Just one day after Microsoft issued a massive set of security patches for its software, hackers have begun posting code showing how to exploit one of the flaws.
The proof-of-concept code, posted Wednesday to the Milw0rm Web site, exploits a bug in the Microsoft Works file converter software that is part of Office 2003 and can be used to run unauthorized software on a victim's computer.
The flaw also affects Works 8 and Works Suite 2005. To fall prey to the attack, a victim would first have to open a malicious Works attachment.
Hackers have uncovered many of these file-format bugs in recent years and they are generally not used in widespread attacks. In fact, security vendor Symantec predicts that we'll see fewer of these attacks in the months ahead as online criminals increasingly rely on browser bugs to do their dirty work.
"The bad guys, they're looking for different ways to trick people," said Wayne Periman, director of development with Symantec Security Response. "The popular method of choice is to exploit plugins in browsers right now."
Still, Periman expects criminals to try out this latest attack code. "It's so simple," he said. "All you have to do is get someone to open the document."
As of Wednesday, Symantec had not seen any signs of attackers taking advantage of any of the flaws that Microsoft fixed this week.
The software vendor released 11 sets of patches this week, fixing 17 flaws in its products, but this is the first exploit code to pop up following Tuesday's updates. A second program exploiting one of these vulnerabilities -- this one in an ActiveX control used by the Visual FoxPro database -- was posted to Milw0rm in September, months before Microsoft patched the issue.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Report: News Corp., Yahoo in talks to fend off Microsoft
Yahoo may team up with News Corp. to fend off Microsoft's bid to buy the struggling Web portal, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Wednesday.
The two companies are in talks about a deal in which News Corp. would take a stake of as much as 20 percent in Yahoo. MySpace and other Web properties of News Corp. would be combined with Yahoo, according to the report, which was attributed to "people familiar with the matter."
The deal would also involve a cash infusion by News Corp. and a private equity firm. Yahoo would remain independent.
On Monday, Yahoo rejected Microsoft's US$44.6 billion unsolicited buyout bid, saying it undervalued the company. Microsoft has vowed to take all necessary steps to close the deal.
The two companies are in talks about a deal in which News Corp. would take a stake of as much as 20 percent in Yahoo. MySpace and other Web properties of News Corp. would be combined with Yahoo, according to the report, which was attributed to "people familiar with the matter."
The deal would also involve a cash infusion by News Corp. and a private equity firm. Yahoo would remain independent.
On Monday, Yahoo rejected Microsoft's US$44.6 billion unsolicited buyout bid, saying it undervalued the company. Microsoft has vowed to take all necessary steps to close the deal.
Top 10 mobile trends
There's something to interest almost everyone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week:
For the lost
GPS is built in to an increasing number of mobile phones. Nokia is still the most aggressive vendor. This year it plans to sell 35 million phones with GPS. The Finnish phone giant is not alone: its competitors are also embracing navigation, so don't be surprised if in a few years GPS is as common in phones as cameras are today.
Trendsetters: HTC P3470 and Samsung G810
For shutterbugs
Phone makers also continue to develop cameras. Among the features that popped up during this year's show are face-detection, image stabilization and the ability to take better pictures in the dark. Phone cameras with a 5-megapixel resolution are also becoming more common, although you still only get a digital zoom.
Trendsetters: Sony Ericsson C902 and Samsung F480
For Linus
Apple isn't the only company redrawing the mobile phone map. Linux is nothing new in mobile phones, but the launch of Google's Android has given it a lot of extra attention. On the show floor several chip manufacturers showed prototypes. The first real phones should be ready before the end of the year. One benefit with Android is the reduction in the time it takes to develop a new phone, according to Texas Instruments.
Trendsetters: ARM and Texas Instruments
For cineasts
If the mobile phone makers are to be believed, we should also use our next phone to watch movies. Two things that get us there: bigger screens in a widescreen format and larger storage capacity.
Trendsetters: Nokia N96 and Sony Ericsson Xperia X1
For globetrotters
Geotagging is a feature that combines built-in support for navigation and photography. When you take a picture your location is also saved. Then you can overlay that information on services like Google Maps, and see where you've been.
Trendsetters: Sony Ericsson C702 and Nokia 6220 Classic
For CIOs
With Sony Ericsson on board, four out of five of the biggest phone makers have phones based on Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system. The last holdout is Nokia and it still has no plans. One interesting thing about a few of the Windows Mobile phones launched at the Mobile World Congress is that they fit just as well at home as at work.
Trendsetters: Samsung i200 and LG KS20
For speed freaks
Phones with support for HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) are arriving at a steady pace. A few phones now support 7.2M bps (bits per second) -- but to get the most out of that bandwidth you need a laptop. A few phones also support HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access), an abbreviation that in the real world means faster upload speeds.
Trendsetters: Toshiba Portege G810 and LG KF700
For speed freaks II
To get more bandwidth to your phone you can also use Wi-Fi. Support for this technology is also becoming more common. One of the advantages with Wi-Fi is that you can sometime sbrowse the Internet for free. Good luck doing that on a mobile network.
Trendsetters: Motorola Moto Z6w and Sony Ericsson G900
For your car
So how do you listen to your MP3 player without using headphones? One solution is to use the FM transmitter integrated in some new phones, and listen on your car radio. A small step for technology, but a big one for usability according to Nokia.
Trendsetters: Nokia N78 and Sony Ericsson W980
For the touchy
Touch-based user interfaces are fast becoming the norm in mobile phones -- although buttons will still not disappear. The goal is, if all goes well, to make phones easier to use. Only the imagination of the phone makers limits what can be done.
Trendsetters: HTC Advantage and Samsung Soul
For the lost
GPS is built in to an increasing number of mobile phones. Nokia is still the most aggressive vendor. This year it plans to sell 35 million phones with GPS. The Finnish phone giant is not alone: its competitors are also embracing navigation, so don't be surprised if in a few years GPS is as common in phones as cameras are today.
Trendsetters: HTC P3470 and Samsung G810
For shutterbugs
Phone makers also continue to develop cameras. Among the features that popped up during this year's show are face-detection, image stabilization and the ability to take better pictures in the dark. Phone cameras with a 5-megapixel resolution are also becoming more common, although you still only get a digital zoom.
Trendsetters: Sony Ericsson C902 and Samsung F480
For Linus
Apple isn't the only company redrawing the mobile phone map. Linux is nothing new in mobile phones, but the launch of Google's Android has given it a lot of extra attention. On the show floor several chip manufacturers showed prototypes. The first real phones should be ready before the end of the year. One benefit with Android is the reduction in the time it takes to develop a new phone, according to Texas Instruments.
Trendsetters: ARM and Texas Instruments
For cineasts
If the mobile phone makers are to be believed, we should also use our next phone to watch movies. Two things that get us there: bigger screens in a widescreen format and larger storage capacity.
Trendsetters: Nokia N96 and Sony Ericsson Xperia X1
For globetrotters
Geotagging is a feature that combines built-in support for navigation and photography. When you take a picture your location is also saved. Then you can overlay that information on services like Google Maps, and see where you've been.
Trendsetters: Sony Ericsson C702 and Nokia 6220 Classic
For CIOs
With Sony Ericsson on board, four out of five of the biggest phone makers have phones based on Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system. The last holdout is Nokia and it still has no plans. One interesting thing about a few of the Windows Mobile phones launched at the Mobile World Congress is that they fit just as well at home as at work.
Trendsetters: Samsung i200 and LG KS20
For speed freaks
Phones with support for HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) are arriving at a steady pace. A few phones now support 7.2M bps (bits per second) -- but to get the most out of that bandwidth you need a laptop. A few phones also support HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access), an abbreviation that in the real world means faster upload speeds.
Trendsetters: Toshiba Portege G810 and LG KF700
For speed freaks II
To get more bandwidth to your phone you can also use Wi-Fi. Support for this technology is also becoming more common. One of the advantages with Wi-Fi is that you can sometime sbrowse the Internet for free. Good luck doing that on a mobile network.
Trendsetters: Motorola Moto Z6w and Sony Ericsson G900
For your car
So how do you listen to your MP3 player without using headphones? One solution is to use the FM transmitter integrated in some new phones, and listen on your car radio. A small step for technology, but a big one for usability according to Nokia.
Trendsetters: Nokia N78 and Sony Ericsson W980
For the touchy
Touch-based user interfaces are fast becoming the norm in mobile phones -- although buttons will still not disappear. The goal is, if all goes well, to make phones easier to use. Only the imagination of the phone makers limits what can be done.
Trendsetters: HTC Advantage and Samsung Soul
Microsoft to offer subscription-based PCs in Russia
A Russian mobile-phone operator is the latest service provider to team with Microsoft to offer Windows-based PCs on a subscription basis through the company's Unlimited Potential program.
A partnership with Mobile TeleSystems OJSC (MTS), unveiled Wednesday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, is similar to ones that Microsoft already has in place in Mexico and Brazil as part of a plan to bring affordable technology to developing countries.
Through the partnership, Microsoft in June will deliver PCs running Windows Vista that offer built-in mobile broadband access to customers on a subscription basis, rather than requiring customers to pay for them outright. The two companies also are working on a road map to introduce new mobile communications services that can be accessed on those PCs, but did not specifically say what those new services will be.
Both the PCs and services will be offered to about 85 million MTS customers in Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Turkmenistan and Belarus as part of the MTS Connect program, the companies said.
The MTS deal is similar to one that Microsoft has with service providers TelMex in Mexico and Telefonica in Brazil to offer low-cost PCs through the Subscription Computing Program, which preceded Unlimited Potential. Eventually, that program became part of Unlimited Potential, through which Microsoft works with community leaders in countries where technology has not yet had a significant impact on businesses and communities.
Unlimited Potential is directly related to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' idea of "creative capitalism," which suggests that companies worldwide work with governments and nonprofits to find ways to be charitable and solve the problems of the poorest people without sacrificing their own business needs. Gates recently outlined this idea in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Analysts and observers have suggested another reason why Microsoft is interested in working with emerging markets on technology efforts: the fight against Linux, which is proving a less expensive and easier-to-access option for people in countries with scant access to technology. Indeed, Unlimited Potential and creative capitalism combine both altruism and business interests, and Microsoft executives have acknowledged the need to foster education and business development to get software like Windows and Office in the hands of people who wouldn't typically be able to afford it.
