There's a wireless router gathering dust in Bob LaRocca's office. It's yours if you can hack into his network.
First, some background. LaRocca is director of IT security with the School District of Palm Beach County in Florida, where he oversees a network of 60,000 computers in 175 schools and which he says covers more acres than any other school district east of the Mississippi River. Computer security has traditionally been a low priority in the public school system, but that's not the case in Palm Beach County.
That's because a computer breach stung the school system in a very public way two years ago when local papers reported that Jeff Yorston, a student at one of the county's schools, got hold of an administrative password and gave himself an "A" in a French class he never took. He also managed to boost the grades of a few friends.
Yorston was discovered when another student complained that her ex-boyfriend -- with worse grades than she had -- was accepted into the University of Florida while she had been rejected. He has since paid a fine and agreed to state supervision in connection with the charges, according to the Palm Beach Post.
After an investigation, county officials discovered that they hadn't been hacked. Instead the breach occurred because of a leaked password. "One of the administrators lent her password out to one of the students who was working on a project," LaRocca said. "That's what happens when you share passwords. We could put $1 million worth of controls in place, but when I give you my password, all bets are off."
LaRocca says that the grades-changing incident was "a wake-up call for the district," which has now made security a top priority.
Palm Beach County has spent more than $1.5 million over the past two years overhauling systems throughout the county's schools. It has upgraded the county's desktops with antivirus, host intrusion prevention and network access control software from McAfee. Network-based intrusion detection and content-filtering have also been added, and the county is now logging its grading systems, which have much stricter access controls.
The county has also made security awareness a priority, taking steps to educate users about safe online behavior.
And that's where the hacking challenge comes in. LaRocca issued it as part of an April security awareness event held at county schools, setting up a target server that attackers would have to break into in order to claim the prize. This type of "capture the flag" game is popular at hacking conferences.
Any students who might see the contest as a chance to hack the system, change their grades and win a router need to think again. "We set up a honeypot server that they specifically had to hack into and capture a flag," he said. "We didn't say if you go in and change your grades you'll get a router"
That hasn't deterred some attackers. Thanks to the publicity surrounding his Wi-Fi challenge, LaRocca says the schools are being hit by about 16,000 online attacks per day.
Still, LaRocca says the insider threat remains his biggest concern. "All my hackers are inside the network," he said. "I'm not too worried about the ones from the outside."
Monday, December 17, 2007
Dell reinventing itself, but support issues linger
Dell's efforts to reinvent itself this year through a dramatic break from its direct-sales model, expanded services and new enterprise offerings have shown positive early results, but some users have lingering concerns about supply chain management and support -- long-time issues for the company.
Weathering an accounting scandal and a slump in profit, founder Michael Dell reclaimed the helm of the company after CEO Kevin Rollins resigned in January, quickly replacing top managers and in May announcing plans to lay off 10 percent of the company's workforce.
For years, Dell was the top PC vendor in the world, an acknowledged master of logistics in a business where margins can be razor-thin. It was efficient enough to keep prices low to ward off competition without suffering big setbacks in profits. But by 2006, when Hewlett-Packard unseated Dell as global PC leader, that was no longer the case.
Dell's plans to regain its former dominance have resounded in the market. The company's third-quarter results, announced two weeks ago, showed profit increasing year over year, and record revenue of US$15.65 billion. During the company's earnings call, Michael Dell said the company will put products on more retail shelves worldwide while also helping business customers "simplify IT" and reduce maintenance costs via customized hardware, software and services.
The company has also moved to put accounting issues behind it, recently completing an internal investigation and restating its financial results from fiscal 2003 to the first quarter of 2007.
The company has been making an effort to build relationships with customers and partners and deliver products that are easier to deploy and manage, said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.
Last month, Dell introduced a two-tier channel program designed to give partners better access to Dell's training, marketing, certification and online resources. The program will provide a better chance for Dell to interact and understand its partners' needs, the company said.
"The company seems to recognize that it has bridges to enhance with customers and partners in the channel. It's not something that's going to change overnight," King said.
After years of success selling PCs directly to users, the consumer business' direct-sales business model hit a wall as component prices fell, Pund-IT's King said. The strategy to simplify IT is a play at small- and medium-size business and enterprises that will help Dell deliver better returns in the long term than its lower-margin direct consumer business, analysts said.
However, some customers continue to have concerns about the company's support and supply chain issues.
Dell is having supply shortages and can't get its servers and OptiPlex desktops to individuals and small businesses in a timely manner, said Josh Kaplan, who runs a franchise of computer support firm Rescuecom and purchases parts and interacts with Dell on behalf of customers.
"You can acquire all the technology you want, but Dell will send hardware out blindly," Kaplan said. It will be a challenge for Dell to deliver what it calls "IT in a box" -- its terms for packages of products and services -- to SMBs and enterprises, Kaplan said. Dell has traditionally delivered mostly standardized systems, Kaplan said. While Dell has built systems-to-order by letting users select from a menu of options, it does not have in-depth experience offering customers services over the lifecycle of products, he said.
Jeremy Cole, owner of Proven Scaling, a small consulting firm with offices in the U.S. and U.K., said Dell has internal staffing issues that affect its support services.
"Dell's sales structure is really strange. They tend to bounce your company around to a new account representative every few months, who are wildly differing in experience, intelligence, and understanding of the Dell sales system," Cole said.
Cole is satisfied with Dell equipment, but said the company needs to show more support for open-source applications and the Linux OS. "It's clear that Dell cares about Linux, in that all their server-class hardware is well-supported by the Linux kernel and they have many people dedicated to making sure that's the case. However, it's not good enough just to boot," Cole said.
Though generally positive about Dell's support, Jason Dunn, who runs Thoughts Media, which publishes Web sites for technology enthusiasts, couldn't resolve certain LCD (liquid crystal display) monitor problems with Dell offshore support representatives. He had good experiences with Dell's PC and HDTV support representatives, so the experience varies, Dunn said.
Other users have had a good experience with Dell's strategy to simplify IT. Dell's efforts have paid dividends for Bikeworld.com, a medium-size retail business in San Antonio, which saved money by cutting its internal IT person. The company uses Dell systems with Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System, connected to multiple offices via a VPN (virtual private network).
"Businesses are in a belt-tightening mode. You can't have extra people on payroll," said Whit Snell, general partner at Bikeworld.com. Bikeworld has resolved IT problems with Dell remotely and has a contact readily available to help with problems.
Dell officials were not available for comment on support issues.
Overall, Dell is trying to be more proactive and helpful, said Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst at Parks Associates. Dell's new enterprise support services to simplify IT, like remote management services, could, if successful, trickle into the consumer segment, which could benefit end-users, Scherf said.
Dell this year has tied up with retailers like Staples, Wal-Mart and Best Buy to distribute PCs, something competitors HP and Acer have been successful at. But if Dell wants to make sure its customers aren't tempted by HP or Lenovo in the retail market, fixing problems that some users report about its support infrastructure has to be on top of the company's to-do list, Pund-IT's King said.
