Worldwide chip sales were up in September on strong demand for consumer electronics and PCs, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, a San Jose-based trade group.
September sales totaled about $23 billion, up nearly 6% from a year earlier. Sales were up 5% from August’s roughly $22 billion in sales.
“The increase in sales reflects historic patterns as the holiday season build began,” said George Scalise, president of the association. “Demand from the consumer products sector was very robust. The two largest demand drivers for semiconductors, PCs and cell phones, continued to show healthy growth.”
Quarterly reports for the four biggest cell phone makers show that they shipped 11% more phones in the third quarter than in the second.
Most of the tech sector is getting a boost from greater demand for PCs.
Worldwide PC shipments are on track to grow more than 12% this year and 11% in 2008, according to a report from San Jose-based market researcher Gartner Inc.
Powerwave Chairman Retiring
Santa Ana’s Powerwave Technologies Inc., a maker of antennas, amplifiers and other gear that goes into cell phone towers, said its executive chairman is set to retire.
Bruce Edwards, who has held the post since 2005, was chief executive of Powerwave for nearly a decade from 1996 to 2005.
Edwards has also been a director at Costa Mesa’s Emulex Corp. since 2000.
Before Powerwave, Edwards served in various management positions for 11 years at Irvine’s AST Research Inc., the defunct computer maker.
Carl Neun, 64, a non-executive director, is set to take the chairman’s spot at Powerwave.
He’s been on the board since 2000 and also serves as a director for both Beaverton, Ore.-based Planar Systems Inc. and Hillsboro, Ore.-based RadiSys Corp.
Microsoft Lawsuits
Microsoft Corp. is targeting Lake Forest-based PC Trade as part of a string of lawsuits to stop the buying and selling of counterfeit software.
The Redmond, Wash.-based software kingpin is in the midst of a crackdown on software piracy that infringes its copyrights and trademarks.
As part of its “genuine software initiative,” Microsoft recently filed 20 suits against individuals and companies in 13 states.
It’s pursued about 130 of such cases in the past year and a half, according to the company’s anti-piracy lawyer, Sharon Cates.
“The losses to the software industry in the U.S. due to piracy total $7.3 billion a year,” Cates said.
Microsoft doesn’t break out numbers for its own losses.
Mohammad Mikchi of PC Trade, which sells new and used computers, was named in a court filing.
Microsoft is seeking a permanent injunction and some damages. Most of the cases end up settling.
“What tends to happen is we do start to get into an open dialogue and sometimes we can reach a settlement,” Cates said.
The main ways software is pirated is through a process called “hard disk loading,” where copies of the software are loaded onto the drives of multiple computers and then sold without the accompanying CDs, manuals and proof of purchase.
“They are selling a computer as if it was a licensed PC, but the customer is not getting what they paid for,” Cates said.
The customer misses out on Microsoft service, support and upgrades that come with legit software purchases.
“They are ripping the customer off and undercutting (Microsoft) resellers who are doing it the right way,” Cates said.
Other kinds of software piracy include selling bogus CDs that contain copies of Microsoft’s source codes or reselling special discount versions of the software, such as those for students.
“They go to a lot of trouble and expense to make it look like the real thing,” Cates said. “Sometimes it’s quite believable. It can be really difficult to tell the difference between counterfeit and legitimate software.”
It’s even more of an issue in China, Russia and India, Cates said.
It’s estimated that the software industry worldwide loses about $31 billion a year due to piracy, she said.
Clarification
I had the chance to catch up with bankruptcy attorney Mark Winthrop of Newport Beach’s Winthrop Couchot Professional Corp.
Winthrop was Interplay Corp.’s lawyer and represented the company in the case I wrote about a couple of weeks ago that talked to Interplay founder and former chief executive, Brian Fargo.
Winthrop raised a few points.
First, he said in order to file an involuntary bankruptcy motion, there must be three parties, or creditors.
In this case, the creditors were businesses and vendors that had gone unpaid by Interplay.
The fact that ex-Interplay workers got paid was a part of a settlement deal between the company and creditors, Winthrop said.
Second, the payout came from Interplay’s assets, not from Herv & #233; Caen, the French chief executive who took the reins when Titus Interactive SA bought it in 2001.
Interplay still exists and trades on an over-the-counter exchange.
Caen owns most of the company’s shares and runs the company out an office in Beverly Hills.
Third, while Fargo helped get his ex-employees paid, he wasn’t directly involved in the legal proceedings. He isn’t named in any of the court filings, according to Winthrop.
“I had suspected that he had instigated the whole thing, but he didn’t actually file anything himself,” Winthrop said.
