China set to emerge as top PC market
With their economies moving in opposite directions, China is set to overtake Japan as Asia’s biggest market for personal computer sales in 2003, research firm IDC said. Leapfrogging Japan would make China the world’s second-biggest PC market after the United States. For 2001, China is expected to have moved 8.9 million PCs, increasing to 10.8 million in 2002, the research body said.

Real, TiVo in entertainment pact
Media software firm RealNetworks said it had struck deals to include its technology in an array of microchips and devices, including TiVo’s digital video recorders. The Seattle-based company, best known for its RealPlayer software that plays video and audio over the Internet, has moved recently to expand beyond the personal computer and into other consumer devices.

The deals, to be announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, call for TiVo and television set-top box start-up Moxi to include Real’s new RealOne Player into their products. Moreover, electronics firms Hitachi, NEC, Philips and STMicroelectronics would all support Real technologies in chips to be used in everything from DVD players to hand held computers and digital cameras.

Compaq to post fourth-quarter profit
No 2 personal computer maker Compaq Computer said it would post a profit for the fourth quarter instead of a loss, in a sign that the struggling personal computer industry experienced better-than-expected demand during the holiday season. The company now expects to post a profit for the quarter on revenue of $8 billion, up from its previous guidance issued in October for a loss of 3 cents per share and revenue of $7.6 billion to $7.8 billion.

The pre-announcements are the second positive sign for the technology sector in the past week. Semiconductor stocks soared last week after industry data showed improved sales in the fall, making a recovery more likely.

Russo succeeds Schacht as Lucent CEO
Telecommunications equipment maker Lucent Technologies named Eastman Kodak’s president, Patricia Russo, as chief executive, bringing back a former executive to revive its money-losing operations and complete its restructuring. Russo, 49, succeeds Henry Schacht, 67, who will remain chairman of Lucent, which is in the midst of wrenching changes that have brought tens of thousands of job cuts.

Motorola to lay off up to 800
A unit of US-based Motorola will lay off about half of the 1,500 workers at its Hong Kong factory, shifting their jobs to plants in Malaysia and China, the company said. The layoffs at Motorola Semiconductor, which will come by the end of this year, are part of a restructuring that will refocus the Hong Kong operation mainly on research and development, said Gloria Shiu, Motorola’s senior communications manager for the region.

Gateway cut to junk status by Moody’s
Moody’s cut Gateway’s credit ratings to junk status and warned it may cut the ratings again, saying it is concerned about the personal computer maker’s ability to maintain or increase revenue and market share. The downgrade came after San Diego-based Gateway, which focuses on the consumer market, warned its fourth quarter sales will fall more than 16 percent below expectations and that unit sales fell 15 percent in the quarter.

Moody’s cut Gateway’s ‘issuer’ and senior unsecured ratings one notch to ‘Ba1’, its highest junk grade, from ‘Baa3’.