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Market Roundup AMD Live Coming to a Home Entertainment Center near You |
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This week,
One of the hottest spots in the consumer electronics market
currently and in the projected future is the home entertainment center. Most
consumers currently have a collection of various products that may or may not
function together, but it would be nice to have greater integration. Last
August, Intel introduced a VIIV line of computers that would incorporate quick
on-and-off similar to other entertainment devices, 5.1 surround sound with
optional 7.1 surround sound support, and automatic transcoding of media files.
VIIV technology will be a platform using Intel’s dual-core technology within
the PC in addition to High Definition Audio, the Intel PRO Client
In the meanwhile, the competition between
Cisco Zero’s Progress Payments
For the past few months, Cisco Systems has been busy
bringing its Unified Communications solutions to market. Cisco Unified Communications
is a solution set that seeks to allow organizations to put in place
communications systems that foster better collaboration and enable more
efficient networking between clients inside and outside the enterprise. This
week the company announced that Cisco Systems Capital, a wholly owned
subsidiary, would make 0% progress payment financing available on qualified
projects implemented by Cisco’s partner organizations. Qualified customers can
now instigate projects with Cisco partners holding Cisco IP Communications
(IPC) Specialization with a new financing package. Projects, which must have a
minimum transaction value of $50,000, have project milestones agreed by the
Cisco channel partner and the customer with the maximum funding amounting to 80%
of the initial lease value. With the project underway, the customer indicates
to Cisco Capital as each of the agreed milestones is reached at which point
Cisco Capital makes payment to the channel partner. At the final completion of
the project the total investment is transferred to a lease. At the time of
writing the 0% interest progress payment option is only available to potential
customers in the
There is no question that the management of cash flow is of critical importance to the vast majority of organizations in the world, both potential customers and the entire IT channel community. Appropriate IT financing can prove to be a decisive factor in many IT projects, and in a large number can even prove to be the most decisive aspect. With most, if not quite all, new IT undertakings requiring considerable time between project initiation and business benefit delivery, the need for flexible financing options is of more importance than ever before. Cisco Capital’s channel financing solutions seek to provide partners with the financial scope to undertake sophisticated projects without having to bear undue fiscal constraints. Indeed, the company now offers a range of short- and long- term solutions that when used intelligently by its partner community can attract both new customers and deliver additional profit margin. Equally, the company’s end customer base can also benefit by implementing solutions that might not otherwise have been undertaken or that may have not commenced as rapidly.
Flexible financing is an area that many IT vendors have yet
to fully exploit. It can prove to be an attractive differentiator when
technical solutions appear to be superficially similar. It can also turn into a
profitable business in its own right. The days when IT financing equated to
simple lease-back arrangements are coming to an end as the announcement of the
0% progress payment plan by Cisco Capital so admirably underlines. The project
financing option provides additional financial flexibility and it will be
interesting to see how Cisco seeks to build on this advance both in terms of
geographical extension and with additional new financial solution options.
Cisco Capital is to be congratulated on this news and this certainly brings
Cisco’s solution financing capabilities much closer in scope to the IT
financing heavyweights of
Security Wars, Round… Whatever
In response to Microsoft’s new security offering, called OneCare, and Symantec’s soon-to-be-released Genesis (recently renamed Norton 360), McAfee has developed Falcon. Falcon claims to protect PCs against spam, viruses, spyware, and other threats such as phishing scams and rootkits. It also claims to offer tools to prevent data loss, help optimize PC performance, and secure a wireless network. Falcon is slated to debut this summer in a variety of packages. Norton 360 is stated to be able to integrate Symantec’s PC security and tune-up technologies with newly acquired and newly developed technology to be delivered as an all-in-one service, with automatically installed updates. The service is claimed to provide data protection through automated online back-up and online transaction security, where new tools are claimed help protect consumers from phishing scams and crimeware. OneCare claims that it will provide features including Protection Plus (anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewall with automatic updates), Performance Plus (regular PC tuneups), Backup and Restore (backup and functionality restoration), and Help and Support (many modes, including email, phone, and chat).
These systems are a new class of security solution that
seeks to integrates everything and thus make it all easier for the lay person
who might otherwise be successfully put off by the knowledge curve required to
implement most existing security/system integrity undertakings. However, price
competition through modules may be a very powerful weapon for McAfee over the
others. If McAfee becomes the way that users install and maintain their
networks (especially wireless), this is a nice end run around Symantec who
offers no such capability and a way to counter the XP and
However, any of these systems would be better than what people are forced to deal with now, which even at its most simple, is still complex. Software as a service is something many consumers seem to want, and McAfee makes a good point in that not everybody wants everything. Security vendors in particular have a tendency to over-engineer; offering “choice of packages” may ultimately be more important than the quality of the individual products. These new offerings will most likely be more user-friendly because they are easier systems to deal with, especially for those consumers who are less technically able. However, these are not replacement security systems, but rather a new category of product for a new class of user (one that doesn’t necessarily enjoy fussing, strange as that concept seems). The default for desktop security has traditionally been McAfee or Norton, but with Microsoft entering the arena, the two champs are vying for the right to make Microsoft not the default security system for a majority of users. We believe the three competitors may now heavily court the PC makers to see who gets the default position when new systems ship. This strategy would be critical in gaining market penetration.