Second Quarter Results:
Revenues for the second quarter of 2009 were $52,020,000, a decline of 30% from revenues of $74,152,000 for the second quarter of 2008. Net loss for the second quarter of 2009 was $1,677,000, as compared to net loss of $7,355,000 for the second quarter of 2008. Earnings per share (EPS) for the second quarter of 2009 were a loss of $0.07 per share, as compared to a loss of $0.26 per share for the second quarter of 2008.

Eli Ayalon, Chairman and CEO of DSP Group, stated: "We exceeded our financial objectives for the second quarter of 2009, resumed non-GAAP operating profit during the second quarter, a quarter earlier than previously projected, and continued to generate positive cash flow from operations. We also secured a new design win for our XpandR platform for a system combining advanced DECT telephony with content streaming over Wi-Fi. We are cautiously optimistic and anticipate further improvements in our business for the third quarter of 2009."

Second quarter 2009 consolidated net revenues were $230.7 million, compared to $271.6 million for the second quarter of 2008.  Non-GAAP net income for the second quarter of 2009 was $24.3 million, or 29 cents per diluted share. This compares to Non-GAAP net income of $30.7 million, or 35 cents per diluted share, for the second quarter of 2008. GAAP net income for the second quarter of 2009 was $15.3 million, or 18 cents per diluted share, compared to $17.8 million, or 20 cents per diluted share, for the same period last year.

For the six months ended June 30, 2009, net revenues were $456.1 million, compared to $530.5 million for the first six months of 2008. Non-GAAP net income for the period was $46.8 million, or 55 cents per diluted share, compared to $63.4 million, or 71 cents per diluted share, for the first six months of 2008. GAAP net income for the six months ended June 30, 2009 was $23.4 million, or 28 cents per diluted share, compared to GAAP net income of $32.0 million, or 36 cents per diluted share, for the same period last year.

On a product line basis, including applicable service revenues, consolidated net revenues for the second quarter of 2009 were comprised of:
70 percent video solutions, or $161.7 million (56 percent video communications, or $128.7 million, and 14 percent network systems, or $33.0 million); and
30 percent voice communications, or $69.0 million.

This compares to the second quarter of 2008, in which consolidated net revenues were comprised of:
62 percent video solutions, or $169.2 million (52 percent video communications, or $141.2 million, and 10 percent network systems, or $28.0 million); and
38 percent voice communications, or $102.4 million.

Google's push into the Web phone-calling market is likely to cut into sales by Internet phone companies such as eBay's Skype unit, and could put pressure on Microsoft and Cisco, which sell online calling software to businesses.

On July 15, Google released a downloadable Google Voice application for BlackBerrys and smartphones powered by Google's Android operating system, which could make the voice service more popular. In late June, Google concluded a private test of Google Voice and began inviting consumers on its waiting list to sign up for the service. Users of Google Voice use the Internet to make phone calls, listen to voice mails and read transcripts of them, and also to get a unified phone number that can track them down based on what phone they're near.

Google hopes to make inroads in the market for so-called Voice-over-Internet-Protocol phone calls by taking a friendlier stance toward wireless service providers than other VoIP companies have done. Google has additional advantages in the market: Upcoming products, including its Wave collaboration software and Chrome OS operating system could help spur usage of Google Voice on devices from smartphones to netbooks. "Our point is to make your existing services better, not to replace them," says Craig Walker, a product manager at Google and founder of GrandCentral, the company Google acquired in 2007 that serves as the basis for its Voice software. .

Source; Businessweek. Read the complete article

Keeping pace with increasing mobile data traffic, Nokia Siemens Networks has just notched up its 500 millionth mobile data user

With an increasing number of subscribers logging on to the Internet to access and download data on mobile devices, mobile data traffic growth is doubling every year. In fact, Nokia Siemens Networks expects that at current rates, by 2011, mobile data will overtake voice traffic, growing exponentially until 2013. Keeping pace with this rapid growth is Nokia Siemens Networks- the company has reached the 500 million mobile data user milestone, accounting for roughly 40% of global mobile data traffic today.

Driving Nokia Siemens Networks’ leading position in data is the company’s range of packet core solutions that allows operators to handle a huge number of mobile consumers, even if they are using data services heavily, with a very small amount of network equipment. This combined with technical innovation, such as Direct Tunnel, which provides operators with a simpler “flat” connectivity architecture, makes scaling with growing traffic much easier and more importantly, commercially viable.

