Lenovo, NEC in Japanese joint venture to sell PCs

TOKYO/DAVOS (Reuters) - Chinese group Lenovo, the world's No. 4 PC brand, is to invest $175 million in a joint venture with Japanese company NEC to sell PCs in Japan, it said, to help it outpace global market growth.

The new company will also sell personal computers to the overseas Japanese population, and has no plans to sell NEC-branded computers on Lenovo's home turf in China, NEC chief executive Nobuhiro Endo said on Thursday.

Lenovo will own 51 percent of the joint venture with the balance belonging to NEC which will have an option to sell that stake to Lenovo after five years.

"It is probably NEC's clients and the additional scale that Lenovo is looking for," said Vincent Chen, an analyst with Yuanta Securities in Taipei. "Most of NEC's PC production is outsourced, so this could help give Lenovo more bargaining power with the contract manufacturers."

NEC is Japan's biggest PC brand with an 18 percent market share, according to research firm Gartner. Many foreign players, such as HP, have tried to break into Japan but failed to beat companies such as Toshiba on their home turf.

The deal marks a second attempt by Lenovo to expand in mature markets, after its 2005 purchase of U.S. group IBM's PC unit helped bring its name to the global stage.

PC companies mostly work on razor-thin margins that are improved only by cost savings and economies of scale. Lenovo had an operating profit margin of about 1.8 percent in the last reporting quarter, while bigger rival Acer clocked in at 2.9 percent.

The two companies may work together to develop smartphones jointly, Lenovo chief executive Yang Yuanqing told reporters. "The two companies have a lot of areas to cooperate in the future," Yang said. "This is the first step."

Others, such as HP and Dell, have also turned to higher-grossing data services and mobile devices such as tablet PCs and smartphones, which typically command double-digit gross margins, to shore up earnings.

BEATING MARKET GROWTH

Lenovo is aiming to outpace industry growth worldwide in PC shipments as it continues to grow opportunities globally, chief operating officer Rory Read said in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

"Our goal is to outpace the market," Read told Reuters.

PC sales have been hurt by the global popularity of tablet PCs such as Apple's iPad, which was in full view at the annual gathering of the world's economic and political elite.

Tablet computers will likely represent 10-15 percent of the PC market this year, Read said during an interview with Reuters Insider. Lenovo itself has previously said it will launch a tablet called LePad in China during the first half.

The iPad has spawned a new market for the once-defunct tablet PC segment, with over a dozen touchscreen tablets expected to be launched this year from brands such as Blackberry maker Research in Motion and Dell.

Worst hit by the new phenomenon have been Taiwan-based Acer and Asustek, having bet heavily on the low-cost netbook PC and seeing sales slowly drying up as consumers move toward tablets.

Global PC shipments excluding tablets rose 2.7 percent in the fourth quarter, weaker than the 5.5 percent originally expected by research firm IDC. PC shipments may also fall below IDC's forecast of 10 percent this year from 346 million units in 2010.

(Writing by Kelvin Soh in Hong Kong; Editing by Dan Lalor)

TIMELINE - Samsung's growth to a top global brand

REUTERS - Samsung Group, headquartered in Seoul, is South Korea's largest chaebol, and accounts for 20 percent of the country's exports. It is also the world's second-largest conglomerate by revenue.

Here's a timeline of the group's growth from its humble beginnings in Daegu, now a major metropolitan area in the southeast of the country.

1938: Lee Byung-chull, son of a wealthy landowner and rice miller, opens a company trading groceries and making noodles.

1948: He officially sets up Samsung Corp before expanding the business later into trucking, textiles and sugar refining.

1950s: Samsung expands into many other areas including department stores, the Joongang Ilbo daily newspaper, a shipbuilder, a securities company and a chemical firm.

1969: Samsung Electronics is established. It produces its first black-and-white TVs in 1972 and expands to refrigerators, washing machines and colour TVs during the 1970s.

