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How does this data affect the technology industry? Industry leaders like Accenture, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Oracle that have long embraced a vertical industry sales and marketing strategy are best positioned to anticipate market opportunities and move resources around to capitalize on this. The bulk of vendors who take a horizontal approach must learn how to customize solutions and adapt sales/marketing toward vertical industries. In my mind, industry marketing is no longer a “nice to have.” It is a “gotta have.”

Three industry sectors will experience employment and IT budget growth in 2009: health care, federal government, and state and local government.

It seems like the headlines are more and more depressing each day. Layoffs, stock market drops, budget deficits, etc. Heck, even my friends in the ever-optimistic Silicon Valley are bummed out.

Yeah, it’s looks pretty gloomy, but it’s important to remember that the economy isn’t binary– different industries are feeling the pain in different ways. ESG Research recently compared internal data on 2009 IT budget changes by industry with external data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary from February 2009. This comparison uncovers some interesting trends:

Two industry sectors will cut employment but increase IT budgets in 2009: financial services (mid-sized firms) and communications/media.

All other industries covered in this exercise will decrease employment and IT budgets in 2009. These include: retail, professional services, financial services (large firms), transportation and logistics, and manufacturing.

You can’t fault Intel’s brass for not having a better crystal ball. Messrs. Bernanke, Paulson and Bush don’t know with any assurance how things are going to end up, either. If you’re looking for the silver linking, Otellini did remind his listeners that the current economy bears little resemblance to the post-dot-com downturn.

If he was liberty to do so, Otellini would have directed his listeners’ attentions to that qualifier. But as the boss, he figures there’s no sense in stirring up more panic. Still, this is a holy sh*t moment with Intel basically flipping a coin about where it thinks it’s heading. And you know what? The rest of the technology industry is in the same boat.

“One of the things I remember…was that people stopped buying computers,” he said. What with all the bankruptcies piling up, there was no shortage of hardware and you could buy second-hand computers and servers at sharp discounts to their sticker prices.

If these were normal times, Intel’s quarterly earnings report would barely generate more than passing interest. A penny above, a penny below–only Wall Street and day traders give a damn.

Current uncertainty in global economic conditions pose a risk to the overall economy as consumers and businesses may defer purchases in response to tighter credit and negative financial news, which could negatively affect product demand and other related matters. Consequently, demand could be different from Intel’s expectations due to factors including changes in business and economic conditions, including conditions in the credit market, that could affect consumer confidence; customer acceptance of Intel’s and competitors’ products; changes in customer order patterns including order cancellations; and changes in the level of inventory at customers.”

This much he does know: consumer purchases remain “light at this point in the quarter” and Intel can’t predict whether the stock market collapse will keep shoppers away from the malls this December.

But these aren’t normal times. Intel today said that its fourth quarter revenue may be anywhere between $10.1 billion and $10.9 billion. That’s one helluva wide margin. You see, because of all the recent nastiness in the markets–they just don’t know.

The other statement of note came in the text of the press release announcing the earnings. They deserve quotation in full:

Intel explained that the stock market’s slo-mo meltdown has created a “high degree of uncertainty” where Intel will finish up the year. That’s a big change because this company is usually as precise as a cruise missile in narrowing down its target.

Speaking on the conference call with analysts this afternoon, CEO Paul Otellini allowed that while the just-concluded quarter played out “mostly” as expected, he said the financial crisis had created “some kind of stress that may impact” Intel’s business in the current quarter. He’s just not sure how.

Coleman, who will report to AOL chief operating officer Ron Grant, left Yahoo early last year amid a management shuffle and became president and CEO of ad targeting start-up NetSeer. Around the time of his departure, AOL itself went through a shakeup in which Platform-A president Curt Viebranz left the company. Viebranz was replaced by Lynda Clazirio, who was president of AOL acquisition Advertising.com.

(Credit:
AOL)

Greg Coleman, a longtime Yahoo executive, has been named the new president of AOL’s advertising division, Platform-A.