Direct Tunnel leads the way to a fully “flat” architecture, which is the target architecture for Evolved Packet Core and Long Term Evolution as well.  

Close to 300 customers use Nokia Siemens Networks’ packet core solutions including operators such as America Movil, AT&T, NTT DoCoMo, Oi, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, and Vodafone.

Telco/IPTV subscribers to total almost 40 million households worldwide in 2009, with significant implications to digital home development
The number of subscribers worldwide to telco/IPTV services will approach 40 million by year-end 2009, according to international research firm Parks Associates.

The strong growth in telco/IPTV services is due partly to aggressive provider deployments, according to the firm’s new white paper IPTV and the Digital Home, but the most successful rollouts will incorporate multiple services, such as home networking, convergence in entertainment and communications features, and unique interactive services such as quality on-demand programming.

Polycom announced that its digital enhanced cordless telephony (DECT) wireless voice systems have been certified for use with ShoreTel's Unified Communications (UC) solutions.

The solutions now certified for use with ShoreTel include the Polycom KIRK® Wireless Servers (KWS) 6000 and 300, as well as the full portfolio of KIRK handsets. The addition of the KIRK products to the ShoreTel-certified portfolio offers more flexibility and choice for customers deploying ShoreTel's UC solutions.

The Polycom wireless IP DECT solutions are popular among businesses of all sizes:

• The KWS300 is a SIP-based wireless telephony system that is ideal for smaller sized businesses. The KWS300 is a single-cell system that can support up to 12 handsets and four simultaneous calls. A total of six KIRK repeaters can be added to extend the coverage area.
• The KWS6000 is a SIP-based wireless telephony solution that can fulfill the wireless needs of more than 4,000 mobile employees. It is a multi-cell solution that is extremely scalable, whether an end-user needs radio coverage of a large geographical area or a large number of mobile employees need the flexibility of wireless telephony. Since it can grow as the business grows, it provides strong investment protection and is ideal for midsize businesses and large enterprises looking to support a rapidly evolving wireless strategy.
  

Polycom also offers a full range of KIRK wireless handsets that targets both carpeted environments and industrial facilities that need durable and ruggedized handsets. Organizations can choose a combination of handsets in the wireless DECT solution to meet the individual needs of every employee.

Avaya has announced that it has entered into a ‘stalking horse’ asset and share sale agreement to purchase Nortel’s enterprise business for $475 million. The combined entity would account for over 30% of the global contact center market and cement Avaya’s market share lead in North America while fortifying its position in other global regions for the next several years. However, the combined company would face a confused product portfolio with a good deal of overlap and a channel that has been beaten, bruised and battered during Nortel’s long sunset.

Avaya’s acquisition of Nortel is not yet a done deal
While Avaya intends to purchase Nortel’s Enterprise Solutions business, it is not a done deal as other qualified bidders may submit higher offers in the auction period slated to begin in August. There’s also the possibility that Nortel’s enterprise unit will be broken up by regions and sold to the highest bidders. If Avaya is the victor in the upcoming bidding war and acquires all of Nortel’s enterprise unit, it stands to increase its already large market share, inherit Nortel’s large reseller network and leverage new upsell opportunities among Nortel’s customer base.

Nortel’s channel would be Avaya’s real prize
Over the past year or so, Avaya has been working on two main priorities: product portfolio simplification and channel expansion. It would be nigh on impossible to successfully argue that Avaya’s acquisition of Nortel would aid it in its efforts to have an easy-to-understand product list; clearly, Nortel’s broad base of products would create the need for another round or two of portfolio rationalization. Therefore we see the primary driver behind Avaya’s interest in Nortel to be channel expansion and a renewed play for mid-market customers.

Nortel, however, presents something of a mixed bag for Avaya in this regard. Nortel once had a vibrant and active channel, and its dealers were some of the most loyal in the tech industry. However, the long downward spiral Nortel has suffered left the channel dispirited and depleted in number. Many of Nortel’s competitors have spent the last six months wooing channel partners. Admittedly, Avaya was one of those vendors attempting to poach the Nortel channel as a means to both hurt a flailing competitor and bolster its own indirect sales efforts. Clearly those efforts were not enough to obviate the need for a full buyout of Nortel Enterprise.

