Oracle gains edge over SAP in Retek battle

Oracle has gained an edge in its bidding contest with SAP to acquire retailing software firm Retek, accortding to analysts,after the company announced that its US$655 million bid to buy Retek received a preliminary nod of approval from US antitrust authorities.

The Mercury News reports (19 Mar.) that Germany-based SAP, Oracle's rival to buy the Minneapolis company with an offer of about US$640 million, received a similar OK earlier.

The paper reports that at this point, analysts said, Oracle has the advantage simply because it is offering a higher price -- US$11.25 a share in cash vs. SAP's US$11 a share, also a cash offer.

The New York Times also reports on the barttl;e for Retek, observing that its part of a larger war between the two software giants, which want to dominate the business software market.

The paper says that SAP, of Walldorf, Germany, is the world's biggest provider of software applications for managing business functions such as human resources, finance and inventory.

And, says the NYT.,Oracle is the world's largest seller of corporate databases and wants to expand its business in applications -- the software that runs atop the database. That ambition prompted Oracle to pursue a lengthy fight to buy rival PeopleSoft of Pleasanton, a US$10.6 billion hostile deal completed in January and that Oracle is still digesting, the paper adds.

The NYT says that both SAP and Oracle, which each had made one previous bid for Retek, raised their offers Thursday. SAP indicated that its US$11-a-share bid is its final offer, but analysts believe SAP could counter Oracle's offer of US$11.25 a share next week.

In a statement, Oracle said, "we have received word from the US regulatory authorities that the Oracle acquisition of Retek has received early termination, clearing the way for Oracle to move forward with the transaction."

Analysts said they believe SAP will sweeten its offer next week, reports the NYT., adding that part of Oracle's strategy may be to force SAP to pay more so that the Germany company will have less money for additional acquisitions.

Microsoft not doing enough on antitrust says EU

The European Union threatened Microsoft last Friday with new fines if the software company doesn't make it easier and cheaper for competitors to see the blueprints of its server software.

The Mercury News reports (18 Mar.) that after hearing from Microsoft's rivals, the EU's antitrust office determined that the system created by Microsoft for granting competitors access to Windows server source code was unsatisfactory.

"Based on the market tests, it doesn't seem to be working at all," said a spokesman for the EU's antitrust office.

EU antitrust regulators fined Microsoft a record 497 million euros (US$665 million) when they ruled a year ago that Microsoft abusively wielded its Windows software monopoly to lock competitors out of the market, says The Mercury News.

The paper says they ordered, among other things, that Microsoft share Windows server code with rivals so their products can better communicate on networks with machines that run Windows operating systems.

Microsoft decided it would provide the information through licenses, which the European Commission felt were too expensive. An EU spokesman said competitors were also having difficulty getting access to the information required to decide whether to buy a license, with Microsoft forcing everyone to buy a full license package.

Furthermore, said the EU spokesman, vendors providing open-source products such as Linux were excluded from the process.

The paper says, to date, companies have inquired about licenses but none have actually taken one, asccording to a Microsoft spokesman, adding that the EU has not told Microsoft it can't charge for the licenses. Microsoft had proposed charging a royalty fee of between US$100 and S$600 per server.

The EU said it could impose prohibitive fines of up to 5 percent of the company's daily global sales if it refuses to better cooperate.

For its fiscal year ending 30 June, Microsoft has said it expects revenue of about US$40 billion.

The year-old EU ruling also forces the company to offer an alternative Windows version for sale without its Windows Media Player software. Friday's criticism did not address that issue, The Mercury News says.

Microsoft said that version has reached manufacturers but will not be shipped to computer shops until it resolves a dispute with the EU over the product's name. The EU rejected Microsoft's first choice: "Windows XP Reduced Media Edition," deciding that it would discourage sales.

The EU's ruling against Microsoft went much further than the company's 2002 settlement of similar charges with the US Justice Department, which required only that users be allowed to hide Media Player and set another as the default, The Mercury news adds.

