Acer targets US., China in big global push

Taiwan's Acer, the world's fourth-largest PC maker, wants to challenge Dell and Lenovo Group in their home markets, as it aims to boost sales of its own brand by up to two-fifths in 2006.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (11 October) that Acer, which ranks below Dell, Hewlett Packard and Lenovo in the global market, aims sales of Acer-branded laptops and desktops to reach US$10 billion to US$11 billion next year versus US$8 billion in 2005, President Gianfranco Lanci said.

The Taiwanese firm's growth plan hinges on recently secured deals with retailers and distributors such as Circuit City Stores (CC.in the United States and Digital China Holdingsin China, Lanci said in a Tuesday interview. Self-branded computers now account for 80 to 85 percent of the firm's overall revenue, he added.

The Acer president said the company wanted to be number three (globally) by 2007, ahead of a briefing to outline Acer's new strategy for China, where homegrown Lenovo controls about a third of the market.

The Reuters/NYT report says that, in the second quarter, Dell was the world's top PC seller with 19 percent of the market, followed by Hewlett-Packard at 15.4 percent, Lenovo at 7.5 percent and Acer at 4.4 percent, according to International Data Corp.

North America and China are the two biggest growth areas for Acer, with the firm aiming to double sales in both markets in 2006, said Lanci, who assumed his post in January.

The report says that desite Dell's dominance of its home market, Acer intends to ramp up North American sales of PCs bearing its label to US$2 billion in 2006 -- or about a fifth of global Acer-brand sales, versus 11 to 12 percent this year.

In China, Lanci hopes Acer-branded PC sales would account for 4 to 5 percent of global sales this year, or about US$320 million.

Reuters says the PC maker is expected to chalk up overall revenue of T$299.57 billion in 2005 and T$383.14 billion in 2006, including sales of products not carrying its brand, according to the mean of 16 analysts polled by Reuters Estimates.

Hutchison Whampoa, the first operator to roll out third-generation mobile phone services in Europe, said on Monday its global 3G subscriber count had exceeded 10 million.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (10 October) that the Hong Kong conglomerate, which hopes to raise up to 2.5 billion euros by listing its Italian 3G operation on the Milan bourse later this year, had previously reported 9.4 million users as of late August.

The company is investing roughly US$25 billion globally in multimedia-enabled 3G, a commitment that for several years dragged down its stock price, although sentiment has improved as the business grows and the Italy listing nears.

Rival carriers including Vodafone Group now offer competing 3G services.

Reuters says in the NYT report that Hutchison, controlled by Hong Kong's richest tycoon, Li Ka-shing, also operates 3G networks in markets including the UK, Australia, Hong Kong and Sweden.

Sony Ericsson has updated its flagship P-series smartphone line by announcing a model with 3G, 802.11b. The manufacturer has also beefed up the camera and display, and finally added BlackBerry Connect and VoIP support in the bundle, according to an 11 October report in The Register.

The Register says that in its P800 and P910 incarnations, this has become the single most popular smartphone design in the world - thanks largely to its unobtrusiveness and ease of use as a plain phone. A flip means that the data part of the deal - the PDA and browser - can be accessed and put away very quickly.

In the latest model, the fifth generation of this design in as many years (if you count 2000's R320), Sony Ericsson has shrunk the physical dimensions of the screen while increasing the number of pixels on offer, says The Register.

Strong demand for mobile phones will continue into next year, defying forecasts of a market slowdown, Nokia's Chief Executive Jorma Ollila said in an interview published on Monday.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (10 October) that Ollila's comments buoyed shares in the Finnish group.

Last month, Nokia raised its third-quarter sales and profit forecasts, citing unexpectedly large sales as well as cost controls and one-off gains.

The Reuters report says that analysts' said Ollila appeared more positive now about the outlook for next year than he had been earlier.

Growth has come from stronger than expected demand in mature markets as people replace their handsets, as well as from emerging markets, where Nokia is the leader in low-cost phones.

The Nokia chief executive said the group's recent performance reflected its product line.

In the UK, a survey has revealed that a majority of net users want their ISPs to block spyware traffic.

The Register reports (11 October) that half (51 per cent) of 1,000 consumers quizzed by NOP said their service providers should block spyware apps - invasive programs that covertly snoop on user's online activities - while only one in 10 of those quizzed reckon employers should take responsibility for addressing the problem.

End user attitudes to seldom offered spyware screening services from ISPs mirror attitudes to spam filtering when such services were in their infancy four or five years ago, says The Register.

The NOP Survey, sponsored by security firm Blue Coat, which sells proxy appliances designed to block spyware from invading corporate boundaries, found only a third (36 per cent) of respondents understand what spyware is.

