Business Tech

A correction has been made to this story. See below for details.

Long removed from its glory days, Borland Software has relinquished its independence.

The Austin, Texas-based software maker said Wednesday that it has agreed to be acquired in its entirety by Micro Focus International in a $75 million cash transaction, unanimously approved by the boards of both companies.

Borland has struggled in recent years, grappling with weak revenue growth, workforce reductions, and the lack of a consistent direction. Its results for 2008 showed lower revenue and a higher operating loss compared to results from the previous year. It recently … Read more

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--The popularity of the Netbook caught Intel by surprise--more than once.

Shipments of this category of inexpensive, ultra-light, handy laptops--almost all powered by Intel's Atom processor--are set to hit at least 20 million units this year, about twice the number shipped in 2008, according to IDC. But if an analyst had suggested these numbers to Intel in March of 2008, executives would have dismissed the forecast out of hand--or laughed.

This failure, by many in the industry, to grasp the significance of the Netbook, forced Intel into perpetual catch-up mode at the beginning. "I'm the one who had to explain to our factory--I'm really, really sorry I miscalled the demand," said Noury Al-Khaledy, general manager of Nettop and Netbook Computing at Intel in an interview last week. "And the next month, I didn't quite get it right either," he said.

"I think we under-called how easily people would comprehend how useful the device was," he added. For the record, Asus launched the phenomenon with the Eee PC in late 2007, followed in 2008 by Hewlett-Packard, Acer, and Dell, among others.

Al-Khaledy continued. "I think there was sort of this pent-up desire for an affordable, portable, Internet-access light editing sort of device and many of our customers--with our help--nailed it. They helped us so much."

One of the distinct advantages that Intel Atom-based Netbooks have over other similar devices--such as those based on ARM processors--is Windows. ARM-based devices today don't run Windows XP or Vista--and won't run Windows 7. Intel-based Netbooks can run all of these operating systems and versions of Windows 7 may run as well, or better, than XP on Netbooks.

"People bash (Microsoft) all the time. But then what do you really want to buy?" Al-Khaledy asked. "People really do want Windows...the XP attach rate was really, really good." Though Al-Khaledy praised Asus' initial Eee PC and its Linux operating system, some consumers were disappointed when they found out that it wasn't Windows.

"The Linux thing wasn't clear to people. If you think you're getting Windows and then you get home and it isn't (that's a problem)," he said.

And what impact will Windows 7 have on the Netbook market? Pricing will be critical. Unless Windows 7 is priced aggressively, Al-Khaledy doesn't see it as a catalyst necessarily for a spike in Netbook sales. "I don't see it as a big tipping point. It's all about pricing. If you have to pay $30 more for Windows 7, it might make (consumers) pause. There's just not a lot of margin in the box," he said. "(But) if Microsoft prices Starter and Basic aggressively, why wouldn't you?" … Read more

Microsoft has failed to remove a long-recognized Windows Explorer security risk from Windows 7, according to security company F-Secure.

The "hide extensions" feature, which was present in Windows NT, 2000, XP, and Vista, is also included in the Windows 7 release candidate, Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure's chief research officer, said Tuesday in a blog. The feature could allow virus writers to trick users into opening and running malicious files, he added.

"In Windows NT, 2000, XP and Vista, Explorer used to hide extensions for known file types," Hypponen said. "And virus writers used this 'feature' … Read more

Updated on May 6 at 6:35 p.m. PDT with additional comments from Intel.

A small brouhaha is erupting over Windows 7 and Intel processors. The hubbub is centered on which Intel processors will not support "XP mode" in Windows 7 and, by extension, which PCs will not support XP mode. Retail laptops may be one of the most prominent segments affected.

What is XP Mode? Here's how Ina Fried of CNET News describes it: "XP mode consists of two things, the Windows Virtual PC engine and a licensed copy of Windows XP Service Pack … Read more

LAS VEGAS--The consumerization of the Web will be as disruptive to distributed computing as distributed computing was to the mainframe. That was the central theme of Citrix Systems CEO Mark Templeton's keynote speech at this week's Synergy 2009 conference.

