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Joseph Tsidulko, writing for CRN: Oracle asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to not review an appellate court's decision finding Google violated Oracle's copyright of the Java platform when building the Android mobile operating system. In that opposition brief, Oracle's attorneys said Google's copyright violation shut Oracle, the Java platform owner, out of the emerging smartphone market, causing incalculable harm to its business. The complex case pitting two Silicon Valley giants against each other has raged on since 2010, and already saw many twists in turns before a circuit court last year reversed a jury decision in favor of Oracle. That prompted Google's appeal to the nation's highest court. Oracle notes Google had previously asked for a writ of certiorari -- the legal term for review by the high court -- in 2015 without success in an earlier phase of the case, and the company argues nothing has changed in the time since.

Oracle believes Google destroyed its hopes of competing as a smartphone platform developer with the Java platform, which enables development and execution of software written in Java, including through APIs that access a vast software library. The lawsuit alleged Google copied those APIs without a proper license. Java was developed at Sun Microsystems, which Oracle acquired in 2010. "Google's theory is that, having invested all those resources to create a program popular with platform developers and app programmers alike, Oracle should be required to let a competitor copy its code so that it can coopt the fan base to create its own best-selling sequel," Oracle's brief states.

Lenovo's resurgence in the U.S. PC market continued during the final quarter of 2018 with gains in both shipments and market share, while Dell also saw growth in the fourth quarter in spite of supply chain and market challenges, according to research firm Gartner. From a report: It marked the third quarter in a row that Lenovo enjoyed strong growth in the U.S. PC market, solidifying the company's position as the No. 3 player in the market ahead of Apple and Microsoft--but still trailing well behind HP and Dell. However, overall PC shipments in the U.S. slid 4.5 percent during the fourth quarter compared to the same period a year earlier, Gartner reported. In a news release, Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa blamed the decline in part on market uncertainties -- given that the quarter is "typically a buying season" for businesses looking to use up budget money by the end of the year.

Intel's channel organization is vowing increased communication and transparency with partners on issues such as the current CPU shortage, which has caused delays, price hikes and other challenges this year. From a report: In an exclusive interview with CRN, Todd Garrigues, director of partner sales programs at Intel, said better transparency about supply issues, new business opportunities and new technologies is one of the company's top priorities for partners heading into 2019. "We got some feedback -- some critical feedback if I'm honest -- from some partners through our advisory boards, and we're working hard to make sure we do better at that," he said. "The request, bluntly, was just to work harder at being transparent as close to real time as possible. And we took that to heart -- a lot of internal discussions on how we enable that."

One of the challenges, Garrigues said, has been engaging with Intel's broader base of partners that the company may not have one-on-one relationships with. To mitigate the issue, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company is investing more in its relationships with distributors to boost Intel's signal. "One of the big priorities I've placed on this year is really working very close with our distribution partners who do serve that broad channel base more directly," said Jason Kimrey, Intel's U.S. channel chief. "I would tell you that we are having much more direct, open transparent dialogue with them to help them plan and help our mutual customers plan to roadmaps and plan around the supply."

Intel is staying quiet on when the company expects its shortage of entry-level CPUs to end as it prioritizes production of Core and Xeon processors to meet growing demand in the PC and server markets. From a report: The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company provided more details on its plan to improve processor supply in its third-quarter earnings call on Thursday, when the company reported a continuing resurgence in its PC business and strong continued growth in its data-centric businesses. When an analyst asked Intel interim CEO Bob Swan when he expected the supply constraints to be over, Swan did not provide a timeline in his response. But he answered other parts of the analyst's questions about the company's efforts to improve supply. "We were caught off guard a little bit this year by the explosive growth well ahead of what our expectations were back at the beginning of the year, and that growth came from all different segments of the business," he said. "It put us in the unfortunate situation of constraining some of the demand signals that we were seeing from the market and our customer base."

Intel interim CEO Bob Swan publicly addressed the company's CPU shortage issue for the first time since July, when he acknowledged that meeting additional demand would be Intel's "biggest challenge." From a report: In a message posted to Intel's website Friday, Swan said the "surprising return" to growth in the PC market "has put pressure on [the company's] factory network." He added, "We're prioritizing the production of Intel Xeon and Intel Core processors so that collectively we can serve the high-performance segments of the market. That said, supply is undoubtedly tight, particularly at the entry-level of the PC market."

