E Buzz - 14 July 2010

The chip industry is already forgetting the lessons from the past slump in demand, according to executives at Semicon West 2010 in San Francisco.Demand is currently strong, but several senior managers expressed concerns at an executive roundtable that the industry had not learned from past experience. "My fear is that we're going to unlearn the lessons of the downturn," said Rich Wallace, chief executive of KLA-Tencor. "The challenge needs to be how to meet demands without overheating the market. I suspect the industry has got better at working leaner, but old habits creep in."

Chipmaker posts profit of $2.89 billion, reversing last year's $398 million loss. Intel Corp. reported the best quarter in its 42-year history, with record sales and profits as demand from businesses for technology products continued to recover. The chip maker's second-quarter results topped even the company's expectations. It's closely-watched gross margins, which tends to drive the company's shares, jumped to a record 67%, above Wall Street's expectation of 64.1%, and sent shares up 8% in after-hours trading.

Ben & Jerry’s will become one of the first big brands to abandon regular email marketing. It will instead focus on social media. The ice cream brand has decided to cut its monthly newsletter because the feedback it received from customers suggested that the majority would prefer to be contacted on social media sites. Email marketing has long been established as one of the most effective digital marketing channels and has become a standard marketing channel for most brands.

Marketing Week 

Thompsonlocal.com has signed a three-year deal with Microsoft to become the first independent UK reseller of AdCenter, the pay-per-click offering for its Bing search engine. Richard Avery: head of digital and development at ThomsonLocal.comThe deal "will enable Thomson Local to provide businesses with enhanced geo-targeting capabilities, to match their adverts to location specific queries by Bing users," according to the directories company.

The London Evening Standard has appointed ad sales house Unanimis to exclusively sell its mobile inventory for its Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Java, Palm and Windows mobile apps. Unanimis will work with the title’s in-house ad sales team to promote sponsorship packages and homepage takeovers the title’s mobile products among advertisers. The updated Evening Standard’s apps have been downloaded 91,000 times since launching in May, while its iPhone app, which launched in February, has been downloaded over 115,000 times, according to both companies.

The Symbian operating system is in trouble, an analyst from Gartner has stated.  Nick Jones, writing on the Gartner blog, points to the fact that the rate at which Symbian is losing market share is accelerating.  He writes: “I just updated a slide on future smartphone market share which makes depressing reading for Symbian fans. Our new forecasts will be published at the end of July, but I doubt anyone will be surprised.”

July 14 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. is paying developers to build mobile applications for its Windows Phone 7 system to help it narrow a lead by rival products from Apple Inc. and Google Inc. The company is providing financial incentives ranging from free tools and test handsets to funds for software development and marketing, said Todd Brix, a senior director at Microsoft who works with app developers. In some cases, Microsoft is providing revenue guarantees, and will make up the difference if apps don’t sell as well as expected, he said.

Modu has announced the next generation in its modular mobile phone range, the Modu T – dubbed the world's lightest touchscreen phone. The new device will feature a widget-based touch interface, and multiple 'jackets' which it can slot into to boost functionality.

A New York judge has issued a temporary restraining order restricting the transfer of Facebook Inc.'s assets, following a suit by a New York man who claims to own an 84% stake in the social-networking company. Paul D. Ceglia filed a suit in the Supreme Court of New York's Allegany County on June 30, claiming that a 2003 contract he signed with Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg entitles him to ownership of the company and monetary damages.The suit is being heard by Judge Thomas Brown, who issued the temporary restraining order earlier this month. Facebook has requested that the case be moved to federal court.

A leading Chinese Internet regulator has vowed to reduce anonymity in China's portion of cyberspace, calling for requirements that people use their real names when buying a mobile phone or going online, according to a human rights group.  In an address to the national legislature in April, Wang Chen, director of the State Council Information Office, called for perfecting the extensive system of censorship the government uses to manage the fast-evolving Internet, according to a text of the speech obtained by New York-based Human Rights in China.

Associated Press