Labourey Out As CTO Of JBoss

Sacha Labourey, CTO of Java application server vendor JBoss, announced late last month that he will be leaving the company soon. An exact reason for his departure was not given, although he expressed a need to see JBoss become a success before leaving. Labourey will continue on as a contractor for Red Hat (which acquired JBoss in 2006), and Mark Little, JBoss’ SOA strategist, will step in as his replacement. Labourey had been with JBoss since 2001.

Couple Sues Acer Over Notebook’s Performance

An Ohio couple has sued Acer, the world’s third largest computer maker, over the performance of its Aspire notebook. The couple purchased an Aspire 4520-5458 notebook from Wal-Mart for $568 that ran Windows Vista Home Premium and included 1GB of RAM and an Nvidia GeForce 610M integrated graphics chipset. According to the suit, the computer “would not run properly” and would freeze or crash when it tried to run Vista. The lawsuit accuses Acer of deceiving customers by claiming that laptops can run Windows Vista with only 1GB of memory, and it charges the computer maker with breach of warranty, fraud, and violations of California and federal consumer protection laws.

Report Shows Online Advertising Sluggish, But Still Growing

Spending on online advertising in the United States decelerated in 2008 but continued to grow nonetheless, according to the 2008 Internet Advertising Revenue Report sponsored by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers. According to information from The Nielsen Company, $23.4 billion was spent on U.S. online ads in 2008, which is a 10.6% leap compared with 2007. However, growth in overall U.S. ad spending shrank 2.6% in 2008. So far, online ads have seemed to survive the economic collapse and are faring better than other types of advertising.

Microsoft, TomTom Reach Settlement

Microsoft and TomTom have reached an agreement regarding their conflicting patent infringement cases, resolving what was Microsoft’s first Linux patent-related lawsuit against another company. Microsoft sued TomTom for eight patent infringements of the Linux kernel, and TomTom will now have to pay Microsoft an unspecified amount of money to cover each patent. TomTom also dropped its countersuit against Microsoft for violating four of its own navigation technology patents. TomTom will have to remove the functionality provided by the three file management systems patents, known as the FAT LFN patents, within two years. These patents are designed to increase the efficiency of naming, organizing, storing, and accessing file data.

Google Cuts 200 Jobs . . .

Google announced that it plans to cut about 200 sales and marketing positions worldwide. Omid Kordestani, senior vice president of global sales and business development, said in a blog post that the company considered many options for reducing costs, but in the end, the cuts are necessary. Kordestani also said that Google will give affected employees a chance to find another position within Google or offer outplacement support and severance pay. In January, Google cut 100 recruiting jobs; ended six services, including Google Catalog Search, Google Notebook, and the ability to upload Google Video; and closed three offices in Texas, Norway, and Sweden.

. . . But Plans To Hire After Layoffs

Despite the planned 200 layoffs, Google is still hiring to fill about 360 jobs, from software engineers to sales and marketing positions. Google claims the layoffs were due to over-hiring in certain areas of the company, and spokesman Matt Furman adds that overlapping in one part of the company doesn’t eliminate the need for workers in another part of the company. About half of the 360 job openings are located in the United States, and the others are available in places such as Ireland and Australia.

Solid-State Drives Gain Traction

A number of recent financial investments are strengthening solid-state technology’s place in the storage market. Western Digital’s $65 million acquisition of SiliconSystems is just one example; another SSD maker, Pliant Technology, received $15 million in funding recently. Although Pliant has been delivering enterprise-class drives since last year, the fresh capital enables it to significantly ramp up production. Samsung, Hitachi GST, and Intel are all working on enterprise-class SSDs and flash technology, as well.

IE8’s Preliminary Market Share Comes At Expense Of IE7

Web analysis firm Net Applications has reported its browser stats for the week following the launch of Microsoft’s latest offering, Internet Explorer 8. In IE8’s first week, the browser accounted for 2.55% of all browsers that accessed tracked sites, but IE8’s share comes almost strictly at the expense of IE7, which fell 2.4%. Even the IE6 share slipped slightly from 18.85% in February to 18.28%. By the end of March, IE8’s share was up to 3%. Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari browser shares were mostly unaffected by the launch of IE8.

