Briefs: August 2, 2004

APPELBAUM ENDING 12-YEAR STINT AT TECH DATA

Appelbaum, who has been with Tech Data for nearly 12 years, said he is leaving to pursue other interests. He has not accepted a position at another company, he said.

"I absolutely enjoyed working for Tech Data. It's an incredible company that will continue to be successful. I had the opportunity to play an important role in things we've innovated. But after 12 years, it's time to do something else. I wish there was something more to it, but that's the story," Appelbaum said.

He plans to help during a transition period until Aug. 31. Tech Data has not named a successor to replace him. Appelbaum was hired as director of Tech Data's peripherals division. He was promoted to vice president of the networking division, which he ran for nine years and expanded to include telephony and high-end storage before taking over the components, supplies and media business.

DELAYS, RECALLS AFFECT 4GHz P4 PROCESSOR RELEASE
Intel, struggling with slips in its mobile line, a minor recall in a recent chipset and inventory balancing issues at the end of the last quarter, has begun telling customers it will now delay the launch of its 4GHz Pentium 4 processor, a spokesman said.

The chip maker is also evaluating its entire product road map to ensure its future launch dates match reality.

The 4GHz version of its Pentium 4, which had been slated for launch at the end of the year, has been pushed back to the first quarter of 2005, the spokesman said.

He said there were no specific reasons for the change, but that the company believed an early 2005 launch would be a more realistic time to provide an acceptable volume of the processor.

While product slips are never good news, the latest information comes at a particularly thorny time for Intel. Earlier this month, the company said it would not be able to produce its next-generation Centrino mobile processing platforms on time as planned, and that they would ship in early 2005.

IBM ADDS CYANEA TO LIST OF NEW ACQUISITIONS
IBM last week announced it is acquiring Cyanea, a maker of software that monitors and manages Web-based business application performance.

With Cyanea's toolset, IBM improves the way Tivoli performs with applications written in Java, Customer Information Control System and IMS, IBM's transactional and hierarchical database management system for e-business applications.

Dave Caddis, director of Tivoli strategy, said Cyanea's technology will be a significant step in "creating a common lexicon" between various parts of a Tivoli-managed network when dealing with application problems.

"In many cases like this, a problem will come into the help desk and the next thing you know there are 11 people trying to figure out what part of the environment the problem is in"not even diagnosing the problem yet," Caddis said. "[Cyanea] will put this all in context for Tivoli."

NETGEAR REJOICES OVER 2Q EARNINGS RESULTS
Netgear on Thursday reported that revenue grew 28 percent in its second quarter over the prior-year period, boosted by strength in the small-business market.

Patrick Lo, chairman and CEO of the company, said during a conference call that Netgear's strength in the small-business market helped offset a seasonally slower retail market.

Lo said the company expects its overall business momentum to continue into the third quarter, noting that expectations for growth and market-share gains should be fueled by new product introductions.

"We will continue to introduce new products that will push the envelope of both the speed as well as the range," Lo said. "On top of that, you should expect us to roll out lines of voice-over-IP products in the coming quarters," he said.

For the quarter ended June 27, the networking vendor reported revenue of $88.4 million, up from $69 million the same quarter a year ago.

Earnings for the quarter dropped to $4.9 million, down from $11.5 million a year ago. Income for the prior-year quarter included a $9.8 million reversal of deferred tax-valuation allowance.

Pro forma income, excluding compensation expenses, was $5.3 million, or 17 cents per share, up from $2.2 million, or 9 cents per share, the same quarter last year.

JUDGE ORDERS PROXIM TO PAY UP
The U.S. District Court in Delaware Thursday rejected a series of motions and appeals and entered an order for Proxim to pay Symbol Technologies about $26 million to settle a patent infringement case.

Of the total, the federal court ordered Proxim to pay Symbol $23 million in damages, plus $3 million in interest.

A U.S. District Court jury in September 2003 awarded Symbol 6 percent royalties on Proxim's past sales of the infringing WLAN products, which date back to 1995 and include Proxim's Open Air 802.11 products.

For its part, Proxim said it is not enjoined from continued sales of these products and that the federal court denied Symbol's request for a court-ordered royalty on future sale of these products by Proxim.