The Enterprise IT Business Landscape

YAHOO! CHINA SUED BY 11 MUSIC GIANTS FOR RMB 5.5 M

2007-03-13T00:40:00.000-07:00

Music industry giants are suing Yahoo! China for alleged copyright infringement. According to the suit, Yahoo! China was helping users download music illegally by providing links to unlicensed music in its search results.
The lawsuit filed by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), represents music piracy complaints from eleven companies including Warner Music, Sony BMG, EMI Group PLC and Universal Music Group, the China Daily said.

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Intel Officials Delete Antitrust Memos

2007-03-13T00:38:00.000-07:00

AMD had accused Intel of destroying evidence in relation to the antitrust suit. AMD stated, "Through what appears to be a combination of gross communication failures, an ill-conceived plan of document retention and lacklustre oversight by outside counsel, Intel has apparently allowed evidence to be destroyed."

Intel will have to explain what happened to e-mail messages the company acknowledged it lost. And it will demand that its rival create a plan to ensure that no other documents disappear during the course of an antitrust suit that dates back to June 2005.

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EU Tragets Apple Over iTunes

2007-03-13T00:37:00.000-07:00

EU Commissioner for Consumer Protection Meglena Kuneva has spoken out against the tie-in between the iPod and Apple's iTunes Store.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs had plans to boycott the Digital Rights Management (DRM). DRM are technologies used by record companies to control and restrict the use of copyrighted material usually associated with music and movies. Jobs is against these regulations as they might have a curtailing effect.
He said, "only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3 per cent of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97 per cent of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats."

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AT&T, Yahoo May Backtrack on Co-branding Deal

2007-03-13T00:35:00.000-07:00

Yahoo and AT&T are in talks to get back their alliance. The tussle in the partnership could result serious repercussions to Yahoo as it makes an estimated USD 200 million in annual revenue from AT&T.

AT&T declined to comment on the substance of the Wall Street Journal's report, but said it "is rooted in the open and ongoing dialogue we maintain."

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Software Export in India to Plunge in The Long Run: Karnik

2007-03-13T00:34:00.000-07:00

Indian IT trade body National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) has said that the software industry will reach the export target of USD 60 billion by 2010 but the long-term growth rate and profitability will fall on account of less government support and imposition of taxes.
"The present momentum should enable us to reach the target of USD 60 billion of exports in 2010. The software export industry will be able to meet the indicated export revenue of USD 31.6 billion this fiscal. But in the long run, with such discouraging policies, we expect a fall in growth rates and bottom lines, since the small and medium players in particular will be seriously impacted by these changes," Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said.

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SECUDE, a provider of authorization, encryption, data integrity and the management of digital identities, and Siemens have agreed to enter into a part

2007-03-13T00:33:00.000-07:00

SECUDE, a provider of authorization, encryption, data integrity and the management of digital identities, and Siemens have agreed to enter into a partnership with an intention to capitalise on each others complementary technologies and coordinate marketing and sales efforts on a global scale to service and support the market. “The driver for this partnership is that the whole is more than the sum of its parts”, states Doris Hermann, VP and General Manager Security and Identity management, Siemens AG.

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WINDOWS LIVE SEARCH HEAD TO LEAVE MICROSOFT

2007-03-09T04:41:00.000-08:00

Christopher Payne, the head of Windows Live Search, the Microsoft search engine is quitting the firm to start his own business.
Microsoft has also said that the other person in charge of the Windows search project Blake Irvingtoo is leaving the company.

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Indian IT Services Companies Hired Over A Lakh People

2007-03-09T04:40:00.000-08:00

India is seeing a huge surge when it comes to hiring in the IT industry. Analysts say this demand is escalating the wages in India. In a quarterly report released, Wipro has said its workforce rose by nearly 18 per cent, adding 5,546 employees in the three-month quarter that ended September 30, to bring its total to 37,063. For the same period one year earlier, the company reported 24,500 employees.

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Six Indian Techies in Forbes Billionaires List

2007-03-09T04:39:00.000-08:00

The Forbes Billionaire list has six IT bigwigs enlisted on it. The richest Indian in the technology arena is Azim Premji of Wipro in the 21st place on the list with a net income of USD 17.1 billion.

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Former Gateway Officials Liable in SEC Fraud Case

2007-03-09T04:38:00.000-08:00

Two former Gateway officials were accused of manipulating earnings four years ago. The officials were found guilty for breaching fraud and record-keeping laws and making false statements, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.
"The desire to meet Wall Street analysts‘ expectations is no excuse for accounting tricks and other deceptive practices," said Randall R. Lee, director of the SEC’s Pacific Regional Office in Los Angeles.

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Friendster Hooks Up with Google for Ads

2007-03-09T04:36:00.000-08:00

Social networking site Friendster has inked a multi-year search and keyword-targeted advertising agreement with Google. The financial details of the contract have not been published.
Google has been giving the social networking sites ads that are relevant to the content shown on a Web page. Under the terms of the deal, Friendster will exhibit ads from Google founded on Web search requests.

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Mark Cuban Tangles With Google Regarding Illegal Movie Clips

2007-03-09T04:33:00.000-08:00

Magnolia Pictures, the film company owned by Mark Cuban, has sued Google for the illegal movie clips uploaded to Google’s Video web site. He wants the names of the people behind this act.
"We don't expect to get valid user information," Cuban said. "If we do, we will contact them and ask them what induced them to upload content they don't own."
"We cannot confirm that we have received a subpoena at this time, however Google complies with valid US legal process, such as a valid court order or subpoena," a Google spokesman said in a statement. "As a matter of policy we do not publicly discuss legal matters."

