Maintenance contracts at heart of Oracle, SAP dispute ... Palm profit drops

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Maintenance contracts at heart of Oracle, SAP dispute
News: Palm profit drops despite strong smartphone sales
News: IBM finds way to keep chips running cooler
News: NBC, News Corp. team up on YouTube rival
Storage Tip: Intelligence for unstructured data
ITwhirled: MySpace finishes conquest of human social life, now set to destroy journalism
News Podcast: Oracle sues SAP for corporate theft ... NBC, News Corp. to launch YouTube rival ... Bill Gates finally gets his degree


NEWS UPDATES

Maintenance contracts at heart of Oracle, SAP dispute
Software maintenance--who provides it and at what price--is at the heart of the corporate theft lawsuit Oracle Corp. filed against arch-rival SAP AG, one expert said.

Palm profit drops despite strong smartphone sales
Amid rumors that the company could be acquired, Palm Inc. reported Thursday that its third-quarter profit was $16.5 million, down from $19.8 million for the same quarter last year.

IBM finds way to keep chips running cooler
Scientists at IBM Corp.'s Zurich Research Laboratory have developed a glue-application technique used to assemble chips that will keep them running cooler, the company said.

NBC, News Corp. team up on YouTube rival
News Corp. and NBC Universal will challenge Google Inc.'s YouTube for online eyeballs and advertising dollars by launching a video-streaming Web site by the third quarter, News Corp. announced Thursday.

FCC to examine net neutrality
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Thursday launched an inquiry into how broadband providers manage their traffic, again getting involved in a debate over network neutrality.

Novell, Red Hat compare desktop Linux programs
Open-source rivals Novell Inc. and Red Hat Inc. are each highlighting initiatives to bring Linux-based functionality to the desktop.

Broadcom says Qualcomm violated duty to standards group
A U.S. jury ruled that a failure by Qualcomm Inc. to disclose two patents to a video standards group means the company waived its rights to enforce the patents, which are now part of the H.264 video compression standard, Broadcom Corp. said Thursday.

Belgian company loses lawsuit against Google
A Belgian court dismissed a lawsuit filed by a company that said a feature for Google Inc.'s search engine offers up password-cracking tools and serial numbers to unlock their software.

Private equity fund Blackstone Group considers IPO
Blackstone Group, a large private equity group whose shareholdings include some major IT names, is planning an initial public offering. The group's filing with the SEC didn't disclose the proposed value of the offering, but U.S. media reported the issue will raise about $4 billion.


STORAGE TIP

Intelligence for unstructured data
By David Hill, Mesabi Group

IT organizations have the skills to deal with the data growth caused by unstructured data - and deal with the growth you must. But just as with previous data revolutions (first to a focus on online transaction processing systems, which use structured data, and then to semi-structured information, such as e-mail, office productivity, and HTML documents), the heightened awareness and utility of unstructured information can only make the place of data even more central to an enterprise.

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ITWHIRLED

MySpace finishes conquest of human social life, now set to destroy journalism
Wired Magazine claims to have acquired inside documents that show that MySpace is cooking up a Digg- or Reddit-style social news site. No word yet on whether users will be able to customize their news pages with eye-searing black-text-on-pink-background layouts, or if crappy Nu metal music will start playing when you visit the site.

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Oracle sues SAP for corporate theft ... NBC, News Corp. to launch YouTube rival ... Bill Gates finally gets his degree

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