Saturday, March 1, 2008

Microsoft cuts retail Vista prices

Microsoft Corp. on Thursday said it plans to slash prices for retail copies of Windows Vista up to almost 50% for certain editions in poorer countries, in order to boost sales that one analyst said have failed to meet expectations.
But many customers, especially those in wealthier countries such as the U.S. or Europe, may only see additional discounts as small as 3 percent -- or none at all -- depending on which of Vista's four consumer versions they are interested in.

"The vast majority of our retail customers -- especially those in developed markets -- may not notice anything different from the promotions they've already seen in their region," according to a spokeswoman. "This is really about formalizing promotions we've run with several partners already to continue to grow our retail business."

In a Q&A interview posted on the PressPass section of Microsoft's Web site, Brad Brooks , the new corporate vice-president for Windows consumer product marketing, said that the cuts will arrive "with the retail release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 later this year," though some markets will see reduced prices sooner through promotions such as with Amazon.com in the U.S.
In developed markets, according to Brooks, Microsoft is mostly cutting prices for retail upgrade versions of Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate. "In emerging markets, we are combining full and upgrade Home Basic and Home Premium versions into full versions of these editions and instituting price changes to meet the demand we see among first-time Windows customers who want more functionality than is available in current Windows XP editions. "In addition, we are also adjusting pricing on Windows Vista Ultimate in emerging markets to be comparable to price changes developed market customers will see."

"I think this is a smart strategic move," said NPD Group Inc. analyst, Chris Swenson. "Vista hasn't hit their initial expectations."

While Microsoft has sold more than 100 million Vista licenses in its first year -- a figure which excludes the tens of millions of Windows licenses sold to corporations -- more than 80% of those licenses have been sold to PC makers to install on new PCs, according to Swenson.

Retail copies of Vista sold through online and brick-and-mortar stores make up most of the rest, Swenson said. They are mostly bought by consumers upgrading their existing computers, as well as some do-it-yourselfers assembling their own PCs, he said.

Microsoft can afford to make the discounts, since it makes much more money per retail copy of Vista sold compared to OEM licenses sold to a PC manufacturer.

In fact, Microsoft has previously done just that, offering a flock of retail discounts at Vista's launch a year ago.
But first-week retail Vista sales in the U.S. were off 60% from those of its predecessor, Windows XP, according to NPD.

U.S. retail sales for all versions of Windows in 2007 were up 41% from 2006, according to NPD. (That figure sounds less impressive when one considers that 2006 Windows sales were actually down 18% from 2005.)

In terms of the mix in the U.S., half of the copies of retail Vista sold last year were for the Home Premium edition, which sold for about US$174, according to NPD. The pricey Ultimate edition, which sold for an average $274, made up 24% of unit volume.

Swenson says one reason retail Vista sales are weaker than XP's is because of the many years -- five -- between its release and XP's. By contrast, XP was released only one year after Windows 2000 and ME. That meant that consumers who bought a new PC with 2000 or ME would have been more likely to upgrade it with XP. Not so for consumers who bought a new XP PC three or four years ago; machines of such comparatively advanced age are unlikely to have been upgraded to Vista's requirements.

Moreover, hardware price points have fallen another 25% since XP's release, according to Swenson.

Finally, running Vista with its full Aero desktop turned on requires fairly powerful PC hardware. All of these factors combine to make it more attractive for consumers to buy a whole new computer with Vista on it than to upgrade an existing PC, he said.

Swenson doesn't think Microsoft's move is a tactical attempt to combat ongoing negative publicity of Vista, including a lawsuit alleging that 'Vista Capable' PCs were not truly Vista capable.

"I doubt the two are tied," he said. Microsoft "really wants to help spark Vista sales, though I don't see it taking off like a rocket like the way Office did after its price was cut."

He also doesn't see a link between the price cuts and the failure of Microsoft's Anytime Upgrade program, which let consumers upgrade their edition of Vista by purchasing a digital key from Microsoft online. Microsoft terminated the program last month.
"It was probably ahead of its time, and thus not successful, and so they got rid of it," he said.

Changes to OOXML draft standard waved through

About four-fifths of the proposed changes to a draft standard for the OOXML document format were waved through, undiscussed, at the conclusion of a weeklong meeting in Geneva.

