EC charges Intel with competition breach

CHIP-making giant Intel has rejected European Commission charges that it engaged in anti-competitive practices, arguing that its market behaviour in Europe was both legal and in the interests on consumers.

The European Commission says Intel has engaged in monopoly abuse to lock its competitor AMD from accessing new customers. Intel has ten weeks to respond formally to the charges, which could ultimately lead to fines running to hundreds of millions of dollars.

The commission said Intel had given substantial rebates to PC manufacturers for buying their x86 processors and that the company paid the manufacturers to either delay or discontinue making products that used AMD processors.

It said Intel also made below cost bids for business in accounts where AMD was a competitor.

The commission said each of the three types of behaviour were both anti-competitive and against the law, but added the combination of the three showed an anti-competitive strategy that damaged both AMD and the market.

“The Commission also considers at this stage of its analysis that the three types of conduct reinforce each other and are part of a single overall anticompetitive strategy,” it said.

Intel senior vice-president and general counsel Bruce Sewell said the company rejected the charges and welcomed the chance to address them.

“We are confident that the microprocessor market segment is functioning normally and that Intel's conduct has been lawful, pro-competitive, and beneficial to consumers,” Mr Sewell said.

“While we would certainly have preferred to avoid the cost and inconvenience of establishing that our competitive conduct in Europe has been lawful, the Commission's decision to issue a Statement of Objections means that at last Intel will have the opportunity to hear and respond to the allegations made by our primary competitor,” he said.

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Coonan rails at Telstra “sour grapes”

IT IS hard to believe it were possible for relations between Communications Minister Helen Coonan and Telstra to deteriorate further.

But Telstra’s extraordinary decision to personally sue the Minister over her part in the Federal Government decision to award to $958 million contract to a Telstra competitor has proved yet again that things can always get worse in this relationship.

Telstra last week marched into the Federal Court to sue the Government – and Senator Coonan – over the process used to award the billion contract to OPEL, the rural-focused telco joint venture between Optus and Elders.

Specifically, Telstra said it had been disadvantaged by the government decision to raise the level funding from its original $600 million to $958 million.

Senator Coonan has been “unsurprised” and unimpressed, and reacted as you might expect – on the front foot, with a stinging attack on Telstra management, its corporate culture, and the quality of its services.

“(It) doesn’t surprise me to learn via media release today, that Telstra has taken sour grapes to a whole new level and has initiated Federal Court proceedings,” Senator Coonan said in a written statement.

“It’s always been the Australian way to respect the umpire’s decision, particularly if you have been beaten fair and square by a superior bid,” she said.

“Quite frankly, I would be much happier if Telstra put this sort of effort into rectifying the rising level of consumer concerns with the rollout of their new Next G network.

“I have just spent the last six weeks on the road across Australia and based on the level of frustration I heard from people regarding their mobile coverage, this is the issue that needs Telstra’s urgent and genuine attention.”

The OPEL joint-venture would deliver one of the world’s most comprehensive rural and regional broadband networks for a country of our size and population spread. Broadband speeds will be 20 to 40 times faster than those used today and delivered in the country at city comparable prices, she said.

“The fact that no-one can hide from is that Telstra put in a bid for funding; it was independently assessed and then soundly beaten by a superior bid from OPEL,” Senator Coonan said.

“According to Telstra’s own admission, its bid would have covered only 250,000 underserved premises, less than half that covered by OPEL,” she said.

“This is just a case of an ordinary bid being blown out of the water by an outstanding bid –and the loser not happy with the umpire’s decision.

“I completely reject the assertions made by Telstra. The process was fair and consistent with both the guidelines, assessment plan and probity requirements.”

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GSA lets massive US$50b tech contract

IN one of the largest single information technology contracts ever announced, the
US General Services Administration has signed on the dotted line with 29 suppliers for US$50 billion (A$59 billion) worth of IT goods and services.

The so-called Alliant contract is US government-wide acquisition contract (GWAC) that gives federal agencies a centralised source for procuring integrated IT solutions at best price.

The deal, which took more than a year to negotiate, has a five year base, with an option for another five years.

Big winners in the Alliant deal include IT services giants like EDS, CSC, Unisys and IBM, as well as consulting houses like Accenture, BearingPoint and Booz Allen.

GSA serves as a centralised procurement and property management agency for the US federal government, managing more than 20 per cent of the government’s total procurement dollars and influencing the management of US$500 billion in federal assets.

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IBM spruiks mainframe as Green saviour

JUST when the final stake seemed to have been driven through the heart of the ageless IBM mainframe architecture, another reason emerges to keep the Big Iron plugged in: Mainframe are Green.

In what IBM is calling the most significant transformations of its worldwide data centres in a generation, the company says it will consolidate 3,900 computer servers onto about 30 Z Series mainframes running Linux.

