Live Web Cast of Funeral Services

In a sign of the times, mourners unable to attend a funeral can view it live on a web cast, one of the numerous state of the art features of the Star of David Memorial Chapel, which recently opened in West Babylon, New York, US. DVD’s of funeral services will also be available. Another technology feature offered at the chapel is a virtual casket display.

Buyers who are reluctant to view depressing rows of caskets, can see them in full color on computer screens.

Free Recycling of Dell-Branded Products for Consumers Globally

Dell has announced plans to provide free recycling of any Dell-branded product for consumers around the world as part of its new global recycling policy. “We have a responsibility to our customers to recycle the products we make and sell,” said Michael Dell, chairman of Dell. “Our direct relationships with consumers allow us to offer this easy and free service and we encourage others in our industry to do so as well.”

In some geographies, Dell currently offers consumers no-charge recycling of any brand of used computer or printer with the purchase of a new Dell computer or printer. This service includes home pick-up of the used computer at no charge. Under its new policy, Dell will provide consumers no-charge recycling of any Dell-branded product, regardless of whether a replacement product is purchased. The company plans to launch the service in the US by September, and globally by November. It is currently available in Europe. Dell has been focused on developing market-driven consumer recycling services for several years.

Many consumers are unaware that computer equipment may contain such harmful materials as lead, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, arsenic and brominated flame-retardants. These are of course in addition to numerous types of plastics and metals. In recent years some PC manufacturers have been trying to eliminate hazardous chemicals and heavy metals from their machines, but millions of older PCs are now becoming obsolete and need complex recycling.

Even in markets with low PC penetration rates such as the Middle East, tons of computer equipment is discarded annually. With no legislation in the Middle East mandating recycling, this equipment is often thrown into trash dumpsters and then compacted into landfills where it eventually pollutes the environment for centuries. IT Vendors in the Middle East have been reluctant to set up recycling centers, viewing them as unnecessary overhead. Dell’s move to protect this planet is commendable and hopefully it will push other companies to take similar steps. Dell’s new global recycling policy can be viewed at www.dell.com/environment.

Failure Rates of PCs Are Down, but Vendors Can Do Better

PC vendors have reduced hardware annual failure rates (AFRs) by approximately 25 percent in the past two years, but there is still room for improvement, according to a benchmark study by Gartner, Inc. While the good news is that desktop PC and notebook PC hardware AFRs have declined, the bad news is that notebook AFRs still range from 15 percent to 20 percent throughout the life of the system. Three years ago, notebook AFRs averaged 20 percent in the first year, climbing to 28 percent in the third year. Desktop AFRs have gone from 7 percent in year 1 and 15 percent in the fourth year of life to a current level of 5 percent in year 1 with an anticipated 12 percent in the fourth year.

“Users need to track their PC failure rates to spot problems and hold their PC suppliers accountable,” said Leslie Fiering, research vice president at Gartner. “Once chief financial officers (CFOs) become aware of PC failure rates, especially in enterprises that purchase thousands of PC each year, there will be extra pressure placed on chief information officers (CIOs) to spot problems and hold their PC supplier responsible. CFOs will want assurances that the equipment they finance is not going to result in downtime for their employees.”

Gartner defines a hardware failure as any repair incident that requires a hardware component to be replaced. The component can be as trivial as a notebook latch or as significant as a motherboard. The general pattern is for newly purchased systems to have an early shakeout period with high failure rates that drop back to lower levels after 60 to 90 days.

There are no publicly available PC hardware reliability figures because PC vendors consider the information proprietary and will not disclose it. However, many PC vendors and warranty repair providers have shared the information with Gartner off the record during the past several years. Gartner has cross-checked this input against feedback of Gartner clients, many of whom manage installed bases of 50,000 or more units.

For desktop systems, motherboards and hard drives are the two largest sources of failures. “The number of motherboard replacements has been rising over time as more components get integrated onboard,” Fiering remarked. “Parts such as network interface cards (NICs) or modems can no longer be swapped out as separate parts. If either of these fails, an entire motherboard swap is required.”

She continued, “For notebooks, screen breakage used to be the single-largest source of failure. However, over time, notebook manufacturers have improved design significantly to reduce screen breakage by adding structural rigidity to the notebook casing and screen bezel, as well as by providing a greater clearance between the screen and the keyboard when the system is closed.”

Currently, the top sources of notebook failures on systems less than two years old are:

*Motherboards and hard drives (tied for first place, each ranging between 25 percent and 45 percent of total hardware failures); *Chassis, including latches, hinges, feet and case cracks; *Keyboards, with keycaps falling off or getting discolored, and spilled drinks seeping under the keyboard; *Screens.

Additional information is available in the Gartner report “Benchmarking PC Hardware Reliability.” The report provides detailed analysis on PC failure rates, as well as advice for both vendors and users to improve/reduce these failure rates. The report is available on Gartner’s website at http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=493252.

Nokia Siemens Networks to Make Significant Impact

The recently announced Nokia and Siemens merger would make Nokia Siemens Networks the 3rd largest carrier network infrastructure vendor after Ericsson-Marconi and Alcatel/Lucent with combined sales of $15.8 billion euros ($19.75 billion) and a headcount of about 60,000.

“For Nokia, organic growth to reach the level of scale shown by the major players was not feasible because it would take too much time, so acquisition was the solution,” noted Sergio Cruz, Research Manager at Pyramid Research.

The carrier network infrastructure industry has been taken to another level of operation in the last year due to the consolidation of Alcatel and Lucent and the performance of Ericsson. These two players are operating around the $20 billion euros level and enjoying significant economies of scale. The new Nokia Siemens Networks will have greater purchasing power and with platform commonality, equipment costs could be reduced by 45 percent according to the new company’s sources, allowing it to compete in this new environment.

Consolidation also extends to the operator level with the top 10 mobile conglomerates controlling 40 percent of total global subscribers. The operators are increasingly moving their contracts to single companies for greater negotiation power, creating a need for vendors to balance this situation by growing themselves.