Building out retail partnerships changes the consumer-facing relationships for Dell, which could lead to positive changes in the company's support and services. The results are a work in progress, King said.
Balancing out its business model, Dell is showing signs that renewed efforts in the higher-end business sector are catching on, with third-quarter revenue growing in the server and storage markets. The enterprise market provides better margins than retail, and the remote management services market is growing, King said. Dell is trying to address that through acquisitions and by creating a services organization and specialized products targeted at professionals and businesses.
The company this year acquired SAN (storage area network) vendor EqualLogic and managed services companies Everdream and Silverback. It announced a deal with Sun to offer the company's Solaris OS.
Dell has been pushing hard to improve its systems management portfolio, especially remote desktop management capabilities that could help simplify complex IT infrastructures. In October, the company announced On-Demand Desktop Streaming, a server-based platform that streams the OS, applications and data to diskless desktop clients over a Gigabit Ethernet network.
By offering design improvements and bundling software and services like remote management, Dell is trying to get the focus off of price and moving to build the framework for a new business model for the enterprise, said John Spooner, senior analyst at Technology Business Research.
Dell's reinvention should come as no surprise as Michael Dell is on a mission to reconstruct his company, Pund-IT's King said. "It must have been hard for Dell to see a company he built falter," King said. He is putting money in the right spots, and competitors like HP and IBM will do well to keep a close eye on Dell, King said.
Weathering an accounting scandal and a slump in profit, founder Michael Dell reclaimed the helm of the company after CEO Kevin Rollins resigned in January, quickly replacing top managers and in May announcing plans to lay off 10 percent of the company's workforce.
For years, Dell was the top PC vendor in the world, an acknowledged master of logistics in a business where margins can be razor-thin. It was efficient enough to keep prices low to ward off competition without suffering big setbacks in profits. But by 2006, when Hewlett-Packard unseated Dell as global PC leader, that was no longer the case.
Dell's plans to regain its former dominance have resounded in the market. The company's third-quarter results, announced two weeks ago, showed profit increasing year over year, and record revenue of US$15.65 billion. During the company's earnings call, Michael Dell said the company will put products on more retail shelves worldwide while also helping business customers "simplify IT" and reduce maintenance costs via customized hardware, software and services.
The company has also moved to put accounting issues behind it, recently completing an internal investigation and restating its financial results from fiscal 2003 to the first quarter of 2007.
The company has been making an effort to build relationships with customers and partners and deliver products that are easier to deploy and manage, said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.
Last month, Dell introduced a two-tier channel program designed to give partners better access to Dell's training, marketing, certification and online resources. The program will provide a better chance for Dell to interact and understand its partners' needs, the company said.
"The company seems to recognize that it has bridges to enhance with customers and partners in the channel. It's not something that's going to change overnight," King said.
After years of success selling PCs directly to users, the consumer business' direct-sales business model hit a wall as component prices fell, Pund-IT's King said. The strategy to simplify IT is a play at small- and medium-size business and enterprises that will help Dell deliver better returns in the long term than its lower-margin direct consumer business, analysts said.
However, some customers continue to have concerns about the company's support and supply chain issues.
Dell is having supply shortages and can't get its servers and OptiPlex desktops to individuals and small businesses in a timely manner, said Josh Kaplan, who runs a franchise of computer support firm Rescuecom and purchases parts and interacts with Dell on behalf of customers.
"You can acquire all the technology you want, but Dell will send hardware out blindly," Kaplan said. It will be a challenge for Dell to deliver what it calls "IT in a box" -- its terms for packages of products and services -- to SMBs and enterprises, Kaplan said. Dell has traditionally delivered mostly standardized systems, Kaplan said. While Dell has built systems-to-order by letting users select from a menu of options, it does not have in-depth experience offering customers services over the lifecycle of products, he said.
Jeremy Cole, owner of Proven Scaling, a small consulting firm with offices in the U.S. and U.K., said Dell has internal staffing issues that affect its support services.
"Dell's sales structure is really strange. They tend to bounce your company around to a new account representative every few months, who are wildly differing in experience, intelligence, and understanding of the Dell sales system," Cole said.
Cole is satisfied with Dell equipment, but said the company needs to show more support for open-source applications and the Linux OS. "It's clear that Dell cares about Linux, in that all their server-class hardware is well-supported by the Linux kernel and they have many people dedicated to making sure that's the case. However, it's not good enough just to boot," Cole said.
Though generally positive about Dell's support, Jason Dunn, who runs Thoughts Media, which publishes Web sites for technology enthusiasts, couldn't resolve certain LCD (liquid crystal display) monitor problems with Dell offshore support representatives. He had good experiences with Dell's PC and HDTV support representatives, so the experience varies, Dunn said.
Other users have had a good experience with Dell's strategy to simplify IT. Dell's efforts have paid dividends for Bikeworld.com, a medium-size retail business in San Antonio, which saved money by cutting its internal IT person. The company uses Dell systems with Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System, connected to multiple offices via a VPN (virtual private network).
"Businesses are in a belt-tightening mode. You can't have extra people on payroll," said Whit Snell, general partner at Bikeworld.com. Bikeworld has resolved IT problems with Dell remotely and has a contact readily available to help with problems.
Dell officials were not available for comment on support issues.
Overall, Dell is trying to be more proactive and helpful, said Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst at Parks Associates. Dell's new enterprise support services to simplify IT, like remote management services, could, if successful, trickle into the consumer segment, which could benefit end-users, Scherf said.
Dell this year has tied up with retailers like Staples, Wal-Mart and Best Buy to distribute PCs, something competitors HP and Acer have been successful at. But if Dell wants to make sure its customers aren't tempted by HP or Lenovo in the retail market, fixing problems that some users report about its support infrastructure has to be on top of the company's to-do list, Pund-IT's King said.
Building out retail partnerships changes the consumer-facing relationships for Dell, which could lead to positive changes in the company's support and services. The results are a work in progress, King said.
Balancing out its business model, Dell is showing signs that renewed efforts in the higher-end business sector are catching on, with third-quarter revenue growing in the server and storage markets. The enterprise market provides better margins than retail, and the remote management services market is growing, King said. Dell is trying to address that through acquisitions and by creating a services organization and specialized products targeted at professionals and businesses.
The company this year acquired SAN (storage area network) vendor EqualLogic and managed services companies Everdream and Silverback. It announced a deal with Sun to offer the company's Solaris OS.
Dell has been pushing hard to improve its systems management portfolio, especially remote desktop management capabilities that could help simplify complex IT infrastructures. In October, the company announced On-Demand Desktop Streaming, a server-based platform that streams the OS, applications and data to diskless desktop clients over a Gigabit Ethernet network.
By offering design improvements and bundling software and services like remote management, Dell is trying to get the focus off of price and moving to build the framework for a new business model for the enterprise, said John Spooner, senior analyst at Technology Business Research.
Dell's reinvention should come as no surprise as Michael Dell is on a mission to reconstruct his company, Pund-IT's King said. "It must have been hard for Dell to see a company he built falter," King said. He is putting money in the right spots, and competitors like HP and IBM will do well to keep a close eye on Dell, King said.
