Business Tech

Lenovo is apparently planning to unveil a ThinkPad notebook with a dual display.

As much as I'd love to post a photograph of a laptop with two screens, I cannot do so in good conscience. Several sites reporting on the laptop included photos that allegedly came from an IBM site that accidentally published on December 2. But none of those sites list the source of the photo. They also link back to the original IBM page, but a photograph of a laptop with two screens does not appear there.

The story was apparently first reported on NotebookReview.com on … Read more

After some 25 years, Apple has decided that it can do without the Macworld Expo.

Apple announced that CEO Steve Jobs had given his last keynote address at Macworld in San Francisco and that January's Macworld would mark its last year participating at the show. Apple said Phil Schiller, the company's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, will deliver the keynote, usually handled by Jobs.

An Apple representative declined to comment on Jobs' health, a prominent topic of discussion this year. Jobs' keynote addresses at Macworld have become almost legendary events, launch pads for some of the company'… Read more

Oracle reported Thursday a 6 percent rise in fiscal second-quarter revenue over last year, fueled by growth in software sales and its support and maintenance business.

Net income for the quarter, however, declined 1 percent to $1.3 billion, or 25 cents a share, for the period ending November 30, compared with the previous year. Excluding special items, Oracle posted non-GAAP net income of $1.7 billion, or 34 cents a share. That was below Oracle's September forecast of 35 cents to 36 cents a share.

Oracle was up less than 1 percent in after-hours trading to $16.70 … Read more

Microsoft announced Thursday it expanded its Exchange ActiveSync IP licensing program and posted technical documents to spur development of prototype applications that link to its Exchange Server and Exchange ActiveSync-enabled mobile phones.

The Exchange ActiveSync software is designed to allow mobile phones to receive wireless push e-mail, as well as synchronize calendar, contacts and tasks. It also aims to allow companies to manage wireless devices and enact security policies.

The software giant also posted the protocols on the Microsoft Developer Network and expanded the licensing program to establish greater clarity on the steps and licensing terms that are needed when … Read more

Technology companies seeking a white-night buyer had a long wait this year, according to a study released Thursday by research firm The 451 Group. And 2009 isn't looking any more promising.

During 2008, tech mergers and acquisitions fell 40 percent across virtually every sector of the industry, with $290 billion in deals getting done to date. And deals worth $1 billion or more dropped even further, with only 32 megadeals getting done so far this year, compared with 80 last year.

Corporate tech titans that have historically had a large appetite for snapping up companies left and right went … Read more

Next year is shaping up to be a nightmare for LCD TV makers.

Revenues for LCD TVs sold worldwide in 2009 are expected to fall 16 percent from 2008, to $64 billion, according to an update to DisplaySearch's Quarterly Global TV Shipment and Forecast Report, released Thursday. Next year will be "the most difficult year yet for the TV industry and supply chain," DisplaySearch writes in the report.

The culprits are rapidly declining prices of LCD TVs and lower shipments to retailers due to slackening demand. DisplaySearch expects 2009 LCD shipments to drop to 205.3 million … Read more

Google has begun experimenting with a new cross-language ability for its Search Appliance, a server customers can use to power their in-house search service.

"Many of our enterprise search customers have dozens of offices all over the world with tens of millions documents indexed in a host of different languages," said Cyrus Mistry, Google's enterprise product manager, in a blog post Thursday. "Cross-Language Enterprise Search instantly translates your Google Search Appliance query from one language to one or more other languages using Google's best-in-class translation engine."

Existing customers can try the feature by downloading it … Read more

MySpace, Google, Yahoo, and other allies have settled on what they think should be in version 0.9 of OpenSocial, a standard designed to make it easier for programmers to write Web applications that will work on multiple Web sites.

The draft version of OpenSocial includes a number of new features to ease programmers' difficulties, according a blog post by MySpace architect Scott Seely. He describes some changes, though reserving most details for future posts, but here's MySpace's boiled-down list:

• OpenSocial Markup Language--gadget developers can create/modify templates by copying and pasting HTML • API (application programming … Read more

Editor's note: This is part of a series of stories about the recession's effect on the tech industry.

Entrepreneur Treb Ryan remembers in vivid detail the day the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted nearly 700 points and dropped below 9,000 for the first time in years.

He was visiting a major computer maker on that day, October 9, waiting to meet with a potential investor about funding his start-up OpSource.

"I was about a half an hour early for the appointment and was sitting in the lobby, where they have a big screen TV," recalled … Read more