Because Avaya will likely eventually replace much of the Nortel technology with its own in the product lineup, it will also have to win over most of those channel partners one by one. This will take some doing since the resellers have stocks of inventory, existing processes and lots of Nortel-specific training. This is not to say that Avaya won’t ultimately succeed in converting at least most of Nortel’s channel to its cause; if the acquisition goes through, Avaya will eventually have bought its way into being a channel-friendly company and that will likely be worth the purchase price for Nortel.
Industry consolidation points to market maturation and market shifts

Whether Avaya or another incumbent switch vendor (Aspect and Siemens were the other two vendors rumored to have been in the running for Nortel) acquires Nortel’s enterprise business, it is clear that the contact center market is maturing. Incumbent switch vendors (Aspect, Avaya, Mitel, NEC, Nortel and Siemens) are facing stiffer competition from vendors that have different approaches to contact center routing and platform technology, such as Cisco, CosmoCom, Genesys and Interactive Intelligence. In addition, the entry of Microsoft (unified communications), hosted contact center service providers and potentially Google (in the cloud) is expected to further challenge incumbent switch vendors in the greater communications space.

Avaya has announced that it has entered into a ‘stalking horse’ asset and share sale agreement to purchase Nortel’s enterprise business for $475 million. The combined entity would account for over 30% of the global contact center market and cement Avaya’s market share lead in North America while fortifying its position in other global regions for the next several years. However, the combined company would face a confused product portfolio with a good deal of overlap and a channel that has been beaten, bruised and battered during Nortel’s long sunset.

Avaya’s acquisition of Nortel is not yet a done deal
While Avaya intends to purchase Nortel’s Enterprise Solutions business, it is not a done deal as other qualified bidders may submit higher offers in the auction period slated to begin in August. There’s also the possibility that Nortel’s enterprise unit will be broken up by regions and sold to the highest bidders. If Avaya is the victor in the upcoming bidding war and acquires all of Nortel’s enterprise unit, it stands to increase its already large market share, inherit Nortel’s large reseller network and leverage new upsell opportunities among Nortel’s customer base.

Nortel’s channel would be Avaya’s real prize
Over the past year or so, Avaya has been working on two main priorities: product portfolio simplification and channel expansion. It would be nigh on impossible to successfully argue that Avaya’s acquisition of Nortel would aid it in its efforts to have an easy-to-understand product list; clearly, Nortel’s broad base of products would create the need for another round or two of portfolio rationalization. Therefore we see the primary driver behind Avaya’s interest in Nortel to be channel expansion and a renewed play for mid-market customers.

Nortel, however, presents something of a mixed bag for Avaya in this regard. Nortel once had a vibrant and active channel, and its dealers were some of the most loyal in the tech industry. However, the long downward spiral Nortel has suffered left the channel dispirited and depleted in number. Many of Nortel’s competitors have spent the last six months wooing channel partners. Admittedly, Avaya was one of those vendors attempting to poach the Nortel channel as a means to both hurt a flailing competitor and bolster its own indirect sales efforts. Clearly those efforts were not enough to obviate the need for a full buyout of Nortel Enterprise.

Because Avaya will likely eventually replace much of the Nortel technology with its own in the product lineup, it will also have to win over most of those channel partners one by one. This will take some doing since the resellers have stocks of inventory, existing processes and lots of Nortel-specific training. This is not to say that Avaya won’t ultimately succeed in converting at least most of Nortel’s channel to its cause; if the acquisition goes through, Avaya will eventually have bought its way into being a channel-friendly company and that will likely be worth the purchase price for Nortel.
Industry consolidation points to market maturation and market shifts

Whether Avaya or another incumbent switch vendor (Aspect and Siemens were the other two vendors rumored to have been in the running for Nortel) acquires Nortel’s enterprise business, it is clear that the contact center market is maturing. Incumbent switch vendors (Aspect, Avaya, Mitel, NEC, Nortel and Siemens) are facing stiffer competition from vendors that have different approaches to contact center routing and platform technology, such as Cisco, CosmoCom, Genesys and Interactive Intelligence. In addition, the entry of Microsoft (unified communications), hosted contact center service providers and potentially Google (in the cloud) is expected to further challenge incumbent switch vendors in the greater communications space.

