Rumors had been circulating that Foxconn (otherwise known as Hon Hai Precision Industry) planned to split its operations into three separate businesses, but if that's the case, it doesn't look like it will happen any time soon.

Foxconn didn't rule out the possibility entirely, but did say this kind of thing would need careful evaluation, adding that there are no current plans to blow up its business model. In a strange move, Foxconn did, however, express "gratitude" in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange for the media's interests in the matter.

Should Foxconn ultimately slice its business into three units, Chinese-language Next Magazine says one of those would include the company's chassis and connector manufacturing division. Another group would consist of the company's channel retailing business and OEM products, while the third group would put its attention into optoelectronics, monitors, LCD TVs, and other display technologies.

Great for small businesses and home offices—unless you need to print photos

Epson has garnered significant attention for its line of photo printers, which deliver high-quality photographic output and reliable performance. The company is less known for building small-business printers, but the Workforce 610 should change that perception.

This machine delivers a ton of features in an attractive, black package and features wired (10/100) and wireless (802.11b/g) Ethernet networking in addition to the ubiquitous USB 2.0 connectivity. A 1,200-by-2,400 dpi scanner is built in, enabling it to work as a copier and fax machine (in concert with the integrated 33.6Kbps modem). A 30-sheet document feeder folds neatly out of the way when not needed (and keeps dust bunnies from taking up residence inside the mechanism).

Flash memory slots enable you to print photos directly from Compact Flash, MMC, xD-Picture, and Sony Memory stick cards, as well as most SD flavors (except the new SDXC format). There’s also a USB port for connecting a USB flash drive. One important feature you won’t find is an automatic duplexer; you’ll have to manage the process manually if you want two-sided prints (Epson’s printer driver provides on-screen assistance).

The Workforce 610 uses four print cartridges in the typical CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) configuration. Black cartridges are available in three capacities: standard, high, and extra-high. Epson estimates that a standard cartridge will yield 245 printed pages, while extra-high cartridges will output about 910 pages. High-capacity color cartridges will generate 525 pages of mixed color, based on the ISO printer-cartridge output standards. A set of three high-capacity color cartridges sells for about $40, while extra-high capacity black cartridges cost $29. Based on these specs, we estimate that the per-page cost for all black-and-white printing will cost three cents per page. Mixed graphics printing will likely run around 12 cents per page. (This assumption is based on using extra-high-capacity black and high-capacity color cartridges.)

Epson's Workforce 610 is speedy and feature rich—it's a terrific office printer.

We found the Workforce 610 to be easy and straightforward to set up, network integration included (Epson provides an excellent network-connectivity utility), although we did have to download a 64-bit Windows 7 driver from Epson’s web site; the included CD only had Windows XP, Vista, and Mac OS drivers. It’s also worth noting that Epson’s scanning software is leaps and bounds ahead of HP’s offering. The utility might not seem as feature-rich as HP’s tool, but we found managing scans from the PC using the Workforce 610 to be speedy and reliable under 64-bit Windows 7. The driver also offers limited, but useful, control of the printer’s photo-output quality settings. We did verify basic fax operation. The fax module is fairly simplistic—you can’t program it to send the same document to multiple numbers, for instance; then again, faxes are rapidly becoming an anachronism in today’s web-connected world.

The tilt-up control panel includes a 2.5-inch color LCD for messages and photo previews; unlike the display on Epson’s consumer-oriented Artisan 800, however, this one is not a touch-screen. The controls are simple, but slightly obtuse. Returning to return to the top-level menu, for example, almost always involves repeatedly punching the “back” button instead of simply pressing Menu. If you print a lot of documents, you might tire of filling the paper tray, which holds only 100 sheets, and a dedicate slot for printing envelopes would render the device more versatile. This printer doesn’t support printing directly from the Web, either, but that’s a consumer-oriented feature that probably wouldn’t appeal to the SOHO or SMB crowd anyway.

