More Sony Laptop Batteries Recalled

Dell, HP, and Toshiba have issued recalls for batteries shipped with particular models of notebooks sold in the United States and abroad. The batteries, made by Sony between October 2004 and June 2005, could overheat, potentially causing damage and/or injury. Users should check their laptop manufacturer’s Web site for details on affected models and procedures for replacement. Owners of recalled batteries should discontinue their use. This issue with 100,000 batteries is significant, but it pales in comparison with the massive recall of 9.6 million Sony batteries in 2006.

Microsoft To Release Windows 7 Beta Early Next Year

Microsoft will reportedly make its upcoming Windows 7 operating system available for public beta in early 2009. This follows the company making an alpha edition of Windows 7 available to attendees of the Professional Developers Conference late last month. Microsoft also plans to hand out copies of the alpha of Windows 7 at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference this month. The company says anyone will be able to download the public beta. Windows 7 is expected for release in late 2009 or early 2010 with performance, compatibility, and security enhancements over Windows Vista.

State CIOs List Priorities For 2009

Based on an annual survey of state CIOs, NASCIO (the National Association of State CIOs) released the top 10 priority strategies, management processes, and solutions for CIOs in 2009. The top strategy concern is consolidation, so management can centralize services, operations, resources, and infrastructure. Other primary priorities include the management of shared services, budget and cost control, security, records preservation and e-discovery, and green IT. NASCIO also released a top 10 list for technologies, applications, and tools, which showed virtualization at the top of the list and document and content management coming in second.

Study Shows Security Policies In Place, But Ignored

Cisco and the market research firm Insight-Express completed a study that asked more than 2,000 employees and IT professionals in 10 countries about corporate data leakage. The study found that 77% of businesses have security policies in place, but Japan and the UK lagged, with just 39% and 29% of businesses maintaining a security policy in those countries. What’s more telling is that 84% of French employees say they have defied policies, but in India, 11% say they never or hardly ever abide by corporate security policies. In other findings, 77% of IT professionals believe their policies require more frequent updates. Only Germany and the United States had a majority of employees who thought their policies were fair. When asked about noncompliance, employees say the top reason for it is when the policies don’t align with the reality of what they need to do their jobs.

ICANN Proposes New Top-Level Domain Strategy

ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has announced a plan to speed up the process by which it approves new TLDs (top-level domains) such as .com, .net, and .biz. The ICANN proposal allows any organization with $185,000 to invent its own TLD, including one with non-English characters, subject to the review and approval of third parties. The fee would go toward application evaluation and risk management.

Consumers Buying Slightly Less

According to the NPD Group, U.S. consumer technology retail sales dipped in September as analysts expected, but by a smaller-than-anticipated margin. Sales were down 2% compared to September of last year, which was also down compared to 2006. The latest data also reveals that the 2% rise in back-to-school spending for August was short-lived. The NPD reports that September flat-panel TV sales grew 20% and notebook computer sales grew 9% compared to 2007. While growth overall was down, the findings show that gadgets continue to sell.

CenturyTel To Buy Embarq

In a stock-for-stock transaction, CenturyTel will acquire Embarq for $5.8 billion. The deal will give telecommunications carrier CenturyTel a presence in 33 U.S. states. Combined revenue from the companies is expected to exceed $8.8 billion. As part of the deal, CenturyTel will assume a $5.8 billion debt from Embarq, though the companies expect to save about $400 million annually within three years. Glen Post, CenturyTel CEO and chairman, will head the combined company. Embarq CEO Tom Gerke will serve as executive vice chairman. CenturyTel sells voice, broadband, and TV services in rural communities, while Embarq is a two-year-old spin-off from Sprint Nextel.

