Microsoft ordered to pay Alcatel-Lucent $1.5B ... Open-source guru knocks Fedora

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Jury orders Microsoft to pay Alcatel-Lucent $1.5B
News: SAP to offer hosted midmarket apps later this year
News: Qualcomm, Broadcom drop some patent claims
News: Toshiba secures quantum key distribution
Storage Tip: Putting privileged information on hold
Product Review: Turbolinux Wizpy
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update


NEWS UPDATES

Jury orders Microsoft to pay Alcatel-Lucent $1.5B
Microsoft Corp. must pay $1.5 billion in damages to Alcatel-Lucent SA for infringing on patents for MP3 encoding and decoding technology, a jury said Thursday.

SAP to offer hosted midmarket apps later this year
SAP AG's planned suite of hosted midmarket applications will be available in select markets later this year. The company will offer more details on pricing and functionality after the Cebit trade show in March, according to CEO Henning Kagermann.

Qualcomm, Broadcom drop some patent claims
Qualcomm Inc. and Broadcom Corp. have settled some of their patent claims against each other, avoiding a jury trial scheduled to begin next month, Qualcomm said on Friday. They remain deadlocked over other patents, however, and still face several potential trials this year.

Toshiba secures quantum key distribution
Researchers at Toshiba Corp. have developed a method that they say makes it possible -- barring a change in the laws of physics -- to absolutely secure distribution of encryption keys across a network.

Samsung speeds up GDDR4 graphics memory
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., one of the world's biggest chip makers, said Friday it has managed to make GDDR4 (graphics double data rate 4) memory chips that work at 4G bps (bits per second). That's two-thirds faster than the current fastest GDDR4 chips generally available, which operate at 2.4G bps.

Gartner: x86 server sales growth slowed in Q4
Sales growth for x86 servers slowed in the fourth quarter of 2006 as buyers adopted virtualization technology and waited for quad-core processors, according to a Gartner Inc. report released Thursday.

News Corp. buys Web ad company to boost online profit
News Corp. aims to increase ad revenue from its online division by completing the acquisition Thursday of Internet ad placement company Strategic Data Corp.

Wall Street Beat: M&A a good sign for tech
While consolidation can be a sign of a mature, slowing market, the M&A activity happening now, especially seen in context of this week's six-year Nasdaq Composite Index high, signals confidence in IT and prospects for growth.

Open-source guru knocks Fedora
In a message distributed to several high-profile Linux mailing lists and news organizations, Eric Raymond, influential developer and co-founder of the Open Source Initiative, said he is switching to the Ubuntu distribution after 13 years as a loyal Red Hat user, citing numerous technical and governance problems around Fedora.

Dell users demand Linux on laptops
The new team of leaders at Dell Inc. is weighing a request to give customers the option to purchase PCs with the Linux OS, instead of the default Windows, after thousands of users voted for that idea on a company blog.

Apple, Cisco settle iPhone dispute
Cisco Systems Inc. and Apple Inc. have settled a dispute over rights to use the iPhone name. Under terms of the agreement, both companies have the right to use the name. In addition, Cisco and Apple have agreed to "explore opportunities for interoperability" in security and communications technologies for consumers and business users.


STORAGE TIP

Putting privileged information on hold
By David Hill, Mesabi Group

As part of the process of putting data on litigation hold in anticipation of or because of an actual lawsuit against your company, you may put privileged information on hold. Privileged information is any of the following: trade secrets, financial information, or other information that has nothing to do with the lawsuit at hand and can be considered confidential to your company. Your problem is to prevent producing (i.e., delivering) privileged information to the requesting party (i.e., whoever is suing your company) or, if you do produce it, getting it back.

Here's what you need to know.

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PRODUCT REVIEW

Turbolinux Wizpy
By Martyn Williams

On Friday Japan's Turbolinux Inc. begins dispatching the first batch of its Wizpy handhelds to people who ordered them from its Web site. The flash-based multimedia player contains a version of Linux, so it can be used to boot a PC into the operating system, allowing users to access their files in their own working environment on almost any PC.

