GLG News by Semiconductor Experts in GLG Member Programs (California)

Virtualization, together with advances in hardware, will dramatically change the face of the data center. Change will come slowly, but it will come. “The data center is the computer” will be the operating paradigm eventually.

Mobile service, and particularly International mobile service, is a hugely profitable market for mobile carriers. Consequently they are fighting hard to prevent VoIP from entering that market. If Skype can finally get into this market it will be the first movement in a landslide.

Microsoft’s latest offering sounds the death knell for traditional PBX’s. Unified (audio, video, email, IM) communications will be normal in 3-5 years. Microsoft may not dominate this market, but they will have a huge impact.

The article point a very important issue, there is no hope for Micron to compete in the DRAM market with the Asian companies (Samsung, Hynix, Elpida). As all the other US companies (sadly) got out of the memory business, Micron will have to exit this market.

Samsung has been loosing market share during the last few quarters, by increasing capacity they would like to fight back especially Hynix and Elpida and regain market share....however the article mentions that it could be a devastating process since the DRAM market is already in a big decline in ASP,...

The article trying to show on a positive note that they are forming a consortium to encourage other semiconductor manufacturing to increase the adopting rate of SOI technology. However the fact is that the usage is not growing and SOI is still a niche application and will stay like that for a while....

Microsoft’s executives continue to test the waters to see if they can scare people away from Red Hat Linux. Whether or not they ever attempt to make good on these threats will likely depend on the reaction they get. If they ever believe they can get away with it, they will certainly sue someone.

The evidence continues to mount that Vista is not going to be successful any time soon. Despite the high numbers Microsoft is proud to announce, the reality (at least for enterprises) just gets uglier with time. Could this be the first Windows that is completely skipped by enterprises?

Nothing will inspire support for net neutrality like potential censorship. It seems likely that public pressure will prevent AT&T, Verizon and others from actually enforcing widespread censorship, but the threat is chilling. Small-scale censorship will likely continue absent publicity for each event....

Red Hat’s Linux business continues to grow and thrive. Novell’s SuSE Linux business is also growing well, albeit from a much smaller base. This shows the Linux business model is successful, despite moves from Microsoft and Oracle.