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If the specification for the Office Open XML file format is adopted as a standard in its current form, "there are likely to be hundreds of defects," said the head of the U.S. delegation at the meeting, Frank Farance.

OOXML, the default document format in Microsoft Office 2007, has already fallen at one hurdle on the route to becoming an international standard. Members of Joint Technical Committee 1 of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) rejected it in a vote last September. National standards bodies participating in the vote made 3,500 comments suggesting improvements to the draft.

At this week's ballot resolution meeting (BRM) in Geneva, the sponsor of the draft standard, industry consortium ECMA International, presented 1,100 recommendations for changes to the draft.

However, delegates only had time to discuss and modify around 20 percent of those, said Farance, an industry consultant with expertise in standards issues.

"Virtually every comment we processed did not survive unedited," he said.

The 80 percent of comments that were not discussed during the meeting were put to a "default vote," resulting in the automatic adoption of ECMA's recommendations without modification by delegates, he said.

Farance questioned why the meeting's business had to be rushed.

"I see no particular rationale for why we were limited in time. I don't know how you can deal with 6,000 pages with 3,500 comments in a week. It's like trying to run a two-minute mile," he said.

Andy Updegrove, a Boston lawyer who works with industry consortia on technical standards, described the meeting process as unsuccessful.

"Hopefully, the national bodies will not compound this error by approving a clearly unfinished specification during the voting period ahead," he said.

Although not a delegate to the BRM, Updegrove had spent the week in Geneva at the meeting venue. He said he had heard from people within the meeting that only six countries had voted in favor of adopting the undiscussed recommendations.

Representatives for ISO and IEC could not be reached as the meeting ended.

Now that the ballot resolution meeting is over, the 87 national standards bodies that voted in last September's ballot have 30 days to vote on the revised draft. That ballot concludes March 29.

With mobile browser, Mozilla hopes to shake up market

Mozilla is in informal talks with mobile operators about its mobile Firefox project, which the organization hopes will shake up the market as much as the introduction of the desktop browser did in 2004.
"Mozilla's mission is to break open a closed market," said Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's vice president of engineering, during a visit to London earlier this week. But "it won't happen overnight."

The impact, however, will be felt before year's end. By then, Mozilla is aiming to release a mobile browser for two operating systems: embedded Linux and Microsoft's Windows Mobile.

At this point, operators and carriers "want to know how much it will cost," Schroepfer said. That's an easy answer: mobile Firefox will be free, Schroepfer said.

But the introduction of a free mobile browser is potentially threatening to some operators. Some handset manufacturers and carriers rigidly control applications and services, maximizing their revenue by creating so-called "walled gardens" where only their own for-fee services can be accessed.

Those carriers will have to be wooed to allow their subscribers to download mobile Firefox. "I think that some carriers will basically fight this kicking and screaming, and some will embrace it and move ahead quickly," said Christian Sejersen, who is head of Mozilla's mobile engineering group in Copenhagen.

Sejersen recently traveled to Japan and Korea to speak with manufacturers and operators. In Japan, operators said their subscribers transmit three to four times more data when allowed to browse the open Web than they do when kept in a walled garden. That opens the door for more data transmission revenue, but also could make operators merely a commoditized "pipe" to the Internet.

Mozilla is also counting on operators to help contribute to the development of mobile Firefox in the same way the open-source community lends its labor for the desktop browser, Sejersen said.

Nokia has already done this. Versions of the N800 tablet and N810, which both run on Linux, have a browser that utilizes Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine, used to layout Web pages. Nokia has also contributed code back to the community, Sejersen said.

Sejersen would like to see a greater proportion of developers contributing code to the mobile side.

"Companies are more interested in getting a product release for themselves," Sejersen said. "We will probably see a higher contribution level."

Mozilla has also stepped up its efforts, turning mobile Firefox into a full-fledged project. Five full-time engineers are working at the mobile development center in Copenhagen, and Mozilla is hiring more, Sejersen said. Copenhagen was chosen since Europe has strong mobile expertise, he said.