The survey found that one in 10 of those quizzed thought it was "a gadget from Star Wars". Although 30 per cent of respondents run spyware checkers on their office PC, the survey sample suggests that they've installed programs such as Microsoft Anti-Spyware and Spybot Search and Destroy independent of their IT departments, says The register.

The Register also reports that a separate online survey of 1,200 by Trend Micro in the US, Germany, and Japan found that a greater awareness of spyware threats, with 87 per cent of those quizzed saying they were aware of the risk posed by net snooping apps.

According to the study, encounters with spyware are growing, especially in smaller businesses. In the US, 40 per cent of end users surveyed have encountered spyware at work, as compared to 14 per cent in Japan and 23 per cent in Germany. In all three countries, end users from small and medium sized organisations reported a greater number of encounters than larger enterprises.

The Register adds that the survey found that a quarter (26 per cent) of American small business workers stated that they had fallen victim to spyware while at work.

Paypal is paying US$370 million for VeriSign's payment portal business.

The Register reports (11 October) that Paypal will incorporate the portal with its merchant services to better target small and medium businesses. The payment gateway provides a way for merchants to add simple, scalable payment pages to their websites. Verisign claims more than US$40 billion in transactions went through the portal in 2004.

VeriSign is also providing PayPal, and parent company eBay with security services.

The Register says that eBay and VeriSign have also signed a multi-year agreement which will see eBay buying up to two million two-factor authentication tokens. This will be offered to eBay and PayPal customers in 2006. It is expected to generate an extra US$100m incremental revenue in 2006.

Yahoo's online news search tool on Monday added internet journal entries as a supplement to professional media offerings -- an experiment that figures to test the public's appetite for information from alternative sources.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (10 October) that under Yahoo's new approach, a keyword search for online news will include a list of relevant Web logs, or ''blogs,'' displayed in a box to the right of the results collected from mainstream journalism.

Google, which runs the internet's leading search engine, so far has treated blogs differently, says AP. The company last month introduced a specialty search engine that does nothing but sift through blogs. Meanwhile, Google's news section continues to focus on material from mainstream media.

The AP/NYT report says that Yahoo's inclusion of blogs in its news section represents another validation for a growing group of people that are bypassing newspapers, magazines and broadcast outlets to report and comment on topical events.

Although many top bloggers lack formal journalism training, it hasn't stopped them from building loyal readerships or breaking news that the mainstream media either missed or ignored, says AP.

According to AP/NYT, Yahoo's news users can view blog results exclusively by clicking on the box. That option also shows relevant images posted on Yahoo's photo-sharing site, Flickr. Amateur photos posted online have drawn particular heavy interest recently after major news events such as the terrorist bombings in London and Hurricane Katrina.

The United States has embarked on a massive effort to create a secure digital driver's license system by early 2008 but some experts warn that the plan may be hugely expensive and lead to chaos.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (10 October) that Congress passed the Real ID Act last May and gave states three years to implement it. It laid out minimum national standards for licenses, which will have to include a digital photo, anti-counterfeiting features and machine-readable technology.

States will have to verify all documents presented to support license applications, such as birth certificates, Social Security cards and utility bills, with the issuing agency, and will be required to link their license databases so they can all be accessed as a single network.

According to the Reuters/NYT report, states will also be required to verify that a person applying for a license is in the country legally. They will have the option of issuing a separate credential to illegal aliens so that they will still be able to drive.

All but 11 states now require that drivers licenses be issued only to citizens or legal residents, but many do not verify applicants' identities.

Reuters says that some 227 million people hold drivers' licenses or identity cards given out by US states, which issue or renew about 70 million each year. Around 14 percent of US residents move annually, requiring address updates or new applications.

Supporters say the act was necessary because several of the hijackers who attacked New York and Washington on 11 September, 2001, had obtained licenses fraudulently which they then used to board planes.

Beyond that, adherents say the driver's license, which has become the primary means of identification in the United States for travel and commerce, is fundamentally insecure and untrustworthy because of widespread identity theft.

The video game industry on Monday vowed to challenge California Governon Arnold Schwarzenegger in court to fight a new law banning the sale of violent video games to children.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (10 October) that the trade group Entertainment Software Association ``intends to file a lawsuit to strike this law down and we are confident that we will prevail,'' President Douglas Lowenstein said in a statement on Monday.

The Reuters report says that Schwarzenegger signed the California measure into law last week, but it faces an uncertain fate. Federal courts have ruled against similar legislation in Washington state, the city of Indianapolis and St. Louis County in Missouri, finding the laws violated free speech guarantees in the US Constitution.

According to the Reuters/NYT report, the legislation bars the sale and rental to minors of games that show such things as the killing, maiming or sexual assault of a character depicted as human, and which are determined to be especially heinous, atrocious or cruel. Violators are subject to a US$1,000 fine.