I don't know about the rest of you, but as I've been saying for the past couple of months, regardless of this mortgage mess, there seems to be a resurgence in the tech sectors. Companies in the bay area are staffing up again (more head hunter calls to me on a daily basis). And, talking with others in the industries, strong companies have been spending a lot on upgrading hardward/software/services. We've spend a couple of tens of million just last quarter in development only (excluding operations, support,production). Namely because, tech budgets at companies have been cut so long that the infrastructure has not choice be to be upgraded. The general state of some of these tech companies seem to confirm this.
Some news over today and early last week seem to confirm what I'm seeing.
Hopefully, Tech is Back in Black 🙂
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Intel Raises 3rd-Quarter Revenue Outlook Amid Strong Demand
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Intel Corp., the world's largest chip maker, raised its third-quarter revenue outlook on Monday due to stronger-than expected demand for its microprocessors.
The company now expects revenue between $9.4 billion and $9.8 billion, up from its previous range of $9 billion to $9.6 billion.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expect revenue of $9.4 billion.
Gross margin percentage is expected to be in the upper half of the previous range of 52 percent, plus or minus a couple of points.
Intel is scheduled to report its results for the quarter on Oct. 16.
Shares rose 8 cents to $25.55 in premarket trading.
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TAIPEI, Sept 10 (Reuters) – TSMC (2330.TW: Quote, Profile, Research) (TSM.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the world's biggest contract chip maker, posted an 8 percent annual rise in August sales and raised its third-quarter sales forecast on Monday, showing further improvement in the chip sector's recovery.
The annual gain lagged that of smaller rival United Microelectronics Corp (UMC) (2303.TW: Quote, Profile, Research) (UMC.N: Quote, Profile, Research), which on Friday posted a 10.8 percent annual rise in August sales amid growing demand for new computers and consumer gadgets.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC), which sells most of its chips to clients in the United States, including Texas Instruments Inc (TXN.N: Quote, Profile, Research), had unconsolidated sales of T$29.20 billion ($882 million) last month, up from T$27.00 billion a year ago and T$28.77 billion in July.
SAN FRANCISCO — The generally staid market for data storage is starting to quake as tech titans wrestle for a share of this fast-growing tech sector.
Storage firms are seeing demand for their wares increase as more companies use storage networks rather than standalone units. These networks are replacing the typical arrangement of having an individual storage device back up a single server so data is accessible even if a server fails.
Storage networks are also gaining popularity among companies using virtualization software to improve the efficiency of their servers.
In the second quarter of this year, the networked storage subset of the data storage market grew 13% to about $3.1 billion, more than twice as fast as the total storage market, according to data from IDC.
"We're seeing a strong shift to the networked concept of storage," says Vasu Kasibhotla, an analyst with asset manager Trilogy Global Advisor. "We expect that trend to gain moment in next few years."
National Semiconductor Expects Sequential Sales Growth for 2nd Quarter
SANTA CLARA (AP) — Chip maker National Semiconductor Corp. said Thursday it expects fiscal second-quarter sales to grow 4 percent to 7 percent sequentially.
The company posted first-quarter revenue of $471.5 million.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial are expecting sales of $495.9 million, a 5 percent increase.
