Microsoft warns of 'critical' Windows security flaw

Microsoft has warned users of its Windows operating system of a ``critical'' security flaw in its software that could allow attackers to take complete control of a computer.

Reuters reports in The new York Times (13 December) that the world's largest software maker issued a patch to fix the problem as part of its monthly security bulletin. The problem mainly affects the Windows operating system and Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser.

Computer security experts and Microsoft urged users to download and install the patch available at www.microsoft.com/security.

According to Reuters, Microsoft said the vulnerability exists in its Internet Explorer Web browser, which an attacker could exploit to take over a PC by running software code after luring users to malicious Web pages.

Microsoft also issued one other security warning it rated at its second-highest level of ``important.''

The Reuters report says that a vulnerability defined as ``important'' is one where an outsider could break into a machine and gain access to confidential data but not replicate itself to other computers, Microsoft said.

Microsoft defines a flaw as ``critical'' when the vulnerability could allow a damaging internet worm to replicate without the user doing anything to the machine.

The ``critical'' flaw affects Internet Explorer which is a part of Windows while the ``important'' flaw is a vulnerability in the fundamental code that the higher level functions of Windows are all based on.

Reuters says that for more than three years, Microsoft has been working to improve the security and reliability of its software as more and more malicious software targets weaknesses in Windows and other Microsoft software.

More than 90 percent of the world's personal computers run on the Windows operating system.

{mospagebreaktitle=HP chief tells Wall St. efficiency drive still on}HP chief tells Wall St. efficiency drive still on

In his first appearance before Wall Street analysts, Mark V. Hurd, who took over eight months ago as the chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, delivered a clear message: The company's business strategy has not yet changed, but the management style and focus certainly have.

The New York Times reports (14 December) that Mr. Hurd said his priority would be execution and accountability. The drive for further improvements in efficiency will not let up, he said, although he portrayed the cutting of 14,500 workers in July as a "one-time action."

He also said that the company should be able to grow 4 percent to 6 percent annually during the next two years and that profit margins should continue to improve.

The newspaper says that, to date, Mr. Hurd's emphasis on the operational side and his no-frills management style have been applauded by investors as a steadying change from his ousted predecessor, Carleton S. Fiorina. And Mr. Hurd has been helped by two quarters of financial results that were slightly better than expected.

At the gathering in New York, Hewlett-Packard offered some nuggets of new information and some nuance, but not much concerning its plans to overcome its long-term strategic challenges, says the newspaper.
 
According to the NYT., HP has not achieved the promised benefits from its US$19 billion purchase of Compaq Computer, which was completed in 2002. Despite the improvement this year, it remains a company with one stellar business - the printing and imaging division - and a collection of far less successful ones.

Its personal computer business is still no match for Dell, while its technology services and corporate computer operations trail those of IBM., says the newspaper.

The newspaper reports that Mr. Hurd rarely mentioned his competitors by name. But he did say that with corporate data centres increasingly moving to server computers powered by lower-cost microprocessors made by Intel and AMD, a market where HP is a leader, that trend should help it more than IBM.

{mospagebreaktitle=Google to expand European base in Ireland}Google to expand European base in Ireland

Internet search provider Google has just announced it will expand the workforce at its European headquarters by 600, or 75 percent, over the next two to three years.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (13 December) that the company's Dublin office, established in 2003, supports its European, Middle Eastern and African activities and is Google's largest base outside the United States.

Google credited the high caliber of European university graduates available -- and Ireland's unusually low corporate tax rate -- with influencing its decision.

AP reports that a recent Google filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission said the company had reduced its tax rate from about 39 percent in 2004 to 31 percent through the first nine months of 2005 thanks primarily to its ability to credit profits to its new Irish operations. Ireland's corporate tax rate is 12.5 percent, compared to 35 percent in the United States.

John Herlihy, Google's European director of online sales and operation, said Google had signed a lease to acquire another 100,000 square feet (9,300 square metres) of office space beside its existing Dublin building.

AP says that Ireland's minister for enterprise, trade and employment, Micheal Martin, declined to specify how much financial aid was being provided by the Investment and Development Agency, which is responsible for wooing multinational companies to Ireland.

Hundreds of high-tech businesses from North America and continental Europe have established operations in Ireland over the past decade of the nation's Europe-leading economic growth. Unemployment now stands at an EU-low 4.3 percent, and many of Google's workers are recruited from other European countries.

The AP report says that Google has been on a hiring tear as management continues to build upon the success of its search engine, which has helped establish one of the world's best-known brands.

The company has nearly doubled its work force in the past year to about 5,000 employees. Google's profits are rising even faster. Through the first nine months of this year, Google earned US$1.1 billion -- more than fivefold improvement from the same juncture last year, reports AP in the NYT.

{mospagebreaktitle=Vodafone to buy Turkish phone company}Vodafone to buy Turkish phone company

Vodafone agreed Tuesday to buy the Turkish mobile operator Telsim for US$4.55 billion, making an expensive bet that it can fix the company and that Turkey's youthful population will rapidly embrace the use of cellphones.

The New York Times reports (14 December) that Telsim, Turkey's second-largest mobile operator, with nine million customers, has a troubled history but potential for growth. Telsim defaulted on billions of dollars in loans from Motorola and Nokia in 2001, and the Turkish government seized the company from the Uzan family in 2004.

