +2.40% was named the world's No. 2 personal-computer maker by two research firms on Thursday and Chief Executive Yang Yuanqing said the Chinese company will keep pursuing acquisitions to boost growth.

The firms--Gartner Inc. and International Data Corp.-- also found that global PC shipments rose more slowly than expected in the third quarter, in a sign of consumers' shift away from laptop and desktop computers toward mobile devices as their budgets shrink.

Lenovo will "fully leverage" acquisitions to keep growing, Yang said in an interview, without elaborating on specific acquisition targets. Lenovo, which bought International Business Machines Corp.'s PC business in 2005, passed Dell Inc. DELL -1.23% in the third quarter to take the PC market's second-place rank in terms of shipments, according to separate surveys by data trackers IDC and Gartner.

Yang said Lenovo's new status as the industry's No. 2 makes it a "strong challenger" to become the world's top PC maker, a status currently held by Hewlett-Packard Co.'s (HPQ) PC business. He added Lenovo won't sacrifice its gross margin to boost its market share.

Both research firms said Lenovo's growth came from increased shipments to Japan and European markets. Gartner attributed Lenovo's growth to its aggressive pricing.

Yang declined to comment on whether Lenovo would be interested in buying H-P's PC business, which it has said it is considering selling or spinning off.

Lenovo earlier this year acquired German PC maker Medion AG, for which it had said it would pay up to EUR465 million (about $640 million) in cash and stock. Lenovo during its last quarter also finished forming a joint venture with Japanese PC maker NEC Corp., a deal in which NEC received $175 million in Lenovo shares.

Yang said he is comfortable with his current stake in the company. Yang in June bought about 8% of Lenovo's outstanding shares for around 3.15 billion Hong Kong dollars (US$403.8 million) from the company's biggest shareholder, Legend Holdings Ltd.

Gartner said shipments of PCs around the world climbed 3.2% to 91.8 million units in the third quarter, well below its earlier projection of 5.1% growth. A similar IDC survey pegged the industry's growth rate in the quarter at 3.6%, lower than an earlier projection of 4.5% growth.

Over the past few months, major PC makers such as H-P and Dell have warned that consumer spending appeared to be slipping. Both Gartner and IDC acknowledged that consumer-PC buying during the important back-to-school season was weak. But they also reported that mobile devices, such as Apple Inc.'s iPad, were competing for and often winning consumer attention when making technology purchases.

"For the moment, PCs have taken a backseat to a range of other devices competing for shrinking consumer and business budgets," IDC analyst Jay Chou said in a report.

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Sony Corp to halve suppliers

TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp will halve the number of its suppliers in the next two years and aims to slash procurement costs by 20 percent this year, it said on Thursday, stepping up restructuring efforts amid mounting losses.

Analysts saw the move as positive. It comes on top of a plan to cut fixed costs by more than 300 billion yen ($3.16 billion).

But Sony shares fell more than 1 percent along with those of other exporters, hurt by a firmer yen.

Sony, which competes with Samsung Electronics in flat TVs and Canon Inc in digital cameras, has been overhauling operations as it expects a second straight year of losses due to weak global demand for consumer electronics goods.

The yen's strength is dealing an additional blow to Japanese companies because it cuts into profits earned overseas.

"I'm not sure how effective this is because it's just operational streamlining and wouldn't simply push up earnings or bear fruit immediately," Mizuho Investors Securities analyst Nobuo Kurahashi said.

"But it is very good that we are seeing more and more concrete restructuring measures at a quick pace."

Sony spokeswoman Mami Imada said the company plans to cut its suppliers to about 1,200 from the current 2,500 by March 2011. It will cut costs by increasing the volume of parts and materials purchased from each supplier.

Its procurement costs currently total about 2.5 trillion yen.

The consolidation of suppliers will include video game subsidiary Sony Computer Entertainment Inc, which has enjoyed considerable freedom in purchasing supplies.
Sony, the maker of Bravia LCD TVs and PlayStation game consoles, has forecast an operating loss of 110 billion yen in the year to next March, after logging a 227.8 billion yen loss last business year.

It has said it will axe 16,000 jobs and close 14 percent of its 57 manufacturing sites.

Shares in Sony, which vies with Panasonic Corp for the title of the world's largest consumer electronics maker, lost 1.4 percent to 2,470 yen, in line with a fall in the benchmark Nikkei average.

(Reporting by Sachi Izumi; Editing by Michael Watson)

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE54K1VI20090521

Microsoft debuts Vine for Emergency Social Networking

Microsoft on Monday debuted the beta version of Vine, a new social networking service that works somewhat like Twitter but is aimed specifically at keeping friends and family up to date in an emergency.

A beta version of the Vine service was released in Seattle, according to The Seattle Times.

Vine appears as a dashboard on a PC screen that shows the local community the status of the user's contacts. It can be used to send alerts or reports and communicate with the user's network via PC or mobile devices, the newspaper said.

Microsoft provided details of the services and a screen shot that can be found by clicking here.

As with Twitter or Facebook, Vine can be used to instantly send messages to and keep in touch with a user's specific network of contacts.

However, Microsoft intends that the service be used when people need to keep in touch and informed during times of need.

It has a map on the screen that includes information about specific locations, including articles culled from 20,000 local and national news sources as well as public safety announcements from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Microsoft said.

It also includes information associated with people who are part of the user's Vine network, and alerts users when their contacts post a report or update their Facebook status.

Vine also allows sending and receiving of alerts to groups of people such as neighbors, friends and others who might need to be contacted in an emergency. Microsoft said the alerts can be sent as e-mail, text messages or other formats including via social networking applications such as Twitter or Facebook.

Microsoft said the beta version of the Vine service is slated to be available to a limited number of users in May.

source:http://www.crn.com/networking/217200819;jsessionid=240MAI1MMT0VAQSNDLPCKH0CJUNN2JVN

T-Mobile plans to use Google Android OS for Home Devices

T-Mobile is set to launch two new devices running on the Google Android platform early next year. The wireless carrier will introduce a home phone and a tablet computer, both powered by Google's mobile operating system.

Confidential documents cited by The New York Times suggest that alongside its current offering of Google Android devices (T-Mobile G1 and soon the G2), T-Mobile will venture into unchartered waters with a home phone and a small form factor tablet computer, also powered by Google's mobile OS.

The home phone from T-Mobile is said to plug into a docking station and also come with another device used to synchronize data while it recharges the battery. The tablet computer will feature a seven-inch touchscreen and won't have any physical keyboard.

T-Mobile was the first wireless carrier in the world to launch a Google Android phone -- the T-Mobile G1. Despite starting off slowly, Android gained user traction and more mobile phone manufacturers committed to building devices using it. The wireless carrier will launch the T-Mobile G2, its second iteration of the Google phone later on this year.

After delaying its Android offering, Samsung is also set to launch several new Google devices, the first one reportedly coming out in June. Motorola is building an Android phone as well, with an expected launch date sometime in October.

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http://www.pcworld.com/article/162636/tmobile_to_use_google_android_os_for_home_devices.html