1977: Samsung acquires a Korean semiconductor manufacturing firm, which later grows to become the world's top memory chip making business.

1983: Samsung Electronics starts manufacturing computers, enters 64k DRAM business.

1987: Lee Byung-chull dies. His third son Lee Kun-hee takes over as group chairman. He changes the focus of the group from a mass-producer of lower-end goods to one that would use innovation and superior products to build a respected brand name.

1992: Samsung becomes the largest producer of memory chips in the world.

1995: Lee Kun-hee starts Samsung Motor, builds LCD plant and first liquid crystal display screen.

1997: Samsung enters the mobile phone business

1998: South Korea tumbles into Asia financial crisis; Samsung Motor sold to Renault at significant loss; Samsung Electronics becomes world's top LCD producer.

2005: Samsung surpasses Sony as most popular consumer electronics brand.

2008: Lee Kun-hee steps down as chairman after being convicted of tax evasion and breach of trust stemming from allegations he was trying to illegally transfer group equity ownership to his children.

2009: Lee Kun-hee granted a presidential pardon.

March 2010: Lee returns to Samsung as chairman

December 2010: Jay Y. Lee, the only son of Lee Kun-hee and considered heir to the Samsung throne, is appointed one of the presidents of Samsung Electronics.

(Compiled by Miyoung Kim and Bill Tarrant)

3-prong approach to protect your OS from attacks

Washington, Jan 27 (ANI): Experts at North Carolina State University have devised a new three-pronged approach to restore an OS if it is attacked.

"Our approach has three components: attack detection; security fault isolation; and recovery," said Dr. Yan Solihin.

The idea is to take a snapshot of the OS when it is functioning normally and then, if the OS is attacked, to erase everything that was done since the last "good" snapshot was taken.

The mechanism also allows the OS to identify the source of the attack and isolate it, so that the OS will no longer be vulnerable to attacks from that application.

However, this approach was considered impractical because taking these snapshots and running such a system significantly slowed operating speeds.

"But we've developed hardware support that allows the OS to incorporate these survivability components more efficiently, so that they take up less time and energy," Solihin said.

The researchers say the survival system takes up less than 5 percent of the OS's operating overhead.

The paper will be presented Feb. 16 at the IEEE International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture in San Antonio, Texas. (ANI)

Sony takes on DS and smartphones with new handheld

TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp unveiled a new handheld gaming device and announced it would make PlayStation games available on other makers' hardware, as it battles with Nintendo's DS and tries to fend off competition from Apple Inc's iPhone.

The announcement to an audience of hundreds packing the ballroom of a Tokyo hotel came the same day as Nintendo, which is readying the launch of a 3D version of its DS handheld next month, reported a 46 percent slide in quarterly profit, below analysts' estimates.

To the accompaniment of loud dance music, Sony showed off its new device, codenamed "NGP" for Next Generation Portable, featuring a 3G wireless data connection and a 5-inch organic light-emitting diode (OLED) touch screen, as well as motion sensors and a rear touch panel.

"The capabilities of handsets are leaping ahead and pick-up-and-play games are becoming a big business," Kazuo Hirai, the president of Sony's games unit, told reporters after a media briefing in Tokyo. "We have to be aware of that environment."

But it is unclear whether the new gadget can hold off the challenge from Apple and products emerging from rivals such as Samsung Electronics.

"The key will be pricing of the device," said Nobuo Kurahashi, an analyst at Mizuho Investors Securities. "If the company prices it cheaper than Nintendo's 3DS, it would be positive."

With smartphones and tablets offering a versatile alternative to handheld game devices, Sony needs new products able to tap a ballooning market for mobile gaming, which research firm Gartner expect to more than double to nearly $12 billion within three years.

Sony said the NGP will not go on sale until around the year-end and declined to give pricing details. Nintendo's 3DS will sell for 25,000 yen ($304.2) in Japan and about $250 in the United States.

Sony's latest release will stoke market speculation the Japanese consumer electronics giant is readying a gaming smartphone.