Greg Coleman

“Greg Coleman is the perfect person to build on the foundation we created at Platform-A and drive branded display sales across our fast-growing MediaGlow programming network,” AOL chairman and CEO Randy Falco said in a release, referring to the network of blogs and media properties that the online conglomerate formally packaged and announced last month. “Greg’s a seasoned sales pro who understands that online brand building is the next frontier in digital advertising, and that whoever can deliver marketers measurably improved branding online will be positioned for long-term success.”

CNET News asked a representative from AOL, which relocated its corporate headquarters from Dulles, Va., to New York in 2007 to position itself close to the advertising and media industries, whether Clazirio would remain at the company. The e-mailed response was, “Lynda hasn’t yet announced what she’s planning to do next.”

Moreover, he said the Agriculture Department’s Rural Utilities Service–which is responsible for allocating $2.5 billion of the broadband stimulus funds–does not have the best record for distributing broadband funding effectively. Much of the broadband funding the RUS is already responsible for has gone to areas that already have high-speed access, he said.

“The grant process is not simple and straightforward,” he said. “There is a lot of paperwork involved and a lot of due diligence that needs to get done.”

The stimulus funds will already take too long to distribute, contended some speakers on a panel at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, but decisions such as whether to withhold the money until new policies are developed or broadband data is collected could make the funds even less effective at creating jobs.

“The task is too large for any group of grant reviewers,” he said. “There have to be intermediaries, and the natural intermediaries are the states.”

The stimulus package includes $350 million for the creation of a broadband inventory map that will lay out, in detail, areas of the country that lack broadband access. Atkinson said he has heard some in Washington suggest that the rest of the broadband money be withheld until the mapping exercise is complete–something he says would significantly mute the stimulative impact of the money.

“Unfortunately, those maps are not going to be available tomorrow,” she said.

“While the stimulus bill is not about policy making, it does not want to waste dollars,” she said. “We believe it is imperative…to have this information in order to avoid chaos–in order to run a grant program that avoids fraud, but also for the expediency of making decisions about what is served and what is unserved.”

Yet without accurate information about where broadband is already deployed, agencies run the risk of distributing money inefficiently or to fraudulent programs, said Raquel Noriega, director of strategic partnerships for ConnectedNation, a nonprofit that promotes broadband adoption.

To make the grant distribution process more effective, Eisenach said the RUS and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration–the other agency responsible for broadband stimulus funds–should work with the states to find worthy projects.

“I really think we should not try to layer on a lot of reforms here,” he said. “The perfect should not be the enemy of the good.”

ConnectedNation has completed mapping broadband access in eight states and could finish the rest of the mapping before the end of the year, Noriega said.

WASHINGTON–Federal regulators have some critical decisions to make in the coming weeks that could determine whether the $7.2 billion in stimulus funds designated for broadband will create the optimal number of jobs or be distributed wisely, Internet experts said Wednesday.

“It starts to blur the line between stimulus and just good national investment,” said Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. “There’s a sort of half-life on stimulus funds. At the end of the day, (the economic recovery package) was sold to the American people as stimulus.”

Regardless of whether the mapping is a consideration, the funds will be distributed slowly because the grant allocation process is complicated, said Jeffrey Eisenach, chairman and managing partner of Empiris, an economic consulting firm.

Apple needs to bring the high-end MBA down to about $2,000. Still pricey but probably justifiable (to the lucky few out there who sold their Nantucket vacation home before the crash).

HP Voodoo Envy 133 is a stunning design but way overpriced because of old hardware

(Credit:
Hewlett-Packard)

The stratospheric-price-defying negatives include an old processor, a lagging-edge solid-state drive (64GB instead of the current 128GB standard), and last year’s graphics.

Sony Vaio Z series is aimed presumably at Wall Street firms flush with stimulus-package cash

Here’s a quick rundown:

But there is little to justify (in my opinion) a price tag approaching $4,000 (unless Sony has doubled up on gold memory connectors and isn’t telling us about it). Yes, you get new Intel silicon (a P9500 running at 2.53GHz), hybrid graphics (Nvidia and Intel), a high-resolution LED display (1600 x 900), but nothing that justifies forking over $3,900, even if you’re Merrill Lynch flush with stimulus-package cash.