The result, IBM says, will be an 80 per cent reduction in the amount of energy required to drive the processing power compared to its current set up. The company says it expects to generate significant savings through the consolidation to mainframes – in lower power costs, and cheaper software and support costs.

As an exercise in ‘eating its own dog food’, IBM wants to demonstrate to potential customers that mainframes are at least part of the answer for companies seeking to reduce power consumption to meet emissions commitments.

The initiative is part of Project Big Green, a broad commitment that IBM announced in May to sharply reduce data centre energy consumption for the company and its clients.

Data centres are voracious users of electricity. IBM has more than eight million square feet of data centre space worldwide – the equivalent of 139 football fields.

IBM says that mainframe systems will be the key to the IT industry successfully reducing its power consumption requirements.

“The mainframe is the single most powerful instrument to drive better economics and energy conservation at the data centre today," said IBM System z mainframe general manager James Stallings.

“By moving globally onto the mainframe platform, IBM is creating a technology platform that saves energy while positioning our IT assets for flexibility and growth,” Mr Stallings said.

IBM plans to recycle the 3,900 servers through IBM Global Asset Recovery Services.

The IBM mainframe's ability to run the Linux operating system is key to the consolidation project, providing an open foundation for a wide variety of applications.

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Green group attacks power consumption

A CONSORTIUM of some of the most powerful names in the tech industry has combined resources to improve the energy efficiency of power-hungry data centers.

The so-called Green Grid is a US-based non-profit that will specifically investigate ways to reduce data centre power consumption, and to improve the life-cycle management of IT products – specifically recycling and the handling of hazardous waste.

The founding board of Green Grid includes hardware and software companies heavily engaged in data centre work – including IBM, HP, Intel, Microsoft, AMD, APC, Rackable Systems, Sun Microsystems and VMware.

The consortium believes energy efficiency in data centres is the single most significant issue facing IT companies and their customers today.

Green Grid members say there has not only been exponential growth in power and cooling costs in the past several years, but that customer demand for concentrated computing was outpacing the availability of clean, reliable power in much of the world.

The Green Grid doesn’t endorse vendor-specific products, instead seeking to provide industry-wide recommendations on best practices, metrics and technologies that will improve overall data centre energy efficiencies.

Network Appliance is the latest large corporate to join Green Grid.

“Our customers are seeing explosive data growth and they are broadening the focus of their long-term data center power reduction efforts to include storage and data management practices,” said NetApp Core Systems vice-president Chris Bennett.

“While we can't eliminate the unending thirst for data, NetApp is helping customers buy and use less storage to drive down their data center’s carbon footprint one byte at a time. Our membership in The Green Grid demonstrates our continued commitment to advancing greater energy efficiency in data centers.”

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Content giants join IP action against Google

AN orderly queue of content giants seeking to deliver Google and its subsidiary YouTube a legal punch is growing, with UK Premier League soccer among a group to joint the class action.

English Premier League Soccer, music publishers Bourne & Co, the Rugby Football League, the Finnish Football League and various boxing promoters, authors and other video content producers have joined a class action against YouTube in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The content providers argue that YouTube has encouraged copyright breaches through its video-sharing site, and that the company’s entire business model is based on breaches of intellectual property law.

Viacom, the US media giant and owner of the MTV music network, sued Google and YouTube in May for US$1 billion, alleging copyright breaches.

Google and YouTube have denied the charges of content providers, saying the companies all misunderstand the nature of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which seeks to balance the rights of content owners with that of users and the internet services they use.

Premier League soccer spokesman Dan Johnson said the organisation was pleased that so many companies have joined the action.

“The clear and growing message to YouTube and Google is simple: their callous and opportunistic business model is contrary to right, contrary to law, and must and will be stopped,” Mr Johnson said.

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Google starts selling online storage

GOOGLE has started selling additional storage capacity online, a service initially aimed at users with large multimedia storage requirements for photos, music and video.

But as the company pushes its web-based productivity services Docs & Spreadsheets into the small business markets,

Google announced it would charge US$20 (A$23.60) for 6GB of additional storage, US$75 for 25GB, US$250 for 100GB and US$500 for 250GB.

The company said the additional storage could be used across different Google products, from its Gmail email service to its Picasa photo sharing service.

Picasa Web Albums software quality assurance engineer Ryan Aquino said on the official Google blog the additional storage service would soon be extended Docs & Spreadsheets.

“The Picasa team is pleased to tell you that in a few hours we'll be rolling out extra storage that you can purchase to use across several Google products (today, Picasa Web Albums and Gmail; soon, other applications like Google Docs & Spreadsheets),” Mr Aquino wrote on the Google blog.

“That will help make storage really useful, like letting you upload lots of full resolution images to Picasa Web Albums. When you reach the limit of free storage (i.e., 1GB for Picasa Web Albums, 2.8GB for Gmail), consider this your overflow solution,” Mr Aquino wrote.