We hard-wired the printer to an Ethernet network and printed an 8.5-by-11-inch color photograph as well as a five-page Microsoft Word document consisting of mixed text, graphics, and photos. We used this same document to evaluate black-and-white and color copying performance. We the printer’s output mode to standard quality for the document print and copy tests, and highest quality for the color photograph. For all four tests, we used a stopwatch to measure the elapsed time between the press of the “print” button and the final page settling in the output tray. We performed these same benchmarks on a similar printer, HP’s Photosmart Premium Fax All-in-One (refer to the benchmark chart for detailed results).

The Epson was noticeably faster (and quieter) than the HP unit on the document print and copy tests. It was slightly slower, on the other hand, when it came to photo output. The HP’s high-quality photo output was also just a little more pleasing on the HP, probably due to its use of five color cartridges (CMYK plus photo black.) Here again, however, most small business owners will place a higher value on productivity and noise than they will on photo quality (unless, of course, their small business happens to revolve around photography). However, this wasn’t really a major concern, as the Workforce 610 is aimed at small-business printing.

Overall, the Epson Workforce 610 is a smart, compact no-nonsense printer that’s well suited to the small-business environment. We’ve seen this printer online selling for as little as $100, which is a remarkable value for a multi-function printer that gets the job done with such little fuss.

Entry level motherboard makers are hoping February is nothing more than anomaly, because if it isn't, it's going to be a long year. This especially applies to ECS and ASRock, both of which noted over 20 percent on-month drops in revenue, which they attribute to a combination of fewer working days and labor shortages in China.

ASRock was hit the hardest out of the two, noting a 25 percent on-month drop. On the year, however, ASRock is up 16 percent. ECS, meanwhile, posted consolidated revenues of about $112 million, a drop of 20.34 percent on month, but down 35.51 percent on year.

Compared to the top-tier motherboard makers, only Gigabyte saw declines as sharp as ASRock and ECS, noting a 23.84 percent on-month drop. Asus' revenue fell by 10 percent, while MSI's fell by just 6.48 percent. Out of all the mobo makers, only ECS noted a year-on-year decline, while almost every other vendor saw double-digit growth.

As 2009 came to a close, the top five PC makers each held their position, but it's the battle for second place that's particularly interesting. According to iSuppli, Acer grew by 21 percent in 2009, ending the year with 38.5 million shipments, up from 31.8 million in 2008. No other top five PC maker enjoyed more growth.

Meanwhile, Dell was the only top five vendor to post a decline in shipments for the year, dropping 9.9 percent from 43.3 million PCs to 38.96 million. That means Dell shipped enough to maintain a lead over Acer as the second largest PC vendor, but only by a hair (0.2 percent).

"Acer's 2009 success was driven by the notebook PC market," said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst, compute platforms research, for iSuppli. "Notebooks accounted for nearly 80 percent of Acer's shipments ni 2009. This allowed the company to capitalize on the fast-growing mobile-computing segment while limiting its exposure to the moribund desktop segment."

Acer may have already leapfrogged ahead of Dell by now (we won't know until the quarterly numbers are tallied), but even if it hasn't, given the continued growth of notebooks, we fully expect Acer to stand in the No. 2 spot by the end of the year. Watch out HP.

Look out Asus, Gigabyte isn't just nipping at your heels anymore, the top-tier motherboard maker is pretty much standing side by side, market watchers say.

According to news and rumor site DigiTimes, Gigabyte looks to have shipped anywhere from 3.1 million to 3.3 million motherboards in the first two months of 2010, putting the company on par with Asus, who is estimated to have shipped 3.2 million to 3.3 million units.

Don't expect to Asus to concede its lead so easily, however. Channel vendors say Asus, in an attempt to stay out in front, might start slashing prices. If Asus were to do so, it could lead to a price war in the mobo market that could potentially spill over to include other vendors.

The hottest rumor on the Web right now is that BFG might go play for the red team and start producing ATI Radeon videocards. Could this possibly be true?

"The rumor we are hearing today is that BFG is going RED!," HardOCP.com founder Kyle Bennett posted on Thursday. "Totally unconfirmed, but given the history heard over the last few years...yes years...this does not sound implausible. I am waiting for a response from BFG's CEO, but none is forthcoming."