Mozilla is also seeing positive signs from manufacturers. Korean powerhouse Samsung has submitted suggestions for the user interface. Also, Mozilla is working with chip designers ARM and Intel to make mobile Firefox run well on their chips, Schroepfer said. Mobile Firefox will be designed to work on ARM 11 processors, Sejersen said.

Mozilla has been criticized for getting a late start in the mobile browser field. Competitors include Opera Software, Apple, Nokia and Microsoft. But Sejersen said mobile browsers have quite a way to go to make browsing as easy as it is on the desktop.

Apple set a high bar with its Safari browser on the iPhone and the iPod Touch, with its zoom feature to magnify Web pages. But Sejersen said it would be better if the browser remembered where the user zoomed last time on a Web page to stop incessant fidgeting with the zoom feature.

Mozilla hasn't developed a workable solution to the problem just yet. But it shows that there's room for innovation.

"Somebody needs to come in from the side and give everybody a kick," Sejersen said. "I think the iPhone has done it ... but I still think there's more than can be done to make [browsing] easier."

Yahoo sued again by Chinese dissidents

Yahoo and at least one subsidiary face their second major lawsuit by Chinese dissidents claiming the company aided Chinese authorities by handing over e-mails and other electronic communications that ended up landing one plaintiff in jail.
The first lawsuit ended in November after Yahoo settled with the plaintiffs out of court. The company may come to regret settling the case if more such lawsuits follow.

The current lawsuit, filed by plaintiffs Li Zhi, Zheng Cunzhu, and Guo Quan in the U.S. District Court of Northern California, seeks damages for their suffering at the hands of Chinese officials after Yahoo and Yahoo Hong Kong allegedly provided access to e-mails, e-mail records and user identification information and other data to authorities in China.

The lawsuit said the three plaintiffs have also identified at least 60 more individuals "arbitrarily imprisoned" in China for work on free elections, democracy and human rights, possibly due to their Internet identification being handed over by Yahoo, the group said. The plaintiffs plan to make the additional cases known during the trial's discovery phase.

Yahoo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Specifically, Li is suing over his torture and imprisonment by Chinese officials after his work for the China Democracy Party -- a banned political group -- was revealed by Yahoo due to his Internet activity, the lawsuit alleges. Li, whose case has also been championed by the journalist group Reporters Without Borders, has served over four years of his eight-year prison sentence so far.

Reporters Without Borders said his jail term started in December, 2003.

Zheng is a Chinese citizen currently living in California. His ties to Li were established during Li's court case, and Zheng is now allegedly unable to return to China due to fear of prosecution, according to the lawsuit. He has lost investments and personal property in China due to his inability to return home, the lawsuit said.

Guo lost his job as an associate professor at Nanjing Normal University after his Internet identity was revealed to Chinese authorities by Yahoo, the lawsuit alleged.

"By providing Internet user identification information to the People's Republic of China, [the] Defendants knowingly and willfully aided and abetted in the commission of torture and other major abuses violating international law that caused Plaintiffs' severe physical and mental pain and suffering," the lawsuit alleged.

The group has filed suit in the U.S. under the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789, as well as unspecified additional U.S. and international laws. The use of this act for purposes of democracy and human rights is relatively new in U.S. courts, said one lawyer in Hong Kong, and a decision could go either way.

The first case against Yahoo, filed by plaintiffs on behalf of journalists Wang Xiaoning and Shi Tao, also cited the Alien Tort Claims Act. Yahoo settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

Yahoo operated its China subsidiary until it became part of Alibaba.com in return for a 40 percent stake in the Chinese e-commerce company in late 2005. Alibaba now runs Yahoo's China operations.

Spam King trial set to start next month

Notorious spammer Robert Soloway will get his day in court next month when his criminal trial kicks off in Seattle.
Soloway was arrested in May and charged with sending out tens of millions of unsolicited messages; so many, in fact, that investigators called him the "Spam King," and his arrest was hailed as a major blow in the fight against spam. Many of Soloway's unsolicited messages were sent out using hacked "zombie" computers infected with botnet software, prosecutors allege.

The United States Attorney's Office is seeking more than US$770,000 in fines, but Soloway is also facing fraud and identity theft charges that could result in jail time.