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Fuji Xerox acquires Kaz business process unit

FUJI Xerox has boosted its Australian business process outsourcing resources with the acquisition of the BPO operation of Kaz Group, the wholly-owned IT services subsidiary of Telstra.

Fuji Xerox managing director Andy Lambert said the Kaz BPO division would be integrated in to the Fuji Xerox Global Services unit.

The terms of the sale were not disclosed.

FXGS general manager Andy Berry said the acquisition would give the company the opportunity to leverage its existing strengths in outsourcing and document management.

“The purchase of the KAZ BPO division strengthens our service delivery capability, increasing the value delivered to both our own, as well as to KAZ BPO customers,” Mr Berry said.

“We expect seamless business continuity for KAZ BPO customers and foresee long term growth for staff and customers alike.”

Kaz managing director Mike Foster said the BPO unit was not considered core to the company’s operations and that clients would be better sold with the unit in the hands of a specialist.

“We considered a number of options for the KAZ Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) division and determined that as it was not core to our ICT services strategy, it would be in the best interests of our employees and our clients to take a decision now to sell the business to Fuji Xerox Australia,” Mr Foster said in a statement.

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Conroy lashes bush broadband plans

THE only promise Federal plans for broadband in the bush will deliver will be “city-comparable prices” for second rate services, shadow communications minister Stephen Conroy says.

Under current plans, Senator Conroy says that by mid-2009 Australia could have wasted $1 billion of taxpayer funds on a sub-standard, two-tier broadband network.

Writing in The Australian newspaper, Senator Conroy attacked the government’s broadband plans, in particular its awarding $958 million in support to the Optus-Elders bush phone joint-venture.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan had misled regional Australians about the likely speed of the OPEL wireless services, Senator Conroy said, quoting speeds only attainable with optimum conditions and without factoring the vast distances and difficult topographies of some remote areas.

The Wimax solution was an inferior option. Senator Conroy also attacked the Minister over the handling of the Broadband Connect tender won by OPEL. He said only OPEL – and not other bidders like Telstra – had been informed that money beyond the $600 million earmarked for the project could be written into bids.

Labor is proposing spending $4.9 billion on a fibre to the node network that would provide superior speeds to both city and regional customers. He said the FTTN proposal would not only give the bush comparable pricing, but comparable services as well.

“Labor has spent the past five months travelling around Australia talking about broadband. Australians in rural and regional areas know the Government is locking them into a sub-standard, second-class system,” Senator Conroy said.

“Far from abandoning broadband in rural and regional Australia, Labor is committed to turning around the poor quality of telecommunications for all Australians, including those in the bush,” he said.

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Queensland lands $5 million Clever Network program

WITH the election looming, the stream of funding announcements pouring from Communications and IT Minister Helen Coonan’s office is turning to a flood.

Senator Coonan announced funding of $5 million to provide fat broadband services to support health care and emergency services in small communities in remote North Queensland.

Under the federal Clever Networks program, Queensland Health will be given funding for its Cooeenet@qld project, which is being developed in partnership with the Department of Emergency Services and the e-Health Research Centre.

The project targets 15 remote communities with an immediate need for improved intervention in the early treatment of emergency patients. The communities benefiting from the funding include Bowen, Charters Towers, Cloncurry, Cooktown, Ingham, Normanton, Thursday Island and Weipa.

“This project will help provide timely intervention in the care of patients unable to travel long distances easily and who are often in a distressed state,” said Senator Coonan.

“Cooeenet will assist patients in these communities by providing online access to specialist health services, such as paediatrics and ophthalmology, which may be hundreds of kilometres away.”

The new services will be based on state-of-the-art digital technology for vital sign monitoring and videoconferencing, as well as providing radiology image capture, storage and transmission, and breast screening.

Clever Networks is a $113 million program that aims to improve service delivery in regional, rural and remote Australia through innovative broadband projects.

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Coonan orders Telstra to extend CDMA

TELSTRA will be forced to keep its CDMA mobile phone network operational beyond its planned closure in January.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan plans to change Telstra’s licensing conditions to keep the CDMA network open, amid fears in the country that the Telstra Next G network will not have equal or better coverage than the network it replaces.

The CDMA network is a primary form of communication in the bush, often the only network that has coverage in remote parts of the country. Telstra set January 28 next year as the closure date for CDMA.

Telstra chief Sol Trujillo made a commitment to federal Nationals a year ago that the company would not switch off the CDMA network until it new Next G network provided comparable coverage.

Senator Coonan says serious questions have been raised in the bush about the Next G roll-out. And the Nationals last weekend called for the CDMA network to be maintained.

The Minister said she had written to Telstra six weeks ago asking that they delay the CDMA network closure beyond January. They declined.

Instead, Senator Coonan has issued a draft licensing condition that will ultimately force the company to keep CDMA operational.

Senator Coonan said that she had heard first hand about the rising level of consumer concern regarding mobile phone coverage.

