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Marvell unveils its quad-core cloud computing platform, the Armada XP. The Armada carries Arm's latest-- and what Marvell describes as "fastest"-- processor.

The Armada XP platform combines x4 1.6GHz Arm v7 compliant cores with a host of I/O peripherals (x4 PCI-e Gen 2.o units, x4 gigabit networking ports, x16 Marvell Serdes lanes, multiple USB ports).

The company say it delivers the best performance per watt for cloud computing applications. Arm's processor offers 16600 DMIPS performance at less than 10 W power consumption.

Arm planned to put its processors in servers since 2008, and the Armada XP could now give it a foothold in the market.

Go Marvell Unveils Armada XP Platform

Intel, Toshiba and Samsung will team up to develop technologies to reduce NAND flash memory circuitry sizes to nearly 10nm by 2016.

Current flash chips are 20nm in size.

The 3 companies intend to form a consortium with around 10 other semiconductor companies.

Toshiba and Samsung will use the technologies to make more dense NAND flash chips, and Intell will use it to develop faster microprocessors.

The Nikkei daily reports Japan's ministry of economy, trade and industry will likely provide 5 billion ($61 million) of the roughly 10 billion yen ($122 million) in initial funds for R&D.

Go Report: Intel, Samsung and Toshiba Join Hands to Halve Chip Size (Reuters)

Forrester Research reports 12-15% of IT channel companies will wash out of the market in the next 5 years. The reason? Failure to adapt to the new era of cloud computing.

A Forrester researcher blog entry shows results from a recent channel company survey.

These results show: there is confusion amongst channel partners over their role in the cloud services value chain; they are not simply waiting for tech vendors to tell them what to do; but they need a lot of help to transform their business models for the cloud computing era.

Not all channel companies will manage to make the transformation (mind, cloud computing will never represent 100% of the technology market). This results in the wash out.

However, as supply (number of channel companies) goes down, demand (for channel partner assets) remains high. Forrester says the new "channel chiefs" will be those tech vendors who make the cloud profitable for their partners.

Go Channels in the Era of Cloud

ISuppli reports 2010 global PC shipments grow by 7% (sequentially) and by 10.3% (compared to 2009).

The firm's market research defies recent negative news about the market-- from Taiwanese motherboard OEM warnings to concerns over consumer spending.

However iSuppli says that even with government austerity measures, consumers and business continue purchasing PCs.

Desktops, notebooks and entry-level servers rise on both sequential and Y-o-Y basis in Q3 2010, with desktop PCs growing the most (11% increase from Q2 2010).

Mobile PC shipments show 4% sequential growth and 15% increase from Q3 2009.

ISuppli predicts global PC shipments will grow further in Q4, with a mid-single-digit increase over Q4 2009.

Go iSuppli: PC Market Continues Growth in Q3