NEWS&ANALYSIS
the
buzz
EARNINGS
HP’s profit
up 26 percent
HEWLETT-PACKARD REBOUNDED
from a shaky third quarter when
it announced a 26 percent
increase in its fourth-quarter
profit last week. The company
said it had higher sales in all its
main business areas, including
its storage and services division.
Officials said HP earned $1.09
billion in its fourth quarter, compared with $862 million during
the same period last year.
The storage and services division, which posted a loss of $208
million on $3.35 billion in sales in
the prior quarter, came back to
life in HP’s fourth quarter, posting
a profit of $107 million on $4.1
billion in revenue.
TV IPTV Edition software platform.
The telephone company
began testing an IP-based television service built on Microsoft’s TV IPTV Edition platform
in June. SBC and Microsoft will
begin trials next year and plan
commercial availability of the
IP-based television platform in
late 2005.
As part of the effort, construction is expected to begin early
next year on SBC Project
Lightspeed, which will deploy
fiber-optic cable closer to customers to provide new IP-based
services.
Project Lightspeed is expected to reach 18 million
households by the end of
2007, officials said.
SERVERS
NEC blade server
bundles Linux
MEDIA
SBC, Microsoft
ink IPTV deal
NEC SOLUTIONS AMERICA IS SHIP-
SBC COMMUNICATIONS AND MICRO-
soft signed a 10-year, $400 million agreement last week to
provide next-generation television services using Microsoft’s
ping a version of its blade server
bundled with a fault-tolerant version of Linux.
The fault-tolerant Express
5800/320Lb offers the company’s dual-modular hardware
architecture, which features
identical components running in
lock step, enabling one component to continue running if the
other fails.
The system supports
Windows, but last
week NEC said it has
added its own version of Fault Tolerant
Linux on the system.
NEC’s Linux variant was built on the
2.4.18 Linux kernel,
and now any application running on
that kernel can run
in fault-tolerant
mode.
The Express
5800/320Lb has a
starting price of
$25,499.
—Jeffrey Burt
more stability, according to officials.
The high-end RAZR V3 phone
is available now, and the device
is priced at $500 with a contract for two years
of service.
—Shelley Solheim
PRINTERS
Samsung
unveils MFP
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS
last week introduced
its SCX-4720F monochrome multifunction
printer.
At 17.7 inches by
17.1 inches by 18
inches, the machine
can be slid into
small spaces.
The $500 SCX4720F prints and
MOBILE
copies 22 pages per
minute, and it faxes
and scans.
The RAZR V3 is only
Among other feaa half-inch thick.
tures, the SCX-4720F
MOTOROLA’S NEWEST
allows users to reproduce a
high-end cell phone, the halfsingle image a number of times
inch-thick RAZR V3, is now shipon a page; fill a page with one
ping in the United States from
image; or copy both sides of
Cingular Wireless.
identification cards, including
Packed into the flip phone
driver’s licenses or insurance
are built-in Bluetooth wireless
cards.
support, video playback, a VGA
The SCX-4720F includes a
camera, a speakerphone and a
USB direct port for scanning and
quad-band antenna.
printing without a computer.
The phone’s metal-alloy casing gives the thin form factor
—Shelley Solheim
Motorola ships
RAZR phone
BY THE NUMBERS
Dell jumps
Dell’s quarterly net income (in $ millions)
900
750
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
600
[The GPL] is now serving beyond what we
would have said was its projected life.
300
450
150
0
Eben Moglen, general counsel for the Free Software Foundation
Q3
Q4
Fiscal 2004
Q1
Q2
Fiscal 2005
Q3
Source: Dell
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