“I have just spent the last six weeks on the road across Australia and based on the level of frustration in the community, it is clear that this issue needs Telstra’s urgent and genuine attention.

“The Government’s hand has been forced by Telstra’s inaction on consumers’ concerns.”

The fact that relations between government and Telstra are so poisonous are only complicated by the fact it is an election year, and communications in the bush remains a hot-button issue.

Senator Coonan also announced that Government has set up a hotline to let phone users in the bush report Next G problems, a move that can only antagonise a company already

“(The hotline) will ensure that consumers are able to report any problems they are experiencing with the switch to Next G,” Senator Coonan said.

“Consumers will be able to provide feedback on performance and service issues with the Next G network which will be invaluable in assessing whether and when Telstra has met its public commitments on coverage and service equivalence,” she said

The Next G Customer Support Group will also perform an independent audit of Telstra’s point-of-sale advice and product availability.

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Apple polishes shiny new iMacs

APPLE has freshened its line of popular iMac desktops with new models that are slimmer, more powerful and have bigger screens.

Typical of a new Apple launch, the systems are at the cutting edge of industrial design, with widescreen displays and aluminium and polished-glass cases.

In Australia the new models come with a starting price-tag of A$1,698 for the 20-inch model – about A$600 less that the previous low-end model. The 24-inch iMac model starts at A$2,599.

The new models redefine the iMac signature all-in-one design, where the entire computer system is integrated into a sleek, professional aluminium enclosure for a striking, clutter-free desktop.

“This new iMac is the most incredible desktop computer we’ve ever made,” said Apple chief executive officer Steve Jobs.

“Our new design features the innovative use of materials, including professional-grade aluminium and glass that are highly recyclable.”

The machines all feature the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors running up to 2.8GHz with 4MB of shared L2 cache and up to 4GB SDRAM.

They also feature next-generation graphics from ATI. The new iMac also offers up to 1TB of internal storage to accommodate a user’s growing library of digital photos, movies and music.

The iMac includes built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n Wi-Fi networking, delivering up to five times the performance and twice the range of 802.11g; Gigabit Ethernet; and five USB 2.0 ports – including two on the keyboard.

The machines also have one FireWire 400 and one FireWire 800 port.
The new iMac line is available immediately through Apple Store online and Apple Authorised Resellers. A new Apple Wireless Keyboard will ship by the end of August.

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Judge overturns US$1.5b Microsoft decision

A US judge has thrown out a US$1.5 billion (A$1.74 billion) jury verdict against Microsoft, overturning a ruling that the company had infringed intellectual property owned by telecommunications vendor Alcatel-Lucent.

A San Diego jury in February found that Microsoft had breached two Alcatel-Lucent’s patents related to MP3 music file formats. The jury then awarded Alcatel-Lucent the largest patent damages award in history.

But US District Judge Rudi Brewster, in a 43-page ruling issued on August 6, said the damages sum awarded against Microsoft could not stand because the jury had erred in law and that Microsoft had not infringed one of the two patents.

“The Court finds that the jury's verdict of infringement was against the clear weight of evidence,” Judge Brewster wrote in the court documents.

Microsoft had sought either a reversal of the jury ruling, a drastic reduction in the damages, or a new trial.

“Today's ruling by the judge reversing the jury's $1.52 billion verdict against Microsoft is a victory for consumers of digital music and a triumph for common sense in the patent system,” said Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith.

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Aarnet boosts remote schooling

THE Australian Academic and Research Network (AARNet), the public sector broadband research group, is working with the National Museum in Canberra and NSW Department of Education on delivering live, two-way video-conferencing to remote schools.

The project aims to deliver Talkback Classroom forums held by the Museum.

Talkback Classroom is a regular forum held at the Museum where teams of three students investigate current issues and participate in a live interview with a leading decision maker.

This week Foreign Minister Alexander Downer will be interviewed by students on the Australian/Korean Energy Forum.

The session includes students from up to 100 regional and rural NSW schools participating via live-streaming videoconference across the AARNet3 national backbone – connected to the NSW Department of Education and Training network.

AARNet chief executive Chris Hancock said the latest “AARNet3 is a high-speed, high-capacity network specifically designed to give Australian schools and universities access to services, information and opportunities they have never had before, removing geographical constraints.”

“The National Museum’s Talkback Classroom project is a perfect example of how AARNet3 gives students in remote areas access to the same tools as those in city areas,” Mr Hancock said.

AARNet is the not-for-profit company that operates Australia's Academic and Research Network. The shareholders are 37 universities and the CSIRO.

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Microsoft acquires Jellyfish shopping site

MICROSOFT has quietly acquired a comparative shopping search engine company Jellyfish.com, a start-up that seeks to give its customers a cut of retailers’ online advertising each time they make a purchase.

Microsoft announced the acquisition in a three sentence statement on its Live Search blog, and gave few details of its intentions for the Jellyfish technology.

