M&A Scene At Alcatel And Brocade

Alcatel-Lucent, (NYSE:ALU), the telecommunications equipment company with annual revenue of €15.57 billion ($21.19 billion), recently made two acquisitions in the mobile applications space. Mikael Ricknäs of ComputerWorld says Alcatel-Lucent has realized the importance of applications and developers and hopes to become the intermediary between service providers and developers. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

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SanDisk Soaring On Apple’s Wings

Last quarter, we observed how the soaring sales of Apple’s iPad benefitted the storage industry. Eric Savitz of Barron’s reports that there are at least two dozen companies planning tablets that rely on NAND flash memory chips for data storage. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Online Travel: More Destinations, More Services, More Apps

The online travel sector has been abuzz with activity. In July of this year, Google announced its intention to enter the vertical and acquired flight search engine ITA Software for $700 million. The deal is still under antitrust investigation. More recently, MakeMyTrip, an India-based online travel services provider, debuted on the Nasdaq through its IPO; the stock appreciated 89% on the first day of trading. >>>

The Ideal Carrier For The iPhone

The upcoming end of iPhone exclusivity on the AT&T network is bound to change the equation in the carrier industry. According to Shaw Wu with Kaufman Bros., details are being worked out for a Verizon iPhone and that it would be “premature” to rule out T-Mobile and Sprint. In an earlier note, Wu said that T-Mobile USA is the most likely candidate given that it uses similar cellular technology as AT&T. Also, T-Mobile needs the iPhone more than Verizon does, but it seems that Apple needs Verizon more than any other carrier. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Websense Open For Takeover As Security Firms Strengthen Mobile Offerings

The security market seems to be riding a consolidation wave. Earlier last month, Intel agreed to acquire McAfee for a staggering $7.7 billion. HP also added to its security portfolio by buying the application security provider, Fortify Security. IBM had recently bought another security firm, BigFix, to accelerate its smart data center and security initiatives. Meanwhile, Websense’s (NASDAQ:WBSN) CEO, Gene Hodges, has said that Websense is open to a takeover bid. >>>

New Twist In The Intel–ARM Tale

The Intel–ARM rivalry took a new turn this week with Intel announcing plans to acquire Infineon’s wireless chip business for $1.4 billion. Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, has been eyeing the smartphone microprocessor market, which is dominated by ARM (NASDAQ:ARMH). ARM, on the other hand, is pushing its low-power processors for netbooks. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Efficiency Is The Priority For First Solar, SunPower

With Germany’s feed-in tariff cuts for the solar industry kicking in from February 2011 and Spain having announced 45% tariff cuts for new solar farms, 25% for large rooftop installations, and 5% for residential systems, solar players are looking at alternative markets for growth. The United States itself offers tremendous opportunity because solar demand is expected to grow 75% over the year in 2011. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, in 2009, Germany was the leader in global installed solar capacity with 9.79 GW, followed by Spain with 4.01 GW, Japan with 2.68 GW and the United States with 2.09 GW. But analysts estimate installed capacity within the United States to grow faster than international capacity growth, making it a more dominant market by 2014. Today, 23 GW, equivalent to the needs of 4.4 million households, is already under development in the country. >>>

Citrix Becomes Latest Cloud Consolidator

Early this week, Citrix (NASDAQ:CTXS), a leader in virtualization with annual revenue of $1.58 billion, announced its plans to acquire VMLogix, a leading provider of virtualization management for private and public clouds. The VMLogix acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter, and Citrix plans to use the technology from VMLogix to extend the Citrix OpenCloud platform and add an intuitive self-service interface to to its popular XenServer virtualization platform. Gartner expects the market for server virtualization management to reach $2 billion in 2014, growing at a compound annual rate of 39.2%. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Still Too Many Players In EDA

For the fiscal 2010, Gartner projects the global semiconductor market to grow 27% over the year to $290 billion after having dropped 9% over the year in 2009 to $225 billion. Recently reported results of major electronic design automation (EDA) industry players saw growth exceed market expectations. >>>

Dolby, On A Roll, Courts Apple

Dolby (NYSE:DLB), the industry leader in audio technology, has expanded from cinema to home entertainment, PCs, Blu-ray DVDs, 3-D, and mobile markets. Airtel Digital TV, one of India’s leading commercial broadcast services, recently announced its selection of Dolby Digital Plus for its high-definition programming. With the global transition from analog to digital broadcasting, Dolby can expect continued strong growth. Let’s take a closer look. >>>