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Elcot student PC scheme runs into trouble
Acer and Dell partners who opposed the Elcot’s Student PC scheme should feel happy reading this. The two vendors, who had drawn much flak from channels for agreeing to supply up to one lakh laptops to Tamil Nadu's nodal agency Elcot at 40 percent discount, are finding it difficult to keep their commitment.
According to market sources, Dell and Acer have only managed to supply 6,000 laptops of the 25,000 each they were committed to supply in the first phase. The vendors have shown their inability to process more orders at the contracted rate due to the increase in dollar prices.
Elcot, on the other hand, is in a soup as several students who had paid to buy the laptop have still not received their supplies. The agency has now sent an ultimatum to the two vendors to supply or risk being blacklisted by the agency forever!
LG and Sharp fixed prices of LCDs
LG Display, Sharp and Chunghwa Picture Tubes agreed to pay a total $585 million in fines after pleading guilty to fixing prices for LCDs over a five-year period. The US Justice Department investigation alleges that LG and Chunghwa conspired to drive up prices of LCDs sold to unidentified companies and Sharp conspired with other, unnamed LCD manufacturers to kick up the prices of screens sold to Dell, Motorola, Apple and other vendors.
Sharp confirmed that it will pay a fine of $120 million, while LG Display and Chunghwa have agreed to pay $400 million and $65 million, respectively. Analysts believe that these convictions and the significant fines they carry, should send a clear message that the Antitrust Division will vigorously investigate and prosecute illegal cartels, regardless of where they are located.
Cisco says bye-bye to Linksys brand for biz
Cisco will no longer bring out small business products under the Linksys brand name, reserving the moniker exclusively for consumer offerings. The company said all new small business products will come out under either the Cisco Small Business or newly launched Cisco Small Business Pro brands.
Cisco has made a $100 million investment as part of a small business initiative to target customers with fewer than 100 users. The investment includes the launch of the new Cisco Small Business Pro products set to debut within the next few months. |