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NETAPP WINS GOLDEN SOFTWARE AWARD IN CHINA

2007-02-27T22:24:00.001-08:00

Network Appliance, a provider of network storage solutions, has said that the NetApp NearStore Virtual Tape Library (VTL) received a Golden Software award in the Storage category from Software World. Given by the China Software Association.

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Accenture Gives USD 1.5 Million to Aidmatrix to Support Global Relief Network

2007-02-27T22:22:00.000-08:00

Accenture has given USD 1.5 million grant from the Accenture Foundations to Aidmatrix to further the non-profit organisation's Global Relief Network. Aidmatrix leverages the power of technology and relationships with more than 35,000 charitable organisations to deliver critical aid—food, clothing, building supplies, medical and educational supplies to people in need more quickly, the company said.

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Qimonda Set Up the New Global Distribution Centre in Singapore

2007-02-27T22:19:00.000-08:00

Qimonda has opened a new global Distribution Centre in Singapore to streamline the supply chain management processes, and consequently shorten delivery time to its worldwide customers.

The new global Distribution Centre is a 25,000-sq-ft facility located at Changi South and will be able to meet Qimonda storage needs up to 2010. Qimonda expects that the warehouse will be able to handle about 3 times of the existing capacity for worldwide distribution, the company said.

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INTEL'S LOWER REVENUES, COST CUTS

2007-01-22T22:47:00.000-08:00

Intel has recorded Q4 revenue of USD 9.7 billion representing a gross margin of 49.6 per cent, up from Q3's 49.1 per cent. "Intel's product and technology leadership yielded a strong fourth quarter with higher selling prices and record unit shipments in the fastest growing segments of the market," said Intel president and CEO Paul Otellini.

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Windows Vista Available Online

2007-01-22T22:46:00.000-08:00

Microsoft is making its new Windows Vista operating system available for sale and download online marking a new strategy than its usual method of selling Windows only on packaged discs or pre-loaded on computers.

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Former HP Chairman Offered Plea Deal

2007-01-22T22:42:00.000-08:00

California’s Attorney General has offered a plea deal to the former Hewlett-Packard Chairman, Patricia Dunn and four others accused in the HP spying scandal. Stephen Naratil, an attorney for data broker Bryan Wagner who is one of the defendants in the case, told the Associated Press that the plea agreement tendered by state prosecutors would allow all five defendants to avoid four felony charges stemming from an investigation launched last year by HP to find the source of a news leak.

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Apple in Profit with iPhone

2007-01-22T22:41:00.000-08:00

ISuppli, a research firm has established that Apple stands to make fifty per cent profit on each iPhone sold. But the figure is preliminary, as no actual production models have been made available to the public. This high profit margin is not new to Apple as the company regularly has a margin of forty-five per cent or more in its Mac and iPod products.

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Hewlett-Packard Leads Over Dell in PC Sales

2007-01-22T22:40:00.000-08:00

The US computer maker Hewlett –Packard (HP) is basking in glory of taking the lead as the world’s top personal computer vendor late last year, giving stiff competition to its rival Dell.

According to the reports of IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, HP had an annual sales growth of 24 per cent and took ‘a clear lead in global shipment volume’ from October-December last year. Meanwhile, Dell stumbled with the beginning quarter of 2006 but it sales nose-dived in the end of the year with international growth dropping to 1.5 per cent as the IDC reported.

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INTEL'S LOWER REVENUES, COST CUTS

2007-01-21T22:05:00.000-08:00

Calling all PHPers to the 2007 International PHP Conference (Spring Edition)

2007-01-21T22:04:00.000-08:00

The Spring Edition of the International PHP Conference (IPC) is back after a year's hiatus. This year the annual premium event for the International PHP community will be held in Stuttgart from 21–23 May, in parallel to Webinale 07. Webinale is a brand new conference covering the next generation web technologies, providing a platform for networking and knowledge exchange about Web 2.0.

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Intel Prepares to Fight Two-front Antitrust Battle

2007-01-21T22:03:00.000-08:00

The European Union is planning to file formal antitrust charges against chipmaker Intel regarding the complaint filed in 2000 by rival AMD. The spat between the two companies is about whether Intel would share information from operations outside the United States. AMD alleges Intel used its dominant position in the microprocessor business to pressure system makers not to use AMD chips in their products.

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Ascom Appoints Bernie Hydock as Vice President of Sales

2007-01-21T22:02:00.000-08:00

Ascom has appointed Bernie Hydock as Vice President of Sales. In his new role, Hydock will be responsible for driving Ascom's North American sales team, serving as a key member of the management team, and working closely with existing and future Ascom channel partners and system end users.

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Sony Ericsson 4Q Net Profit Triples

2007-01-21T21:36:00.000-08:00

Japanese-Swedish mobile phone company Sony Ericsson has posted record fourth-quarter earnings. It believes the market for mobile phones is steadily escalating.

The company’s 2006 pretax profit was euro 1.3 billion (USD 2.15 billion), more than double the euro 512 million (USD 846.4 million) of 2005.

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MICROSOFT, HP, FIRST DATA PARTNER ON POINT-OF-SALE SYSTEM

2007-01-18T21:47:00.000-08:00

First Data, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard have come together to create a point-of-sale solution for smaller retailers. According to the companies, the First Data POS Value Exchange replaces a cash register and traditional POS terminal with a computer-based system that delivers a complete store-management solution with greater information security, speed of transactions and more flexible payment options for customers.

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Apple Shows USD 1 Billion Holiday Profit

2007-01-18T21:46:00.000-08:00

Apple has reported a staggering profit in its fiscal first quarter. The reasons that drove profit margins are the holiday sales of iPod music players and Mac computers. The company announced that their profits increased by 78 per cent. This is close to an earning of USD 1 billion or USD 1.14 per share.