By the end of the year, Sony plans to make PlayStation games available on other portable devices running on Google's Android operating system, through a system called PlayStation Suite that will compete with applications from Apple.

"It's an alternative to the Apple stuff," said Ricardo Torres, editor-in-chief of games website gamespot.com. "Maybe another Angry Birds could be created on the PlayStation Suite. That's what they would love to happen." he said, referring to the hugely popular smartphone game.

Hurt by falling sales of its ageing DS ahead of the launch of the 3D-capable model, rival Nintendo's October-December operating profit was 104.6 billion yen ($1.3 billion), below an analysts' consensus of 118 billion yen.

Underscoring the tough competition, Nintendo cut its sales forecast for the Wii console to 16 million units from 17.5 million units for the year to March. It also lowered its DS sales forecast by 1 million units to 22.5 million, but kept its profit outlook unchanged.

Nintendo's DS sold nearly 136 million units up to last September. Sony's PSP has sold some 61 million.

Shinichiro Matsushita, an equity analyst at Daiwa Securities, said Nintendo succeeded in widening the attraction of computer games to older people and women. He said Sony's product might appeal more to core gamers.

"I wonder if Sony wants to attract the same user categories with the new product," said Matsushita.

Investors will now focus on a planned Sony Ericsson event in Barcelona on Feb. 13, with growing expectations a PlayStation phone could be unveiled.

Next week, Sony is expected to post a fall in profits for the October-December quarter, underscoring the challenges facing Sony's Welshborn CEO Howard Stringer, who has struggled to recreate the magic of Sony's past hits, such as the Walkman cassette player and the Trinitron TV.

(Additional reporting by Ayai Tomisawa; Editing by Anshuman Daga and Nathan Layne)

Facebook denies to launch branded phones with HTC

LONDON (Reuters) - Facebook has no plans to launch Facebook-branded phones with Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC, it said on Thursday, following reports that it planned to launch an official tie-up next month.

"This is really just another example of a manufacturer who has taken our public APIs (application programming interfaces) and integrated them into their device in an interesting way," said Dan Rose, head of business development at Facebook.

London business newspaper City A.M. had reported that HTC would unveil two new Facebook-branded mobile phones at next month's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, in a story that was widely picked up in other media.

"The rumours around there being something more to this HTC device are overblown," Rose told journalists at a company event in London. Asked whether the device would be Facebook-branded, he answered: "No."

Mobile is an increasingly important driver of traffic to Facebook, which says 250 million users per month access the social network on mobile devices.

HTC was the manufacturer of the first Google-branded phone, the Nexus One.

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)