US telco consolidation affecting consumers

To gauge the potential consumer impact of the consolidation sweeping the telephone industry, look no further than the silver-toned plastic phone gathering dust on the desk in Justin Martikovic's studio apartment, says The Mercury news in a 19 March report.

Mr. Martikovic, 30, a junior architect who relies on a cellphone for his normal calling, says he never uses the desk phone - but he pays US$360 a year to keep it hooked up, says the paper.

"I have to pay for a service I'm never using," he said, and The Mercury says
he has no choice. His telephone company, SBC Communications, will not sell him high-speed internet access unless he buys the phone service, too. That puts him in the same bind as many people around the country (US) who want high-speed, or broadband, internet access but no longer need a conventional telephone. Right now, their phone companies tend to have a "take it or leave it" attitude.

The paper says consumers "are not forced to go with SBC," said Michael Coe, a company spokesman. "If they just want a broadband connection, I'd recommend they look around for people who can provide just a broadband connection."

The Mercury News says America's other two largest phone companies, Verizon Communications and BellSouth, have similar policies: broadband service is available only as a bundle with phone service.

That means, says the paper,even as high-speed internet service has become one of the most quickly adopted technologies of the computer era, there are few options for the tens of millions of Americans trying to upgrade their dial-up connections.

According to the paper, some lawmakers and consumer advocates say the issue should be on the agenda as the government considers the market impact of two proposed big telecommunications deals: SBC's planned US$16 billion acquisition of AT&T, and Verizon's US$6.75 billion offer for MCI, which is being challenged by a rival offer from Qwest Communications.

For many consumers, The Mercry News says, the main alternative to broadband from the phone company is the local cable company. But cable broadband prices tend to be higher - as much as US$60 a month for access, compared typically with US$40 or less for phone company broadband. And the cable companies prefer to sell the service as a package with television that can easily exceed US$100 a month.

That is assuming cable is even available, which it is not in Mr. Martikovic's apartment in San Francisco - or in 10 percent of the US's households, for that matter, The Mercury News adds.

The paper says that Mr. Martikovic says that he has resigned himself to paying SBC US$30 a month for a phone bill and US$30 for internet, inaddition to US$100 for a mobile phone from Sprint. "I bet half of my friends are in this exact same situation,".

The Mercury News saysw that the question of broadband's availability is almost certain to become part of the policy debate as the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission rule on an eventual acquisition of MCI and whether SBC can buy AT&T. And two weeks ago, the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing to discuss the consolidating market power of the phone companies.

The paper says that despite the market bottlenecks, broadband is increasingly in demand for its ability to let users zip e-mail back and forth with big photo or music files attached; or to play online games; or to quickly open web pages loaded with video and audio extras. Of America's 74.5 million internet households, an estimated 39 percent now have broadband - up from 36 percent of Internet households at the end of 2003.

So popular is the servicein the US., and so few the alternatives for most consumers, that the three biggest regional Bell companies - SBC, Verizon and BellSouth - have been able to expand their share of the Internet broadband market even while declining to sell the service separately.

The Mercury News says the cable companies are still in the lead, having moved more nimbly than the phone companies in the early days of broadband back in 2000. But the phone industry's broadband share is now 37 percent, up from 32.7 percent at the end of 2003, and it continues to grow.

Another threat to the phone company revenues, says The Mercury News, will be internet-based phone service in which calls are transmitted over high-speed internet lines, as digital packets, much the way e-mail is transmitted. Once customers have broadband internet access, they are not limited to their local Bell company to be the provider of internet phone service.

A relatively new internet phone company, Vonage, now has 550,000 customers who use its services over phone or cable broadband access lines, says The Mercury News.

Growth of wireless internet opens path for thieves

The spread of the wireless data technology known as Wi-Fi has reshaped the way millions of Americans go online, letting them tap into high-speed internet connections effortlessly at home and in many public places.

But, reports The Mercury News (19 Mar.) every convenience has its cost, with Federal and state law enforcement officials saying sophisticated criminals have begun to use the unsecured Wi-Fi networks of unsuspecting consumers and businesses to help cover their tracks in cyberspace.