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Dell Sued in Canada Over Defective Batteries

2007-01-18T21:45:00.000-08:00

Dell seems to be getting into hot soup over the exploding batteries yet again. In October 2006, Dell had recalled 4.2 million Sony battery packs used in its systems. The batteries were said to short-circuit and have been blamed for causing some computers in which they used to overheat. Separately, Toshiba said that it is recalling 830,000 batteries made by Sony for its laptops at Sony's request. It was the latest in a growing global recall involving Sony batteries, bringing the tally of recalled batteries to about 7 million worldwide. Now, Dell is still being plagued by the faulty batteries as the company is being sued in Cannada.

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Microsoft Software to Power Nortel Telecom Servers

2007-01-18T21:43:00.000-08:00

Nortel and Microsoft have come together to launch a slew of products and services. Theses new releases aim to disribute business communications over software and Internet networks. Under the terms of the agreement, the two companies aim to provide cheaper Internet-based communications.

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GOOGLE, YAHOO GAIN SHARE IN US WEB SEARCH MARKET

2007-01-18T00:50:00.000-08:00

According to the report, Google retains all advertising revenue from its own web sites, and around 22 per cent from its partner sites. Yahoo! may be in second place to Google, but it is also growing substantially, with around 42 per cent growth in net advertising revenue in 2005. User Generated Content (UGC) web sites, such as Flickr and Wikipedia were among the fastest growing websites between 2005 and 2006. An annual report has been issued on Internet, e-mail, permission based marketing, B2B, B2C, e-retailing, e-commerce, triple play, Spam, Cybercrime, web sites, web hosting, and search engines, by Paul Budde Communication, through MarketResearch.com.

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HP Appoints Two New Leaders to HP Services Executive Team

2007-01-18T00:49:00.000-08:00

HP has named two industry leaders to join HP Services. Onagh Ash will serve as senior vice president of HP Services’ Consulting and Integration unit, and Bob Pryor has been named senior vice president of Global Business Development. Both will report to John McCain, senior vice president and general manager of HP Services.

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LUXPRO LEVELS USD 100M SUIT AGAINST APPLE

2007-01-10T02:21:00.000-08:00

Luxpro, a manufacturer of music players and other mobile products, has won the lawsuit that it had filed against Apple. The battle goes a long way, Apple in July 2005, had sued the Taiwanese company from making its line of Tangent music players, alleging that they too closely resembled the iPod Shuffle. A Taiwan court agreed, but the decision was reversed on appeal. Luxpro, now sued Apple Computer for USD 100 million after a court ruled it could continue producing a portable music player resembling Apple's iPod Shuffle.

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Cisco Beats Apple to Releasing iPhone

2007-01-10T02:20:00.000-08:00

Apple launched the iPod, and was in the process of launching mobile phones called iPhones. There were reports in November 2006 that Apple had hired a Taiwan based contract manufacturer HonHai Precision to build 12 million Apple branded mobile phones. Given that this is a product untested in the market, it would certainly demonstrate how serious Apple is in attacking the phone market.

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EMC to Cut 1350 Jobs with Restructuring

2007-01-10T02:19:00.000-08:00

EMC, a provider of data systems, is loaded with many a one acquisitions in its wake, is cutting more jobs as it consolidates its operations. The company plans to slash 1,350 jobs by the end of 2007, 100 more than the company originally announced in October.

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Yahoo Optimises Messenger for Vista

2007-01-10T02:18:00.000-08:00

Yahoo is all set to join hands with Micvrosoft. The company plans on giving a sneak preview on the usage of Yahoo Messenger on Microsoft's Windows Vista at the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Yahoo will display a beta version of Yahoo Messenger optimised for Vista. The new messanger boasts of new features that will be in sync with the user interface enhancements Microsoft has added to the OS.

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Who Needs Google? With Amazon’s , Askville Service

2007-01-10T02:17:00.000-08:00

Google Answers saw a shut down a month back, but Amazon sees a lot of potential in a service of this kind. It is launching a similar answering service, the only rival it has as of now is Yahoo's answering service. The service is dubbed Askville.

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Intraware Signs Agreement with Gracenote

2007-01-08T21:56:00.000-08:00

Intraware, a provider of electronic software and license delivery and management solutions for enterprise technology companies, has revealed that Gracenote, a provider of digital media technology and services, has signed a multi-year agreement to use Intraware’s SubscribeNet Software Manager and Evaluation Manager services. In addition, Gracenote will use Intraware’s Digital Fastball services to provide software delivery capabilities and information sharing to its developer community. Gracenote was among the four unnamed new customers the company previously announced at the end of its third fiscal quarter.

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APPLE, GOOGLE, NAPSTER GET SUED

2007-01-07T23:29:00.001-08:00

Apple, Google, and Napster are being sued by an online movie distributor Intertainer for copyright infringement. The lawsuit involves the business model for offering video content from various providers to consumers over the TV and the Internet, Intertainer said.

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Crossroads Products Receive Microsoft WHQL Certification

2007-01-07T23:29:00.000-08:00

Crossroads, a provider of Business Information Assurance (BIA) solutions, has made known that Crossroads’ NearEdge iSCSI Storage Router 6220i and NearEdge iSCSI Storage Bridge 6220i-b received Microsoft’s Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) certification and are qualified to carry the 'Designed for Microsoft Windows 2003 Server Family, x86' designation.

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Arkeia Partners with TIG to Offer Data Protection Solutions

2007-01-07T23:28:00.000-08:00

Arkeia, a provider of data protection software, has entered a partnership with national systems integrator Technology Integration Group (TIG) to bring data protection solutions to midsized and large enterprises.