Forrester Once Again Lowers IT Spending Forecast

According to new predictions from Forrester Research, IT spending in the United States will continue to decline in correlation to the economic downturn. The firm now reports that U.S. tech spending will fall by 3.1% in 2009 compared to last year, which is significantly different from the previously forecasted 1.6% increase. Forrester Research points out the 2 to 3% drop in GDP in most recent recessions compared to the current 6% GDP decline reported for Q4 2008; a similar decline is expected for Q1 2009. Forrester expects the U.S. economy to begin to recover in late 2009, after which IT spending should rebound. The latest adjustment marks the fourth consecutive quarter Forrester has lowered its forecasts.

Nvidia Responds To Intel With Processor Countersuit

On Feb. 19, Intel sued Nvidia, claiming that the graphics chip maker broke contract by promoting chipsets for Intel Nehalem-class processors. Now, Nvidia has filed a countersuit against Intel, asserting that Intel breached its contract when the company didn’t give Nvidia a chipset license. The two companies originally signed a license agreement in 2004 that gave Nvidia permission to produce Intel chipsets; however, Intel claims that Nvidia is not allowed to market integrated memory controllers. According to this same license, Intel was able to make chipsets with SLI technology from Nvidia.

Legislation Calls For Inventory Of Airwaves

Senators John Kerry and Olympia Snowe have introduced legislation that promises to be a comprehensive assessment of how best to use the public radio spectrum. Called the Radio Spectrum Inventory Act, the bill is also sponsored by Senators Bill Nelson and Roger Wicker. The legislation asked the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Federal Communications Commission to take an inventory of the wireless spectrum within 180 days. If the bill passes, the two groups will report on the use of all spectrum bands between 300MHz and 3.5GHz, including information on the licenses or government user operating in each band.

Microsoft Faces Another Patent Suit

BackWeb Technologies is filing suit against Microsoft over its BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service), Windows Update, and other Microsoft update tools. BackWeb provides a range of communications and technologies for enterprises to distribute digital information and assets to employees and customers. BackWeb is asserting that the update tools infringe upon four of BackWeb’s patents, and it seeks an injunction against Microsoft, a declaration that BackWeb’s patents are valid, and monetary damages. The lawsuit was filed on March 20 in San Francisco.

Challenges Ahead In The Adoption Of Healthcare IT

The $20 billion of the stimulus package set aside for healthcare IT is being met with popular support, but healthcare experts say challenges are ahead in its adoption. Supporters of the healthcare IT plan say that by replacing paper medical records with linked electronic records, the quality of care will improve, medical mistakes will be less prevalent, overall medical costs will be lowered, and more IT jobs will be created. However, the challenge exists in the current fragmented state of the healthcare industry. Experts say the success of an efficient electronic system depends on a coordinated effort by physicians, labs, and pharmacies.

Mobile Web Access Doubles

More than twice as many people are using phones for daily access to news and information this year compared to last year, according to a ComScore report. Of the 63.2 million people who obtained news and other information on a mobile device in January of this year, 22.4 million did so daily, compared to about 10.8 million in January 2008. The number of people using mobile devices for such access (excluding social networking sites) at least once a month was up 71%. The number of mobile users visiting social networking sites on a daily basis more than quadrupled during the past year. Better mobile networks, Internet-focused hardware, and more interesting online content propelled the growth in mobile Web usage, according to ComScore.

Intel Remains No. 1 In Global Chip Revenues

Intel maintained the top spot in the semiconductor industry in 2008 with revenue of $33 billion dollars. The iSuppli data indicates that eight out of the top 10 chip makers saw a decline in revenue in 2008. Samsung, Intel’s closest competitor with $16 billion in revenue, saw a 14% decline from 2007, while Intel’s revenue dropped by less than 1%. AMD dropped from 10th to 12th in terms of revenue, with a nearly 8% decline year-over-year, according to iSuppli. Companies with notable increases in chip revenues include Qualcomm, Broadcom, Panasonic, and Rohm.