If U.S. attorneys can get money out of Robert Soloway, it will be a first. In 2005 Microsoft was awarded a $7.8 million [m] judgement against the Spam King, but it has yet to collect a penny, according to Aaron Kornblum, a senior attorney with Microsoft.

In a May 2005 discussion group post, Soloway correctly predicted that Microsoft would be unable to collect. "I've been sued for hundreds of millions of dollars and have had my business running for over 10 years without ever paying a dime regardless to the outcome of any lawsuits," he wrote.

With Soloway now facing criminal charges under the 2003 CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) law, however, his case may serve as a deterrent to other spammers, Kornblum said. "There have not been a large number of criminal CAN-SPAM prosecutions in the U.S.," he said. "This is significant."

To date, Microsoft has filed 131 lawsuits against spammers in the U.S. Most of them have ended up in a settlement or a judgement against the spammer, Kornblum said. Of those cases, 52 remain open or have been dismissed.

"We have helped change the economics of spam and we've done that across multiple fronts," he said. "Spammers now sit in jail."

Soloway isn't the only accused spammer going to trial in Seattle next month. Also coming up in March is a civil case against Impulse Media Group, which is charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with spamming computer users with pornographic e-mails.

Many Internet users may be happy to hear about Soloway's criminal prosecution, but law enforcement shouldn't necessarily rush into these criminal cases, said Eric Goldman, an assistant professor with Santa Clara University School of Law who blogs about technology and marketing. "Spam is principally about speech and we should be very reluctant to criminalize speech-based behavior," he said.

"There's such an antipathy towards spam that there's almost a sense that anyone who ever engages in spam is… so evil that they should be punished," he added.

Goldman calls this attitude "spam exceptionalism." If people really thought about the issues, however, they wouldn't necessarily find spam any more invasive than other forms of advertising, like television commercials or junk postal mail, he said.

If criminal prosecutions like Soloway's are deterring spammers, you wouldn't know if from looking at your inbox. Security vendor IronPort said that spam volume on the Internet was up 100 percent in 2007, jumping to 120 billion unwanted messages per day.

"I'm not sure that we should be suppressing them from a legal standpoint," he said. "I’m troubled by many of the prosecutions that I've seen of spammers."

Soloway is set to face a trial by jury on March 24 at the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington.

Dell plans more low-cost models in Asian notebook push

Dell will introduce more low-cost notebooks in Asia this year as the company steps up the introduction of new models across its entire notebook line, a senior company executive said Friday.
"We've been pretty much a leader in the mid- and high-end price bands. We haven't played as strongly in the lower price bands," said Steve Felice, president of Dell Asia-Pacific, during a conference call with reporters.

That's starting to change. Over the last year, Dell has rolled out low-cost notebooks for both consumers and small businesses in Asian markets such as China.

For example, the company's Vostro 1000 notebook -- which runs Red Flag Linux and uses a 2GHz Sempron processor from Advanced Micro Devices -- currently sells for 3,999 yuan (US$561) in China. On the consumer side, Dell offers the 5,799 yuan Inspiron 1420, which comes with a 1.66GHz Core 2 Duo processor from Intel and Windows Vista Home Basic.

Asked whether Dell plans to introduce a low-cost notebook that would compete with Asustek Computers' Eee PC, Felice would only say the company is working on a range of notebooks intended to be sold at various price points.

"Let me just say that we've got some great things in our R&D labs and we're coming out with some really exciting products," Felice said. "I'm just going to tell people to just watch and look. I think they'll be impressed with what Dell has to come out with over this coming year."

Last year, Asustek raised industry eyebrows with the success of its low-cost Eee PC. The lightweight notebook runs Linux and was largely based on a package of components put together for Intel's Classmate PC, a low-cost computer designed for students in emerging markets. The low price of the Eee PC was a hit with consumers around the world, who snapped up the little notebooks.

The appeal of low-cost notebooks to users in emerging markets and developed countries caught the attention of top-tier PC companies. Besides Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Acer are also readying low-cost notebooks for introduction this year, according to sources familiar with the situation. But demand for these computers is not expected to eclipse sales of mainstream notebooks.

"In the scheme of the total share of all notebooks, I think it's still going to remain in its relative position, let's say. I don't think it's going to dominate," Felice said, adding he expects demand for notebooks to be strong across all of the price bands where notebooks are sold.