If this turns out to be true, it would be quite the score for AMD, who in late 2008 managed to pry XFX from Nvidia's exclusivity grip. Like XFX, BFG is one of just a small handful of GPU vendors who offer lifetime warranties on their parts, EVGA being the other.

While this wouldn't be the end of the world for Nvidia, it does seem as though the GPU maker can't catch a break. Everything from failed parts to losing the performance crown have been thorns in Nvidia's side, and it remains to be seen what kind of cure-all Fermi can provide.

Clevo, a second-tier notebook maker who provides high-end gaming units, both for itself and for other brands, expects a big first quarter this year. The company believes it will ship 360,000 units, or 33 percent more than it did this same time last year.

Keeping the momentum going, Clevo said it expects volume to reach 480,000 notebook shipments in the second quarter, and as many as 2 million units by the time 2010 comes to a close, the company said.

Clevo has done well so far in 2010 thanks to stable shipments from clients in Latin America and Asia, DigiTimes reports. But the company will also look to stand out from the crowd and is currently showcasing products at CeBIT featuring Magic of Film Art (MOFA), which is a technology for slapping custom design patterns on the notebook chassis.

Image Credit: Eurocom

Google’s newest round of acquisitions appears to be continuing unabated with the purchase of photo editing site Picnik. The announcement was just made today on the Picnik blog. The posting was upbeat saying in part, “Under the Google roof we’ll reach more people than ever before, impacting more lives and making more photos more awesome.” We bet the gobs of money Google just threw their way must be nice as well.

Picnik was started in 2005 and has grown significantly. The site recorded over 16.8 million unique visitors last month. Unlike many startups, this one appears not to have existed solely to be acquired. Their product has been evolving and enjoys a committed user base. In fact, Picnik has been profitable since last year. The company was co-founded by former Google employee Jonathan Sposato. Other recent acquisitions by the search giant, like Aardvark and AppJet, were also started by former Googlers. It is certainly an interesting pattern.

Picnik already has some integration with Google’s Picasa (among others), so we may see that connection get even tighter. According to the Picnik blog though, nothing is changing right now. You can continue to use the site as you have before. Have you used Picnik before? Like it?

 

Image via Picnik

MSI, as you're well aware, markets and sells its own line of branded hardware, everything from motherboards and videocards, to netbooks and notebooks, and a spattering of products in between. But the company also maintains an OEM business, and for the first time, MSI is losing OEM orders, says Henry Lu, vice president of MSI.

According to Lu, MSI shipped less than two million notebooks in 2009, which failed to meet expectations. And of those it did ship, about 70 percent were branded models, which Lu says is indicative of its brand business showing significant improvement.

MSI noted a similar trend in its graphics card business, which saw a big drop in 2009. According to Lu, some clients are concerned about the rise of MSI's brand business, and as a result, he expects shipments of both its notebook and graphics division to continue to drop in 2010.

One solution would be to spin off its brand and OEM businesses, but Lu said this isn't likely to happen, at least not within the next three years. Instead, MSI will put a much greater focus on its branded business in an attempt to offset the losses from its OEM orders.

The news broke today that troubled movie streaming service Vudu is being acquired by Wal-Mart for a rumored $100 million. Amid interest from Comcast, Amazon, and Best Buy it seems that America’s largest retailer just had the deepest pockets and the apatite to get into the streaming game. The deal is likely to be finalized in a matter of weeks.

Wal-Mart is the largest seller of DVDs, but has never had a platform for delivery of video over the internet. With the purchase of Vudu, they have a mature service with many content deals already in place. The interesting thing about Vudu is that they stopped making a stand-alone hardware box last year, instead focusing on getting their software embedded in various devices like TVs and Blu-Ray players. Guess who sells a lot of TVs. Yep, Wal-Mart.

It would be reasonable to expect Wal-Mart to aggressively push Vudu enabled TV’s and other devices now that they own it. We may also see manufacturers become more receptive to adding the Vudu service to their products now that a behemoth like Wal-mart is involved. Wal-mart effectively drives down prices wherever they go, could that also hold true in the video streaming space? Could we be looking at a cheap streaming future? Let us know what you think in the comments.