The new partnership features sales, marketing and technical coordination so that enterprises with large amounts of critical data can reduce the cost and complexity of protecting that data. The partnership extends the availability of recently launched Arkeia Network Backup Version 6.0, a backup solution for large environments, officials of the company said.

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Indians Immigrants in US Drive Tech Engine

2007-01-07T23:27:00.000-08:00

Indian immigrants are faring rather well in the technology department in the United States.A study, by the University of California, Berkeley, shows that 7 per cent of all engineering and technology companies founded in the US over the past decade have an immigrant Indian as a key founder—far more than all other immigrants put together.

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In-Fusio Sues Microsoft Over Mobile 'Halo'

2007-01-07T23:20:00.000-08:00

A complex battle comprising legalities has been ensuing between Microsoft and a French video game publisher In-Fusio. In 2005, Microsoft had entered a contract with In-Fusio to develop a version of Halo for mobile phones and other devices. Allegedly In-Fusio is suing Microsoft for breach of contract.

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Co-founders Quit Microsoft Game Studio Rare

2007-01-07T23:19:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has confirmed the resignation of Chris Stamper and Tim Stamper from Rare Game studios. The Redmond, WA -based company had acquired the British company in 2002 for USD 375 million.

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I-Flex Acquires Singapore Subsidiary of Capco

2007-01-07T23:18:00.000-08:00

i-flex Solutions, an banking and financial software solutions provider has said that its Singapore headquartered subsidiary, i-flex solutions Pte. Ltd. , has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the Singapore subsidiary of Capco. The transaction is said to be between USD 100-150 million.

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Arrow Acquires InTechnology Storage Business

2007-01-07T23:17:00.000-08:00

Arrow, provider of services to industrial and commercial users of electronic components, has completed its acquisition of the storage and security distribution business of InTechnology for a purchase price of approximately USD 80 million. "The acquisition of InTechnology’s storage and security distribution business enables us to further expand our Enterprise Computing Solutions business into the United Kingdom, Europe’s second largest IT market. We expect this transaction to create further opportunities for us in the growing storage and security software markets", stated M. Cathy Morris, president, Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions. "We expect this transaction to be USD .02 cents to USD .04 cents accretive in 2007."

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ChinaCache Establishes Partnership with China CERNET Network

2007-01-04T23:13:00.000-08:00

ChinaCache, the Content Distribution Network (CDN) service provider in China, has inked a partnership agreement with China CERNET Network Limited. Under the terms of the agreement, ChinaCache will provide CDN solutions to CERNET Network to serve its nationwide customers. ChinaCache will set up CDN service nodes at CERNET Network's data centres across the country.

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Atempo Teams with Tandberg on Mac Data Protection

2007-01-04T23:12:00.000-08:00

Atempo, a data protection and storage security company, has joined hands with Tandberg Data Corporation to provide SMB customers with data protection and archiving solutions. Both companies offer storage products specifically designed for Apple customers, and now these joint customers can take advantage of the integration of Tandberg Data’s and Atempo’s Mac OS and heterogeneous data protection solutions. Atempo Time Navigator for Mac OS X is now certified on Tandberg Data’s Exabyte Magnum 224 and 448 LTO Tape Libraries, as per a statement issued by the company.

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Hutchison, Essar Differ on Refusal Rights

2007-01-04T23:11:00.000-08:00

Relations between Hutchison Telecommunications and India's Essar group—who own India’s third fourth largest mobile operator Hutch— have already hit a rocky patch, as there is difference in opinions on the interpretation of a first right of refusal clause in their Indian joint venture.

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Broadcom Completes Acquisition of LVL7 Systems

2007-01-04T23:10:00.000-08:00

Broadcom, a provider of semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, has completed the acquisition of LVL7 Systems, a privately-held developer of production-ready networking software that enables networking Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs) to reduce development expenses and compress development timelines, the company said.

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Migo Completes Acquisition of StompSoft Software

2007-01-04T23:09:00.000-08:00

Migo, a vendor of mobile computing products has announced that the company has acquired privately held StompSoft’s entire line of software titles. Migo had in October last year announced that it has signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to acquire StompSoft’s software titles. Under the terms of the agreement, the purchase price consisted of 20,000,000 shares of Migo Common Stock and USD 650,000 paid to StompSoft.

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Archivas Adds Four New Channel Resellers

2007-01-04T23:07:00.000-08:00

Archivas, a provider of digital archiving solutions, has expanded its Partner Program to include four new strategic channel resellers—Kinney Group, Paragon Systems, Regan Technologies, and TriAxis Storage Solutions. As members of the Archivas Partner Program, each company will now be able to expand their solutions portfolios to include Archivas Cluster (ArC) archiving software technology, the company said.

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LITHIUM POLYMER TO POWER NEXT SONY NOTEBOOKS

2006-12-12T20:28:00.000-08:00

Following the massive battery recalls announced by Apple and Dell recently, Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow said last he believes notebook makers will likely soon incorporate lithium polymer battery technology instead of the currently used lithium ion.

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Network Appliance Completes Acquisition of Topio

2006-12-12T20:27:00.000-08:00

NetApp has completed the acquisition of Topio, a privately held Santa Clara, California–based company with R&D in Haifa, Israel. Under the terms of the definitive agreement announced November 8, 2006, Network Appliance acquired Topio for approximately USD 160 million in an all-cash transaction.

According to the statement by the company, NetApp intends to add heterogeneous replication capabilities to its disk-to-disk backup products, including the NearStore Virtual Tape Library (VTL), Open Systems SnapVault for remote office backup and SnapVault for NetBackup, a product jointly engineered with Symantec.

