IBM software revenues rise 14%, led by Cognos BI tools
Although IBM's PC servers fell flat last quarter, its software business soared, especially in "branded middleware." IBM's Cognos BI tools, WebSphere middleware, and Lotus collaboration software all displayed double-digit increases.
IBM's latest quarterly financial results, announced yesterday, showed revenue growth of 11% to $24.5 million for the first quarter of 2008, with gains across most categories, including software, services, vertical markets and most of IBM hardware systems, but weak spots in IBM's System x PC hardware and System i midrange servers.
Questions abound over Mac cloner Psystar's legitimacy
Following its announcement of a $399 Mac clone earlier this week, problems contacting the company, a sudden failure of its online store, and changes to its Web site have raised some eyebrows.
A simple search of Florida's registered business listings indicate that the company filed with the state on July 6 of last year. The registered address is 10645 SW 122nd Street in Miami, with the apparent contacts Rodolfo and Roberto Pedraza.
Take-Two investors not pushing for EA takeover
April 17, 2008 3:00 pm EDT - Despite Take-Two's attempts to rebuff Electronic Arts over its proposed takeover bid, EA is still taking the necessary procedural steps to get the merger approved. On Thursday, it disclosed the Federal Trade Commission had contacted it for more information its on its proposal.
The FTC has not come to a decision on whether a merger would be anti-competitive, although EA obviously asserts that it is not. It said that the press release was neither an offer to purchase, nor a solicitation for proxies to be considered at Take-Two's shareholder meeting to take place this evening.
Major label artists become paid bloggers?
LA-based social media site Buzznet, which provides audio, video, blogs and editorial content about the popular music scene, has just received an equity investment from major label Universal Music Group.
Terms and conditions of the deal were not disclosed, but some are estimating the value of the transaction to be as high as $25 million, with both companies equally sharing revenue drawn from UMG's content on the site.
Yahoo indicates it's pleased with its Google test
There may have been a little extra cash flow in Yahoo's direction from its beta test of Google's AdSense in its own search pages. But whether you take that as a sign of a deal in the works depends on how you read the carefully phrased speculation.
In the mergers and acquisitions game, the key players typically establish back channels in the major media in order to give them reliable outlets for bluster. Yahoo's choice of late is one of the best, The Wall Street Journal; and this morning, the word from that publication is that Yahoo's initial beta test of Google's AdSense for Search, announced just last week, was apparently successful.
Universal details its Blu-ray plans for the summer
AT&T stores will debut the first Microsoft Surface displays
Beginning today, five AT&T stores nationwide will be showing off Microsoft Surface, the innovative technology where a sensitive tabletop interacts with the user in ways he never considered.
Though early reports mentioned T-Mobile's participation in the program, it's AT&T that will be first letting customers play with Microsoft's touch interface system. Atlanta, San Antonio, San Francisco and two stores in New York City are scheduled to unveil surface displays today.
MySQL contributors remain confused over Sun's Enterprise plans
The business model for MySQL is that someone, at some time, must pay for something. In this case, Enterprise users are Sun's paying customers; and at a conference this week, free users wondered again whether the other group is entitled to exclusive new features.
The debate over what paying MySQL customers should be entitled to that non-paying ones should not, re-ignited after comments made during a simple roadmap presentation at a MySQL conference in Santa Clara ruminated in attendees' minds for awhile, and then pointed to an otherwise obvious point: The features new MySQL parent Sun Microsystems intends to include in the commercial MySQL Enterprise edition will only be tested by paying customers, under what is probably a more common commercial beta testing system.
Recent Firefox update caused crashes, possible hole
While there is no evidence of an exploit as of yet, Mozilla is taking a proactive measure to fix the issue before it could be.
A problem with stability which resulted in crashes and evidence of memory corruption was remedied in Firefox 2.0.0.13, however apparently the fix did not completely close any holes.
Corel's Office competitor gets BI, more PDF
Corel today rolled out WordPerfect X4, a suite designed to remain feature compatible with Microsoft Office while adding more interoperability with Adobe Acrobat. Added to the suite is a new spreadsheet in addition to Quattro Pro.
Among the new features of Corel's principal office suite, announced today, is a business intelligence (BI)-enabled spreadsheet called Visual Intelligence.
New 'census' probes how many businesses use open source
Firefox is the single most prevalent open source software package, and Ubuntu 7.10 leads the way among Linux distributions. Those are some of the very early findings of a new project called the Open Source Census, which went live today.
First unveiled in December, the Open Source Census is a collaborative undertaking to find out how much open software enterprises are using these days, and what kinds of organizations are using it. It's spearheaded by open source software vendor OpenLogic.
New Facebook widget accesses traffic cams near its users
TrafficLand, a site providing free access to a network of over 6,000 cameras, is now offering its live highway feeds as embeddable widgets. How much closer will this widget make users feel to their Facebook buddies?
TrafficLand.comWhether it's for travel or event-planning purposes or simply for the morbid possibility of witnessing a live car accident, TrafficLand's cameras, which are in place in over 60 worldwide markets, can now be placed in Facebook and other sites.
ISO defends the positive outcome of the OXML vote
The very fact that there may still be problems to iron out with what used to be Microsoft's XML-based file format suite, is the justification for the creation of a managing body to manage it as a standard, reads a fresh statement from the ISO.
A newly published FAQ from the International Organization for Standardization, which on the surface would appear to address questions regarding the standard now known as ISO/IEC 29500, actually goes all out and responds to concerns individuals may still have about how fairly its predecessor, Microsoft's Open XML format, may have been judged.
BitTorrent site sues for IFPI compensation over block
The Pirate Bay has asked a Dutch court to order music industry group IFPI for monetary compensation for a block placed on it by ISP Tele2..
If the site wins its case, any monies received would go towards supporting independent artists who use file sharing to promote their music. Currently the original case between IFPI and Tele2 is under appeal.
FCC's Martin resurrects 'a la carte' proposal, content providers respond
While Congress looks into the strange way the FCC chairman advanced his first, failed attempt to inject channel-by-channel programming into US law, cable programmers set up a proactive defense against a possible second attempt.
During his regular testimony before a US House Appropriations Subcommittee last Wednesday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin happened to be asked whether he would still favor a move toward an "a la carte" programming arrangement for cable systems. Chairman Martin responded, as first reported by Multichannel News, by saying he remains a vehement supporter of the idea.
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