This is an oversimplification, of course. Over the years, companies have run their business software in many different ways--not all of which are easily categorized as either mainframe-like or PC-like. One whole era of computing architectures during roughly the 1980s commonly went by the term "client-server." However, if we think of how distributed computing in the enterprise … Read more

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

IBM on Tuesday said it acquired Exeros, a privately held data discovery software maker.

The terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

IBM said it will wrap Exeros' technology into its recently launched business analytics unit.

Exeros' technology uncovers relationships between databases and allows companies to decipher disparate information sources.

In a statement, IBM walked through various scenarios for Exeros' software. Exeros offers Discover X-Profiler, an application that profiles data, Discovery Unified Schema Builder, which allows users to prototype the combination of various data, and the Discovery Transformation Analyzer, which … Read more

Intel has invested in ASM International, a major semiconductor production equipment maker that has been struggling during the worldwide economic downturn.

Intel Capital's investment amounts to 4 percent of ASMI's total common share capital, based on approximately 54 million common shares outstanding. This follows an investment last week by Tokyo Electron, which took a 4.9 percent stake in the company.

ASMI is currently trading at about $12.40 a share.

"ASMI has been at the forefront of delivering materials and equipment innovation to integrated circuit manufacturers worldwide," Intel said in a statement. ASMI's equipment … Read more

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Thin is getting thinner. That's Intel's message as a wave of affordable, ultra-thin laptops is expected to break this summer.

Last week, I sat down with Erik Reid, director of marketing for the Mobile Products Group at Intel. Reid described Intel's strategy for its Consumer Ultra-Low-Voltage (CULV) processors--a segment that Intel describes as "ultra-thin"--and the chipmaker's first "Nehalem" mobile processors.

Ultra-thin is a big move for Intel. This will be Intel's primary mobile market focus in the next few months--until Nehalem appears later this year, according to Reid.

"It's a big change in the market. Consumer ULV has great battery life, very low TDPs," Reid said.

TDP, or thermal design power, describes the power envelope of a processor. For example, the current Apple MacBook Air uses Intel ultra-low-voltage processors with a TDP about half of the 35-watt rating for mainstream Intel mobile processors. Some of the lowest-power processors for the ultra-thin CULV category may be only a few watts more than the power-sipping Atom--which is rated at no more than 2.5 watts.

And what will consumers notice the most? Aside from good battery life, the laptop's aesthetics. "Systems can't ever be too thin. So thin will be a significant change in the industry and we're very pleased with the traction that we're seeing leading up to the introduction of those products," Reid said.

Prices will also get consumers' attention. "The affordability thing is really important. Look at your MacBook Air and think about that in terms of being available at different price points," said Intel spokesman Bill Calder.

Intel's initial processors for the ultra-thin category will be single core--like the current SU3500 processor. And the new chips won't all necessarily be Core 2--Intel's current mobile architecture--though Intel wouldn't elaborate on what other architectures--such as Pentium--it may use.

And size? Reid said some laptops will be 13.3-inch (diagonal screen size) designs, some will be a little larger, some will range down to 11.6-inch designs.

And what about cannibalization of the Netbook market--and vice-versa? "We're seeing very little cannibalization," Reid said. "Consumer ULVs are full-featured PCs. Price points will overlap. You might have some premium Netbooks in price bands where you'll see ULV," he said.

"We don't call it a Netbook if it's more than a 10.2-inch," Calder said. "The more that we can be clear about that and help people understand what each one is optimized for, the better the experience they will have," according to Reid. Netbooks are companion devices, Reid said. A person with a notebook is adding to their purchase when they get a Netbook. There are relatively few cases in which the Netbook is being used as the primary device, according to Reid. (Some readers may disagree with this.)… Read more

In a bid to make its online Google Apps more appealing to corporate customers, Google plans to release software in July to make its e-mail and calendar services work well on BlackBerry mobile phones.

Today, corporate users can set up BlackBerry devices to check mail from Google's Gmail service, a part of Google Apps, but it works only in relatively rudimentary form. With a new product called--brace yourself--Google Apps Connector for Blackberry Enterprise Server, the company is adding much tighter integration with Research in Motion's BlackBerry technology.

Specifically, it synchronizes mail so a message marked as read on … Read more