Free Mobile launched on 17 December, with a free SIM for Free subscribers?

The Free mobile telephony offer could be available in December 17, according to a source well informed the world of telecoms.

This is Pierre-Henri de Menthon, Executive Director of writing Challenges, that reveal information long awaited by millions of people in France for months on his blog: "According to my informant, Free will to the attack before Christmas, by sending from 17 to 19 December a letter to its customers with a small gift." "It is a SIM card with a duration of free time, no doubt a month". This would allow Free capture a maximum of potential customers, to test its network and its infrastructure before launching its commercial offers early 2012.

Free will to the attack before Christmas, by sending a SIM card with a time of free appeal to customers

This information also plausible it is nevertheless a rumour, because the actual launch date is known to Xavier Niel, patron of Free, and two or three of his closest collaborators. The secret is also well guarded as the formula for Coca-Cola. But if this info is true, three historical operators can shake (they have already started a few months to respond to this "phantom menace"), millions of users of Freebox potentially then escape. More that a few days to wait to finally have the end of history and perhaps receive a letter from Santa with a little surprise inside plastic, watch your mailbox (real not the virtual)...

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Hard drives: prices drop some as of December

The retention of hard drives by wholesalers could soften and forces of supply and demand calls for lower prices. Bodes well ...

The floods in Thailand have completely changed the hard drive market, the country accounting for 25% of world production record companies and major parts suppliers (such as Nidec, which manufactures the engines rotation) will be unable to turn their factories.

Result, the shortage threat and return to normal production soon ... While the prices of hard drives have exploded, which is not without repercussions on the rest of the industry, among integrators who see their stock market decline and inevitably affected component.

Currently, it is expected therefore primarily new leading manufacturer with plants located in Thailand, like Western Digital, 60% of production is carried out in the country. News that did not really reassuring, since we previously spoke of a shortage is expected to reach its highest level in the first quarter of 2012 ...

Fortunately, the news is better. Indeed, if we are to believe the DigiTimes, wholesalers who jumped on the stocks, nourishing the general panic and contributing to skyrocketing prices, already begin to replenish so reassuring. So that we learn that they should start doing the sorting in their inventories in the coming weeks, so make concessions in scaling back their prices today. At all good for the consumer, according to the Asian site, is expected to affect the return to lower prices in the month of December.

The forces of supply and demand plays in favor of lower prices. Sources from the circuit vendors of hard disks believe that the expectations have been more alarmist than is actually the situation, and that the return to normal was planned for mid-2012 could ultimately place in January or February 2012. One of the plants Nidec was able to resume full production and other suppliers of hard disk manufacturers are now solutions to improve their returns on the lines that work. It only remains to hope that prices come down as fast as they are mounted, which is never easy ...

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-10% of PC delivered in December because of the shortage of hard drives

PC shipments should begin to be slowed by the shortage of hard drives next month ...

Floods in Thailand have severely affected the production of hard drives. So that different resellers announced that they will find it difficult to complete orders in the order of 10% for the month of December.


According to information we have, some retailers such as HP, Dell and Acer have stocks of hard drives that can cover applications for computers for about four weeks. Others would do that for a week, which seems fair enough to deliver the orders of November and possibly early December.

The "drought" stock should hit more violently the market in early 2012 when the impact will be from 40 to 50% on the availability of different types of retailers. If everything comes back in order, Thai manufacturers could return to normal production of hard drives around February to March as seen above, with a peak for the expected shortage in the heart of the first quarter of 2012.

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