Green computing finds its place at Cebit

Cebit is taking on a green tinge this year, with the Climate Savers Computing Initiative playing a central role at the trade show, which opens March 4 in Hanover, Germany.
The climate initiative aims to reduce IT's carbon dioxide emissions from computer operations by 50 percent between 2007 and 2010. The group, led by PC manufacturers Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo, among others, will present energy-efficient IT products in a special "green village," and a central information point in Hall 9 will point visitors to other companies with environmentally friendly products. Showgoers can also take away a green IT guide produced with the help of IDG's Computerwoche magazine.

Climate Savers will hold a news conference Monday evening to laud the environmental efforts of some companies -- while those featured in a Greenpeace event the next morning can expect the opposite treatment: the campaign group in recent months has focused on uncovering IT manufacturers' use of pollutants.

The environmental interest of some of the "green" products highlighted by show organizers is a little obscure: a solar-powered flashlight and a banknote sorter figure on the list.

Other products won't save the earth, but will at least allow us to document, or measure, how much damage we're doing to it. For those who want to keep tabs on how much of the earth they've seen, the latest locating devices will also be on hand. In addition to GPS (Global Positioning System), some add GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) functions for transmitting data, offering a way to keep track of loved ones, according to one vendor. Or maybe unloved ones, too.

Hot specs for today's trackers include strong magnets to keep the unit on a vehicle and a tough form factor so the device can endure extreme weather. Many devices are also very small to stay hidden from view.

The new emphasis on saving energy and reducing emissions is just one of the changes at this year's show, which runs from Tuesday through the following Sunday. Previous shows have run Thursday through Wednesday. The new schedule will make life simpler for professional IT users, the organizers said.

This year 5,845 exhibitors from 77 countries are attending, a little down on last year's 6,153 exhibitors from 79 countries. The strong euro has discouraged some overseas exhibitors, organizers said, although that hasn't bothered the Chinese: After Germany, China is now the most-represented country with 500 exhibitors, overtaking Taiwan.

France is also strongly represented this year: It is this year's featured country. One of the opening speeches will come from French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Another famous straight-talker is Steve Ballmer, who will be speaking on the theme "innovation for people and the environment" at a Microsoft event on the eve of the show.

(With additional reporting by Jeremy Kirk in London.)

U.S., Canadian agencies seize counterfeit Cisco gear

U.S. and Canadian law enforcement authorities have seized more than US$78 million worth of counterfeit Cisco Systems networking equipment in an ongoing investigation into imports from China, the U.S. Department of Justice and other agencies announced Friday.
The coordinated operation, begun in 2005, has resulted in more than 400 seizures of Cisco hardware and labels, the DOJ said in a news release. The operation targets the illegal importation and sale of counterfeit network hardware such as routers, switches and network cards. One of the operation's goals is to protect the public from network infrastructure failures associated with the counterfeits, the DOJ said.

"Counterfeit network hardware entering the marketplace raises significant public safety concerns and must be stopped," Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher of the DOJ's Criminal Division, said in a statement. "It is critically important that network administrators in both private sector and government perform due diligence in order to prevent counterfeit hardware from being installed on their networks."

The agencies that worked together on the operation included the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's Cyber Division, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

The FBI named its portion of this ongoing initiative Operation Cisco Raider, an investigation involving nine FBI field offices and help from several other agencies. Over the last two years, the FBI's operation has resulted in 36 search warrants that identified about 3,500 counterfeit network components with a retail value of more than $3.5 million, the DOJ said. The FBI's work has led to 10 convictions and $1.7 million in restitution.

ICE and CBP have opened 28 investigations in 17 field offices since 2005. ICE has conducted 115 seizures of counterfeit Cisco products, with an estimated retail value of $20.4 million. ICE's investigation have lead to six indictments and four felony convictions. CBP has made 373 seizures of counterfeit Cisco hardware since 2005, and 40 seizures of Cisco labels for counterfeit products.

ICE and CBP seized more than 74,000 counterfeit Cisco networking products and labels with a retail value of more than $73 million.

On Friday in Toronto, the RCMP charged two people and a company with distributing large quantities of counterfeit network components to companies in the U.S. through the Internet. The RCMP seized approximately 1,600 pieces of counterfeit network hardware with an estimated value of $2 million.

