Archives: June 2009

Awful 2009 Tech Spending Will Lead to Faster Rebound

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 30, Categories: Tech Spending

Worldwide spending on information technology equipment and services will plunge 10.6% in U.S. dollars, according to a new report from Forrester Research. That's way down from the market research firm's...

Microsoft to Allow For Mobile App Returns?

Posted by: Olga Kharif on June 30, Categories: wireless

When Microsoft launches its Windows Marketplace later this year, it will apparently allow buyers to return mobile apps they don't like. I am not sure that's a good idea.

Firefox 3.5: Big Gains May Be in the Future

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 30, Categories: Firefox

After a long beta test, Mozilla today released Firefox 3.5 for windows, Mac, and Linux. Though the new version has some nice features, it's potential may only be revealed over...

U.S. Government Has Same Wireless Monitoring Ability as Iran

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 30, Categories: wireless

It's hard to tell whether the problem is ignorance or hypocrisy, but Senators Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are making fools of themselves with their war on Nokia...

Comcast Launches Wireless Laptop Access in Portland

Posted by: Olga Kharif on June 29, Categories: wireless

Comcast is dipping its toes into wireless services once more. On June 30, the nation's largest cable services provider will start selling its own brand of high-speed wireless data service in Portland, Ore. The service will be provided via network of Clearwire, where Comcast is an investor.

Supreme Court: Cablevision Remote DVR is OK

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 29, Categories: copyright

The ability of consumers to decide where, when, and how they want to watch video content took a small step forward today when the Supreme Court declined to review a...

Brazil: The next hotbed of venture capital and private equity?

Posted by: Spencer Ante on June 26, Categories: venture capital

Yesterday, I attended a packed conference about investing in Brazil. The event, which was sponsored by the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce, drew more than 100 investors, executives and technologists at...

Ericsson Appoints New CEO, Hans Vestburg

Posted by: Olga Kharif on June 25, Categories: telecom

I just spoke with Hans Vestburg, who will become Ericsson's new president and CEO come Jan. 1, 2010. Vestburg, who currently serves as Ericsson's CFO, replaces Carl-Henric Svanberg, who has accepted the position of chairman of BP, Ericsson announced this morning.

LIVE: Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz's First Annual Meeting

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 25, Categories: Google, Microsoft, Search, Yahoo, advertising

I'll be liveblogging the Yahoo annual meeting this morning at the Santa Clara Marriott in Silicon Valley, network willing. This year's meeting is sure to have less drama than the...

Microsoft's Changing View of Communications Software

Posted by: Peter Burrows on June 25, Categories: Microsoft

In a story we ran this morning, Network World's John Fontana points out that Nortel's liquidation of assets could threaten it's two-year-old partnership with Microsoft to sell so-called "unified communications"--software...

App Stores for Femtocells?

Posted by: Olga Kharif on June 24, Categories: wireless

Do you think app stores are just for cell phones? Think again. This week, industry group Femto Forum has begun encouraging companies to create apps for small at-home cellular base stations.

RealPlayer Adds Format Conversion, Social Networking

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 24, Categories: digital media

In the early days of media on the Internet, RealPlayer was the indispensable tool for playing postage stamp-sized videos on your PC. Today, the Real Networks software is one media...

Jeff Weiner Moves Up to CEO at LinkedIn

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 24, Categories: LinkedIn, Yahoo, social networks

Six months after joining LinkedIn as interim president in a management shakeup, former Yahoo executive Jeff Weiner has just been appointed chief executive of the business networking firm. His appointment...

Ingres: An Open Source Rival to Oracle

Posted by: Steve Hamm on June 24, Categories: open source software

I've been following the path of Ingres Corp. ever since Terry Garnett and David Helfrich of Garnett & Helfrich Capital bought it from CA a few years back and made...

Lenovo Looks for a Laptop Sweet Spot

Posted by: Steve Hamm on June 23, Categories: Innovation

I spent more than a year tracking Lenovo's designers and engineers as they developed the innovative X300 laptop computer, which was released in March of 2008. This work produced a...

Conduit's Browser Toolbars Serve Up Web Sites To Go

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 23, Categories: Web browser

I've never been a big fan of toolbars, those strips just above the Web page on your Web browser where search engines and others place a series of buttons to...

