Steve Jobs Quits as Apple CEO

Ailing Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs said he is unable to continue at the helm of the technology giant and will step down, handing the reins of one of the world's most valuable companies to Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook.

Apple said Mr. Jobs submitted his resignation to the board of directors on Wednesday and "strongly recommended" that the board name Mr. Cook as his successor. Mr. Jobs, 56 years old, has been elected chairman of the board and Mr. Cook will join the board, effective immediately, the company said.

"I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's CEO, I would be the first to let you know," Mr. Jobs said in his resignation letter. "Unfortunately, that day has come."

"The Board has complete confidence that Tim is the right person to be our next CEO," said Art Levinson, chairman of Genentech and Apple board member, in a statement.

He added that Mr. Jobs will "continue to serve Apple with his unique insights, creativity and inspiration."

After a brief halt, Apple's shares slid 5.13% to $355.70 in after-hours trading, after closing at $376.18, up $2.58, at 4 p.m. on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Mr. Cook, 50, has been widely considered as the leading candidate to succeed Mr. Jobs, who has been on medical leave since January. The 13-year Apple veteran, who joined the company shortly after Mr. Jobs took over for the second time in 1997, has been running the day-to-day operations during this period as he has done during two prior medical leaves of absence by Mr. Jobs in the last seven years.

The timing of the announcement raised questions about the health of Mr. Jobs, who was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer in 2004 and underwent a liver transplant two years ago.

Mr. Jobs hasn't commented on his health since he said in a letter in January that he was taking another leave of absence to "focus on my health." He made an appearance at the launch of the iPad 2 in March and Apple's annual developers' conference in June but appeared thin both times.

People familiar with the situation said that Mr. Jobs has continued to be active at Apple and closely involved in the company's product strategy. To the extent his health permits, some Apple watchers think that involvement is likely to continue even after Mr. Cook takes the CEO post.

Still, Mr. Cook faces a big challenge in stepping into Mr. Jobs's shoes because he must prove that Apple can succeed without Mr. Jobs. Mr. Jobs not only co-founded the company, but brought Apple back from near bankruptcy when he returned to the company in 1997. He is considered the visionary behind Apple and has played a key role in reviving the Macintosh computer business and developing new products like the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

"Great companies rarely go from strength to strength," said Charles O'Reilly, a management expert, at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, adding that Apple faces a particular challenge in that Mr. Jobs has had an unusually strong influence in setting Apple's corporate culture and strategy.

Tributes to Mr. Jobs and his tenure began flowing in quickly after the announcement.

"I think his brilliance has been well-documented, but what gets forgotten is the bravery with which he's confronted his illness," said Howard Stringer, Sony Corp.'s chief executive. "For him to achieve this much success under these circumstances doubles his legacy."

Mr. Cook, an Alabama native who previously worked for International Business Machines Corp. and Compaq Computer Corp., is known as an operational genius and was instrumental in wringing out inefficiencies in Apple's manufacturing and setting up its supply chain in China. Since then, he has gradually increased his responsibilities, becoming chief operating officer in 2005.

He has also led the company during Mr. Jobs's absences in the past.

Unlike Mr. Jobs, who is a legendary showman, Mr. Cook has tended to stay outside of the spotlight apart from quarterly earnings calls with analysts.

"I believe Apple's brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it," Mr. Jobs wrote in his letter Wednesday. "And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

"I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you," he added.

The announcement was met with little surprise on Wall Street. "This was a 'when' not 'if' moment," said Mike Binger, a fund manager for Thrivent Asset Management in Minneapolis, which owns Apple shares.

He added that he had no plans to change his holdings, saying that the stock is still "really cheap for the kind of operating fundamentals they've been putting up."

The value of the company, however, has been skyrocketing as the success of products like the iPhone, iPad and ultra-thin Macintosh computers keep setting records.

At close to $350 billion, Apple's market valuation is second only to Exxon Mobil's, and recently eclipsing the oil giant for a brief period.

Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer for Solaris Asset Management in New York, which holds Apple shares, said he has confidence in Apple's executive team even without Mr. Jobs, but is hoping for more details on who will be Apple's "creative force" now that he is gone.

PCs starting to say goodbye?

The stunning announcement by Hewlett-Packard, the world's top personal computer maker, that it is taking steps to exit the business is the surest sign yet the post-PC era is here.

"We tend to throw the 'post-PC era' term around a lot, but it's clear that, in the wake of HP's announcement, were closer than ever to that reality," said independent technology analyst Carmi Levy.

"When a stalwart of hardware's golden age essentially walks away from the business on which it was built," Levy told AFP, "it's easy to conclude that the point of no return has been officially passed."

HP said its board has authorized the evaluation of "strategic alternatives" for its unit that could sell or spin off its PC business into a separate company.

The Windows-powered PC has been at the center of the lives of consumers for years but the arrival of powerful smartphones -- essentially pocket computers -- and touchscreen tablets like Apple's iPad has lessened its importance.

Consumers no longer need a desktop or a laptop to be connected and with the steady erosion of profit margins on PCs, HP failed to position itself with the products of the future, Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps said.

"What (the post-PC era) really means is not that PCs go away but that there's a shift away from computers to computing," Rotman Epps told AFP.

"Computing happens now on many different devices and it's a much diverse landscape than one type of computer," she said. "And HP really didn't have an answer for what was next beyond the PC.

"Where there are higher margin computing products being made HP hasn't been able to succeed," the Forrester analyst said, pointing to Apple as a technology company that has been able to do so.

"Apple has been able to innovate, to sell the iPad, an all-new form factor, because of its non-hardware ecosystem," Rotman Epps said. "It has the channel in the Apple store, it has the service, and it has the software -- iTunes, the App store, the whole developer platform."

"HP took a baby step towards getting there when they acquired the Palm webOS but they weren't willing to really go full throttle and invest the capital that would have been needed to make that a successful business," she said.

California-based HP also said it was stopping production of its iPad rival, the TouchPad, and phones based on the webOS mobile operating system acquired from Palm last year for $1.2 billion.

Explaining the moves, HP chief executive Leo Apotheker said the weak economy was having an impact on PC sales but there is also a "clear secular movement in the consumer PC space."

"The velocity of change in the personal device marketplace continues to increase and the competitive landscape is growing increasingly more complex, especially around the personal computing arena," Apotheker said.

"The tablet effect is real and sales of the TouchPad are not meeting our expectations," he said.

Gartner analyst Mark Margevicius said HP's decision to sell or spin off its PC division was more about the shrinking profit margins in the PC industry than anything else.

"The PC market has transformed into a tactical, commoditized business," Margevicius said. "We're not in an era when the PC is dead. The PC market is flat but it's still a huge business.

"If the PC business was a business that generated 20 percent margins HP's not dumping their PC business," Margevicius said.

In jettisoning its PC unit, HP is taking a page from the playbook of IBM, which sold its PC business to China's Lenovo in 2004 to concentrate on servers, software and services for the enterprise market.

"In a way, these two transactions bookend the transition from hardware to a software- and services-based post-PC focus where the device that runs a service is less important -- and profitable -- than the service itself," Levy said.

"The trend has been building for years, as margins on hardware have become consistently tighter," the Ontario-based analyst said.

"While it is still possible to build a profitable business based on selling hardware, the returns -- coupled with limited future growth potential -- are often insufficient for edgy investors," he said.

"HP's move confirms, as if we weren't already convinced, that the box itself no longer matters," Levy said. "It's the value of the software that runs that box, and the services delivered via that software, that are most notable -- and profitable -- now."

Philippines seen to remain No. 3 in global outsourcing

Manila (Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN) - The Philippines is seen holding on to the third spot in the global offshoring market, with revenue for the year expected to reach $10.7 billion for a 7.4-percent share of the market.

According to Canada-based research firm XMG Global, India will continue to be the world leader, with an estimated global take of $61.5 billion, or 42.5 percent of offshoring revenue in 2011.

