Microsoft reveals plan to take business from IBM

Microsoft has begun a US$500 million marketing campaign to stir enthusiasm among corporate customers for its new products and grab business from IBM., its biggest rival in the business technology market.

The New York Times reports (17 March) that Microsoft's marketing drive and its strategic assault on IBM comes as it prepares to roll out a series of new products in the second half of this year, led by Windows Vista and Office 2007. The company is positioning the new desktop offerings as a kind of dashboard for managing businesses, especially when linked to other new Microsoft programs for worker communications and collaboration, searching company databases, business intelligence and customer relationship management, according to the newspaper.

The newspaper reports that the new products, taken together, can help companies reduce costs, increase worker productivity and hasten the pace of innovation, Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, told a gathering of corporate customers and industry analysts in New York.

According to the NYT., the networked style of work is a departure from the way most office workers have used Microsoft desktop software in the past '” as personal productivity programs for reports, spreadsheets and presentations, which are then passed around as e-mail attachments.

The Microsoft approach, Mr. Ballmer said, is to offer new software tools for what he called "the next wave of improvement in business operations."

The newspaper reports that, at the conference, Microsoft gave a series of demonstrations of the capabilities of its new products. These included phoning in for e-mail and having messages read back using voice recognition and translation technology, searching corporate databases, creating virtual workspaces that automatically sync documents and calendars for team members, and analyzing worldwide sales patterns from an Excel spreadsheet.

{mospagebreaktitle=Google ordered to submit data for child pornography study}Google ordered to submit data for child pornography study

As expected, in the US., a federal judge ruled on Friday that Google, the internet search engine, must turn over some search data including 50,000 web addresses to the government for a study of child pornography online.

The New York Times reports (18 March), however, that the judge, James Ware of the Federal District Court for Northern California, denied a government request that Google be ordered to hand over keywords that customers use to search its database.

In a 21-page ruling that has implications for the privacy of internet users, Judge Ware said privacy considerations led him to deny part of the Justice Department's request.

The newspaper reports that the dispute with Google comes as the government has been moving aggressively on several fronts to obtain data on internet activity to achieve its law enforcement goals, from domestic security to the prosecution of online crime.

The United States attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, had subpoenaed Google to turn over data the government wanted from the company as part of the Bush administration's attempt to defend the effectiveness of a 1996 online child pornography law.

The NYT reports that, during a court hearing last Tuesday the government reduced the request for data from Google searches to just 50,000 web addresses and roughly 5,000 search terms from the millions or potentially billions of addresses it had initially sought.

{mospagebreaktitle=Lenovo to eliminate 1,000 jobs}Lenovo to eliminate 1,000 jobs

The Lenovo Group, the Chinese computer company that purchased the personal computer business of IBM., has said that it would cut about 1,000 jobs, or 5 percent of its work force, to reduce costs.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (17 March) that Lenovo said the layoffs were part of a 6-to-12-month revamping intended to save US$250 million a year, after its US$1.25 billion purchase from IBM in May 2005.

The company is stepping up competition with Dell and Hewlett-Packard, the market leaders, and in December it hired a senior vice president from Dell, William J. Amelio, as chief executive to revamp operations.

Reuters reports that Lenovo said in a statement that the job cuts would be spread among staffs in North America, Europe and Asia. It did not give details, and executives could not be reached for comment.

{mospagebreaktitle=Hackers get Windows XP on Apple computers}Hackers get Windows XP on Apple computers

As expected, hackers have found a way to run Microsoft's Windows XP operating system on new Macintosh computers, winning an ad hoc contest and a US$13,854 cash prize to boot.

The Associated Press reports in The New York Times (17 March) that some users of Apple Computer's Macs have clamored for such a solution since Apple said it would be switching its computers to Intel's chips, putting the feat within reach.

Their reasons vary, says AP.,but a common denominator is that they would like to run Windows-based programs on their Macs.

The AP reports that late Thursday, the prize went to two San Francisco Bay Area software developers, Jesus Lopez, 33, of Alameda, and Eric Wasserman, 41, of Berkeley.

Lopez said he did most of the technical work -- spending late nights and weekends on the challenge -- while Wasserman, a devoted Mac user, introduced him to the contest in February and supported him in the process.

According to the AP., Colin Nederkoorn, a shipping broker in Houston, says he just wants to streamline his work: instead of using his Apple PowerBook computer for some programs and a Windows PC for other tasks, he'd like to just use one machine.

That's why Nederkoorn, 23, started a contest back in January to goad programmers, soliciting donations for a cash prize for anyone who came up with a hack, says AP.

Nederkoorn said the so-called ''Windows on Mac'' project is open-sourced, meaning anyone can build on it.

According to AP.,the hack, which is downloadable from the web site, still takes some tedious labor and technical know-how, but Nederkoorn predicts an easier version for mainstream computer users might be available within a year.

{mospagebreaktitle=AMD falls in world chip maker rankings}AMD falls in world chip maker rankings

The Register reports (17 March) on the latest survey of the semiconductor market and says that Intel remains way ahead in real semiconductor market terms.

The publication reports that, according to iSuppli, Intel sold US$35.466 billion worth of chips in 2005, up 13 per cent on 2004's total, US$31.396billion.

AMD, by contrast, sold fewer semiconductors last year than the year before: its 2005 sales totalled US$3.917billion, down 23.3 per cent on the previous year's US$5.108billion - the worst performance of a world top 20 chip maker.
Of course, says The Register,these figures exclude the spun-off Spansion memory business. Adding in the Spansion results, AMD would have been in eighth place with close to US$6.0bn in revenue.

The market as a whole grew 3.6 per cent.