Kodak To End Kodachrome Production

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 22, Categories: photos

It has probably been five years since I took a picture on film and longer than that since I shot a transparency, but a couldn't help feeling a deep pang...

NPD: Consumers Are Dissatisfied with Netbooks

Posted by: Olga Kharif on June 22, Categories: netbooks

A new survey shows that a lot of consumers who buy netbooks may be dissatisfied with their purchases. Clearly, PC makers and retailers need to do a better job explaining the differences in capabilities between netbooks and regular laptops to consumers.

Nortel Networks: Soon, No More?

Posted by: Olga Kharif on June 22, Categories: Nortel

On June 19, telecom gearmaker Nortel Networks announced it will sell some of its key assets to Nokia Siemens. The company also said "that it is advancing in its discussions with external parties to sell its other businesses."

iPhones Fly Off Shelves, Jobs Himself Announces

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 22, Categories: Apple

Two important tidbits of news from Apple this morning. First, a staggering one million iPhone 3G S handsets were sold in the first three days the new version was on...

Can Sony Save Blu-Ray?

Posted by: Cliff Edwards on June 19, Categories: consumer electronics

Can Sony reset the clock on Blu-ray's lifespan? Some consumer electronics manufacturers have predicted that the high-definition movie format may never become a mainstream hit and could be superseded by...

Why iPhone Navigation Is Expensive

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 19, Categories: iPhone

Surprise and even some anger erupted among iPhone fans when they learned that the navigation app, Gokivo from Networks in Motion, would require a $10 monthly subsciption. It's the first...

Intel Bets on More Moore's Law

Posted by: Cliff Edwards on June 19, Categories: Chips

Are we nearing the end of Moore's law? Intel engineers say don't believe the growing chorus of voices saying there's little time left to the dictum that transistor counts of...

Looking for Honesty in Battery Life

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 18, Categories: Personal Computers

When you are a distant No. 2, you really have to try harder. And sometimes it even works. A few years ago, AMD launched a campaign against using a processor's...

Hardware for a Facebook World

Posted by: Douglas MacMillan on June 18, Categories: Hewlett-Packard

A post I wrote yesterday for sister blog Blogspotting... Last week, BusinessWeek’s tech team got a visit from Phil McKinney, the CTO of HP’s personal systems group. As we were...

Collecta Launches *Really* Real-Time Search Engine

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 18, Categories: Google, Search, Twitter

Remember not so very long ago how amazed you were that Google could return so many useful search results in just a split-second? Today, that kind of speed isn't...

Sirius XM Launches iPhone App -- Without Howard Stern

Posted by: Olga Kharif on June 18, Categories: wireless

On June 18, Sirius XM finally launched its highly anticipated application for iPhone and iPod touch devices. The company originally promised to release the app, which provides access to 120 channels of satellite radio programming, in the second quarter.

Measuring Display Advertising Beyond the Click

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 18, Categories: advertising

For years, Web publishers have had a love-hate relationship with what has become the standard metric for online ad effectiveness: the click. It's certainly an indication that a prospective customer...

PayPal President: No Spinoff

Posted by: Douglas MacMillan on June 17, Categories: eBay

After eBay said in April that it planned to spin off its Skype business, some investors and analysts started wondering about the e-commerce company’s other major subsidiary: What about PayPal?...

AT&T Yields to Critics, Eases iPhone Upgrade Rules

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 17, Categories: iPhone

After being pounded for a week by iPhone fans who want a discounted iPhone 3G S and want it right now, AT&T has retreated from its original upgrade pricing rules....

Maybe Google Isn't Losing Big Bucks on YouTube After All

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 17, Categories: Google, YouTube, video

Ever since Credit Suisse came out with a report in early April estimating that Google's YouTube will lose as much as $470 million this year, many people have been predicting...

Middle East Censors Got You Down? How to Circumvent an Internet Proxy

Posted by: Spencer Ante on June 16, Categories: Social Software

Like many Americans, I have been riveted by the outpouring of dissent in Iran against the powers that be. It is amazing to see such a public expression of outrage...