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IBM and Infosys’ Benchmark For Core Banking Transaction Processing

2006-12-12T20:26:00.000-08:00

IBM and Infosys have made known results of a performance benchmark for Infosys' Finacle Core Banking Solution running on IBM's System p Servers that far outperform all such published benchmarks by a wide margin, as per a statement issued by the companies.

In the recent scalability benchmark, reviewed by Ernst & Young, Finacle on IBM System p servers surpassed its own previous record as the most scalable core banking solution in the world. The Finacle on IBM System p benchmark performed on a base of over 52 million accounts, delivering a transaction throughput on delivery channels Effective Transactions Per Second (ETPS) beating its own previous best of 11,180 ETPS. The new delivery channels transaction processing benchmark translates to a business transaction throughput of 19,288 business Transactions Per Second (TPS)

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WebMethods Named IT Supplier of the Year, Woolworths

2006-12-12T20:25:00.001-08:00

webMethods, a business integration and optimisation software company, was named IT Supplier of the Year in the enabling software category by Woolworths Limited, Australia’s largest retailer.

Critical mandates for Woolworths’ supply chain included the ability to rapidly integrate new acquisitions as well as the need to streamline business processes and enhance visibility with key partners while reducing operational latency and transaction costs. By leveraging webMethods Fabric as its integration standard, the company has been able to improve its performance across each of these criteria, the company claimed.

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Document Format Wars Get Dirty

2006-12-12T20:25:00.000-08:00

Microsoft’s Office Open XML file format won approval from the Ecma International standards body in the last week of November 2006, giving it needed credibility as a rival to the OpenDocument format.

IBM was the lone dissenter in the vote on December 7 that approved Microsoft's Open XML document format as an Ecma standard.

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Google Launches Radio Ads Service

2006-12-12T20:24:00.000-08:00

Google wants to spread its reach beyond the Internet with a new move venturing into the radio advertising service. The concept of radio advertising was driven into Google post acquiring dMarc Broadcasting, a small radio advertising firm, for USD 102 million in cash last January.

"We're happy to announce that the integration is now complete and we've recently begun a U.S. beta test of Google Audio Ads with a small group of AdWords advertisers," Google said in a statement on its official advertising blog.

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Motorola Makes Equity Investment in Mobile Complete

2006-12-11T21:03:00.000-08:00

Motorola, through Motorola Ventures, its venture capital arm, has made an equity investment in Mobile Complete. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Motorola Ventures led the investment in Mobile Complete as part of a Series B Financing, along with participation from a previous investor, Innovacom VC.

Founded in 2003, Mobile Complete develops, test and deploys mobile applications and services. The company launched DeviceAnywhere.com in December 2005 to help content providers address the issue of handset proliferation by accessing real mobile devices over the Internet at any time, from any location. This rapidly growing service has been deployed across ten carrier networks and five locations, including the US, Canada, and the UK.

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Software AG Opens Office in Japan

2006-12-11T21:02:00.000-08:00

Software AG has opened its office in Tokyo, Japan. This is another step in the implementation of Software AG’s growth strategy. The new office will directly serve the company’s established Japanese customer base of over two hundred enterprises. The company introduced its plans for fully localised product and support services while launching the centre. The Japanese market is expected to contribute in the range of 15 euros-20 million euros per annum to group revenue with profits in line with group average.

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ASTRON, IBM Team to Research Origins of the Universe

2006-12-11T21:01:00.000-08:00

ASTRON, an astronomy research organisations, has a collaborative agreement with IBM up its sleeve. The venture aims to focus on the design, engineering and manufacturing of customised, high performance analog and mixed signal processing chips. The high performance, low power usage customised chips will be used in antennas as part of ASTRON's project to build a new prototype radio telescope called SKADS/EMBRACE, which will be the precursor for the radio astronomy telescope, the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) radio telescope. Financial terms are not being disclosed.

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RPC Fights Sun, StorageTek for Copyright Infringement

2006-12-11T21:00:00.000-08:00

Netbula, LLC, a software company specialising in Internet development tools, has filed a lawsuit against Storage Technology Corporation (StorageTek), Sun Microsystems and DOES 1-100. The suit, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland, alleges that SUN and StorageTek infringed Netbula's Copyrights.

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Oracle Increases Bid for India's i-flex

2006-12-11T20:59:00.000-08:00

Oracle has increased the offer for its Indian subsidiary, i-flex Solutions, to Rs 2,100 (USD 47.14) per share representing a 42 per cent premium to the Rs1,475 which was offered earlier.

Oarcle said it was its final offer. Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison said, "There will not be another open offer and Oracle will not undertake a delisting for at least the next five years unless i-flex shares are selling at a significantly lower price than they are today. This is the last opportunity for i-flex shareholders to tender their shares to Oracle."

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INFOMATICA EXPANDS OPERATIONS IN APAC, APPOINTS THREE EXECUTIVES

2006-12-11T20:43:00.000-08:00

Informatica Corporation, a provider of data integration software, has appointed Joel G. Momberger as Managing Director for Asia Pacific, Bernard Gan as Regional Manager, Asia Pacific and Sid Lasley as Technical Director, Asia Pacific. "With the continuing effects of globalisation and outsourcing, data integration has never been more important", said Sohaib Abbasi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Informatica Corporation.

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DAN SCHEINMAN TO HEAD CISCO MEDIA GROUP

2006-12-11T01:27:00.000-08:00

Cisco has appointed Dan Scheinman to lead the newly formed Cisco Media Solutions Group that will be responsible for developing and marketing infrastructure products. Scheinman – till recently was senior vice president of Corporate Development at Cisco— will be senior vice president and general manager of this new organisation and reporting directly to John Chambers, chairman and CEO of Cisco.

