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JCNNetwork: Fujitsu Ltd., Japan’s biggest computer-services provider, forecast it will return to profit this fiscal year on narrowing losses in its chip business.

President Kuniaki Nozoe is selling the company’s money-losing hard-disk-drive business to Toshiba Corp for about 30 billion yen (US$303.9 million) to focus on chip and software operations.

Fujitsu also plans to outsource production of system LSI chips measuring 40 nanometers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to cut spending and help return the chip unit to profit next year.

Net income will probably be 20 billion yen (US$202 million) in the 12 months ending March 31, 2010, from a deficit of 112.4 billion yen (US$1.1 billion) a year earlier, losses at the semiconductor unit will narrow to 15 billion yen (US$152 million) in the period from 60 billion yen (US$607.8 million). Fujitsu is also considering joint development of 28-nanometer devices with the Hsinchu, a Taiwan-based company.

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Electronista: Toshiba Corporation and Fujitsu Limited on Thursday today announced the terms of the definitive agreement, following the pair’s memorandum of understanding completed in mid-February.

Under the agreement, Fujitsu will transfer its hard disk drive (HDD) business to Toshiba, with a target completion date of July 1st.

A new company, Toshiba Storage Device Corporation (TSDC), will assume all of Fujitsu’s HDD-related business and functions, with Fujitsu’s manufacturing operations in the Philippines and Thailand being renamed to Toshiba Storage Devices Philippines (TSDP) and Toshiba Storage Devices Thailand (TSDT).

At the same time, Yamagata Fujitsu Limited will become Toshiba Storage Device Yamagata Corporation (TSDY), with all three companies becoming wholly-owned subsidiaries of TSDC once the deal is completed. Toshiba will then handle the sales and marketing of all HDD products, while design, research and development and production handled by TSDC. The majority of Fujitsu’s sales and marketing offices outside of Japan will be transferred to Toshiba’s overseas business operations.

Toshiba will acquire an 80.1 percent stake in TSDC by July 1st, with Fujitsu holding 19.9 percent of shares until the end of December 2010. On January 1st, 2011, Toshiba will receive all shares of TSDC. The business transfer will see about 800 employees in Japan and nearly 7,000 worldwide transfer over from Fujitsu to Toshiba. The deal is expected to be worth the equivalent of about $305 million. TSDC will be one of the largest hard drive makers, competing against rivals like Hitachi and Seagate.

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NewLaunches: Fujitsu Micro today introduced the world’s first 1394 Automotive controller that transmits high-definition video over the 1394 in-vehicle multimedia network.

The new Fujitsu MB88395 controller can simultaneously transmit multiple streams around the vehicle, such as HD video (1,280 dots x 720 lines) from Blu-Ray DVDs, digital TV, and car navigation images.

The Fujitsu MB88395 uses a high-speed 800Mbps physical layer and link layer, along with the Fujitsu proprietary SmartCODEC, which provides high compression and can transmit HD video without perceptible latency.

This combination brings the rich-HD experience to rear-seat entertainment, reduces vehicle weight and improves fuel efficiency.

The combination reduces the system cost of in-vehicle multimedia networks by up to 30 percent, while reducing the number of wire harnesses by a maximum of 70 percent, and can reduce the environmental impact by approximately 10kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year for a car traveling 10,000km. That roughly translates to the amount of CO2 a beech tree absorbs in one year.

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The Register: Fujitsu Services employees are up in arms after the company’s management announced a pay freeze.

A memo was dished out to the firm’s Blighty-based workers earlier this week, in which Fujitsu’s UK boss Richard Christou outlined “the need to take action now to protect our business.”

He blamed the economic downturn for the company’s decision to backtrack on pay reviews that were supposed to kick off on 1 April 2009.

A Fujitsu spokesman told The Register that the firm had taken “a reluctant move that is really a prudent measure.”

He confirmed the annual salary review had been scrapped throughout Europe where the company, which is a subsidiary of Japanese technology giant Fujitsu Limited, employs around 21,000 staff.

“We know people will be disappointed [by the pay freeze] but we’re not the first to do it, and we certainly won’t be the last given the state of the economy right now,” he said.

However, Fujitsu workers have reacted angrily to the company’s U-turn on pay and a petition has so far been signed by over 350 disgruntled employees at the firm.

“One minute the company are saying we are on track to making a nice profit, then next, they are blaming the economic downturn and wanting to send all the cash to Japan,” an anonymous source told El Reg.

We asked the Fujitsu spokesman if jobs could be under threat at the company. “We have no intention of doing that, but equally we can’t say there won’t be job cuts in the future,” he said.

The pay freeze is the latest blow to Fujitsu staff. Late last summer the IT services provider told workers not to expect bonuses following the firm’s loss of an multi-million pound contract for the UK’s NHS National Programme for IT.