Intel partners and at least one distributor previously told CRN they were seeing a shortage of Intel's current generation, 14-nanometer CPUs, most notably in lower-end client processors.

Intel interim CEO Bob Swan publicly addressed the company's CPU shortage issue for the first time since July, when he acknowledged that meeting additional demand would be Intel's "biggest challenge." From a report: In a message posted to Intel's website Friday, Swan said the "surprising return" to growth in the PC market "has put pressure on [the company's] factory network." He added, "We're prioritizing the production of Intel Xeon and Intel Core processors so that collectively we can serve the high-performance segments of the market. That said, supply is undoubtedly tight, particularly at the entry-level of the PC market."

Intel partners and at least one distributor previously told CRN they were seeing a shortage of Intel's current generation, 14-nanometer CPUs, most notably in lower-end client processors.

Nearly a half-billion Internet of Things devices are vulnerable to cyberattacks at businesses worldwide because of a 10-year-old security flaw, according to a new report from a security software vendor. From a report: The report was published Friday by Armis, a provider of Internet of Things security software for enterprises that focuses on detecting threats in IoT devices at workplaces. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company has previously made security disclosures, including the BlueBorne malware attack that impacted 5 billion IoT devices.

An anonymous reader quotes CNET: Symantec shares plummeted roughly 20% on Thursday after the antivirus maker warned an internal investigation could delay its annual report. The plunge followed news that the audit committee of Symantec's board had launched an internal investigation into undescribed concerns raised by a former employee. The probe is being aided by independent counsel and other advisers, the company said in its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings report. Symantec said it had informed the US Securities and Exchange Commission of the probe and intends to share information collected during the investigation with the commission.
CRN reports that the investigation "is not tied to any security concern or breach around Symantec's products or systems, Cynthia Hiponia, vice president of investor relations, said during the company's earnings call Thursday."

Intel is exploring the creation of specialty hardware for mining the popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin, according to a U.S. patent application released Thursday. From a report: The patent, filed on Sept. 23, 2016, describes a Bitcoin mining hardware accelerator that may include a processor core with a hardware accelerator coupled with it. Bitcoin mining is the process of using powerful computer processors to record Bitcoin transactions on a public ledger, which is done by attempting to solve cryptographic puzzles. If the miner becomes the first to solve the puzzle and record the next transaction, it is rewarded with newly released Bitcoin. The high energy and equipment costs associated with mining have brought into question whether the activity can be profitable, especially as the price of Bitcoin has nose-dived in the past few months, as noted by Forbes. But that hasn't stopped people from hoarding equipment -- one report from Coherent Market Insights pegged the cryptocurrency mining market at $610 million in 2016 and expects it to grow to $38 billion by 2025. The current issues faced by miners also has propelled companies and individuals to find new technologies and methods for making mining more efficient.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: A file that Apple updated on its website last month provides the first acknowledgment that it's relying on Google's public cloud for data storage for its iCloud services. The disclosure is fresh evidence that Google's cloud has been picking up usage as it looks to catch up with Amazon and Microsoft in the cloud infrastructure business. Some media outlets reported on Google's iCloud win in 2016, but Apple never provided confirmation. Apple periodically publishes new versions of a PDF called the iOS Security Guide. For years the document contained language indicating that iCloud services were relying on remote data storage systems from Amazon Web Services, as well as Microsoft's Azure. But in the latest version, the Microsoft Azure reference is gone, and in its place is Google Cloud Platform. Before the January update, Apple most recently updated the iOS Security Guide in March. The latest update doesn't indicate whether Apple is using any Google cloud services other than core storage of "objects" like photos and videos. The document also doesn't make it clear when Apple started storing data in Google's cloud.

Cisco has built a new network operating system that will allow users to run its most sophisticated networking features on older and lower-cost Cisco routers and switches, according to a report. From a report: The move to potentially disrupt its networking hardware business was first reported by The Information, which said that Cisco, for now, is not looking to have its network operating system available for non-Cisco switches. Customers who want to run the new operating system, known as Lindt, will be able to move away from switches based on proprietary high-performance Cisco chips to Cisco hardware that works with lower-cost chips, according to the report.

schwit1 writes from a report via CRN: Cisco Systems is laying off about 14,000 employees, representing nearly 20 percent of the network equipment maker's global workforce. San Jose, California-based Cisco is expected to announce the cuts within the next few weeks, the report said, as the company transitions from its hardware roots into a software-centric organization. Cisco increasingly requires "different skill sets" for the "software-defined future" than it did in the past, as it pushes to capture a higher share of the addressable market and aims to boost its margins, the CRN report said citing a source familiar with the situation. "The company's headcount as of April 20, 2016, was 73,104," reports CRN. "Cutting 14,000 employees would be the single largest layoff in Cisco's 32-year history."

