Business Tech

The European Commission on Monday formally dug in its heels over Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Microsystems, but Oracle accused the regulatory body of "profound misunderstanding" in a rebuttal that declared its intention to fight the opinion.

The regulatory body issued a statement of objections about the merger, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing from Sun Microsystems. The open-source MySQL database software is the sole issue of concern in the matter, Sun said in the filing.

"The Statement of Objections sets out the Commission's preliminary assessment regarding, and is limited to, the combination of Sun's open source MySQL database product with Oracle's enterprise database products and its potential negative effects on competition in the market for database products," Sun said in the filing.

Oracle, though, fired back immediately, saying the objection "reveals a profound misunderstanding of both database competition and open-source dynamics." And indicating that other technologies are in limbo during the European deliberations, Oracle said, "Oracle's acquisition of Sun is essential for competition in the high-end server market, for revitalizing Sparc, and Solaris and for strengthening the Java development platform."

Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department reiterated its stance that the acquisition isn't anticompetitive. But given the gulf between Oracle and EC perspectives and Oracle's unwillingness to spin the MySQL software group off, it appears the matter won't be resolved soon.

MySQL is open-source software, meaning anyone may see, modify, and distribute the human-readable source code that underlies the software package computers actually run. Oracle's core database product is proprietary, meaning they don't grant those freedoms. MySQL is used widely at Facebook and Google among other companies, and competes to some extent with Oracle's existing products, arguably indirectly by expanding into newer markets to which Oracle's software isn't as well-suited.

Oracle castigated the commission in its statement:

It is well understood by those knowledgeable about open source software that because MySQL is open source, it cannot be controlled by anyone. That is the whole point of open source.

The database market is intensely competitive with at least eight strong players, including IBM, Microsoft, Sybase and three distinct open-source vendors. Oracle and MySQL are very different database products. There is no basis in European law for objecting to a merger of two among eight firms selling differentiated products. Mergers like this occur regularly and have not been prohibited by United States or European regulators in decades...

Sun's customers universally support this merger and do not benefit from the continued uncertainty and delay. Oracle plans to vigorously oppose the Commission's Statement of Objections as the evidence against the Commission's position is overwhelming. Given the lack of any credible theory or evidence of competitive harm, we are confident we will ultimately obtain unconditional clearance of the transaction.

The Justice Department, which is in Oracle's camp, detailed its reasoning in a statement from Deputy Assistant Attorney General Molly Boast of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division.

And though Boast pointed to the department's "strong and positive relationship on competition policy matters" with the EC, she also said, "At this point in its process, it appears that the EC holds a different view. We remain hopeful that the parties and the EC will reach a speedy resolution that benefits consumers in the commission's jurisdiction."

The Justice Department reasoned that there are other database packages available and that open-source projects can be forked by those who disagree with corporate sponsors' handling of the software.

"Several factors led the (Justice Department's antitrust) division to conclude that the proposed transaction is unlikely to be anticompetitive. There are many open-source and proprietary database competitors. The division concluded, based on the specific facts at issue in the transaction, that consumer harm is unlikely because customers would continue to have choices from a variety of well established and widely accepted database products," Boast said. "The department also concluded that there is a large community of developers and users of Sun's open source database with significant expertise in maintaining and improving the software, and who could support a derivative version of it."

Compuware announced Monday that it has completed the buyout of Web optimization company Gomez, bringing aboard the acquired firm's 272 employees into a new Web Performance division.

As an application and testing firm, Compuware provides enterprise customers with tools to optimize the performance of their server-based applications. Gomez helps its customers monitor and manage the performance of their Web sites and Web-based applications.

Compuware believes that the addition of Gomez, first announced in October, will allow it to provide a wider range of services to help customers test and optimize both in-house and Internet-based applications.

The deal has also garnered praise from some industry analysts. A recent IDC report "Compuware Expands SaaS Portfolio With Gomez Acquisition" sees the Gomez/Compuware marriage as a good match with plenty of upside.

"We're thrilled to welcome the Gomez team to Compuware," said Compuware President and Chief Operating Officer Bob Paul in a statement. "Together, Compuware and Gomez will--through a solution that features rapid time-to-value, ease of use and real-time answers--give IT and business executives the optimal application performance they need to drive brand image, customer loyalty and revenue."

Compuware said it will keep the Gomez brand, technology, and business model but look to integrate its new purchase in such areas as sales and marketing. Gomez CEO Jaime Ellertson will remain and serve as president of Gomez, the Web Performance division of Compuware.

Compuware expects the acquisition to add to operations this year.

Although VMware got its start with a desktop virtualization product aimed at developers, the company today is best known for bringing server virtualization to the mainstream.

Creating multiple virtual servers on a single physical system lets IT departments consolidate applications onto fewer computers and thereby cut costs. Over time, server virtualization has also enabled a variety of products and approaches that can simplify IT operations and generally make data centers more flexible.

VMware has continued to invest in virtualization aimed at the client. This includes client-side hypervisors such as its original VMware Workstation product. However, products and technologies associated with delivering applications and user desktops to the client are really the main focus.

