Most of this week's movement happens on the SDRAM front. High-end DDR drops significantly, making it a more cost-effective solution than RDRAM.A couple of high-end Rambus modules have also dropped in price, however, the fact that they must be purchased in pairs makes the cost fairly prohibitive. Check out this week's Weekly Memory prices'.
[Comment on SharkyForums]

Western Digital Corp. announced that Matt Massengill, president and chief executive officer, will be presenting at the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Semiconductor & Systems Conference on Tuesday, March 6, 2001 at 3:00 pm PST. A live audio webcast of the presentation will be available in the Investor section of the Western Digital Web site.
[Comment on SharkyForums]

NEC Computers Inc. has announced that Larry Miller has been selected as vice president of marketing. Miller will manage all marketing activities for NEC Computers, including advertising, product marketing, public relations, technical marketing, and program marketing. He is also responsible for business development initiatives, including cooperative marketing, Web-based partnerships and integrated joint marketing, and business relationships. Miller has more than 15 years of experience in high technology product marketing, as well as strategic management experience. As part of the new corporate vision, Miller has principal responsibility for developing NEC Computers' mobile solutions strategy in North America.v
[Comment on SharkyForums]

The semiconductor sector, suffering from a supply glut and weaker demand for computers and electronics, began the week with half a dozen new warnings and a report that showed sales of microchips weakened for a third straight month in January. Nevertheless, shares of most semiconductor makers rose on Monday as investors, already bracing for bad news, breathed a sigh of relief that the numbers were not worse. [Source: Reuters]
[Comment on SharkyForums]

Today on Hardware Central: The E-Book Revolution?: Although the current E-Book model is not making a huge impact with conventional books, the format may be better suited to a more disposable type of print media. For instance, downloading an inexpensive E-Book copy of a magazine, newspaper or periodical would be a welcome enhancement to existing distribution methods.
[Comment on SharkyForums]

Fuji Photo Film Co Ltd., will likely announce on Tuesday that it will buy half of Xerox Corp's 50 percent stake in their 39-year-old Japanese joint venture, an industry source said. The imminent deal, which media reports said would likely be valued at $1.5 billion, offers a lifeline to the struggling U.S. copier maker, which last October promised to sell $2 billion to $4 billion in assets to cut its $17 billion in corporate debt. A Fuji Photo spokesman said no decision had been made on whether to buy part of Xerox's stake in the equally owned venture, Fuji Xerox, although Xerox had said in October it would seek to sell half its stake to its Japanese partner.
[Comment on SharkyForums]

IBM Corporation and the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) announced here they have entered into an agreement to help erase the 'digital divide,' beginning with a program to bring technology to higher education institutions supported by HACU. At the Fourth International Conference on Globalization of Education, IBM announced several technology initiatives with HACU including an affinity marketing program that allows member institutions, students and faculty to purchase IBM desktop and notebook computers at a special price. In addition, IBM and HACU announced they will work together to recruit Hispanics to pursue high-tech careers. HACU represents more than 270 colleges and universities with high Hispanic student enrollment. HACU is the only national education association that represents institutions serving Hispanics -- with many of the HACU member institutions located in California, Texas, Arizona, Florida and Illinois. Many HACU member institutions do not have the technology infrastructure in place that gives their students and faculty access to the Internet. This new technology agreement between IBM and HACU will help give those members easy access to this critical technology at a special price.
[Comment on SharkyForums]

Dell has recently announced the OptiPlex GX400, its first Pentium 4-powered desktop computer tailored specifically for corporate and institutional users. Priced in line with Dell's Pentium III-based OptiPlex systems, the midnight-gray OptiPlex GX400 is the fastest and most powerful OptiPlex desktop system and is available immediately in the U.S. and Canada. At the heart of the GX400 is the Intel Pentium 4 processor, the most powerful microprocessor ever featured in a Dell OptiPlex system. Featuring the Intel 850 chipset and Rambus memory, the GX 400 will initially be available with the Pentium 4 processor at 1.3 and 1.4 GHz with 256KB Advanced Transfer Cache memory, up to 2 GB RDRAM and hard drives and up to 40 GB in capacity to meet the needs of the high-performance desktop computer users. The OptiPlex GX400 features an award-winning, midnight gray OptiFrame mini-tower chassis designed for maximum expansion capacity and easy accessibility. The GX400 features integrated audio and supports a wide variety of AGP video and PCI audio options. Designed for maximum manageability, the OptiPlex GX400 also features Dell's LegacySelect Technology Control, which allows IT managers to enable or disable any combination of parallel, serial ports, and floppy drives to provide the right balance of functionality and IT control for each workgroup.

Immediately available in the U.S. and Canada, prices start at $1,299 for an OptiPlex GX400 that includes an Intel Pentium 4 processor at 1.3 GHz, 128 MB PC600 RDRAM, 10 GB hard disk drive, integrated 10/100 networking and audio, NVIDIA TNT2 Pro 16MB AGP card, 1.44 MB floppy disk and CDROM drives.
[Comment on SharkyForums]