http://www.engagingchina.com/blog Understanding China's new economy and its impact on western businesses en-us Fri, 16 May 2008 08:38:41 +0200 hi-tech Blogware Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/10/25/3313509.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/10/25/3313509.html Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:57:00 +0200 Spansion, the US-listed maker of flash memory chips, has struck a deal with China's SMIC in a bid to get closer to China's electronics industry. Flash memory is a cut-throat business and the pricing pressures are increasing as Chinese electronics companies make great inroads into the mobile phone and consumer electronics markets... hi-tech Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/10/24/3311561.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/10/24/3311561.html Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:12:00 +0200 The BlackBerry, the de rigeur handheld device for alpha males, has finally arrived in China. Chinese regulators did not approve the BlackBerry handsets for sale in China until the first quarter of this year and Canada's RIM, the manufacturer, had to team up with Alcatel-Lucent, which has a Chinese JV, to get the device approved... hi-tech Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/10/4/3269878.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/10/4/3269878.html Thu, 04 Oct 2007 12:36:00 +0200 Tibco, the US software company, has strengthened its relationship with China's Worksoft in the latest development that shows the growing maturing of China's software development industry. Tibco specialises in middleware -- the "plumbing" of business software projects -- and this arcane area of the software market has not historically been seen as a big opportunity in China... hi-tech Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/9/25/3252187.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/9/25/3252187.html Tue, 25 Sep 2007 15:13:00 +0200 China will launch its maiden unmanned mission to the moon in November, the culmination of the Chinese space programme that, like the US-Soviet space race of the 1960s, seems driven more by national pride than by any scientific rationale... hi-tech Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/9/24/3250108.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/9/24/3250108.html Mon, 24 Sep 2007 17:05:00 +0200 Industrial shelving systems may not be glamorous but they are big business for Spanish-listed company Mecalux which, somewhat belatedly, is preparing to make its entry into the Chinese market... hi-tech Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/9/24/3250039.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/9/24/3250039.html Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:32:00 +0200 Dell's once ground-breaking direct sales model, which spurns dealers and distributors in favour of internet orders, has been found wanting in the west. Now, the US PC giant has decided that Chinese customers also prefer a face-to-face relationship and so it has struck a deal with Gome, the country's largest retailer... hi-tech strategy Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/28/3190344.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/28/3190344.html Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:12:00 +0200 Chinese PC maker Lenovo has seen its ambitions to become a Top Three global player stymied by Acer of Taiwan. Acer has snapped up Gateway of the US in a recommended offer which vaults Acer into third position in the global PC market and effectively blocks Lenovo's attempt to acquire Packard Bell... hi-tech Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/27/3156346.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/27/3156346.html Mon, 27 Aug 2007 06:00:00 +0200 China's chip industry is the world's fastest growing but it is still slanted towards relatively low value-added operations like production, packaging and testing, and the country has yet to be taken seriously in semiconductor design... hi-tech Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/20/3149497.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/20/3149497.html Mon, 20 Aug 2007 03:00:00 +0200 Sycamore Networks, the US optical networking manufacturer and one-time dotcom star, has joined the growing number of western hi-tech firms to open an R&D centre in China. Based in Shanghai, the centre will develop technologies for so-called "intelligent" networks optimised for high-bandwidth voice, video, and data applications... hi-tech Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/16/3149224.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/16/3149224.html Thu, 16 Aug 2007 06:00:00 +0200 More than 71m mobile phone sets were sold in China in the first half of 2007, a 25% year-on-year rise. In revenue terms growth was much more modest, just 5.5%, due to tumbling average prices and low-end sales offensives by leaders Nokia and Motorola. Samsung took third place while Lenovo in fourth position, is the leading homegrown brand... hi-tech Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/9/3149044.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/9/3149044.html Thu, 09 Aug 2007 17:23:00 +0200 Western businesses are waking up to China's potential as a major IT outsourcing region. And so too are western venture capitalists. DarwinSuzsoft, a US outsourcing firm with most of its staff in China, has closed a $48m round of VC funding. DarwinSuzsoft argues that China offers several advantages over India for IT outsourcing... hi-tech Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/7/3144423.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/7/3144423.html Tue, 07 Aug 2007 18:30:00 +0200 Todays' revelation that Lenovo is negotiating to buy Packard Bell confirms the Chinese PC manufacturer's global ambitions, although this time the target is Europe. By buying the company, Lenovo can leverage Packard Bell's brand and its distribution channels, which in some European countries are better established than those of Lenovo... hi-tech Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/2/3135530.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/2/3135530.html Thu, 02 Aug 2007 17:17:00 +0200 More bullish talk on China's enterprise software market, this time from HK-based CDC Software, part of Nasdaq-listed CDC Corp, which has announced record sales in China for Platinum, its human resources management software, and new contract wins in China for other enterprise software products in its portfolio... hi-tech Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/1/3133226.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/1/3133226.html Wed, 01 Aug 2007 20:17:00 +0200 Oracle, the world's second largest ERP vendor, claims business is booming in China. At its AsiaPac user conference, held appropriately enought in Shanghai, it made a raft of China-related announcements that suggest that China is close to reaching the tipping point for western enterprise software vendors... hi-tech Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/7/17/3099699.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/7/17/3099699.html Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:33:00 +0200 Microsoft's Advanced Technology Centre in Beijing has produced the Fone+, a product that lets users connect their mobile phones to a TV, keyboard and mouse. The product is aimed at markets like China where PC penetration is low yet mobile phone ownership is high... hi-tech Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/7/17/3099602.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/7/17/3099602.html Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:30:00 +0200 Alibaba, the Chinese B2B trading site, hopes to raise at least $1bn through a stock market listing, probably in HK. Investors have short memories and many have forgotten the huge sums lost in the original B2B e-commerce boom of five or six years ago. Will things be better this time round? hi-tech Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/7/16/3096981.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/7/16/3096981.html Mon, 16 Jul 2007 17:06:00 +0200 Dow Corning, the US maker of hi-tech materials, is looking to tap into the opportunities in China's fast-growing microelectronics market. Dow Corning opened its China Application Centre in Shanghai back in 2002 to strengthen customer collaborations in China.... hi-tech Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/7/13/3089556.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/7/13/3089556.html Fri, 13 Jul 2007 07:57:00 +0200 It makes a change to hear that a Chinese handset manufacturer is worried about piracy and has taken out patents on its latest model. Beijing-based Hi-Tech Wealth said it has received four patents covering the design of its unusual solar-powered mobile phone, which was unveiled to the west at the CeBIT trade fair in Hannover earlier this year... hi-tech Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/7/13/3089546.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/7/13/3089546.html Fri, 13 Jul 2007 07:52:00 +0200 Regular EngagingChina readers will remember that US networking equipment maker 3Com last year took control of H3C, a China-based joint venture with China's Huawei. The deal gave 3Com 2,400 R&D workers in China and a huge cost advantage over its rivals, the company claims... hi-tech Geoff Nairn http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/7/12/3087633.html http://www.engagingchina.com/blog/_archives/2007/7/12/3087633.html Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:03:00 +0200 Israeli chip company Metalink has been chosen by China's Hisense to supply super-fast WiFi chips to transmit high-definition TV signals around the home. Hisense is betting on HD-TV to stand above the cut-throat TV market and Metalink's technology could become a de facto standard for wireless sharing of HD-TV content, at least in China... hi-tech