Verizon’s Income Rises During Third Quarter

The nation’s second largest wireless carrier, Verizon Communications, reported that its net income increased by 31% the third quarter of 2008. Revenue rose to $24.8 billion compared to $23.8 billion for the 2007 third quarter. Out of the company’s 74.9 million customers, 30% of its new customers are now purchasing smartphones, indicating that an increasing number of consumers are relying on cell phones more than landlines. Verizon’s total net income went from $1.3 billion to $1.7 billion; the wireless division also increased by 14%, from $3.1 billion to $3.5 billion.

GPU Market Thrives

GPU (graphics processing unit) vendors Intel and AMD are both watching their shares continue to increase within a slowing economy, according to the latest figures from Jon Peddie Research. However, Nvidia’s shipments have dropped by 6.4%, while its share of the desktop GPU market dropped to 32.6%. Overall, more than 111 million GPUs were shipped during the third quarter—an increase of about a 22% over last year’s 91 million shipped. In notebook GPU shipments, Intel dropped slightly to a 56.2% share; Nvidia also dropped slightly to 21.8%. In contrast, AMD is up to 20.9%. Although the third quarter is usually an upsurge due to the holiday season, the recession is expected to cause a less positive fourth quarter.

Symantec Q2 Profit Rises

Symantec released its second quarter profit numbers, reporting earnings of $1.52 billion. That’s up from $1.42 billion in the second quarter of last year. Symantec’s shares have risen to 16 cents per share, a significant raise from last year’s 6 cents per share. Symantec CEO John Thompson commented that Symantec produces such growth in revenue because of its core businesses, which include consumer security and backup and storage. Still, company executives are anticipating some aspects of the company to decline, such as retail, in the December quarter. Thompson pointed out that despite December being one of the strongest periods in the past, many of Symantec’s customers have suffered due to the slowing economy, and Symantec may see some impact from a decline in retail sales, which have dropped about 20% since last year.

Yahoo!, Google Offer Third-Party Platforms

Yahoo! released version 1 of Yahoo! Open Strategy, which allows public access to programming platforms that let third-party developers build applications onto Yahoo! or put Yahoo! info on their own sites. Google also added third-party features to Gmail, including an integrated calendar, Google Docs, and a tool that lets you add widgets to your Gmail page. Both Yahoo! and Google are competing to acquire the most users and transform themselves into the biggest Internet power. The idea behind third-party offerings is the double benefit for both the company and the coders. Using the provided platforms, third-party builders are exposed to large numbers of users, while Yahoo! and Google can gain more users through the promise of new and exciting tools.

Risk Of Employee-Downloaded Malware On The Rise

Security services provider ScanSafe released a Global Threat Report stating that companies are increasingly at risk from malware infections caused by inadvertent employee downloads onto company computers. The aviation and automotive industries have the lowest percentage of risk, and the government sector has remained stable in terms of risk of malware infection. According to the report, the energy sector bears the highest risk for malware infection—189% higher than any other industry. Other industries at a high risk include, in order from greatest risk to lowest, pharmaceutical and chemicals, construction and engineering, and media and publishing.

New State Of Matter May Extend Moore’s Law

Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, stated in 1965 that the number of transistors and resistors on a chip doubles about every 18 months. His “law” has been startlingly accurate more than four decades later, and a new state of matter discovered by researchers at McGill University may help extend Moore’s Law. Scientists developed a way to use three-dimensional electron crystals to pack transistors more tightly on a chip. They affected the two-dimensionality of existing electron crystals with the largest magnet in the world, located at the Magnet Lab in Florida, creating a quasi third dimension. Researchers hope they will be able to leverage this discovery to manufacture chips with more dense transistors in the future.

Microsoft Posts Revenue, Net Income Growth

Microsoft’s net income grew by 2% and its revenue grew by 9% in its first fiscal quarter. The company reported slower-than-expected growth in its first quarter, particularly in its Windows client revenue area, caused by the increasing popularity of low-cost portable PCs known as netbooks. Microsoft’s first fiscal quarter ended Sept. 30, and it reported earnings that increased to $4.37 billion, or 48 cents per share, compared to $4.29 billion, or 45 cents per share, last year.

