Seagate: The Hard Drive, Reconsidered
SPECIAL FEATURE It is a frame of mind that not even the smartest security engineers, working the problem for decades, may have considered: We speak of viruses infecting the operating system. We hold the manufacturers (or, more often, the manufacturer) of the operating system partly responsible, even partly liable, for the damage that malicious programs cause to people's work and livelihood, as if the entire work paradigm for information technology exists in software.
What if we think of the problem from a reverse angle: Aren't hard disk drives the things that get infected? Decades ago, we used to quarantine floppy diskettes that were believed infected, when diskettes were the primary means for viruses to spread, prior to the ubiquitousness of the Internet.
AMD: The 'Guts of This Case' Against Intel are Intact
Making the most of the single avenue of exploration US Federal District Judge Joseph A. Farnan left open last September, AMD is proceeding in its antitrust suit against Intel by arguing that nothing in the judge's most recent order explicitly prevents it from discovering evidence of misconduct. That evidence could later be applied, AMD says, to its claim that Intel irrevocably harmed its business in the US through exclusivity deals it allegedly made with retailers in Germany.
"It follows as the day does the night," states AMD's reply to Intel's latest opposition brief, filed with the court yesterday, "that proving harm to a rival's export business requires a showing of interference with the rival's actual or prospective foreign customers (since sales to those living here hardly qualifies as part of the U.S. export trade). And even Intel cannot conjure a way for AMD to prove interference with its foreign customers other than by engaging in foreign conduct discovery."
Microsoft to License Office 'Look and Feel' for Free
With Office 2007 radically reorganizing the way users think and work with applications -- hopefully more for the better than for the worse -- Microsoft is recognizing the possibility that other developers may want to copy the new suite's distinctive style. For instance, if the collapsible ribbon catches on as a menu bar substitute, other vendors may want to try to capitalize.
It seems there isn't an aspect of intellectual property licensing with which Microsoft isn't concerned in extensive detail. Today, the company announced a royalty-free licensing program for developers who want to make use of Office's new, distinctive style.
Is the Microsoft-Novell Deal Doomed?
It was one more Microsoft executive's comment before a small gathering that took a few days to germinate, and then to erupt: According to transcripts, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, referring to his company's recent agreement with Novell, told a SQL Server conference last Thursday that Novell has "appropriately compensated Microsoft for our intellectual property, which is important to us...[because] in a sense, you could say that anybody who has got Linux in their data center today sort of has an undisclosed balance sheet liability, because it's not just Microsoft patents."
Although the details of the Novell/Microsoft agreement have never been released by either party, it was generally understood that both companies would be compensating one another, at the very least, to squelch each party's ongoing complaints about the other's alleged intellectual property infringements. In short, IP was the topic, so that shouldn't surprise anyone - what hasn't been generally known is what each party believes it's getting compensated for.
Office 2007 'Stun Switch' Nothing New
There doesn't seem to be as much confusion over what this thing does as over what to call it: With a name that sounds straight out of "1984," what exactly is Reduced Functionality Mode (RFM) in Office 2007?
This week, Microsoft is repeating statements made over the past seven years that RFM -- which, as BetaNews reported last month, is now a mandatory feature of Office -- is nothing other than a mechanism to prevent users who won't let the company verify the product's authenticity, from doing more than testing how it works.
Toshiba to Double SD Capacity Again
Just five months after it announced the production of the first Secure Digital memory cards in 4GB capacity at Class 4 speed -- capable of writing up to 4MB per second -- Toshiba is pushing the envelope even further today with the announcement of an 8GB flash memory card in exactly the same form factor.
The 4GB Class 4 rollout last summer may have precipitated a resumed freefall in prices for NAND flash components, just as retailers were starting to see the fallout from 2005 finally start to taper off. While 8GB SD cards are presently available, they're typically Class 2, which allows for 2MB/sec writes. Average prices for Class 2 4GB SD cards currently center around the $150 mark.
Yahoo SVP Tries Firing Up His Company with 'Leaked' Memo
A week after the publication of a scathing New York Times feature last month that borrowed analysts' comments to paint a picture of Yahoo as a fat, bloated, floundering company with a sudden incapability to execute, the company's charismatic senior vice president, Brad Garlinghouse, wrote a company memo calling for a dramatic corporate reorganization. His plan would call for a realignment of Yahoo's business units and the trimming of up to 20% of its current payroll.
There's nothing in the memo for Garlinghouse or anyone else at Yahoo to be personally ashamed about, beyond the acknowledgment that the Times story painted a representative, if not accurate, picture of the company. No names are named, and although he calls for the institution of a system wherein heads that can roll should roll, he does not point out which heads specifically.
Adobe CEO Not Threatening MS Lawsuit
A Reuters story this morning suggested that Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen, in an interview with the German financial weekly Euro am Sonntag (The Euro on Sunday), threatened to sue Microsoft if it the outcome of antitrust proceedings against that company by the European Commission did not turn out in Adobe's favor.
However, our read of a semi-decent Google translation of the actual interview fails to indicate Chizen made that pointed of a threat.