Egypt's online movement takes to the streets

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's web activists have been brazen critics of the President Hosni Mubarak 30-year rule online. This week's unprecedented protests across Egypt showed they are becoming formidable opponents offline too.
Activists have used Facebook, Twitter and other social media to rally supporters online, coordinate protests and share tips on how to dodge arrest and deal with teargas. They blame the government for making access to the sites patchy.
"Mubarak took over Twitter and we took over the streets. Good deal," one anonymous user tweeted.
With two thirds of Egypt's 79 million people under the age of 30 and with many frustrated by largely toothless opposition parties, many of Egypt's youth have turned to the digital sphere as one of the few channels available to express their anger.
"The system has not responded to repeated calls for reform," said political analyst Nabil Abdel Fattah. "But these new generations managed though virtual space to break that silence and move to the streets."
Analysts say web activists have to prove they can sustain the momentum of protests and may find numbers shrink if the state responds with past tactics such as wage hikes and handouts for the poor instead of the political change they are demanding.
But for now, the web activists, who called for Tuesday's "Day of Wrath" that kicked off protests now in their third day, are revelling in their success in bringing demonstrators out.
"This revolution will be called the revolution of the internet youth," a member of a Facebook group calling for protests wrote. "We will take it all the way to the end."
Protesters in Egypt have been inspired by fellow Arabs in Tunisia who toppled their president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, of 23 years. They too spread the word for protests online.
Egyptians have the same complaints that drove Tunisians on to the streets: surging food prices, poverty, unemployment and authoritarian rule that smothers public protests.
DRIVING FORCES
One of the driving forces for Egypt's calls for change was a Facebook group set up by activists enraged by the death of anti-corruption activist Khaled Said, who right groups say was tortured to death in June. Two policemen now face trial.
The activists are not the traditional government critics, showing no religious or other loyalty except to their call for political change.
The Muslim Brotherhood, with it large grassroots network, has stayed largely on the sidelines of the demonstrations. Egypt's registered opposition parties are fractured and weak.
"This was a new mixture of young people mobilised primarily using internet technology," said Amr Hamzawy, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment's Middle East Centre.
But without an organised structure beyond the web, online activists may struggle to keep the momentum going.
Hamzawy said that if protests did start faltering, the government may see an opportunity to "give concessions on social and economic demands, try to ease tensions a bit, control prices, but ignore the political core of the demands."
In 2008, protests in the industrial city of Mahallah el-Kubra over price rises and shortages of subsidised bread were championed on the web. But the government response, first with tough security and then promises of wage hikes, defused it.
To help protesters stay the course this time, websites have offered a manual for would-be demonstrators on what to do when teargas is fired, how to dodge arrest and tips on a citizen's constitutional rights in case of detention.
'BETTER ORGANISED'
Those have been listed with detailed demands, including a call for Mubarak to quit and the formation of a national unity government, as well as guidance on what to chant. Mobile numbers of supportive lawyers and activists are also listed.
The web allows protest locations to be quickly communicated.
"They are becoming better organised, they are able to coordinate, at least to a degree which sustained their activities," Hamzawy said.
Buoyant activists on Facebook are now calling for the biggest protest on Friday, the Egyptian weekend. It gained 75,000 online supporters in about 24 hours.
But the groups are heavily dependent on the internet for networking and coordination, a problem that can slow mobilisation if social media networks go down.
Egyptians have already complained of patchy access to Twitter and Facebook, blaming the government, although they have found ways to access the sites via proxies.
Mobile networks and text messages also provide a back up, although users also complain of some disruption.
The government denies any role in disrupting the internet and insists it allows free expression in peaceful protests.
"Trying to cut off social media debate is like trying to cut the head off a hydra. Another one grows back very quickly," said Mark Hanson, London-based new media strategist.
According to some web activists, cyber attackers have targetted the Interior Ministry, Communications Ministry and ruling National Democratic Party websites.
The Tunisian model suggests that any government crackdown will struggle to contain the flow of information, and may simply mobilise more web users and other sympathisers into action.
"We will not be afraid any longer," many bloggers repeat on their sites. "Egypt will be liberated. You can try to block Facebook but you will still find us on the streets."
(Additional reporting by Marius Bosch in Johannesburg and Peter Apps in London; Editing by Edmund Blair and Myra MacDonald)

Shweta assaulted by ex-husband again

Bigg Boss 4 winner and television star Shweta Tiwari has been assaulted by ex-hubby Raja Chaudhary again, reported a tabloid. Shweta lodged a complaint accusing Raja of physical and verbal abuse.

Senior Inspector R Prabhu of Malad police station said, "Raja Chaudhary forcefully entered Shweta's house and assaulted her and her friend Abhinav Kohli. As per court order, Raja is not supposed to go to Shweta's residence. But he breached the order. We have booked him for assaulting, trespassing, and abusing Shweta and Kohli. He already has a number of cases against him, some at Oshiwara police station. And now we will extern him."

Shweta Tiwari has demanded police protection after continuous harassment. Raja came to Shweta's house and abused her and tried to take away their daughter with him. Earlier he had barged into the house in October when Shweta was in the Bigg Boss house.

The police tried to find Raja but he is absconding. He has fled from his Lokhandwala residence.