A partnership with Mobile TeleSystems OJSC (MTS), unveiled Wednesday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, is similar to ones that Microsoft already has in place in Mexico and Brazil as part of a plan to bring affordable technology to developing countries.
Through the partnership, Microsoft in June will deliver PCs running Windows Vista that offer built-in mobile broadband access to customers on a subscription basis, rather than requiring customers to pay for them outright. The two companies also are working on a road map to introduce new mobile communications services that can be accessed on those PCs, but did not specifically say what those new services will be.
Both the PCs and services will be offered to about 85 million MTS customers in Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Turkmenistan and Belarus as part of the MTS Connect program, the companies said.
The MTS deal is similar to one that Microsoft has with service providers TelMex in Mexico and Telefonica in Brazil to offer low-cost PCs through the Subscription Computing Program, which preceded Unlimited Potential. Eventually, that program became part of Unlimited Potential, through which Microsoft works with community leaders in countries where technology has not yet had a significant impact on businesses and communities.
Unlimited Potential is directly related to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' idea of "creative capitalism," which suggests that companies worldwide work with governments and nonprofits to find ways to be charitable and solve the problems of the poorest people without sacrificing their own business needs. Gates recently outlined this idea in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Analysts and observers have suggested another reason why Microsoft is interested in working with emerging markets on technology efforts: the fight against Linux, which is proving a less expensive and easier-to-access option for people in countries with scant access to technology. Indeed, Unlimited Potential and creative capitalism combine both altruism and business interests, and Microsoft executives have acknowledged the need to foster education and business development to get software like Windows and Office in the hands of people who wouldn't typically be able to afford it.
Mozilla delivers Firefox 3 Beta 3
Mozilla Corp. released the third beta of Firefox 3 Wednesday, eight weeks after it made the last major milestone for its open-source browser, and right on a schedule it set a dozen days ago.
Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's interface designer, touted additions and enhancements to Beta 3 in a post to the company's Web site Tuesday, touting several new or enhanced security features, an improved download manager, one-click bookmarking, offline application support, faster page rendering and new progress on plugging the browser's noted "memory leaks."
As he has previously, Beltzner discouraged casual users from trying the new code. "We do not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download the Firefox 3 Beta 3 milestone release," he said. "It is intended for testing purposes only."
Mozilla has already committed to at least one more beta before Firefox is allowed to move on to release candidate stage. A week and a half ago, however, Beltzner declined to set a release schedule for the next beta, saying then only that: "Our goal is to do a quick turnaround on Firefox 3 Beta 4."
In its release notes, Mozilla trumpeted the fact that Beta 3 includes more than 1,300 changes made since mid-December's Beta 2, and boasted that its developers had also plugged over 50 new memory leaks in the last eight weeks.
Firefox has long been criticized by users for consuming increasing amounts of memory the longer it remains open, to the point where the browser hinders overall performance on the computer. The company made leak plugging a top priority, particularly after a member of the Mozilla board of directors said late last year that memory problems would make it tough to compete in the mobile browser market.
Firefox 3 Beta 3 also uses an XPCOM cycle collector that, said Mozilla, "completely eliminates many more [leaks]." The cycle collector, which periodically checks memory usage and tries to free any unused memory, has been in play since last summer, but as Beta 3 development has proceeded, more of its code has been written, or rewritten, to support the collector.
One noted addition to Firefox 3, however, is still buggy. Places, a souped-up bookmarking and browser history management tool that was once slated for Firefox 2, does not yet allow users to shuffle bookmarks by dragging and dropping. According to notes from a Tuesday Firefox 3 status meeting, Places is stuck.
"Cannot drag-and-drop items across different views/menus," the notes read. "This is blocking on resolution of platform bug 389931, which is a P1 [Priority 1 -- Ed.] blocker regression from the thread manager rewrite, and seemingly unowned (no response from owner since July 2007). This is the cause of much weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Firefox 3 Beta 3 can be downloaded for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux in 32 languages from Mozilla's site.
Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's interface designer, touted additions and enhancements to Beta 3 in a post to the company's Web site Tuesday, touting several new or enhanced security features, an improved download manager, one-click bookmarking, offline application support, faster page rendering and new progress on plugging the browser's noted "memory leaks."
As he has previously, Beltzner discouraged casual users from trying the new code. "We do not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download the Firefox 3 Beta 3 milestone release," he said. "It is intended for testing purposes only."
Mozilla has already committed to at least one more beta before Firefox is allowed to move on to release candidate stage. A week and a half ago, however, Beltzner declined to set a release schedule for the next beta, saying then only that: "Our goal is to do a quick turnaround on Firefox 3 Beta 4."
In its release notes, Mozilla trumpeted the fact that Beta 3 includes more than 1,300 changes made since mid-December's Beta 2, and boasted that its developers had also plugged over 50 new memory leaks in the last eight weeks.
Firefox has long been criticized by users for consuming increasing amounts of memory the longer it remains open, to the point where the browser hinders overall performance on the computer. The company made leak plugging a top priority, particularly after a member of the Mozilla board of directors said late last year that memory problems would make it tough to compete in the mobile browser market.
Firefox 3 Beta 3 also uses an XPCOM cycle collector that, said Mozilla, "completely eliminates many more [leaks]." The cycle collector, which periodically checks memory usage and tries to free any unused memory, has been in play since last summer, but as Beta 3 development has proceeded, more of its code has been written, or rewritten, to support the collector.
One noted addition to Firefox 3, however, is still buggy. Places, a souped-up bookmarking and browser history management tool that was once slated for Firefox 2, does not yet allow users to shuffle bookmarks by dragging and dropping. According to notes from a Tuesday Firefox 3 status meeting, Places is stuck.
"Cannot drag-and-drop items across different views/menus," the notes read. "This is blocking on resolution of platform bug 389931, which is a P1 [Priority 1 -- Ed.] blocker regression from the thread manager rewrite, and seemingly unowned (no response from owner since July 2007). This is the cause of much weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Firefox 3 Beta 3 can be downloaded for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux in 32 languages from Mozilla's site.
Valentine's Day-themed Storm worm attacks
A Valentine's themed outbreak of the Storm worm has been detected. Malicious emails are being received across the globe - they contain a weblink, which directs users to a website where they can supposedly download a Valentine's card, but in fact are infected with the Storm bug. The virus mirrors the fake Christmas and New Year messages seen in previous months.
According to Greg Day, security analyst at McAfee, the virus will try to steal personal information from your PC, bring down its security defenses and use your PC to send out millions of junk emails.
"There are about 10 million PCs worldwide infected with the Storm worm. These threats have suddenly spiked from 0 percent of all spam emails to 1.5 percent and they are continuing to rise as we draw closer to Valentine's Day and more people are fooled into downloading the malicious file," he commented.
"With all the hype that surrounds Valentine's Day, it was only to be expected that they (the people behind Storm) would use a similar tactic and exploit people's eagerness to receive Valentine's cards," added Diego d'Ambra of email-security company SoftScan.
According to Greg Day, security analyst at McAfee, the virus will try to steal personal information from your PC, bring down its security defenses and use your PC to send out millions of junk emails.
"There are about 10 million PCs worldwide infected with the Storm worm. These threats have suddenly spiked from 0 percent of all spam emails to 1.5 percent and they are continuing to rise as we draw closer to Valentine's Day and more people are fooled into downloading the malicious file," he commented.
"With all the hype that surrounds Valentine's Day, it was only to be expected that they (the people behind Storm) would use a similar tactic and exploit people's eagerness to receive Valentine's cards," added Diego d'Ambra of email-security company SoftScan.
Lockheed wins 10-year FBI biometric contract
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has awarded Lockheed Martin a US$1 billion contract to build a next-generation biometrics-based identification system.
The biometric collection system and database, which has raised concerns of privacy groups, would include imaging of irises, faces and other identifying characteristics, the FBI said in a news release late Tuesday. Lockheed Martin will design, develop, test and deploy the Next Generation Identification System over the 10-year life of the contract.
The new system will expand on the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services Division's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), primarily a fingerprint-based identification system operated in Clarksburg, West Virginia, the FBI said.
"IAFIS has been a fantastic tool in support of criminal justice and the war on terror," Thomas E. Bush III, assistant director of the FBI's CJIS Division, said in a statement. "[The new system] will give us bigger, better, faster capabilities and lead us into the future."
The American Civil Liberties Union has raised concerns about the biometric database, saying it's part of the U.S. government's efforts to collect more and more information about residents.
The new system will expand fingerprint capacity, doubling the size of the FBI's current database, and will also include palm prints, iris and facial recognition, Lockheed Martin said in a news release. The system will be designed to be flexible enough to accommodate future biometric technologies, the company said.
Among the companies working with Lockheed Martin on the contract will be Accenture and BAE Systems Information Technology.
Lockheed Martin will provide program management and oversight as well as development of biometric and large systems, the company said. Accenture's responsibilities will include interoperability and change management. BAE will work on external interface requirements engineering and security design.
The FBI contract was awarded through an open bidding process. Northrop Grumman and IBM also bid on the contract.
The biometric collection system and database, which has raised concerns of privacy groups, would include imaging of irises, faces and other identifying characteristics, the FBI said in a news release late Tuesday. Lockheed Martin will design, develop, test and deploy the Next Generation Identification System over the 10-year life of the contract.
The new system will expand on the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services Division's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), primarily a fingerprint-based identification system operated in Clarksburg, West Virginia, the FBI said.
"IAFIS has been a fantastic tool in support of criminal justice and the war on terror," Thomas E. Bush III, assistant director of the FBI's CJIS Division, said in a statement. "[The new system] will give us bigger, better, faster capabilities and lead us into the future."
The American Civil Liberties Union has raised concerns about the biometric database, saying it's part of the U.S. government's efforts to collect more and more information about residents.
The new system will expand fingerprint capacity, doubling the size of the FBI's current database, and will also include palm prints, iris and facial recognition, Lockheed Martin said in a news release. The system will be designed to be flexible enough to accommodate future biometric technologies, the company said.
Among the companies working with Lockheed Martin on the contract will be Accenture and BAE Systems Information Technology.
Lockheed Martin will provide program management and oversight as well as development of biometric and large systems, the company said. Accenture's responsibilities will include interoperability and change management. BAE will work on external interface requirements engineering and security design.
The FBI contract was awarded through an open bidding process. Northrop Grumman and IBM also bid on the contract.
HP lands $675M outsourcing contract from Unilever
Hewlett-Packard's outsourcing business has scored an extended contract with Unilever worth US$675 million, HP said Wednesday.