Government Cutting IT Spending

The struggling economy is forcing 38% of local and city government IT departments to cut spending through the next few years, according to a survey of 162 local and state CIOs conducted by market research firm Input. About 14% of CIOs expect spending increases, according to the survey, and about half say spending will plateau for at least two years. Public safety interoperability was named the top priority for these departments, followed by e-government projects and services, which will be able to alleviate cost crunches in tight budgets. Equipment upgrades, the hiring of consultants, and new projects are all likely to face severe cuts or elimination in the next few years.

Yahoo! Announces New Data Center

Yahoo! will build a new data center in Nebraska. The company began searching in January for a location in the Midwest. The project will include a 150,000-square-foot data center in La Vista, a suburb of Omaha, and a customer care center in Omaha. The announcement came at about the same time Yahoo! announced a weak financial outlook and plans to lay off about 10% of its workforce. Yahoo! will apply for various business incentives and tax breaks that are available under Nebraska’s Advantage Tier 4 business incentives package. In return, Yahoo! must invest at least $100 million in capital and create 100 new jobs.

Researcher Finds Security Flaw In Android

According to researchers from Independent Security Evaluators, the new Android operating system is vulnerable to a serious security flaw. The vulnerability is in the browser and has the potential to enable a hacker to access information the browser may use, such as cookies, saved passwords, and other sensitive information. If users visit a malicious Web page, they may make themselves susceptible to this vulnerability. The security company says that any attack would be limited because of the way in which Android’s security architecture is constructed. A Google spokesperson says the company is working on a fix, which will be delivered over the air to all devices.

SaaS Revenue On Pace To Surpass $6.4 Billion In 2008

Gartner reports that SaaS (software as a service) revenue rose 27% over the past year. By 2012, Gartner expects SaaS revenue to reach $14.8 billion. Analysts from Gartner indicate that the adoption of SaaS has grown because organizations are less concerned about SaaS’ security, response time, and service availability. Additionally, SaaS often allows businesses to reduce capital expenditure, and with the viability of broadband for Web-based services, enterprises can quickly implement software that supports a specific business need. Gartner indicates that the fastest growing markets for SaaS are office suites and digital content creation. By 2012, Gartner estimates that Web-based freeware, such as Google Apps, Adobe Buzzword, ThinkFree, Zoho, and SaaS offerings, will account for a 9% market share of total software revenue.

Microsoft Unveils Developer Portal

Microsoft announced a new online portal geared toward the developer community. The portal, called DevLabs, is designed to offer a place for Microsoft to share ideas and projects in the works with developers, giving them a chance to offer suggestions on upcoming projects and feedback on early versions of new tools. S. Somasegar, senior vice president of the company’s developer division, says on his blog that the site will not feature new releases of existing products, as beta testing is already in place for such offerings; rather, the portal will focus on new projects only.

SAP Reports Profit Decline, Cancels Sales Forecast

Citing the ongoing worldwide economic crisis, software vendor SAP reported a 5% decline in Q3 profits year over year and has canceled its sales forecast for the rest of the year. The company’s net income fell to 388 million euros ($486 million USD) from 408 million euros last year; its total revenue, however, was about 2.76 billion euros, a 14% increase year over year. The company attributes its decision to forego a sales forecast to the uncertainty of the current economy; however, it still predicts an operating margin of about 28% for the year.

Motorola Sees Revenues Decline, Postpones Handset Spinoff

Motorola announced significant losses for the third quarter—due in large part to a steep 15% decline in revenue—and predicts that its Q4 earnings will likely miss analyst expectations. Revenue from Motorola’s mobile devices division were down 31% year over year to $3.1 billion, and its phone shipments dropped to 25.4 million phones, down from 37.2 million phones in Q3 last year. The company has also decided to postpone its plans to spin off its handset division, focusing instead on trimming expenses and improving its handset offerings.

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