China will come in second with a 31.5-percent share of the pie and $45.7 billion in offshoring revenue.

XMG Global forecasts the global offshoring market to hit $144.8 billion this year. Including onshoring, the overall outsourcing market should register $464 billion in revenue, 9.2 percent better than the $425 billion posted a year ago.

According to XMG Global's mid-year report on the global outsourcing market, industry players in the Philippines and India had started to feel the adverse effects of the weak dollar. Both countries were highly dependent on their United States-based clients for their revenues.
"The US economy, which remains to be a large market for offshoring, is still on the road to recovery with a forecasted 2011 (gross domestic product) growth rate of 2.6 percent, slowing down from last year's 2.9 percent," said XMG Global chief analyst Lauro Vives.

Chinese outsourcing service providers, meanwhile, were hardly swayed, as most of them relied more on East Asian clients such as Korea and Japan. Even the Japan crisis had little effect on China's outsourcing revenue, despite the temporary halt in the implementation of some outsourcing contracts from Japan.

"The disaster may, in fact, open more opportunities, as Japanese companies consider increasing offshoring contracts for non-core operations to reduce business risk," XMG Global said.
According to the Business Processing Association of the Philippines' Road Map 2011-2016, revenues from information technology and business process outsourcing in the country could hit at least $20 billion by 2016 and even as high as $25 billion with stronger public-private partnership.

A $20-billion industry could provide employment to as many as 900,000 individuals. A $25-billion industry, on the other hand, could give jobs to as many as 1.3 million people.

Expect more hacks on PHL gov't websites -Kaspersky Labs

The recent cyber-attack on the website of Vice President Jejomar Binay may just be the tip of the iceberg —the first of more attacks on Philippine government websites, a computer security firm cautioned over the weekend.

Kaspersky Lab Global Research and Analysis Team Director Costin Raiu said that the Philippine government must implement a defense strategy against attacks, and conduct security audits on servers to find vulnerabilities.

"Given the past incidents of this kind, it is expected that the attack will consist of a DDoS flood designed to bring down the server and make it unreachable. It’s possible the confidential information will be sought after, so the defense strategies would be multiple," Raiu said.

A DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack involves overwhelming a target website with visits from different sources until the site crashes.

Raiu said it is important to have an anti-DDoS plan, which may involve increasing the Internet bandwidth to subscribing to a specific anti-DDoS service plan.

Also, he said that once vulnerabilities are found, the websites' servers must go offline temporarily to reduce damage.

"Past logs should be analyzed for previous probes which could have uncovered bugs than can now be exploited," he added.

Contingency plans
Raiu also called for contingency plans in case attacks still get through.

"Of course, a highly sophisticated targeted attack will always succeed--this is why there should be mitigation steps as well as disaster recovery procedures —such as backups, server replacement/relocation and redundancy," Raui said.

He pointed out that any attack on a government website is a message of disrespect, showing people that they are not protected by their society's leaders.

Raiu said that other than the OVP site, other government websites recently attacked by hackers include those of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Last year, the websites of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), and the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) were also hacked.

Similar attacks on Malaysia's government websites were done by a group of hackers, Kaspersky noted. — TJD, GMA News

What to Do When Your Gadget Gets Wet

Everyone knows that gadgets and water don't get along. But fear not, all may not be lost when your smartphone, digital camera or other tech device takes an unexpected nose dive into the pool or ocean. Resuscitation can still be done with the help of a few key tips.

Although your gut reaction may be to take the battery out of your drenched device, dry it off and try it again, the battery should remain out until it's completely dry to avoid a shortage. Then use a towel to not only dry the battery, but also the area inside the device where the battery sits.

However, resist all temptation to pick up a hair dryer or let the device sit in the sun to help along the drying process. Gadgets need to be dried with still, dry air, not with excess heat.

Drying the device shouldn't stop with just cleaning up the wet areas. Place the device into a covered bowl or container of dry, uncooked rice to soak up all of the moisture from the device. It should sit there overnight in a cool, dry place.

Uncover the container the next morning, remove the device and hope for the best.