Dasient Tries to Run Drive-By Malware Off the Web

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 16, Categories: Cybersecurity

Even if you're careful to use an Internet firewall, install virus checkers, and avoid sketchy Web sites, your computer can still get invaded by virus, worms, and other so-called malware...

Kids to Buy Cell Phones With Game Points

Posted by: Olga Kharif on June 16, Categories: wireless

On June 16, online games service SmartyCard announced an interesting deal with kajeet, a cell phone service made for kids. Starting today, tweens can redeem SmartyCard points earned in games for kajeet’s pay-as-you-go mobile phones.

AT&T Haters May Get Their Chance at Senate Hearing

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 15, Categories: wireless

People who love the iPhone and hate AT&T may get a chance to do some vicarious venting on Wednesday when the communications subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee convenes a...

BlackBerry Tour: Verizon Goes Bold

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 15, Categories: blackberry

UPDATE: Sprint has announced that it will offer the Tour for $200 after instant and mail-in rebate, with a two-year service agreements. --------------------- With all the fuss about the Apple...

Relief Is on the Way for Bay Area AT&T Customers

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 15, Categories: iPhone

Long suffering AT&T wireless customers in the San Francisco Bay area, including legions of iPhone users, are going to get some badly needed relief this fall. The company plans a...

Microsoft Competitors Win, But European Consumers May Lose

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 12, Categories: Microsoft

The guiding principle of antitrust law in the U.S. is the protection of consumers from anticompetitive practices. Europeans law, however, focuses on protecting competitors. The difference is on display in...

Coming Soon to a Car Near You: TV

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 11, Categories: Digital TV Transition

One company that will definitely breathe easier on Friday when all analog TV stations in the U.S. finally shut down will be MediaFLO USA, a Qualcomm subsidiary that broadcasts wireless...

Nintendo Beats Latest Patent Infringement Lawsuit

Posted by: Cliff Edwards on June 11, Categories: games

Thanks to its huge success with the Wii, Nintendo has become a favorite target for companies looking to collect revenue off patents they say the Japanese company has used illegally...

Is the Wireless Industry Drought Over?

Posted by: Cliff Edwards on June 11, Categories: wireless

Is the wireless industry poised to lead a rebound in tech spending? Business isn't exactly booming again, but Qualcomm says orders for its wireless chips are doing well enough to...

LG Wants to Become World's No. 2 Handset Maker

Posted by: Olga Kharif on June 11, Categories: wireless

LG Electronics is aiming to become the world's No. 2 handset maker by 2012, according to the head of the company's handset division. "We will become the global No. 2 in 2012, and that goal applies to smartphones as well," Skott Ahn, president and CEO of LG's mobile communications division, said at a news conference, according to Reuters.

Reinventing Venture Capital

Posted by: Spencer Ante on June 11, Categories: venture capital

Yesterday, as part of his work as Senior Fellow at the Kauffman Foundation, blogger Paul Kedrosky released a report, "Right-Sizing the Venture Capital Industry." Now, I couldn't agree more that...

Rubinstein In, Colligan Out as Palm CEO

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 10, Categories: Palm

Palm's announcement today naming Jon Rubinstein chairman and CEO, replacing Ed Colligan as chief executive, was hardly a surprise. Rubinstein, a former senior Apple executive, has been running the show...

Virgin Mobile Introduces Prepaid Wireless Broadband

Posted by: Olga Kharif on June 10, Categories: wireless

On June 10, Virgin Mobile entered the Web access business for laptops by introducing its first prepaid data access offering. Existing service providers -- fixed and mobile -- have got to watch out.

WWDC: Apple Moves on the Enterprise (Updated)

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 08, Categories: Apple

Apple made news on on lots of fronts at its Worldwide Developers' Conference Monday, with the new iPhone 3GS, a $100 iPhone 3G, and major notebook announcements. Almost lost in...

In Memory of Rajeev Motwani

Posted by: Spencer Ante on June 08, Categories: Silicon Valley

This weekend, I was shocked to read the very sad news that Stanford computer science professor Rajeev Motwani passed away on Friday in an apparent accidental drowning at the pool...

Microsoft’s Ozzie Says Cloud Services Will Yield Lower Margins

Posted by: Aaron Ricadela on June 05, Categories: Bill Gates, Cloud Computing, Microsoft, software, software as service

Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief software architect, caused quite a splash June 4 when he told the audience at an event in Silicon Valley that cloud computing will probably lower Microsoft’s...

