Apple leikkaa iPhone SE kapasiteettia heikon kysynnän vuoksi

Lisäksi Ben Thompson haastatteli Nvidian Jensen Huangia

Mar 29, 2022

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Apple leikkaa iPhone SE kapasiteettia

Nikkei Asia kertoo lähteisiinsä vedoten, että Apple aikoo vähentää hiljattain julkaistun iPhone SE -mallin tuotantoa n. 20 % heikon kysynnän vuoksi. Kuluttajien heikentyneen kysynnän taustalla lienee Ukrainan sota ja kiihtyvä inflaatio. Apple on myös Nikkein mukaan vähentänyt AirPodien tuotantoa ainakin 10 miljoonan kappaleen verran.

TAIPEI -- Apple plans to make about 20% fewer iPhone SEs next quarter than originally planned, in one of the first signs that the Ukraine war and looming inflation have started to dent consumer electronics demand, sources briefed on the matter told Nikkei Asia.
Apple launched the iPhone SE as its first 5G-capable budget phone less than three weeks ago but is now telling multiple suppliers that it aims to lower production orders by about 2 million to 3 million units for the quarter, citing weaker-than-expected demand, four people told Nikkei Asia. The U.S. tech giant also reduced orders for its AirPods earphones by more than 10 million units for all of 2022, as the company predicted lukewarm demand and wanted to reduce the level of inventories.
The company shipped about 76.8 million units of AirPods in 2021, Counterpoint Research data showed, but people with knowledge of the situation said overall shipments for 2022 could likely see a decline.

HP ostaa Polyn

Hewlett-Packard (HP) kertoi eilen ostavansa viestintälaitteita (esim. videokameroita, konferenssikaiuttimia) työpaikkakäyttöön valmistavan Polyn. Yhtiöt arvioivat Polyn n. 3,3 miljardin dollarin arvoiseksi ja HP lupasi maksaa yli 50 % preemion Polyn osakkeen hinnasta viime viikon lopulla. Wall Street Journalilta:

HP Inc. agreed to buy Poly, a maker of workplace communications products, for $1.7 billion in a bet on the rise of hybrid work.
HP will pay $40 cash for each outstanding share of Poly, a premium of more than 50% from its closing price Friday. The companies valued the deal for Poly, formerly known as Plantronics, at $3.3 billion, including debt.
Poly makes audio and video products, such as headsets, desk phones and other conferencing products. The company is expected to report annual sales of about $1.53 billion for its fiscal year that ends this month, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet.

NYT syyttää Nokiaa FSB:n harjoittaman seurannan mahdollistamisesta

En ole aivan varma miten tästä jutusta pitäisi kirjoittaa, mutta The New York Times julkaisi eilen suhteellisen kattavan artikkelin siitä, miten Nokia olisi laitteitaan myymällä mahdollistanut Venäjän tiedustelupalvelu FSB:n toimien, kuten Venäjän kansalaisten teleseurannan:

Nokia said this month that it would stop its sales in Russia and denounced the invasion of Ukraine. But the Finnish company didn’t mention what it was leaving behind: equipment and software connecting the government’s most powerful tool for digital surveillance to the nation’s largest telecommunications network.
The tool was used to track supporters of the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny. Investigators said it had intercepted the phone calls of a Kremlin foe who was later assassinated. Called the System for Operative Investigative Activities, or SORM, it is also most likely being employed at this moment as President Vladimir V. Putin culls and silences antiwar voices inside Russia.
For more than five years, Nokia provided equipment and services to link SORM to Russia’s largest telecom service provider, MTS, according to company documents obtained by The New York Times. While Nokia does not make the tech that intercepts communications, the documents lay out how it worked with state-linked Russian companies to plan, streamline and troubleshoot the SORM system’s connection to the MTS network. Russia’s main intelligence service, the F.S.B., uses SORM to listen in on phone conversations, intercept emails and text messages, and track other internet communications.

Nokia julkaisi lehdistötiedotteen artikkelista, missä se kutsui artikkelia harjaanjohtavaksi ja alleviivasi, että yhtiö ei rakenna, asenna tai huolla SORM-seurantalaitteita.

The New York Times, in its article of March 28, makes claims regarding Nokia’s role in Russia’s lawful intercept system, also known by the abbreviation SORM. Nokia believes this article is misleading. As Nokia has made clear to The New York Times, Nokia does not manufacture, install or service SORM equipment or systems. Any suggestions that we do, are incorrect.
Lawful intercept is a standard capability that exists in every network in almost every nation. It provides properly authorized law enforcement agencies with the ability to track and view certain data and communications passing through an operator’s network for purposes of combatting crime.

Suomessa niin Yle kuin Helsingin Sanomat käsittelivät artikkelia. Helsingin Sanomat omassa jutussaan haastatteli Aalto Yliopiston tietoliikenteen professori Heikki Mannerta, joka ihmetteli NYT:n raportointia.

Suosittelut 🕵️

Ben Thompson haastatteli Nvidian Jensen Huangia

Ben Thompson julkaisi eilen haastattelun Nvidian perustajan ja toimitusjohtaja Jensen Huangin kanssa. Haastattelussa on paljon erinomaisia yksityiskohtia mm. ohjelmoitavien Shader-ohjelmien historiasta ja tietenkin tekoälystä, mutta itseäni eniten kiinnosti Jensenin näkemys siitä miksi Nvidia oli niin kovin innoissaan ARM:n ostamisesta.

Yksi merkittävä tekijä oli Nvidian visio siitä, että ARM voisi vallata tosissaan jalansijaa palvelinkeskuksissa. Ja vaikka itse kauppa ei toteutunut, Jensenin mukaan ARM panostaa nyt enemmän servereihin suunnattuihin prosessoreihin kuin ennen ehdotettua kauppaa:

Given that, why did you want to buy ARM? What was the connection there where there’s other folks that just want a general purpose processor. Why even bother dealing with that whole ecosystem when you could just build what you need for your new vision of computing?
JH: Three reasons. First, it was up for sale.
Yeah. On the market.
JH: Right, it was on the market. Number two, it is a singular asset. You’ll never find another ARM asset again. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing that gets built, and another one won’t get built. The third reason is that we felt and we believed and it’s true that their primary focus on mobile was fantastic, but their future focus ought to be the data center. But the data center market is so much smaller in units compared to mobile devices, that the economic motivation for wanting to focus on servers may be questionable. If we own the singular asset that’s up for sale, and we were to motivate them, encourage them, direct them in addition to continuing to work on mobile, also work on data centers, it would create another alternative CPU that can be shaped into all kinds of interesting computers. Within our ownership, we would be able to channel them much more purposefully into the world’s data centers.
Well, in the last two years, the two companies spent a lot of time together, not in working together, but in seeing the future together. And we’ve succeeded, I think, and they naturally also were starting to feel that way, that the future of data centers is a real opportunity for them, and if you look at the ARM roadmap since two years ago, the single threaded performance roadmap of ARM has improved tremendously. So irrespective of the outcome, I think the time that we had spent with them has been phenomenally helpful for the whole industry for us.
So the breakup fee was a strategy consulting fee is basically how it turned out.
JH: Well, you know what? We can always go make more money. It was worth a try.

Sattumalta Acquired-podcastin tyypit julkaisivat eilen jakson Nvidian historiasta jonka voi kuunnella alta. Jaksolla on kestoa kaksi tuntia, ja sille on ilmeisesti jatko-osakin tulossa.

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