UPDATE 8/17/16: Cisco has reported its fourth-quarter 2016 earnings and they have exceeded analysts' expectations.

An anonymous reader shares an article by CRN:Partners say Cisco's end game with its patent lawsuits against Arista Networks is simply to slow the fast-growing networking company and stunt any innovation efforts from competitors. "Cisco's goal is to try to slow down Arista and competitors any way they can," said Chris Becerra, president and CEO of Terrapin Systems, a Morgan Hill, Calif.-based Arista partner. "If they don't have the technology to beat them out there, they're going to try to slow them down any way possible." Last week, the San Jose, Calif.-based network giant won three of five patent infringement suits against Santa Clara, Calif.-based Arista dealing with its networking switches. The International Trade Commission recommended a ban on Arista product imports containing the infringing technology. Additionally, the ITC also ruled earlier this year that Arista infringed on several other Cisco patents pertaining to its private VLANS, system database and externally managing router configuration with a centralized database -- recommending a similar ban on Arista imports.For those unfamiliar, Cisco had filed its trade complaint in December 2014, in which it sought a ban on Arista's switches. Arista, which designs and sells multilayer network switches to deliver software-defined networking solutions, was formed by former Cisco employees.

An anonymous reader writes: Alphabet's Google has quietly scored a major coup in its campaign to become an enterprise cloud computing powerhouse, landing Apple as a customer for the Google Cloud Platform, multiple sources with knowledge of the matter told CRN this week. Previously, Apple had acknowledge using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure's rival cloud computing platforms in addition to its own data centers. None of the services would have access to iCloud users' records. "The iCloud information is not at risk of being breached or otherwise observed by the ultimate owners of the platforms it resides on because of the very heavy encryption and partitioning technologies used," commended Chris Green, a tech expert at the consultancy Lewis. CRN has mentioned the agreement between the two companies was done late last year.

cgriffin21 writes: The security industry is adding layers of defensive technologies to protect systems rather than addressing the most substantial, underlying problems that sustain a sprawling cybercrime syndicate, according to an industry luminary who painted a bleak picture of the future of information security at a conference of hundreds of incident responders in Boston Tuesday. Eugene Spafford, a noted computer security expert and professor of computer science at Purdue University, said software makers continue to churn out products riddled with vulnerabilities, creating an incessant patching cycle for IT administrators that siphons resources from more critical areas.

FrankPoole (1736680) writes According to a CRN investigative report, Cisco has been spending millions of dollars over several years to secretly purchase Juniper Networks' products, including new QFabric and MX series routers, for use in its 'competitive analysis lab,' where the products are tested and reverse engineered. According to the report, some of the Juniper products purchased by Cisco were still in beta and not yet commercially released. In addition, CRN discovered that a main source for Cisco to obtain these Juniper products was, ironically, a company called Torrey Point Group, a fast-growing VAR that was awarded Juniper's Part of the Year in 2011.

Dawn Kawamoto writes "Cisco's CEO John Chambers dealt employees a blow Wednesday, saying the networking giant would cut 4,000 workers from the payroll. Not quite a death blow, but this 5 percent cut could leave some employees gasping. Chambers took the knife to Cisco last year, cutting 2 percent of its workforce."

FrankPoole writes "The Iomega brand name will soon be officially laid to rest. Lenovo and EMC, which jointly own the storage company, will replace the Iomega name on all NAS products with 'LenovoEMC.' Lenovo and EMC entered into a joint venture last year, with Lenovo buying partial ownership of Iomega. But because the company name is associated with cheap, consumer storage and ZIP drives, Lenovo is giving Iomega the boot."

FrankPoole writes "According to CRN, IBM is in serious negotiations to sell its low-end x86 server business to Lenovo, which is looking to grow its server revenue. If the deal goes though, it will be the second time in eight years that Big Blue has exited a major hardware business and sold the operation to Lenovo. IBM sold its PC business to Chinese computer maker in 2005."

