LyrArc Article Gist
Scientists at the RCA Materials Research Labs did the first work on LED's in the late sixties. The Nobel prize winning scientists from Japan doing research on LED built on the earlier work of these scientists in the U.S.

LyrArc Article Gist
The in-house manufacturing approach has benefitted Lenovo. This was especially evident during the flooding in Thailand when PC manufacturers were faced with a shortage of hard drives. Because Lenovo assembles its own computers unlike competitors Dell and H-P, it was able to move quickly to focus on products for which hard drives were available and emphasize high profit margin products. The additional flexibility and speed helped Lenovo increase market share from 13.7% to above 14% in the 4th quarter of 2011, and ship 13 million computers. H-P experienced a market share decline to 16% in the 4th quarter 2012 from 18% the prior quarter. Profit for Lenovo after several years of losses was $473 million for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012. Lenovo co-founder Liu Chuanzhi and Mr Yang took control in 2009 and refocussed the company on China and emerging markets leading to increasing sales. Mr. Yang has been with the company since 1988, when it was not called Lenovo. He became CEO in 2001 and recently he has taken the post of CEO and chairman. Yang's four year plan in 2009 was focussed on increasing its network of resellers in China to the point that even in rural areas customers could reach a Lenovo store with customer service. At meetings in 2009 the decision was taken to increase in-house manufacturing to 50% from 30%. Lenovo hoped to gain an advantage with its own manufacturing capabilities in working closely with suppliers to come up with differentiation in key components such as display screens, battery and storage, and improve existing products for a market edge. Lenovo is also promoting its brand with increased advertising to promote customer acceptance of the brand....

LyrArc Article Gist
Intel chairman Andy Bryant tells analysts in Nov. 2013 that he was personally embarrassed by the missteps in not investing enough in tablets and mobile devices and that Intel was paying the price for this. Intel executives say they realize the other aspects of Moore's law that says intelligence and computing will migrate to ever smaller devices such as tablets and mobile devices, and still smaller devices, as they confront a PC centric past.

LyrArc Article Gist
Apple maintains its grip on the tablet market with its iPad at $499. Experts at Wharton and the Stern School of Business say Apple has found the strategically right price to maintain a dominant share of a rapidly growing market. So rapidly growing that some estimates show tablet computers surpassing PC sales by 2013. Apple CEO Tim Cook, has the logistical expertise that helped him work out the right price. The Kindle at $199 is hardly profitable by some estimates. Samsung has a smaller tablet at $499. In 2011 Apple saw its tablet market share decline from 87% to 68%, according to IDC Research, but still able to get a dominant share of sales. Apple uses the same approach to pricing for the iPhone. The profits generated on large sales and higher margins helps Apple invest in new products.

LyrArc Article Gist
Daisuke Wakabayashi's exceptional account of how Steve Jobs directed the project to develop the iPhone starting in 2005 upto to the introduction in 2007. At one point Jobs gives Christie, the engineer leading the very small project team, 2 months to put it together or he would find someone else to do it. This is similiar to the way in which Sony's Morita approached his project team working on the Walkman telling them what he wanted to see and the size of the device. Jobs payed attention to all the details from how the phone names addresses appeared on the screen, dialing from the phone book, the swiping action to start the device, the music, and the colors on the screen. Only in on the project's detail were Bill Campbell, Apple director, and Jony Ive, Apple design chief. Christie was approached by Scott Forestall in late 2004 about this secret project codenamed "Purple." Christie is the engineer who joined Apple in 1996 to work on the Newton, and early touch screen device that failed because the technology was not developed enough at the time, making the device bulky and cumbersome. Christie was working on software for Mac computers in 2004. Greg Joswiak, Apple vice president for iPhone marketing, monitored other phone makers to see if they were coming up with a device that migrated the iPod's music features to the phone. Hence the absolute secrecy for this project. The project team is amazingly small. The practice of small teams can be found at Amazon and Kayak....

LyrArc Article Gist
RIM CEO Thorsten Hein's plans to win over the corporat technology market with the new Blackberry 10 model due to come out Jan 30, 2013.

LyrArc Article Gist
Intel's business model depends on making large investments in the latest technologies in chipmaking facilities. It continues its strength by ending 2014 with $14.1 billion in cash, after paying out $4 billion in dividends and buying back about $10 billion in stock. Profit margins improved during 2014, with net income up 39% to $3.7 billion or 74 cents a share, from 2013 level. Revenue is up 6% to $14.7 billion. 2015 outlook is for "mid single digit" growth in revenue with continued growth in PC's and servers. PC business was up 3% in the 4th quarter 2015, and the server business up 25% reflecting business investment in cloud computing. However mobile business continues to struggle with losses of $4.2 billion. Intel still depends a lot on PC and server chips for growth, with $49 billion of $55.8 billion in 2014 sales coming from PC's and server chips.

LyrArc Article Gist
Lenovo shows a profit of $129 million for this fiscal year compared to a net loss of $226 million in the prior year. Revenues in the 1st quarter of 2010 went up to $4.32 billon from $2.77 billon with proft at $13 million. Margins are still under pressure because of growth in the lower priced PC market segment. Gross margins fell to 10.4% this year. To diversify Lenovo has introduced the Le Phone with China Unicom (Hong Kong) and sees sales of its mobile phones exceeding Apple's iPhone sales. It has also developed a prototype of a tablet PC in January 2010. PC shipments in China of $2 billon account for 45% of 3rd quarter revenues- up 67% in China's fast growing PC market. And Lenovo's plan is to expand sales in India, Russia and Turkey, from the current 5% in the fourth quarter ending March 31, 2010, to double digits.