Roundup: Windows 7 nearing launch, Facebook phished, Dean’s upcoming Seattle speech
Here’s the latest action:
Windows 7 readying for birth — Microsoft’s new operating system is entering its final stages of testing and the company has a “release candidate” ready, possibly for launch on May 5. It will be interesting to see if it lifts computer sales in the midst of the recession.
Walt Disney takes nearly 30 percent stake in Hulu — News of the Disney relationship with the Web video aggregator is here.
Anyone remember the Razr? — Motorola posts… Continue Reading
IBM turns its developer site into a social network
For 10 years, IBM has been using its software developer site as a watering hole for those who use IBM’s tools. Now the My developerWorks site is becoming a social network.
The company said that it is getting hip with the times. Its own surveys found that developers are using forums, blogs, wikis and online newsletter to talk to each other. Hence, IBM is adding social networking features like those its developers already use on Facebook,… Continue Reading
Roundup: Apple patents surface, Second Life grows, Rosetta Stone IPO takes off
Here’s the latest action:
New Apple patent filings raise eyebrows — The next versions of the iPhone could make use of a motion-aware user interface, based on some recent patent filings. MacRumors has more.
Nokia’s net income takes a dive — Phone maker’s net income falls 90 percent in the first quarter. CNET has more.
Bartz unlikely to sell Yahoo? — A profile in Fortune of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz cites unnamed sources as saying that Bartz doesn’t want to sell… Continue Reading
IBM walks from Sun deal, but it could come back
IBM has withdrawn its $7 billion acquisition offer to buy Sun Microsystems, shelving at least for the moment a merger that would have created a dominant global market leader in computer servers.
The collapse of talks hammered Sun’s stock price. It dropped 23 percent to around $6.50, or well below the purchase price being talked about — reportedly around $9.50. However, in a sign the market doesn’t believe the talks are over for good, Sun’s shares… Continue Reading
IBM makes big online collaboration move with LotusLive Engage
IBM is making a big move into the online collaboration market with a new product called LotusLive Engage, which it will be demonstrating tomorrow at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.
Engage appears to be the most comprehensive service yet offered under IBM’s LotusLive umbrella of web-based businesses services. The heart of the product appears to be a web meeting service, but just as Cisco says it wants to build a collaboration suite around its… Continue Reading
Roundup: Google’s layoffs, Pick Your Five’s popularity, and more
Here’s the latest (layoff heavy) action:
Google lays off 200 employees — Most of the cuts are happening in the sales and marketing departments, where Google has over-invested.
Pick Your Five application surges on Facebook — The app from LivingSocial, which asks you to list your five favorite movies, books, and so on, has grown to more than 6 million users since launching a week ago.
IBM laying off 5,000 people — Many of those jobs will be transferred to India.
Opera… Continue Reading
Roundup: Solyndra scores major green, Windows braces for worm, car takes to the skies and more
Department of Energy shines on Solyndra — The solar company landed a $535 million loan to continue developing its technology. The New York Times has more.
A wormy April Fool’s Day — The Conficker computer worm is set to be unleashed on April 1, exploiting Windows weaknesses to create millions of zombie computers. “Joke or apocalypse?” asks the New York Times.
Study says, “Do or do not, there is no try” — A new Harvard Business School study of venture-backed… Continue Reading
IBM to launch new version of business simulation game
IBM isn’t a company you’d expect to see at the Game Developers Conference. But Big Blue has been making games for a while now and is showing off Innov8 v.2, a new version of a business simulation game that helps students and professionals hone their business skills.
The game is a so-called Serious Game, or one that has goals beyond entertainment. The Serious Game Summit at the GDC is highlighting a bunch of these games in… Continue Reading
IBM rumored to be in negotiations to buy Sun Microsystems for $6.5 billion
IBM is in negotiations to buy Sun Microsystems for $6.5 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported today.
If the deal happens, it would be one of the biggest consolidations in the computer industry since Hewlett-Packard merged with Compaq in 2001.
IBM would eliminate a major competitor if it follows through with the all-cash deal, which would be a big premium over Tuesday’s closing price of $4.97 a share. The deal would strengthen IBM’s hand against HP, which… Continue Reading
Sun looking to claim space in the cloud
Sun Microsystems jumped on the cloud computing bandwagon today with the announcement of its own platform for applications that run in the Internet cloud. The company is launching its effort with two products — Sun Cloud Services and Sun Cloud Compute Service.
With Amazon already an established leader, and with Google and Microsoft — plus many others — developing their own solutions, how does Sun plan to stand out? A big selling point will be the… Continue Reading
Roundup: Checking out of Google Checkout, Surface 2.0 and more
Here’s the latest action:
Google Checkout raises transaction fees — It seems like a weird time to do so, as merchants are already poorer from the recession. They seem to be leaving in droves. Hello, PayPal!