Other recent cases:

-- On Feb. 14, Todd Richard, 33, was sentenced to 36 months in prison and ordered to pay $208,440 in restitution to Cisco by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. From late 2003 to early 2007, Richard imported shipments of counterfeit Cisco computer components from China, and separate shipments of counterfeit Cisco labels. He then affixed the fake labels to the fake components and sold the products on eBay, the DOJ said.

Richard sold more $1 million worth of counterfeit Cisco products, the DOJ said.

--On Jan. 4, a grand jury in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas indicted Michael Edman, 36, and his brother Robert Edman, 28, for trafficking in counterfeit Cisco products. The indictment alleges that the Edmans purchased and imported the counterfeit computer network hardware from an individual in China, then selling the products to retailers across the U.S. The Edmans shipped some of the counterfeit hardware directly to the U.S. Marine Corps, Air Force, Federal Aviation Administration, FBI, defense contractors, universities and financial institutions, according to the indictment. These organizations had purchased the product from a computer retailer serving as a middleman, which in turn purchased the products from the Edmans.

Take-Two garners more takeover interest after EA bid

The publisher of the popular Grand Theft Auto video game series has received more takeover interest after its $2 billion offer from Electronic Arts (EA), the company said Thursday.
Take-Two Interactive Software has received "informal indications of interest in a business combination," but no formal written offer in the time since EA issued a news release outlining its intention to buy the company, Take-Two said in a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Take-Two rejected the EA offer as too low, but remained open to discussions with the company. Take-Two wants to wait until after the release of the fourth installment of Grand Theft Auto in April.

The video game industry has started to see some consolidation recently as bigger companies seek to acquire popular game titles. Last December, Activision and Vivendi Games announced a proposed US$18.9 billion merger. Such a deal would put mega-hit World of Warcraft as well as Diablo and Starcraft in the same company as Guitar Hero and Call of Duty. The new company will be called Activision Blizzard once the deal is finalized.

A deal between EA and Take-Two would combine EA's popular sports titles such as Madden NFL 08 and games like the Sims and Battlefield 2, with Take-Two's Grand Theft Auto series and other titles.

Take-Two will hold its annual meeting for investors on April 10, 2008 in New York to further discuss merger and acquisition possibilities as well as other issues.

EBay settles patent dispute with MercExchange

EBay has settled a patent dispute with MercExchange that in 2006 was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, which sided with the online auction house in what is considered to be an important ruling on intellectual property.
Under terms of the deal, eBay will purchase from MercExchange three patents that were part of a September 2001 lawsuit MercExchange filed, along with additional technology and inventions related to the dispute. EBay will also license a search-related patent portfolio that wasn't part of the lawsuit, the company said Thursday.

Other terms of the agreement are not being disclosed, eBay said. The company does not expect that settlement terms will affect its 2007 financial results or its 2008 financial guidance.

The dispute included eBay's "buy it now" Web site feature, which MercExchange contended infringed one of its patents. A jury found in May 2003 that eBay had infringed a patent held by MercExchange, which then asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to issue an injunction against eBay's use of the feature. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit followed long-standing practice of granting injunctions in intellectual-property cases -- action that is nearly automatic in such lawsuits -- and that paved the way for the Supreme Court to weigh in.

The Supreme Court unanimously rejected the appellate court position, but it also said that the District Court had used flawed judgment in its decision.

The Supreme Court decision ended the long-standing practice of near-automatic injunctions in such cases, clarifying that lower courts must use a four-factor test when considering patent injunctions.

Dell revenue falls short of analyst estimates

Dell reported revenue of nearly US$16 billion for the fourth quarter of 2008, up 10 percent from a year ago, but fell short of analyst estimates.
The company on Thursday reported revenue of $15.989 billion, short of the $16.265 billion estimate from analysts polled by Thomson Financial. Dell reported net income of $679 million, falling 6 percent year-over-year and short of analyst estimates of $810 million for the quarter that ended Feb. 1. Earnings per share were $0.31, down 3 percent from the same quarter of the previous year.