Mobile Commerce On The Rise

Shopping at mobile commerce Web sites (those designed for access on mobile phones) will generate $1.6 billion in sales this year, according to a report from ABI Research. Mark Beccue, ABI Research senior analyst, says, “Thanks to red-hot smartphone adoption, an increasing number of subscribers are shopping at mobile commerce sites such as Amazon and eBay." Transactions via NFC (Near Field Communication) are still minimal because the NFC market has not met early expectations. With people becoming more adept at using mobile money services, the mobile phone offers alternatives for those wanting to transfer money in locations where financial institutions are scarce.

Intel Freezes Salaries

Intel announced it will be freezing salaries company-wide, including those of top executives, in an effort to reduce costs. According to a proxy filing submitted by Intel, salary freezes for some top executives, such as CEO Paul Otellini and CFO Stacy Smith, have to be approved by shareholders. In addition to salary freezes, Intel also says it plans to reimburse employees who have lost value on their stock options, allowing employees to receive new stock options. This is not the first move Intel has made to cut costs. In January, Intel announced it would be cutting 6,000 jobs in the United States, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Call-Quality Study Puts Verizon At The Top

Verizon receives fewer complaints than other wireless carriers, according to a semiannual study conducted by J.D. Power and Associates that measures the number of problems people have with wireless calls. The study evaluated wireless issues such as failed connections, dropped calls, static, and echoes. Verizon did better than most other carriers in those categories, especially in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Southwest regions of the United States. The study also found that the call-quality difference between companies such as Verizon, AT&T, Sprint Nextel, and T-Mobile is shrinking, with the gap between the highest- and lowest-ranking cell carriers narrowing from previous years. All carriers are investing in infrastructure upgrades that translate to better overall performance.

NASA To Develop Joint Research Park

The NASA Ames Research Center will be working with the University of California, Santa Cruz and the Foothill-De Anza Community College District to develop a new research park. The facility’s purpose will be to bring together leading scientists and educators worldwide to conduct research and development, says S. Pete Worden, director of the NASA Ames Research Center, which will be leasing 75 acres of land to the new venture called University Associates-Silicon Valley LLC. University Associates will include shared classrooms, labs, housing, and room for business partners. It will use and test renewable energy and resource conservation systems, while seeking to minimize any environmental impact. A master developer will seek investors for the $1 billion-plus project.

Oracle To Pay First Quarterly Dividend

After reporting stronger-than-expected results for its fiscal third quarter, software maker Oracle will pay its first ever quarterly dividend. Beginning in May, Oracle will pay shareholders a quarterly dividend of 5 cents per share at an annual cost of about $1 billion. The company beat some analysts’ predictions for its fiscal third quarter revenue, which rose 2% to $5.45 billion, although profits fell 1% to $1.33 billion. Oracle issued conservative forecasts for its fiscal fourth quarter, citing the recession and the stronger U.S. dollar.

IE8 Market Share Steadily Growing, But So Are Other Browsers

Although Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 Web browser has been steadily gaining market share since its mid-March launch, almost all other browsers, including Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari, and Google’s Chrome, have also increased their market shares. Even IE6 increased its market share. The first few days of IE8’s release saw a steady increase in use, but after the first weekend, users turned back to IE6 and IE7. Presumably, this is because users in the workplace only use approved Web browsers (such as the earlier versions of IE). Because IE8 is still so new, it’s likely not an approved browser at most enterprises.

IBM Confirms Job Cuts

IBM says it is cutting jobs in North America, but the company refuses to be any more specific about where the jobs are being cut geographically and how many American workers are losing their jobs. There is widespread speculation that IBM is transferring 5,000 jobs to India, with IBM’s Global Business Services unit the latest area to see job cuts. In January, IBM laid off about 2,800 employees from its software, sales, and distribution divisions. IBM says some of the laid-off employees will be reassigned to jobs within the company.