The seven-year deal will see HP managing Unilever's IT infrastructure in the Americas, Asia, Africa, Turkey and the Middle East, handling day-to-day operations, implementing new applications, working with technology partners and managing third-party contracts, according to a news release.
About 250 Unliever workers will be transferred to HP under the contract's terms, the release said.
Neil Cameron, chief information officer for Unilever, said in a statement that the agreement is "a natural extension" of the companies' existing relationship. "The intention between both parties is to leverage HP's scale, expertise and industry leadership to ensure Unilever has access to world-class technology at substantially lower costs," the statement added.
Unilever, a manufacturer of consumer goods, has roughly 179,000 employees in nearly 100 countries. It logged €40 billion (US$58 billion) in sales during 2007, according to the release.
The seven-year deal will see HP managing Unilever's IT infrastructure in the Americas, Asia, Africa, Turkey and the Middle East, handling day-to-day operations, implementing new applications, working with technology partners and managing third-party contracts, according to a news release.
About 250 Unliever workers will be transferred to HP under the contract's terms, the release said.
Neil Cameron, chief information officer for Unilever, said in a statement that the agreement is "a natural extension" of the companies' existing relationship. "The intention between both parties is to leverage HP's scale, expertise and industry leadership to ensure Unilever has access to world-class technology at substantially lower costs," the statement added.
Unilever, a manufacturer of consumer goods, has roughly 179,000 employees in nearly 100 countries. It logged €40 billion (US$58 billion) in sales during 2007, according to the release.
IBM says it will continue large-scale hiring in India
IBM plans to continue hiring global services delivery staff in India by the thousands, adding to the 73,000 it already has in its global services and other operations in the country.
A large number of Indian outsourcers and multinational services companies have set up services delivery operations from India. Their competition for the best staff is driving up salaries. Companies are however introducing quality systems that enable them to weed out low performers. IBM, for example, sacked about 200 staff earlier this month, after a staff appraisal. Indian outsourcer Tata Consultancy Services said a day later it had terminated 500 staff after a similar staff appraisal.
Staff attrition in IBM's global services delivery operation in India is within 0.2 percent from the attrition rate at IBM's global services operations in the U.S., said Diane Gherson, vice president of human resources (HR) for IBM's Global Business Services.
"Our business model is based on that range of attrition, and we don't mind some attrition because it helps us get fresh talent, and offer growth to people in the organization," she said Wednesday.
Although staff salaries are rising in India higher than in most other countries, IBM has been able to recover the increased cost from clients by offering staff with higher skills, Gherson said. Salary increases will however eventually become a problem for India if the amount staff are charging cannot be recovered from clients, she added.
Even as some research firms have warned of reduced growth in IT budgets in the U.S. this year, IBM is not feeling the impact yet in its services business. "They will talk themselves into a recession if they are not careful," Gherson said. Besides, over 65 per cent of IBM's revenue comes from outside the U.S., she added.
Forrester, for example, forecast on Monday slowing growth this year for purchases of IT products and services in the U.S., based on the assumption that a mild recession will hit the U.S. economy in the second or third quarter.
IBM's services delivery strategy has been to set up delivery operations in a large number of countries to tap talent in these countries, and also to deliver to the customer a variety of skills and services, including language skills, and services delivered in the same time zone as the customer, said Rajesh Nambiar, Head of IBM's global delivery business in India.
India is IBM's second largest location outside the U.S. for global services delivery, and will likely hold this position at least for the next five years, Gherson said. India is also an important market for IBM, Nambiar said. The company earned revenue of about US$1 billion from the Indian market last year.
A large number of Indian outsourcers and multinational services companies have set up services delivery operations from India. Their competition for the best staff is driving up salaries. Companies are however introducing quality systems that enable them to weed out low performers. IBM, for example, sacked about 200 staff earlier this month, after a staff appraisal. Indian outsourcer Tata Consultancy Services said a day later it had terminated 500 staff after a similar staff appraisal.
Staff attrition in IBM's global services delivery operation in India is within 0.2 percent from the attrition rate at IBM's global services operations in the U.S., said Diane Gherson, vice president of human resources (HR) for IBM's Global Business Services.
"Our business model is based on that range of attrition, and we don't mind some attrition because it helps us get fresh talent, and offer growth to people in the organization," she said Wednesday.
Although staff salaries are rising in India higher than in most other countries, IBM has been able to recover the increased cost from clients by offering staff with higher skills, Gherson said. Salary increases will however eventually become a problem for India if the amount staff are charging cannot be recovered from clients, she added.
Even as some research firms have warned of reduced growth in IT budgets in the U.S. this year, IBM is not feeling the impact yet in its services business. "They will talk themselves into a recession if they are not careful," Gherson said. Besides, over 65 per cent of IBM's revenue comes from outside the U.S., she added.
Forrester, for example, forecast on Monday slowing growth this year for purchases of IT products and services in the U.S., based on the assumption that a mild recession will hit the U.S. economy in the second or third quarter.
IBM's services delivery strategy has been to set up delivery operations in a large number of countries to tap talent in these countries, and also to deliver to the customer a variety of skills and services, including language skills, and services delivered in the same time zone as the customer, said Rajesh Nambiar, Head of IBM's global delivery business in India.
India is IBM's second largest location outside the U.S. for global services delivery, and will likely hold this position at least for the next five years, Gherson said. India is also an important market for IBM, Nambiar said. The company earned revenue of about US$1 billion from the Indian market last year.
Danish ISP prepares to fight Pirate Bay injunction
One of Denmark's largest ISPs said on Wednesday it will fight a court injunction mandating that it shut off access to a file-sharing Web site, in what could be a closely-watched battle with the music industry in Europe.
Tele2 met with representatives of other ISPs on Monday and decided to challenge the injunction, said Nicholai Pfeiffer, Tele2's chief of regulations.
As a result, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is understood to have filed on Tuesday a further justification for the injunction with the court, Pfeiffer said.
Tele2 has complied with the injunction and blocked its customers from accessing The Pirate Bay, a Web site that hosts torrents, or small information files used to download larger files from the BitTorrent P-to-P (peer-to-peer) network. The IFPI alleges that Danish Internet users are using BitTorrent to download, without authorization, copyright content that they found using The Pirate Bay's list of available torrents.
No other Danish ISP has been ordered to shut off access to The Pirate Bay. However, IFPI plans to send letters this week to other Danish ISPs asking them to also block The Pirate Bay, said Jesper Bay, spokesman.
"Whether they are going to do that or not, it's up to them," Bay said, adding that IFPI hasn't decided whether to pursue more injunctions.
Bay said the injunction has two purposes: It sends a signal to ISPs that they have a responsibility to stop piracy and to users that downloading copyright content without permission is illegal.
The content the IFPI objects to is actually hosted on the PCs of users around the world. The torrents coordinate the download of file fragments from different PCs, and those fragments are eventually linked together to form a complete file that can then be uploaded to other machines. BitTorrent has many legitimate uses, including software distribution, and is used by some media companies to deliver their content.
The record industry has employed companies specializing in file-sharing forensics to track down individual Internet users it says are sharing copyright content illegally. It also sought to shut down Web sites such as The Pirate Bay that are part of the P-to-P network.
The Danish court concluded that Tele2 was assisting in copyright infringement. Tele2, as well as other ISPs that have come under pressure, maintain they are blind to what their customers transmit on their networks and should not be responsible for policing content.
"Our overall view is we don't actually want to take sides in this dispute between IFPI and The Pirate Bay," Pfeiffer said.
The Pirate Bay said on Friday that traffic from Denmark has shot up 12 percent since Tele2's block was imposed. The Pirate Bay also set up an alternative Web site for Tele2 customers giving them instructions on how to circumvent the block.
Meanwhile, The Pirate Bay faces trouble in its own waters. In Sweden, charges of profiting and encouraging copyright infringement are pending against four people involved with the Web site.
Tele2 met with representatives of other ISPs on Monday and decided to challenge the injunction, said Nicholai Pfeiffer, Tele2's chief of regulations.
As a result, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is understood to have filed on Tuesday a further justification for the injunction with the court, Pfeiffer said.
Tele2 has complied with the injunction and blocked its customers from accessing The Pirate Bay, a Web site that hosts torrents, or small information files used to download larger files from the BitTorrent P-to-P (peer-to-peer) network. The IFPI alleges that Danish Internet users are using BitTorrent to download, without authorization, copyright content that they found using The Pirate Bay's list of available torrents.
No other Danish ISP has been ordered to shut off access to The Pirate Bay. However, IFPI plans to send letters this week to other Danish ISPs asking them to also block The Pirate Bay, said Jesper Bay, spokesman.
"Whether they are going to do that or not, it's up to them," Bay said, adding that IFPI hasn't decided whether to pursue more injunctions.
Bay said the injunction has two purposes: It sends a signal to ISPs that they have a responsibility to stop piracy and to users that downloading copyright content without permission is illegal.
The content the IFPI objects to is actually hosted on the PCs of users around the world. The torrents coordinate the download of file fragments from different PCs, and those fragments are eventually linked together to form a complete file that can then be uploaded to other machines. BitTorrent has many legitimate uses, including software distribution, and is used by some media companies to deliver their content.
The record industry has employed companies specializing in file-sharing forensics to track down individual Internet users it says are sharing copyright content illegally. It also sought to shut down Web sites such as The Pirate Bay that are part of the P-to-P network.
The Danish court concluded that Tele2 was assisting in copyright infringement. Tele2, as well as other ISPs that have come under pressure, maintain they are blind to what their customers transmit on their networks and should not be responsible for policing content.
"Our overall view is we don't actually want to take sides in this dispute between IFPI and The Pirate Bay," Pfeiffer said.
The Pirate Bay said on Friday that traffic from Denmark has shot up 12 percent since Tele2's block was imposed. The Pirate Bay also set up an alternative Web site for Tele2 customers giving them instructions on how to circumvent the block.
Meanwhile, The Pirate Bay faces trouble in its own waters. In Sweden, charges of profiting and encouraging copyright infringement are pending against four people involved with the Web site.
Outage gives BlackBerry a black eye
The second lengthy BlackBerry outage in less than a year has one consulting company advising clients not to rely solely on the popular smart phones for critical e-mail messages.
Enterprises that really need e-mail responses in less than eight hours to run their businesses should have a backup for the BlackBerry, Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney said Tuesday, in the wake of a crash that lasted about three hours on Monday. They should also set up an independent system to notify them whether an important contact has received or replied to an e-mail message, Dulaney said.