Could Rearden Commerce One-Up Google?

Posted by: Steve Hamm on June 05, Categories: Innovation

One of my colleagues, Doug McMillan, is collecting a list of broad-purpose search engines for a slideshow he's working on. It's amazing how long the list is: 22. It's also...

With Wind River, Can Intel Grab Some Apple Mojo?

Posted by: Cliff Edwards on June 04, Categories: Chips

Just how serious is Intel about breaking into new markets? The chipmaker made that abundantly clear today, announcing it will acquire Wind River Systems, a maker of software for embedded...

Palm Pre: A Twitter Update (Updated)

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 04, Categories: Palm

I redownloaded and reinstalled Tweed and now it's working fine. The client has one interesting feature: A "insert location" button that adds a link to a Google map showing your...

Squeezing 'Black Box' Transmissions into Crowded Aviation Frequencies

Posted by: Keith Epstein on June 04, Categories:

Instead of spending tens of millions in quest of an elusive black box beneath the ocean depths (while the world continues to wonder for years about the fate of the Air France Flight 447) investigators could already be hard at work piecing together exactly what happened Sunday night over the waters of the Atlantic.

Palm's Pre Touchstone: Clever, But Overpriced

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 04, Categories: Palm

There aren't a whole lot of accessories announced yet for the Palm Pre, but the Touchstone charger dock sure is an interesting one. Unfortunately, at $70--a third of the price...

Beyond the Black Box: Accidents Needn't be so Mysterious

Posted by: Keith Epstein on June 03, Categories:

In an age of global satellite telecom, high-bandwidth video, WiFi in the sky, and fly-by-wire transoceanic airliners that virtually fly themselves while signaling fuel consumption and maintenance issues to the...

Microsoft Makes If Official: Netbooks Don't Exist

Posted by: Peter Burrows on June 03, Categories: Microsoft

Well, that was quick. Yesterday, I blogged about an interesting confrontation in the making between Microsoft and its fastest-growing Windows licensee: Acer. It's become clear that while Acer wants to...

People-Powered Search Engine Mahalo Cranks Up the Crowdsourcing

Posted by: Rob Hof on June 02, Categories: Knol, Mahalo, Power of Us, Search, Wikipedia

Since it launched two years ago, the self-described human-powered search engine Mahalo has relied upon a staff of real editors, sometimes working with paid freelancers, to organize search results. That's...

Acer Plays Its Android Card

Posted by: Peter Burrows on June 02, Categories: Microsoft

I just got the press release from Acer, announcing it's long-rumored Android-based netbook. More important, the fast-growing PC maker states its intention to make many more devices based on Google's...

Oracle’s Bold Java Plans

Posted by: Aaron Ricadela on June 02, Categories: Cloud Computing, Web, open source, software, software as service

Larry Ellison has never been shy about nudging Oracle into new parts of the software market. The database king has spent $40 billion to build a franchise in business applications,...

Craig Newmark: craigslist May Consider Gun Ads

Posted by: Olga Kharif on June 02, Categories: craigslist

Fresh on the heels of a controversy involving its erotic services ads section, craigslist has opened another can of worms. In his keynote at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy 2009 conference today, founder Craig Newmark said he recently spoke with a customer who made a compelling case for allowing gun ads on the classifieds site.

Verizon FiOS: A New Dog Learns Old Tricks

Posted by: Stephen Wildstrom on June 01, Categories:

V erizon communications hasn't been at the business of delivering television to subscribers' homes for very long, but it has already developed some of the worst habits of the incumbent...

Making Social Media Pay Off

Posted by: Spencer Ante on June 01, Categories: Social Media

Last week, my colleague Steven Baker wrote a cover story with the provocative question: What's a Friend Worth? The dream was that social networks, with all of their tons of...

The Marketing of Microsoft's Bing Search Engine

Posted by: Peter Burrows on June 01, Categories: Microsoft

Microsoft quietly turned on its new Bing search engine for public consumption today, two days earlier than expected. And guess what? People like it. Microsoft's marketing of Bing also seems...