The paper says that in the wired world, it was often difficult for lawbreakers to make themselves untraceable on the internet. In the wireless world, with scores of open Wi-Fi networks in some neighborhoods, it could hardly be easier.

The Mercury news says law enforcement officials warn that such connections are being commandeered for child pornography, fraud, death threats and identity and credit card theft.

In 2003, the US Secret Service office began an investigation that infiltrated the web sites and computer networks of suspected professional data thieves. Since October, more than 30 people around the world have been arrested in connection with the operation and accused of trafficking in hundreds of thousands of stolen credit card numbers online.

Of those suspects, the paper reports, half regularly used the open Wi-Fi connections of unsuspecting neighbors. Four suspects, in Canada, California and Florida, were logged in to neighbors' Wi-Fi networks at the moment law enforcement agents, having tracked them by other means, entered their homes and arrested them, Secret Service agents involved in the case said.

The Mercury News says that more than 10 million homes in the United States now have a Wi-Fi base station providing a wireless internet connection, according to ABI, a technology research firm. There were essentially none as recently as 2000, the firm said. Those base stations, or routers, allow several computers to share a high-speed internet connection and let users maintain that connection as they move about with laptops or other mobile devices. The routers are also used to connect computers with printers and other devices.

According to the paper, experts say most of those households never turn on any of the features, available in almost all Wi-Fi routers, that change the system's default settings, conceal the connection from others and encrypt the data sent over it. Failure to secure the network in those ways can allow anyone with a Wi-Fi-enabled computer within about 200 feet to tap into the base station's internet connection, typically a digital subscriber line or a cable modem.

The Mercury News says that when criminals operate online through a Wi-Fi network, law enforcement agents can track their activity to the numeric Internet Protocol address corresponding to that connection. But from there the trail may go cold, in the case of a public network, or lead to an innocent owner of a wireless home network.

Tech spending growth staying low: study

Companies remain cautious about spending on technology, and only marginal increases are expected for the rest of 2005, a US survey of technology decision makers reports.

The New York Times reports (18 Mar.) that the study, by Wall Street investment firm Goldman Sachs, said spending activity has been stable but "uninspiring," with spenders seemingly satisfied to stay at low levels, the report said.

"We continue to expect 2005 information technology spending to end up in the 4 percent to 5 percent range. This is slightly higher than last year, but still not reflective of a fully healthy tech spending environment," Goldman said, reports The NYT.

Thge paper says that for the report, Goldman surveyed some 100 information technology managers with decision-making power at Fortune 1000 companies.

Security software and hardware, high-end storage systems, web server software and laptop computers are expected to draw higher interest over the next 12 months, they said, while managers placed a lower priority on network management software and networking switches and routers.

According to the paper the report said,larger "franchise names" were seen as the best investment bets during the year, including: Cisco Systems, Dell, EMC , IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and Symantec.Certain other stocks will benefit from near-term spending trends, the report said, such as Cognos, Cognizant, Research In Motion and Mercury Interactive

Ex-WorldCom directors agree to $20.25 million settlement

Eleven former board members of WorldCom have agreed to pay US$20.25 million of their own money to settle a lawsuit by former investors in the company, New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi said Friday.

The Mercury News reports (18 Mart.) that a federal judge must still approve the deal at a hearing expected next week.

The comptroller, who acts as the sole trustee of the New York State Common Retirement Fund, is the lead plaintiff in lawsuits investors have filed against WorldCom, its board members and its former banks.

The paper says that WorldCom collapsed in an US$11 billion accounting fraud in 2002. Former CEO Bernard Ebbers faces up to life in prison after he was convicted Tuesday of orchestrating the fraud.
 

Most parents limit teen web use: study

A US study has found that slightly more than half of parents with online teens -- 54 percent -- have filtering software installed on home computers, up from 41 percent in 2000.