Late Tuesday, RIM said the outage was caused by a problem with an internal data routing system in the BlackBerry service infrastructure that had recently been upgraded. That upgrade was part of an ongoing expansion of the network, and this type of change had been done previously with no problems, it said.
Monday's failure followed a longer outage in April 2007 that RIM attributed to a problem with a minor software upgrade and a subsequent glitch in a failover process.
There are about 12 million BlackBerry users worldwide, on a variety of mobile carriers. The crash Monday affected users throughout the U.S. and Canada, preventing them from sending or receiving e-mail or carrying out some other functions, though no messages were permanently lost, according to RIM.
Gartner's Dulaney had harsh words for RIM, saying he had given the company a break after last year's failure.
"This does not appear to be a mission-critical system with the highest service-level agreements, and therefore, to entrust ... that a message will get to the end point is being a bit foolhardy," Dulaney said. He advises enterprises that are worried about dependability to ask RIM for details of its backup system and make their own decisions.
After last year's outage, RIM said it would enhance aspects of its testing, monitoring and recovery processes.
"RIM has made significant investments to improve its system recovery infrastructure and processes over the last year, which enabled service levels to return to normal quickly," the company said Tuesday.
"They obviously didn't do as deep a dive as they needed to on disaster recovery issues," Dulaney said. But he acknowledged the failure could have been caused by something completely unexpected.
The BlackBerry, which RIM introduced in 1999, quickly became the most popular tool for mobile "push" e-mail that automatically comes to a portable device with a wireless network connection. All current BlackBerry models are also phones, and the company now offers a wide variety of handsets with consumer-oriented features such as cameras, Web browsers and social-networking capabilities. But to get to and from the handhelds, e-mail messages traverse a complex system involving mobile operator networks, RIM's network operation centers and BlackBerry Enterprise Servers within companies.
Adding consumer features and keeping up with rapid customer growth, such as adding 1.65 million users in the quarter ended last Dec. 1, have probably made it harder for RIM to keep its network running smoothly, said Albert Lin, an analyst at investment bank Sooner Cap. But users accept some level of risk if they want such complex services at reasonable prices, he said. The only truly reliable system is the public switched telephone network, and it has limited functionality, Lin said.
"When it comes to reliable push e-mail ... it's still hard to find a solution that works better than BlackBerry," Lin said.
Gartner's Dulaney acknowledged that competitors, such as Visto and Good Technology (now owned by Motorola), are probably not significantly more dependable.
It wouldn't be impossible to make the RIM network more reliable, the analysts said.
"They have the technical capability to spend more and make it more reliable, but is that what their owners and shareholders really want?" Lin said.
Google, for example, has a more highly distributed network, but that would take money and time, and many customers wouldn't want to pay for it, Dulaney said. In the future, RIM may choose to create a higher-end service with greater service assurances and a higher price, he said.
Enterprises that really need e-mail responses in less than eight hours to run their businesses should have a backup for the BlackBerry, Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney said Tuesday, in the wake of a crash that lasted about three hours on Monday. They should also set up an independent system to notify them whether an important contact has received or replied to an e-mail message, Dulaney said.
Late Tuesday, RIM said the outage was caused by a problem with an internal data routing system in the BlackBerry service infrastructure that had recently been upgraded. That upgrade was part of an ongoing expansion of the network, and this type of change had been done previously with no problems, it said.
Monday's failure followed a longer outage in April 2007 that RIM attributed to a problem with a minor software upgrade and a subsequent glitch in a failover process.
There are about 12 million BlackBerry users worldwide, on a variety of mobile carriers. The crash Monday affected users throughout the U.S. and Canada, preventing them from sending or receiving e-mail or carrying out some other functions, though no messages were permanently lost, according to RIM.
Gartner's Dulaney had harsh words for RIM, saying he had given the company a break after last year's failure.
"This does not appear to be a mission-critical system with the highest service-level agreements, and therefore, to entrust ... that a message will get to the end point is being a bit foolhardy," Dulaney said. He advises enterprises that are worried about dependability to ask RIM for details of its backup system and make their own decisions.
After last year's outage, RIM said it would enhance aspects of its testing, monitoring and recovery processes.
"RIM has made significant investments to improve its system recovery infrastructure and processes over the last year, which enabled service levels to return to normal quickly," the company said Tuesday.
"They obviously didn't do as deep a dive as they needed to on disaster recovery issues," Dulaney said. But he acknowledged the failure could have been caused by something completely unexpected.
The BlackBerry, which RIM introduced in 1999, quickly became the most popular tool for mobile "push" e-mail that automatically comes to a portable device with a wireless network connection. All current BlackBerry models are also phones, and the company now offers a wide variety of handsets with consumer-oriented features such as cameras, Web browsers and social-networking capabilities. But to get to and from the handhelds, e-mail messages traverse a complex system involving mobile operator networks, RIM's network operation centers and BlackBerry Enterprise Servers within companies.
Adding consumer features and keeping up with rapid customer growth, such as adding 1.65 million users in the quarter ended last Dec. 1, have probably made it harder for RIM to keep its network running smoothly, said Albert Lin, an analyst at investment bank Sooner Cap. But users accept some level of risk if they want such complex services at reasonable prices, he said. The only truly reliable system is the public switched telephone network, and it has limited functionality, Lin said.
"When it comes to reliable push e-mail ... it's still hard to find a solution that works better than BlackBerry," Lin said.
Gartner's Dulaney acknowledged that competitors, such as Visto and Good Technology (now owned by Motorola), are probably not significantly more dependable.
It wouldn't be impossible to make the RIM network more reliable, the analysts said.
"They have the technical capability to spend more and make it more reliable, but is that what their owners and shareholders really want?" Lin said.
Google, for example, has a more highly distributed network, but that would take money and time, and many customers wouldn't want to pay for it, Dulaney said. In the future, RIM may choose to create a higher-end service with greater service assurances and a higher price, he said.
T-Mobile dumps Google for Yahoo
T-Mobile announced on Tuesday that it will soon begin using Yahoo as its preferred mobile search provider in Europe, ending the operator's existing relationship with Google for mobile search.
The move was seen by many as a minor coup for Yahoo, which is competing with Google and Microsoft to win the loyalty of a growing number of mobile Internet users. Others noted that mobile search is in its infancy and said the field is still wide-open.
When T-Mobile signed its original deal with Google, it made headlines as one of the earliest partnerships between a mobile operator and a search provider.
"Well done Yahoo, for knocking Google off the Web n Walk home page," wrote John Delaney, an analyst for Ovum, commenting on the announcement. Web n Walk is T-Mobile's mobile Internet offering.
Beginning in March, T-Mobile customers in 11 European countries will see Yahoo's mobile oneSearch by default on their phones. OneSearch is designed to make it easy for mobile users to get relevant search results and navigate through different categories within search results.
The companies plan to offer other Yahoo services to T-Mobile customers, including Flickr, Messenger, Mail, Weather and Finance. Yahoo now counts 29 operators around the world as oneSearch customers.
The deal appears to mark a strategy change at T-Mobile. When the operator launched Web n Walk, the service was designed to mimic the Web by minimizing T-Mobile branded services and prominently offering Google, Delaney said. Since then it has evolved to add more T-Mobile services. It's not clear yet which strategy end-users prefer. "The risk is that T-Mobile will discover that its users really preferred it when T-Mobile gave them access to the Web, and then got out of their way," Delaney said.
While the T-Mobile/Yahoo deal is a blow to Google, the search giant had a significant mobile win of its own this week. Nokia announced on Tuesday that it will add Google search, in addition to its own search offering, on select phones. Nokia plans to extend the offering to more phones in the future.
Nokia has begun offering an increasing number of services, such as location-based maps and social-networking services, which could compete with offerings from operators. "Nokia is walking a bit of a fine line because they're definitely moving into what some consider carrier territory," said Mike Wolf, an analyst at ABI Research.
So far, the market for branded search services on mobile phones, like those from Yahoo and Google, is still wide-open, he said. The search providers are increasingly interested in mobile because there is strong growth in mobile Internet usage, he said. The iPhone is contributing to that, as a device that aims to make the mobile Internet as similar as possible to the PC-based Internet.
Services from Yahoo and Google also compete with those that are branded by the operator. Companies like Medio specialize in offering technology to operators for branded search services. Operators in the U.S. have been more likely to use the self-branded option rather than partner with one of the online brands. AT&T, however, is one notable exception -- it uses Yahoo's oneSearch.
Success in the mobile Internet is important enough that Wolf believes that Yahoo's track record in the mobile market was a factor in Microsoft's decision to try to buy the search provider. "Mobile is probably at least a consideration in the acquisition attempt," he said.
The move was seen by many as a minor coup for Yahoo, which is competing with Google and Microsoft to win the loyalty of a growing number of mobile Internet users. Others noted that mobile search is in its infancy and said the field is still wide-open.
When T-Mobile signed its original deal with Google, it made headlines as one of the earliest partnerships between a mobile operator and a search provider.
"Well done Yahoo, for knocking Google off the Web n Walk home page," wrote John Delaney, an analyst for Ovum, commenting on the announcement. Web n Walk is T-Mobile's mobile Internet offering.
Beginning in March, T-Mobile customers in 11 European countries will see Yahoo's mobile oneSearch by default on their phones. OneSearch is designed to make it easy for mobile users to get relevant search results and navigate through different categories within search results.
The companies plan to offer other Yahoo services to T-Mobile customers, including Flickr, Messenger, Mail, Weather and Finance. Yahoo now counts 29 operators around the world as oneSearch customers.
The deal appears to mark a strategy change at T-Mobile. When the operator launched Web n Walk, the service was designed to mimic the Web by minimizing T-Mobile branded services and prominently offering Google, Delaney said. Since then it has evolved to add more T-Mobile services. It's not clear yet which strategy end-users prefer. "The risk is that T-Mobile will discover that its users really preferred it when T-Mobile gave them access to the Web, and then got out of their way," Delaney said.
While the T-Mobile/Yahoo deal is a blow to Google, the search giant had a significant mobile win of its own this week. Nokia announced on Tuesday that it will add Google search, in addition to its own search offering, on select phones. Nokia plans to extend the offering to more phones in the future.
Nokia has begun offering an increasing number of services, such as location-based maps and social-networking services, which could compete with offerings from operators. "Nokia is walking a bit of a fine line because they're definitely moving into what some consider carrier territory," said Mike Wolf, an analyst at ABI Research.