Application and desktop delivery sometimes makes use of client hypervisors but it's a largely separate category of technology that's fundamentally about centrally managing user applications and/or operating-system images. In VMware's case, virtualized desktops fall under the VMware View name.

On Monday, VMware announced VMware View 4, the latest version of its virtual desktop portfolio.

Much of VMware's development focus with View 4 was in the area of the user experience--that is, making applications and desktops delivered from a central location perform with the same responsiveness and fidelity as if they were installed on a local PC, in the usual way.

Historically, this user experience has been one of the stumbling blocks for desktop virtualization in general. Older forms of Citrix Presentation Server (now rebadged and modernized under the XenApp label) and initial virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) implementations very much tried to simplify management and otherwise deliver direct benefits for IT operations. Whether users liked using the products was secondary.

As a result, desktop virtualization has been mostly something used by what are often called "task workers." Think call centers and other groups of users with specific jobs to do and not much say about the tools they use to do it. In general, desktop virtualization promoters have focused too much on delivering benefits to IT and not enough on delivering benefits to users. (They've also arguably paid too little attention to keeping up-front costs down and relied too much on promises of soft cost savings down the road.)

One of the technology pieces that VMware is leaning on to improve user experience is the PC over Internet Protocol (PCoIP). PCoIP was originally developed by Teradici to improve the responsiveness and display quality of virtual desktops. However, in Teradici's initial implementation, specialized hardware was needed on both ends of the wire. This effectively made it a premium solution for situations in which cost wasn't a factor, such as for financial traders and government agencies for which security considerations are paramount.

VMware has worked with Teradici to create a software-only version of the protocol. Desktop virtualization Chief Technology Officer Scott Davis goes into a lot of the details on his blog.

It's a User Datagram Protocol-based server-side protocol that transmits compressed bitmaps or frames to the remote client. This has the advantage of being able to make real-time adjustments to account for the available bandwidth and latency of the communications channel; the display quality degrades, if there isn't enough bandwidth but things still "work."

Although details differ, there are similarities to Sun's Appliance Link Protocol--which is well-regarded for its ability to deal with poor-quality connections. (A downside of server-side protocols is that they consume processing horsepower on the server, where it tends to be more expensive, rather than on the client.)

VMware will continue to support other remote display protocols, most notably Microsoft's Remote Desktop Protocol. However, VMware is clearly positioning PCoIP as its favored technology and a point of competitive differentiation for VMware View in general.

Also in the graphics area, View 4 adds "multimonitor, adaptive display support--resolution optimization for each monitor, with an option to pivot and rotate the display output, supporting rich audio and video content with increased performance."

Other user experience enhancements generally relate to better integration with the overall desktop environment. For example, View Printing automatically discovers local printers without the need to install print drivers. View Limited Access provides a single point of authentication across VMware View environments, Windows Terminal Servers, Blade PCs, and remote physical PCs.

VMware View 4 comes in two editions. The Enterprise Edition includes the basics: VSphere 4 (the back-end server virtualization product), VCenter 4 (management), and View Manager 4 (for provisioning user access). It's priced at $150 per concurrent connection.

The $250-per-concurrent-user Premier Edition adds ThinApp 4 (for delivering ad hoc applications that aren't part of a master image) and View Composer (for managing images), both capabilities that would typically be desired in a large or sophisticated deployment.

VMware as a whole approaches the world from the perspective of the enterprise data center. Delivering desktops from that data center was somewhat of a sideshow. Is it now as focused on application delivery as, say, Citrix? Not really. But that said, desktop virtualization has moved beyond the sideshow stage at VMware.

PC processors are the latest tech segment bouncing back from the recession.

Third-quarter shipments of computer processors, or CPUs, climbed 23 percent over the second quarter of 2009, doubling typical growth and setting a record for sequential growth, according to an IDC report released Monday.

Revenue from processor sales also bounced back to hit $7.4 billion, a 14 percent gain over the second quarter, according to IDC's "Worldwide PC Processor 3Q09 Vendor Shares" report.

IDC viewed the record levels in shipments as a promising sign in economic recovery.

"Most meaningful about 3Q09 is that, since PC processor shipments overall just slightly exceeded shipments in 3Q08--which was itself a record quarter at the time--we know that the processor market is recovering," Shane Rau, IDC's director of semiconductors for personal computing research, said in a statement.

With the popularity of Netbooks, mobile processors such as Intel's Atom chip drove much of the growth. Shipments of the mobile CPUs jumped 35.7 percent over the second quarter, while desktop processor shipments rose 11.4 percent sequentially. Since mobile processors are cheaper than their desktop counterparts, their growth in revenue trailed the growth in shipments.

"The story about 3Q09 leads with Atom processors being sold in mini-notebooks (a.k.a. Netbooks) manufactured and sold in China," said Rau. "While Atom processors led the PC processor market to reach record unit shipments, on the revenue side, their low average selling price led to notable price erosion, more than 7 percent."