According to a (paywalled) report in the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft is experimenting with its own smartphone design. "Officials at some of Microsoft's parts suppliers, who declined to be named, said the Redmond, Wash.-based company is testing a smartphone design but isn't sure if a product will go into mass production." The article continues: "If Microsoft pushes ahead with its mobile phone, it would underscore how far Microsoft has moved away from its long-standing practice of making software and leaving decisions about design, features and marketing of the computing hardware to partners such as Hewlett-Packard or Samsung Electronics. ... As it does so, Microsoft pulls from a modified playbook of Apple—whose hardware-plus-software approach Microsoft officials long have scorned. ... Smartphones running Microsoft's two-year-old Windows Phone operating software for cellphones haven't sold well, and Microsoft may want to leave itself an option to test whether its own phone would spur sales."

zaba writes "A company named PersonalWeb Technologies has decided to sue a host of heavy players in the tech industry, including Apple, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft and Yahoo! for patents it holds related to data processing. They have a previous suit against other big names like Amazon, Google and HP. Anyone care to guess where the company is based or where the suits were filed?" The company is also targeting GitHub, but seems to have accidentally sued Rackspace — GitHub's host — instead. Rackspace has responded, saying, "It’s apparent that the people filing the suit don’t understand the technology or the products enough to realize that Rackspace Cloud Servers and GitHub are completely different products from different companies."

deadeyefred writes "Dropbox last month launched its Teams service, targeted at small and mid-sized businesses — but acknowledges it's not PCI-, HIPAA- or Sarbanes-Oxley compliant. Company executives say they also don't provide a highly visible warning largely because customers in beta tests didn't make it an issue. Should cloud services focused at businesses provide clear warnings if they are not compliant with key regulatory requirements, or should business customers just assume they are not?"

deadeyefred writes "With the last vestiges of Microsoft's U.S. antitrust consent decree expiring earlier this year, the company is again tying its browser tightly to Windows. In pre-release versions of IE 10 and Windows 8, IE 10 cannot be uninstalled and is required to enable the new 'Metro'-style apps."

deadeyefred writes "HP's new CEO, Meg Whitman, has a number of issues to deal with to right the ship and put the company on a growth track again. Instead of massive changes to its organization and product line, could $4.5 billion in open source investments do the trick? An argument might be made that HP could boost its competitiveness by putting half of its R&D budget ($1.5 billion a year) into projects like Xen.org, Android and OpenStack. It would still be less than half what HP is paying for Autonomy and allow it to focus on solving problems rather than protecting proprietary product lines and fiefdoms."

deadeyefred writes "Even though it's still only in alpha, it appears as though the forthcoming version of Ubuntu, version 11.10, will be much faster than earlier versions, according to this story. Quoting: 'After installing the OS onto a PC with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 at 3.00 GHz and a hard disk drive, we stop-watched boot-up time at 12 seconds — more than three seconds faster than the previous best time we’ve measured.' It looks as if the switch from GDM to LightDM will have a significant impact as Ubuntu gets closer to 'instant on' status."

smitty777 writes "The Telegraph is reporting on an effort by the NHS to put a London hospital's patient records in the cloud. One of the more interesting aspects of this is the suggestion that patients would have control over who has access to their medical data. Many have understandable security concerns, which are even more relevant considering the recent issues with Dropbox cloud storage."

theodp writes "Be careful before you sign a Microsoft non-compete agreement, kids. GeekWire reports that King County Superior Court Judge Kimberley Prochnau has enjoined former Microsoft General Manager Matthew Miszewski from 'working in a marketing role in salesforce.com's public or commercial sector anywhere in the world.' So what did onetime Wisconsin State CIO Miszewski do to warrant the global ban? 'He was a major evangelist for Microsoft,' explained Judge Prochnau, who added that the 'thrust of the order is to preclude him from being the evangelist for Salesforce.com that he was for Microsoft.' Microsoft, which has warned Congress that restricting the flow of talent is ruinous to America, said in a statement that the company is pleased with the ruling."

cgriffin21 writes "The Pentagon is taking matters into its own hands to prevent the occurrence of another WikiLeaks breach with removable media ban, preventing soldiers from using USB sticks, CDs or DVDs on any systems or servers. The directive prohibiting removable media followed the recent publication of more than 250,000 diplomatic cables, which were leaked to whistleblower Web site WikiLeaks at the end of last month by a military insider."