So far, the market for branded search services on mobile phones, like those from Yahoo and Google, is still wide-open, he said. The search providers are increasingly interested in mobile because there is strong growth in mobile Internet usage, he said. The iPhone is contributing to that, as a device that aims to make the mobile Internet as similar as possible to the PC-based Internet.
Services from Yahoo and Google also compete with those that are branded by the operator. Companies like Medio specialize in offering technology to operators for branded search services. Operators in the U.S. have been more likely to use the self-branded option rather than partner with one of the online brands. AT&T, however, is one notable exception -- it uses Yahoo's oneSearch.
Success in the mobile Internet is important enough that Wolf believes that Yahoo's track record in the mobile market was a factor in Microsoft's decision to try to buy the search provider. "Mobile is probably at least a consideration in the acquisition attempt," he said.
Intel and antitrust: A brief history
Tuesday's raid on Intel's Munich office by European Commission investigators marks the latest development in one of several antitrust cases that have dogged the world's largest chip maker for years. Here's a rundown of Intel's brushes with antitrust investigators and lawsuits around the world since 1990:
1990
Dec. 19: Microprocessor maker Cyrix filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas. "Intel has engaged in a campaign of unlawful exclusionary practices to protect its coprocessor monopoly from competition by Cyrix," the company said in a statement.
1991
June 29: The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) informed Intel that it was investigating the company's business practices.
Aug. 20: Advanced Micro Devices brought a US$2 billion antitrust lawsuit against Intel in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California, alleging that Intel "engaged in unlawful acts designed to secure and maintain a monopoly."
Dec. 19: U.S. District Court Judge James Ware dismissed part of AMD's antitrust lawsuit against Intel because a four-year statute of limitations had passed for some actions listed in AMD's complaint. AMD declared its intention to press forward with the lawsuit anyway.
1992
May 28: Processor maker Chips and Technologies sued Intel for antitrust violations in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California. The claims were a response to a Feb. 1992 patent lawsuit filed by Intel.
1993
Feb. 4: Chips and Technologies agreed to dismiss its 1992 antitrust claims against Intel as part of a settlement to resolve a patent dispute between the two companies.
July 15: The FTC completed its investigation into Intel's business practices, saying no evidence was found to support charges of anticompetitive behavior.
1994
Feb. 4: Cyrix dismissed its 1990 antitrust claims against Intel as part of a patent-dispute settlement between the two companies.
1995
Jan. 11: AMD and Intel announced a broad legal settlement that ended several court cases between the two companies, including the 1991 antitrust lawsuit filed by AMD.
1997
Aug. 27: The FTC requested additional information from Intel concerning its plans to acquire Chips and Technologies, citing antitrust laws. At the time, Chips and Technologies was a major supplier of graphics chips.
Sept. 25: The FTC began a second antitrust investigation into Intel's business practices. This investigation was conducted separately from the review of Intel's offer to acquire Chips and Technologies.
1998
Jan. 13: The FTC decided not to seek an injunction against Intel's acquisition of Chips and Technologies but announced plans to "continue the investigation into the lawfulness of the acquisition."
April 23: The FTC ruled that an October 1997 legal settlement between Intel and Digital Equipment that included the sale of Digital Equipment's semiconductor division, including its Alpha processor, to Intel would violate U.S. antitrust law if completed. As a result, the FTC required Digital Equipment to offer licenses for its Alpha processor to both AMD and Samsung Electronics as part of the deal.
June 8: The FTC issued an antitrust ruling against Intel. The FTC found that Intel stopped providing important technical information about its products to Digital Equipment, Compaq Computer, and Intergraph after the three companies took legal action against Intel to enforce microprocessor patents they held. Intel also threatened to stop selling microprocessors to those companies, the FTC said.
1999
March 17: The FTC accepted a settlement with Intel over the 1998 antitrust ruling. The agreement required Intel to refrain from withholding technical information from customers involved in intellectual-property litigation with the company, but did not constitute an admission of guilt on the chip maker's part.
2000
Sept. 26: The FTC ended its second investigation into Intel's business practices and decided to take no further action against the company.
2004
Apr. 8: The Fair Trade Commission of Japan (JFTC) raided the offices of Intel's Japanese subsidiary and several Japanese computer companies as part of an investigation into Intel's business practices.
2005
March 8: JFTC ruled that Intel violated Japanese antitrust laws and hurt competition in the country's processor market.
March 31: Intel disputed the JFTC's findings, but did not contest them and agreed to refrain from certain business practices.
June 27: AMD filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. The lawsuit detailed allegations of anticompetitive behavior by Intel in the U.S., Asia and Europe.
June 30: AMD sued Intel in the Tokyo High Court and the Tokyo District Court, seeking more than US$50 million in damages arising from the chip maker's anticompetitive actions in Japan.
July 12: European Commission investigators raided the offices of Intel and PC manufacturers in several countries as part of an antitrust investigation.
2006
Feb. 9: Korean Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) officials raided Intel offices in South Korea.
July 17: AMD filed a complaint against Intel with Germany's Federal Cartel Office, claiming that a deal betwen Intel and retailer Media Markt blocked the sale of computers based on AMD processors at hundreds of retail outlets.
Sept. 11: European Commission antitrust officials announced plans to investigate the complaint filed in Germany by AMD against Intel and Media Markt.
2007
J uly 27: The European Commission charged Intel with antitrust violations. It accused Intel of offering rebates to PC manufacturers that buy the majority of their processors from Intel, paying PC manufacturers to delay or cancel products based on AMD processors, and selling processors below cost when bidding against AMD for contracts with server makers.
Sept. 12: The KFTC issued preliminary antitrust charges against Intel while continuing its investigation into the company's business practices in South Korea.
2008
Jan. 10: The New York State Attorney General launched an antitrust investigation of Intel. The chip maker was served with a subpoena seeking information on its pricing practices and "possible attempts to exclude competitors through market domination."
Feb. 12: European Commission investigators raided Intel's office in Munich. The offices of retailers Media Markt and DSG International were also raided by investigators.
1990
Dec. 19: Microprocessor maker Cyrix filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas. "Intel has engaged in a campaign of unlawful exclusionary practices to protect its coprocessor monopoly from competition by Cyrix," the company said in a statement.
1991
June 29: The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) informed Intel that it was investigating the company's business practices.
Aug. 20: Advanced Micro Devices brought a US$2 billion antitrust lawsuit against Intel in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California, alleging that Intel "engaged in unlawful acts designed to secure and maintain a monopoly."
Dec. 19: U.S. District Court Judge James Ware dismissed part of AMD's antitrust lawsuit against Intel because a four-year statute of limitations had passed for some actions listed in AMD's complaint. AMD declared its intention to press forward with the lawsuit anyway.
1992
May 28: Processor maker Chips and Technologies sued Intel for antitrust violations in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California. The claims were a response to a Feb. 1992 patent lawsuit filed by Intel.
1993
Feb. 4: Chips and Technologies agreed to dismiss its 1992 antitrust claims against Intel as part of a settlement to resolve a patent dispute between the two companies.
July 15: The FTC completed its investigation into Intel's business practices, saying no evidence was found to support charges of anticompetitive behavior.
1994
Feb. 4: Cyrix dismissed its 1990 antitrust claims against Intel as part of a patent-dispute settlement between the two companies.
1995
Jan. 11: AMD and Intel announced a broad legal settlement that ended several court cases between the two companies, including the 1991 antitrust lawsuit filed by AMD.
1997
Aug. 27: The FTC requested additional information from Intel concerning its plans to acquire Chips and Technologies, citing antitrust laws. At the time, Chips and Technologies was a major supplier of graphics chips.
Sept. 25: The FTC began a second antitrust investigation into Intel's business practices. This investigation was conducted separately from the review of Intel's offer to acquire Chips and Technologies.
1998
Jan. 13: The FTC decided not to seek an injunction against Intel's acquisition of Chips and Technologies but announced plans to "continue the investigation into the lawfulness of the acquisition."
April 23: The FTC ruled that an October 1997 legal settlement between Intel and Digital Equipment that included the sale of Digital Equipment's semiconductor division, including its Alpha processor, to Intel would violate U.S. antitrust law if completed. As a result, the FTC required Digital Equipment to offer licenses for its Alpha processor to both AMD and Samsung Electronics as part of the deal.
June 8: The FTC issued an antitrust ruling against Intel. The FTC found that Intel stopped providing important technical information about its products to Digital Equipment, Compaq Computer, and Intergraph after the three companies took legal action against Intel to enforce microprocessor patents they held. Intel also threatened to stop selling microprocessors to those companies, the FTC said.
1999
March 17: The FTC accepted a settlement with Intel over the 1998 antitrust ruling. The agreement required Intel to refrain from withholding technical information from customers involved in intellectual-property litigation with the company, but did not constitute an admission of guilt on the chip maker's part.
2000
Sept. 26: The FTC ended its second investigation into Intel's business practices and decided to take no further action against the company.
2004
Apr. 8: The Fair Trade Commission of Japan (JFTC) raided the offices of Intel's Japanese subsidiary and several Japanese computer companies as part of an investigation into Intel's business practices.
2005
March 8: JFTC ruled that Intel violated Japanese antitrust laws and hurt competition in the country's processor market.
March 31: Intel disputed the JFTC's findings, but did not contest them and agreed to refrain from certain business practices.
June 27: AMD filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. The lawsuit detailed allegations of anticompetitive behavior by Intel in the U.S., Asia and Europe.
June 30: AMD sued Intel in the Tokyo High Court and the Tokyo District Court, seeking more than US$50 million in damages arising from the chip maker's anticompetitive actions in Japan.
July 12: European Commission investigators raided the offices of Intel and PC manufacturers in several countries as part of an antitrust investigation.
2006
Feb. 9: Korean Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) officials raided Intel offices in South Korea.
July 17: AMD filed a complaint against Intel with Germany's Federal Cartel Office, claiming that a deal betwen Intel and retailer Media Markt blocked the sale of computers based on AMD processors at hundreds of retail outlets.
Sept. 11: European Commission antitrust officials announced plans to investigate the complaint filed in Germany by AMD against Intel and Media Markt.
2007
J uly 27: The European Commission charged Intel with antitrust violations. It accused Intel of offering rebates to PC manufacturers that buy the majority of their processors from Intel, paying PC manufacturers to delay or cancel products based on AMD processors, and selling processors below cost when bidding against AMD for contracts with server makers.