The New York Times/Reuters report (18 Mar.) that the Pew Internet and American Life Project study also found that 13 percent of American teens do not use the internet at all. However, most parents of teenagers who do go online say they set time limits on the kids' internet activity, according to the study. They also try to monitor it, in part by placing computers in common areas.

The NYT says the study showed that parents who are themselves online are more likely to set rules about when or for how long their kids can log on at home. Overall, nearly two-thirds of parents with online teenagers say they have such rules.

Nearly three-fifths keep the computer in an open area, like the living room.

The NYT says that mothers are more likely than fathers to install filters, the survey found, and younger parents and those who go online at least once a day are also more likely to use employ filters to try to prevent their children from viewing pornography and other material they deem objectionable.

In addition, 62 percent of parents of online teens say they check the sites their children visit, though only a third of teens who use the internet at home believe their parents do so. And any reasonably tech-savvy teen knows how to erase their online footsteps, the paper reports.

The NYT says the Pew study is based on random telephone calls with 1,100 children 12 to 17 years old and their parents. They were conducted 26 October 26 to 28 November. The main findings have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Separately, Pew reported Thursday that the percentage of older Americans online continues to grow. A 13 Jan.- 9 Feb. phone survey of 2,201 adults finds 26 percent of those age 65 and up with internet access, an increase from 22 percent last March.

Older Americans embrace e-mail and research on the web but shun "high trust" activities such as e-commerce, banking and online auctions. Pew expects the pattern to shift with the aging of Baby Boomers who are already familiar with those activities, the NYT reports.
 

Eu domain over final hurdle

The .eu domain may finally come alive, five years after its conception, following an upcoming meeting, reports The Register in the UK.

The Register says ICANN will today discuss "Delegation of .EU and EURid-ICANN Agreement" at a special board meeting on and if it gives it the green light then, well, then you might be able to actually buy an .eu domain by April 2006.

The Register says the enormous wait for an internet domain covering Europe have not come thanks to ICANN however, a spookeswoman for .eu, told The Register that there have been no delays between EURid - the company awarded the contract to sell .eu domains last October - and ICANN. But then ICANN has had a fair amount of notice.

The online publication says the European Union first decided upon the idea of a new .eu Internet domain in February 2000. A working paper was produced, public comments elicited and the proposal put forward to the European Parliament in July 2000.

The Register says that at the same time, the EU sent a letter to ICANN asking it to introduce a new domain into the international domain name system. Hopelessly optimistic, it requested that ICANN be prepared to do so by the end of the year, the Register adds.

The European Parliament received the report in July 2000. Proposed regulation found its way out in December 2000, but it wasn't until June 2001 that a "common position" between EU governments was found however. Even this was contentious and it was amended five months later in November 2001.

>From this, says The Register,the framework for the .eu domain was drawn up and the first bit of legislation - 733/2002 - finally put through in April 2002. So far, however, after two years all we had was a document effectively saying a .eu domain was a good idea.

The Register says that in September, the EU finally got around to asking if anyone was interested in running the registry for .eu. Surprisingly, a few people said yes. It then took another eight months for it to decide on EURid - a consortium of other registries running the Belgian, Italian and Swedish domains.

It has taken ICANN five months from this to a Board meeting that will see the whole thing put to a vote and, if agreed, go through in a matter of weeks, The Register adds.

Xbox store to open new gaming revenue streams

New car: US$1. New helmet: 5 cents. Flashy new warrior's sword: 50 cents. Bigger baseball bat: three for US$2. Magic spell to help defeat that tricky warlord on level five: 10 cents per use.

Welcome to the online store of the future, -- the one embedded in your favorite video game,says The New York Times/Reuters in a 19 March report

The NYT and Reuters say when Microsoft releases the new version of its Xbox video game console -- presumably this year -- it plans to include a storefront that will offer "microtransactions."

The paper says that the idea is that everyone wins: players with disposable income can spend a few cents here and there to enhance their gameplay in most any way they like, and publishers get a way to create a continuing revenue stream.

Microtransactions are so named because the purchases are generally a few cents or a dollar or two, often too small to be made by a credit card. That is where intermediaries, like the proposed Xbox service, come in to play, say the NYT and Reuters.