cgriffin21 writes "No stranger to privacy concerns, Facebook is once again in the privacy spotlight, following a Wall Street Journal report that some popular Facebook applications leak personal information to advertisers. 'Many of the popular applications, or 'apps,' on the social-networking site Facebook Inc. have been transmitting identifying information — in effect, providing access to people's names and, in some cases, their friends' names — to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies,' according to The Wall Street Journal, which wrote about Facebook Sunday in the latest installment of its recent 'What They Know' series about advertising and the Internet."

cgriffin21 writes "The United Arab Emirates will not suspend services on BlackBerry smartphones next week, following an agreement reached with BlackBerry maker Research In Motion that is said to comply with UAE policy. It'll be a relief for the roughly 500,000 BlackBerry users in the UAE, a turnaround on the planned Oct. 11 service suspension. In a brief statement, the UAE's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said that BlackBerry services 'are now compliant with the UAE's telecommunications regulatory framework.'" The Guardian's coverage quotes an anonymous UAE university professor, who said, "The general opinion amongst the business expat community, westerners at least, has been for some time now that [the ban] wasn't going to happen. Call it a failure of imagination on their part, but no one could conceive of how the country could do something so counterproductive to the image they are trying to present primarily to the west. Was it posturing? To some extent."

cgriffin21 writes "Verizon plans to launch its 4G LTE network in 38 major U.S. metropolitan areas by year's end, in an ambitious rollout that will also drape high-speed mobile broadband coverage over 60 airports." Not coincidentally, everyone and their brother is talking about iPhone on Verizon in 2011, and what that means to Android.

cgriffin21 writes "Facebook and Skype are reportedly in talks over a deal that would integrate Skype calling capabilities into Facebook user accounts. Such an agreement would give both Skype and Facebook not only a leg up on rival VoIP and social networking services from the likes of Google, but also the combined force of two Internet-based services beloved by consumers. The talks, which were reported by All Things Digital on Wednesday, stem from Facebook's goal of merging IP communications and social networking communities more closely together. Facebook in recent weeks had also been rumored to be developing a mobile device of its own."

cgriffin21 writes "Apple is getting more media attention right now than any other technology company, including Google. Microsoft, meanwhile, is languishing in the shadows like Cinderella on the night of the ball. That's the upshot of a study released Monday (PDF) by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, which found that Apple was the focus of 15.1 percent of media coverage between June 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010. Google received 11.4 percent of media coverage during the period, while Microsoft garnered just 3 percent."

cgriffin21 writes "Microsoft expected Internet Explorer 9 to be popular, but after more than two million people downloaded the IE9 beta in the first two days after its release, the software giant is having a hard time choosing which eye-popping statistics to cite. Microsoft says its "Beauty of the Web" site, which illustrates the aesthetic advantages of IE9's support for HTML5 and hardware acceleration, has had more the 9 million visits and 26 million page views since the IE9 beta launch on Sept. 15. Microsoft's developer-oriented IE Test Drive Site has had 4 million page views during the same period."

cgriffin21 writes "Microsoft on Thursday released the final Windows Phone 7 developer tools to manufacturing, giving coders a couple of weeks' lead time to get their apps ready for the launch of the Windows Phone Marketplace in early October. Microsoft released the Windows Phone 7 OS to manufacturing on Sept. 1, and its OEM partners are in the process of testing it on handsets. The Windows Phone 7 developer tools are the final piece of the puzzle for Microsoft, which is now ready to march back into a mobile market where it has fallen alarmingly behind the leaders." In related news, CNET reports that Windows Phone 7 will only be available for GSM networks at launch, with a CDMA version planned for the first half of next year. This rules out Sprint and Verizon for launch.

cgriffin21 writes "HTC on Wednesday confirmed two new Android smartphones, the HTC Desire HD and HTC Desire Z, that include what the vendor is calling an "enhanced version" of its HTC Sense user interface that includes everything from video editing software to a mapping tool. The HTC Sense's new features include the ability to record HD videos and edit images with various camera effects. HTC Locations, another new feature, provides on-demand mapping, and there's also an integrated e-reader and an e-book store powered by Kobo."

cgriffin21 writes "Apple is being praised for loosening of some of the restrictions in its Application Developer Program license agreement that open the door for app developers to work in Flash for the Apple iPhone, iPad and other devices. And no one is happier about the change than Flash-maker Adobe itself. They wrote, 'This is great news for developers and we're hearing from our developer community that Packager apps are already being approved for the App Store. We do want to point out that Apple's restriction on Flash content running in the browser on iOS devices remains in place.'" Apple also received praise from Google over their reversal, which may have been prompted by an FTC probe. Reader Stoubalou adds that Apple shed more light on the app review process by publishing a list of guidelines (PDF) the violation of which may get an app rejected from the App Store.

cgriffin21 writes "T-Mobile Thursday finally confirmed what it's been hinting at for a while: The HTC G2, T-Mobile's HSPA+ successor to the HTC G1, is on the way. It'll be an Android 2.2 phone and run on T-Mobile's HSPA+ data network, which while not a 4G network offers what T-Mobile is calling 4G-like speeds up to 21 Mbps. T-Mobile hasn't confirmed pricing or exact availability but said it would open the G2 to presales for existing customers at the end of September."

cgriffin21 writes "Samsung is making no bones about it: Google Android is its future. And with the revealing of the Samsung Galaxy Tab, the company is showing that it's all in when it comes to Android. At the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, Samsung finally pulled the curtain off the long-rumored and teased Galaxy Tab, the electronics maker's touch-screen tablet and answer to the Apple iPad."

FrankPoole writes "Hewlett-Packard's Moscow offices were raided Wednesday as part of a bribery investigation by Russian and German authorities. The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal [currently paywalled; Reuters also covered it], which wrote that HP is suspected of allegedly paying out nearly $11 million in bribes to secure a major Russian government contract several years ago via a German subsidiary. Ironically, the contract was with the Prosecutor General's office of the Russian Federation, which will now play a role in investigating HP. While HP knew of the investigation as far back as December, the company did not disclose the information in any SEC filings. Instead, in its most recent quarterly report, HP states that in foreign nations 'it is common to engage in business practices that are prohibited by laws and regulations.'"

FrankPoole writes "CRN takes a look at the past five years of Microsoft's acquisition history, which totals $13 billion and more than 7,000 new employees, and highlights 10 deals and how they've affected the software giant. While some larger acquisitions stand out for better or worse, such as Danger and aQuantive, there are some smaller, blink-and-you'll-miss-it deals that have proved pivotal for Microsoft's push into new areas such as virtualization. And Microsoft's recent acquisition track record may lend credence to the heavy criticism levied against the company by former employees like Dick Brass."

Oracle Goddess writes "'Years from now, when you've moved on to Windows 7, you'll look back at Windows Vista fondly. You'll remember its fabulous attributes, not its flaws.' That's the opinion of Steve Guggenheimer, vice president of the OEM division at Microsoft. 'I think people will look back on Vista after the Windows 7 release and realize that there were actually a bunch of good things there,' Guggenheimer said in a recent interview. 'So it'll actually be interesting to see in two years what the perception is of Vista.' A dissenting opinion comes from Bob Nitrio, president of system builder Ranvest Associates, doesn't believe organizations that skipped Vista will ever regret their decision. 'I don't think for a second that people are suddenly going to love Windows 7 so much that they will experience deep pangs of regret for not having adopted Vista,' said Nitrio. If I had to bet, I'd go with Bob's take on it." My first thought was, Steve meant Windows 7 is designed to be virtually unusable as payback for all the complaints about Vista, but I might be biased.

LionMage writes "Much has been made previously of how China's Green Dam software must be installed on all new PCs in China, and of more recent revelations that the software may create exploitable security vulnerabilities or even provide the Chinese government with a ready-made botnet to use for potentially nefarious purposes. (One of those prior articles even discusses how Green Dam incorporates blacklists from CyberSitter.) Now the BBC is reporting that Solid Oak's CyberSitter software may have had more than just a compiled blacklist lifted from it. Solid Oak is claiming that actual pieces of their code somehow ended up in Green Dam. From PC Magazine's article: 'Solid Oak Software, the developer of CyberSitter, claims that the look and feel of the GUI used by Green Dam mimics the style of CyberSitter. But more damning, chief executive Brian Milburn said, was the fact that the Green Dam code uses DLLs identified with the CyberSitter name, and even makes calls back to Solid Oak's servers for updates.'" Relatedly, reader Spurious Logic writes that Green Dam won't be mandatory after all, according to an unnamed official with China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

afabbro writes "There are scattered reports today that Apple is building a team to design its own chips, with an eye towards reducing power consumption on iPods and iPhones."