Mac users can now also synchronize data between Gigaset phones and their computer with the new Gigaset QuickSync 1.0. software. The software synchronizes all address data via the Bluetooth interface. In addition, pictures and ringtones in a large number of common formats can be transferred to the phones. Photos can be used as a slideshow, screensaver or as a picture CLIP in conjunction with the address book. Ringtones can be edited from music sequences, for example in MP3 format (only with the Gigaset SL780 and 785), and transferred. The software can be downloaded free from www.gigaset.com/quicksync.

Gigaset Communications is responding to huge demand from the Apple community with its Mac-compatible version of QuickSync. As of Mac OS 10.4.9, address data and pictures can be synchronized via the Bluetooth interface with Gigaset S680/685, SL780/785, SL560/565 and SL370/375 phones and corresponding variants for ISDN and IP. Users who like to organize their business and private contacts separately can select the address data of individual groups and synchronize it on separate handsets. The Gigaset SL780 and 785 also allow ringtones to be customized and downloaded.

Customizing Gigaset phones with pictures and sounds Users can load their own pictures (BMP, JPEG, GIF) and ringtones (MP3, AAC and common Mac formats) quickly from their Mac onto the phone. If personal photos are assigned to the contacts stored in the address book, they are shown on the phone’s display when the person calls (picture CLIP). Gigaset QuickSync 1.0 can even be used to create a small slideshow in an instant and load it on the phone. As a result, the handset’s display is transformed into an electronic picture frame. Alternatively, the stored pictures can also be used as a screensaver. If pictures are transferred via Bluetooth (Serial Profile), the new software scales all the image files to 240 x 320 pixels (screensaver) or 240 x 130 pixels (picture CLIP) to save storage space. Depending on the size of the phone’s memory, there is space of up to 100 pictures on the device.

Editing customized ringtones
Thanks to Gigaset QuickSync 1.0., Mac users can create ringtones to suit their personal taste, since sequences from any music titles can be used. The software processes all common file formats that are not copy-protected. That means users can select up to 60 seconds of music from the beginning and also from the middle of the desired piece and use it as a ringtone. This excerpt is then converted into the G.722 format and transferred to the handset via Bluetooth (Serial Profile) in full DECT wideband quality.

IBM and Cisco announced that they are teaming on a pilot to help the Dutch utility Nuon and the city of Amsterdam make smarter use of energy by enabling consumers to make more informed decisions about their energy consumption. The pilot program is part of the Amsterdam Smart City initiative, in which citizens, governments and companies are working together to make more efficient use of energy, water and mobility to create a more sustainable city.

 

The consortium will jointly implement an innovative energy management system based on smart metering and home energy management technology, which will enable 500 selected households to gain better insight into their energy consumption and help drive change in usage behavior. It is anticipated that as a result of the pilot, customers will be able to save on energy costs and realize a CO2 reduction of at least 14 percent.

 

Smart meters and home energy management systems will be installed in the 500 households that participate in the pilot. Within this consortium, Nuon and IBM will develop the applications for the energy management system, making use of intelligent IT systems and well-protected web technology. Cisco will be responsible for the IP-based home energy management solutions that help enable real-time, highly secure connectivity between household appliances and the energy system, resulting in substantial efficiencies.

 

Through this project, IBM and Cisco aim to demonstrate how intelligence throughout the electrical grid can dramatically reduce outages and faults, improve responsiveness, handle current and future demand, increase efficiency and manage costs.

 

"Now that more than half of the global population lives in cities, we need to acknowledge that achieving a sustainable future lies in our urban centers," said Guido Bartels, General Manager of IBM's Global Energy & Utilities industry. "Smarter energy initiatives are foundational for other critical infrastructure systems that make up a city--this project will enable the City of Amsterdam to leverage integrated, intelligent and interconnected technologies to transform their systems and optimize the use of finite resources."

 

"Giving the citizens of Amsterdam more information and better control over their energy use will cut down on costs and consumption as well as reduce their overall impact on the environment," said Marthin de Beer, senior vice president of Cisco's Emerging Technologies Group. "Innovative cities like Amsterdam recognize the opportunity in using the standards-based intelligent communications network as a platform for economic development, better city management and improved quality of life for citizens. With this pilot, we hope to demonstrate how smart and connected communities can be more energy conscious and more green."

 

The energy management pilot in Amsterdam has been realized with the help of several program partners housing corporations Far West and Ymere, Amsterdamse Innovatie Motor, Home Automation Europe, ROC Amsterdam, the University of Amsterdam and Grid Operator Liander. The pilot is co-funded by the European Fund for Regional Development.