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YAHOO PLAYS MUSICAL CHAIRS WITH REORGANISATION, DAN ROSENSWEIG STEPS DOWN

2006-12-07T21:23:00.000-08:00

Yahoo’s memo called the Peanut Butter Manifesto is making inroads into the company as a major reorganisation is in full swing. The document contained confidential material that talked about how the company plans to trim its staff by one fifth. Yahoo senior vice president Brad Garlinghouse wrote the memo. In wake of the reorganisation efforts, Yahoo’s COO Dan Rosensweig and Lloyd Braun, a former ABC television executive who ran Yahoo!’s media operation, have resigned. Susan Decker, the chief financial officer, has been stepped up as the manager of advertising sales at the company.

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FLEXCUBE Leads Retail Banking Vendors, Says Forrester

2006-12-07T21:22:00.000-08:00

i-flex, a provider of IT solutions, has said that i-flex was among the select companies that Forrester Research invited to participate in its November 2006 Forrester wave report, 'The Forrester Wave: Retail Banking Platforms, Q4 2006'. According to the report, i-flex’s FLEXCUBE scored 4.29 the highest for its current offering out of a possible score of five. Weightages were given to parameters such as functional depth and breadth, multi- channel enablement, platform agility and architecture and development.

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BEA AND HUAWEI PARTNER TO DELIVER SOLUTIONS FOR IMS PROVIDERS

2006-12-06T20:14:00.001-08:00

Despite widespread views to the contrary, enterprise businesses will likely become a hot market for IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) services, reports In-Stat. BEA, a maker of enterprise and communications infrastructure software, and Huawei, Chinese Telecom equipment company have decided to partner inorder to to facilitate the adoption of IMS communication services like voiceSMS, voice-mail, and videomail. The partnership is aimed at a two-year stint where the companies plan to integrate the Intervoice Media Exchange Enhanced Services Platform together withBEA Systems—BEA WebLogic SIP Server. The integration will, according to a news release, "offer an IMS network and service layer solution for communications service providers that reduces the cost of development, operation and time to market for next generation services."

Read More on:Despite widespread views to the contrary, enterprise businesses will likely become a hot market for IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) services, reports In-Stat. BEA, a maker of enterprise and communications infrastructure software, and Huawei, Chinese Telecom equipment company have decided to partner inorder to to facilitate the adoption of IMS communication services like voiceSMS, voice-mail, and videomail. The partnership is aimed at a two-year stint where the companies plan to integrate the Intervoice Media Exchange Enhanced Services Platform together withBEA Systems—BEA WebLogic SIP Server. The integration will, according to a news release, "offer an IMS network and service layer solution for communications service providers that reduces the cost of development, operation and time to market for next generation services."

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Nokia Bags Eastern Telecom VoIP Deal, Deploys NGN

2006-12-06T20:14:00.000-08:00

Easten Telecom has signed a contract with Nokia to strengthen its presence in the Philippines. The financial details of the deal were not revealed, however, Nokia made known the other nuances of the contract.

Under the terms of the deal, the deployment of a Next Generation Network (NGN) core is part of their network modernisation initiative. Nokia said it would renew Eastern Telecom's fixed network with a VoIP-capable NGN and fixed/broadband access system. The contract includes the Nokia MSC Server System (MSS)—the mobile softswitch, along with the Nokia VoIP Server, enabling personalised voice telephony.

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MCAFEE ACQUIRES CITADEL ASSETS

2006-12-05T22:12:00.001-08:00

McAfee has completed the acquisition of substantially all the assets of Citadel Security Software, a provider of security solutions. The deal was for USD 60 million. The acquisition of Citadel is a key component of McAfee's security risk management strategy, which allows customers to turn policy into action by automatically enforcing compliance, McAfee said in a statement.

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Business Objects Acquires Nsite

2006-12-05T22:12:00.000-08:00

Business Objects, a provider of Business Intelligence (BI) solutions, has acquired Nsite Software, a California-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider. The acquisition gives Business Objects access to Nsite’s on-demand application platform, engineering talent experienced in building and managing SaaS offerings, and approximately 27,000 current Nsite subscribers, as per a statement issued by the company. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

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e4e and Datacom Enter Into Partnership, Address Customer Needs

2006-12-05T22:11:00.000-08:00

e4e, a provider of business services, and Datacom, an IT services provider in Australasia, have formed a partnership to serve the needs of global customers within Asia-Pacific.The partnership aims to address a wide array of customer needs in the areas of customer and technical support and help faster customer deployment.

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Motorola HotZone Duo Selected by CERNET Across China

2006-12-05T22:10:00.000-08:00

China Education and Research Network (CERNET) has selected Motorola’s HotZone Duo solution to provide public access for its campuses. These universities were selected as part of the pilot for CERNET’s campus Wi-Fi initiative. CERNET performed technical testing to certify that HotZone Duo provides the support for the new IPv6 protocol, ensuring that it meets or exceeds the requirements for China's Next Generation Internet (CNGI) project.

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MIXED REACTIONS FOLLOW VISTA LAUNCH

2006-12-05T03:34:00.000-08:00

Microsoft, which released Vista, its newest operating system in five years, last week, claims the product is a game changing one and will eventually make it a great operating system

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Ericsson bags A.T. Kearney Award

2006-12-05T03:32:00.000-08:00

Ericsson has won the A.T. Kearney's global award for Best Organic Growth 2006, based upon the growth and strategies of its business unit Global Services, the company said in a statement. A.T. Kearney is a management consultancy company. The award is based on A.T. Kearney's Global Growth Excellence Survey.