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JCN Network: Toshiba Corp. will buy Fujitsu Ltd.’s unprofitable computer-storage drive business to help narrow its gap with industry leader Seagate Technology in the US$32.6 billion market.

Toshiba aims to buy 80 percent of the business by the quarter ending June 30 and eventually acquire full ownership.

Revenue at the hard-disk drive business will rise to about 600 billion yen (US$6.5 billion) in the year ending March 2013. The companies said they have yet to agree on a price, estimated by Deutsche Bank Group AG to be hundreds of billions of yen.

The combination would almost double Toshiba’s market share in hard-disk drives to about 16 percent, rivaling Hitachi’s rank as the industry’s third-largest producer.

Toshiba, the industry’s fourth-ranked producer, said the Fujitsu business will help raise its market share to 20 percent by 2015. The sale allows Fujitsu to shed a business that’s been unprofitable since 2007 to focus on providing computer services.

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CrunchGear: Fujitsu Ten announced two new time domain speakers.

The TD712zMK2 and the TD712zMK2-S, which is basically identical to the former but comes with a shorter stand, go on sale at the end of this month.

The 12cm speakers feature 35Hz-26kHz (-10dB) frequency response, 84dB sensitivity, 35W／70W output and 6Ω impedance.

The TD712zMK2 measures 347×989×431mm, while the shorter TD712zMK2-S is sized at 347×601×431mm.

There is no word on a possible release outside Japan at this point.

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Electronista: Further reducing the rapidly shrinking Japanese HDTV market, Fujitsu on Thursday said it would halt production of its AVIAMO HDTV line, signaling the end of the company’s display business. The company argues that its focus for the sets, which primarly included a set of high-end plasmas built for custom and luxury home theater setups, has effectively squeeze the company out of its own market.

As pricing in North America and the UK has become cutthroat, there is little money to be made in continuing the business, Fujitsu claims. Business will continue in these areas until March, when the display business will focus on Japan alone.

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Akihabaranews: In case you don’t know or never watched George Orwell’s excellent “1984″…Big Brother is watching you!! Go download it !!

And while you’re at it, get your hands on Fujitsu’s latest mouse for the most paranoid geeks out there whether you work for the NSA or you just like you to buy the brand new tech stuff. The PalmSecure mouse features a new biometric protection using a scan of your veins instead of prints.

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Forbes: Hitachi will postpone by about six months a decision on building a new factory for plasma TVs because of stiff competition and sharp price declines, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported over the weekend, without identifying sources.

The company had initially planned to decide on a location and construction time frame for the new plant by the end of March.

Hitachi’s plasma production subsidiary, Fujitsu Hitachi Plasma Display Ltd, had just constructed a plant last October next to its existing facility in Miyazaki Prefecture. The proposed factory would be its third.

But because of difficult market conditions, such as prices falling about 20% per year, Hitachi intends to make a decision on the plant by autumn after looking at trends for the spring shopping season, the report said.

Until construction of the plant is finalized, the firm will boost output by revising production processes at existing sites, it said.

The company plans to double its annual panel production capacity by autumn to 4 mln panels in terms of 42-inch products, the report said.

Last week, plasma maker Pioneer announced that they had also delayed plans for a new plasma plant.

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DigiTimes: Sony is considering returning to the plasma TV market and is in talks with Fujitsu Hitachi Plasma Display (FHP), according to market rumors.

Taiwan Sony said it has not received any notice about such a plan and it is not very likely that Sony will support PDP TVs again since the eighth-generation (8G) TFT LCD plant from S-LCD, a joint venture between Sony and Samsung, will enter volume production by the end of 2007.

Rumors said executives from Sony have had discussions with FHP about related issues, but the company has yet to finalize any decision since executives within the company have not reached a consensus.

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Electronista: Seeking to combat the growing complication of media phones, Fujitsu has just prototyped a unique, four-way slider phone concept.

In place of the unidirectional sliders on current phones that often require significant effort to open, the Fujitsu model slides only briefly in all cardinal directions, revealing a different set of controls each time.

The prototype as revealed to T3 Magazine provides controls for phone calls as well as a camera, gaming, and media playback. Compartmentalizing the controls not only simplifies their use but also saves space, Fujitsu says. The electronics maker adds that it fully intends to translate the lessons learned from the rough design into future phones and expects shipping products sometime next year.

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Engadget: Not that it should come as any surprise, but most manufacturers don’t give a shiznit ’bout those laser TVs. Yeah, despite all the blow-harding by Novalux’s C-levels about laser TVs supplanting plasmas, most big panel manufacturers have no plans to bring laser TV technology to market anytime soon. See, much of the laser TV hype is coming from Australia’s own Arasor — the company behind the optoelectronic chip central to the laser projection device — so the Sydney Morning Herald went ahead and contacted Fujitsu, Pioneer, Samsung and Philips to get the poop. Just like we expected, none of them have any immediate plans to incorporate laser TV into their product lines, having already made significant investments in plasma and LCD.

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