| OCZ Faces Question of Sale Versus Relaunch Following CEO's Resignation Posted: 18 Sep 2012 12:28 PM PDT  There's been quite the shakeup in Silicon Valley this week. After learning that AMD's CFO Thomas Seifert has resigned to pursue other opportunities, we now find out that OCZ Technology's head honcho and founder, Ryan Petersen, has stepped down as CEO, effective immediately. Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Alex Mei, is taking Petersen's place on an interim basis, but the question OCZ faces is whether it would be better off finding new management or selling its operations.
OCZ's share price has fallen nearly 6 percent to around $4.16 following news of Petersen's departure, and 33 percent so far this year. There's been chatter that OCZ is having trouble securing enough NAND flash memory chips for its storage and memory products. "Our sense is, given the numerous challenges still facing the company, that an organized sale would be an easier route for investors and employees alike," Sterne Agee analysts Alex Kurtz and Amelia Harris wrote in a note. The circumstances of Petersen's departure aren't yet known at this time, though Kurtz and Harris believe it's likely due to to the recent revenue miss along with ongoing frustrations related to securing a NAND deal. Such things are now Mr. Mei's problem. 
Alex Mei, OCZ's interim CEO
"I'm honored that the Board has selected me to lead OCZ on an interim basis. We have dedicated and talented employees, extremely competitive technology, and product roadmaps that we believe will enable us to continue to provide industry-leading solid state storage solutions to our growing customer base," Mr. Mei said in a statement. "As one of the longest tenured employees, I've been fortunate to have had a front-row seat to what OCZ's amazing employees are capable of achieving for nearly a decade. I'm confident that our team will continue to execute the core strategies we've previously communicated to investors." OCZ has been a long-time player in the component business. In the early days, OCZ made a name for itself selling enthusiast grade RAM. In 2011, OCZ ditched the DRAM market to focus on the more profitable solid state drive sector. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Daily Deals 9/17/12: 20% off Logitech G600, 20% off 120GB Intel 520 and More Posted: 18 Sep 2012 12:00 PM PDT  
Top Deal If you're still using the old PS2 mouse your dad gave you and are in need of an upgrade, check out today's daily deal: The Logitech G600 MMO Gaming Mouse. At $63.99 with free shipping (normally $79.99 - use 20% coupon code: BIGDEALS), Logitech's gaming mouse offers a whopping 20 buttons (because, you know, 19 buttons simply aren't enough). On your left thumbside alone, there are 12 buttons (which work great for spell casting in an MMO). In terms of sensitivity, the G600 offers a range between 200 to 8,200 DPI that you can change on the fly. Allowing you to take advantage of your tweaked sensitvity settings is the mouse's low-friction feet. Tying everything together to your computer is a braided USB cable. For more information on our daily deal, check out our detailed writeup of the mouse here.
Desktops: Dell XPS 8500 Core i7 Ivy Bridge Desktop w/2TB hard drive, 8GB DDR3 RAM, Wireless-N, 1GB Radeon HD 7570 graphics for $749 with free shipping (normally $850 - use $100 coupon code: V48PR?HP99J3D?). Computing Hardware & Peripherals: 120GB Intel 520 Series 2.5" SATA 6GB/s SSD (SSDSC2CW120A3K5) for $119.99 with free shipping (normally $149.99 - use 20% coupon code: BIGDEALS). 180GB Intel 520 Series 2.5" SATA 6GB/S SSD for $167.99 with free shipping (normally $185 at Amazon.com). Logitech Wireless Wave Mouse & Keyboard MK550 for $47.99 with free shipping (normally $79.99). |
| Amped Wireless AP20000G Wireless Router Promises Up to 7,500 Square Feet of Coverage Posted: 18 Sep 2012 10:25 AM PDT  Is there anything more frustrating than dealing with a wireless dead zone in your home or office building? Sure there are, but no matter how it compares to other unfortunate events, dealing with weak Wi-Fi signals can be a maddening affair. Amped Wireless set about solving this problem with its new AP20000G dual-band Wi-Fi access point. According to Amped Wireless, this high power device will extend the range of your Wi-Fi coverage by up to 7,500 square feet.