Cisco's WiMax focus is in developing world
Cisco Systems sees a big market for WiMax, but not primarily in high-profile deployments in the developed world such as Sprint Nextel's nationwide network, planned for commercial launch in the U.S. next year.
Cisco's acquisition of Navini Networks, expected to close in January, will make it a vendor of wireless radios to carriers for the first time, even though it has been selling the infrastructure behind all kinds of radios for several years. The prospect of getting in early on a market transition was one thing that made WiMax attractive, according to Brett Galloway, vice president and general manager of Cisco's wireless networking business unit.
But the main opportunity Cisco sees is in building networks in developing countries, initially to bring broadband to stationary users, company executives said Wednesday at the annual C-Scape analyst conference in San Jose, California. That's a long way from the vision of mobility that Intel and other big backers of WiMax promoted for several years. Even an Intel executive on a panel with the Cisco executives played up WiMax as an alternative to DSL (digital subscriber line) or cable broadband. That's likely to be the role of WiMax for the foreseeable future in markets with poor or no wired infrastructure, said Sriram Viswanathan, general manager of the WiMax Program Office at Intel Capital. But he's not giving up on mobile WiMax there.
"We see that as almost an entry step for these markets to get onto the mobility bandwagon," Viswanathan said.
The carriers in developing countries are insisting on gear based on IEEE 802.16e, the standard for mobile WiMax, rather than on an earlier specification limited to fixed services, said Roger Dorf, president and CEO of Navini. They want the capability to eventually offer a mobile service, especially because many such carriers have both wired and wireless divisions, he said. But right now, Cisco sees WiMax giving many residents of poorer countries, who overwhelmingly still use desktop PCs, their first broadband experience. Desktops will dominate those markets for the next two years, in Dorf's view.
Cisco isn't dismissing WiMax for advanced countries, just identifying the most attractive market to start with, Galloway said. However, the executives don't see much potential in unlicensed WiMax, such as deployments across large enterprise campuses. The unlicensed variety will remain a niche product, primarily for point-to-point backhaul links, Galloway said.
Mobile WiMax is designed so it can be used without an external antenna or gateway box, so a user should be able to take a notebook or other portable device anywhere in the network's coverage area and connect. But some analysts say this "nomadic" capability is a far cry from the true mobility that cellular technologies have been designed to deliver from the beginning. WiMax will complement but not compete with future high-speed versions of 3G systems, namely LTE (Long-Term Evolution), the next step in the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) technology track, according to Jack Gold of J. Gold Associates.
Cisco isn't taking sides in the next-generation radio fight, said Larry Lang, vice president and general manager of Cisco's Services and Mobility Business Unit. Cisco will win in any case because it supplies the IP (Internet Protocol) packet infrastructure that will link different access networks together, he said.
The company does see an affinity between WiMax and Wi-Fi, where it is a dominant player. Both are IP-based and standardized, and no one company has dominated innovation in either technology, Galloway said. Simply the advent of a new type of portable broadband experience is good news for the network giant.
"If we drive innovation on end devices and applications, and we drive the penetration and ubiquity of networks ... we create enormous value for Cisco ... for the ecosystem ... and for our customers," Galloway said.
Cisco's acquisition of Navini Networks, expected to close in January, will make it a vendor of wireless radios to carriers for the first time, even though it has been selling the infrastructure behind all kinds of radios for several years. The prospect of getting in early on a market transition was one thing that made WiMax attractive, according to Brett Galloway, vice president and general manager of Cisco's wireless networking business unit.
But the main opportunity Cisco sees is in building networks in developing countries, initially to bring broadband to stationary users, company executives said Wednesday at the annual C-Scape analyst conference in San Jose, California. That's a long way from the vision of mobility that Intel and other big backers of WiMax promoted for several years. Even an Intel executive on a panel with the Cisco executives played up WiMax as an alternative to DSL (digital subscriber line) or cable broadband. That's likely to be the role of WiMax for the foreseeable future in markets with poor or no wired infrastructure, said Sriram Viswanathan, general manager of the WiMax Program Office at Intel Capital. But he's not giving up on mobile WiMax there.
"We see that as almost an entry step for these markets to get onto the mobility bandwagon," Viswanathan said.
The carriers in developing countries are insisting on gear based on IEEE 802.16e, the standard for mobile WiMax, rather than on an earlier specification limited to fixed services, said Roger Dorf, president and CEO of Navini. They want the capability to eventually offer a mobile service, especially because many such carriers have both wired and wireless divisions, he said. But right now, Cisco sees WiMax giving many residents of poorer countries, who overwhelmingly still use desktop PCs, their first broadband experience. Desktops will dominate those markets for the next two years, in Dorf's view.
Cisco isn't dismissing WiMax for advanced countries, just identifying the most attractive market to start with, Galloway said. However, the executives don't see much potential in unlicensed WiMax, such as deployments across large enterprise campuses. The unlicensed variety will remain a niche product, primarily for point-to-point backhaul links, Galloway said.
Mobile WiMax is designed so it can be used without an external antenna or gateway box, so a user should be able to take a notebook or other portable device anywhere in the network's coverage area and connect. But some analysts say this "nomadic" capability is a far cry from the true mobility that cellular technologies have been designed to deliver from the beginning. WiMax will complement but not compete with future high-speed versions of 3G systems, namely LTE (Long-Term Evolution), the next step in the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) technology track, according to Jack Gold of J. Gold Associates.
Cisco isn't taking sides in the next-generation radio fight, said Larry Lang, vice president and general manager of Cisco's Services and Mobility Business Unit. Cisco will win in any case because it supplies the IP (Internet Protocol) packet infrastructure that will link different access networks together, he said.
The company does see an affinity between WiMax and Wi-Fi, where it is a dominant player. Both are IP-based and standardized, and no one company has dominated innovation in either technology, Galloway said. Simply the advent of a new type of portable broadband experience is good news for the network giant.
"If we drive innovation on end devices and applications, and we drive the penetration and ubiquity of networks ... we create enormous value for Cisco ... for the ecosystem ... and for our customers," Galloway said.
FTC chairman won't recuse herself in Google deal
U.S. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras won't recuse herself from considering the antitrust implications of Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick, despite a request from two privacy groups that she do so.
Majoras, in a statement Friday, said the request by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) contains "key factual errors." The two groups filed a petition Wednesday saying Majoras' husband works for a law firm that is advising DoubleClick on the merger before U.S. and European regulators.
The Web site for John Majoras' law firm, Jones Day, at one point said it was representing DoubleClick "on the international and U.S. antitrust and competition law aspects" of the Google merger. But Platt Majoras said in her statement that Jones Day has never contacted the FTC about DoubleClick, and she didn't know it was representing DoubleClick in Europe until earlier this week.
A second FTC commissioner whose wife also works for Jones Day also said he won't recuse himself.
The EPIC and CDD petition also is incorrect when it says that John Majoras is an equity partner in Jones Day, Platt Majoras said. John Majoras switched his partnership from equity to nonequity status in January 2006, she said.
