Cisco and Microsoft Go Hand-in-hand Their Separate Ways
In a strange public display combining affection and disaffection, Cisco CEO John Chambers and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer appeared jointly before a small crowd of select journalists. Between them, there was no major new revelations to announce, though the companies are attempting to publicly demonstrate that major corporations can decide amicably to collaborate in certain areas and maintain a competitive stance in others.
It's not a bad goal: a strategic peace forged between companies that each maintain their respective interests. It's even better when you realize the companies involved have, in the past, strayed out of bounds with their respective competitive strategies (though complaints against Cisco peaked a decade ago).
Paramount Switch to HD DVD Evens the Stakes
Owners of Blu-ray Disc players anxious for the upcoming release of Shrek the Third were shocked to learn this morning it was not going to happen - at least, not for the brand they'd chosen. The Viacom division, which now includes the DreamWorks Animation label, said it has chosen to resume supporting the HD DVD format exclusively, effectively reversing its decision of October 2005 to release in both formats.
The move appears sudden, as only ten days ago video press sources were given notice by Viacom that Shrek the Third and many other titles were being released for both formats on November 13. Now, Viacom plans to formally commence its exclusive HD DVD support with the release of the Will Farrell comedy Blades of Glory on August 28, with Shrek and Transformers to follow thereafter. Those three titles combined garnered $1.5 billion in US box office sales.
Skype: Users Rebooting Brought Service Down
A system outage that impacted Skype users for about 48 hours last week has officially been attributed to a multitude of Windows-based clients receiving critical security patches and rebooting at roughly the same time. According to the company, the reboots triggered a flood of logon requests that collided at Skype's network hub, like a circumstantial form of denial-of-service.
Coupled with a reduction in the P2P capacity of the Internet at the time those Windows reboots were going on, there simply wasn't enough capacity in the network to handle the network traffic, as the company's Villu Arak explained this morning.
Late Effort to Have FCC Re-examine the DTV Transition Plan
It is a mere eighteen months away: American terrestrial television transmitters will vacate the VHF and UHF spectra that dominated the broadcast industry for most of the 20th century, and move to a new set of frequencies with the broader bandwidth required for digital television. While lawmakers complain that not enough people are aware their analog TVs won't pick up over-the-air signals after February 17, 2009, a collection of interest groups is now telling the FCC that it's neglected to enact critical ethical standards for the use of that spectrum.
The Benton Foundation's complaint deals with multicasting, which is something owners of new DTVs may have already discovered: Many relocated channels are capable of broadcasting three other sub-channels concurrently. For instance, viewers might find the old Channel 4 programming on the new Channel "4.1." But they may find other programming from the same station on Channels "4.2," "4.3," and "4.4."
The Dell Debacle: How Serious is the Damage?
When a parent finds his child with chocolate on her cheeks saying she hasn't been sneaking candy from the pantry, he may find himself giving the oft-repeated lecture about how small lies are just as bad as big ones. If he then goes to work as the chief financial officer of a corporation, he might find himself in the position of explaining away accounting fraud as a minor deficiency in the context of a major company, reminding stockholders that corporate revenues are big and adjustments to those revenues, real or imaginary, are often small.
Dell Computer CFO Don J. Carty attempted to appear less like a parent yesterday afternoon. At his press conference, he first tried to paint a picture of a company where little men made little adjustments to meet little targets, in the context of a big manufacturer with a big customer base and a big number of outstanding shares.
Dell Admits Fraud in Financial Reporting, Will Restate Earnings Since 2003
In an historic admission of culpability, Dell Computer this afternoon announced that its internal review of accounting practices dating back to its 2003 fiscal year turned up evidence of senior executives having adjusted its balance sheets in order for the company to meet specific financial goals.
This admission, if validated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission which is also investigating Dell, would go way beyond the initial subject matter of the accounting scandal. That investigation looked into whether the issuance of backdated stock options to senior executives was intentionally not reported on the company's balance sheets as expenses.
IBM to Implement Sun Solaris on x86-based System x
IBM and Sun Microsystems did indeed announce an agreement for deploying the Solaris operating system on IBM servers, but it wasn't the system we guessed: IBM will deploy Solaris for its Intel x86-based System x and BladeCenter servers.
It's a significant move, as it validates the presence of Sun's operating system among a broad customer base that few can mistake as a "niche." As Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz told reporters today, IBM becomes the first Tier 1 reseller of Solaris products and services for x86 platforms.
Diebold Reorganizes, Renames Its Election Systems Unit
In an attempt to distance itself from a swarm of negative publicity surrounding security integrity problems plaguing its voting machines and servers, Diebold, Inc. announced this morning it is renaming its Election Systems unit to Premier Election Solutions, and restructuring it to give its new board of directors greater independence from the parent company.
While the news from Premier this morning sounded upbeat and hopeful, that message was indeed independent from that of its parent, which glumly announced it had failed to achieve its principal goal of selling the election systems division outright.
