On second thought, Microsoft probably won't buy SAP
At the end of the day Tuesday, SAP finally denied speculation that the company might be acquired by Microsoft. But analysts tended to doubt those rumors anyway. Here's why.
SAP AG Chief Executive Henning Kagermann has reportedly finally put rumors to rest that his company has been talking with Microsoft about some sort of acquisition of the German-based software giant. But even in the absence of a flatout denial from either SAP or Microsoft, analysts contacted earlier this week found the possibility a bit hard to swallow -- and wondered how the conjecturing even got started.
XM agrees to higher performance royalties
In what could signal the beginning of the end of the performance royalties debate, XM says it has agreed to an annual fee based on a gross revenue scale -- what Internet streamers would prefer -- rather than a listener-hour scale.
XM Satellite Radio today agreed with the US Copyright Royalty Board to a performance royalties rate that's an escalating flat percentage of its adjusted gross revenues. Up to this point, the service was paying a third of a cent for every listener who pays attention for an hour.
Exec exodus from Motorola continues as CTO leaves
With CEO Ed Zander on his way out, news came Monday that the company's chief technology officer has also left the company.
References to Padmasree Warrior had already been removed late Monday from the corporation's Web site, and a spokesperson confirmed her departure, saying it had been in the works since last month. No reasoning was given for her resignation.
Google adds AIM capabilities to Gmail chat
Google said Tuesday that it had added interoperability with AIM into its GTalk client within Gmail, allowing users to login to their AIM accounts from within the client.
While the feature would allow Web-based access into AOL's service, the feature has not yet made it into the desktop client. All features native to the Gmail version of the chat client, such as chat history and and automatic sorting of buddies based on how often the user communicates with them would work for AIM contacts as well.
Should Sprint Nextel spin off WiMAX?
Sprint Nextel this week publicly raised the spectre of spinning off Xohm, the WiMAX broadband wireless business being built on its emerging 4G network. Will this present an obstacle for WiMAX in the US...or is an obstacle being lifted?
Consumers' Union just rated Sprint Nextel wireless service at the bottom of the pack, scoring 67% out of 100% in customer survey-based comparison results released today. But believe it or not, that's a 2% gain over last year, and Sprint is treating the news as a positive trend.
iPhone has strong early showing in browser share
Despite being on the market for only five months, the iPhone already has nearly a 0.1 percent share of the global browsing market, according to research firm NetApplications.
While it may seem extraordinarily small, with respect to mobile devices, the data -- released this week by research firm NetApplications -- is actually quite significant. Windows CE, which has been on the market for ten years, has only a 0.06% share, while Hiptop, the makers of the Sidekick, only counts for a 0.02% share.
Samsung to sample nearly four times faster graphics memory
Next February at the industry's leading symposium on semiconductor technology, Samsung is preparing to present a dissertation and perhaps a sample on a new class of graphics memory with 375% the data rate of today's GDDR3.
Along the way, someone at some point decided to skip a number: It will be called GDDR5, and unless someone else steps forward really soon, Samsung may be the only manufacturer (unless Rambus steps up to the plate) to present not only a technical explanation but also working samples to a solid-state circuits conference in San Francisco in February.
MPAA's student P2P sniffer pulled over copyright issues
In an embarrassing blunder for an organization that has made copyright one of its signature issues, the MPAA is now being accused of violating copyright itself.
As part of the organization's fight against the pirating of movies, the Motion Picture Association of America had been urging universities to install an Ubuntu-based toolkit that would assist it in tracking and reporting students who were participating in file-sharing. The Association proposed the so-called "University Toolkit" as part of letters sent to 25 universities back in October.
Hamburg court re-locks iPhone in Germany
A German court has ruled that T-Mobile should not be forced to sell an unlocked version of Apple's iPhone, rejecting a complaint by rival Vodafone that led to an injunction last month.
Vodafone and smaller network Debitel had complained to the Hamburg District Court that it was not legal to tie a phone to a single carrier. Apple has built its iPhone business around selecting a single partner per country, and in exchange for the exclusivity, it receives a cut of new customer signups.
Vista SP1 to replace 'Reduced Functionality' with nagware
A service originally designed to compel unpaid Vista users to obtain genuine licenses is apparently being scrapped in Service Pack 1, to be replaced with a more "in-your-face" approach.
In a prepared Q&A released by Microsoft this morning, corporate vice president for Windows product marketing Mike Sievert divulged that Reduced Functionality Mode (RFM) -- a service that disables certain features of Windows Vista until the user activates the system, assuming she can -- will be scrapped in Service Pack 1. In its place will be something that reduces the user's experience instead.
MySpace may compete with record labels for distributing new music
The social networking site is looking to draw users by offering exclusive video and audio content from artists, and is offering incentives for those artists to, in effect, "sign with MySpace."
Called MySpace Transmissions, the service will focus on differentiating itself from its competition through content that is not available elsewhere. Participants will be able to upload videos for viral distribution, or sell exclusive tracks directly to the consumer.
Eight-year-old Windows name resolution exploit re-emerges
Microsoft acknowledged the discovery of an exploitable bug in the way one of its services handles domain name resolution -- a bug it thought it fixed in 1999.
At a so-called "ethical hacker conference" in New Zealand last week, a programmer named Beau Butler revealed a method whereby a malicious user could intercept and re-route Internet traffic throughout a network, using a man-in-the-middle-attack. The method involved being able to masquerade as something called Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol (WDAP), whose purpose is to automatically detect whether a system utilizes proxies for domains higher than the second level (e.g., fileforum.betanews.com).
Yahoo teams up with eBay on auctions in Japan
Court says LimeWire has no case against record labels
A District Judge said that the peer-to-peer network had failed to make a case that its business had been harmed by the record labels' actions.
All four major global record labels -- Universal Music, Warner Music, EMI, and Sony BMG -- had filed a motion to dismiss a September 2006 countersuit against them by defendant Limewire, the P2P file-sharing service. US District Court Judge Gerard Lynch of New York's Southern district granted that motion yesterday, along with several other claims made under state law, however without prejudice.
As SAP loses customers, some former employees make gains
While Europe's largest software maker battles to regain its customers' trust after an embarrassing admission earlier this year, some of its key current and former employees may be starting a little revolution.
As the calendar turns the corner into December, how likely is it that SAP AG will be able to meet a stated goal of selling off its embattled TomorrowNow (TN) customer support division? Much of the outcome will hinge on how well TN is able to retain its existing customer base, according to industry analysts and some key competitors, including Rimini Street, a company generally regarded as TN's chief suitor.
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