The Register reports that Hynix showed the year's best growth, with a 20.7 per cent jump in sales from US$4.606billion in 2004 to US$5.560billion in 2005. Intel's 13 per cent gain was next, followed by nineteenth placed Rohm, which saw sales rise 11.5 per cent year on year.

Intel quit 2005 with 15 per cent of the world semiconductor market - AMD's share was 1.7 per cent.

{mospagebreaktitle=France may force iPods to play other than iTunes}France may force iPods to play other than iTunes

The New York Times reports that, in the digital music market, France is singing a different tune.

According to a report in the newspaper(17 March), a bill under debate in the French Parliament may require iPods to be able to play music purchased from competing internet services, not just Apple Computer's own iTunes Music Store, forcing changes in the business model that gave rise to the revolution in legal digital music downloads.

The newspaper reports that the outcome of the debate, which began as an update to French copyright law, is far from clear. But taken to one logical conclusion, amendments to the copyright bill could lead Apple, the market leader, to leave the French music business, said Jonathan Arber, a research analyst in London at the technology consultancy Ovum.

Debate lasted late into Thursday night; a vote in the National Assembly is set for next week. The bill, which also proposes to turn individual digital piracy into a violation no more serious than a parking ticket, would go next to the Senate, where it is unlikely to be altered significantly, political analysts say.

The NYT reports that, some critics say the plan is technically unworkable, unfairly undermines Apple and opens the door to more piracy by crippling technology that protects copyrights. Supporters see France setting a long-overdue legal precedent that opens Apple's closed iPod-iTunes digital music system to competition.

{mospagebreaktitle=Europe start-ups suffer from risk fear: Skype CEO}Europe start-ups suffer from risk fear: Skype CEO

Skype survived its early tests as a European start-up to become a world leader in internet telephony but the region's aversion to risk means many other fledging companies are doomed, Skype's founder said.

Reuters reports in The New York Times (17 March) that, ahead of meeting this week of European Union leaders to discuss long-delayed reforms to make Europe more competitive, Niklas Zennstroem told business and EU officials that Europe still has the wrong culture when it comes to entrepreneurship.

According to Reuters, Skype became one of the hottest takeover stories of last year when it was snapped up by the internet auctioneer eBay for US$4 billion, less than three years since the launch of its software enabling free phone calls over the internet.

Reuters comments that Zennstroem, a 40-year-old Swede, and co-founder Janus Friis of Denmark are a rare success story in a continent that lags behind the United States in research spending and offers little help to young innovators.

The report says that EU policymakers have long highlighted the need to accelerate research and innovation and support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to make the bloc more competitive against the United States and Asia.

Technology start-up companies still face obstacles, chief among them scarce funding, Zennstroem said.

``We went round Europe trying to raise money for one year to close our first round. If we were a Silicon Valley company, it probably would have taken us one month,'' he said, referring to the area in California that is home to many high-tech start-ups, reports Reuters

Then, as the company began to be a success -- by last count Skype had 68 million users worldwide -- and was looking for a buyer, ``not a single European company was interested in even talking to us,'' Zennstroem said, according to the Reuters report.

{mospagebreaktitle=Google wins Usenet copyright case}Google wins Usenet copyright case

Google has won a legal action brought over a Usenet posting that the search giant archived and partially displayed in search results. Writer Gordon Roy Parker had claimed that this breached his copyright in the posting, a chapter of an e-book.

The Register reports (17 March) that Parker, who represented himself in the suit, publishes online under the name 'Snodgrass Publishing Group'. One of his publications was an e-book entitled '29 Reasons Not To Be A Nice Guy' and at some time he posted Reason 6 from this book onto a Usenet forum, the worldwide network of discussion groups.

In August 2004 he filed a lawsuit, alleging that when Google robots had automatically scanned and archived the posting in a cache, the search engine had breached his copyright in the material. Google had also directly infringed his copyright by including excerpts of the text in search results, he said.

Judge R Barclay Surrick of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania did not agree.

'It is clear that Google's automatic archiving of Usenet postings and excerpting of websites in its results to users' search queries do not include the necessary volitional element to constitute direct copyright infringement,' he wrote.

The Register reports that, nor did he accept that the automatic caching of material amounted to infringement, following a January ruling by the Navada District Court on this very point.

{mospagebreaktitle=FCC backs time Limit on US video license action}FCC backs time Limit on US video license action

In the US., Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin on Friday endorsed limiting the time authorities have to consider requests by new companies to offer subscription television service.

Reuters reports in The New York Times that the top two telephone companies, AT&T and Verizon Communications, are deploying new video services but have complained that getting the necessary approvals from local authorities takes too long.

AT&T and Verizon have said it would take years for them to obtain the necessary licenses, known as franchises, from thousands of local cities and towns, so they are pressing the FCC and Congress to simplify that process.

Reuters says that local authorities have expressed concerns that allowing broader licenses could impair their abilities to manage rights-of-ways and city streets that are often torn up when companies deploy new networks.

The FCC in November began looking into whether cities were blocking or delaying companies that applied for franchises and if the agency should take action.

{mospagebreaktitle=Asian police target movie downloaders}Asian police target movie downloaders

South Korean police have begun to target people who download content from P2P networks not only those who make such material available. According to local reports, Seoul Jongo law enforcement officers have questioned 57 people after monitoring download activity on at least one P2P service earlier this month.

The Register reports (17 March) that police alleged they had all been found to have illegally downloaded copies of the movie Lord of War, released last year. The individuals were identified after officers examined log-in records seized from the unnamed local P2P service. Some 25 other individuals were also discovered to have downloaded the film. Their identities are currently being traced, police said.

According to The Register, however, since many of the accused are teenagers, prosecutors may choose not bring criminal charges against them. Some of them have already reached settlements with Media Film International (MFI), which has the rights to the film in South Korea and had complained about illegal downloads.