"I understand that as a fixed-participation partner, his compensation will not be increased or affected by changes in the firm’s income," Platt Majoras said."My husband does not represent any party in the Google-DoubleClick matter. He is in no way connected to the matter, nor are any of the parties to the matter otherwise currently his clients."
EPIC and CDD, in a joint statement, said the FTC has "failed utterly" in its procedures to alert Platt Majoras about potential conflicts of interest. Despite Platt Majoras' claims that she doesn't have a conflict, John Majoras is an antitrust expert at Jones Day, and one of his key responsibilities is business development in Washington, D.C., they said.
Platt Majoras "simply sets out the conclusion that the interests in her participation in this matter outweigh the potential conflict without providing any of the relevant factors that support that conclusion other than that she is the chairman of the commission," said the statement from EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg and CDD executive director Jeffrey Chester.
Jones Day changed its Web site after the groups pointed out that it said the firm was representing DoubleClick on U.S. antitrust matters, wrote Rotenberg and Chester.
"The logical conclusion is that Jones Day ... sought to destroy the relevant evidence," Rotenberg and Chester wrote.
A Jones Day spokesman didn't immediately have a comment when asked about the EPIC and CDD allegations.
Google in April announced plans to acquire ad-serving giant DoubleClick in a US$3.1 billion deal. That same month, EPIC, CDD and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG) filed a petition asking the FTC to block the deal unless Google made significant changes to its privacy policy. The groups argued that the combined company would have unparalleled access to Web users' personal information.
FTC Commissioner William Kovacic also noted, in a Friday statement, that his wife, Kathryn Fenton, is a nonequity partner at Jones Day. The EPIC and CDD petition had not sought to have Kovacic recused.
The FTC's three other commissioners, Pamela Jones Harbour, Jon Leibowitz and J. Thomas Rosch, issued a joint statement, saying that they agreed with the decisions of Platt Majoras and Kovacic not to recuse themselves."It is evident that these commissioners have at all times taken affirmative steps to conduct themselves in complete conformity with the ethical standards that apply to their positions," the three said.
Majoras, in a statement Friday, said the request by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) contains "key factual errors." The two groups filed a petition Wednesday saying Majoras' husband works for a law firm that is advising DoubleClick on the merger before U.S. and European regulators.
The Web site for John Majoras' law firm, Jones Day, at one point said it was representing DoubleClick "on the international and U.S. antitrust and competition law aspects" of the Google merger. But Platt Majoras said in her statement that Jones Day has never contacted the FTC about DoubleClick, and she didn't know it was representing DoubleClick in Europe until earlier this week.
A second FTC commissioner whose wife also works for Jones Day also said he won't recuse himself.
The EPIC and CDD petition also is incorrect when it says that John Majoras is an equity partner in Jones Day, Platt Majoras said. John Majoras switched his partnership from equity to nonequity status in January 2006, she said.
"I understand that as a fixed-participation partner, his compensation will not be increased or affected by changes in the firm’s income," Platt Majoras said."My husband does not represent any party in the Google-DoubleClick matter. He is in no way connected to the matter, nor are any of the parties to the matter otherwise currently his clients."
EPIC and CDD, in a joint statement, said the FTC has "failed utterly" in its procedures to alert Platt Majoras about potential conflicts of interest. Despite Platt Majoras' claims that she doesn't have a conflict, John Majoras is an antitrust expert at Jones Day, and one of his key responsibilities is business development in Washington, D.C., they said.
Platt Majoras "simply sets out the conclusion that the interests in her participation in this matter outweigh the potential conflict without providing any of the relevant factors that support that conclusion other than that she is the chairman of the commission," said the statement from EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg and CDD executive director Jeffrey Chester.
Jones Day changed its Web site after the groups pointed out that it said the firm was representing DoubleClick on U.S. antitrust matters, wrote Rotenberg and Chester.
"The logical conclusion is that Jones Day ... sought to destroy the relevant evidence," Rotenberg and Chester wrote.
A Jones Day spokesman didn't immediately have a comment when asked about the EPIC and CDD allegations.
Google in April announced plans to acquire ad-serving giant DoubleClick in a US$3.1 billion deal. That same month, EPIC, CDD and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG) filed a petition asking the FTC to block the deal unless Google made significant changes to its privacy policy. The groups argued that the combined company would have unparalleled access to Web users' personal information.
FTC Commissioner William Kovacic also noted, in a Friday statement, that his wife, Kathryn Fenton, is a nonequity partner at Jones Day. The EPIC and CDD petition had not sought to have Kovacic recused.
The FTC's three other commissioners, Pamela Jones Harbour, Jon Leibowitz and J. Thomas Rosch, issued a joint statement, saying that they agreed with the decisions of Platt Majoras and Kovacic not to recuse themselves."It is evident that these commissioners have at all times taken affirmative steps to conduct themselves in complete conformity with the ethical standards that apply to their positions," the three said.
Sun will offer back-line support for OpenOffice
Sun Microsystems on Monday plans to announce that it will provide support for the OpenOffice.org productivity software suite, citing a wave of momentum behind the open-source project.
The support, which starts at US$20 per user per year, will be offered to companies that distribute OpenOffice.org, not directly to end-users, according to Mark Herring, senior director of marketing for StarOffice/OpenOffice.org and Network.com. "For a lot of distributors, they wanted to distribute OpenOffice.org and had no option for back-line support," he said.
OpenOffice.org and StarOffice, Sun's accompanying commercial product, are compatible with Microsoft Office and identical in terms of capabilities, which include word processing, spreadsheets and presentation software. But until now, Sun only supported StarOffice.
Another difference will remain -- Sun does not plan to provide indemnification against lawsuits for OpenOffice.org, as it does for StarOffice, Herring said.
Sun's move comes as OpenOffice.org is being downloaded 1 million times per week, with total downloads to date standing at about 110 million, Herring said.
Out of that number, Sun estimates that "tens of millions" of people are actively using the software, according to Herring. The most recent version is 2.3. Version 2.4 is expected in March and will contain significant new features, according to the openoffice.org Web site.
"Microsoft Office is still the dominant tool out there -- only a fool would deny that," he said. "But [OpenOffice.org] has had a huge amount of momentum."
Sun believes the average OpenOffice.org user skews younger on average, and that download activity in Europe and the U.S. has been greater than in Asian countries, he added.
Developers can create extensions to the core OpenOffice.org suite. Sun has made a new one for shaving down the size of presentation files, Herring said. The wizard-like tool goes through a file and asks users whether they want to keep or compress the various elements, he said.
Sun plans to provide support for any extensions it creates, according to Herring. As for ones made by third parties, "we would have to work with them on that code on a case-by-case basis," he said.
Sun is also releasing StarOffice 8 Server. Herring described it as a conversion engine that changes 40 document types into PDF files. The server, which costs $11,000, is aimed at enterprises with large stores of legacy documents that aren't archived with an open standard, according to Herring.