CheckPoint Tries Adapting ZoneAlarm Brand to Hardware Router
Throughout this decade, the basic ZoneAlarm software-based firewall package has been one of the single most downloaded pieces of general-purpose software in history - our FileForum running tally on the current version of ZoneAlarm Free doesn't do it justice. So when Zone Labs' corporate parent, CheckPoint Software Technologies - which, despite "Software" being its middle name, is currently most noteworthy for its perimeter and endpoint security appliances - announced last week it's co-opting its ZoneAlarm brand for a consumer-oriented 802.11g wireless router with firewall, our first thought was, "They're putting ZoneAlarm into hardware!"
Not really. Instead, CheckPoint is working to co-opt the very popular ZoneAlarm brand as a consumer hardware brand. That's not to say its ZoneAlarm Z100G wireless router is some ordinary device with an extraordinary brand slapped on it. In a market where wireless routers are selling for around the $50 mark, CheckPoint's USD $199 price tag ($149 markdown until the end of December) suggests it needs something over and above the ordinary router.
Did the PlayStation 3 Truly Launch on Friday?
Certainly it was an event that merited coverage on a national scale. The top three events on morning TV news programs this morning were the Senate debates over how to proceed in Iraq, the infighting among the new Democrat majority in the House, and the lines outside electronics stores full of people waiting for a chance to purchase a Sony PlayStation 3.
But unlike a big movie premiere, where hundreds stand in line for hours knowing they definitely will get what they came for that night, prospective PS3 customers could not be assured of fulfilling their wishes. Nor, as it turned out, was everyone waiting specifically because they wanted to be the first to play the PS3. As television and newspaper sources - including the San Jose Mercury News - both discovered easily, and to their amazement, some of the first in line were bragging about how much they'd be able to reap after they turn around and hock their newly purchased wares on eBay.
HP's Fortunes Rise, Undaunted by Scandal
Under the helm of Carly Fiorina, the question looming over HP centered around profitability, and where the company would find it after its merger with Compaq. While there apparently were apparently boardroom shenanigans - which Fiorina discusses in her latest book - investors', analysts', and journalists' attention was focused primarily on whether a lady could not only run a high-profile institution previously understood to be a men's club, but could take the heat if her biggest gamble didn't pay off.
Now that current HP CEO - and newly appointed chairman - Mark Hurd has effectively picked up the pieces after the Compaq merger and re-assembled the company, very little attention is being paid to his character or personality. Judging from today's fiscal fourth quarter earnings report, you'd think the fact that his corporate conduct is under question - more so than Fiorina's ever was - didn't really matter, as long as earnings per share continued to rise.
Dell Dangerously Delays 3Q Report
Perhaps hoping the spirit of thanksgiving in the financial arena will help the company slip past the wary eyes of both the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the NASDAQ stock exchange, Dell announced today – on the day its fiscal third quarter 2007 report was due – that it will be delayed yet again to sometime toward the end of this month.
Already, Dell’s second quarter 10-Q filing was delayed, although it did go forth with its quarterly earnings call to analysts last August. The problem is with two realities of accounting, which may be continuing to drift further apart: Dell may be among those companies that, at least some years back, failed to report the value of options granted to senior executives as expenses. The company has yet to state how far back the practice may have extended, nor who may have benefited from the alleged practice, though other targets of the SEC’s ongoing investigation – including Apple and nVidia – have been more forthcoming.
PlayStation 3 Loses as Much as $307 Per Unit Sold
In its highly anticipated teardown analysis of the initial production run of Sony's PlayStation 3, being introduced this week in Japan and North America, technology analysis firm iSuppli confirms what many -- including financial analysts at Merrill Lynch and elsewhere -- had suspected as far back as last February: For each 60 GB PS3 model sold in the US for a retail price of $599, Sony loses an estimated $241.35; and for each 20 GB model sold for $499, the manufacturer loses $306.85 (assuming loss from the retail price).
Keep in mind that these are retail prices we're mentioning. Although margins for video game consoles are believed to be razor-slim, Sony is actually earning less in revenue than $499 and $599.
IE, Mozilla Teams Claim Anti-Phishing Crown
In an independent firm's test of the relative capability of the built-in anti-phishing filters for Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, the Firefox filter was shown to be significantly more effective at detecting phishing sites. But Microsoft funded a separate study with far different results.
The sites used in the Mozilla test, conducted by Smartware Technologies, Inc., were selected from a list compiled by another independent firm: the trusted anti-phishing group PhishTank, which maintains a long list of more-than-suspicious sites, submitted by users in the field and tested for their lack of authenticity.
DRAM Market Remains Healthy as Qimonda Gains Strength
It remains one of the least recognized brands among consumers in the electronics field, and yet Qimonda -- the recently spun-off, former memory components division of German semiconductor giant Infineon -- continues to carve a position for itself in DRAMs.
In its latest quarterly report on the DRAM industry, published yesterday, semiconductor industry analysis firm iSuppli reported Qimonda's shipments increased 17% over the previous quarter, boosting its estimated earnings from DRAM by 29% in that quarter to $1.55 billion. In so doing, the company captured an estimated 0.7% of market share, cementing its position as the world's #2 DRAM provider after Samsung.
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