Moving and Storage Business News

The News Review:

- HUMDRUM RESULTS FOR NCR.
- Centrica’s new boss feels the heat as home energy bills top £1,000
- Investors slaughter Rackable on Q3 sales slowdown
- Why Iron Mountain fires won’t douse interest in off-site storage
- Still finding business a gas.
- Q2 2006 Silicon Motion Technology Corporation Earnings Conference…
- New plan for massive irrigation scheme

HUMDRUM RESULTS FOR NCR.
Free with registration – Cardline – AccessMyLibrary.com – Jul 28, 2006
(28-JUL-06) Cardline. , the ATM maker and data-storage company, reported earnings fell to $78 million in the second quarter, compared to $127 million last year at the same time when the firm saw gains of $64 mi.

Centrica’s new boss feels the heat as home energy bills top £1,000
The Independent – Independent – Jul 28, 2006
Even the Government was moved to criticise Britain’s biggest energy company, with the Department of Trade and Industry calling on customers to shop around for another supplier. Even the Government was moved to criticise Britain’s biggest energy company, with the Department of Trade and Industry calling on customers to shop around for another supplier… British Gas lost 432,000 accounts in the first half of the year and the consumer group Energywatch urged more of its 16. 6 million customers to defect. It calculated the average British Gas customer could save £276 a year on a combined gas and electricity bill by moving to the cheapest supplier in the market, currently npower. British Gas confirmed that from September its gas prices would rise by 12. 4 per cent and electricity prices by 9. 4 per cent – the company’s sixth increase since April 2003 – provoking howls of protest and calls for the Government to step in. The typical annual gas bill for a customer paying by monthly direct debit will increase to £634.

Investors slaughter Rackable on Q3 sales slowdown
Register – Jul 28, 2006
Things didn’t stay modest for long though, as shares of Rackable shot up to $56 in April of this year. Investors warmed to the seller of cheap server and storage systems, especially when it flashed extreme growth and a customer list boasting the likes of Microsoft, Amazon. Over the last couple of months, investors cooled on Rackable, sending shares down into the mid-$30 range. Following today’s news, however, Rackable plummeted to $24. 69 per share, at the time of this report… “Also noteworthy, our storage product revenues in Q2 represented approximately 11 per cent of total revenues, up from per cent in Q1. The Q2 positives drifted away as Rackable executives talked up expectations of higher sales, marketing and legal costs in the second half of the company’s fiscal year. In addition, the company, which sells a vast majority of AMD-based systems, noted that Intel’s introduction of the new Woodcrest version of Xeon seems to have delayed large purchases. “We have seen a lot of customers, including major customers, really evaluate the next round of decisions between Intel and AMD,” one executive said, during a conference call with analysts. Rackable’s dependence on AMD’s Opteron chip has caused other problems as well. The company noted increasing prices for the DDR memory used with current versions of Opteron and said that systems from Sun and Dell have made life more difficult. Moving forward, Rackable expects Intel-based servers to account for a larger portion of its overall sales.

Why Iron Mountain fires won’t douse interest in off-site storage
computerworld.com – Jul 28, 2006
‘s archival storage facilities created a bit of a panic this week – and speculation that users would abandon such services. While such events may speed up the rate at which corporations move from paper to electronic records, rumors in the press of the impending death of such services are greatly exaggerated. Iron Mountain and the like aren’t just physical storage bunkers; they also function as archiving and data recovery services that IT has come to rely on. They will continue to play a vital role in the corporate disaster recovery and electronic records management strategies… One area where electronic data does reduce risk is in the ability to transport data over the wire rather than by truck – no more lost shipments. Electronic transportation also makes it easier to have redundant archives for important data, reducing the risk from an incident at any one storage facility. And it means that companies like Iron Mountain could face increased competition from others who don’t need to have a fleet of trucks to compete. In the future the question will be not whether to store archival records with an off site services firm, but which service to use.

Still finding business a gas.
Free with registration – Wichita Eagle – AccessMyLibrary.com – Jul 28, 2006
“I became a lawyer, and I enjoyed law, but when the opportunity came to open up the Overland Park office 11 years ago, I took it,” Dixon said. “Law is a good career, but this is lots more fun. ” Two years ago, he came home to Wichita to prepare to take over the daily operations of the company, which sells, installs and services storage tanks and pumps, primarily for.

Q2 2006 Silicon Motion Technology Corporation Earnings Conference…
Free with registration – Fair Disclosure Wire – AccessMyLibrary.com – Jul 28, 2006
As you will recall, in our last conference call, we stated that we saw the silent recovery at the end of first quarter and beginning of second quarter. Now, we are happy to report that the same quarter turned out as expected. Increasing [inaudible] of our mobile storage product was the key driver for the growth. Unique shipment of the mobile storage product grew by 105%, year-over-year, and [inaudible] percent, sequentially, to 29 million units. In the second quarter, we made additional penetration in small form factor flash memory cards that are used in mobile phones. We are very pleased with our progress with major OEMs. Our new indirect customer in this space include, Nokia and LG Mobile.

New plan for massive irrigation scheme
Wairarapa Times Age – Jul 28, 2006
It doesn’t want to write the capital cheque, but it’s happy to pay the operating cost. ”
This way the trust would be able to use the corporate giant’s capital and expertise, in exchange for exclusive access to the scheme and the opportunity to make money. The prospect of getting into bed with a company like Meridian Energy Ltd, even though it is state owned, doesn’t come without concern though. If Meridian were to build and operate the scheme and hold consent to store water, they will hold a monopoly. There is a danger Meridian will have the temptation to change pricing. “The trust needs to ensure the rural industry is protected by entering into an agreement which includes price limits and security of supply… Like is it good for a river to have a period of low flow? The issue also raised some eyebrows at the Regional Council ‘you want to put water back in a river?’”
The issue of getting the water out of the river and on to the land is also yet to be worked out. “That’s where Meridian comes in. They have expertise in storing and moving water. ”
Whatever option is settled on, Mr Copps said the benefits improved irrigation would bring to the entire region are significant. An information pamphlet accompanying his talk showed irrigation is proven to add 11 per cent to a region’s GDP, which in Wairarapa would equate to $93 million a year.