Sept. 12: The KFTC issued preliminary antitrust charges against Intel while continuing its investigation into the company's business practices in South Korea.
2008
Jan. 10: The New York State Attorney General launched an antitrust investigation of Intel. The chip maker was served with a subpoena seeking information on its pricing practices and "possible attempts to exclude competitors through market domination."
Feb. 12: European Commission investigators raided Intel's office in Munich. The offices of retailers Media Markt and DSG International were also raided by investigators.
Microsoft releases massive set of security updates
Microsoft released 11 security updates Tuesday fixing critical flaws in its products, including a publicly known ActiveX bug that affects users of the Visual FoxPro database.
In total, 17 individual software flaws were patched in the updates. Microsoft rates six updates as critical, meaning they should be installed as soon as possible, while the remaining five updates are considered "important." Last month was an easier month on IT administrators, when Microsoft released just two updates.
Microsoft surprised some by releasing one less update than expected. Last Thursday the software vendor had said that it was readying a fix for critical VBScript and JScript flaws in Windows 2000, XP, and Windows Server 2003. That update wasn't included in this week's patches, but on Tuesday Microsoft wouldn't confirm that it had actually dropped the update because "this could put customers at risk," according a spokeswoman for the company's public relations agency.
Security experts said Tuesday that the MS08-010 update, which fixes four bugs in Internet Explorer, should take top priority this week. "There are four vulnerabilities within that particular patch and all of them are remote-code executable," said Jonathan Bitle, director of technical account management with Qualys.
"The way we're looking at it, our prioritization would put MS08-010 at the top followed by MS08-007," said Don Leatham, director of solutions and strategy with Lumension Security.
MS08-010 fixes a publicly disclosed ActiveX bug that affects Visual FoxPro users. Although hackers have already posted code showing how to exploit this vulnerability, the buggy ActiveX control is not included in Internet Explorer 7's default list of controls, so the flaw should not affect most users.
The MS08-007 update fixes a critical flaw in the Windows XP and Vista WebDAV redirector software. WebDAV is a Web-based document sharing protocol. The flaw is rated important for Windows Server 2003 users.
Microsoft's Office products are also a major source of patches this month.
Tuesday's updates include critical fixes for Microsoft Word, Office Publisher and in Office itself.
There is also a critical update for Windows' Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) Automation software.
The remaining updates, rated important, are for Active Directory, the Vista TCP/IP stack, the Microsoft Works file converter and two bugs in the Internet Information Services (IIS) Web server.
The Patch Tuesday updates show that client-side bugs continue to be a much higher risk than server-side vulnerabilities, said Andrew Storms, director of security operations with nCircle. "One would have assumed that the IIS and Active Directory vulnerabilities would have been the most serious because they stand at the core of an enterprise and provide more critical services" he said via instant message. "But with this month's patches, the hacker's best bet is to take advantage of the client-side attacks."
In total, 17 individual software flaws were patched in the updates. Microsoft rates six updates as critical, meaning they should be installed as soon as possible, while the remaining five updates are considered "important." Last month was an easier month on IT administrators, when Microsoft released just two updates.
Microsoft surprised some by releasing one less update than expected. Last Thursday the software vendor had said that it was readying a fix for critical VBScript and JScript flaws in Windows 2000, XP, and Windows Server 2003. That update wasn't included in this week's patches, but on Tuesday Microsoft wouldn't confirm that it had actually dropped the update because "this could put customers at risk," according a spokeswoman for the company's public relations agency.
Security experts said Tuesday that the MS08-010 update, which fixes four bugs in Internet Explorer, should take top priority this week. "There are four vulnerabilities within that particular patch and all of them are remote-code executable," said Jonathan Bitle, director of technical account management with Qualys.
"The way we're looking at it, our prioritization would put MS08-010 at the top followed by MS08-007," said Don Leatham, director of solutions and strategy with Lumension Security.
MS08-010 fixes a publicly disclosed ActiveX bug that affects Visual FoxPro users. Although hackers have already posted code showing how to exploit this vulnerability, the buggy ActiveX control is not included in Internet Explorer 7's default list of controls, so the flaw should not affect most users.
The MS08-007 update fixes a critical flaw in the Windows XP and Vista WebDAV redirector software. WebDAV is a Web-based document sharing protocol. The flaw is rated important for Windows Server 2003 users.
Microsoft's Office products are also a major source of patches this month.
Tuesday's updates include critical fixes for Microsoft Word, Office Publisher and in Office itself.
There is also a critical update for Windows' Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) Automation software.
The remaining updates, rated important, are for Active Directory, the Vista TCP/IP stack, the Microsoft Works file converter and two bugs in the Internet Information Services (IIS) Web server.
The Patch Tuesday updates show that client-side bugs continue to be a much higher risk than server-side vulnerabilities, said Andrew Storms, director of security operations with nCircle. "One would have assumed that the IIS and Active Directory vulnerabilities would have been the most serious because they stand at the core of an enterprise and provide more critical services" he said via instant message. "But with this month's patches, the hacker's best bet is to take advantage of the client-side attacks."
Vista SP1 prerequisites rolled up in Patch Tuesday update
Microsoft is including a set of nonsecurity updates that prepare customers to install Windows Vista Service Pack 1 as part of its monthly "Patch Tuesday" security fixes.
Two of three prerequisite updates needed to install SP1 are hitting Microsoft's Windows Update for the first time Tuesday along with the usual batch of security updates it releases every month. The technologies -- called KB937287 and KB938371 -- are marked "Important" and will install automatically if a Windows user has Windows Update set to the recommended configuration, according to a post on the Windows Vista team blog.
KB937287 is an update to Vista's servicing stack, and KB938371 is a multicomponent update, according to the blog post attributed to Nick White, a product manager on the Vista team. Both must be installed before a machine can successfully be updated to Windows Vista SP1.
The third prerequisite to installing SP1, KB935509, also is being released through Windows Update Tuesday. However, that technology is an update of a previously released technology, not a brand new release.
Microsoft plans to release Vista SP1 in its first five languages -- English, French, Spanish, German, and Japanese -- to the Windows Update and the download center on Microsoft's Web site in mid-March. However, some computers may not work with the update right away because of device-driver incompatibilities; Microsoft is hoping to resolve those by mid-March, which is why it is putting off the release until then even though the final code for SP1 is available now.
Following its first release, Microsoft in mid-April plans to make SP1 available in the first five languages to anyone who has chosen not to download it. Microsoft will follow with the remaining language releases of Vista SP1 soon after. Many believe the SP1 milestone is the one that will bring about a new wave of adoption for Vista, especially among business customers that have been awaiting the service pack's release before updating employee desktops.
Microsoft releases security updates every second Tuesday of the month, which is why security researchers call the day "Patch Tuesday." The company often includes nonsecurity updates with these releases, although it also will release nonsecurity updates on the fourth Tuesday of the month.
Two of three prerequisite updates needed to install SP1 are hitting Microsoft's Windows Update for the first time Tuesday along with the usual batch of security updates it releases every month. The technologies -- called KB937287 and KB938371 -- are marked "Important" and will install automatically if a Windows user has Windows Update set to the recommended configuration, according to a post on the Windows Vista team blog.
KB937287 is an update to Vista's servicing stack, and KB938371 is a multicomponent update, according to the blog post attributed to Nick White, a product manager on the Vista team. Both must be installed before a machine can successfully be updated to Windows Vista SP1.
The third prerequisite to installing SP1, KB935509, also is being released through Windows Update Tuesday. However, that technology is an update of a previously released technology, not a brand new release.
Microsoft plans to release Vista SP1 in its first five languages -- English, French, Spanish, German, and Japanese -- to the Windows Update and the download center on Microsoft's Web site in mid-March. However, some computers may not work with the update right away because of device-driver incompatibilities; Microsoft is hoping to resolve those by mid-March, which is why it is putting off the release until then even though the final code for SP1 is available now.
Following its first release, Microsoft in mid-April plans to make SP1 available in the first five languages to anyone who has chosen not to download it. Microsoft will follow with the remaining language releases of Vista SP1 soon after. Many believe the SP1 milestone is the one that will bring about a new wave of adoption for Vista, especially among business customers that have been awaiting the service pack's release before updating employee desktops.
Microsoft releases security updates every second Tuesday of the month, which is why security researchers call the day "Patch Tuesday." The company often includes nonsecurity updates with these releases, although it also will release nonsecurity updates on the fourth Tuesday of the month.
Yahoo buys Maven for $160 million
Yahoo has acquired Maven Networks for US$160 million in a deal that will help the search provider boost its video advertising capabilities.
Media companies including Fox News, CBS Sports, Sony BMG use Maven's platform to manage, distribute and earn advertising revenue from their online video content. The platform includes an advertising insertion engine as well as inventory management and reporting tools. Companies use it to post videos on their sites and insert interactive ads into the videos.
Yahoo Tuesday said it plans to contribute its display advertising sales force and technologies to Maven's platform to help publishers display more targeted ads in videos. The deal means that advertisers can buy video, search and display ads through Yahoo, which believes that video is a fast growing segment of the online ad market.
Maven has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yahoo, which has established a Cambridge, Massachusetts, office with the acquisition.
Yahoo makes the acquisition in the midst of an increasingly hostile attempt by Microsoft to buy the search company. In response to Yahoo's rebuttal of its buyout offer, Microsoft on Monday said that it thinks its offer was fair and that it might take the offer directly to Yahoo shareholders.
Media companies including Fox News, CBS Sports, Sony BMG use Maven's platform to manage, distribute and earn advertising revenue from their online video content. The platform includes an advertising insertion engine as well as inventory management and reporting tools. Companies use it to post videos on their sites and insert interactive ads into the videos.
Yahoo Tuesday said it plans to contribute its display advertising sales force and technologies to Maven's platform to help publishers display more targeted ads in videos. The deal means that advertisers can buy video, search and display ads through Yahoo, which believes that video is a fast growing segment of the online ad market.
Maven has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yahoo, which has established a Cambridge, Massachusetts, office with the acquisition.
Yahoo makes the acquisition in the midst of an increasingly hostile attempt by Microsoft to buy the search company. In response to Yahoo's rebuttal of its buyout offer, Microsoft on Monday said that it thinks its offer was fair and that it might take the offer directly to Yahoo shareholders.