The price of Apple's MacBook Air is less egregious than the others but still exorbitant

The 13-inch ultra-slim Voodoo Envy 133 model NV4050NA is priced at $2,699.99 (with “instant rebate”), but the buyer gets nothing extraordinary for this extraordinary price, with the possible exception of an external optical drive and a power adapter with a wireless access point built in.

Let’s start with the Hewlett-Packard Voodoo Envy 133, probably the most brazenly overpriced of the batch because it will still set you back as much as $2,700 despite the fact that it hasn’t been updated in almost eight months and, accordingly, comes with obsolete hardware.

But first a few positives. One of the most unusual features of the Vaio Z is a discrete Nvidia GeForce 9300M graphics chip. Almost all of the newer ultraportables come with Intel 4500MHD integrated graphics only. So this is certainly a plus and echoes the Nvidia 9400M graphics in the newest MacBook Air. It also packs DDR3 SDRAM memory. This is good too.

The next criminally overpriced laptop is the 13-inch Sony Vaio Z Series ultraportable laptop (3.4 pounds). The VGN-Z590UBB model is priced at $3,899.99. Amazingly, this comes with only a one-year warranty.

An old Intel Core 2 Duo SP7700 Processor (1.8GHz) processor (think: original MacBook Air)
A pass? 64GB solid-state drive
An ancient Intel graphics media accelerator X3100 (think: original ThinkPad X300)
A short-lasting 3-cell battery
An external optical drive (this is one of the few pluses)

Finally, I must mention the Apple MacBook Air (I know I’ll get slammed for this). The newest version with the upgraded Intel processor, Nvidia graphics, and a 128GB solid-state drive is certainly a vast improvement over the original. But in the age of the Netbook and seriously budget-constrained buyers $2,500 ($2,499) is just too expensive.

(Credit:
Sony)

Some laptops, especially ultraportables, brazenly push the envelope on pricing. In the age of the ultra-cheap Netbook, are they really worth the $2,000 to $3,000 price tag? I’ve listed three egregious offenders and two that fall into the less-scandalous-but-still-snooty pricing category.

The third up is the 12-inch Fujitsu LifeBook B6230 (3.2 pounds), priced at $1,799. Though it’s listed lower than the Voodoo and the Sony, the features are strikingly unimpressive for the $1,800 list price. An archaic Intel ULV U7600 (1.2 GHz) processor (533 MHz front-side bus), 1GB of memory, an 80GB hard disk drive, 802.11a/b/g wireless (no “n” here), and a one-year warranty round out (yawn) the features.

Note: This is not a CNET review. This reflects the opinion of Nanotech: The Circuits blog only.

What’s the downside to these decent features? You guessed it, the price: $2,999–and that includes a slow Intel SU9400 (1.4GHz) processor. With full-featured Netbooks costing about one-sixth the price (between $500 and $700) and an HP Pavilion dv2 ultraportable on the way priced at about $900, the Toshiba begins to look, well, overpriced.

(Credit:
Apple)

In descending order of extravagance, at No. 4 is the 12-inch Toshiba Portege R600 model S4202. Price aside, a quick glance at the features would impress most prospective buyers: very light at 2.4 pounds, standard 3GB of memory, a 128GB solid-state drive, a integrated optical drive, 802.11a/g/n wireless, and a Webcam.

Even according to Pingdom’s numbers, MySpace doesn’t appear to be shrinking. The performance firm thinks that could be due to a number of factors: that MySpace is continuing to recruit new users to replace those who may have left for Facebook, that people are using both social networks, or that Facebook is recruiting members who haven’t been prior users of either site.

The team at Pingdom, a firm that focuses primarily on uptime and performance, has posted a new blog entry estimating that Facebook will overtake MySpace as the top social network in the U.S. within a month or two. That’s largely because, according to the same numbers, Facebook has doubled in size in the past year.