CWmike writes "Gregg Keizer reports that Microsoft acknowledged today it has 'broadened the options' for PC makers to continue offering Windows XP as a downgrade from Vista — and potentially even Windows 7. However, the company would not confirm specific reports that HP has been given the green light to sell new PCs with Windows XP Pro pre-installed through the end of April 2010. 'Windows XP went into semi-retirement in June 2008, when Microsoft stopped selling it at retail and withdrew Windows XP Home from use on all but netbooks, though it allowed XP Professional to be installed as a Vista downgrade. Since then, Microsoft has extended the final date it will sell XP Professional install media to large computer makers and smaller systems builders to July 31, 2009, and May 30, 2009, respectively. Today, Microsoft denied that it had extended the life span of Windows XP, and intimated that those rights were built into the newer operating system — in this case, Vista — and did not expire at some arbitrary date.'" Update: 04/07 14:36 GMT by T : nandemoari adds "Not only will users be able to keep Windows Vista, but they'll be able to step back in time two generations, all the way to XP. "We will offer downgrade rights from Windows 7 to Windows XP in the same way we did with Windows Vista," a Microsoft rep said. Insiders speculate that the right to use this time machine might be reserved for those purchasing licenses for only two versions of Windows 7 — Ultimate and Professional. However, that's not yet been confirmed."

nandemoari writes "T-Mobile is planning to use Google's open source operating system 'Android' on devices that blur the line between cellphone and home PC. In addition, Samsung says they will also produce Android phones, but need to work out the kinks first. Both announcements come shortly after HP revealed that it is investigating the idea of using Android to power some of its low-cost netbook computers in place of Windows."

Anonymous writes "According to Channelweb, the bloom might be off the rose in the Novell-Microsoft relationship: the two companies didn't sign a single, solitary large customer to a Novell Linux deal during the most recent quarter. 'So Novell, one of the biggest Linux distributors in the world, and Microsoft, one of the biggest companies in world history, couldn't find a single large customer on Planet Earth to buy into Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server software. Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian has stepped up and, rather than point fingers at Microsoft for that performance, put the blame on his company and its inability to strengthen its reseller channel.'"

Anonymous writes "After more than 11 years, the US antitrust case involving Microsoft is still alive, with a federal judge overseeing enforcement of provisions under which the software giant must operate. And now, Judge Kollar-Kotelly says she'll take a close look at new technical documents involving Windows 7. This case began during the Windows 95 era."

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft executives have been telling the tech industry that if hardware supports Windows Vista, it will support Windows 7, but it now looks like that may not entirely be the case. According to CRN: 'But after a series of tests on older and newer hardware, a number of noteworthy issues emerged: Microsoft's statement that if hardware works with Windows Vista it will work with Windows 7 appears to be, at best, misleading; hardware that is older, but not near the end of most business life cycles, could be impossible to upgrade; and the addition of an extra step in the upgrade process does add complexity and more time not needed in previous upgrade cycles.' And here is CRN's overview of the difficulties Microsoft faces in asking enterprise users to walk this upgrade path: 'Across the XP-Vista-Windows 7 landscape, Microsoft has fostered an ecosystem that now holds out the prospect of a mind-numbing number of incompatible drivers, unsupported devices, unsupported applications, unsupported data, patches, updates, upgrades, 'known issues' and unknown issues. Sound familiar? That's what people used to say about Linux.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft executives have been telling the tech industry that if hardware supports Windows Vista, it will support Windows 7, but it now looks like that may not entirely be the case. According to CRN: 'But after a series of tests on older and newer hardware, a number of noteworthy issues emerged: Microsoft's statement that if hardware works with Windows Vista it will work with Windows 7 appears to be, at best, misleading; hardware that is older, but not near the end of most business life cycles, could be impossible to upgrade; and the addition of an extra step in the upgrade process does add complexity and more time not needed in previous upgrade cycles.' And here is CRN's overview of the difficulties Microsoft faces in asking enterprise users to walk this upgrade path: 'Across the XP-Vista-Windows 7 landscape, Microsoft has fostered an ecosystem that now holds out the prospect of a mind-numbing number of incompatible drivers, unsupported devices, unsupported applications, unsupported data, patches, updates, upgrades, 'known issues' and unknown issues. Sound familiar? That's what people used to say about Linux.'"