Will SSD prices fall to a level that can beat HDD or even Blu-ray Disc on a per GB level in the next 3 years?

T&A: Nikkei Electronics Asia has just released a feature story on the challenges Solid State Disks (SSDs) are posing to traditional Hard Disk Drives (HDDs).

What’s interesting with the feature is how it begins by talking about Baidu.com, the world’s third largest search engine in terms of searches (according to comScore Inc.), and how the China-based firm plans to utilize SSD (instead of HDDs) for almost every tenths of their search servers and 100% for Web search servers. (Editor opinions: 1) (more…)

T&A: A new case study (in PDF form) on the successful rollout of Packet One Networks (P1)’s WiMAX in Malaysia has been released by Green Packet Berhad (Green Packet). The latter is a leading developer of next-gen mobile broadband & networking solutions.

P1 rolled out Malaysia’s and South-east Asia’s first 802.16e 2.3GHz commercial WiMAX network in August 2008. We covered its Johor Bahru launch here. Since then, it has acquired over 80K subscribers and maintained a respectable ARPU (average revenue per user) of above US$26 (RM93).

Part of the success is attributable to the the tech from P1’s partner, Green Packet, who provided the innovative plug-and-play fixed and mobile devices and connectivity solutions. The case study explains how Green Packet took on this challenge to supply the products and solutions which helped accelerate P1’s launch and traction in Malaysia today. (Editor opinions: 1)

Navin Danapal, Technical Editor, HWM Malaysia

Navin (HWM Malaysia): It’s no surprise that Malaysia’s P1 WiMAX service owes its success to its parent company Green Packet. P1 is Green Packet’s portfolio to sell its CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) to the Middle-East markets, as well as South America.

This was outlined by Mr. Kevin Lee, Senior General Manager, Green Packet Malaysia, in a December 2008 interview with HWM Malaysia. (more…)

While peripherals and TVs with HDMI 1.4 support have yet to be rolled out, NXG has released a HDMI 1.4-compatible cable.

T&A: TechRadar.com put up a piece on HDMI 1.4 and the 10 things you should know about this tech upgrade from 1.3. This is a follow-up to a related story on new HDMI connectors we posted in March here and May here.

Basically, hot on the list of new things we can expect from 1.4 are integrated data support and stereoscopic 3D data streams.

With HDMI 1.4, you can soon throw away your snaking Ethernet cables and go one HDMI cable all the way.

This will give the home audio/entertainment space a bigger kick as you can now get not just your high definition video and audio streams, but also Internet data transfers for communication and connections. (more…)

Are telecom operators feeling the pinch from heavily subsidizing the iPhone to consumers?

T&A: Reuters made a report on a study showing that telecom operators who secured exclusive deals to sell the Apple iPhone in their home countries may have paid too high a price from the heavy subsidies they shell out to secure subscribers.

Strand Consult, a research firm which conducted the study, claimed that not one single telecom operator has seen an increase in market share, revenue or earnings from selling the iPhone.

The report also mentioned SingTel, the exclusive distributor of the iPhone in Singapore, where it has reported falling profits due to iPhone launches.

There’s also some foreshadowing in the study where other handset manufacturers are catching up with Apple as their new models begin to function and feel similar to the original 2007 iPhone.

T&A: Research firm GfK has released a report comparing first quarter of 2009 results for the consumer electronics and home appliance sectors in the Philippines versus previous quarters.

In general, consumer electronics (CE) dropped by 8% in terms of value and 4% in terms of units compared to the same period last year. Only LCD TVs and Portable Media Player (MP3/MP4) posted positive growths of 4.5% and 2.6% in units respectively when comparing month-to-month from May to June 2009.

(more…)