WinXP Demise To Pressure Win7 Deployment

Businesses may not have as much time as they expect to migrate from Windows XP to the upcoming Windows 7 operating system due out around the end of this year, says a report from Gartner. Most third-party software developers may stop coding for WinXP by 2012, according to the report, despite the fact that Microsoft currently plans to support WinXP until April 14, 2014. Gartner foresees a time crunch because most organizations are skipping Vista and because businesses typically need 12 to 18 months after the release of a new OS to fully assimilate it.

China Denies Malware Involvement

The Chinese government has officially denied ownership of a vast network of malware, designed to spy on government institutions and ministries around the world, despite evidence suggesting that it originated in and is controlled by servers in the country. GhostNet was unveiled as a network of about 1,300 compromised systems by researchers at the University of Toronto and the SecDev Group’s Information Warfare Monitor. China recently amended its cyberdata theft regulations, but analysts foresee difficulties in enforcing the laws, given the sheer size of the country and its overseas interests.

FTC Asked To Investigate Google

A privacy group has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether Google’s cloud computing services, including Gmail, Google Docs, and Picasa, offer adequate privacy safeguards. In its request, EPIC (the Electronic Privacy Information Center) asked the FTC to bar Google from offering these services until the company puts safeguards in place. EPIC also wants the government to force Google to pay $5 million to help fund security research. The group submitted its request a week after a bug in Google Docs exposed a small fraction of word processing and presentation documents stored on its site. Google says the flaw is now fixed and that the bug only affected 0.05% of Google Docs documents.

The PACid Group Sues For Patent Infringement

Texas-based company The PACid Group has sued 19 computer companies and subsidiaries over an encryption key generator—both the system and method. Some of the defendants include Apple, Broadcom, Dell, HP, Intel, Lenovo, and Toshiba; The PACid Group claims that these companies have infringed the patent (U.S. patent No. 5,963,646) for a number

of one-time use encryption keys in certain computing devices. Incidentally, a few of the companies involved in this lawsuit are part of the Coalition for Patent Fairness, which lobbies for patent reform and decreasing related costs.

Health IT Director Named

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services selected David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P., to lead the Obama administration’s health IT plans. Nominated as the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Blumenthal will be in charge of developing an interoperable health IT infrastructure by 2014. The U.S. government’s goal is to slash healthcare costs by $12 billion in the next decade. Blumenthal’s recent credentials include his service as physician and director of the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners HealthCare System in Boston and director of the Harvard University Interfaculty Program for Health Systems Improvement.

Energy Department Awards Alternative-Energy Loan

The Department of Energy is in the process of handing out its first alternative-energy loan. The loan will reportedly go to Solyndra, which says it will use the funds to boost production of photovoltaic systems at its Fremont, Calif., facilities. Solyndra says the money will cover about 75% of the project costs. The project is expected to produce thousands of new construction, manufacturing, and installation jobs. The photovoltaic panels are expected to produce 15 gigawatts of electricity and save about 300 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

Study: Companies Unprepared To Manage Greenhouse Gases

The majority of companies are not prepared to follow and manage the greenhouse gases linked to potentially catastrophic global climate change, research firm Gartner says, even though strict government regulations meant to reduce the amount of carbon emissions are inevitable. The percentage of large companies worldwide with plans to use carbon-tracking systems remains low, but there’s a growing number of companies planning to implement such systems. Gartner surveyed 626 midsized and large companies for its report.

Economy Has Cell Phone Users Rethinking Service Plans

A recent survey of about 2,000 U.S. citizens indicates that cell phone users aren’t willing to completely give up their mobile devices because of the current economic recession, but 41% are likely to cut back on extras if the economy continues to worsen in the coming six months. According to the study, which the New Millennium Research Council sponsored and Opinion Research conducted in early March, 19% of those with cell phones have discontinued cell phone service in the past six months because of losing a job, fear of losing a job, or other recession-related matters. About 39% with contract-based cell phone plans report they’ll be very or somewhat likely to cut back on cell phone expenditures to save money.