Game publishers will have to cooperate by building access to a common storefront into their software, and some purists may argue that such trade creates an unfair playing field, the paper and Reuters say.

But Microsoft executives suggest those who do not take part will hear from unhappy fans.

Analysts say the money is good -- perhaps too good to pass up, whether a publisher likes the concept or not.

"We believe that an online marketplace will provide varying high-margin incremental revenue opportunities for all of the major video game publishers with the Xbox 2 over the next five years," an American Technology Research analyst says.

The paper and Reuters say some publishers have estimated the potential for an additional US$5 million in revenue per game by offering an extra level to an already released title. That potentially could be structured as a microtransaction.

New Sony games: under the counter sales

Gadget lust is in full bloom at the electronic retailerson London's Tottenham Court Road, where ``gray market'' Japanese imports of Sony's new PlayStation Portable bring in more than three times the official price, report The New York Timeas/Reuters (18 Mar.).

The paper reports that a salesman at MBA Technologies, a shop in London's consumer electronics retail district, said he sold between 10 and 20 of the units, as he reached under the counter for one of the sleek portable gaming devices that the store is selling for 300 pounds (US$577).

According to the NYT.,Sony has been churning out millions of PSPs -- a multimedia device that the company hopes will be a breakthrough hit on par with Apple's iPod -- but has been unable to keep up with demand. In addition to games, the PSP plays movies and digital music files and also displays photos.

Earlier this week it was forced to push back its European launch date by several months to ensure there are enough units for the US launch next week, reports the NYT.

The paper says the staggered global release of the PSP has created a thriving underground market for the devices.

Retailers like MBA, who receive their PSPs from Asian wholesalers, are not condoned by Sony but are not illegal either. Nevertheless, the shop sells its PSPs from under the counter, available only if customers request them. The paperback book-sized device is encased in a Sony box covered in Japanese text, the paper says.

The NYT says the PSP went on sale in Japan in December, retailing for 19,800 yen (US$190.20), and supply is still tight. On opening day, gamers were limited to buying one PSP each and recruited homeless people to stand in queues, according to press reports.

The paper says when the PSP first came out in Japan, importers scrambled to get their hands on units which they resold in the United States for US$500 or more -- prices dedicated gamers were all too happy to pay.

But as the US launch approached prices fell dramatically, a trend that will probably take place in Europe as well, the paper reports.

Japan cell-phone users turn to literature

Tens of thousands of Japanese cell-phone owners are poring over full-length novels on their tiny screens.In the technology-enamored nation, the mobile phone has become so widespread as an entertainment and communication device that reading e-mail, news headlines and weather forecasts -- rather advanced mobile features by global standards -- is routine.

The New York Times/AP reports (18 Mar.) that now, Japan's cell-phone users are turning pages.Several mobile web sites offer hundreds of novels -- classics, best sellers and some works written especially for the medium.

The paper and AP say it takes some getting used to. Only a few lines pop up at a time because the phone screen is about half the size of a business card.

But improvements in the quality of liquid-crystal displays and features such as automatic page-flipping, or scrolling, make the endeavor far more enjoyable than you'd imagine, the paper and AP adds.

The NYT and AP say that in the latest versions, cell-phone novels are downloaded in short installments and run on handsets as Java-based applications. You're free to browse as though you're in a bookstore, whether you're at home, in your office or on a commuter train. A whole library can be tucked away in your cell phone -- a gadget you carry around anyway.

The paper and AP say that such times could be just around the corner in the United States, where cell phones are become increasingly used for relaying data, including video, digital photos and music.

Cell-phone books are also gradually starting to get traction in China and South Korea, reports the NYT., adding that in Japan, though, some people are really getting hooked, finding the phone an intimate tool for reading.

The NYT and AP say that a recent marketing study by Bandai found that more than half the readers are female, and many are reading cell-phone books in their homes.Surprisingly, people are using cell-phone books to catch up on classics they never finished reading. And people are perusing sex manuals and other books they're too embarrassed to be caught reading or buying. More common is keeping an electronic dictionary in your phone in case a need arises, the NYT/AP report.