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Nortel, SECI in SouthEast Europe JV

2006-12-05T03:31:00.000-08:00

Nortel and Southeast European Communications and Investments (SECI) have decided to establish a Joint Venture (JV) in southeast Europe. The creation of the JV with SECI, a company that is involved with providing advisory services in telecommunications, energy and various infrastructure projects in southeast Europe will allow Nortel to reach this rapidly growing regional market, as per a statement issued by the company.

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Infosys Finacle Emerges as Top Banking Software: Study

2006-12-05T03:30:00.000-08:00

Finacle, the banking software product from one of India’s lagest IT services companies- Infosys has been ranked as the top banking software, ahead of FlexCube from iFlex. In the Forrester Wave report, 'Retail Banking Platforms Q4 2006 released November 2006 Finacle emerged top. In this study, comparing the retail banking platform market, Forrester evaluated five global retail banking platform vendors. These vendors were short-listed through a rigorous multi-criteria selection process that included an in-depth appraisal of their coverage of the Forrester banking functions map, forward-looking architectural approach, success in 2005, global delivery capability and platform commitment.

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Somerfield Hires TCS for IT management

2006-12-05T03:29:00.000-08:00

One of India’s biggest software exporters, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has signed a seven year agreement to provide a full range of managed IT services to Somerfield, a UK-based small-format food retailer, building on an existing eight-year relationship between TCS and Somerfield.

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Nortel Opens Asia Network Management Centre in India

2006-12-05T03:28:00.000-08:00

Nortel has opened a new customer network management centre in Indian capital New Delhi. Nortel's Asia Network Management Centre joins similar facilities in London and Raleigh, N.C. to provide network management, technology transformation and hosted application services for multi-vendor, multi-technology telecommunications networks serving both local andmulti-national companies, as per a prepared company release.

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GROWING SME’S HELP ASIAN VSAT MARKET, SAYS FROST &SULLIVAN

2006-12-04T03:13:00.001-08:00

The APAC Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) market is firmly in its growth stage, and has come to represent the new battleground for global VSAT players who are faced with declining growth in other regional markets. VSAT services are beginning to gain greater acceptance among the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) and Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) segments, as per a report by Frost & Sullivan.

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Yahoo Rebuffs Google on Digital Books

2006-12-04T03:13:00.000-08:00

Troubled waters run deep as Google is faced with a string of copyright infringement suits. Google believes it can defend its plans to provide online access to millions of library books by obtaining more details about similar projects involving some of its biggest rivals. But Yahoo has rebuffed Google's attempt to learn more about its efforts to create digital copies of books. Amazon-dot-com took a similar stance against Google as well.

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Blue Coat Breaks Attendance Records for APAC Partner Conference

2006-12-04T03:12:00.000-08:00

Blue Coat, a content and application delivery company has said that its sales and training conference for its top-level channel partners in Asia Pacific (APAC) has grown 40 per cent over last year and 100per cent since 2004.

The Blue Coat 2006 APAC Partners Conference will be held for two full days on November 29 and 30. Attendees will include distributors, resellers and global systems integrators from across the APAC region. As with the recent Blue Coat EMEA Partners Conference, this conference includes, for the first time, a special track designed for global systems integrators.

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XEROX ENTERS DEALS WITH SIEMENS, IBM

2006-11-30T19:50:00.000-08:00

Siemens Business Services, has signed a multi-year maintenance services contract with Stamford, Connecticut based Xerox, a document management company. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. It was not immediately clear if any Xerox employees will be impacted.

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Bull and JBoss Form Partnership

2006-11-30T19:48:00.001-08:00

French IT company Bull and JBoss, a division of Red Hat have entered a partnership to accelerate the development and deployment of interoperable open source middleware solutions for enterprise Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), as per a statement issued by the company.

According to the agreement, Bull and JBoss will work together in three areas:

* R&D Collaboration
* System Integration (SI)
* Subscriptions

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Alcatel, Lucent Announce Amendment and Extension of Consent Solicitation

2006-11-30T19:48:00.000-08:00

Trans Atlantic telecom equipment makers, Alcatel and Lucent have amended their joint solicitation statement/prospectus, dated November 14, 2006. Under the amended terms, Lucent will pay a one-time consent fee only to holders of its 2.75 per cent Series A Convertible Senior Debentures due 2023 and 2.75 per cent Series B Convertible Senior Debentures due 2023 who consent to the terms of the joint consent solicitation. For each USD 1,000 in principal amount of each series of debentures for which consents are received, consenting holders will receive the product of USD 7.50 multiplied by a fraction, the numerator of which is the aggregate principal amount of debentures of each series outstanding on the expiration date, as defined below, and the denominator of which is the aggregate principal amount of debentures of each series for which Alcatel and Lucent received and accepted consents, the companies stated.

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BigFix Appoints Amrit Williams as CTO

2006-11-30T19:47:00.000-08:00

BigFix, a provider of security configuration management solutions, has appointed Amrit Williams as chief technology officer. Williams has over 18 years’ experience in security software development and IT security research. Most recently, Williams served as research director for the Information Security and Risk Research Practice at Gartner. As CTO for BigFix, Williams will be responsible for the direction of the company’s strategic product development and roadmap, as per a statement issued by the company.

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IBM ENTERS USD 863 MLN CONTRACT WITH TEXAS AGENCY

2006-11-29T20:10:00.000-08:00

IBM and Texas Department of Information Resources have signed a seven-year contract valued at USD 863 million with three optional one-year extensions. After taking all new and retained costs into account this will save Texas USD 25 million in 2008-2009 and USD 159 million over the base contract period, IBM said in a statement.

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T-Mobile Chooses Ericsson, Nokia

2006-11-29T20:09:00.000-08:00

Sweden based telecom hardware company Ericsson and Nokia of Finland have bagged a contract to deploy WCDMA 3G for T-Mobile. Bellevue, Washington based T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG, said last month it would spend USD 2.76 billion to build the third-generation network, which will add services such as streaming video and game downloads.