“Jellyfish has done some really innovative work in comparative shopping engines,” the Microsoft blog said.

“We think the technology has some interesting potential applications as we continue to invest heavily in shopping and commerce as a key component of Live Search.”

The site works by advertisers nominating the level of commission it will pay Jellyfish for sales made through its site. Jellyfish then commits to rebate at least half of that commission to the customer as a rebate.

It is not clear what Microsoft will do with the Jellyfish technology. The company is known to have been working on its own comparative search for its own ecommerce offerings.

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Satyam opens Brisbane development centre

INDIAN outsourcing giant Satyam Computer Services has opened a new software solutions development facility in Brisbane, its fourth IT services facility in Australia.

Based in the central business district, the new facility will support Queensland-based clients across a variety of IT platforms, but with an emphasis on enterprise applications-based solutions.

Satyam already operates development centres in Melbourne and recently launched a regional solutions hub in North Sydney adding up to 7,500 square metres of space. It also has a development centre in Canberra.

The company has used its expansion in Australia to continually bolster its follow-the-sun Virtual Global Delivery Model.

Satyam co-founder and managing director Rama Raju said the Brisbane facility would enable the company to meet the specific regional needs of its Queensland clients from the local government, finance, insurance and mining sectors.

The centre, which officially opened a week ago but has been operational for two months, currently employs 40 professionals, with Satyam expecting to add a further 50 in the near future.

“Satyam is already well established in Australia and today’s announcement reinforces our ongoing commitment to collaborating with customers –wherever they need us – to transform their organisations,” Mr Raju said.

The company currently employs about 1,200 associates serving the Australian market, of which about 800 are based in Australia. The company said it placed an emphasis on employment generation, with 42 per cent of its associates in Australia being Australian nationals.

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Adobe acquires Buzzword SaaS developer

DOCUMENT specialist Adobe Systems has signed a definitive agreement to acquire tiny SaaS start-up Virtual Ubiquity, developers of the online word processor Buzzword.

Buzzword was built using Adobe’s Flex software and runs in the Adobe Flash Player and lets more than one user to view and edit as document online at the same time.

Separately, Adobe also added a new file sharing service to its current online document services codenamed “Share”. The beta service is designed to make it easier for people to share, publish and organise documents online.

The company said the acquisition was part of its commitment to “foster a vibrant ecosystem” for rich internet application (RIA) development.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, though Virtual Ubiquity’s eleven California-based staff will join Adobe.

The acquisition helps establish Adobe as a player in the Software as a Service (SaaS) market, which is fast becoming one of the hottest sectors of the industry on the back of offerings like Google’s Docs & Spreadsheets offering.

“For over a decade, Adobe Acrobat software and PDF have been the standard way people share and collaborate on high value documents across platforms, with perfect fidelity,” said Adobe Business Productivity Business Unit senior vice-president David Mendels.

“Buzzword will build on that leadership and enable fundamental improvements in how people collaborate on documents,” he said.

“At the same time, it is an exciting showcase of the power of Adobe’s RIA technology that raises the bar for the quality of experience people should expect in their applications.”

Adobe said Buzzword enables greater document quality, outstanding typography, page layout controls, and robust support for integrated graphics, regardless of the browser or device. The application also runs on Adobe AIR, giving users a hybrid online/offline experience and the ability to work with both hosted and local documents.

Virtual Ubiquity chief executive Rick Treitman said Buzzword was “an online word processor for the ‘Facebook generation’ that focuses on working together online, without sacrificing quality.”

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The political mud flies over CDMA

THE possible closure early next year of the Telstra CDMA mobile phone network has become a lightening rod for political controversy in the heated election-eve environment.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan has accused Labor of abandoning rural and regional phone customers – who rely heavily on the CDMA network – because she says Labor does not support imposing a licensing condition on Telstra to keep the network open.

Telstra has said it wants to shut down the CDMA network early next year, with customers beings transferred to its new Next G phone network.

The sticking point is that government wants to hold Telstra to its promise that the CDMA would not be turned off until Next G provided “equivalent or better” coverage for Australia’s rural and regional users.

“Not only will Labor abolish the $2 billion regional Communications Fund to finance a commercial network in metropolitan areas, but now Labor will be prepared to sit back and potentially leave hundreds of thousands of thousands of regional mobile phone users stranded if Telstra’s Next G network does not provide adequate replication of CDMA coverage and services,” Senator Coonan said.

“Until now Labor has been silent on this important national network transition, but yesterday and today Labor’s communications spokesman Stephen Conroy declared that a licence condition will ‘impose costs on Telstra which provided no meaningful consumer benefit’ and that the initiative ‘actually doesn’t help consumers’,” she said.

Labor communications spokesman Stephen Conroy said Senator Coonan was misleading the public as part of a “desperate tactic” in the run up to the election.

