by Jason Wilk on February 5, 2009
- In an effort to thwart off time-theft and loiterers, Apple has decided to add Facebook to the list of banned websites at retail locations nationwide. When I asked some of the genius’ today whether or not anyone noticed the change, they all said that Facebook stopped working sometime in the past week. One of the genius’ said “Apple Stores have become a regular Internet Cafe, so placing the most popular time-killer [Facebook] of them all on the banned-list will certainly help everyone get a chance to test out the computers”.
- As you may have heard, MySpace was banned in May of 2007 from all Apple Stores. When asked why, Apple said “Nearly 2 million people visit Apple Stores every week. We want to provide everyone a chance to test-drive a Mac, so we are no longer offering access to MySpace in our stores.” Apple Stores, which now total 251 worldwide, see an average of 15,744 visitors weekly per store (Q4, 2008). So, currently about 16 million people per month are now denied the right to jump on for a minute (or an hour) to update their status or do their daily stalking. It will be interesting if Facebook will see a slight dip in traffic this month due to the change.
Trying to stay up on Apple? Check out these recent articles:
Is Apple Secretly Working With Axiotron?
Video Conferencing Plans For The iPhone
Flash Coming To The iPhone: Says Adobe
iPhone 2 Rumors Get Some Hard Evidence
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by Jason Wilk on February 4, 2009
by David Heyerman on January 26, 2009
- Heading into 2009, the global semiconductor industry will take a serious downturn in sales revenues. 2008 saw a decline of 4.4% from 2007, and analysts are predicting a 16% decline in 2009. Although layoffs and budget cuts will most likely occur, chip companies might just see the light again…..enter the aggressively growing solar industry.
- iSuppli came out with a study in June which claimed investment in solar cell production would match that of the semiconductor industry by 2010. So, are we looking at a huge boom in the solar industry, or more hype being casually neutralized by the economy? Many recent developments point towards the former.
- Hemlock Semiconductor announced back in December that they’d raised $3 Billion to expand their current polysilicon manufacturing capabilities. They’ll be adding a new production building to their Hemlock, Michigan location and building a brand new facility in Clarksville, Tennessee.
- Chip giant, Intel, has been moving towards solar for a while now investing near $100 million into solar startups. This summer alone, they invested $50 into photovoltaic solar cell startup SpectraWatt, and an additional $37.5 million into German thin-film solar module producer, Sulfercell. Just a few days ago, Intel revealed a 10KW solar installation at their New Mexico manufacturing plant.
- We’ve also seen some gigantic companies team up to get a piece of the solar pie as well. Panasonic plans to buy Sanyo, Sharp joined forces with Tokyo Electron, and IBM teamed up with Tokyo Ohka Kogyo all in attempt to boost solar capabilities. We even saw a chip company release their own solar technology when National Semiconductor launched SolarMagic.
- There are, however, many who argue the other side of the equation. With the economy in a serious slump and spending on the backburner mixed with a potential oversupply of polysilicon, many analysts are predicting a bad year for the solar industry. CEO of Novellus Systems, Rick Hill, openly remains skeptical about the apparent solar expansion necessity. Back in September, we saw Cypress Semiconductors completely divest themselves of their stake in SunPower (previously owned 52%).
- So what will happen? Will the solar sector blast its way through the recession and carry the semiconductor industry along with it, or will they both ruin eachother with oversupply and unnessesary investments?
by David Heyerman on January 19, 2009
- If you haven’t heard about it yet, Masdar City is planned to be the first ever carbon neutral city located in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The project was started by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (ADFEC) in 2006, and will supposedly cost around $22 Billion. The first phase of the project, however, is beginning this year with completion set for 2016. The city plans to house around 50,000 people within a 6.5 square kilometer area with an additional 40,000 people commuting to the city everyday for work. The city plans to house various manufacturing and commercial companies focusing on environmentally-friendly products.
- Within the first year of construction, Masdar put two 5MW Solar contracts up for grabs from the most cost-efficient and quality producers. Not surprisingly, Arizona’s First Solar and China’s Suntech Power were just announced as the beneficiaries of those contracts.
- The 10MW farm is projected to be finished by March, with the energy generated going towards the cities construction. What’s not clear is if there’s any future opportunities for the Suntech and FS with Masdar City.
- I’ll tell you what, as interesting as it’s been to see the growth of Dubai over the last 5 or so years, it never made much sense to me, how these gigantic companies would ever profit off such lavish, over-the top construction. This, on the other hand, might eventually be the key to Abu Dhabi’s success; building a city with sustainability at the forefront of efforts, virtually guarenteeing unlimited future potential. Seems a whole lot better of an idea than building the tallest tower in the world (which will be overtaken in a matter of years, anyway).
by David Heyerman on January 14, 2009
- Since I wrapped up the Solar Sector in 2008, there’s been a a steady stream of new 2009 announcements coming out of the same companies covered before. The wires have been, for the most part, unfortunately flooded with negative expectations from research analysts pushing to sell, plants shutting down, and workers being laid off.
- First Solar, SunPower, Yingli Green Energy, Suntech Power, JA Solar, and Evergreen Solar all saw quick share price increases early last week. Now, they’re all down to below where they were on the 1st. Some analysts are pushing the sell because of an expected lowering of solar panel and module prices over the next year. In fact, Christopher Blansett, from JP Morgan was unapologetically urging investors to sell solar stocks because of this expectation.
- Evergreen Solar announced the closing of their Marlboro, Mass. plant. Although, they expect “continued progress” at another plant, they’ll be hit pretty hard as shutting down the plant will have cost the company upwards of $30 million from Q4 2008, into 2009.
- Suntech Power had some mixed news with a huge milestone, raising their Wuxi factory production capacity of photovoltaic cells and modules to 1 GW. This is a huge achievement, considering 2007’s output of 540 MW. CEO of Suntech, Zhengrong Shi, is expecting an oversupply of polysilicon this year, which could potentially cut their prices 20-30 percent from 3rd quarter 2008. On the other side of things, Steve Chadima, vice president of external affairs has announced that 800 people or 10% of their workforce were cut in the fourth quarter of 2008.
- Workforce cuts have seemingly been widespread in the solar industry, with layoff announcements from Day4Energy, GT Solar, Emcore, Ausra, and Advanced Energy. Even OptiSolar laid off 300 employees because of a lack of funding.
- On the positive side of things, the Federal Bureau of Land Management has seen a huge jump in the amount of applications they’re receiving for solar energy projects. The number of applications rose from 125 to 223, a 78% increase since July. All the applications were for projects over 10MW in capacity and were located in California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado.
- So on one hand, we have this industry that is experiencing such incredibly growth as far as technology and necessity goes, but on the other hand we have this pesky little thing called the economy which likes to sway industry at it’s, sometime unjustified, hand. The only thing us investors and cleantech enthusiasts can trust is that we, as a world, need renewable energy and solar is at the forefront of that effort. It is an unfortunate and as I mentioned before, ironic situation, but I’m still confident the future for solar is bright. How bout you guys?
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