IBM to Announce Software Agreement with Sun Today
This afternoon Eastern time, a key official with IBM and Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz are scheduled to hold a joint briefing with press and analysts. Although they say the subject matter will be "a software agreement," the fact that IBM is being represented by Bill Zeitler - a senior vice president responsible for a critical company reorganization - gives us our best clue as to what the agreement is probably really about.
As first reported by IT Jungle last month, Zeitler led a reorganization in IBM's business systems units that redistributed its System p and System i series into new marketing units focused more on the customer, not the system. That restructuring was completed just a few days ago, as IT Jungle also reported.
Closed Beta Test for THQ 'Company of Heroes' Expansion
One of the most critically acclaimed games to have premiered in 2006 is Company of Heroes, designed by Relic and published by powerhouse THQ. The game gives you a bird's eye view of realistic World War II ground combat, as you make command decisions that direct the mission of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne. Now, the first expansion pack for Company is undergoing limited beta tests, and now you have the option of leading companies in the British 2nd Army and the German Panzer Elite.
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts uses Relic's outstanding battlefield engine, first in enabling you to substitute the 101st Airborne for the 2nd Army in a critical mission to retake Caen from Axis occupation. But second - in a surprising divergence that reveals the Relic engine was more capable than at first realized - you can lead the Panzer division that successfully repelled the 1st British Airborne division from taking that key bridge in Arnhem, Holland, depicted in the classic film A Bridge Too Far.
IBM Awarded $119.9 Million to Educate Americans About DTV Transition
One of the first government contracts for the nearly $1 billion Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Coupon Program has been awarded - in a surprise move - to IBM. In conjunction with three of its business partners, the company will receive $119.96 million between now and September 2009 to help educate consumers about the upcoming availability of two $40 coupons per household, good toward the purchase of DTV converter boxes for existing analog VHF/UHF television sets.
IBM said it will also aid in distributing coupons to retail stores for redistribution to customers, as well as in the processing of financial transactions for subsidized equipment. The award was announced earlier today by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and was later confirmed by IBM.
Xandros + Microsoft Deal Gives Linux E-mail Server a Second Chance
In the latest stage of a collaboration that's looking more and more like it was planned to work out this way months ago, Microsoft announced today the extent of the intellectual property it's licensing to newly acquired Linux client Xandros. In addition to some systems management protocols, it's getting access to ActiveSync, a crown jewel of Microsoft IP that may come just in time to resuscitate Xandros' newest division.
At the time Xandros was signed on last June, it was only a principal producer of systems management tools for the Linux platform. But since then, it acquired e-mail server provider Scalix. Now, the combined entity will be receiving access to IP that could enable Scalix servers to communicate fully with mobile clients.
AMD Denies Reports of Barcelona Ship Date Slippage
Reports in The Inquirer and a separate British technology blog citing OEM sources as saying they've been alerted to expect delays in shipments of its new quad-core Barcelona CPUs in all but the 1.9 GHz "HE" lower-power frequencies, were soundly denied this morning to BetaNews by an AMD spokesperson.
"As per our previous guidance," the spokesperson commented, "production on the 2.0 GHz parts has started, and we are on track to ship them for revenue this month." The official retail release date for Barcelona processors remains September 10, when customers are advised to expect standard edition processors at 2.0 GHz and low-power editions at 1.9 GHz. This corresponds with initial release dates announced in June and confirmed in early July.
US-CERT Sounds 'Storm Worm' Alarm, But is it Really a Storm?
Yesterday, the US-CERT bureau of the Dept. of Homeland Security renewed its warning about the outbreak of "Storm Worm" variants, this time acknowledging what it calls public reports of its renewed spread. Anti-virus companies familiar with these "outbreaks" know there have been a multitude of e-mail worms, each of which is delivered using a different hype-inducing or fun-filled headline.
But these worms typically deposit the same clandestine P2P service in the background of Windows, called wincom32.sys. It's surprisingly easy to detect, and can be found manually through a check of services entries in the Windows System Registry, such as HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\ControlSet001\Services\wincom32.
First HSUPA Device Approved by FCC
It's not because "United States" begins with a later letter of the alphabet, that it lags behind most other countries on the list of those testing and approving global communications standards. By the end of this year, the UK will have two major carriers -- Vodafone Wireless and T-Mobile -- serving broadband customers with new HSUPA capacities, with at least two other carriers set to follow after the start of 2008, according to reports there.
That's not a typo: The "U" in HSUPA refers to uplink capacity. Germany may be leading the world in adoption of so-called "super-3G" technology, with theoretical data uplink rates of 5.76 Mbps, compared to EDGE's phone modem-like speed of 118.4 Kbps. Nokia tried early on to get HSUPA going in the US over two years ago, ironically by leveraging interest in the technology in South America to get a rollout started in North America.
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