RIM probing cause of BlackBerry outage
Research In Motion still doesn't know why its BlackBerry service went down for several hours on Monday.
"RIM is continuing to investigate the exact cause" of the outage, the company said in a statement Tuesday. Late Monday it apologized for any inconvenience caused by the incident, which left customers throughout North America without current e-mail for about three hours starting around 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time.
It was the second major outage in less than a year for the popular mobile data service, on which about 12 million subscribers depended at the beginning of last December. The previous problem, which occurred last April, was caused by a minor software upgrade that went awry, followed by a failed switchover to a backup system, according to RIM. The company said soon afterward that it had identified "certain aspects of its testing, monitoring and recovery processes that will be enhanced" as a result of the failure.
BlackBerry e-mail traverses a complex infrastructure involving mobile operator networks, RIM's network operations center and BlackBerry Enterprise Servers within companies that use the service. It pushes messages from enterprise e-mail systems, including Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes, out to the popular BlackBerry devices.
The system is getting yet more complicated as RIM adds third-party services to appeal to consumers, said Albert Lin, an analyst at investment bank Sooner Cap. As the company tries to keep up with rapid growth in its subscribers -- last year's fiscal third quarter saw a net gain of 1.65 million -- these types of glitches are to be expected, Lin said.
"It's hard to really expect any major service provider to be 100 percent reliable," Lin said. Although enterprises now have more push e-mail alternatives than they did when the BlackBerry debuted in 1999, those competitors, such as Visto and Motorola's Good Technology system, aren't significantly more dependable, he said.
"When it comes to reliable push e-mail ... it's still hard to find a solution that works better than BlackBerry," Lin said.
"RIM is continuing to investigate the exact cause" of the outage, the company said in a statement Tuesday. Late Monday it apologized for any inconvenience caused by the incident, which left customers throughout North America without current e-mail for about three hours starting around 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time.
It was the second major outage in less than a year for the popular mobile data service, on which about 12 million subscribers depended at the beginning of last December. The previous problem, which occurred last April, was caused by a minor software upgrade that went awry, followed by a failed switchover to a backup system, according to RIM. The company said soon afterward that it had identified "certain aspects of its testing, monitoring and recovery processes that will be enhanced" as a result of the failure.
BlackBerry e-mail traverses a complex infrastructure involving mobile operator networks, RIM's network operations center and BlackBerry Enterprise Servers within companies that use the service. It pushes messages from enterprise e-mail systems, including Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes, out to the popular BlackBerry devices.
The system is getting yet more complicated as RIM adds third-party services to appeal to consumers, said Albert Lin, an analyst at investment bank Sooner Cap. As the company tries to keep up with rapid growth in its subscribers -- last year's fiscal third quarter saw a net gain of 1.65 million -- these types of glitches are to be expected, Lin said.
"It's hard to really expect any major service provider to be 100 percent reliable," Lin said. Although enterprises now have more push e-mail alternatives than they did when the BlackBerry debuted in 1999, those competitors, such as Visto and Motorola's Good Technology system, aren't significantly more dependable, he said.
"When it comes to reliable push e-mail ... it's still hard to find a solution that works better than BlackBerry," Lin said.
European Commission raids Intel offices in Munich
Intel offices in Munich were raided by the European Commission on Tuesday as part of an ongoing antitrust investigation.
Confirming the raids, Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said the company fully cooperated with the EC. He declined further comment.
The Commission inspected the premises of CPU manufacturers and PC retailers, said Jonathan Todd, spokesman for the EC, declining to comment on which companies were raided.
The offices of German consumer electronics vendor Media Markt and DSG International, which runs Dixons in the U.K., were also raided, according to multiple newspaper and wire service reports.
The raids relate to concerns of the abuse of a dominant market position, the EC said in a statement.
"Surprise inspections are a preliminary step in investigations into suspected infringements of EC competition law," the Commission said. The inspections do not prove guilt of anticompetitive behavior or prejudge the outcome of the investigation, the Commission said.
The raid comes on the heels of multiple complaints and lawsuits filed by Intel competitor Advanced Micro Devices with authorities in the European Union, U.S., Japan, South Korea and Japan, charging Intel with monopolistic behavior.
In 2006, AMD said it planned to file a complaint with German authorities regarding Intel's alleged anticompetitive behavior. AMD alleged that Intel paid German retail chain Media Markt not to stock PCs containing AMD processors, citing a letter to a supplier in which the retailer said it would only buy PCs with Intel processors.
As part of ongoing inquiries into Intel's monopolistic behavior, the EC earlier raided Intel's offices in 2005. Authorities in Japan raided Intel's offices in 2004.
Confirming the raids, Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said the company fully cooperated with the EC. He declined further comment.
The Commission inspected the premises of CPU manufacturers and PC retailers, said Jonathan Todd, spokesman for the EC, declining to comment on which companies were raided.
The offices of German consumer electronics vendor Media Markt and DSG International, which runs Dixons in the U.K., were also raided, according to multiple newspaper and wire service reports.
The raids relate to concerns of the abuse of a dominant market position, the EC said in a statement.
"Surprise inspections are a preliminary step in investigations into suspected infringements of EC competition law," the Commission said. The inspections do not prove guilt of anticompetitive behavior or prejudge the outcome of the investigation, the Commission said.
The raid comes on the heels of multiple complaints and lawsuits filed by Intel competitor Advanced Micro Devices with authorities in the European Union, U.S., Japan, South Korea and Japan, charging Intel with monopolistic behavior.
In 2006, AMD said it planned to file a complaint with German authorities regarding Intel's alleged anticompetitive behavior. AMD alleged that Intel paid German retail chain Media Markt not to stock PCs containing AMD processors, citing a letter to a supplier in which the retailer said it would only buy PCs with Intel processors.
As part of ongoing inquiries into Intel's monopolistic behavior, the EC earlier raided Intel's offices in 2005. Authorities in Japan raided Intel's offices in 2004.
Groups call for passage of health IT legislation
The U.S. Congress needs to pass health-care IT legislation before private companies develop multiple systems that don't talk to each other, two advocacy groups said Tuesday.
Members of the Health IT Now Coalition and the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) urged Congress to move ahead with health IT legislation such as the Promoting Health Information Technology Act. The bill would establish a public/private group to recommend health IT standards and certification and would budget US$163 million a year for health-care providers to adopt health IT products, such as electronic health records.
Health technologies can help improve health-care quality, reduce costs and encourage changes in treatment, said former U.S. Representative Nancy Johnson, co-chairwoman of the Health IT Now Coalition.
Health IT is "going to produce radical change," Johnson said at a news conference. "It's going to radically improve the quality of health care that Americans receive."
With health-care costs continuing to climb, moving to an electronic system that reduces paper and medical errors is the best hope to extend health care to U.S. residents who are uninsured, she added. "It is the only way that we guarantee to Americans of every age that our health-care system will continue to deliver the state-of-the-art medicine for which it has been known worldwide," Johnson said.
The Promoting Health Information Technology Act has stalled in the House of Representatives and a similar piece of legislation, the Wired for Health Care Quality Act, has stalled in the Senate.
Some groups, including Patient Privacy Rights, have raised concerns that the legislation doesn't adequately address patient privacy issues. "The Senate Wired Act has no privacy protections or language ensuring patient control of health records," the group said on its Web site. "It must not pass unless patients have the right to keep their health records private."
Privacy and security must be major components of a health IT bill, Johnson said at the news conference. But she and Rhett Dawson, ITI's president and CEO, said Congress should pass a health IT bill before vendors develop multiple systems that don't interoperate. "The public interest is in interoperability," Johnson said.
A health IT bill would be a major accomplishment that lawmakers could show to voters before the November elections, Dawson said. "We believe the time to act is now," he added.
In addition to the news conference, a group of IT vendors, including Lexmark, NetApp and NCR, demonstrated health technologies at a congressional office building on Tuesday.
EMC's RSA division demonstrated secure Web sign-on technologies that patients and health-care providers can use. RSA's Secure Web Access for Patient and Provider Portals allows administrators to set access rights based on who's signing in, said Seth Geftic, RSA product marketing manger. For example, a doctor could have access to more patient records than a nurse or an insurance provider, he said.
In addition, RSA provides authentication technologies that can be used to recognize users when they first sign in. For example, the RSA Adaptive Authentication can use publicly available information, such as height, car loans and old addresses, to authenticate a user entering a health IT Web site for the first time, Geftic said.
"You don't even have to enter the last four digits of your Social Security number," added Shannon Kellogg, director of information security policy in EMC's office of government relations.
Members of the Health IT Now Coalition and the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) urged Congress to move ahead with health IT legislation such as the Promoting Health Information Technology Act. The bill would establish a public/private group to recommend health IT standards and certification and would budget US$163 million a year for health-care providers to adopt health IT products, such as electronic health records.
Health technologies can help improve health-care quality, reduce costs and encourage changes in treatment, said former U.S. Representative Nancy Johnson, co-chairwoman of the Health IT Now Coalition.
Health IT is "going to produce radical change," Johnson said at a news conference. "It's going to radically improve the quality of health care that Americans receive."
With health-care costs continuing to climb, moving to an electronic system that reduces paper and medical errors is the best hope to extend health care to U.S. residents who are uninsured, she added. "It is the only way that we guarantee to Americans of every age that our health-care system will continue to deliver the state-of-the-art medicine for which it has been known worldwide," Johnson said.
The Promoting Health Information Technology Act has stalled in the House of Representatives and a similar piece of legislation, the Wired for Health Care Quality Act, has stalled in the Senate.
Some groups, including Patient Privacy Rights, have raised concerns that the legislation doesn't adequately address patient privacy issues. "The Senate Wired Act has no privacy protections or language ensuring patient control of health records," the group said on its Web site. "It must not pass unless patients have the right to keep their health records private."
Privacy and security must be major components of a health IT bill, Johnson said at the news conference. But she and Rhett Dawson, ITI's president and CEO, said Congress should pass a health IT bill before vendors develop multiple systems that don't interoperate. "The public interest is in interoperability," Johnson said.
A health IT bill would be a major accomplishment that lawmakers could show to voters before the November elections, Dawson said. "We believe the time to act is now," he added.
In addition to the news conference, a group of IT vendors, including Lexmark, NetApp and NCR, demonstrated health technologies at a congressional office building on Tuesday.