VIA NET.WORKS liquidity crisis

VIA NET.WORKS - the business-focused telco in Europe and the US - has called in PricewaterhouseCoopers to help it secure new financing to address an "urgent liquidity problem", reports The Register.

The Register says the Netherlands-based VIA NET.WORKS has given itself until the end of March to either find new investment or flog all or part of the business.

In a statement the company said: "A combination of factors including unanticipated revenue shortfalls in certain of its legacy VIA companies and its new VIA Express business would leave the company with insufficient cash reserves to continue the operations of the group's parent company in early April 2005."

The company also said that,unfortunately, while it had built a business with approximately US$100m in annualised revenue, it had not yet reached the point where its cash-generating operations can sustain the ongoing costs of running the group, including the very significant costs inherent in maintaining a public company.

British adults support child porn crackdown

The British public stands four-square behind ISPs over moves to curb the availability of images of child abuse on the net. In a MORI poll of 1,00O UK adults, 89 per cent said they would support ISPs if they tracked those visiting child porn websites and 93 per cent said that ISPs should report this information to the police, The Register reports.

The Register says that leaving aside the four per cent of peopleout who want ISPs to hand over data to the police without favouring the monitoring that would need to go with it, the study suggest the public believe those who access child abuse websites have no right to hide behind claims of privacy violation.

The Register says the study also shows that 90 per cent of the UK's adult population would support the voluntary blocking by ISPs of access to child abuse and paedophilic web sites, and 89 per cent said they would support the official monitoring of the content of such sites.

The survey, sponsored by content filtering firm StreamShield Networks, will doubtless be taken by BT as an endorsement of its CleanFeed scheme for blocking access to child abuse websites, says The Register, adding, however it's worth wondering whether when people are questioned by strangers on subjects as charged as child abuse they might respond with what is seen as the "correct response" rather than their considered opinion.

UK games industry: recognise our economic contribution!

The UK's video games industry has called for the government to recognise the contribution it makes to Britain's economy before a subsidised bloc of Nordic and Central and European producers hits the indigenous industry where it hurts.

The Register reports that according to a Screen Digest report - published on behalf of the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) - the latest official figures show that Brit-based games companies recorded a tasty positive balance of trade close to £200m. The industry now employs 22,000 people - up 7.5 per cent on 2000.

However, the immediate outlook is not as rosy as it should be, says The Register -  in fact, the number of UK game development studios' employees dropped six per cent between 2000 and 2004. The overall rise represents the "increase in people working in other sectors of the games industry - publishing, distribution and retail".

ELSPA says the UK is at risk of losing its position both as the font of some of the most successful games produced for a global market worth US$20bn and as the major European destination for global investment. It is now time for Government to recognise the valuable contribution we make to the UK economy, comparative to other entertainment sectors, ELSPA says, reports The Register.

The Register says the report also found that the big growth area is the "network games market" - non-retail sales channels which are expanding more than seven times faster than the traditional retail market.  Mobile and online have become significant markets in their own right and all forms of networked games exploitation are expected to account for 20 per cent of the total Western world market by 2008, analysts told The Register.

Intel to ship 'Potomac' Xeon MP this month

Intel will ship its 'Potomac' 64-bit Xeon MP processor on 29 March, bundling it with the 'Twin Castle' E8500 chipset into a server platform the company has codenamed 'Truland', reorts The Register (18 Mar.).

The Register says the chip maker announced mid-February that it would ship Potomac "within 90 days", but the more specific launch date comes courtesy of a Techworld report
The updated Xeon MP processor will contain 8MB of L3 cache, up from the 4MB offered by the current top-of-the-range model, and run at a clock speed of 3.33GHz. That in turn suggests the part will update the current Xeon MP frontside bus speed from 400MHz, The Register suggests.

Potomac will ship alongside 'Cranford', a cheaper version of the product, The Register says, equipped with 1MB of L2 cache and designed to fill the gap between two-way Xeon DP-based systems and four-way Xeon MP servers.

Intel Japan antitrust verdict response deadline delayed

Japanese anti-trust officials have extended Intel's deadline for appealing against charges that it abused its market leadership position to hinder arch-rival AMD.

The Register/Reuters report (18 Mar.) that Intel Japan now has until 1 April to respond to the ruling. It was to have done so Fiday, but was given more time to give the judgement a thorough reading, a company spokesman told Reuters.

The online news servcice and Reuters say that such moves are not uncommon, and do little to change the outcome. AMD this week said it was considering a range of options by which it may itself respond to the Japanese Fair Trade Commission (FTC) findings. The company did not rule out initiating legal proceedings against Intel.

On 8 March, the FTC ruled that Intel Japan had indeed attempted to squeeze out AMD, Transmeta and other x86 processor companies by offering rebates to computer manufacturers who bought only Intel product, says The Register.

Last June, the European Commission relaunched its investigation into claims that Intel engaged in similar tactics in Europe. In each territory, the probes were prompted by complaints from AMD.

The Register and Reuters says that Intel has denied its business practices are in any way unfair or anticompetitive, and that it believes they are legal. At the time, it said the FTC decision "does not appear to take into account antitrust principles commonly accepted worldwide".

Come 1 April, Intel may challenge the verdict, says The Register, which would force the FTC to bring the case to trial. Intel may subsequently appeal against the ruling in the Japanese high court.

IBM and Novell grease Linux development wheels

IBM and Novell have launched a program to accelerate the development and certification of Novell's SUSE Linux on IBM's eServer and middleware platforms. IBM hopes the scheme will help double the number of Linux apps independent developers make for its servers within the next two years.

The Register reports (18 Mar.) that the scheme will give independent software developers access to the technical resources and tools available at nine IBM Innovation Centers in North America (San Mateo, California; Waltham, Massachussets and Chicago, Illinois), Europe (Hursley, UK; Paris, France and Stuttgart, Germany), Sydney, Australia and Asia (Bangalore, India and Shanghai, China).

According to The Register, Novell will dispense copies of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and supporting documentation for software developers, and make it easier for them to join Novell's Technology Partner Program by setting up on-site registration at IBM's centres. IBM, in turn, will offerISVs "consulting support and technical expertise" to help them migrate, develop and implement their applications for SUSE Linux on IBM platforms. Both companies said the scheme recognised the transition of Linux from a niche operating system to a mainstream platform for business applications.

IEEE rejects Nokia-backed next-gen Wi-Fi proposal

A week after Nokia defected to the WWiSE 802.11n technology proposal group, and a day after a trio of telcos gave the organisation the thumbs up, an alternative proposal has won the support of the IEEE Task Group charged with investigating the next generation of Wi-Fi.

The Register reports (18 Mar.) that the outcome of the ballot has not yet been formally made public, but sources close to Atheros, the Wi-Fi chip maker backing WWiSE-rival TGn Sync, claim their proposal won, 181 votes to 140, giving i56.4 per cent of the total votes cast.

According to The Register, that, the sources say, means the WWiSE proposal has been eliminated in favour of TGn Sync. The Register says it was under the impression the winner needed to gain at least 75 per cent of the vote to force a rival proposal to be formally rejected. Presumably that will happen in May, says the publication, when the 802.11n Task Group votes again on the TGn Sync - if the standard wins the support of 75 per cent or more of the vote, it will be selected as the basis for the draft 802.11n standard.

The Register says 802.11n is the name the IEEE has given to the next generation of the Wi-Fi wireless networking standard. Currently under development, the technology is intended to yield at least 100Mbps real data throughput, with a raw throughput of up to 200Mbps. By contrast, 802.11g has a raw throughput of 54Mbps, but once noise, interference and the bandwidth required to maintain error-free data transmissions are taken into account, the actual speed is much slower than that. The same is true of 802.11b, The Register adds.

WWiSE - short for 'Worldwide Spectrum Efficiency' - was launched as a proposal for the 802.11n standard last August by Texas Instruments, Broadcom, Conexant, STMicro, Airgo and Bermai, says The Register, adding that since then it has won the backing of Motorola, which last month agreed to merge its own 802.11n proposal into the WWiSE offering.

The Register says that a week after WWiSE was launched, Intel, Atheros, Agere, Infineon, Cisco, Nokia, Qualcomm, Nortel, Mitsubishi, Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sanyo, Toshiba and others offered up an alternative proposal dubbed TGn Sync.

Bizarrely, says The Register,Nokia jumped ship earlier this month, switching its allegiance from TGn Sync to WWiSE. Earlier last week, WWiSE announced that telcos France Telecom, NTT and ITRI had also agreed to back its proposal.

Tokyo to get city-wide WiMAX

Tokyo is going to get what will be the first major deployment of a WiMAX Metropolitan Area Network in the world. The Yozan MetroZone will deliver high speed IP connectivity, and support voice, video and broadband data services.

The Register reports (18 Mar.) that Airspan Networks and partner YOZAN will commence trials in the second quarter of 2005 and commercial rollout will begin in the fourth quarter of the year. Airspan, a leading provider of broadband wireless solutions in Japan, expects to complete delivery of the base stations by the end of March of 2006. The contract is valued in excess of US$12m.

The Register says the initial network will be based on a rollout of 600 cells in central Tokyo, the companies outlined this week. Gradually the network will expand to provide coverage throughout the greater Tokyo Metropolitan area and surrounding eight prefectures. Airspan will use its software-upgradeable radio technology, which will initially support 802.16-2004 and will later be upgraded to support 802.16e, says The Register.

Anti-virus vulnerabilities strike again

Users of McAfee's anti-virus products were warned last week of a potentially serious security vulnerability. The bug - unearthed by security researchers at ISS - involves flaws in the processing of LHA files by an antivirus library that gives rise to possible stack overflow attacks. The flaw applies to McAfee AntiVirus Library prior to version 4400.

The Register reports (18 Mar.) that ISS said: successful exploitation of this vulnerability could be used to gain unauthorised access to networks and machines being protected by McAfee AntiVirus Library product.

Desktop, server and gateway versions of McAfee's anti-virus scanners all need patching but this will happen automatically as anti-virus signatures are updated. Several large vendors and ISP's use McAfee's AntiVirus Library in their products or services, which likewise need an upgrade, The Register reports.

The Register says that over recent weeks ISS has issued alerts over similar but distinct vulnerabilities in various security packages from Symantec, involving the processing of UPX compressed files; and anti-virus products from F-Secure and Trend Micro, both involving the handling of ARJ archive files.

UK and EU allies move against terror websites

Closer co-operation between members of the G5 - a grouping of the five largest EU countries - will make it easier to close down websites supporting terrorism, according to UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke. Among a series of measures agreed at a G5 summit in Granada this week was the setting up of a technical group to "monitor and control the use of the internet in international terrorism and organised crime.," reports The Register (18 Mar.).

The Register says the G5 is an informal grouping of interior ministers of the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, set up to develop closer co-operation on security and policing in 2003. It has no legal status within the EU and its agreements are non-binding, but it is heavily influential in shaping, and blazing a trail for, EU security policy, The Register says.

German Interior Minister Otto Schily stressed the "need to know what is brewing and how terrorist attacks are being prepared", and said that the five countries had agreed to ask telecom operators to extend the retention period for telephone data from three months to a year, The Register reports.

The Register said France's Dominique de Villepin said that each of the five would apply the measures immediately, and that they would be discussed with the remaining EU members.

According to The Register,the central objective of the summit was to implement the "principle of availability", which means that data held by one country is automatically available to its partners. According to the summit statement the objective is "to make sure that the police forces of the Group of Five countries should have immediate access to the information that they need and which other members possess."

The Register says the co-operation on the internet will undoubtedly mean more widespread surveillance of internet activities, but it could also make life more difficult for fringe and radical web operations.