The support, which starts at US$20 per user per year, will be offered to companies that distribute OpenOffice.org, not directly to end-users, according to Mark Herring, senior director of marketing for StarOffice/OpenOffice.org and Network.com. "For a lot of distributors, they wanted to distribute OpenOffice.org and had no option for back-line support," he said.
OpenOffice.org and StarOffice, Sun's accompanying commercial product, are compatible with Microsoft Office and identical in terms of capabilities, which include word processing, spreadsheets and presentation software. But until now, Sun only supported StarOffice.
Another difference will remain -- Sun does not plan to provide indemnification against lawsuits for OpenOffice.org, as it does for StarOffice, Herring said.
Sun's move comes as OpenOffice.org is being downloaded 1 million times per week, with total downloads to date standing at about 110 million, Herring said.
Out of that number, Sun estimates that "tens of millions" of people are actively using the software, according to Herring. The most recent version is 2.3. Version 2.4 is expected in March and will contain significant new features, according to the openoffice.org Web site.
"Microsoft Office is still the dominant tool out there -- only a fool would deny that," he said. "But [OpenOffice.org] has had a huge amount of momentum."
Sun believes the average OpenOffice.org user skews younger on average, and that download activity in Europe and the U.S. has been greater than in Asian countries, he added.
Developers can create extensions to the core OpenOffice.org suite. Sun has made a new one for shaving down the size of presentation files, Herring said. The wizard-like tool goes through a file and asks users whether they want to keep or compress the various elements, he said.
Sun plans to provide support for any extensions it creates, according to Herring. As for ones made by third parties, "we would have to work with them on that code on a case-by-case basis," he said.
Sun is also releasing StarOffice 8 Server. Herring described it as a conversion engine that changes 40 document types into PDF files. The server, which costs $11,000, is aimed at enterprises with large stores of legacy documents that aren't archived with an open standard, according to Herring.
Opera seeks tougher remedy in Microsoft case
Microsoft was considered to have escaped lightly after the European Commission found it guilty in 2004 of bundling its media player software with Windows to the detriment of competition. It was ordered to sell a second version of Windows in Europe without its media player, but the new version was priced the same, few PC makers stocked it and the product effectively bombed in the market.
People continued to buy the original version of Windows, complete with the media player, and the remedy did little to help Microsoft's rivals.
With its fresh antitrust suit filed with the Commission this week, browser maker Opera Software is hoping for a tougher penalty to rein in what it sees as Microsoft's illegal bundling of its Internet Explorer (IE) browser with Windows. One legal expert said that this time around, Microsoft might not be so lucky.
"The landscape has changed quite a bit between Microsoft and the European Commission since the last ruling. If there's a replay of what led up to the 2004 ruling, and Microsoft takes similar positions regarding bundling, then I wouldn't be surprised if the Commission comes down harder now," said Chris Norall, a partner in the Brussels office of the law firm Morrison & Foerster.
Opera argues that because each version of Windows comes with only IE preinstalled, Microsoft has an unfair advantage against rivals like Opera and Firefox. That has helped it maintain a consistent market share on Windows PCs of around 80 percent, Opera contends.
The Norwegian company now wants the Commission to come up with a tougher remedy to overcome Microsoft's advantage. If the Commission agrees that the bundling of IE is just as illegal as the bundling of Windows Media Player was in 2004, its remedy this time "will be tougher, it will have teeth," said Norall, whose law firm is not involved in the Microsoft case.
One possible outcome would be to make Microsoft offer a second version of Windows without Windows Media Player, and to sell it at a lower price than the "complete" version of Windows. That may give PC makers more incentive to offer it. Opera's preferred solution, however, is simply to force Microsoft to pre-load other browsers with Windows when it ships.
"In our minds, the best solution would be one version of Windows with a must-carry type of provision," said Jason Hoida, Opera's deputy general counsel.
Microsoft is likely to fight that remedy fiercely. It says it will cooperate with the Commission's investigation, but argues, as it has before, that consumers benefit from bundling its browser with Windows. What's more, it notes, PC makers and consumers are free to install any other browser if they wish.
Microsoft's position my be strengthened by the popularity of rival browsers in Europe, notably Firefox, which has reached a market share of close to 40 percent in some key markets, such as Germany, studies have shown. If Microsoft can argue that rivals to IE are gaining market share, it could help it persuade the Commission that antitrust intervention is not necessary.
Opera responds that the growth of other browsers has been levelling out. "Firefox has attracted a lot of users, especially in the open-source world, but it has not been climbing consistently," said Hakon Wium Lie, Opera's chief technology officer.
In addition, he said, Opera's complaint is focussed on Windows PCs, where IE's share is higher, and not that of Linux or Macintosh computers. However, it is uncertain that the Commission will exclude Linux and Macintosh computers when it considers the relevant market in this case.
Opera's position may be helped by the previous antitrust judgment against Microsoft. Three months ago the Court of First Instance endorsed the legality of the Commission's 2004 ruling when it threw out Microsoft's appeal. The Commission will examine the new complaint "in light of the case law set in the Court of First Instance judgement," Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd said Thursday.
Opera expects the case to move along faster than the seven years it took to reach the 2004 decision, since the Commission has already deemed Microsoft to be a monopolist, and because Microsoft opted against a further appeal against that decision. "There is an unappealed judgment, so we hope this will go faster," Hoida said.
Thomas Vinje, a partner in the Brussels office of the law firm Clifford Chance, which is representing Opera in this case, said: "The complaint is very short. It doesn't have far to look for a relevant legal precedent."
In addition to the bundling charge, Opera also complains that Microsoft does not follow Web standards, putting rival browsers at a disadvantage. The issue is significant because if all Web browsers do not use the same standards, Web site developers are likely to design their Web sites to work with the most widely used browser, which is Internet Explorer. That gives people a disincentive to use other browsers.
Microsoft often takes part in debates over Web standards, and says it will implement them, but ultimately does not, Opera's Lie said. He pointed to CSS, XHTML and DOM as areas where Microsoft does not comply with or is inconsistent.
The Opera complaint is the second against Microsoft filed to the Commission since the 2004 ruling. In February 2006, the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) complained that Microsoft is foreclosing the market for productivity software with its Office package. Some expect more complaints to follow.
"The bundling issue is going to come up each time Microsoft adds a new feature to Windows. Will there be more complaints? Yes," said Norall.
People continued to buy the original version of Windows, complete with the media player, and the remedy did little to help Microsoft's rivals.
With its fresh antitrust suit filed with the Commission this week, browser maker Opera Software is hoping for a tougher penalty to rein in what it sees as Microsoft's illegal bundling of its Internet Explorer (IE) browser with Windows. One legal expert said that this time around, Microsoft might not be so lucky.
"The landscape has changed quite a bit between Microsoft and the European Commission since the last ruling. If there's a replay of what led up to the 2004 ruling, and Microsoft takes similar positions regarding bundling, then I wouldn't be surprised if the Commission comes down harder now," said Chris Norall, a partner in the Brussels office of the law firm Morrison & Foerster.