The devices have proved hot items on the TurboLinux Web shop since preorders began in late January, but what's it like to use one? We tested a pre-production version of the Wizpy for a week and found it delivers on its promise with some annoyances.

Read the full review here.


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Microsoft faces $1.5 billion fine from Alcatel-Lucent suit ... India played key role in development of teraflop chip ... Dell considers selling Linux on computers

More podcasts

Apple, Cisco settle iPhone dispute ... Google Apps upgrade threatens Office

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Apple, Cisco settle iPhone dispute
News: Google Apps upgrade threatens Office
News: Fujitsu Siemens targets SMBs with new recovery system
News: Elaborate 'pharming' attack targeted 50 banks
Windows Tip: Windows Vista and GPT disks
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Chinese go nuts for space potatoes


NEWS UPDATES

Apple, Cisco settle iPhone dispute
Cisco Systems Inc. and Apple Inc. have settled a dispute over rights to use the iPhone name. Under terms of the agreement, both companies have the right to use the name. In addition, Cisco and Apple have agreed to "explore opportunities for interoperability" in security and communications technologies for consumers and business users.

Google Apps upgrade threatens Office
Google Inc. is pushing further into the communication and collaboration applications market with a major upgrade of Google Apps, a hosted suite for organizations of all sizes that analysts say could soon become a real competitor to Microsoft Office.

Fujitsu Siemens targets SMBs with new recovery system
For midsize businesses seeking a relatively easy, inexpensive way to keep their servers running around the clock, Fujitsu Siemens Computers (Holding) BV has launched a fully automated backup recovery system.

Elaborate 'pharming' attack targeted 50 banks
An attack this week that targeted online customers of at least 50 financial institutions in the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific has been shut down, a security expert said Thursday.

Norton 360 to ship next month
Retailers have begun taking orders for Symantec Corp.'s next-generation desktop security software, and the product is set to ship in the middle of next month, according to Amazon.com Inc.

Report: China will not issue 3G licenses before 2008
China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII) will not issue licenses for 3G (third-generation) mobile services until a new round of tests involving the homegrown TD-SCDMA (time division synchronous code division multiple access) 3G technology ends next year, reported Caijing magazine in its latest issue.

Hurd pressures HP storage sales team
HP CEO Mark Hurd's assessment of his company's storage sales organization was simple and blunt: "We just don't cover enough accounts," said Hurd on a conference call with analysts discussing HP's latest quarterly earnings. Sales of storage products grew only 3 percent during the quarter ended Jan. 31, compared to a year ago, while HP's overall revenue grew 11 percent.


WINDOWS TIP

Windows Vista and GPT disks
By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

Windows Vista supports two types of disk partitioning: Master Boot Record (MBR) and Globally Unique Identifier Partition Table (GPT). GPT disks offer several advantages over MBR disks including more partitions (128 instead of 4) and larger partition sizes (theoretically up to 18 exabytes or about 18 million terabytes). But before you run out and get a zillion terabyte drive for your Vista workstation so you can store all your YouTube videos, you need to know the following.


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PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Apple, Cisco settle iPhone dispute ... First woman wins Turing Award ... Google fixes security flaw in Google Desktop

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ITWHIRLED

Chinese go nuts for space potatoes
China's fledgling manned space program is a source of great national pride. Now restaurants are cashing in by offering sweet potatoes descended from seeds that Shenzhou VI took into orbit last year.

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Microsoft releases Vista tools ... HP results beat estimates

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Details of new Sony digital cameras hit the Web
News: IBM veteran becomes first woman to win the Turing Award
News: Hewlett-Packard first quarter profit jumps
News: Internet is a reflection of society, Cerf says
Security Tip: Apple OS X users feeling the exploit pinch
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Valley town seeks sun boost


NEWS UDPATES

Details of new Sony digital cameras hit the Web
They're not due to be officially announced until next week, but details of Sony Corp.'s new line-up of digital still cameras hit numerous Web sites Tuesday.

IBM veteran becomes first woman to win the Turing Award
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has awarded the A.M. Turing Award to Frances Allen, a computer scientist at IBM Corp. and the first woman to receive the prestigious prize. Allen, a fellow emerita at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center, was given the award for her contributions in the area of program optimization, a way of modifying a program to run more efficiently and improve performance.