Earnings were affected by $83 million in charges taken by Dell related to the acquisitions of EqualLogic and Everdream. The company also took a $54 million charge related to severance costs and facility closures.

The company's sales grew globally. Dell reported a 17 percent increase in sales in the U.S., which accounted for 49 percent of the company's revenue, and a 36 percent rise in combined sales in Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Over the past eight months Dell reduced its headcount by 3,200, as it continues to address costs and productivity, the company said. The earnings growth puts Dell in a stronger position to address those issues, CEO and Chairman Michael Dell said in a statement.

Intel plans dual-core version of Diamondville

Intel's low-power processor code-named Diamondville will initially be available as a single-core processor, but the company is planning a dual-core version, said a source familiar with Intel's plans.
The dual-core Diamondville will deliver better performance than the single-core version and will be for low-cost desktops, the source said.

The dual-core Diamondville chip take Intel into the low-cost desktop market to compete with vendors such as Via Technologies, which is providing low-cost processors in desktops priced at less than US$300 being sold by Everex.

The single-core Diamondville will initially be included in low-power notebooks that are fanless, the source said. The chips, which will be available around the middle of this year, will be manufactured using the 45-nanometer process and will likely contain 47 million transistors. It will include a 1.60GHz processor and 512K-byte cache.

Though processor pricing hasn't been set, the single-core Diamondville chip will be for laptops in the US$250 to $300 price range, the source said.

Diamondville is based on the Silverthorne chip architecture, which has a small die size and is designed for ultramobile devices. Although they are for different product segments, the Diamondville and Silverthorne processors fall under a single processor family that will receive an official brand name soon, the source said.

Diamondville will most likely be included in Intel's next version of Classmate PC, the source said. Micro-Star International is already working to introduce an ultra-low-cost notebook PC based on Diamondville to compete against rival Asustek Computer's Eee PC.

Intel intends to include Diamondville processors in a new product category the company terms Netbooks -- low-cost, low-power notebooks designed for basic computing such as Internet use. Classmate PC is an example of a Netbook, the source said.

This low-end of the market is expected to grow, spurred by the success of Asustek's Eee PC ultramobile notebook, which has sold thousands of units so far, said Dean McCarron, founder of Mercury Research.

"Once the Eee PC happened and we saw the volumes associated with it, all of a sudden design activity really stepped up," McCarron said.

The Eee PC is powered by a specially made Intel Celeron ultra-low voltage processor, which Diamondville will replace in the low-end notebook segment, McCarron said. The Celeron brand itself will not go away, but will instead focus on speedier processors to meet higher multitasking needs.

Diamondville could also have competition from Via Technologies C7-M processor, which is included in Everex's Cloudbook ultraportable PC. Via Technologies' is also designing a processor based on its Isaiah architecture to replace the C7-M processor. The new 64-bit Isaiah architecture will enable processors in notebooks and desktops to run at speeds from 400MHz to 2GHz and include 1M byte of cache. The processors are set for release in the middle of the year, around the same time as Diamondville, McCarron said.

This is the first time Intel is making a purposefully designed chip that is low in cost, McCarron said. Via is the pioneer in that space and will continue to make low-cost products, so there will be some obvious overlap in the future that will lead to competition, he said.

Advanced Micro Devices will focus on hitting the low-cost market in 2009 with Fusion, which includes highly integrated components, McCarron said.

LinkedIn users question Gates query

Within 10 hours, Bill Gates had racked up nearly 1,200 answers to a question that he posed on professional-networking site LinkedIn, with new comments coming in every minute.
More interesting -- or at least amusing -- than perusing the answers may be reading follow-up questions and answers posted by other LinkedIn members.

“I didn’t bother to answer. I just assumed that it wasn’t really Bill Gates,” wrote Angela DiMeglio in response to a related question. “Am I wrong in assuming that?”

She was wrong, but it wasn't a bad assumption, given the number of Bill Gates and William Gates profiles on LinkedIn. Some of them ring true, albeit for people not quite as famous as the founder of Microsoft, but others don’t. One Bill Gates describes himself as the owner of Microsoft and said he took six years to graduate from the California University of Pennsylvania.

One clue that the question posed by the real Bill Gates (presumably) is legitimate is that it has a “featured” tag and displays a banner ad for Windows Server 2008.

