By David Sims
[email protected]
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music
is a Glenn Miller swing set:
Funniest line in a news story so far today:
“The claim by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was based on reporting by Hamas
activists who observed the counting in the polling stations, the group said…”
…
A latest global survey reveals that “the theft or loss of personal or financial
information is the number one concern among consumers
worldwide,” according to a results reported in Comtex
Environment.
The Harris Interactive survey was commissioned by Visa International, and found that “theft or loss of personal or
financial information” was the number one concern among 64 percent of consumers
worldwide, edging out environmental degradation (62 percent) and terrorism (58
percent).
Other major issues for the consumers are job losses, disease or epidemics, and
natural disasters, the survey says. The release of Chris Selland’s all-time
favorite movie,
Miss Congeniality II
on video and the possibility that Sandra Bullock might be possessed by Satan to
make
Miss Congeniality III scored
only slightly below Iran’s nuclear arms program and Asian bird flu.
Seventy-seven percent of the Chinese
surveyed are “highly concerned” about having personal or financial
information lost or stolen, 13 points higher than the worldwide average, the
survey shows. Seventy-six percent of Indians were likewise concerned about lost
or stolen information, but only 52 percent of Japanese and 48 percent of
Australians.
“Corresponding to China’s overall concerns, an overwhelming 90 percent of the
Chinese reported that they are more concerned as a result of what they have
heard or seen in the news over the past few months regarding people’s personal
or financial information being lost or stolen,” Comtex says.
In Nigeria, the number one concern was that there are fewer
and fewer moneyed morons taking those “Hi, my name is Obutu Obsanjano, and my
father’s a dictator who wants to put $27.8 million in your bank account”
e-mails seriously, as most fools appear to have gone separate ways from their
money by now. At least fools with e-mail addresses and bank accounts.
Twenty-one percent of Chinese consumers consider it “very” or “extremely”
likely that their personal or financial information will be lost or stolen in
the near future.
“More than 6,000 consumers in 12 countries including Australia, China, India,
Japan in the Asia Pacific region responded to the survey,” Comtex reports, “which
was conducted in November and December 2005 by Harris Interactive.”
…
Network vendor Netcentrex and T-2, which claims to be the
first company to offer VDSL Internet access and triple play services in
Slovenia, have announced that
T-2 will use Netcentrex for its IP-based
communications management and
delivery.
T-2 launched services on Slovenia’s residential and corporate communications
markets in October 2005, using Netcentrex’ MyCall Residential Services suite
and Business Services suite. The services run on the CCS application softswitch
platform, connected to an SMC SS7 signaling and media controller to ensure call
control between the legacy and IP networks. The solutions are IMS compliant.
T-2, a Maribor-based company owned by financial firm Zvon Ena Holding, thinks
it has a shot at gaining 25 percent market share and becoming Slovenia’s
leading alternative service provider over the next few years. To this end T-2 is deploying triple
play services combining traditional Internet access with fixed telephony, video communication
and 120-channel digital television using VDSL technologies.
…
Siebel’s fourth
quarter 2005 total revenues were $469 million, about 30 percent above
analyst consensus expectations, and up 35 percent sequentially, and 19 better
year over year. License revenues for the quarter were $215 million, beating analyst
consensus expectations by a whopping 73 percent, up 92 percent sequentially,
and 34 percent year over year for this Siebel’s
last quarterly report as an independent entity.
OnDemand total contract value was up for the fourth quarter
of 2005,$16 million, up 43% sequentially and 66% year over year, but still not
what the company was hoping for when they launched the hosted product.
The reason the results were so out of whack with analyst
expectations is most likely a flurry of last-minute deal-doing before Siebel’s
swallowed up by Oracle at the end of the month. Still, you’d think analysts
would have taken that into account when they issued their projections. I would
have, anyway. Not being an analyst or playing one on TV, though, what do I
know?
Operating income was $116 million, $5 million, or one percentage point over the
high end of the preliminary results range, up $80 million. Still it’s up 220
percent sequentially and up $50 million, or 77 percent, year over year. Net income was $89 million, up $54
million or 156 percent sequentially and up $35 million, or 65 percent year over
year.
Earnings per share for the quarter ended December 31, 2005
were $0.16, a ten cent or 167 percent increase sequentially and a six cent or
60 percent increase year over year. Total revenues for the year ended December 31,
2005 were $1.43 billion, a seven percent increase from 2004.
The company’s cash, cash equivalents and short term
investments were $2.39 billion as of December 31, 2005, reflecting net cash
generated during the fourth quarter of 2005 of $147 million. And as of December
31, 2005, the unchopped head count was 4,686.
…
Telindus Group NV has announced that it has signed a five- year contract with Amdocs
to standardize its global customer help desk on Amdocs customer relations management
software, according to the Israel Business
Arena. No value was disclosed.
“Under this contract, Telindus has already deployed Amdocs
CRM in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK,” IBA reports:
“Amdocs CRM is replacing Telindus’s several disparate CRM
support systems with a unified, state-of-the-art platform for a single view of
the customer. Standardizing on Amdocs CRM enables Telindus to adopt information
technology infrastructure library best practices.”
…
Happy Australia
Day, folks, that day we celebrate the great culture which gave the
world Vegemite, Ned Kelly and Olivia
Newton-John and which tries to claim
bungee jumping. Thinking about Australia reminds me of our recent month in
New Zealand, and I have one question: How can an Auckland bar named The Loaded
Hog not sell t-shirts?
…
Calypso Wireless, Inc. is claiming that
Calypso ASNAP Session Controller is “the first Open Source Seamless Mobility
solution that hits the market,” and with Calypso ASC and Calypso C1250i
WiFi-GSM Dual Mode VoIP Smart cellular phone users “will be able to seamlessly
connect between cellular mobile GSM network and WiFi networks and enjoy new
added services such as broadband connectivity and wireless VoIP services.”
ASNAP works with Asterisk’s IP-PBX starting with release
1.2.2 making ASC an Open Source solution for seamless mobility.
Alfredo Sarrazin, Vice President of Sales of Calypso Wireless, Inc. says the
combination of Calypso ASC and Asterisk Open Source solutions offers “rich and
flexible feature sets like Voicemail, Conference Bridging, Call Queuing and
Call Detail Records.” Asterisk offers both classical PBX functionality and
advanced features, and interoperates with traditional standards-based telephony
systems and VoIP systems.
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