“Labor has consistently stated Telstra would not be allowed to switch off its CDMA network unless it met its promise to the Australian public over coverage and service,” Senator Conroy said in a statement.

“Labor has continually argued for better regulation in the telecommunications sector given Telstra’s market power. However over the past 10 years the number of substantive pages of regulation has increased from 1,602 to 10,013,” he said.

“Examples of wasteful regulation that Labor opposed in parliament was the Government’s operational separation regime, which has increased costs to Telstra with no benefits to consumers.”

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eBay cuts strike price for Skype deal

ONLINE auction site eBay has cut as much as A$1.36 billion off the potential A$4.9 billion it agreed to pay for VoIP phenomenon Skype when it acquired the company in 2005 because of under performance of the unit.

The write-down in the Skype sale prices came as the company restructured senior management at the VoIP unit, with Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom stepping down as CEO of the eBay Skype unit.

The management changes and cost write-downs are seen as an admission of the lackluster performance of the Skype acquisition.

eBay announced that it had paid about US$530 million (A$600 million) to settle all of its future obligations under the earn-out agreement signed with certain Skype shareholders when eBay acquired Skype in 2005.

The earn-out agreement provided for payments of up to approximately US$1,700 million (A$1,925 million) based upon specific active user, revenue and gross profit targets that were to be achieved in 2008 and the first half of 2009.

“eBay believes that the (A$600 million) payment is reasonable given the progress and anticipated rapid growth of Skype's active user base,” the company said in a statement.

Having stepped down as Skype CEO, Mr Zennstrom will become non-executive chairman of the Skype board of directors, while eBay chief strategy officer Michael van Swaaij will become Skype’s acting CEO until a permanent successor is found.

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Microsoft urges Senate to dump Google deal

THE planned acquisition of internet advertising firm DoubleClick by search giant Google would be bad for competition and bad for consumers, Microsoft’s legal chief has told a Senate committee.

Microsoft senior vice-president and general counsel Brad Smith also told the committee that the Google-DoubleClick deal would become a serious threat to consumers’ privacy.

“If Google and DoubleClick are allowed to merge, Google will become the overwhelmingly dominant pipeline for all forms of online advertising,” Mr Smith told the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights.

“This merger will almost certainly result in higher profits for the operator of the dominant advertising pipeline, but we believe it will be bad for everyone else. It will be bad for publishers, it will be bad for advertisers and, most importantly, it will be bad for consumers,” he said.

Microsoft is no stranger to antitrust cases, or the inside of Senate committee rooms, having defended itself many times on many different fronts.

But while Mr Smith acknowledged there was a large degree of self interest in the Microsoft evidence to committee, he said there were genuine concerns about the acquisition would have on the ongoing development of the internet.

“We believe that the future of the Internet will be decided by developments in online advertising,” he said, adding that advertising was the fuel that continued to power the internet and to drive the digital economy.

Microsoft estimates that online advertising is already a US$27 billion (A$30 billion) business, and is projected to double to US$54 billion in the next four year alone.

“To put that in perspective, that will be roughly the same size as the television and radio industries in this country today, combined,” Mr Smith said.

Microsoft believes that the privacy issues related to internet advertising – where search companies collect personal information about computer users in order to better target advertising – is also a antitrust issue.

“Given the nature and economics of online advertising, this concentration of user information means that no other company will be able serve ads as profitably,” Mr Smith said.

“In short, it will substantially reduce the ability of other companies to compete.” he said.

“I appreciate that the technology and business models are new and dynamic, and I fully agree that the internet is continuing to change very rapidly,” he said. “But no one is permitted to buy a dominant position by acquiring its single largest competitor.”

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Microsoft moves Office toward SaaS

MICROSOFT has moved to counter the threat from Google to its Office franchise, moving the first elements of the productivity software using the software as a service (SaaS) model.

The company has laid out new plans for its online services that combine elements of client-based programs with software that runs large servers and new services delivered over the internet.

The new strategy represents a radical first step in overhauling the Microsoft business, and is seen as a direct response to the growing threat of Google’s Docs and Spreadsheets SaaS offerings.

The new Microsoft Office Live Workspace is a Web component of its Microsoft Office desktop productivity software suite that lets user store, share and comment on documents, but its stops short of letting users create new documents through the internet.

The Microsoft Office Live Workspace is not yet ‘live’, though from this week users are ale to sign up as beta users of the new service.

The site gives users 250Mb of storage space, and the site can be used to email friends or colleagues inviting them to read and comment on documents. But to make editing changes, the users must still have a registered and installed copy of the Office package.

Microsoft will deliver a variety of new solutions during the coming months under two key families of service offerings: “Live” and “Online.”

“Live” services from Microsoft are designed primarily for individuals, business end-users and virtual work groups. Live offerings span entertainment, communication and productivity. These services emphasise ease of use, simplicity of access and flexibility, and are ideally suited for situations where people either don’t have access to professional technical expertise or don’t require high levels of system management.

