Daily Tech Briefing: Oct. 7, 2014
Hewlett-Packard executives confirmed reports on Oct. 6 that the company will split in two by the end of its fiscal year 2015 about 12 months from now, with one company carrying on HP's PC and printer businesses and the second unit retaining enterprise solutions and services offerings.
CEO Meg Whitman and Cathie Lesjak, executive vice president and CFO, explained in that the company, which over the past year has announced as many as 50,000 job cuts, will slash another 5,000 positions. While this has some questioning the effectiveness of the five-year restructuring plan Whitman introduced in 2014, the CEO claims that the timing on the split was right because of the success of the turnaround effort, pointing to the improved financial numbers, the growing innovation efforts and the new leadership at HP.
According to the Consumer Electronics Association's holiday outlook report, the 2014 holiday season will see the highest levels of consumer spending on consumer electronics since the organization began tracking holiday spending in 1994.
Total tech spending during the holidays is expected to increase 2.5 percent to reach a record $33.76 billion during the 2014 holiday season. The five consumer electronic gifts U.S. adults most want to receive are tablets, notebook computers, televisions, smartphones and video game consoles.
Further reading
Mobile security specialist Good Technology announced the availability of Good Work, a cloud-hosted or on-premise secure enterprise mobility management solution for businesses. The company also announced Good Secure Mobile Productivity Suite, an all-in-one cloud-based offering, combining the most requested business apps beyond email. Good Work introduces what it calls a people-centric design, including mobile presence integrated into email, calendar and contacts for access to colleagues.
Honda and its technology partner, Nvidia, showed off the new Connect embedded Android in-car infotainment system at the Paris Auto Show. It's built around Nvidia's latest Tegra mobile processor and will arrive in Honda's 2015 Civic, Civic Tourer and CR-V models in Europe, but no U.S. debut has been announced yet.
The system uses the automotive-grade Tegra processor to run a 7-inch capacitive touch-screen display for satellite navigation, AM/FM/DAB, rearview camera and vehicle information, according to Nvidia.
