A week in China tech
Telecommunications
- China Unicom offering prepaid mobile-phone services on its CDMA network at seven of its provincial branches, a move that could help drive subscriber growth. China's No. 2 mobile operator said the prepaid service became available on a trial basis Thursday at its units in Guangdong, Heilongjiang, Chongqing, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Shanxi and Hunan.
Mobile / Wireless
- Nokia in talks with China United Telecommunications to produce high-speed CDMA handsets for the low-end mainland market, posing a threat to existing manufacturers. The Finnish company would make handsets for China United's CDMA 1X network that could be priced as low as Rmb1,000. The lowest-priced CDMA 1X handsets are made by LG and TCL, and cost about Rmb1,500.
Semiconductors
- China market helped chipmaker Intel avoid a decline in revenues last year, with the mainland's contribution jumping 37% year on year to $3.2 billion. The company's global revenues rose 0.8% to $26.8 billion, after a 21%decline in 2001. It is the first time that Intel has broken out its China results.
A week in Taiwan tech
Semiconductors
- TSMC and United Microelectronics post strong sales for March, bolstering first-quarter revenue, and gave an upbeat outlook for the next quarter. However, the world's two biggest chip foundries didn't mention the probable impact from the war in Iraq and the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome.
- Intel and Via Technologies settle a long-running legal battle that spawned 11 cases in five countries. Under the settlement, which includes a 10-year patent cross license, Intel agreed not to sue Via for three years for emulating its connection scheme in selling microprocessors, and for five years with chip sets. Via agreed to pay Intel unspecified royalties.
- Nanya Technology shows a first-quarter net loss in a sign that the chip industry likely fared poorly. Nanya, considered among the healthiest companies in the $16 billion DRAM industry, reported a loss of NT$927 million ($26.7 million), compared with net profit of NT$1.5 billion a year earlier. Revenue fell 25% to NT$5.83 billion from NT$7.77 billion.
Singapore / Malaysia
Media, Entertainment and Gaming
- MediaCorp donates S$100,000 towards a fund set up for SARS stricken families. The Courage Fund is named in honor of Singapore's healthcare workers who have been at the frontline of the SARS battle. MediaCorp says the donation expresses the group's deep appreciation for the healthcare workers, and it honors their courage and tireless commitment.
A week in Hong Kong tech
Software
- ShaoLin Microsystems launches a high-availability (HA) clustering system. The ShaoLin HA Cluster can connect large numbers of computers as if they were a single unit. ShaoLin works with most of the Linux distributions available, such as Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake and others. The system requires kernel 2.4 and glibc 2.2. ShaoLin also works with companies such as IBM, H-P and Intel.
Venture Capital / Investments
- Hongkong.com shares soared 46% on Monday after the company announced it had completed the purchase of a mainland mobile application service provider. The stock was heavily traded with 36.9 million shares changing hands - 9.2 times more than the firm's average daily turnover for the past month.
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