“Online” services are for organisations with more advanced IT needs where power and flexibility are critical.

Online services from Microsoft give businesses the ability to control access to data, manage users, apply business and compliance policy, and meet high availability standards while providing performance, scalability, enhanced security, management features and service-level capabilities to support mission-critical applications and systems.

Microsoft is providing business customers with the flexibility to choose between traditional on-premise implementations, services hosted by Microsoft partners and now Online services that reside in Microsoft’s data centres

“This new era of connected computing is about empowering people and businesses to balance the power of the Internet with the rich interactivity and high performance of client and server software,” said Microsoft Business Division president Jeff Raikes.

“With today’s announcements, we are taking a significant step forward by combining our deep client and server software experience with our strong commitment to delivering flexible services offerings for our wide variety of customers and their unique needs.”

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Microsoft moves Office toward SaaS

MICROSOFT has moved to counter the threat from Google to its Office franchise, moving the first elements of the productivity software using the software as a service (SaaS) model.

The company has laid out new plans for its online services that combine elements of client-based programs with software that runs large servers and new services delivered over the internet.

The new strategy represents a radical first step in overhauling the Microsoft business, and is seen as a direct response to the growing threat of Google’s Docs and Spreadsheets SaaS offerings.

The new Microsoft Office Live Workspace is a Web component of its Microsoft Office desktop productivity software suite that lets user store, share and comment on documents, but its stops short of letting users create new documents through the internet.

The Microsoft Office Live Workspace is not yet ‘live’, though from this week users are ale to sign up as beta users of the new service.

The site gives users 250Mb of storage space, and the site can be used to email friends or colleagues inviting them to read and comment on documents. But to make editing changes, the users must still have a registered and installed copy of the Office package.

Microsoft will deliver a variety of new solutions during the coming months under two key families of service offerings: “Live” and “Online.”

“Live” services from Microsoft are designed primarily for individuals, business end-users and virtual work groups. Live offerings span entertainment, communication and productivity. These services emphasise ease of use, simplicity of access and flexibility, and are ideally suited for situations where people either don’t have access to professional technical expertise or don’t require high levels of system management.

“Online” services are for organisations with more advanced IT needs where power and flexibility are critical.

Online services from Microsoft give businesses the ability to control access to data, manage users, apply business and compliance policy, and meet high availability standards while providing performance, scalability, enhanced security, management features and service-level capabilities to support mission-critical applications and systems.

Microsoft is providing business customers with the flexibility to choose between traditional on-premise implementations, services hosted by Microsoft partners and now Online services that reside in Microsoft’s data centres

“This new era of connected computing is about empowering people and businesses to balance the power of the Internet with the rich interactivity and high performance of client and server software,” said Microsoft Business Division president Jeff Raikes.

“With today’s announcements, we are taking a significant step forward by combining our deep client and server software experience with our strong commitment to delivering flexible services offerings for our wide variety of customers and their unique needs.”

For more Web Applications news, click here.

FT charges for content, sort of

THE famed London masthead, the Financial Times, has announced a groundbreaking new system for charging users for accessing content, finding a middle ground between a subscription service and free content.

As part of a broad relaunch of the Financial Times Internet arm – FT.com – the company will expand the amount of content it offers free, but then to charge the user a subscription rate after a predetermined number of page views.

The new model will enable blogs, news aggregators and other websites to access FT.com content and link to it more freely. It replaces the current restrictions on access to business stories and premium content.

Users will be able to view a total of 30 FT articles per month – including news, columns, analysis and video content – after which they will be asked to pay a subscription. A “light touch” registration process kicks in after viewing five articles.

“Our new access model means FT.com is open for business in a new way,” said FT.com publisher and managing editor Ien Cheng.

“Other publishers have been caught in a stark choice between free versus paid. We are now offering a third way, in which you only pay if you want more than 30 articles per month.”

The figure of 30 page views was not random, but rather based on detailed analysis of FT.com user patterns, Mr Cheng said.

The changes come into effect in the middle of October.

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Windows home server complete

JUST six months after the company announced its plans for a Windows Home Server platform, Microsoft has completed the project and the product has been released to manufacturing (RTM).

The official Windows Home Server blog announced the project completion.

“We have finalised the software and now handing it off to our OEM partners,” Windows Home Server general manager Charlie Kindel wrote in the blog entry.

“The evaluation version (with 120 day evaluation period) and the system builder version are also heading into the distribution channels and will be available in the next couple of months,” he said.

“French, German and Spanish versions will be finalized shortly, and OEM products will hit retail shelves this fall,” Mr Kindel wrote.

The company also announced that Iomega and Fujitsu-Siemens Computers had signed on as OEMs and planned to ship Windows Home Server Product later this year.