Opera argues that because each version of Windows comes with only IE preinstalled, Microsoft has an unfair advantage against rivals like Opera and Firefox. That has helped it maintain a consistent market share on Windows PCs of around 80 percent, Opera contends.
The Norwegian company now wants the Commission to come up with a tougher remedy to overcome Microsoft's advantage. If the Commission agrees that the bundling of IE is just as illegal as the bundling of Windows Media Player was in 2004, its remedy this time "will be tougher, it will have teeth," said Norall, whose law firm is not involved in the Microsoft case.
One possible outcome would be to make Microsoft offer a second version of Windows without Windows Media Player, and to sell it at a lower price than the "complete" version of Windows. That may give PC makers more incentive to offer it. Opera's preferred solution, however, is simply to force Microsoft to pre-load other browsers with Windows when it ships.
"In our minds, the best solution would be one version of Windows with a must-carry type of provision," said Jason Hoida, Opera's deputy general counsel.
Microsoft is likely to fight that remedy fiercely. It says it will cooperate with the Commission's investigation, but argues, as it has before, that consumers benefit from bundling its browser with Windows. What's more, it notes, PC makers and consumers are free to install any other browser if they wish.
Microsoft's position my be strengthened by the popularity of rival browsers in Europe, notably Firefox, which has reached a market share of close to 40 percent in some key markets, such as Germany, studies have shown. If Microsoft can argue that rivals to IE are gaining market share, it could help it persuade the Commission that antitrust intervention is not necessary.
Opera responds that the growth of other browsers has been levelling out. "Firefox has attracted a lot of users, especially in the open-source world, but it has not been climbing consistently," said Hakon Wium Lie, Opera's chief technology officer.
In addition, he said, Opera's complaint is focussed on Windows PCs, where IE's share is higher, and not that of Linux or Macintosh computers. However, it is uncertain that the Commission will exclude Linux and Macintosh computers when it considers the relevant market in this case.
Opera's position may be helped by the previous antitrust judgment against Microsoft. Three months ago the Court of First Instance endorsed the legality of the Commission's 2004 ruling when it threw out Microsoft's appeal. The Commission will examine the new complaint "in light of the case law set in the Court of First Instance judgement," Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd said Thursday.
Opera expects the case to move along faster than the seven years it took to reach the 2004 decision, since the Commission has already deemed Microsoft to be a monopolist, and because Microsoft opted against a further appeal against that decision. "There is an unappealed judgment, so we hope this will go faster," Hoida said.
Thomas Vinje, a partner in the Brussels office of the law firm Clifford Chance, which is representing Opera in this case, said: "The complaint is very short. It doesn't have far to look for a relevant legal precedent."
In addition to the bundling charge, Opera also complains that Microsoft does not follow Web standards, putting rival browsers at a disadvantage. The issue is significant because if all Web browsers do not use the same standards, Web site developers are likely to design their Web sites to work with the most widely used browser, which is Internet Explorer. That gives people a disincentive to use other browsers.
Microsoft often takes part in debates over Web standards, and says it will implement them, but ultimately does not, Opera's Lie said. He pointed to CSS, XHTML and DOM as areas where Microsoft does not comply with or is inconsistent.
The Opera complaint is the second against Microsoft filed to the Commission since the 2004 ruling. In February 2006, the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) complained that Microsoft is foreclosing the market for productivity software with its Office package. Some expect more complaints to follow.
"The bundling issue is going to come up each time Microsoft adds a new feature to Windows. Will there be more complaints? Yes," said Norall.
Google's Picasa optimized for iPhone
Google has introduced specific support for its online photo gallery service Picasa on the iPhone.
The company has completely redesigned and optimized Picasa's mobile interface for the iPhone. Images are proportioned to fit the device's screen, and control buttons have been fixed in order to be easier to navigate with an iPhone user's fingers.
Google has also introduced an iPhone-only slideshow feature that automatically flips through a user's favorite photo albums.
Announcing the new iPhone support, Google blogger (and user experience designer) Karen Groenink, writes: "If you've ever picked up an iPhone, you know that it's great for showing off digital photos. iPhones have a high-resolution screen that's big, bright, and crisp, and a first-class web browser that supports complex web technologies like AJAX. Put these two together, and it's probably fair to say that Apple's iPhone offers one of the best platforms for experiencing the mobile version of Picasa Web Albums."
This news follows Google's recent move to launch a new web portal to its services cunningly re-designed to make its many services more easily available to iPhone users through a re-designed interface for the device.
iPhone users simply need to navigate to Google's site (www.google.com) using the Safari browser of the iPhone (and iPod touch) will find a navigation bar that lets them switch between Google services.
The company has completely redesigned and optimized Picasa's mobile interface for the iPhone. Images are proportioned to fit the device's screen, and control buttons have been fixed in order to be easier to navigate with an iPhone user's fingers.
Google has also introduced an iPhone-only slideshow feature that automatically flips through a user's favorite photo albums.
Announcing the new iPhone support, Google blogger (and user experience designer) Karen Groenink, writes: "If you've ever picked up an iPhone, you know that it's great for showing off digital photos. iPhones have a high-resolution screen that's big, bright, and crisp, and a first-class web browser that supports complex web technologies like AJAX. Put these two together, and it's probably fair to say that Apple's iPhone offers one of the best platforms for experiencing the mobile version of Picasa Web Albums."
This news follows Google's recent move to launch a new web portal to its services cunningly re-designed to make its many services more easily available to iPhone users through a re-designed interface for the device.
iPhone users simply need to navigate to Google's site (www.google.com) using the Safari browser of the iPhone (and iPod touch) will find a navigation bar that lets them switch between Google services.
Atheros to acquire GPS chip maker u-Nav
Silicon vendor Atheros Communications has agreed to acquire u-Nav Microelectronics, a GPS (Global Positioning System) chip maker, for approximately $54 million in cash and stock, the companies announced after the close of trading Thursday.
As GPS becomes part of the toolkit users are looking for in networked devices, Atheros wants to add that technology to its lineup. Customers of Atheros put its Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips into notebooks, dual-mode phones and other products.
"GPS is something that these guys were asking us for," said Atheros Chief Financial Officer Jack Lazar.
Broadcom, a rival of Atheros, acquired GPS chipset maker Global Locate earlier this year. Atheros chose u-Nav because it makes a single-chip GPS system using CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor), a standard technology that has been key to Atheros' own success in Wi-Fi, Lazar said. Using CMOS has helped to reduce the size and lower the cost of many types of chips.
Privately held u-Nav was founded in 2001 and is based in Irvine, California. Its approximately 54 employees will join Atheros but remain in Irvine and at u-Nav's European engineering facility in Tampere, Finland, Lazar said. Greg Winner, CEO of u-Nav, will become the head of Atheros' GPS business following the close of the deal, expected this month. Atheros is based in Santa Clara, California.
Although GPS is an obvious fit for cell phones, there are many reasons to put it in other devices too, Lazar said. For example, GPS in a notebook PC could be used by enterprises to track the PC, and a notebook with built-in GPS could serve as a personal navigation device without any external hardware. UMPC (ultramobile PC) devices for specific purposes such as construction already have GPS built in, Lazar said.