As part of a previously agreed settlement, Nokia will receive US$341 million from the Telsim sale, and Motorola US$410 million.

According to the newspaper, Telsim was expected to fetch about US$3 billion when it first went on the block, but more than a dozen bidders, including the fast-expanding Orascom Telecom Holdings of Egypt, helped drive up the price. Now that Vodafone has won the deal, it will need to put more capital into Telsim to make it profitable.

Telsim has been "undermanaged" and "suffered from underinvestment" in its network and customers, Vodafone said in a statement about the deal, adding that an additional US$1 billion in short-term investment will be needed. Turkey's top cellphone company, Turkcell, has almost three times the customers of Telsim.

The NYT says that Vodafone's chief executive, Arun Sarin, is betting that Vodafone has the management expertise to turn around Telsim and capitalise on cellphone growth in Turkey, at a time when Vodafone is struggling to fix its own operations in Japan.

{mospagebreaktitle=Intel touts power of new laptop chip}Intel touts power of new laptop chip

Intel has said its next-generation platform for laptop computers will use 25 percent less power while boosting performance, helping it stay on top of the fast-growing market.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (13 December) that the overhaul of Intel's Centrino technology, code-named ''Napa,'' comes as the world's largest chipmaker is getting a boost from laptop sales, which are growing faster than the overall computer market.

At the heart of Napa is Intel's new Yonah microprocessor, which will be its first mobile chip to have two cores and will be built with the latest technology that etches circuitry more than 100 times thinner than a human hair.

According to Reuters, that means the Napa system -- covering the Yonah processor, its attendant chipset and a new wireless chip -- will use 28 percent less power while performing 68 percent better than its predecessor, Keith Kressin, Intel's marketing chief for mobile platforms, told reporters.

The twin cores mean users can perform several tasks at the same time. For instance, one core could update a spreadsheet while the other displays a graphics-heavy presentation without slowing down.

Meanwhile, lower power usage is becoming more important as users demand longer battery life and ever-slimmer laptops, which pose an engineering challenge since smaller machines are less able to dissipate the processor's heat.

Reuters also reports that, in its third quarter, Intel's sales of laptop processors were an estimated US$2.3 billion, about a quarter of its total revenue of US$10 billion, according to Dean McCarron, head of market research firm Mercury Research.

Revenues from laptop chips are a growing chunk of Intel's business, accounting for a third of total processor sales in the third quarter, up from less than 27 percent a year earlier, McCarron said.

The Reuters report also says that Napa comes as Intel's chief rival, Advanced Micro Devices, makes inroads in laptop computers with its line of Turion chips and is looking to one-up Intel next year by being the first to launch a 64-bit mobile processor.

A 64-bit processor is able to process chunks of data twice as large as a standard 32-bit chip. That will be important when Microsoft launches the next version of its Windows operating system, which will be optimised for 64-bit.

{mospagebreaktitle=MTV to start music service With Microsoft}MTV to start music service With Microsoft

MTV Networks has said that it had formed a partnership with Microsoft to develop an online music service that will begin operating early next year.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (14 December) that the service, to be called Urge, will be integrated into the next version of Windows Media Player and will offer more than two million songs for sale individually or as part of a subscription package.

The service will also offer music over online radio.

AP reports that Microsoft will build the technology behind Urge, which MTV, a unit of Viacom, will own and operate.

MTV Networks declined to give details on Urge's prices. Similar services typically charge 99 cents for an individual track and US$5 to US$15 a month or more for a subscription, says AP.

{mospagebreaktitle=Xbox 360 sold out on some major web sites}Xbox 360 sold out on some major web sites

Microsoft's new Xbox 360 video game console remained sold out at some major Web retailers on Tuesday and one analyst said he expected holiday shipments at the lower end of his previous forecast.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (13 December) that Amazon.com showed the Xbox 360 as unavailable in all configurations, except for a single machine on offer by a partner for US$1,299.99. The premium Xbox package debuted in November in the United States for US$400.

In the US., retailer Best Buy on its Web site said it would not accept backorders ``because the Xbox 360 gaming console is available only in extremely limited quantities nationwide.''

Online auction site eBay showed a number of premium Xboxes priced at around  US$600 each or more in late bidding.

Reuters reports that a Microsoft spokeswoman said the company is firmly on track to hit its 90-day target, but declined to give a forecast for sales through the December holidays.

{mospagebreaktitle=DirecTV fined for sales calls}DirecTV fined for sales calls

In the US., DirecTV will pay US$5.34 million to settle charges that its telemarketers called households listed on the national do-not-call registry to pitch satellite TV programming, Federal Trade Commission officials said Tuesday.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (14 December} that the proposed settlement, if approved by a federal judge in Los Angeles, would be the commission's largest civil penalty in a consumer protection case. In all 17 previously settled no-call cases, the agency assessed only US$808,500 in penalties.

The DirecTV complaint, filed by the Justice Department at the agency's request, named the company and five telemarketing firms it hired, as well as six principals of the firms.

AP says that the agency chairwoman, Deborah Platt Majoras, said that "this multimillion-dollar penalty drives home a simple point: Sellers are on the hook for calls placed on their behalf."

DirecTV issued a statement saying it had ended its relationship with the telemarketing firms that made inappropriate calls and had put in place procedures to ensure there was no repeat of the violations. The proposed settlement also requires DirecTV to operate a desk to handle complaints stemming from its marketing practices.