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From the Editor
Back to Business
December 31, 1969 |
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
I don't know about you, but for me, returning from a long Thanksgiving weekend means plugging back in to the world's news and events. For four days we spend time with family and friends, rarely turning on a TV or radio news show. I think we need these little breaks to come back into the hustle-and-bustle world with a refreshed perspective and renewed interest in business, economies, politics, and global happenings. Midway through the week and firmly back in the swing of things, we've grabbed a few headlines from these areas that really caught our attention as electronics-minded editors.
Amazon, the books-and-more consumer Website, has debuted and sold out of its handheld digital book reader, Kindle, within just a few days. The reader, which is only available in North America, displays newspapers, blogs, and literature. It represents an emerging sector in consumer electronics, and early sell out, despite a high-end price tag, bodes well for the digital reader market. For the naysayers complaining that no one reads anymore, here's proof that we do, voraciously, so long as we can work some electronic element into the mix. Amazon's challenge now, as an OEM leading the digital reader front, is to ramp supply quickly enough to meet the December holiday demand.
In world news, French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged China's Premier Wen Jiabao to allow the yuan, China's currency, to appreciate against the euro. For OEMs, electronics manufacturers, and equipment and materials suppliers, this could have wide-reaching effects. Many companies operate both in the European Union (EU) and China, and currency values can affect outsourcing, trade, and costs of finished assemblies. Wen reportedly is firm on his view that the yuan will rise in value gradually and will not deliberately manipulate the yuan exchange rate, according to Xinhua News Agency.
Here in the U.S., Raytheon Company won a $160 million contract to developsystem designs for the next-generation GPS control segment. The U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center awarded Raytheon the contract, which should take about 18 months to complete. Raytheon is charged with integrating anti-jam capabilities, improved system security, and better accuracy and reliability into the systems. We see higher-reliability electronics occupying prominent roles in automotive, military, aerospace, and medical industries, and with the U.S. EMS industry still undergoing an identity shift after the age-of-outsourcing phenomenon, this sheds new light on U.S. capabilities.
We'll let you catch up on other local, national, and world news in due time, before we set it all aside again for the December holidays. For now, check out the latest news from within our industry in our e-newsletter and on our Website, smtonline.com.
Meredith Courtemanche, managing editor