It should be possible in a year or two to integrate Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS in a single chip, though Atheros probably wouldn't do that unless a customer asked for it, Lazar said.
As GPS becomes part of the toolkit users are looking for in networked devices, Atheros wants to add that technology to its lineup. Customers of Atheros put its Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips into notebooks, dual-mode phones and other products.
"GPS is something that these guys were asking us for," said Atheros Chief Financial Officer Jack Lazar.
Broadcom, a rival of Atheros, acquired GPS chipset maker Global Locate earlier this year. Atheros chose u-Nav because it makes a single-chip GPS system using CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor), a standard technology that has been key to Atheros' own success in Wi-Fi, Lazar said. Using CMOS has helped to reduce the size and lower the cost of many types of chips.
Privately held u-Nav was founded in 2001 and is based in Irvine, California. Its approximately 54 employees will join Atheros but remain in Irvine and at u-Nav's European engineering facility in Tampere, Finland, Lazar said. Greg Winner, CEO of u-Nav, will become the head of Atheros' GPS business following the close of the deal, expected this month. Atheros is based in Santa Clara, California.
Although GPS is an obvious fit for cell phones, there are many reasons to put it in other devices too, Lazar said. For example, GPS in a notebook PC could be used by enterprises to track the PC, and a notebook with built-in GPS could serve as a personal navigation device without any external hardware. UMPC (ultramobile PC) devices for specific purposes such as construction already have GPS built in, Lazar said.
It should be possible in a year or two to integrate Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS in a single chip, though Atheros probably wouldn't do that unless a customer asked for it, Lazar said.
FTC, law firm hiding DoubleClick conflict
The Web site of a law firm employing the husband of U.S. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras contradicts an FTC explanation that Majoras has no conflict of interest in reviewing DoubleClick's US$3.1 billion acquisition by Google, two privacy groups said Thursday.
On Wednesday, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) asked Majoras to recuse herself from the merger review, saying her husband, John Majoras, is a partner with Jones Day, the law firm that is advising DoubleClick on antitrust issues relating to the acquisition.
DoubleClick and the FTC have denied that Jones Day has represented the company before the FTC.
But on Thursday, EPIC and CDD filed a second complaint with the FTC, showing a cached Web page claiming that Jones Day is advising DoubleClick "on the international and U.S. antitrust and competition law aspects of its planned $3.1 billion acquisition by Google Inc." The Jones Day Web page was later changed, the groups said.
EPIC and CDD said Thursday they were filing a Freedom of Information Act request seeking all records on the relationship between Jones Day and DoubleClick.
One conclusion to draw is that "Jones Day has sought to conceal the nature, scope and duration of the relationship with its client DoubleClick by altering web pages," said a letter signed by executive directors of both organizations. FTC spokespeople who denied the relationship were "either misinformed or willfully misled the public," the letter says.
An FTC spokeswoman declined to comment on the new complaint. Representatives of Jones Day and DoubleClick weren't immediately available for comment.
The FTC and DoubleClick downplayed the connection Wednesday, saying Jones Day has not advised DoubleClick on matters before the FTC. Instead, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett has been DoubleClick's outside counsel since July of 2005 and has advised it in matters before the FTC, DoubleClick said in a statement.
"Jones Day was not engaged to represent, and has not represented DoubleClick before the Federal Trade Commission or appeared before the commission on DoubleClick’s behalf," the company said.
In April, EPIC, CDD and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG) asked the FTC to block Google's acquisition of DoubleClick unless the combined company made changes to its privacy practices. The combined company would hold a vast amount of private information on Web users, the groups said.
On Wednesday, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) asked Majoras to recuse herself from the merger review, saying her husband, John Majoras, is a partner with Jones Day, the law firm that is advising DoubleClick on antitrust issues relating to the acquisition.
DoubleClick and the FTC have denied that Jones Day has represented the company before the FTC.
But on Thursday, EPIC and CDD filed a second complaint with the FTC, showing a cached Web page claiming that Jones Day is advising DoubleClick "on the international and U.S. antitrust and competition law aspects of its planned $3.1 billion acquisition by Google Inc." The Jones Day Web page was later changed, the groups said.
EPIC and CDD said Thursday they were filing a Freedom of Information Act request seeking all records on the relationship between Jones Day and DoubleClick.
One conclusion to draw is that "Jones Day has sought to conceal the nature, scope and duration of the relationship with its client DoubleClick by altering web pages," said a letter signed by executive directors of both organizations. FTC spokespeople who denied the relationship were "either misinformed or willfully misled the public," the letter says.
An FTC spokeswoman declined to comment on the new complaint. Representatives of Jones Day and DoubleClick weren't immediately available for comment.
The FTC and DoubleClick downplayed the connection Wednesday, saying Jones Day has not advised DoubleClick on matters before the FTC. Instead, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett has been DoubleClick's outside counsel since July of 2005 and has advised it in matters before the FTC, DoubleClick said in a statement.
"Jones Day was not engaged to represent, and has not represented DoubleClick before the Federal Trade Commission or appeared before the commission on DoubleClick’s behalf," the company said.
In April, EPIC, CDD and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG) asked the FTC to block Google's acquisition of DoubleClick unless the combined company made changes to its privacy practices. The combined company would hold a vast amount of private information on Web users, the groups said.
AMD's Ruiz 'blew it' in 2007, but still gets raise
AMD Chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz acknowledged Thursday that 2007 was a bad year for his company, but that didn't stop AMD's board of directors from raising his salary anyway.
"We blew it and we're very humbled by it and we learned from it and we're not going to do it again," Ruiz told financial analysts in New York.
AMD has struggled this year, largely due to technical problems that repeatedly delayed the widespread availability of its Quad-Core Opteron chip, known as Barcelona. As a result, the company saw its financial losses mount -- $1.6 billion during the first nine months of this year -- while incurring $3.7 billion in long-term debt to help keep the company's operations running.
The announcement Wednesday that AMD plans to take an as-yet unspecified charge for impaired goodwill from its US$5.4 billion acquisition of ATI -- recognition that the graphics-chip vendor is worth less than AMD paid for it last year -- only added to the company's financial woes and dimmed investor enthusiasm. AMD's share price closed at $8.84 Thursday, down 56 percent from a year ago.
However, those issues will not affect Ruiz's base salary, which has been increased, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission released Thursday, the same day that Ruiz apologized for the company's dismal performance.
That filing, which contained a copy of Ruiz's amended employment agreement, shows AMD raised his annual base salary by 7.4 percent to US$1,124,000. The amended agreement is dated Dec. 7.
In 2006, Ruiz received a base salary of $1,046,358, while stock awards and other forms of compensation raised his total compensation for the year to $12,848,435.
Ruiz's 2006 compensation was significantly higher than Intel CEO and President Paul Otellini, who took home a salary of $700,000 in 2006. Other awards raised Otellini's total compensation in 2006 to $9,806,400.
"We blew it and we're very humbled by it and we learned from it and we're not going to do it again," Ruiz told financial analysts in New York.