Several months ago, traffic firm ComScore noted that Facebook–a year ago far smaller than the News Corp.-owned MySpace–was starting to pass its rival in worldwide traffic. But in the U.S., which still has the big ad dollars, MySpace remained bigger.

There’s something to note, though: Pingdom used Google Trends to make its assessment. Google Trends traffic data is one of only many sources of statistics out there, and it’s collected primarily from people who have installed the Google toolbar. Numbers from Compete.com, for example, show that MySpace is still ahead.

As a result of the upgrade, Blip.tv’s embed code can now point
iPhone users directly to the .m4v QuickTime stream while still delivering the Flash version to users with it installed. Unfortunately this does not carry over to previously embedded Flash-based Blip.tv videos. Visiting an earlier post where I embedded a Blip.tv video, it still shows up with the giant Flash-fail icon.

Video host Blip.tv has just launched support for iPhones letting mobile users view the entirety of its video collection on the go. Like visiting the site on your computer, you can both browse and search through Blip’s videos and get them to play without having to download a special application.

Blip.tv’s CTO Justin Day tells me there’s no way to add backward compatibility to these old embeds, but that video publishers can go back and manually update the video to support it.

Update: Here’s a how-to video posted by Day. You should be able to view this if you’re reading from your iPhone.

Below is an example of the new content portal iPhone users are greeted with:

Watch Blip.tv shows right on your iPhone with a new content browser that streams QuickTime files.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

When I first read about this, it seemed an afterthought for newbies too clueless to know how to rip CDs to their hard drive. But after taking a look through the playlists, it made a little more sense: these are genre-specific samplers or one-hit wonders. In other words, the kinds of songs that people might enjoy having on their MP3 player but aren’t worth buying a full album to get.

(Credit: Dell)

Dell on Wednesday began offering bundles of songs on new computers ordered through its Web site.

For instance, as a classic-rock kid from the ’80s, there are times I might enjoy hearing “Funk #49,”
“Maggie May,” or “One Thing Leads To Another” (in fact, I’ve owned LPs with all of those songs at one time), but I wouldn’t pay a buck to download them. But there they both are on the “Rock Titans” bundle, along with a few other ex-radio songs that get stuck in my head occasionally, as well as some trash I’d delete immediately.

So basically, Dell and Universal are charging $25 to save you the trouble of going to an online music store like Amazon.com or iTunes, and downloading a bunch of individual tunes. The idea would work better if it dug deeper into particular genres–the Blues Masters collection is great for casual blues fans, but what about Madchester flashback or old school?

Just like you can add a copy of
Microsoft Office or an extra hard drive, you can pick a bundle of 50 MP3 files for an extra $25 or 100 MP3s for an extra $45–that’s about half the price of most download stores. The deal’s limited to songs owned by Universal Music Group, one of the big four record labels.

"And if you hear me talking on the wind, you've got to understand we must remain…perfect strangers."

But O’Grady and others point out that these numbers may be misleading.

(Credit:
Apple)

According to the spreadsheet, AFB is reporting that 9,190,680 iPhone units have been created, which my colleague Jason D. O’Grady at ZDNet estimates could mean that about 7.6 million iPhone 3G have already been sold and more than 10 million iPhones in total.

Has Apple really sold its 10 millionth iPhone? That’s what several bloggers are saying. But a closer look suggests that it might be a bit too early to pop open the champagne.

A joint project of AFB and Investor Village’s AAPL Sanity has been collecting data about
iPhone inventory. Using a Google spreadsheet, the group has been unofficially tracking iPhone production estimates using International Mobile Equipment Identity, or IMEI, numbers that are used to uniquely identify every GSM, UMTS, or iDEN mobile phone.

The groups gathering the data explicitly point out that these are production estimates, not sales estimates. This means the figures also include Apple Retail Store inventory, store displays, and replacement units, which do not count as sales.

This might explain why Apple has been mum on the whole thing. But this is not to say that the iPhone hasn’t been selling well. In fact, market research firm NPD Group said Monday that 30 percent of smartphone buyers this summer left their existing carrier to get an iPhone 3G.