Business Tech

Update at 11:01 a.m. PST, with historical information on the alliance.

Salesforce.com and Google announced on Monday an expanded alliance, aiming to offer a set of developer tools and service around cloud computing applications.

Force.com for Google App Engine is designed to enable developers to create applications in the cloud. Here's how it aims to work:

Force.com for Google App Engine is a Python library and test harness that lets you access the Force.com Web services API from within Google App Engine applications. Once it is installed in your Google App Engine application, … Read more

Update at 9:27 a.m. PST, with comments from a shareholder activist research firm. Correction, 9:35 a.m. PST: This story initially had the incorrect day the agreement was announced. It is Monday. Update at 1:33 p.m. PST, with closing stock price and excerpt from Southeastern podcast about its board seats.

Sun Microsystems and its largest investor announced an agreement on Monday that entitles the investor to nominate two directors to Sun's board, marking the latest action it has taken to right the struggling company.

Southeastern Asset Management, which holds a 22 percent stake in … Read more

The online video revolution has begun, and Cisco Systems says it has designed a new strategy complete with new products to help its customers meet the demand.

On Monday, the company, which makes devices that shuttle traffic around the Internet, will announce a new architecture and strategy to help its customers better handle video traffic on their network. CEO John Chambers will be pushing the new architecture and initiative at the company's annual C-Scape press and analyst conference in San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday.

It's no secret that Cisco thinks that video is a big deal. The company … Read more

Updated December 8 at 9 p.m. with Inuit comment.

Revisions incorporated into Intuit's TurboTax 2008 have led to a bit of a tax revolt by reviewers on Amazon.com.

The tax preparation program, which is a top seller at the online retailer, has garnered an Amazon customer rating of one and a half stars out of five. As of Sunday afternoon, an overwhelming 82 reviewers (out of 90) gave the program the minimum one star, compared with four reviewers who gave it the full five-star rating.

However, it's not the features nor functionality with which the majority … Read more

Intel is claiming "world record" performance in optical communications using silicon photonics, in a development announced in the journal Nature Photonics.

Silicon photonics-based photo dectors are used to send and receive optical information, particularly in very high-bandwidth applications like supercomputers. Intel says silicon photonics is essential for "ultra-fast transfer of data (in) future computers powered by many processor cores."

The development is significant because it is based on silicon--a readily available, low-cost material used in semicondutor chips today--and outperforms more exotic, pricier materials. To date, Silicon photonics technology, using complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) techniques, has suffered … Read more

Update at 4:20 p.m. with additional information throughout.

An Intel Netbook processor roadmap has emerged showing technology that extends to the 32-nanometer generation of silicon.

One recent version of Intel's handheld and Netbook roadmap shows a chip platform code-named Medfield, which will be based on next-generation 32-nanometer process technology. The roadmap is featured in a report by UBS Securities.

Medfield (2010) will be preceded by Pineview (2009), based on a 45-nanometer process--the manufacturing process currently used in Atom processors. (Note that Pineview has already been mentioned and discussed by other sources on the Web. It is cited … Read more

Friday brought more details of Hewlett-Packard's merger with computer services giant Electronic Data Systems.

EDS Chief Executive Ronald Rittenmeyer will retire effective December 31, HP said in a statement. Taking his place will be 46-year-old Joe Eazor, a current EDS senior vice president, who will report to Ann Livermore, head of HP's business technology unit. EDS will be folded into that group, HP noted.

HP announced plans in May to acquire EDS for $13.9 billion, and completed its acquisition in August. At the time, the word was that EDS would operate a new business unit, which would … Read more

Update 6:15 p.m. PST: An earlier version of this story said the second beta version of Firefox 3.1 would likely be the last. Firefox is planning a third beta version. Also, added a comment from Paul Rouget about when the second beta version will likely be released.

The second beta version of Firefox 3.1 is "due out very shortly," Mozilla programmer Ben Turner said Thursday.

One big change in the 3.1b2 is the addition of "Web workers," a feature that lets the browser process tasks in the background. That feature, part … Read more

The Consumer Electronics Association says the money made from electronics shipments in the fourth quarter of this year will be basically on par as the same quarter a year ago.

That's not good news for gadget makers. For the fourth quarter of this year, the revenue from products shipped will increase by a negligible 0.1 percent over the same quarter in 2007, according to the CEA's revised forecast. The industry group had previously predicted electronics shipment revenue would grow 3.7 percent for the quarter.

Unsurprisingly, the economy is being blamed for the stagnating growth.

"Although … Read more