AMD has struggled this year, largely due to technical problems that repeatedly delayed the widespread availability of its Quad-Core Opteron chip, known as Barcelona. As a result, the company saw its financial losses mount -- $1.6 billion during the first nine months of this year -- while incurring $3.7 billion in long-term debt to help keep the company's operations running.
The announcement Wednesday that AMD plans to take an as-yet unspecified charge for impaired goodwill from its US$5.4 billion acquisition of ATI -- recognition that the graphics-chip vendor is worth less than AMD paid for it last year -- only added to the company's financial woes and dimmed investor enthusiasm. AMD's share price closed at $8.84 Thursday, down 56 percent from a year ago.
However, those issues will not affect Ruiz's base salary, which has been increased, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission released Thursday, the same day that Ruiz apologized for the company's dismal performance.
That filing, which contained a copy of Ruiz's amended employment agreement, shows AMD raised his annual base salary by 7.4 percent to US$1,124,000. The amended agreement is dated Dec. 7.
In 2006, Ruiz received a base salary of $1,046,358, while stock awards and other forms of compensation raised his total compensation for the year to $12,848,435.
Ruiz's 2006 compensation was significantly higher than Intel CEO and President Paul Otellini, who took home a salary of $700,000 in 2006. Other awards raised Otellini's total compensation in 2006 to $9,806,400.
Google develops Wikipedia rival
Google is developing an online publishing platform where people can write entries on subjects they know, an idea that's close to Wikipedia's user-contributed encyclopedia - but with key differences.
The project, which is in an invitation-only beta stage, lets users create clean-looking Web pages with their photo and write entries on, for example, insomnia. Those entries are called "knols" for "unit of knowledge," Google said.
Google wants the knols to develop into a deep repository of knowledge, covering topics such as geography, history and entertainment.
Google's project will have to catch up with Wikipedia, which includes more than 7 million articles in 200 languages. Anonymous users constantly update Wikipedia entries in an ever-growing online encyclopedia that's edited by a network of vetted editors.
But Google asserts that the Web's development so far has neglected the importance of the bylined author.
"We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content," wrote Udi Manber, vice president of engineering, on the official Google blog.
Google said anyone can write about any topic, and repetition of entries on the same subjects is beneficial. Google will provide the Web hosting space, as well as editing tools.
Contributors can choose whether to let Google place ads on the knols. Google said it will give the contributors a "substantial" portion of the revenue generated by those ads. While Wikipedia lacks ads, keyword advertising has underpinned Google's growth.
Entries can't be edited or revised by other people, in contrast to Wikipedia. However, other readers will be able to rank and review others' entries, which will then be interpreted by Google's search engine when displaying results.
The concept of peer-reviewed information is nothing new and is implemented in different ways on various Web sites. Yahoo, for example, has an "Answers" feature where users can ask questions, and the response is ranked on quality. Also, most blogs have forms where readers can comment on the author's entry.
Despite those other formats, Google probably feels that "a service like Knol might be necessary to stay competitive," wrote Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of Search Engine Land, in a review.
The project, which is in an invitation-only beta stage, lets users create clean-looking Web pages with their photo and write entries on, for example, insomnia. Those entries are called "knols" for "unit of knowledge," Google said.
Google wants the knols to develop into a deep repository of knowledge, covering topics such as geography, history and entertainment.
Google's project will have to catch up with Wikipedia, which includes more than 7 million articles in 200 languages. Anonymous users constantly update Wikipedia entries in an ever-growing online encyclopedia that's edited by a network of vetted editors.
But Google asserts that the Web's development so far has neglected the importance of the bylined author.
"We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content," wrote Udi Manber, vice president of engineering, on the official Google blog.
Google said anyone can write about any topic, and repetition of entries on the same subjects is beneficial. Google will provide the Web hosting space, as well as editing tools.
Contributors can choose whether to let Google place ads on the knols. Google said it will give the contributors a "substantial" portion of the revenue generated by those ads. While Wikipedia lacks ads, keyword advertising has underpinned Google's growth.
Entries can't be edited or revised by other people, in contrast to Wikipedia. However, other readers will be able to rank and review others' entries, which will then be interpreted by Google's search engine when displaying results.
The concept of peer-reviewed information is nothing new and is implemented in different ways on various Web sites. Yahoo, for example, has an "Answers" feature where users can ask questions, and the response is ranked on quality. Also, most blogs have forms where readers can comment on the author's entry.
Despite those other formats, Google probably feels that "a service like Knol might be necessary to stay competitive," wrote Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of Search Engine Land, in a review.
After attacks, Apple fixes QuickTime bug
Apple has released a new security patch for QuickTime, its eighth update this year for the media player software.
The update addresses three critical security holes in QuickTime, including a vulnerability that has been used in attacks by online criminals.
The most critical of the flaws lies in QuickTime's implementation of the Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP), used to play audio and video over the Internet. The flaw was made public Nov. 23, and in early December attackers began exploiting the flaw in online attacks. By tricking victims into visiting a malicious Web site that exploited the flaw, hackers were able to install malicious software on the victims' PCs.
To date, these attacks have targeted Windows-based systems, but security experts say that Mac OS X users are also at risk to the vulnerability. Apple issued patches for both Windows and Mac OS X users on Thursday.
The second critical vulnerability, which had apparently not been publicly disclosed, has to do with a flaw in the QuickTime Media Link (QTL) file format used by the media player. Security researchers have recently been looking at the way QuickTime works with these files as a potential source of new bugs.
Apple also patched a handful of similar bugs in the way that QuickTime handles Adobe's Flash media format. The most serious of these flaws could let attackers run unauthorized software on the computer, much as the RTSP bug does, Apple said.
With security researchers paying special attention to media format bugs, Apple has had to patch QuickTime frequently this year. Some of these updates have come just weeks apart. Apple last patched QuickTime on Nov. 5.
The update addresses three critical security holes in QuickTime, including a vulnerability that has been used in attacks by online criminals.
The most critical of the flaws lies in QuickTime's implementation of the Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP), used to play audio and video over the Internet. The flaw was made public Nov. 23, and in early December attackers began exploiting the flaw in online attacks. By tricking victims into visiting a malicious Web site that exploited the flaw, hackers were able to install malicious software on the victims' PCs.
To date, these attacks have targeted Windows-based systems, but security experts say that Mac OS X users are also at risk to the vulnerability. Apple issued patches for both Windows and Mac OS X users on Thursday.
The second critical vulnerability, which had apparently not been publicly disclosed, has to do with a flaw in the QuickTime Media Link (QTL) file format used by the media player. Security researchers have recently been looking at the way QuickTime works with these files as a potential source of new bugs.
Apple also patched a handful of similar bugs in the way that QuickTime handles Adobe's Flash media format. The most serious of these flaws could let attackers run unauthorized software on the computer, much as the RTSP bug does, Apple said.
With security researchers paying special attention to media format bugs, Apple has had to patch QuickTime frequently this year. Some of these updates have come just weeks apart. Apple last patched QuickTime on Nov. 5.
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