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Darty CEO Steps Down as Sales Remain Flat

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Darty (formerly known as Kesa) CEO Thierry Falque-Pierrotin steps down by "mutual agreement" as like-for-like (LFL) revenue growth remains virtually flat for fiscal Q1 2012.

Kesa CEOChief Executive for the past 4 years, Falque-Pierrotin will leave the retailer on December 2012 once Darty Group review is complete. The board is already looking for a successor, and will announce a choice "in due course."

Falque-Pierrotin claims he "greatly enjoyed" leading the Darty Group, even if the shadow of revolt covers his leadership period. How come? Darty shareholders were not too happy the retailer gave Falque-Pierrotin a "golden hello" worth £720000 in shares-- a gift of sorts later described as a "mistake."

Moving on to Darty performance, the retailer says "All our markets have remained challenging" with Darty France revenues down by -1.2% (-2.5% LFL) due to a weak Vision market. "Other" established businesses (BCC, Vanden Borre, Datart) grow by 7.1% LFL, with strong growth in the Netherlands and Belgium thanks to "very strong" multimedia sales.

"Developing" businesses (Darty Italy, Turkey, Spain) grow by 2.1% LFL.

Go Upcoming Change of Darty Chief Executive

Go Darty Interim Management Statement

Go Darty Investors Vote Down Pay Policies as CE Quits Ahead of Shareholder Revolt (The Guardian)

Meg Whitman: HP Has to Make a Smartphone

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Here is the turnaround of the week, if not the month-- in an interview with Fox Business CEO Meg Whitman confirms HP is working on a smartphone, saying the company needs to go back to mobile market.

Palm devices"My view is we have to ultimately offer a smartphone because in many countries of the world, that is your 1st computing device... We’re a computing company, we have to take advantage of that form factor,” Whitman says.

HP used to sell Windows Mobile device before it bought Palm and webOS for all of $1.2 billion back in 2010. It killed off the webOS mobile device making division on August 2011 (due to generally dismal sales) as part of the abortive Great Garage Sale kicked off by then-CEO Léo Apotheker.

Whitman had no part in those decisions. And now she wants back at mobiles.

"We’ve got to get it right this time," Whitman continues. "So we’re working to make sure that, when we do this, it will be the right thing for HP and we will be successful."

The company might have the software-- a skeleton staff still ticks on, turning webOS software into the the open source Enyo. Also, according to a leaked email HP also has "Gram," an internal startup formed from the remains of the webOS Global Business Unit. HP also might go for the easier (or more mainstream) option and simply make Android or Windows Phone 8 devices.

Since HP is repeating past decisions, it might even do a second big mobile-related acquisition-- maybe it can do a big enough offer for RIM? Then again, the more unkind of commentors suggest HP should concentrate on its PC bread and butter instead of thinking it can rival the likes of Apple and Samsung...

Go HP: We Have to Ultimately Offer a Smartphone (Fox Business)

Intel Mini PCs Make IDF 2012 Appearance

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Intel's "Next Unit of Computing" (NUC) makes an appearance at Intel Developer Forum (IDF) 2012-- a red 10cm x 10cm box carrying a new board format and a fairly low price.

Intel NUCWe all know compact PCs (such as the Via Pico ITX) are nothing new, but Intel pushes the smaller form factor futher. NUC carries a mobile Core i3 Ivy Bridge CPU, QS77 chipset (with integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics), x2 dual-channel DDR3 SoDIMM slots, mSATA and mini-PCIe interfaces, all within a dimunitive motherboard and cooling assembly.

Intel claims the 10x10cm format is the smallest capable of supporting Ivy Bridge CPUs with supporting core logic and expansion.

Ports include x5 USB 2.0 (x2 back, x1 front, x2 internal), HDMI and Thunderbolt, while power comes through an external 19V DC power supply. The casing on show even has VESA mounts for easy wall mounting or attachment to LCD displays.

IDF 2012 houses 2 flavours of NUC-- one with a single HDMI connector, the other with x2 HDMI outputs and an additional ethernet port.

We have no no details of the eventual NUC consumer release, but OEMs can get kits from October 2012 for $400.

Go Intel Developer Forum 2012

Meet the iPhone 5

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Apple reveals the iPhone 5-- taller (4" Retina display), thinner (18%), lighter (20%), faster (2X with a new A6 chip that's 22% smaller), and longer-lasting in battery power (finally!).

iPhone 6

Tim Cook presented Apple's typically bullish outlook, showing off an impressive new Apple Store in Barcelona (complete with blue shirt-clad Geniuses and huge lines) and bragging about global domination in the tablet market.

The bigger display confirms earlier rumours... Apple is clearly aware of the success rivals (Samsung, HTC etc) have had with larger smartphones. That means you get a fifth row of icons on the home screen. Third-party apps (if not updated to the new screen size) will still work, but will appear with black borders on each side.

The total display resolution stays at 326 pixels per inch and we now have a 16:9 aspect ratio. According to Apple, widescreen movies will look better with 44% more color saturation than the iPhone 4S.

The Amazon Kindle Family is on Fire

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Amazon announces not 1, not 2 but 5 new and/or improved Kindle devices-- the Kindle Fire HD (in either 8.9- or 7-inch varieties), a Kindle Fire upgrade, the Kindle Paperwhite and a next-generation Kindle eReader.

Kidle FireClearly Amazon is taking the threat of both Google (with the Nexus 7) and Apple (possibly, at least) when it comes to the 7-inch tablet segment very seriously, while still not ignoring the general eReader market too much.

The (literally!) biggest news is the Kindle Fire HD-- with HD displays, dual-core TI OMAP 4470 processor, more RAM and MIMO (meaning dual antennas) technology Amazon claims provides "40% faster" wifi than the iPad.

The flagship model has an 8.9-inch 1920x1200 display and 32GB of storage, while the smaller 7-inch model handles resolutions of up to 1280x800 and 16GB of storage. Both models also carry Dolby Audio technology with dual-driver stereo speakers.

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