There’s a second-generation of Microsoft’s Surface table computing systems coming — The BBC has more.
Blogger Robert Scoble joins Rackspace — His thoughts, here.
IBM sinks into water management business — The Wall Street Journal has more.
Sequoia loses Michael Beckwith, only a year after he launched a… Continue Reading
DEMO: How new technology makes us more productive
More companies are catching on to the ways that technologies like the Internet, smartphones, and social networking can help people work with others and get more done.
These ideas become even more compelling in the current economic climate, when it’s a truism that everyone needs to prove they’re productive. That, or they’ll lose their job.
That’s why we’re making “Productivity 2.0″ (a term which sounds a bit gimmicky, but which serves as a convenient shorthand for the… Continue Reading
Roundup: Intel pours cash into factories, N.J. goes solar, Obama taps cybersecurity chief, and more
Microsoft to tighten ties with Facebook chat? — Steve Ballmer implies (oh so subtly) full interoperability between Facebook chat and Windows Live Messenger.
Intel to sink funds into factories — Despite the downturn, the giant earmarks $7 billion for its chip manufacturing plants over the next two years.
Obama anoints Melissa Hathaway cybersecurity czar — The former aide to president Bush’s intelligence director plans to evaluate current measures to secure government networks from spies and terrorists.
Cisco’s on the hunt for acquisitions —… Continue Reading
“The Race for a New Game Machine” book chronicles the Sony-Microsoft-IBM love triangle
The shenanigans between Sony, Microsoft and IBM in the game business will probably go down as one of the great corporate love triangles of all time.
I’ve finished reading a remarkable new geek book, “The Race for a New Game Machine: Creating the chips inside the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3” by former IBM engineers David Shippy and Mickie Phipps, released last month by Citadel. I’ve also interviewed Shippy, the chief architect of the PowerPC… Continue Reading
IBM opens center for business partners in Brazil
IBM has announced the opening of a new IBM Innovation Center in Sao Paulo, Brazil — a facility designed primarily for the corporation’s South American partners (startups, VCs, software vendors and academics working on products and technologies that somehow fit into IBMs core business strategy). It’s the newest of 42 centers located around the globe that offer training courses, consulting services and infrastructure to incubate ideas.
Part of the new complex is the IBM Solutions Center,… Continue Reading
Roundup: Google sees results in Washington, sex offenders out of MySpace, Motorola’s big loss and more
Here’s the latest action:
Google is making friends in Washington — After Microsoft and AT&T’s lobbying power killed its Yahoo search deal, Google has proven to be the quick study in politics and now seems to have friends in high places…the highest places, the White House. The Wall Street Journal breaks it all down.
Sex offenders no longer welcome on MySpace — The social network banned some 90,000 of them — so they moved to Facebook? That’s what a… Continue Reading
Papermaster can lead Apple’s iPhone team — but Big Brother is watching
Apple finally got its guy. Nearly three months after a judge ordered Mark Papermaster not to report for work at Apple as senior vice president of devices hardware engineering due to a contract dispute with IBM (his previous employer), the two parties have settled. Starting on April 24, yes another three months from now, Papermaster will lead Apple’s iPod and iPhone hardware teams, the company announced in a release today.
Apple had tapped Papermaster to replace… Continue Reading
Roundup: IBM’s good fourth quarter, more inauguration coverage, possible trouble for Intel
IBM had a good fourth quarter — The now-diversified hardware maker posted net income of $4.4 billion for last quarter, up 12 percent from Q4 of 2007. Revenue decreased just 1 percent after adjusting for currency changes. The company expects its software, services and finance businesses to fair well in the coming year. More on CNET.
President Barack Obama’s inauguration causes web traffic spike — Web infrastructure company Akamai reported millions going online looking for news coverage of… Continue Reading
Sony Electronics holds a virtual trade show
Sony Electronics staged a virtual trade show today for fans of professional broadcasting equipment. The company said thousands of people registered for the event, which was staged by InXpo in Chicago.
The event marks the first time that Sony Electronics has endorsed the virtual trade show concept, which has been pushed by a variety of startups in the past couple of years as a way to cut travel and hotel expenses.
Alec Shapiro, senior vice president of… Continue Reading
IBM sets new patent record in 2008
IBM just announced that it is the first company ever to earn more than 4,000 U.S. patents in a single year.
VentureBeat writer Dean Takahashi has already written about some of the cool technology being developed at IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, including a microscope with 100 times the resolution of magnetic resonance imaging and a computer modeled on the human brain, but IBM’s announcement puts a number on all of that innovation: 4,186,… Continue Reading