The Windows Home Server has been known under the code name ‘Q’ before officially being renamed by the company when the platform was released to manufacturers last week.

Mr Kindel said the Windows Home Server project had involved more than 100,000 beta testers and community, with a high volume of forum discussions and more than one million page views per month of the project’s blog.

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Nokia moves on location-based services

NOKIA has made its intentions in the location-based services market emphatically clear, paying US$8.1 billion (A$9.1 billion) to acquire leading navigation systems provider Navteq.

With location-based services among the fastest growing segments of the ICT market and Nokia has nominated it as a strategic cornerstone for future growth in the mobile phone and device arena.

Nokia said that once the acquisition was completed, Navteq would continue to map data platform to other navigation industry players as an independent business unit within Nokia.

“By joining forces with Navteq, we will be able to bring context and geographical information to a number of our internet services with accelerated time to market,” Nokia president and chief executive officer Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said in a statement.

“We also look forward to maintaining and enhancing the services and support provided to NAVTEQ's existing and future customers”.

The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008.

“Nokia's unique vision for location based services aligns perfectly with Navteq’s vision to enable everyone to find their way to people, places and opportunities on mobile communications devices, cars, desktop computers and in all the other places that are important to them," said Navteq president and chief executive officer Judson Green.

“It's really exciting to imagine what we can achieve by combining our location experience with the resources of a company that has a customer base of more than 900 million people,” he said.

For more Navigation and Telematics news click here.

3Com succumbs, acquired by Bain and Huawei

AFTER months of rumour, the once dominant networking company 3Com has been acquired by the investment bank Bain Capital and its Chinese partner Huawei Technologies.

The definitive acquisition agreement was signed last Friday valued at $2.2 billion (A$2.5 billion)

“As business becomes ever more global, companies need to enhance their technology infrastructure to compete more effectively in the broader economy,” said a Hong Kong based managing director Jonathan Zhu.

“3Com has a strong competitive position, and we believe there are significant opportunities to grow by acquiring customers and introducing new products,” he said.

Mr Zhu said the company had identified worldwide growth opportunity for 3Com's communications networking solutions in conjunction with the company’s strategic partners.

As part of the transaction, affiliates of Huawei Technologies will acquire a minority interest in the company and become a commercial and strategic partner of 3Com.

Analysts say the closer ties between 3Com and Huawei should prove profitable for both companies.

3Com’s China-based Huawei-3Com business unit contributed more than half of the company’s sales last year, and analysts say Huawei can leverage the 3Com relationship outside of China to better compete with its US rival Cisco.

The transaction is expected to be completed by the first quarter of calendar year 2008, subject to receipt of 3Com shareholder approval.

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Tiny Wikia to take on Google

WIKIPEDIA founder Jimmy Wales has moved to challenge traditional search giants like Google with an open source model that returns the balance power in the industry to the publisher.

Speaking at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) conference in the US, Wales announced that Wikia has acquired Grub, the original visionary distributed search project, from LookSmart and released it under an open source license for the first time in four years.

Grub operates under a model of users donating their personal computing resources towards a common goal, and is available today for download and testing at grub.org

Wales said the project had already received huge support from business.

“The desire to collaborate and support a transparent and open platform for search is clearly deeply exciting to both open source and businesses,” Mr Wales said.

“We’ve had a tremendous response from very interesting commercial players in the search space,” he said.

“Look for other exciting announcements in the coming months as we collectively work to free the judgment of information from invisible rules inside an algorithmic black box.”

Grub, now open source, is designed with modularity so that developers can quickly and easily extend and add functionality, improving the quality and performance of the entire system.

By combining Grub, which is building a massive, distributed user-contributed processing network, with the power of a wiki to form social consensus, the open source Search Wikia project has taken the next major step towards a future where search is open and transparent.

“In looking at the overarching industry, it has become clear that open is the business model of the future,” said LookSmart senior vice-president and CTO Michael Grubb.

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Electoral tech for visually-impaired tested

THE Australian Electoral Commission will introduce special electronic voting machines for the blind and visually impaired at the 2007 Federal election, allowing them a secret ballot for the first.

Special Minister of State Gary Nairn said the visually impaired would be able to cast secret ballots at 29 locations across Australia at the election as part of the first-ever trial of electronic voting devices.

The electronic booths will be available in all States and Territories.

“This is a trial that the Government strongly supports to enable people who are blind or vision impaired to have the opportunity for a secret vote,” Mr Nairn said.

“Electronic voting will be available for two weeks in the lead up to, and on election day, in 29 electorates.

“The locations were selected by the Australian Electoral Commission after a careful process of consultation with relevant peak bodies and service organisations around Australia and an examination of potential locations,” Mr Nairn said.

The Australian Electoral Commission will be demonstrating the electronic voting machines at each location before the election for the interest of people with vision impairment and local support groups.

The electronic voting machines will not be available to people who are sighted.

For more e-Government news, click here.