Hewlett-Packard first quarter profit jumps
Hewlett-Packard Co. topped Wall Street's revenue and earnings expectations in the first quarter of its 2007 fiscal year. The company posted net income of $1.5 billion, or $0.55 a share, in the quarter ended Jan. 31, 2007, compared to $1.2 billion, or $0.42 a share in the year ago quarter.

Internet is a reflection of society, Cerf says
The Internet is a mirror of the population that uses it, said Google Inc.'s vice president and chief Internet evangelist, Vinton Cerf, in reference to the proliferation of fraud, social abuse, and other online crimes.

Microsoft offers Vista deployment tools
Hoping to accelerate the adoption of Vista for businesses, Microsoft Tuesday unveiled tools to help companies deploy the new Windows client OS, including software that allows older versions of Windows to run virtually alongside Vista.

IP SANs come in from the cold
In a sign of the growing importance of IP networked storage the SNIA has elected new leaders to an IP Storage Forum and outlined an activity program.

EqualLogic adds to storage array product line
Storage appliance maker EqualLogic Inc. says its newest product improves performance by doing a better job of balancing the data load between storage arrays in a network.

Wind River acquires real-time Linux from FSMLabs
Wind River Systems Inc. has acquired technology that lets it provide an embedded Linux OS for devices that need responses in real time.


SECURITY TIP

Apple OS X users feeling the exploit pinch
By Brent Huston, MicroSolved, Inc.

Many Apple users have sat smug about the security of the OS X operating system. Pundits have expounded on its BSD roots, its imperviousness to spyware and malware, and overall lack of public exploits. Unfortunately, a lot has changed. The "Month of Apple Bugs" project has shattered much of the illusions around OS X's security. As of this writing, the project has released 31 public vulnerabilities for OS X and its supporting applications.

Sign up for the Security Strategies - Tips and technologies to protect your enterprise.


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
Microsoft launches SP2, updates licensing ... Microsoft releases Vista tools ... HP results beat estimates

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ITWHIRLED

Valley town seeks sun boost
If you suffer from seasonal affective disorder, you should stay away from Bondo, a Swiss village deep in a valley that gets no direct sunlight three months out of the year. Now the town hopes that a computerized mirror will shed a little light on its gloomy winters.

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SAP buys Pilot Software ... Microsoft releases SQL Server SP2 ... Sirius, XM merge

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Microsoft releases SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2
News: SAP acquires Pilot Software
News: Viacom, Joost enter Internet TV deal
News: Sharp preps widescreen Windows Mobile PDA
Storage Tip: Putting privileged information on hold
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Behold the glory of Cheddarvision!


NEWS UPDATES

Microsoft releases SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2
Microsoft Corp. released Service Pack 2 (SP2) for SQL Server 2005 on Tuesday, a free upgrade, in addition to new virtualization licensing for the database.

SAP acquires Pilot Software
In a move to strengthen its portfolio of analytic applications, SAP AG has agreed to acquire privately-held Pilot Software Inc., a maker of strategy management software based in Mountain View, California.

Viacom, Joost enter Internet TV deal
Joost, the online TV service developed by the founders of Internet telephone company Skype Ltd., has struck a licensing deal with Viacom International Inc.

Sharp preps widescreen Windows Mobile PDA
Sharp Corp. has developed a widescreen Windows Mobile-based PDA (personal digital assistant) for a new Japanese cellular carrier that will begin service next month.

AMD speeds up and cools down desktop processors
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has pumped up the performance of its Athlon 64 X2 dual-core processor and cooled down two single-core Athlon 64 processors.

Phishing scam uses Google Maps to locate victims
Account holders with at least two Australian banks have become victims of a phishing scam in which malicious code reveals the physical location of affected IP addresses using Google Maps. Bank account holders in Germany and the U.S. have also been targeted.

Sirius to acquire XM in satellite radio merger
Satellite radio operators Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. and XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. announced on Monday that they plan to merge, pending a potentially difficult approval process.

Red Hat opens support and R&D center in Serbia
Red Hat Inc., in collaboration with IBM Corp., opened a support and research facility in Vrsac, Serbia, to serve customers in South Eastern Europe.