“I had a little chuckle at the Windows Server 2008 advert myself,” wrote Steve Nimmons, in response to a different question about the Gates query. “This gave me a little more confidence that the whole thing hadn’t been a hoax.”

But it did make some people wonder if the intention of the question -- "How can we do more to encourage young people to pursue careers in science and technology?" -- was entirely altruistic.

Some people speculated that Gates’ very public use of LinkedIn indicates that he wants to buy the site. “Since Linkedin was chosen over the Microsoft properties to ask this question, I have a strong feeling a purchase is a consideration,” wrote Eileen Bonfiglio.

A public relations firm alerted members of the press in advance that the question would be posted on Thursday, suggesting that the idea wasn't a spontaneous one from Gates himself. The posting of the question also coincided with a redesign of LinkedIn's home page, an event that the public relations firm pointed out in the same e-mail as the one with advance notice of the Gates question.

Another enterprising LinkedIn user is hoping to figure out how to join Gates’s network in order to enhance his own career. “What is the best strategy to get invited to join Bill Gates network on LinkedIn?” Terrence Olsen, a popular LinkedIn member with more than 500 connections, asked.

Olsen received a few answers to his questions, primarily encouragement. Some of them agreed that getting connected to Bill Gates’ LinkedIn profile definitely earns a person bragging rights.

Without the right connections, though, some LinkedIn users can’t even view Gates’ profile. For some people, clicking on the link to his profile, which is attached to the question, brings up a page saying that the user doesn't know anyone in common with Gates, so his profile can't be displayed. LinkedIn's public relations firm e-mailed a link to Gates' profile, which shows that so far he has three connections.

Gates could be proceeding cautiously with his use of LinkedIn. While popularity is the goal for many social-networking-site users, for someone as well-known as Gates, it's a burden. Reportedly, he recently quit using Facebook because he found it difficult to manage the huge number of requests for friendship that he received.

There were many good answers to Gates' question, as well as messages pitching relevant organizations. The question nicely spans Gates’ current dual roles working at Microsoft as well as his massive charitable organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Over 50% of companies fire workers for e-mail, 'Net abuse

Think you can get away with using e-mail and the Internet in violation of company policy? Think again.
A new survey found that more than a quarter of employers have fired workers for misusing e-mail and one third have fired workers for misusing the Internet on the job. The study, conducted by the American Management Association (AMA) and The ePolicy Institute, surveyed 304 U.S. companies of all sizes.

The vast majority of bosses who fired workers for Internet misuse, 84 percent, said the employee was accessing porn or other inappropriate content. While looking at inappropriate content is an obvious no-no on company time, simply surfing the Web led to a surprising number of firings. As many as 34 percent of managers in the study said they let go of workers for excessive personal use of the Internet, according to the survey.

Among managers who fired workers for e-mail misuse, 64 percent did so because the employee violated company policy and 62 percent said the workers' e-mail contained inappropriate or offensive language. More than a quarter of bosses said they fired workers for excessive personal use of e-mail and 22 percent said their workers were fired for breaching confidentiality rules in e-mail.

Companies are worried about the inappropriate use of the Internet, and so 66 percent of those in the study said they monitor Internet connections. As many as 65 percent of them use software to block inappropriate Web sites. Eighteen percent of the companies block URLs (uniform resource locators) to prevent workers from visiting external blogs.

Companies use different methods to monitor workers' computers, with 45 percent of those participating in the survey tracking content, keystrokes and time spent at the keyboard. An additional 43 percent store and review computer files. Twelve percent monitor blogs to track content about the company and 10 percent monitor social-networking sites.

Companies are keen to track employee e-mail and Internet behavior in part due to legal fears. According to research done by the AMA and ePolicy in 2006, 24 percent of companies in the study had e-mail subpoenaed by courts and another 15 percent have faced lawsuits based on employee e-mails.

The researchers found that even though only two states require companies to notify their workers that they're monitoring them, most tell employees of their monitoring activities. Of the companies that monitor workers in the survey, 83 percent said they tell employees that they are monitoring content, keystrokes and time spent at the keyboard. As many as 84 percent tell employees that they review computer activity and 71 percent alert workers that they monitor their e-mails.