The AP20000G works its Wi-Fi extending mojo with a 620MHz processor, premium high power Wi-Fi 600mW 2.4GHz amplifiers, high power 5GHz amplifiers, and two detachable dual-band high gain antennas. Just connect it to your home router (wired or wirelessly) and the AP20000G will do the rest, Amped Wireless says. 
In addition to improved Wi-Fi coverage, the AP20000G sports a USB 2.0 port for file sharing, support for advanced security protocols, up to eight Wi-Fi networks for guess access, plug-and-play setup, and four Gigabit wired ports. Amped Wireless has the AP20000G up for pre-order for $170. Shipments will begin September 26, 2012. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Microsoft Reveals Pricing Info for Office 365 Subscriptions Posted: 18 Sep 2012 09:26 AM PDT  We finally have some pricing details to share regarding Microsoft's cloud-based Office 365 platform. In a recent blog post, the software giant laid out the details for both consumers and businesses. On the consumer side, an Office 365 Premium subscription will start at $8.33 per month, billed annually at $99.99, which covers up to five users. It will be available in both physical and online stores across 227 markets worldwide, Microsoft says. There will also be a free 30-day trial available.
"With this release, we're modernizing Office, and an important part of that is the introduction of new subscriptions," Microsoft said. "Subscriptions open a host of possibilities, and subscribing to Office 365 will be the best choice for many - especially families, people with multiple devices and small businesses." The above mentioned Office 365 Premium subscription comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, and Publisher. It can be installed on up to 5 PCs or Macs and shared among all users in the home. It will come with nearly three times the amount of SkyDrife storage with an additional 20GB over the 7GB you already get for free, as well as 60 minutes of Skype world calling per month. 
Office 365 Small Business Premium runs $12.50 per month ($149.99 billed annually) and adds a 25GB Outlook mailbox, 10GB of professional grade cloud storage for the organization plus 500MB per user, the ability to host online meetings in HD, and a public-facing website without any additional hosting fees. If you're not feeling the cloud-subscription model, don't worry, Microsoft says you'll still be able to buy traditional Office suites. Prices will start at $139.99 for Office Home and Student 2013 editions, and go up from there. For those who purchase Office 2010 on or after October 19, they'll be eligible to download a year of Office 365 Home Premium or the equivalent Office 2013, for free. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| AMD CFO Thomas Seifert Resigns, Company Stock Takes a Hit Posted: 18 Sep 2012 08:11 AM PDT  Another high profile executive has fled Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Thomas Seifert, previously the Sunnyvale chip designer's Chief Financial Officer (CFO), has resigned "to pursue other opportunities." Taking his place is Devinder Kumar, senior vice president and corporate controller. Kumar assumes the position on an interim basis as AMD seeks a permanent replacement.
According to AMD, Seiftert's announced departure doesn't carry any unnecessary drama. It was not decided based on any disagreement with the company or over AMD's accounting principles or practice, the chip designer said. Simply put, Seifert felt it was time to move on. "We thank Thomas for his many contributions to AMD and for serving as interim CEO in 2011," said Rory Read, AMD president and CEO. "Thomas' personal commitment to the highest standards of accountability and financial integrity has helped define how AMD does business today. Devinder is an experienced financial executive whose financial expertise and semiconductor experience developed during his 28 year tenure at AMD is an asset to the company." As amicable as this departure seems to be, it's the latest in a long string of high profile resignations at AMD that spans the past few years. AMD lost Eric Demers, former graphics Chief Technology Officer, back in February of this year, Before that, high profile resignations include Dirk Meyer (former CEO), Rick Bergman (former Products Group GM), Nigel Dessau (former CMO), Emilio Ghilardi (former Senior VP and Chief Sales Officer), and Godfrey Cheng (former Director of Client Technologies and 12-year employee at AMD). All of these departures occured no earlier than 2011. Whether the result of the cumulative effect of losing so many high-level executives or simply a reaction to Seifert specifically, investors hit the panic button after news hit the wire, sending AMD's share price down nearly 12 percent in extended trading hours. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Cooler Master TPC 812 Review Posted: 18 Sep 2012 08:00 AM PDT Vertical vapor chamber—blowing hot air? We have been anxious to test Cooler Master's TPC 812 since we saw a prototype at this year's CES—or was it last year's? Regardless, the company piqued our interest with its talk of "vertical vapor chamber cooling," and we finally have our hands on the TPC 812, a massive air cooler with six heat pipes and two vertical vapor chambers. The TPC 812 is 6.4 inches high, 4.1 inches deep (with fan), and 5.4 inches wide, and weighs over two pounds, four ounces. Unlike Cooler Master's wildly successful Hyper 212 coolers, the TPC 812 doesn't have direct-contact heat pipes. Or direct-contact vapor chambers. Instead, its six heat pipes are soldered to the (nickel-coated) copper heatsink, and the bottoms of the vapor chambers rest atop the heat pipes. The heat pipes and vapor chambers rise through a large stack of aluminum fins. The TPC 812 ships with one 12cm PWM fan with a set of plastic mounting clips, beefier versions of the ones that ship with the Hyper 212 Evo (April 2012), as well as a set of clips for attaching an additional fan. The cooler also ships with a resistor cable if you prefer to run your fan at lower rpms, which you might, given its noise at full throttle. The TPC 812 mounts to the motherboard with the same sort of mounting bracket we've seen on the Hyper 212 series coolers: an X-shaped crossbar with spring-screws at the ends, which mounts to four posts in the motherboard's cooler mounting holes. The posts are either screwed directly into the integrated backplate (LGA2011) or into a universal backplate (all other sockets). The TPC 812 cooled our overclocked i7-3960X to 71.2 C—47.2 C above the 24 C ambient temperature in the room. By contrast, the Xigmatek Aegir, our champion at this price/size range, got the CPU down to 69.2 C in a 25.6 C room (43.6 C difference), and the CM Hyper 212 Evo, our favorite budget cooler, got the CPU to 70.2 C while the room was 25.7 C (44.5 C difference). The TPC 812 isn't a bad cooler—its performance is still impressive. It's just not enough to dethrone the Hyper 212 Evo or the Xigmatek Aegir. Both, incidentally, are direct-contact coolers, and the Evo is half the price of the TPC 812. 
Those massive heat pipes protruding from the top of the cooler? They're decorative caps, sitting on the real (and smaller) heat pipes. We're not sure why Cooler Master chose to use vapor chambers at all on this cooler, given that a vapor chamber is essentially a wide, flat heat pipe. They're useful in space-constrained applications like videocards, but the TPC 812 hardly has that problem, and putting vapor chambers atop the six heat pipes the cooler already has feels like an afterthought, or a gimmick. Given that this is the only vertical vapor chamber cooler we've tested, we're not ready to dismiss the technology outright, and the TPC 812 is a fine cooler, but compared to cheaper, lighter direct-contact coolers, the TPC 812 can't win. |
| Asustek's Windows 8 Tablets May Be Priced Out of Contention Posted: 18 Sep 2012 05:56 AM PDT  During an investors conference last month, Asustek president Jerry Shen had said that if Microsoft launched its Surface tablet at the then much-rumored $199 price point, it would effectively jeopardize the survival of the Taiwanese PC vendor's own Windows 8-based tablets. Now, a new report suggests Asus may have found a rather ingenious way of preventing Microsoft from doing so.
ZDNet claims to have gotten its hands on a leaked roadmap document (below) that shows the tablets Asustek has lined up for the holidays. But the most interesting thing contained in this allegedly leaked document is the pricing of these tablets, which, if true, suggests that the Taiwanese company has decided if anyone is going to threaten Windows 8 tablets out of contention, it is going to be Asus itself. The slide published by ZDNet lists three tablets: the Tegra 3-powered Vivo Tab RT, the Intel Atom Z2760-based Vivo Tab, and the dual-screen Taichi. If the document is genuine, the 10.1-inch Vivo Tab RT and the 11.6-inch Vivo Tab will start at $599 and $799 respectively. As for the Taichi, it could end up costing as much as $1,299. 
Image Credit: ZDnet |
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