SOFTWARE
Microsoft’s tech chief leaving
Bill Gates’ successor as Microsoft’s chief software architect, Ray Ozzie, is leaving the company after five years. In an e-mail sent to Microsoft employees on Monday, CEO Steve Ballmer announced the change, saying Ozzie would stay with Microsoft for an undefined transition period. Ballmer said the company was not looking for a replacement. He said Ozzie, whose title translated into the company’s top technical thinker, planned to concentrate on “the broader area of entertainment where Microsoft has many ongoing investments” before he leaves.
BANKING
Citi posts quarterly profit
Citigroup Inc, one of the worst-hit banks during the financial crisis, posted its third straight quarterly profit in a sign that major banks and their customers are starting to find their footing. The New York bank, which is still 12 percent owned by the government, earned US$2.15 billion, or US$0.07 per share, in the three months ending last month. The results beat analysts’ expectations by US$0.01. Citi became the second major bank this quarter, after JPMorgan Chase & Co, to report a profit by dipping into funds it had set aside to cover future losses from bad loans.
UNITED STATES
September output shrinks
Industrial output shrank last month for the first time in more than a year, a sign the economy was in a slow growth rut that appears certain to lead to more monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve. Another report on Monday showed home-builder sentiment rose this month, but remained at depressed levels, fortifying views that the Fed would pump more money into the economy at its next policy meeting on Nov. 2 and 3. Industrial production fell 0.2 percent last month, the first decline since June last year, the Fed said. Economists had expected industrial production to rise 0.2 percent.
GERMANY
Investor confidence dips
Investor confidence fell to a 21-month low this month as weaker global growth and a stronger euro dimmed the export outlook. The ZEW Center for European Economic Research in Mannheim said its index of investor and analyst expectations, which aims to predict developments six months ahead, dropped for a sixth month, to minus 7.2 from minus 4.3 in September.
RETAIL
Rakuten, Baidu set up e-mall
Japan’s top Internet retailer, Rakuten, and its Chinese partner, Baidu (百度), yesterday launched a new online shopping mall in China, despite heightened bilateral tensions between the two countries. The virtual marketplace, called Lekutian, will offer goods such as apparel, fashion accessories, furniture, home electronics and appliances, digital equipment and cosmetics, the firms said in a joint statement. The e-mall is operated by their joint venture, owned 51 percent by Rakuten and 49 percent by Baidu, while the two will jointly invest US$50 million over three years.
EUROZONE
BOP deficit worsens
The eurozone’s balance of payments (BOP) worsened sharply to a deficit of 7.5 billion euros (US$10.4 billion dollars) in August, the European Central Bank said yesterday as growth in the 16-nation bloc weakened. The BOP, which includes payments for imports and exports of trade in goods and services, is a closely tracked indicator of a country’s or area’s ability to pay its way in the world.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts