http://www.cio.com/ en-us (c) Copyright 2006 CXO Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Thu, 06 Apr 2006 21:15:39 EST Thu, 06 Apr 2006 21:15:39 EST Microsoft Informer 60 http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.cio.rss/logo/;pos=top;sz=120x69;tile=1;ord=107182005133846? http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.cio.rss/logo/;pos=top;sz=120x69;tile=1;ord=10718200513384? http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19985 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19985 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Microsoft Thursday at LinuxWorld is expected to unveil a new website for users to find information about its Linux and open-source interoperability efforts, according to the executive in charge of those plans.</P> <P>Bill Hilf, general manager of the platform strategy group for Microsoft, will discuss <STRONG><A href="http://www.port25.technet.com/" target=_blank><STRONG>the site</STRONG></A></STRONG> during his keynote at the conference in Boston Thursday morning. The site will also go live on Thursday.</P> <P>Hilf, who formerly worked on Linux deployments at IBM, has been overseeing Microsoft&#8217;s Linux and open-source interoperability lab at its Redmond, Wash., campus for the past two years. He recently moved into a more senior position, replacing Martin Taylor, who has moved over to the Windows Live team. Hilf now is in charge of all of Microsoft&#8217;s open-source compatibility efforts, including its controversial Get the Facts anti-Linux campaign and its SharedSource initiative, which is the company&#8217;s own version of allowing developers access to some of its proprietary source code.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19985"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 07:02:13 EST ?CID=19986 ?CID=19986 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Google has come another step closer in its quest to become a Wi-Fi wireless LAN service provider in San Francisco.</P> <P>The Department of Telecommunications and Information Services (DTIS) chose a plan by Google and Internet service provider EarthLink to provide a free citywide Wi-Fi network, a spokesman in the city&#8217;s communications department confirmed Wednesday.</P> <P>DTIS will now begin contract negotiations with the two companies regarding the plan, the department said.</P> <p><a href="?CID=19986"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 07:13:38 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19987 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19987 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<p align="right"><a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.cio.rss/editorial_1;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=3;ord=307182005133846?"/><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.cio.rss/;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=3;ord=307182005133846?" border="0" height="280" width="336" align="right"/></a></p><P>Electronic Data Systems (EDS) plans to open at least two outsourcing centers in China, hiring 2,000 staff over the next two years, a company spokesman said Thursday.</P> <P>"China is a strategic growth market for EDS, both regionally and globally," said Ronald Tse, a spokesman for the company in Hong Kong.</P> <P>EDS, which earlier this year moved its Asian headquarters to Shanghai from Australia, is in the process of identifying locations in China for two to three outsourcing centers, Tse said. These facilities, called global delivery centers, will offer a range of outsourced services, including IT outsourcing and hosting, for multinational and Chinese clients, he said.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19987"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 07:24:11 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19988 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19988 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Microsoft has acquired U.K. gaming company Lionhead Studios for an undisclosed amount, ensuring some exclusive content for its Xbox console from the company that designed the popular "Fable" games.</P> <P>The move may also bring respected game developer Peter Molyneux, Lionhead&#8217;s managing director, into Microsoft&#8217;s fold. He&#8217;s credited with pioneering the so-called "god games" genre with games such as "Populous" and "Black &amp; White," wide-scale fantasy games in which the gamer is lord of all around him. </P> <P>The acquisition was made by Microsoft Game Studios, its game production group. Financial terms were not disclosed.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19988"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 07:30:24 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19992 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19992 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Turbolinux will acquire Japanese PHP tools vendor Zend Japan, the company announced Wednesday.</P> <P>Turbolinux bought a 90 percent stake in Zend from Open Source Japan, Zend&#8217;s parent company, with a view to increasing distribution of its PHP development tools. Zend will remain the exclusive distributor for its Zend products, along with sales and support for Turbolinux.</P> <P>Negotiations for the deal were completed March 30 but not announced until April 5.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19992"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 07:55:32 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20002 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20002 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<p align="right"><a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.cio.rss/editorial_1;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=6;ord=607182005133846?"/><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.cio.rss/;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=6;ord=607182005133846?" border="0" height="280" width="336" align="right"/></a></p><P><STRONG>Since this story was originally posted, it has been updated to correct an inaccuracy in paragraph three regarding Apple Computer and Apple Corps&#8217; logos.</STRONG></P> <P>Edward Mann, the&nbsp;London High Court justice presiding over the highly publicized legal battle between Apple Computer and Apple Corps, said on Wednesday that he&#8217;s unlikely to issue a ruling before Easter Sunday, April 16, <STRONG><A href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/APPLE_VS_APPLE?SITE=NYNYP&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT" target=_blank><STRONG>the Associated Press reports via the New York Post</STRONG></A></STRONG>.</P> <P>Attorneys for both companies met in London&#8217;s High Court on Wednesday to hear closing arguments in the case over the companies&#8217; usage of similar apple logos. </P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20002"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 09:35:29 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20006 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20006 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>EBay&#8217;s online processing unit PayPal is rolling out a new service that allows customers in the United States&nbsp;and Canada to use mobile phones and other wireless devices to pay for products and services.</P> <P>The new PayPal Mobile service, announced Thursday, will be demonstrated at the CTIA Wireless trade show in Las Vegas.</P> <P>The announcement comes as numerous handset makers and operators introduce devices and services for making mobile electronic payments. On Tuesday, for example, Japanese mobile phone operator NTT DoCoMo launched its DCMX mobile payment service.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20006"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 11:13:23 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20008 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20008 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Apple has released a number of firmware updates for Intel Macs.</P> <P>These are required if you want to exploit Apple&#8217;s new Boot Camp software that allows users to transform their Intel Macs into dual boot Mac/Windows machines.</P> <P>Updates are available for iMac, Mac mini and MacBook Pro computers.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20008"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 12:10:11 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20011 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20011 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<p align="right"><a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.cio.rss/editorial_1;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=9;ord=907182005133846?"/><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.cio.rss/;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=9;ord=907182005133846?" border="0" height="280" width="336" align="right"/></a></p><P>China&#8217;s number-three PC producer, Tsinghua Tongfang, is expected to announce on Thursday that it will begin shipping products pre-loaded with authentic copies of Microsoft&#8217;s Windows operating system, <STRONG><A href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114425923563817902.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us_business" target=_blank><STRONG>The Wall Street Journal reports</STRONG></A></STRONG>.</P> <P>Lenovo Group, China&#8217;s number-one PC producer by market share, began shipping computers with Windows and another software pack already installed in December, and number two Founder Technology followed its lead shortly afterward, according to The Journal.</P> <P>The agreement between Tsinghua Tongfang and Microsoft represents the most recent effort by a Chinese company to address the piracy concerns that are hampering trade between the United States&nbsp;and China. Microsoft operates a large-scale R&amp;D lab in China, but the majority of users in that country use &#8220;bootleg&#8221; versions of the company&#8217;s products because they can be obtained for a cheap price&nbsp;on city streets, The&nbsp;Journal reports.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20011"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 02:36:24 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20015 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20015 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Vodafone Group Thursday announced a restructuring of its business operations and senior management, aimed at cutting costs and driving growth in emerging markets and new services.</P> <P>Vodafone will now have three new units: Europe; Central Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific and Affiliates; and New Businesses and Innovation.</P> <P>Vodafone Chief Technology Officer Thomas Geitner will become chief executive officer (CEO) of the New Businesses and Innovation group, which will focus on such areas as converged and IP services, according to the company. </P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20015"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 03:04:56 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20013 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20013 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>MySQL AB has signed a multiyear agreement with Oracle to renew its licensing of the InnoDB database storage engine, according to a MySQL executive. The move resolves confusion in the market about the likely effect on MySQL of Oracle&#8217;s purchase last year of the maker of InnoDB, Innobase OY.</P> <P>Prior to Oracle&#8217;s acquisition of Innobase in October, open-source database player MySQL had an agreement in place with the Finnish software company to bundle InnoDB with MySQL. After Oracle acquired Innobase in November, speculation was rife as to whether Oracle, which competes with MySQL, would renew the agreement with the open-source database company.</P> <P>The agreement is "on existing terms," Zach Urlocker, vice president of marketing at MySQL, told IDG News Service Thursday at the LinuxWorld conference in Boston. "It&#8217;s a very good agreement," he said. "We&#8217;re comfortable with it." The two companies are not releasing the financial terms or duration of the contract.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20013"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 02:52:16 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20009 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20009 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<p align="right"><a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.cio.rss/editorial_1;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=12;ord=1207182005133846?"/><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.cio.rss/;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=12;ord=1207182005133846?" border="0" height="280" width="336" align="right"/></a></p><P>Software that enables employers to monitor their employees&#8217; computer usage, including every site visited and e-mail sent, has been around in the United States since the mid-1990s, but some Japanese firms are taking it a step further with programs that monitor their staff&#8217;s every move, <STRONG><A href="http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2006/04/06/158400-japanese-cos-check-employee-computer-use" target=_blank><STRONG>the Associated Press reports via Newsvine</STRONG></A></STRONG>.</P> <P>Masakazu Kobayashi, an associate professor with Tokyo&#8217;s Institute of Information Security, told the AP that a recent survey found that more than 30 percent of large Japanese firms keep tabs on employee computer use. Kobayashi also predicted that increased security concerns related to the recent series of data leaks would probably bump up that percentage, according to the AP.</P> <P>&#8220;It&#8217;s scary. In five years, most companies will be doing this,&#8221; Kobayashi&nbsp;said at&nbsp;a press conference, the AP reports.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20009"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 12:39:34 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20007 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20007 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee has rejected a proposal to strengthen provisions in a telecommunications reform bill that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or impairing competing Web content and applications.</P> <P>The Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday rejected an amendment to strengthen so-called net neutrality provisions in a telecom reform bill largely focused on creating a national video franchising system for Internet television services.</P> <P>The amendment, offered by Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, would have prohibited broadband carriers from impairing or blocking competing Web content and services. The Markey amendment also would have required the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to develop procedures for expedited investigations of complaints against broadband carriers.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20007"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 12:03:47 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20004 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20004 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Finnish telecom Elisa is the latest European company to roll out commercial&nbsp;high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) technology on its third-generation (3G)&nbsp;network, although handsets aren&#8217;t expected until later this year.</P> <P>HSDPA offers download speeds similar to fixed broadband networks. It&#8217;s the first commercial HSDPA service for Nordic countries, said Anssi Okkonen, Elisa&#8217;s vice president of products and services. </P> <P>The company&#8217;s entire 3G network&#8212;covering about 40 percent of Finland and its major populated cities&#8212;is HSDPA-capable, also a first for operators, he said. Elisa completed the upgrade to its base stations using software from Nokia.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=20004"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 10:33:56 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19993 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19993 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Red Hat will close the Fedora Foundation as it restructures its end-user-focused Fedora Project, the company announced Tuesday in an e-mail.</P> <P>In a message sent to Red Hat&#8217;s Fedora mailing list, Fedora Project Leader Max Spevack said the Foundation was not helping the company to achieve its goals for the total project.</P> <P>The Fedora Project is designed as a vehicle for Red Hat to engage the open-source development community and provide for continuing development of free-use open-source products.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19993"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 07:59:19 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19991 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19991 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Qualcomm has received the first samples of its MSM6800 third-generation (3G) mobile chipsets made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) using a 65-nanometer production process, according to the chip maker.</P> <P>The delivery of these first chips comes two months ahead of schedule, TSMC said.</P> <P>Moving the production of the MSM6800 to a 65-nanometer process offers several benefits for consumers. Using a more advanced process technology can shrink the chip&#8217;s die size, or the area of silicon that is required, which means lower per-unit production costs. It also means the chip will consume less power, which helps stretch handset battery life.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19991"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 07:49:16 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19990 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19990 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Carly Fiorina, the former chairwoman and chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard, has joined the board of directors at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing as an independent member, the chip maker said Thursday.</P> <P>The world&#8217;s largest contract chip maker has worked hard over the past few years to build a board of directors able to ensure its long-term stability and viability&#8212;largely in reaction to scandals at Enron and WorldCom that brought those companies down.</P> <P>"Sound corporate governance is rooted in a strong Board of Directors and we believe [that with] Ms. Fiorina&#8217;s wealth of experience in leading world class companies, she will bring unique value to the board," TSMC Chairman Morris Chang said in a statement.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19990"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 07:42:22 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19989 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19989 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<p align="right"><a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.cio.rss/editorial_1;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=18;ord=1807182005133846?"/><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.cio.rss/;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=18;ord=1807182005133846?" border="0" height="280" width="336" align="right"/></a></p><P>Contract chip manufacturers in Taiwan and China are leading growth in the foundry industry and will continue to do so through almost the end of this decade, industry researcher In-Stat said Wednesday.</P> <P>Investments in leading-edge chip plants have given Taiwan the largest concentration of 12-inch (300-millimeter) chip factories anywhere in the world, said In-Stat, a unit of Reed Business Information.</P> <P>The researcher credits strong spending for growth in Asia, where chip plant and production line purchases among contract chip makers rose more than 150 percent in 2004, before declining 23 percent last year. The gush of new spending arose from pent-up demand created by a global technology industry downturn in 2001 and 2002, according to the industry researcher.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19989"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Thu, 06 Apr 2006 07:37:00 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19945 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19945 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Verizon Communications is offering businesses a hosted instant messaging (IM)&nbsp;service designed to offer protection against Internet threats such as worms and viruses, the company announced Wednesday.</P> <P>The Hosted Secure IM Service will be provided through Verizon Business, created by Verizon&#8217;s acquisition of MCI, the New York carrier said.</P> <P>E-mail remains the most widely used and destructive vehicle for spreading worms and viruses over the Internet, but 2005 saw a sharp rise in the number of worms using IM to propagate. Several other vendors also offer products for securing IM use, including Akonix Systems, IMlogic and FaceTime Communications.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19945"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 07:10:33 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19948 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19948 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Two months after the departure of Vice Chairman and President Gary Bloom, Symantec has shuffled its executive ranks and undergone a corporate reorganization aimed at simplifying the company&#8217;s operations. The changes, confirmed Tuesday, include the departure of three senior executives and the appointment of a new chief technology officer, Ajei Gopal.</P> <P>These changes, which occurred last month but had not previously been publicly disclosed, are part of the company&#8217;s ongoing efforts to manage its 2005 acquisition of storage software vendor Veritas Software. Over the past few months, a number of senior Symantec executives have departed, including Bloom, formerly chief executive officer of Veritas, and former Chief Financial Officer Greg Myers.</P> <P>As part of the reorganization, Symantec has now halved the number of business units it operates, and streamlined sales operations in order to improve performance, the company said. "This is just what you&#8217;d expect when you&#8217;re going through a merger," said spokesman Cris Paden. </P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19948"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 07:23:56 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19949 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19949 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<p align="right"><a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.cio.rss/editorial_1;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=21;ord=2107182005133846?"/><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.cio.rss/;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=21;ord=2107182005133846?" border="0" height="280" width="336" align="right"/></a></p><P>Hewlett-Packard (HP) plans to release business notebook PCs later this year with integrated global broadband wireless connectivity, the company said Tuesday.</P> <P>HP, of Palo Alto, Calif., will team with Cingular Wireless of Atlanta, Ga., to add integrated UMTS/HSDPA technology to certain notebooks. The move will simplify wireless networking for overseas travelers and help HP to compete better against products&nbsp;such as&nbsp;Dell&#8217;s Latitude notebook.</P> <P>UMTS is the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, a network standard that uses wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA)&nbsp;technology to boost capacity and data speed compared to second-generation (2G) mobile networks. HSDPA is high-speed downlink packet access, a mobile broadband standard capable of reaching downlink speeds of 14.4 megabits&nbsp;per second.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19949"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 07:29:10 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19950 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19950 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Alcatel has swept away another security obstacle to its merger with Lucent Technologies, agreeing to hand over its satellite and security activities to French defense and aerospace electronics group Thales.</P> <P>The French government considers Alcatel&#8217;s relationship with Thales of national strategic interest. Alcatel&#8217;s agreement to sell its satellite business to Thales mirrors Lucent&#8217;s undertaking to set up a separate subsidiary run by U.S. citizens to handle sensitive research and development work for the U.S. government. </P> <P>Alcatel, of Paris, and Lucent, of Murray Hill, N.J., announced plans Sunday to merge in a deal that will leave Alcatel shareholders holding around 60 percent of the combined company, but put Lucent&#8217;s Patricia Russo in the role of chief executive officer (CEO). Alcatel was already discussing the satellite transaction with Thales as the Lucent deal concluded.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19950"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 07:37:16 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19954 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19954 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Wireless chip maker Qualcomm disclosed Wednesday that the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) is looking into its business dealings with three South Korean handset makers.</P> <P>KFTC officials visited the offices of Qualcomm&#8217;s South Korean subsidiary on Tuesday, along with those of phone makers Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Pantech Curitel, Qualcomm said.</P> <P>The inquiry isn&#8217;t an official investigation, according to Qualcomm, although the KFTC didn&#8217;t explain the reason for its visit. Qualcomm said it may be related to "communications" received by the KFTC from a small Korean company about Qualcomm&#8217;s distribution of mobile video software used with its mobile phone chipsets.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19954"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 08:01:07 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19958 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19958 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<p align="right"><a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.cio.rss/editorial_1;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=24;ord=2407182005133846?"/><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.cio.rss/;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=24;ord=2407182005133846?" border="0" height="280" width="336" align="right"/></a></p><P>Apple Corps executives did not object to names and logos now under dispute when they were shown an Apple Computer iTunes Music Store demonstration four months before the public service launched, an Apple Computer attorney said Wednesday during closing arguments in a trademark dispute.</P> <P>The legal wrangling pits Apple Corps, The Beatles&#8217; record label, against Apple Computer. A logo depicting an apple with a bite out of it is at the center of the disagreement. Following closing arguments in the High Court in London, the case will go to Justice Edward Mann, who will decide whether to grant an injunction barring Apple Computer from using the logo for the iTunes Music Store.</P> <P>Apple Computer&#8217;s attorney, Anthony Grabiner, said Wednesday that Apple Corps chief Neil Aspinall gave "self-serving" testimony last week when he alleged that the logo in question now violates a 1991 agreement between the companies. Apple Corps executives saw the iTunes Music Store demonstration in January 2003, before the service launched, Grabiner said.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19958"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 09:26:32 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19960 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19960 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Who says tech folks don&#8217;t know sports?</P> <P>Software test engineer Russell Pleasant is living, breathing proof that the two worlds do overlap&#8212;and, occasionally,&nbsp;in gracious fashion.</P> <P>At the behest of his wife, Pleasant filled out his very first NCAA Tournament bracket on ESPN.com&#8212;he took part in an small office pool the previous year, but the ESPN.com Men&#8217;s Tournament Challenge was his first large-scale pool&#8212;and became one of four people who successfully predicted a perfect Final Four, <STRONG><A href="http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/story?pageName=winner" target=_blank><STRONG>according to ESPN Fantasy Games</STRONG></A></STRONG>. There were more than 3 million brackets submitted.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19960"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 10:24:31 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19964 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19964 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Cell phones won&#8217;t instantly become simple to use and mobile data services easy to find after the CTIA Wireless trade show in Las Vegas this week, but vendors will demonstrate technologies that are coming this year to solve those problems.</P> <P>For at least two companies at the show, the answer is voice. Both VoiceSignal Technologies and Nuance Communications will introduce and show off speech recognition systems for SMS (short message service) dictation, search, and other functions, promoting them as easier alternatives to numeric keypads and tiny browsers. </P> <P>The idea behind these systems is that they can recognize normal speech and not be restricted to a narrow vocabulary. Users can talk at their regular rate and their words will be converted into text, which they can then correct on the phone if necessary, the vendors said. </P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19964"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 12:01:37 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/opensource_sidebar.html?CID=19966 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/opensource_sidebar.html?CID=19966 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<p align="right"><a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.cio.rss/editorial_1;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=27;ord=2707182005133846?"/><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.cio.rss/;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=27;ord=2707182005133846?" border="0" height="280" width="336" align="right"/></a></p><P><B>Jan. 13, 2004</B>&#8212;Massachusetts launches a new open standards policy regarding the planning, development and implementations of IT systems.</P> <P><B>Jan. 15, 2005</B>&#8212;Eric Kriss, Massachusetts secretary, Executive Office for Administration and Finance, gives a talk about open formats, saying, "Our public policy focus is to ensure that public records remain independent of underlying systems and applications, ensuring their accessibility over very long periods of time."</P> <P><B>March 2005</B>&#8212;Massachusetts posts "Version 3" of the IT Division&#8217;s Enterprise Technical Reference Model, a new draft of open formats standard, online for public comment. </P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/opensource_sidebar.html?CID=19966"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 01:08:07 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19977 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19977 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>The Public Technology Institute (PTI), a nonprofit research and development group, will honor nine cities and counties later this month for their innovation in information technology, <STRONG><A href="http://www.fcw.com/article92833-04-05-06-Web" target=_blank><STRONG>Federal Computer Week (FCW) reports</STRONG></A></STRONG>.</P> <P>PTI spotlights governments that employ IT to increase the efficiency of public services and reduce costs, among other things, FCW reports.&nbsp; Cities and counties that entered were also judged on the likelihood that their systems or models could be re-created in other locations, according to FCW.</P> <P>Winning locales will be recognized at the organization&#8217;s 2006 Congress for Technology Leadership, to be held in Chicago from April 30 to May 2, FCW reports.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19977"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 02:44:04 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19972 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19972 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>McAfee has purchased website rating company SiteAdvisor, the two companies announced Wednesday. </P> <P>Founded by a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers in April 2005, SiteAdvisor develops automated software that tests websites to see whether they install nasty things like spyware or computer viruses. Last month, the company released a free browser toolbar designed to warn users when they visit websites that seem risky.</P> <P>The SiteAdvisor software has applications in the security vendor&#8217;s consumer and enterprise offerings, McAfee said, without offering details on how the site-rating software might play into its future products.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19972"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 02:03:46 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19971 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19971 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<p align="right"><a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.cio.rss/editorial_1;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=30;ord=3007182005133846?"/><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.cio.rss/;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=30;ord=3007182005133846?" border="0" height="280" width="336" align="right"/></a></p><P>Microsoft will release a beta of the next version of its speech and telephony server software in May, the company said Wednesday.</P> <P>Microsoft plans to release a final version of Speech Server 2007, its second major release of the product, in late 2006. Microsoft launched Speech Server, which allows customers to deploy speech-recognition and intelligent voice-response systems, in 2004 and released an interim update last year. Speech Server is still in its early-adopter phase, with about 100 customers in Canada and the United States.</P> <P>Speech Server 2007 will focus not only on making it easier for developers to build speech applications using the software, but also on ensuring those applications provide a satisfying user experience, said Clint Patterson, director of product management for Speech Server at Microsoft. </P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19971"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 01:59:01 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19969 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19969 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Sun Microsystems launched a new family of blade servers Wednesday, offering telecommunications customers a choice of processors between Sun&#8217;s own UltraSparc or Opteron from Advanced Micro Devices.</P> <P>Sun announced these Netra Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (ATCA)-standard blade servers at the CTIA trade show in Los Angeles, Calif. AdvancedTCA is a series of specifications set by the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group, targeted to communications industry requirements for high-speed interconnect technologies, next-generation processors and improved manageability.</P> <P>Telecommunications is the largest vertical market by revenue for Sun, of Santa Clara, Calif., so the company is staking a lot on this product. The target customers are telecommunications equipment manufacturers and network equipment providers, such as Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, Lucent Technologies and Alcatel. In turn, those companies assemble mobile network infrastructures to sell to carrier companies, said Raju Penumatcha, Sun&#8217;s vice president for Netra systems and networking.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19969"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 01:26:01 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19968 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19968 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Virtualization and Linux together can play a strong role in both the enterprise and on the client side, said Kevin Kettler, chief technology officer of Dell, in his keynote Wednesday at the Linuxworld Expo and Conference in Boston.</P> <P>"Linux is bound by traditional operating system-to-platforms ties, and virtualization can set it free. Virtualization opens up opportunities for unique software applications and environments to reside on a single platform," Kettler said. </P> <P>While the concept of virtualization is not new, it is attracting renewed interest because of technological advances such as the emergence of multicore processors, forthcoming multiple-resource I/O capabilities, and virtualization technologies built into next-generation processors from Advanced Micro Devices and Intel, Kettler said.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19968"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 01:20:39 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19967 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19967 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>The Australian federal government has signed a whole-of-government agreement with Microsoft to exchange information on security issues ranging from&nbsp;cyberterrorism&nbsp;to general security bulletins. </P> <P>As part of the arrangement, Microsoft will provide the Australian federal government with a monthly security bulletin, and in return, Microsoft will have closer contact with government agencies to learn how Microsoft products are being used and operating. </P> <P>The alliance, dubbed the Security Cooperation Program (SCP), is the first whole-of-government agreement for Microsoft. </P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19967"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 01:15:00 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/opensource.html?CID=19965 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/opensource.html?CID=19965 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>In the fall of 2004, Peter J. Quinn, the CIO of the state of Massachusetts, was the only government IT executive willing to be quoted on the record as an ardent advocate for open source in a <I>CIO</I> article about Microsoft&#8217;s extensive lobbying efforts on the state and federal level. Soon after, Quinn became a vocal advocate of OpenDocument Format (ODF), an XML-based format for saving and exchanging documents. Indeed, under his guidance, the administration of Governor Mitt Romney in the fall of 2005 announced plans to store government records using ODF, a move that could result in the state&#8217;s government agencies phasing out Microsoft Office.</P> <P>But several powerful state officials objected to the plan. Secretary of State William Galvin publicly criticized the move, and a state senator held a hearing on the ODF plan in October at which he also raised objections to it.</P> <P>On Nov. 26, 2005, an article in the <I>Boston Globe</I> charged that Quinn had made trips to sponsored technology conferences without proper approval. Quinn was soon cleared of any alleged ethical violations, but the front-page blast spelled the end of his public sector career. Quinn believes that Microsoft was behind the story. He resigned in January, saying he didn&#8217;t want to go on fighting Microsoft and local Massachusetts officials opposed to the move to ODF.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/opensource.html?CID=19965"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 12:55:34 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19963 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19963 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>SugarCRM Wednesday introduced Sugar Network, a bundle of software, online training and support for users of the open-source version of its CRM software. The company also officially unveiled the next release, version 4.2, of its commercial and open-source Sugar CRM products.</P> <P>Sugar Network represents the first time the company is providing full support to its open-source users, according to John Roberts, chief executive officer of SugarCRM. Previously, the firm&#8217;s open-source support was incident-based, he said in a recent phone interview. The company made the announcement at the LinuxWorld conference in Boston this week.</P> <P>Sugar Network includes plug-ins for Microsoft&#8217;s Outlook and Word, the messaging and word-processing applications in the desktop Office suite. SugarCRM is selling Sugar Network as an annual subscription for US$99 per user. Subscribers will also be able to access training modules in Sugar University, SugarCRM&#8217;s planned online training environment, which is due to appear in the summer.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19963"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 11:57:06 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19959 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19959 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<p align="right"><a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.cio.rss/editorial_1;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=36;ord=3607182005133846?"/><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.cio.rss/;pos=center;sz=336x280;tile=36;ord=3607182005133846?" border="0" height="280" width="336" align="right"/></a></p><P>Apple Computer has released beta software that lets Mac users run Microsoft&#8217;s Windows XP operating system on Intel-based Macintosh computers, it announced Wednesday.</P> <P>Called Boot Camp, the software creates a hard drive partition for Windows XP and lets users choose between the two operating systems at start-up time. It&#8217;s available now as a free trial beta that works only for a limited time, and will be included as a feature of the next major Mac OS release, Leopard, Apple said.</P> <P>The move comes a few months after Apple introduced its first computers based on Intel&#8217;s x86-type processors. The company has expressed little enthusiasm in the past for running Windows on its Macs&#8212;and even now doesn&#8217;t sound entirely happy about it.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19959"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 09:36:26 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19955 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19955 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Socialtext Wednesday is due to take the wraps off Miki, a wiki platform optimized for mobile devices, the company said. </P> <P>By extending wiki use to mobile phones and other wireless devices, Socialtext hopes to further the adoption and usability of wikis.</P> <P>The startup specializes in providing software and support for enterprises looking to set up their own internal wikis and weblogs. More and more companies are turning to wikis as a way for their staff to work collaboratively while also cutting back on their e-mail communication and time spent in meetings, according to Ross Mayfield, Socialtext cofounder and chief executive officer.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19955"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 08:05:51 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19953 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19953 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>With ever more songs, pictures and video clips being sent over the airwaves to mobile phones, Microsoft plans to beef up its investment in digital rights management (DRM) technologies to help protect copyright material, the company said Wednesday on the opening day of CTIA Wireless 2006 in Las Vegas.</P> <P>Microsoft provided no financial details, saying only that the investments would be "significant." It plans to extend its Windows Media Digital Rights Management software to support new types of wireless services, it said.</P> <P>The company said it was responding to demands from its wireless partners who want new ways to deliver content protected by copyright. The more than 800 million mobile handsets sold worldwide each year represent a largely untapped market for digital entertainment, it said.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19953"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 07:57:04 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19952 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19952 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Toshiba and Sandisk have agreed to build a new memory chip plant in Japan to keep pace with surging demand for NAND flash memory, they said Wednesday.</P> <P>NAND flash is used in a growing number of portable digital media devices including still cameras, music players and cell phones. It is also being used to make flash memory cards.</P> <P>Construction of the chip plant, called Fab 4, will begin in August, with initial production scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2007, the companies said. The plant will be able to process 300-millimeter diameter semiconductor wafers.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19952"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 07:50:21 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19951 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19951 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>NEC and EMC will work together to jointly develop storage products and enterprise content management systems, they announced Wednesday.</P> <P>The companies plan to develop storage gear based on the recently announced Storage Bridge Bay technology, of which EMC is a primary backer. Storage Bridge Bay aims to drive standardization in external disk subsystems, to bring equipment traditionally aimed at enterprise customers to smaller businesses.</P> <P>The first hardware products to come out of the alliance should appear next year, said Toshio Kawamura, senior executive vice president of NEC. Those products will be manufactured by NEC and sold by both companies through existing sales channels, including EMC&#8217;s link with Dell.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19951"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Wed, 05 Apr 2006 07:44:40 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19905 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19905 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>A vulnerability in McAfee&#8217;s e-mail filtering software could allow unwanted code to run on a computer, but a patch should fix the problem, according to a security advisory published Tuesday.</P> <P>The bug lies in McAfee&#8217;s WebShield SMTP 4.5 MR1a release for Windows, vendor Secunia posted on its website. </P> <P>Secunia rated the problem as "highly critical," writing on its website that the bug was found by Symantec. </P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19905"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Tue, 04 Apr 2006 07:09:45 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19907 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19907 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Chinese Internet censors take more than a week to identify and block access to sites that allow Internet users to circumvent their controls, according to a top executive at Anonymizer.</P> <P>"We&#8217;ve been surprised how long it takes the Chinese to block these sites," said Lance Cottrell, Anonymizer&#8217;s president and chief scientist. "It generally takes them in excess of one week."</P> <P>That&#8217;s good news for Anonymizer, which recently introduced its Operation: Anti-Censorship software that allows Chinese Internet users to access blocked sites. For now, the free software is available only&nbsp;in English, but a Chinese version is expected to be ready in about one month, Cottrell said. "We didn&#8217;t want to delay the launch," he said.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19907"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Tue, 04 Apr 2006 07:19:33 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19908 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19908 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>The Chinese government technology policies that limit market access for non-Chinese companies raise concerns about the country&#8217;s commitment to its World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said Monday in a report on foreign trade barriers.</P> <P>These policies are intended to support the development of certain Chinese industries while shielding others from foreign competition, the report said.</P> <P>USTR singled out several Chinese industrial policies for criticism, including government interference in "commercial negotiations over royalty payments to intellectual property rights holders in the area of 3G standards, the pursuit of unique national standards in many areas of high technology that could lead to the extraction of technology or intellectual property from foreign rights holders, [and] draft government procurement regulations mandating purchases of Chinese-produced software."</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19908"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Tue, 04 Apr 2006 07:30:21 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19909 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19909 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Samsung Electronics will delay the U.S. launch of its Blu-ray Disc player by one month, the company said Monday.</P> <P>The delay has been called to allow completion of compatibility testing with Blu-ray Disc test media that is due to be available in April, Samsung said in a statement. Once compatibility is confirmed, the player will be ready for mass production, it said.</P> <P>The new launch date has been set for June 25, and Samsung confirmed the player price at US$999.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19909"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Tue, 04 Apr 2006 07:38:25 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19913 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19913 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Global chip sales rose 6.8 percent in February compared to the same time a year ago, led by stronger than expected mobile phone shipments and normal PC demand, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) said Monday.</P> <P>The year-on-year increase shows a healthy technology market, and indicates chip growth forecasts for this year could be nearly on target. </P> <P>Worldwide chip sales rose to US$19.22 billion in February, SIA said, which is a historically weak month for semiconductors due to a slowdown in consumer electronics purchases and fewer days. Last year, chip sales reached $17.98 billion.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19913"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Tue, 04 Apr 2006 08:08:33 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19916 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19916 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>On Tuesday, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer filed suit against another Web pop-up firm for allegedly installing malicious computer programs on PCs without users&#8217; permission and distributing ads through the already installed &#8220;spyware,&#8221; <STRONG><A href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SPITZER_SPYWARE?SITE=NYNYP&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT" target=_blank><STRONG>the Associated Press reports via the New York Post</STRONG></A></STRONG>.</P> <P>Spyware is any computer program that installs itself on users&#8217; PCs without their permission, and often, without their knowledge.</P> <P>Spitzer accused Direct Revenue of installing millions of pop-up advertisement applications that also monitored the Web-surfing habits of infected machines&#8217; users, according to the AP. The attorney general requested that a state court halt this practice, the AP reports.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19916"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Tue, 04 Apr 2006 01:10:31 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19921 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19921 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>About 60 percent of businesses are shying away from deploying mobile devices primarily due to security concerns, a new survey says.</P> <P>Expense and complexity also hampered moves toward mobile computing, according to the survey, conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit and commissioned by security vendor Symantec. Executives at 240 organizations worldwide were interviewed.</P> <P>One in five organizations said they have sustained financial losses due to attacks on mobile data platforms. Businesses also said they rated threats from viruses as the same or greater on mobile devices than on a fixed network.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19921"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Tue, 04 Apr 2006 01:36:51 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19923 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19923 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Mobile phones built in 2007 could store twice as many photos as they do now with a super-dense NOR flash memory chip from Intel.</P> <P>Intel, of Santa Clara, Calif., will achieve the gain by producing the chip on a tiny, 65-nanometer scale. Compared to standard 90-nanometer flash geometry, this allows designers to store 1 gigabit&nbsp;of data on a single layer, instead of stacking two chips.</P> <P>When it ships samples of this "Capulet" chip to OEMs in the fourth quarter, Intel claims it will be at least six months ahead of rivals Spansion and Samsung Semiconductor.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19923"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Tue, 04 Apr 2006 01:46:33 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19925 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19925 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>A community open-source effort known as the Portland Project gave the first look Tuesday at software tying together the two major Linux desktop environments, KDE and Gnome. The move should help speed the adoption of the open-source operating system on the desktop since developers won&#8217;t have to choose between the two different interfaces and tools when writing applications.</P> <P>The Portland Project gave its technology preview of the first set of common interfaces for Gnome and KDE at the LinuxWorld conference in Boston in conjunction with the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) and freedesktop.org.</P> <P>OSDL is a worldwide consortium focused on accelerating the adoption of Linux, while freedesktop.org is an open-source project devoted to interoperability and shared technology for X Window System desktops.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19925"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Tue, 04 Apr 2006 02:02:29 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19927 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19927 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>On Tuesday, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Nicholas Negroponte kicked off Boston&#8217;s LinuxWorld conference by dismissing recent criticism of his One Laptop Per Child initiative and announcing that the project could begin distributing the PCs by early 2007, <STRONG><A href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/04/04/mit_professor_dismisses_laptop_criticism/" target=_blank><STRONG>the AP reports via Boston.com</STRONG></A></STRONG>.</P> <P>The initiative is designed to improve the level of education in poor, underdeveloped nations by providing computers to children in those areas.</P> <P>Software giants Microsoft and Intel recently blasted the machines that would be distributed as part of the project, namely the hand cranks that would power them and their lack of a hard disk drive.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19927"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Tue, 04 Apr 2006 03:34:56 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19924 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19924 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Contract manufacturer Flextronics will invest in a large semiconductor manufacturing facility being set up in India by SemIndia, giving a significant boost to the fledgling project, Flextronics announced Tuesday.</P> <P>Flextronics of Singapore will also use chips produced by SemIndia to make products such as mobile phones at a factory that the company is setting up in Chennai in south India, the company said. Flextronics&#8217; new factory is scheduled to start operations by the end of July.</P> <P>SemIndia, which is a consortium of investors, announced plans in November to set up a wafer fabrication and assembly and test operation in India with process technology from Advanced Micro Devices of Sunnyvale, Calif. </P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19924"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Tue, 04 Apr 2006 01:57:22 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19922 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19922 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Microsoft Tuesday will launch an alliance that it hopes will kill two birds with one stone&#8212;use technology to promote bio-medical research and encourage customers to upgrade to the next version of Microsoft Office.</P> <P>Don Rule, platform strategy adviser of Microsoft&#8217;s developer and platform evangelism group, is expected to unveil the BioIT Alliance at the Bio-IT World Magazine World Life Sciences Conference + Expo in Boston on Tuesday. </P> <P>The aim of the group is to bring together pharmaceutical companies and independent software vendors (ISVs) to work on projects that advance medical and biological research and development, he said. And because Office 2007 will be a foundational software for the alliance&#8217;s projects, Microsoft also hopes companies in the life sciences market will upgrade to the software once it is available to business customers at the end of the year, Rule added.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19922"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Tue, 04 Apr 2006 01:40:09 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19917 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19917 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Nearly two-thirds of technology firms in Europe plan to increase tech hires in the next year, <STRONG><A href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/04/tech_recruitment_rising/" target=_blank><STRONG>ElectricNews.net reports via The Register</STRONG></A></STRONG>.</P> <P>The conclusion is based on a recent IT confidence survey conducted by Eurocom Worldwide, a European public relations network, and Six Degrees, its U.K. partner, according to ElectricNews.net.</P> <P>A meager&nbsp;8 percent of respondents said they plan to cut staff, and one-third said they&#8217;re having more trouble recruiting than at the same time last year, ElectricNews.net reports.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19917"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Tue, 04 Apr 2006 01:16:09 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19914 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19914 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>On Tuesday, Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) announced plans to slash 5,000 positions, or approximately 6 percent of its 80,000-person staff, over the next two years and it is holding talks regarding the sale of the company, <STRONG><A href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/COMPUTER_SCIENCES?SITE=TXPLA&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT" target=_blank><STRONG>the Associated Press reports via the Plainview Daily Herald</STRONG></A></STRONG>.</P> <P>CSC, an information technology services provider, said it had decided to examine its options for bumping up its shareholder value, and it hired investment bank Goldman Sachs &amp; Co. for guidance, according to the AP.</P> <P>The news first came after The Wall Street Journal reported that CSC was considering a sale for a minimum of $10.6 billion, according to the AP.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19914"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Tue, 04 Apr 2006 08:48:35 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19912 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19912 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>IBM and a small Silicon Valley start-up have developed a new, energy-efficient microprocessor aimed at users who want streaming live, high-definition video on mobile devices, the companies said Monday.</P> <P>The chips can be used for a variety of computing-intensive jobs, including mobile phone gaming and video, image processing and suitcase supercomputing, the companies said. Their main advantages are in data throughput and saving battery life. The companies claim the Kilocore 1025 will allow users to view high-definition video on a mobile device at five to 10 times the speed of existing processors.</P> <P>The companies did not indicate whether the chips had been made available to third parties for testing.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19912"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Tue, 04 Apr 2006 08:03:50 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19911 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19911 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>NTT DoCoMo will make its long-expected move into the consumer credit market later this month when it allows users to make up to 10,000 yen (US$84) per month in credit purchases with their mobile phones, it said Tuesday.</P> <P>The DCMX service, to be available April 28, represents NTT DoCoMo&#8217;s biggest push yet to convince subscribers to use mobile terminals for electronic payments. It will also mark the Japanese operator&#8217;s debut as a credit card issuer.</P> <P>The service will build on a fast-expanding network of noncontact smart card reader-writer terminals, which are already being deployed in stores across Japan. The terminals began appearing in shops late last year when NTT DoCoMo launched an electronic payments platform called "ID." </P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19911"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Tue, 04 Apr 2006 07:54:41 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19910 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19910 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Microsoft is set to release Tuesday a set of drivers and utilities for its Windows CE 5.0 operating system to make product development easier for device manufacturers.</P> <P>The upgrade, called the Networked Media Device Feature Pack, is free for OEMs, said Hardy Poppinga, a Microsoft product manager. Windows CE 5.0, released in July 2004, is an embedded operating system that runs on PDAs, portable music players and other hardware. </P> <P>Microsoft&#8217;s intention is to reduce the work involved in developing consumer electronics, such as networked media devices, as the market grows, Poppinga said. </P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19910"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Tue, 04 Apr 2006 07:45:25 EST ?CID=19865 ?CID=19865 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Alcatel and Lucent Technologies have reached a definitive agreement to merge, they said Sunday.</P> <P>The merger stands to create a networking giant with revenue of 21 billion euros&nbsp;(US$25 billion), based on 2005 financial results, and a strong presence in each continent.</P> <P>"We are very excited about this combination," said Patricia Russo, chairwoman and CEO of Lucent, in a conference call. "We see this as an opportunity to create a clear, competitive advantage in the marketplace."</P> <p><a href="?CID=19865"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 07:14:22 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19866 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19866 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Symantec is releasing a data backup product Monday that the company claims avoids risks associated with tape backup systems.</P> <P>The software, called the NetBackup PureDisk Remote Office Edition 6.0, is aimed at enterprise-level customers, particularly those in remote offices, said Wim De Wispelaere, senior product manager. PureDisk is derived from Symantec&#8217;s acquisition of DataCenter Technologies, based in Belgium, in April 2005. </P> <P>Symantec estimates that 35 percent of corporations&#8217; data is located in remote offices, and the volume of data is growing at a rate of 50 percent annually, De Wispelaere said.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19866"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 07:27:04 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19869 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19869 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Even though Windows Vista won&#8217;t be available until next year, Microsoft is working with hardware partners to prepare customers for its release. Starting next month, PCs with stickers saying "Windows Vista Capable" will be in stores, letting customers know what hardware can be upgraded to Vista once it is available, the company said Friday.</P> <P>Microsoft and industry partners co-developed what the company calls the Windows Vista Capable PC program to identify machines currently running Windows XP that have the requirements to upgrade to Vista.</P> <P>To receive a sticker, the PCs must pass certification requirements for the Designed for Windows XP logo. They also must meet hardware criteria that make them capable of performing well if running Windows Vista, Microsoft said. Those requirements are a modern CPU, at least 512MB of memory and a DirectX 9 class graphics processor. </P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19869"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 07:45:35 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19871 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19871 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Two virtualization software startups will vie for the spotlight at the LinuxWorld conference in Boston next week with competing offerings based on the open-source Xen hypervisor.</P> <P>Startup XenSource, which also manages the development of the open-source hypervisor, will launch a commercial virtualization platform, XenEnterprise, based on the latest version of the hypervisor.</P> <P>Red Hat and Novell are both integrating the open-source Xen hypervisor technology into the next versions of their Linux operating systems, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and Novell Suse Linux Enterprise Server 10, shipping this year.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19871"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 08:19:38 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19878 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19878 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Information technology budgets are expected to grow 8.6 percent over the next year, according to the March CIO Magazine Tech Poll. That number is up nearly&nbsp;1 percent from the 7.8&nbsp;percent&nbsp;reported in December 2005. </P> <P>After falling to 2.5 percent last October, tech spending projections have been on the rise. A large number of CIOs plan on increasing their investments in infrastructure, and many are also focusing on up-and-coming technologies like voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and mobile solutions.</P> <P>More than half of respondents are making significant investments in mobile technologies, server virtualization and consolidation, and VoIP.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19878"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 09:55:53 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19882 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19882 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Electronic Data Systems will make a conditional offer to obtain a controlling stake in Indian outsourcing and software firm Mphasis BFL for roughly $380 million, <STRONG><A href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114407464269115276.html?mod=googlenews_wsj" target=_blank><STRONG>The Wall Street Journal reports</STRONG></A></STRONG>.</P> <P>Plano, Texas-based EDS plans to offer the company 204.5 rupees (roughly $4.58) for each of its shares, according to The Journal.</P> <P>As a condition of the deal, EDS would acquire 83 million shares, or approximately 52 percent of Bangalore-based Mphasis&#8217; outstanding shares, The Journal reports.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19882"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 11:27:21 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19888 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19888 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Now that Lucent Technologies and Alcatel have reached a definitive merger agreement, the two companies have their work cut out for them over the next year or so to make the deal work, according to one analyst.</P> <P>"On paper, there is a good strategic fit between these two companies," said Bertrand Bidaud, vice president of carrier operations and strategy at Gartner. "The challenge, as always, is execution."</P> <P>Lucent and Alcatel agreed to a merger of equals on Sunday after more than a week of talks. Once the deal goes through, Alcatel shareholders will hold about 60 percent of the new company, which has combined annual revenue of 21 billion euros&nbsp;(US$25 billion), based on the most recent financial results. Lucent shareholders will hold the remaining 40 percent of the combined company&#8217;s shares.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19888"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 11:45:52 EST ?CID=19893 ?CID=19893 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>An Apple Computer executive took the witness stand Monday to defend the company against a lawsuit filed by The Beatles&#8217; record company for allegedly breaching a trademark agreement.</P> <P>Eddy Cue, vice president of iTunes at Apple Computer, on Monday sought to deflect Apple Corps&#8217; charge that the computer company violated a 1991 agreement that it would stay out of the music business.</P> <P>The iTunes Music Store is a feature within Apple Computer&#8217;s iTunes music jukebox software application. Since the feature debuted in April 2003, Apple Computer says it has sold more than&nbsp;1 billion songs, pushing sales of its hard-disk and flash-memory music players, which firmly hold 70 percent of the market.</P> <p><a href="?CID=19893"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 02:12:15 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19898 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19898 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Microsoft Monday said it has agreed to acquire ProClarity as a way to continue to develop its portfolio of business intelligence (BI) software.</P> <P>The terms of the deal, which is expected to close in early May, are not being disclosed, said Chris Caren, a Microsoft Office general manager. </P> <P>ProClarity, which has business analysis and visualization software for culling information from Microsoft SQL Server and exposing it to business users, is a privately held Microsoft partner in Boise, Idaho. The acquisition fits into Microsoft&#8217;s goal to be a prominent player in the BI market against competitors such as Business Objects SA and Cognos, Caren said.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19898"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 02:26:22 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19903 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19903 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>A team of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is testing whether radio frequency identification (RFID) tags could be used to track first responders inside buildings or other structures during emergency situations, <STRONG><A href="http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/techbeat/current.htm#rfid" target=_blank><STRONG>NIST Tech Beat reports</STRONG></A></STRONG>.</P> <P>Typical RFID readers register tagged items whenever they pass by, and information pertaining to the items and their locations is collected. The NIST researchers are studying whether low-cost RFID tags scattered around the insides of buildings can determine the specific locations of first responders and send that information to a handheld device made up of an RFID reader and navigation system, among other components, according to NIST Tech Beat.</P> <P>Since traditional&nbsp;GPS technology doesn&#8217;t adequately work inside most buildings, NIST is working to determine if sensors like accelerometers and gyroscopes could provide navigational guidance to first responders, NIST Tech Beat reports. Also, the majority of navigation systems slowly lose their accuracy over time, so the new navigation system would make the appropriate geographic corrections whenever an RFID reader registered a tag, correlating the device with its true locations, NIST Tech Beat reports.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19903"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 03:16:31 EST http://www.cio.com/career/boost/column.html?CID=19900 http://www.cio.com/career/boost/column.html?CID=19900 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<B>By Jane Howze</B> <P>When I make speeches about career strategy, one of the first questions I get is how to ensure that your interview with the executive search firm will result in an interview with the hiring company.</P> <P>First of all, it helps to understand that an executive search firm is paid in advance by the client to recruit for a particular position. The client has very specific requirements, and it is the recruiter&#8217;s function to seek out individuals who match the company&#8217;s hiring leadership and culture requirements. That said, there are many people who, on paper, are a good fit for a company but do not get past the executive recruiter. Many times, candidates are never given the reason why they do not make it to the next step, other than a vague answer such as, &#8220;We did not see you as a fit for the company&#8217;s culture.&#8221; What happened? The following are some recruiter pet peeves that could eliminate you as a candidate.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/career/boost/column.html?CID=19900"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 02:53:00 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19896 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19896 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Sun Microsystems has upgraded its business analytics software for storage with new reporting enhancements, it said Monday.</P> <P>Sun&#8217;s StorageTek Business Analytics software is based on technology gained last year from the company&#8217;s US$4.1 billion acquisition of Storage Technology. StorageTek had previously acquired the software, formerly called Storability Global Storage Manager, from its purchase of Storability Software in 2004. Sun is still in the process of rebranding all of its storage products under the StorageTek moniker as well as integrating both the staff and technologies it gained through the acquisition. </P> <P>Version 5.0 of StorageTek Business Analytics adds new NAS reporting capabilities to notify administrators when quotas are reaching capacity, as well as new reporting functionality to identify and repair orphan storage. The latest version also adds support for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Sun Solaris 10 operating systems, QLogic switches, and IBM and ADIC tape libraries.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19896"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 02:21:34 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19892 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19892 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>America Online (AOL) introduced on Monday new and enhanced mobile services, including new mobile browsing that adapts regular webpages to mobile screens, as the provider of online services and content competes for wireless Internet users.</P> <P>AOL, which built its business by providing dial-up Internet access, has been trying in recent years to expand beyond this mature market in various ways, including boosting its mobile offerings.</P> <P>As online services and content for mobile devices increase, the popularity of cell phones for accessing the Internet rises. In a study it co-sponsored, the results of which were made public Monday, AOL found that among adult U.S. cell phone users, 52 percent keep their phones turned on all the time. The study also found significant demand today in the United States&nbsp;for mobile versions of online services like mapping, text messaging, photo taking, games, e-mail, Web search and Web browsing.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19892"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 02:00:22 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19887 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19887 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>IBM and Novell have teamed up to drive Linux adoption among small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with new packaged bundles of Novell&#8217;s Linux distribution and IBM&#8217;s software and servers.</P> <P>The first bundle, called the Integrated Stack for Linux, combines Novell&#8217;s Suse Linux Enterprise Server with IBM&#8217;s WebSphere Application Server Community Edition&#8212;a free J2EE application server built on the Apache Geronimo open-source application server project&#8212;and IBM&#8217;s DB2 Express-C database server, a free, scaled-down version of its DB2 Universal Database Express Edition. The offering is initially available for SMBs through distributor Avnet&#8217;s reseller channel. Avnet will preinstall the software on IBM&#8217;s xSeries Intel based-servers for resellers.</P> <P>To help ease Linux deployments in Microsoft Windows environments, Avnet will also preload startup Centeris&#8217; Likewise application for Active Directory integration and management. The Likewise application makes Linux servers appear as Windows servers in a Windows environment, allowing system administrators to manage both through a Windows console.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19887"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 11:37:23 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19879 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19879 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>EMC Monday rolled out software for archiving e-mail messages and reporting data from enterprise applications.</P> <P>The two offerings are EMC Documentum Archive Services for E-mail, which collects and archives incoming and outgoing e-mail messages, and EMC Documentum Archive Services for Reports, which captures reports from ERP systems, invoices, Web services and other content. </P> <P>EMC already offered an e-mail archiving tool, called E-mailXtender, but the company says that product is geared for users who want to archive only e-mail, while the new tool is designed for those who need to archive e-mail plus other content types.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19879"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 10:05:06 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19875 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19875 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Hackers have posted a new version of malicious software that will make it easier for them to exploit an unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft&#8217;s Internet Explorer (IE) browser. Based on a critical bug disclosed on March 22, the software was posted by hackers Friday to the Milw0rm.com website.</P> <P>The code exploits a flaw in the way IE processes webpages using the createTextRange() method. Hackers have been using malware that takes advantage of this vulnerability to install unauthorized software on victims&#8217; computers over the past week, but this new generation is considered to be more dangerous, according to security researchers.</P> <P>Older versions of the malware could freeze victims&#8217; browsers for more than a minute, giving them an opportunity to shut down their computers or stop the malicious software before it could complete its work. But the new software works more quickly, meaning it will be particularly effective on older machines with limited memory and processing capabilities, said Craig Schmugar, researcher with McAfee Avert Labs. </P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19875"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 08:47:43 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19873 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19873 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Zend Technologies is porting its PHP development tools to IBM&#8217;s Series i servers for small and medium-sized business customers, bringing the popular scripting language to a new platform, Zend announced on Monday.</P> <P>Zend will port its PHP tools to the i5/OS, the flagship operating system for IBM&#8217;s Series i servers, which include a package of hardware, operating system software and middleware aimed at smaller businesses.</P> <P>The move reflects the growing popularity of PHP, a relatively easy-to-use programming language widely used for building websites and other Web applications, said Bola Rotibi, senior analyst for software development technologies with U.K. analyst company Ovum.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19873"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 08:35:32 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19872 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19872 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong) could face a fine, a civil lawsuit or both if it is found to have illegally divulged personal data used to put a Chinese journalist in jail for 10 years.</P> <P>Hong Kong Legislator Albert Ho on Thursday filed a complaint with the government on behalf of convicted Chinese journalist Shi Tao and a friend who traveled to the city. They argue that a Hong Kong company has no reason to comply with a Chinese request for information, and requested that Hong Kong&#8217;s Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data investigate the matter.</P> <P>Tao, formerly an editorial department head at the Contemporary Business News in China&#8217;s Hunan Province, was convicted last year of divulging state secrets by Beijing, in part due to an e-mail Yahoo handed over to Chinese authorities&nbsp;that contained a government warning for commissars to be on guard for dissident activity ahead of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19872"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Mon, 03 Apr 2006 08:29:10 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_vendors.html?CID=19665 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_vendors.html?CID=19665 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <P>This year marks a decade since the Internet bubble started inflating. Today, with IT spending on the rise again, &#8220;we&#8217;re entering a new 10-year period that I suspect will wind up being even more important than the bubble was,&#8221; observes Mark Stahlman, managing director of equity research with Caris & Co.</P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_vendors.html?CID=19665"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:16:50 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_valley.html?CID=19666 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_valley.html?CID=19666 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <P>The region that spawned the microprocessor and helped wire the world now wants to unwire itself.</P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_valley.html?CID=19666"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:17:00 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_quake.html?CID=19667 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_quake.html?CID=19667 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <P>Researchers in Japan, one of the world&#8217;s most earthquake-prone countries, have developed a network that can provide several seconds&#8217; warning that violent seismic shaking is about to commence.</P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_quake.html?CID=19667"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:17:07 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_move.html?CID=19668 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_move.html?CID=19668 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <P>As CIO of UniGroup, the transportation company that operates Mayflower Transit and United Van Lines, Randall Poppell spent a lot of time doing strategic planning for the company as part of his effort to create an IT strategy. The IT strategy meetings Poppell held always involved discussions about the business strategy, business processes and business transformation.</P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_move.html?CID=19668"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:17:15 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_dramis.html?CID=19672 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_dramis.html?CID=19672 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <P>After hurricanes swept the Gulf Coast last summer, Fran Dramis, chief information and e-commerce officer at BellSouth, helped establish three relief centers equipped with computers and phones that victims could use to contact their families. Also under Dramis&#8217;s leadership, the company established a disaster-relief fund and encouraged employees to &#8220;adopt&#8221; an affected family.</P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_dramis.html?CID=19672"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:18:21 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/metrics.html?CID=19674 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/metrics.html?CID=19674 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P></P> <P>Joe Drouin caught a lucky break when he became VP and CIO of TRW Automotive in 2002&#8212;or so he thought at the time. A consultancy brought in to benchmark all of TRW&#8217;s internal functions&#8212;everything from IT to legal to sales&#8212;found that the company was spending less on IT as a percent of overall revenue than the industry average, which was about 1.5 to 2 percent. </P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/metrics.html?CID=19674"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:18:37 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/metrics_sidebar2.html?CID=19676 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/metrics_sidebar2.html?CID=19676 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <P>1. Your product¿A high IT element in products (insurance and financial products, for example) usually means higher IT costs.</P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/metrics_sidebar2.html?CID=19676"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:19:05 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/health_sidebar.html?CID=19678 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/health_sidebar.html?CID=19678 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <P>First came the news that Brigham and Women&#8217;s Hospital in Boston had been mistakenly faxing confidential medical records to a local investment bank over a period of six months. Then, on the very same day in February, the press reported that U.S. doctors had been faxing confidential patient information to a small Canadian distributor of herbal remedies, also by mistake.</P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/health_sidebar.html?CID=19678"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:19:21 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/publisher.html?CID=19680 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/publisher.html?CID=19680 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <P>All the talk these days is about Web 2.0 and the ways business will be able to leverage it to foster commerce in 2006 and beyond. But I recently had a Web 1.0 experience that was all too typical.</P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/publisher.html?CID=19680"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:19:37 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/wifi_sidebar.html?CID=19687 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/wifi_sidebar.html?CID=19687 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <h4>Portland, Ore.</h4> <P></P> <P>Has issued an RFP to build a Wi-Fi network.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/wifi_sidebar.html?CID=19687"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:20:42 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/wifi.html?CID=19686 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/wifi.html?CID=19686 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P></P> <P>In November 2004, Philadelphia CIO Dianah Neff got a surprise telephone call from a city attorney. While watching a government-access TV channel the night before, that attorney saw that House Bill 30, a rewrite of the state telecommunications act, had a new provision attached to it&#8212;one that could derail Neff&#8217;s plan to provide low-cost wireless Internet access for all Philly residents. Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell ultimately signed the legislation, which gave telecom companies doing business in the state the right to block any municipality from offering a paid Wi-Fi service. </P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/wifi.html?CID=19686"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:20:35 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/career_sidebar.html?CID=19685 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/career_sidebar.html?CID=19685 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <P>Thanks to all who posted responses to the online version of this column. Several readers questioned the basic premise of the article: Why is moving out of IT and into &#8220;the business&#8221; a good thing? Here is a sampling of the comments:&#8220;My perspective is that we are all businesspeople; we just bring different skills to the table,&#8221; wrote Brent Stahlheber, executive VP and CIO of The Auto Club Group (AAA). &#8220;Stating what we can do to move from our technology position assumes that we do not have a critical role in leading business change.&#8221; Or as Arun Gupta, an IT exec at Pfizer India, commented, &#8220;Do we have stories of other functions aspiring to the CIO shoes? Are we negating the value the CIO brings to the organization?&#8221;</P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/career_sidebar.html?CID=19685"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:20:27 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/career.html?CID=19684 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/career.html?CID=19684 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <P>While the dichotomy between IT and &#8220;the business&#8221; should be archaic by now, it is alive and well at the executive table. Despite this bias, a growing number of CIOs are moving from the head IT spot into operations, marketing and other roles that rank as bona fide business leadership. Here are four ways to cross the great divide.</P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/career.html?CID=19684"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:20:17 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/edit.html?CID=19683 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/edit.html?CID=19683 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <P>CIOs, by and large, did not get into IT for the fun of budgeting, and they welcome the fact that their businesses seem to be emerging from the bad old days when good IT meant little more than low-cost IT.</P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/edit.html?CID=19683"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:20:10 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/et_main.html?CID=19682 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/et_main.html?CID=19682 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <P>Tagging offers a potentially powerful way for a company to organize information by making fresh content immediately searchable, letting users designate terms that make sense to them and providing users with a sense of ownership. This ability for tags to provide so much content-describing power for ordinary folks has given rise to the term "folksonomy," as opposed to the more restrictive sounding "taxonomy." </P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/et_main.html?CID=19682"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:20:03 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/forum.html?CID=19681 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/forum.html?CID=19681 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <P>In fall 2004, at one of the initial meetings of the CIO Executive Council, members prioritized their professional challenges and chose several to collectively tackle to drive positive change. One was the need to clearly explain the value that IT brings to the enterprise. In most companies, there is no institutional understanding of why IT is essential. This gap in understanding places CIOs in the position of having to defend IT to the rest of the enterprise, a situation the Council CIOs were determined to change.</P> <P> </P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/forum.html?CID=19681"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:19:50 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/keynote.html?CID=19679 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/keynote.html?CID=19679 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <P>The Bush administration has embarked on an ambitious national health-care initiative to improve the quality of medical care and stem its rising costs, which just in the last decade have risen to an estimated 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), or about $1.6 trillion. The centerpiece of this initiative is a national health information network (NHIN) connecting millions of electronic health records (EHRs) for patients. Advocates of EHRs claim that the use of such records could shrink U.S. medical costs by hundreds of billions of dollars annually, reduce the estimated 100,000 lives lost through medical errors and improve the general quality of patient care. Toward that end, President Bush has set up an Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology inside the Department of Health and Human Services.</para></P> <P>I find the argument for EHRs very compelling, both from a personal perspective (as a person who has endured surgery several times) as well as a professional one (as a systems engineer who has worked on large-scale software systems in commercial and government sectors). But in this particular case, my risk alarm bells are ringing loudly.</para></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/keynote.html?CID=19679"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:19:30 EST http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19845 http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19845 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P>Microsoft left a two-day antitrust hearing in Brussels Friday claiming it had reached a breakthrough with European regulators in a dispute that may still result in the company being fined up to 2 million euros&nbsp;(US$2.4 million) a day.</P> <P>But the claim of a breakthrough was exaggerated, according to two other people involved in the closed-door hearing&#8212;one person representing rival software companies and a person close to the European Commission, the European Union&#8217;s top antitrust authority.</P> <P>The commission has accused Microsoft of failing to provide adequate technical details about its Windows operating system. The commission ruled two years ago that by withholding this information, Microsoft was stifling competition in the software industry. Microsoft maintains that it has provided the information, which would allow competing makers of server systems to design programs that work as well with PCs running Windows as Microsoft&#8217;s own server software.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=19845"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 09:19:22 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/health.html?CID=19677 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/health.html?CID=19677 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)<P></P> <P>When the Vioxx recall hit in late September 2004, it was almost a yawner for Peter Basch. "It took us two or three minutes to figure out which of our patients were on it," says Basch, who is part of an eight-doctor practice in Washington, D.C. That two to three minutes was how much time it took to structure and execute a search for the practice&#8217;s electronic records database.</P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/health.html?CID=19677"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:19:13 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/metrics_sidebar1.html?CID=19675 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/metrics_sidebar1.html?CID=19675 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <h4>As a percent of revenue</h4> <P></P> <P>Pros: Easy to calculate; provides some basic insight into spending levels in specific industries. Widely used.</P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/metrics_sidebar1.html?CID=19675"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:18:57 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_choicepoint.html?CID=19673 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_choicepoint.html?CID=19673 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <P>In January, the Federal Trade Commission levied a $15 million penalty against data broker ChoicePoint because the company allowed criminals posing as customers to access the personal data of 163,000 consumers. Of that sum, $5 million is being used to create a fund for victims of fraud or identity theft due to the data breach. Now, the FTC is trying to figure out how to find victims and quantify their losses.</P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_choicepoint.html?CID=19673"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:18:28 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_irs.html?CID=19671 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_irs.html?CID=19671 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <P>As tax day approaches, IRS CIO Todd Grams says returns are beginning to come in on the agency&#8217;s investments in an $8 billion modern IT infrastructure.</P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_irs.html?CID=19671"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:18:13 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_jobs.html?CID=19670 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_jobs.html?CID=19670 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <P>As more IT functions are moved offshore to developing countries, there are ways for IT workers in developed countries to improve their chances of staying employed, according to a report from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).</P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_jobs.html?CID=19670"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:18:04 EST http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_mgmt.html?CID=19669 http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_mgmt.html?CID=19669 (<a href="http://www.cio.com/">CIO</a>)</P> <P>IT managers who focus on cutting costs and driving efficiencies risk working themselves out of a job, according to two recent reports. Instead, technology leaders need to create value by generating revenue.</P> <P></P> <p><a href="http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/tl_mgmt.html?CID=19669"><strong> Read More...</strong></a></p> Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:17:57 EST