News

When bean counters don’t know what IT does

Analysis: Why Hewlett-Packard wants EDS

Analysts aren't certain if the proposed merger will really help HP and EDS, even if they can see logic to some aspects of it

Hyper-V’s whole new failure vector

Study: U.S. corporate software spending slowing

Study of corporate IT spending shows a number of major software categories, such as ERP and CRM applications, showed weakness moving forward

Microsoft eyes 40 percent of smartphone market by 2012

Microsoft has high ambitions for Windows Mobile but will face stiff competition from the iPhone, BlackBerry, and newcomer Android

Africa on the move, but challenges remain

Africa has made gains in mobile phone and broadband usage, but regulatory and technical challenges remain

Nokia extends its phone maps to the Web

Nokia's navigation system lets people save map locations and routes to the Web and then synchronize them with their phones

Intel’s Chengdu operations remain offline after quake

Companies in China's Chengdu region kept their manufacturing plants closed pending a full assessment of the earthquake's impact

Microsoft faces another interoperability complaint in Europe

Complaint alleges that Microsoft impedes the exchange of files between Office 2007 and competitors' products, and that its licensing practices in schools are anticompetitive

AMD shuffles executives

AMD creates a Central Engineering Organization to oversee the company's product roadmap

Update: HP in talks to buy EDS for up to $13 billion

Deal would strengthen HP's competitive position against IBM, but still would leave it about $10 billion short of IBM's global services revenue

SOA Software buys LogicLibrary

Combination links governance automation, repository technologies

Sun to clarify JavaFX open-source plan later this year

Sun had promised that JavaFX would be open source, but a FAQ on Sun's site indicates that only parts of the RIA development family will be open source

Microsoft readies service packs for dev tools

Improvements to Visual Studio 2008 include database and Office 2007 Ribbon support

Cisco’s TelePresence gets personal

The high-definition virtual meeting system will be available at a less expensive entry price for midsized businesses later this year

Developers’ role shifting from apps to platforms

Untrained workers are moving into app dev space, pushing career developers into the platform space, a Sun engineer noted at JavaOne

Phishers scamming IRS rebates

A new scheme sends a fraudulent IRS that directs users to a Web site that asks for their bank account information in order to direct deposit their stimulus checks

Don’t encourage hands-free use of cell phones

iPhone out of stock ‘company wide,’ say Apple sales reps

Outage of iPhones has fueled rumors that the next-generation 3G model will be released shortly

Update: Google steps into data portability dance with Friend Connect

Google launches a preview version of Friend Connect, a service designed to let Web publishers add social networking features to their sites

Daily News beat for May 12, 2008

Microsoft faults OEMs for some XP SP3 endless reboots

Microsoft document claims the fault for endless reboots lies in the Windows XP image originally installed on the PC by the computer manufacturer

Ex-Orange CEO pushes developing world broadband

Startup Augere, focused on increasing global wireless broadband Internet access, sees a need for desktop — not laptop — computers in developing countries

Google’s high-flying cloud for Python code

Are browers living on borrowed time?

Vertica moves BI database to Amazon’s EC2 cloud

Vertica's hosted move puts it among the front-runners in the race to bring data warehousing into cloud computing

MSI’s upcoming Wind laptop priced from $560

Micro-Star International's low-cost laptop is just one of an expected flood of low-cost systems based on Intel's upcoming Atom processor

You don’t know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz

Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master

FBI worried as DoD sold counterfeit Cisco gear

By tampering with networking equipment, spies could open up a back door to sensitive military systems

Powerset unveils test version of Google-killer

Start-up's search engine is designed to understand the meaning of Web pages, offering the promise of a smarter, more efficient search experience

AMD refreshes low-power Quad-Core Opterons lineup

Low-power Quad-Core Opteron chips have an average power consumption of 55 watts

Rich Web development: Is the browser doomed?

The Web is evolving into a full-fledged app-delivery platform, calling into question the browser's ability to fulfill the needs of today's rich Internet apps

Degrees of Excellence

OS X Security: Diary of an OS X Leopard Server root exploit

You don’t know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz

Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master

Spinning off fabs would be risky for AMD, analysts say

AMD has expressed a desire to control chip-manufacturing costs, which has created speculation that the company might sell off its chip fabrication plants

Hackers find a new place to hide rootkits

A pair of security researchers has developed a new kind of rootkit, called an SSM, that hides in an obscure part of the processor that is invisible to antivirus apps

Top 10: Microsoft-Yahoo, XP SP3 woes, Sprint-Clearwire WiMax deal

This week's roundup of the top tech stories of the week include the demise of the Microsoft-Yahoo deal, Sun's JavaOne announcements, the Intel-OLPC beef, and more

Easing network congestion caused by virtual servers

Better I/O capability is an important and often overlooked aspect of getting the most out of server virtualization

Sun exec ponders OpenSolaris, Linux

In an interview, Ian Murdock, formerly with the Linux Foundation and now with Sun, discusses the company's open-source efforts and how to monetize them

Microsoft to appeal $1.3 billion EU fine

Microsoft files an application with the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg to annul the European Commission antitrust fine

The sweetest wireless LAN system

Daily News beat for May 9, 2008

Tech company CEO compensation raises ire

CEOs in high-tech came away with multimillion dollar compensation packages, pumped up by huge stock and option awards — even at poorly performing companies

Microsoft talks up using printers to make drugs

Instead of ink, people might someday put the ingredients of different medications into printer cartridges as part of a do-it-yourself model of health care, said Craig Mundie

Google’s Street View snaps of Paris may result in lawsuits

France's strict privacy laws could put the brakes on Google's deployment of the Street View service

XP SP3 cripples some PCs with endless reboots

Windows blogger has tentatively identified XP SP3's endless reboot problem as involving only machines using processors from AMD

InfoWorld News Quiz: You don’t know tech

NEC to expand rugged laptop sales

ShieldPro laptops set to battle more established competitors in the international market

One man’s quest to fix the Internet