EMC's RSA division demonstrated secure Web sign-on technologies that patients and health-care providers can use. RSA's Secure Web Access for Patient and Provider Portals allows administrators to set access rights based on who's signing in, said Seth Geftic, RSA product marketing manger. For example, a doctor could have access to more patient records than a nurse or an insurance provider, he said.
In addition, RSA provides authentication technologies that can be used to recognize users when they first sign in. For example, the RSA Adaptive Authentication can use publicly available information, such as height, car loans and old addresses, to authenticate a user entering a health IT Web site for the first time, Geftic said.
"You don't even have to enter the last four digits of your Social Security number," added Shannon Kellogg, director of information security policy in EMC's office of government relations.
Vodafone CEO calls for mobile OS consolidation
The wide variety of operating systems on mobile phones is hindering the growth of cool mobile Internet applications, according to Arun Sarin, CEO of network operator Vodafone.
The success of a mobile Internet application can be influenced by how easy it is to develop for a particular software platform, and how attractive the resulting application is to use.
"The first imperative for us is world-class user experience," Sarin said in the opening keynote session of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Tuesday.
"The easier the interface, the more you use it and the more you get onto the Internet."
Mobile phone operating systems are key to that experience, he said, but there are too many of them: as many as 30 or 40, Sarin estimated.
"We have to reduce that number. There's no way that developers of cool applications can develop for that many operating systems. If we had three, four, five, that would be better," he said.
"Note, I didn't say one!" he said, with a nod to the market for PC operating systems. "We've seen that movie before."
One reason for the proliferation of mobile phone operating systems is that, historically, handset suppliers offered their own proprietary code to make the best use of their phones' limited processing and memory resources. Developing applications for such closed systems is difficult.
Today's high-end phones, though, have as much computing power as low-end PCs, spawning a new market for operating systems such as Symbian OS or Windows Mobile that run on phones from multiple manufacturers.
That ought to reduce the number of software platforms in the market, but more are still arriving, including several based on the open source operating system Linux.
Vodafone distributes and supports phones with many different operating systems, but not the one that for Sarin proved the importance of the operating system: Apple's iPhone.
"Apple has raised the bar with the iPhone, and we all now know how important user interfaces are," he said. "We as an industry will have to raise our game to provide the kind of user interface that our customers are now becoming accustomed to."
Apple changed the market with slick software and a closed design tied to its own hardware, initially making it difficult for developers to add applications. The company plans to open things up a little with the release of a software development kit (SDK) later this month.
Another new arrival in the mobile phone operating system market is Google, which hopes to change the market with a different approach: making it easy to build and use compelling mobile Web applications.
Google began by releasing the software development kit for Android, an application framework built on a Linux base, and founded an industry group, Open Hardware Alliance, to encourage its use. Several chip makers are demonstrating prototype phones running Android in Barcelona this week, and Google hopes that manufacturers will release handsets based on the software later this year.
Naturally, Google hopes to profit from this move by driving greater use of its services on the Web. But other companies will benefit too, if their sites are usable by more phone owners.
For Sarin, that's good news too: more Internet use means more revenue-generating data traffic on his network.
The success of a mobile Internet application can be influenced by how easy it is to develop for a particular software platform, and how attractive the resulting application is to use.
"The first imperative for us is world-class user experience," Sarin said in the opening keynote session of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Tuesday.
"The easier the interface, the more you use it and the more you get onto the Internet."
Mobile phone operating systems are key to that experience, he said, but there are too many of them: as many as 30 or 40, Sarin estimated.
"We have to reduce that number. There's no way that developers of cool applications can develop for that many operating systems. If we had three, four, five, that would be better," he said.
"Note, I didn't say one!" he said, with a nod to the market for PC operating systems. "We've seen that movie before."
One reason for the proliferation of mobile phone operating systems is that, historically, handset suppliers offered their own proprietary code to make the best use of their phones' limited processing and memory resources. Developing applications for such closed systems is difficult.
Today's high-end phones, though, have as much computing power as low-end PCs, spawning a new market for operating systems such as Symbian OS or Windows Mobile that run on phones from multiple manufacturers.
That ought to reduce the number of software platforms in the market, but more are still arriving, including several based on the open source operating system Linux.
Vodafone distributes and supports phones with many different operating systems, but not the one that for Sarin proved the importance of the operating system: Apple's iPhone.
"Apple has raised the bar with the iPhone, and we all now know how important user interfaces are," he said. "We as an industry will have to raise our game to provide the kind of user interface that our customers are now becoming accustomed to."
Apple changed the market with slick software and a closed design tied to its own hardware, initially making it difficult for developers to add applications. The company plans to open things up a little with the release of a software development kit (SDK) later this month.
Another new arrival in the mobile phone operating system market is Google, which hopes to change the market with a different approach: making it easy to build and use compelling mobile Web applications.
Google began by releasing the software development kit for Android, an application framework built on a Linux base, and founded an industry group, Open Hardware Alliance, to encourage its use. Several chip makers are demonstrating prototype phones running Android in Barcelona this week, and Google hopes that manufacturers will release handsets based on the software later this year.
Naturally, Google hopes to profit from this move by driving greater use of its services on the Web. But other companies will benefit too, if their sites are usable by more phone owners.
For Sarin, that's good news too: more Internet use means more revenue-generating data traffic on his network.
Nokia integrates Google into its search application
Nokia will integrate Google's search engine into its own search application on four of its latest phones unveiled at the Mobile World Congress, the companies said on Tuesday.
Google will appear on the N96, N78, 6210 Navigator and the 6220 classic in select markets at first. Eventually, the option will be extended to other handsets in more than 100 countries, Nokia said.
Nokia has collaborated with Google before, although Google is increasingly encroaching on its partner’s turf.
In Barcelona this week, several chip manufacturers are displaying prototypes of mobile phones using Google's Android software stack. If other phone manufacturers embrace Android, it could eventually pose a challenge to Nokia's dominating share of the mobile market.
Nokia first integrated Google's search engine on its Internet tablet PCs. The company also enabled support for Google's YouTube video-sharing Web site on its popular N95 phone.
The Google search option will supplement Nokia's Search software, which is free to download and compatible with a range of the company's handsets. That search function can be used to find content on the phone as well as on the Internet.
Google will appear on the N96, N78, 6210 Navigator and the 6220 classic in select markets at first. Eventually, the option will be extended to other handsets in more than 100 countries, Nokia said.
Nokia has collaborated with Google before, although Google is increasingly encroaching on its partner’s turf.
In Barcelona this week, several chip manufacturers are displaying prototypes of mobile phones using Google's Android software stack. If other phone manufacturers embrace Android, it could eventually pose a challenge to Nokia's dominating share of the mobile market.
Nokia first integrated Google's search engine on its Internet tablet PCs. The company also enabled support for Google's YouTube video-sharing Web site on its popular N95 phone.
The Google search option will supplement Nokia's Search software, which is free to download and compatible with a range of the company's handsets. That search function can be used to find content on the phone as well as on the Internet.
8 Must-watch geek Valentine's Day videos
Valentine's Day is traditionally imagined as a holiday for romantics and smooth operators, and geeks are traditionally imagined as, well, not romantics or smooth operators. If pop culture is to be believed, only the cool kids were at the dances with their sweeties, while the rest of us were at home playing video games and avoiding love at all cost.
As with any stereotype, there's a germ of truth to this, but we know that geeks can reach the same heights of passion as anyone else -- sometimes, they just express it differently. And so, in honor of building understanding towards our community this Valentine's Day, we offer this collection of videos that will help you better understand the love between two geeks, or between a geek and a non-geek, or between a geek and ... some toys.
1 - Finite Simple Group (of Order Two)
2 - Facebook Stalker
3 - Can A Geek Find True Love And Be Himself?
4 - Computer Camp Love
5 - A Linux Guy's Guide to Valentine's Day Mods
6 - Internet Love Song
7 - The Internet Love Story
8 - A Love That Knows No Limits
Bonus Track: Ze Frank Valentine's Day video
As with any stereotype, there's a germ of truth to this, but we know that geeks can reach the same heights of passion as anyone else -- sometimes, they just express it differently. And so, in honor of building understanding towards our community this Valentine's Day, we offer this collection of videos that will help you better understand the love between two geeks, or between a geek and a non-geek, or between a geek and ... some toys.
1 - Finite Simple Group (of Order Two)
2 - Facebook Stalker
3 - Can A Geek Find True Love And Be Himself?
4 - Computer Camp Love
5 - A Linux Guy's Guide to Valentine's Day Mods
6 - Internet Love Song
7 - The Internet Love Story
8 - A Love That Knows No Limits
Bonus Track: Ze Frank Valentine's Day video
No messages lost in BlackBerry outage, RIM says
Research In Motion acknowledged an outage left users in the Americas without access to their BlackBerry e-mail service on Monday, but said no messages were lost during the incident
The outage started at around 3:30 p.m. Eastern time and lasted for about three hours, causing "intermittent delays" for data services, RIM said in an e-mail statement released hours after normal BlackBerry service had been restored.
"No messages were lost and message queues began to be cleared after normal service levels were restored," RIM said, adding that voice and SMS services operated normally during the outage.
RIM offered an apology to users affected by the outage, but did not offer an explanation of what happened. The company only said it "continues to focus on providing industry-leading reliability in its products and services."
Monday's outage echoed a similar disruption that took place on April 17-18, 2007. RIM blamed the earlier service disruption on the introduction of a new software routine meant to optimize system cache memory. The problems caused by the introduction of the new routine were exacerbated by the poor performance of back-up systems, RIM said at the time.
After the April 2007 outage, RIM promised that aspects of its testing, monitoring and recovery systems would be enhanced to prevent a recurrence of the incident.
The outage started at around 3:30 p.m. Eastern time and lasted for about three hours, causing "intermittent delays" for data services, RIM said in an e-mail statement released hours after normal BlackBerry service had been restored.
"No messages were lost and message queues began to be cleared after normal service levels were restored," RIM said, adding that voice and SMS services operated normally during the outage.
RIM offered an apology to users affected by the outage, but did not offer an explanation of what happened. The company only said it "continues to focus on providing industry-leading reliability in its products and services."
Monday's outage echoed a similar disruption that took place on April 17-18, 2007. RIM blamed the earlier service disruption on the introduction of a new software routine meant to optimize system cache memory. The problems caused by the introduction of the new routine were exacerbated by the poor performance of back-up systems, RIM said at the time.
After the April 2007 outage, RIM promised that aspects of its testing, monitoring and recovery systems would be enhanced to prevent a recurrence of the incident.
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