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Tidal Launches Enterprise Scheduler, Horizon, Transaction Analyse, Intersperse

2006-11-29T20:08:00.001-08:00

Tidal, a provider of application scheduling and performance management software has unveiled Tidal Enterprise Scheduler, Tidal Horizon for SAP Solutions, Tidal Transaction Analyser, and Tidal Intersperse, as per a statement issued by the company.

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Cenzic Announces Growth in 2006

2006-11-29T20:08:00.000-08:00

Cenzic, a provider of automated application security assessment and compliance solutions, has experienced record growth in the past nine months, the company said. Over 500 companies are using Cenzic's technology with an additional 3,000 companies using its Windows port of Nessus.

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IBM Acquires Vallent

2006-11-29T20:07:00.000-08:00

IBM has agreed to acquire Vallent, a supplier of network performance monitoring and service management software for wireless service providers. Financial details were not disclosed. The acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals and is anticipated to close in the first quarter of the 2007, the company said in a statement.

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Symantec Acquires Revivio

2006-11-29T20:03:00.000-08:00

Symantec has acquired continuous data protection vendor Revivio for an estimated USD 20 million. The company bought Revivio's intellectual property and will discontinue sales and development of Revivio's Continuous Protection System appliance. Symantec, which got into the data protection market with its acquisition last year of Veritas, plans to add Revivio's technology to its NetBackup product and sell a stand-alone CDP product of its own.

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Cognigen Announces Decreases in Revenue

2006-11-29T20:02:00.000-08:00

Cognigen, an Internet- enabled marketer of communications services, has released the financial results for the three months ended September 30, 2006. The Company realised revenue of USD 2,304,089 for the three months ended September 30, 2006, compared to revenue of USD 2,821,872 for the same period in 2005. Operating expenses for the quarter ended September 30, 2006, decreased approximately 13 per cent over the same period in 2005. Net income decreased from USD 46,117 for the period ended September 30, 2005, to a net income loss of USD 113,367 for the same period in 2006. Net cash provided by operations was USD 117,400 for the quarter ended September 30, 2006, compared to the USD 40,354 for the same period in 2005, as per a statement issued by the company.

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TCS, Infosys, Wipro To Join Top 10 M Cap League

2006-11-29T20:01:00.000-08:00

There is buzz in the IT world that three of the largest Indian services companies TCS, Infosys and Wipro may soon enter the top ten million league in market capitalisation in the next couple of years. Wipro Chairman, Azim Premji said, "Currently, Infosys, TCS and Wipro come in the top 16-17 companies globally in terms of market capitalisation".

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MACROVISION SUES ALTIRIS, DELL INKS PACT WITH ALTIRIS ON STOCK DEAL

2006-11-29T02:16:00.000-08:00

Macrovision, a maker of software to prevent copying of digital music and DVDs, has sued Altiris claiming it's infringing two patents covering a system for managing product licenses. MeanwhileDell has entered into a partnership with Altiris on a stock deal.

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VeriSign Acquires inCode Wireless for USD 52 mln

2006-11-29T02:14:00.001-08:00

Internet payment security company VeriSign is planning to buy technology consulting firm inCode Wireless for USD 52 million. Revenue and earnings from the acquisition will not materially affect VeriSign's 2006 results, VeriSign said in a statement.

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Sony, Samsung Join Hands in LCD Venture

2006-11-29T02:14:00.000-08:00

Ailing Japanese consumer elecronics company Sony has joined hands with its long time adversary Samsung to launch S-LCD, a LCD panel joint venture.

"Depending on the demand for large-screen LCD TV sets, it is quite feasible that we will make additional investments and boost the capacity," Sony executive deputy president Katsumi Ihara said.

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Two Key ACS Officials Step Down

2006-11-29T02:13:00.000-08:00

Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) has revealed that Mark A. King, the company's CEO, and Warren D. Edwards, the company's CFO, violated the company's Code of Ethics for Senior Financial Officers and have stepped down from their post. Lynn Blodgett has been appointed as President and CEO, and John Rexford has been appointed Executive Vice President and CFO and as a director.

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Ericsson Inaugurates R&D Centre in Chennai

2006-11-29T02:12:00.000-08:00

Swedish telecom company Ericsson has opened a research and development (R&D) facility in Chennai. The aim of setting up the center is to concentrate on multimedia research.

Ericsson is all set to invest USD 100 million per annum in the next few years and explore the possibility of setting up a manufacturing facility in Chennai.

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TCS has Largest Financial Services Practice, Says Forrester

2006-11-29T02:10:00.000-08:00

Forrester, an independent research firm, in its report entitled 'Which Service Vendors Can Help Retail Banks', noted the need for retail banks to deliver new services to address the conflicting problems of gaining operational efficiencies (for example cost-cutting) and pursuing organic topline growth. Banks will need to effectively transform their business processes, the technologies that support these processes, and train their people to meet the new market demands. According to Forrester, achieving these goals will require external advisors and this report highlights which IT service providers to consider.

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Satyam Ranked 'Best Company to Work For' by BT–Mercer–TNS

2006-11-29T02:09:00.000-08:00

In the recently concluded BT-Mercer-TNS Best Employer Survey 2006, Satyam Computer Services was ranked as the third Best Place to Work for in India. Emphasising the organisational focus on creating more leaders and cultivating the CEO mindset across, Hari T., director and senior vice president - Satyam HR, added, “Through our internally researched Full Life Cycle Leadership program, Satyam intends to be an organisation, where leaders are empowered, and can act with speed and agility fast enough to meet the demands of the constantly evolving market".

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