INTERNET
Clients question Google ads
Some of Google’s clients have questioned its assertion that it does not sell to customers from its London office, a key plank in its ability to operate almost tax-free in Britain, a poll said on Friday. Meanwhile, the company began amending advertisements for London-based jobs on its Web site, which previously said that candidates would have to achieve “sales quotas” and “drive revenues.” Google Inc says it sells all advertising in the UK, France and Germany from its Dublin office. The Drum, a magazine for marketing professionals, asked 80 ad buyers and digital agencies about their dealings with Google’s London office and their interaction with the office in Dublin. Of the 29 that replied to the survey, “Almost 80 percent of respondents said they dealt with London when buying Google advertising. Around 14 percent said they used Dublin, the remainder said they did not know,” The Drum’s Web site said.
EUROZONE
Recession likely to deepen
The eurozone’s recession will be even deeper than previously feared this year, the European Commission said, as it slashed its outlook for crisis-stricken Cyprus and downgraded the prospects of the bloc’s biggest economies. The EU’s executive arm now expects GDP in the single currency zone to shrink by 0.4 percent this year, a sharper decline than its previous forecast for a drop of 0.3 percent. The recovery penciled in for next year will also be slower than expected and the unemployment crisis in the eurozone will persist, the commission said in its spring forecasts.
TECHNOLOGY
HP investors file complaint
Hewlett-Packard Co (HP) ignored warnings about accounting irregularities at Autonomy Corp and failed to properly vet its finances before acquiring the British software maker, shareholders said in a lawsuit. Hewlett-Packard board members performed “no technical due diligence” and the company’s executives and advisers “misrepresented facts to conceal their own failings,” Joseph Cotchett, an attorney for investors, said in a complaint filed on Friday. Autonomy engaged in “round trip transactions” in which it bought goods from its customers, and engaged in other forms of aggressive revenue recognition to inflate its financial health, according to the complaint. Hewlett-Packard faces shareholder lawsuits stemming from its Nov. 20 announcement that it was taking an US$8.8 billion writedown on the value of British software maker Autonomy, which it agreed to buy for US$10.3 billion in 2011.
UNITED KINGDOM
Service firms beat forecasts
Hopes that the UK’s economy could be stabilizing have been bolstered by data showing that services companies posted their strongest performance last month since the Olympics. Activity beat expectations with its strongest growth for eight months in the closely watched Markit/CIPS PMI survey of the UK’s services sector, which accounts for 75 percent of GDP. At 52.9 the index for last month was above economists’ forecasts and well clear of the 50-mark that separates growth from contraction. The PMI data came as Olli Rehn, European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, said the UK cannot risk a fiscal stimulus program because of high debt levels.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to