IE8 Proves Best At Blocking Malware Web Sites

A recent report from NSS Labs shows that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 Web browser is more than twice as effective at blocking “socially engineered” malware sites, or those that trick users into downloading malware, than Mozilla’s Firefox 3.0.7, the next-closest browser. According to the study, funded by Microsoft, the Release Candidate 1 of IE8 blocked 69% of the nearly 500 malware-distributing Web sites that NSS Labs tested. Firefox blocked 30% of the sites, while Apple’s Safari 3 (24%), Google’s Chrome (16%), Opera 9.64 (5%), and IE7 (4%) followed. NSS Labs states that Opera and IE7 “provided virtually no protection against malware.”

iPhones Comprise Half Of U.S. Mobile Web Use

Apple’s iPhone is responsible for about 50% of mobile Web traffic in the United States and about a third of mobile Web traffic worldwide. That’s according to a study from mobile advertising company AdMob, which looked at data from more than 6,000 publishers. The study showed Research In Motion in second place, with its BlackBerry platform garnering 21% of the U.S. market, and Microsoft in third, with 13% of mobile Web traffic going to its Windows Mobile platform. Also of note is Google’s fairly new Android platform, which cornered 5% of the market.

Top Google Execs Continue $1 Salaries, Skip Bonuses

Since the company went public in 2004, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have each received an annual salary of $1, and this year is no exception. The search giant’s top executives announced they will once again take $1 salaries and pass up the bonuses and stock options offered to Google’s employees, meaning their income directly depends on the health and profitability of the company. Page and Brin each own about 29 million shares in the company, and Schmidt owns about 9.5 million shares.

SMEs Turning To SaaS

A recent Microsoft survey of more than 600 Small Business Specialist partners in the United States, UK, Canada, France, and Brazil shows that 20% more small and midsized businesses will adopt SaaS this year. According to the latest trends, Microsoft’s partner program for Online Services is growing at a rate of 100 partners a week. The survey also revealed that about 50% of respondents say virtualization and IT consolidation are effective cost-cutting measures.

Fiorina To Lead Technology Policy Institute

Carly Fiorina, former CEO and chair of HP, will lead the board of directors for the Technology Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Fiorina’s accomplishments include leading HP through the dot-com bust in the early part of this decade and overseeing the successful merger of HP and Compaq. She serves on the boards of several other organizations and has announced she is considering a Senate run in 2010. The Technology Policy Institute is an organization that focuses its attention on technological change, the economics of innovation, and related regulation in the United States and around the world. It aims to produce research that advances knowledge and keeps policymakers up-to-date on the issues affecting IT and communications policy.

Mobile Broadband Use On The Rise

According to a new study from advisory and consulting firm Ovum, mobile broadband sales will perform well during the next five years. The study reports that annual mobile broadband sales revenue is expected to grow to $137 billion in 2014, compared to just $24.9 billion now. More than 2 billion people worldwide will use mobile broadband by 2014, Ovum reports. Despite the rapid user growth, Ovum predicts that average revenues per user will decline: The firm expects revenue to grow at 44% of the rate of user growth.

IBM Seeks Patent To Quantify Outsourcing

IBM recently filed a patent application that seeks to mathematically quantify the benefits of outsourcing. The patent application discusses the need to assign values to a broad set of variables that should affect a company’s outsourcing decisions more than simple cost analysis. It mentioned such variables as language fluency of the population, the cost of labor, economic stability, the cost of living, the infrastructure already in place, the national currency, the disparity in time zones, and the political and legal systems in effect. Despite the difficulty of assigning numeric values to some of these concepts, the company believes all are important considerations in the decision to outsource.

Oracle Plans Relsys Acquisition

In a move aimed at strengthening its relatively new health sciences global business unit, software giant Oracle announced it plans to acquire Relsys, a maker of drug safety and risk management software for the pharmaceutical industry. The acquisition, which is set to close in June under undisclosed financial terms, is one of a string of purchases Oracle has made recently as it aims to extend its business into new markets such as insurance, construction, and utilities.

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