10G-bit Ethernet arrives for blades
Blade switch specialist Blade Network Technologies and 10 Gig Ethernet vendor NetXen have collaborated to deliver what they described as "the industry's first solution offering 10GE connectivity for blade servers."

Illuminator shines light on data protection
Start-up Illuminator has announced a data protection management reporting tool that embraces both snapshot and replication, as well as backup. Current DPM tools from vendors such as Wysdm and Bocada only include reporting from heterogeneous backup products.


STORAGE TIP

Putting privileged information on hold
By David Hill, Mesabi Group

As part of the process of putting data on litigation hold in anticipation of or because of an actual lawsuit against your company, you may put privileged information on hold. Privileged information is any of the following: trade secrets, financial information, or other information that has nothing to do with the lawsuit at hand and can be considered confidential to your company. Your problem is to prevent producing (i.e., delivering) privileged information to the requesting party (i.e., whoever is suing your company) or, if you do produce it, getting it back. Here's what you need to know.


Sign up for the Storage Strategies newsletter - Tips for effective storage management, technology updates and best practices.


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
SAP buys Pilot Software ... Microsoft releases SQL Server SP2 ... Satelite radio companies merge ... AMD releases faster Athlons ... PHP developers to get new IDE

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

Behold the glory of Cheddarvision!
All the decades of work that went into the transformation of an experimental network into the Internet we know today -- the network engineering, the development of faster and better computers, the creation of an Internet that could easily accommodate streaming video -- was it all building up to this Web site, on which you watch large wheels of cheese ripen and, once a day, be turned over? Most scientists say yes.

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Microsoft IM displays ads for malware ... Google Apps adds Docs and Spreadsheets

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Google Apps suite to add Docs & Spreadsheets
News: SanDisk to cut jobs as prices fall
News: Dodgy program advertised on MSN Messenger
News: Dell taps Motorola exec to lead consumer division
Storage Tip: Who's responsible for electronically stored information
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
Study: Active daters send more text messages


NEWS UPDATES

Google Apps suite to add Docs & Spreadsheets
Google Inc. is finalizing the integration of Docs & Spreadsheets with Google Apps for Your Domain, another step in its strategy to build a suite of hosted applications for organizations.

SanDisk to cut jobs as prices fall
Flash memory maker SanDisk Corp. is cutting 10 percent of its work force to remain profitable while being forced to make steep price cuts.

Dodgy program advertised on MSN Messenger
Banner advertisements for a security application said to report false or inflated threats appeared for at least a few days on Microsoft Corp.'s instant messaging (IM) program, prompting warnings from security analysts.

Dell taps Motorola exec to lead consumer division
Two days after naming an electronics manufacturing executive to a new corporate position, Dell Inc. Chief Executive Officer Michael Dell has continued a shakeup of his struggling company by hiring another outsider for his leadership team.

Wikipedia breaks into U.S. top 10 sites
Wikimedia Foundation Inc.'s popular Wikipedia online encyclopedia cracked the top ten list of most popular Web sites in the U.S. for the first time in January, according to comScore Networks Inc.

DirectRevenue to pay $1.5M in adware settlement
A New York company has agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle charges that it infected victims' computers with adware.


STORAGE TIP

Who's responsible for electronically stored information
By David Hill, Mesabi Group

Who has responsibility for electronically stored information (ESI)? When data protection focuses on its traditional role of business continuity, the majority of responsibility was on IT and not the business functions. However, with the rise of compliance demands and new demands for governance such as mandated by changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), the question of who has responsibility becomes less clear. Your problem is avoiding getting caught in the middle.


PODCAST

Daily IT News Audio Update
JVC expects to report no profit this year ... Microsoft IM displays ads for malware ... Red Hat opens support center in Serbia ... Google adds Docs and Spreadsheets to online suite


ITWHIRLED

Study: Active daters send more text messages
Fifty-nine percent of those actively dating and not in one single relationship said they had sent a text message to their partner, as opposed to 30 percent of those in monogamous relationships or married. Overall, 33 percent said they had communicated with a date or partner with text messaging, up from 27 percent in 2006.