KSU in cooperation with Intel

The Teachers College at King Saud University has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Intel. The MoU sets the foundation for the formation of a steering committee of senior management from both parties who will meet regularly to oversee the progress of a cooperative program to develop a process to accredit the Intel Teach program in Saudi Arabia, help the university integrate technology effectively into teaching and learning and add it to the KSU curricula for pre-service teachers. The agreement is part of the Intel World Ahead Program which integrates accessibility, connectivity, content and education under a holistic mandate to digitally enable communities.

The new cooperative program not only focuses on teaching and learning inside the academic environment of the college, but reaches out into the community and schools. The signatories will establish and run leadership awareness programs and offer training to school principals and collaborate on training teachers from public and private schools at the community training center in the college. With a view to encouraging wider involvement in the program, Intel will support volunteer work and activities at the college by participating in technology seminars and workshops that are organized by the college.

US tech leadership challenged

A new study reveals tightening international competition for providing the most competitive conditions for the information technology (IT) industry. The US continues to rank first in the world in the annual IT industry competitiveness index, authored by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) under sponsorship from the Business Software Alliance (BSA). But while the US places in the top five in all six index categories, its overall score was just 74.6 out of a possible 100, down about three points from its 2007 score of 77.4. Moreover, Taiwan, Sweden and Denmark have moved into the top five and they are quickly closing in on the US as the most competitive market. The study assesses and compares the IT industry environments of 66 economies to determine the extent to which they enable IT sector competitiveness. The top ten in the 2008 study are the US, Taiwan, UK, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, Australia, South Korea, Singapore and the Netherlands.

Although the top 20 economies remain the same from one year ago, nine moved up and 11 moved down in the rankings. Taiwan, ranked sixth in 2007, leaped to second-place in 2008 thanks to improved performance in research and development (R&D). Other big gains were in Denmark, up from eighth to fifth place, thanks to a stronger business environment, investments in IT infrastructure, and improvements in human capital; Canada, up from ninth to sixth place; and Singapore, up from 11th to ninth place.

According to the EIU, six factors combine to create a sound environment for the IT sector, including an ample supply of highly-skilled workers; an innovation-friendly culture; world-class technology infrastructure; a robust legal regime that protects intellectual property (IPR) such as patents and copyrights; an open, competitive economy; and government leadership that strikes the right balance between promoting technology and allowing market forces to work. Those economies that perform well in these six “competitiveness enablers” generally are home to high-performance IT industries, which contribute more than 5 percent to the gross domestic product of many advanced nations.

Currently, East Asia boasts the strongest R&D environments. Dynamic innovation, supported by a strong R&D environment, has contributed to that region's IT industry competitiveness. Conversely, the US lags far behind in resources provided for R&D in IT, scoring 23.7 compared to Taiwan’s score of 74.3. The US R&D score dropped by more than 40 percent from last year's score of 39.8. Saudi Arabia had an overall score of 32.3 - hurt the most by poor IT infrastructure (11.2) and a grossly inadequate R&D environment (0.8).

Other key findings of the research include:

• Investing in people is mission-critical for domestic IT industries. Sourcing talent will be among the toughest challenges IT producers will face in the coming years.

• Competitive broadband markets help cultivate strong IT sectors. Without fast, reliable and secure Internet access, technology firms cannot interact effectively with their partners and the research community, nor can they sell their services online.

• A legal environment that protects IPR and takes a robust approach to cyber security is essential. The US, Australia and Western European countries have the most effective systems in place to address IPR protection and cyber security, but gradual improvements are also evident in other nations.

Read the full report, “How technology sectors grow: Benchmarking IT industry competitiveness 2008” at www.bsa.org/globalindex.

Motorola to cut jobs

Motorola confirmed that $800 million in cuts planned for 2009 will require laying off about 3,000 workers. Layoffs will be made globally “across all businesses and functions” with a “little over two-thirds of these layoffs in the handset division,” the company stated. The communications equipment maker had 66,000 employees at the end of 2007.

Motorola's problems stem from an unprofitable handset division and cuts are now necessary to show shareholders that Motorola is taking the situation seriously. Sanjay Jha, Motorola co-CEO was hired in August with the task of spinning off the handset division. He is aiming to have the company’s engineers build phones with improved user interfaces and services to compete with the iPhone and other new devices. He announced that the first Android phone from Motorola should be ready for purchase in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Notebooks take over

The third quarter of 2008 saw notebook shipments into the US market surpass 50 percent share, topping quarterly desktop PC shipments for the first time in the history of the industry. The share of notebooks shipped in the US in 3Q08 stood at a solid 55.2 percent, according to preliminary figures from IDC's US Quarterly PC Tracker.

The 55 percent ratio was made possible by a record volume of notebooks shipped in 3Q08 - over 9.5 million units - representing more than 18 percent growth both year over year and on a sequential basis. These figures were reached amid a relatively active back-to-school season and the burgeoning financial crisis, which captured headlines but did not immediately affect the PC market's performance.

“The consumer market continued to be the top driving factor in the notebook offensive but the commercial sector played a critical role too,” said David Daoud, research manager, US Quarterly PC Tracker and Personal Systems at IDC. “The consumer market has long favored notebooks, with mobile ratios exceeding the 70 percent mark. So it is clear that the small and mid-markets, as well as the enterprise and public sector buyers, are seeing good value in mobility. Prolonged economic tension could have an adverse effect on the PC space leading to reduced growth, but the good news is that virtually every buyer considers PCs as must-have products.”