Among vendors, Intel kept its place at the top of the charts, enjoying an 81.1 percent share of the worldwide market for processor shipments. That left AMD with 18.7 percent and third-place Via Technologies with 0.2 percent.

By processor type, Intel captured 88 percent of the mobile PC processor market, leaving Advanced Micro Devices with 11.9 percent, and Via with the rest. For desktop CPUs, Intel's slice was smaller at 72.2 percent, while AMD grabbed a 27.4 percent chunk and Via held a 0.3 percent share.

Solid demand so far in the fourth quarter led IDC to raise its expectations for 2009. The firm is now eyeing more than 300 million shipments of processors for the year, a gain of 1.5 percent over 2008.

Still, since much of the growth came from low-cost mobile processors and certain areas of the economy remain sluggish, IDC is cautious about early 2010.

"The market's growth has been due to shipments of inexpensive Atom processors being sold into markets like China, which is being stimulated by government incentives there," Rau said. "The Chinese market can be very opaque--there are lots of places where inventories can hide. We have to be on the lookout for when China decides it can't consume more processors. Meanwhile, the U.S. market is still hamstrung by housing foreclosures and rising job losses."

Five years ago, Mozilla made it clear that the browser wars weren't over after all.

In the 1990s, Netscape had lost its dominance in the browser market to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and the Netscape-spawned open-source project called Mozilla had sunk into obscurity. Even a federal antitrust suit accusing Microsoft of anticompetitive practices with its browser and Windows was not enough to turn the tide.

But on November 9, 2004, Firefox 1.0 emerged to fight back again.

The project, originally named Phoenix to symbolize rebirth from Netscape's ashes, has now clawed its way back to account for nearly a quarter of the browser usage today. Microsoft may not be on the run, but it's on the defensive, gradually building its browser development effort back up into fighting form.

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Cisco Systems is once again stepping on its partners' toes and taking on new rivals as it adds new capabilities to its suite of unified communications products and services.

On Monday, the company will announce several new and enhanced software tools for instant messaging, e-mail, social networking, videoconferencing, document and video sharing. Some of these new products will compete directly with similar products offered by Cisco partners, Microsoft and IBM.

Cisco is taking direct aim at Microsoft with a new corporate e-mail service called Webex Email. Cisco has combined technology from its acquisition of Postpath with its Webex conferencing service. The combined offering gives corporate users access to their Outlook e-mail from any browser. The new service puts email in the "cloud" and eliminates the need for Microsoft Exchange servers.

Cisco already competes with Microsoft in the unified communications market. In fact, the two companies are strong rivals here. But Microsoft has had an advantage over Cisco with its strong presence on the desktop.

Competition between Cisco and Microsoft started to heat up earlier this year, when Cisco took its WebEx Web conferencing service into the cloud. At that time, Cisco executives said there was a possibility that Cisco would compete directly with Microsoft's e-mail Exchange platform.

As for the online collaboration market, Cisco and Microsoft aren't the only ones developing solutions. Google also offers document creation and sharing online. But so far those services haven't gotten much appeal outside of the individual consumer market. And it has yet to take shape in the enterprise market. And of course, Google already offers Internet-based e-mail through Gmail. IBM, another major Cisco partner, is also trying to get into Web-based e-mail market with its product iNotes.

As part of its blitz of collaboration announcements, Cisco also announced several other products and enhancements to its unified communications line-up, including some new social-networking tools and enhancements to its video conferencing and high-end telepresence solutions.

On the social-networking side, Cisco has developed a YouTube-like service called Cisco Show and Share that allows users to create, edit, and share video content. It is also introducing the Cisco Enterprise Collaboration Platform, which creates a sort of Facebook for corporate users. The tool includes the ability offer blogging, wikis, team pages, and instant messaging on an internal social networking site.

Other new products include the Cisco Intercompany Media Engine. This product allows users from different companies to communicate and collaborate with each other over a secure network connection.

On the video side, Cisco is introducing the Intercompany Cisco Telepresence Directory, which allows users to see who is available for video chats. The company also added the ability to allow Webex users to click to make video calls to users in a Cisco Teleprresence room. These video conferencing rooms are high-definition video conferencing purpose-built rooms that often cost about $300,000. Cisco also said it has tweaked its telepresence product to allow it to work with equipment from competitors, such as Polycom and Tandberg.

Cisco is currently trying to acquire Tandberg for $3 billion. But Tandberg's shareholders recently said they would reject the offer if Cisco didn't increase its bid.

Despite persistent rumors, Nvidia's chief executive says the graphics chip supplier is not working on an Intel-compatible chip.

In an exclusive interview with CNET Thursday, I asked CEO Jen-Hsun Huang about the possibility of Nvidia coming up with its own x86 (Intel-compatible) chip technology, after the company reported strong third-quarter earnings. A recurring rumor has it that Nvidia is developing a chip that would be able to run the same software that runs on all Intel- and AMD-based PCs worldwide.

"No," he said when asked if there was any truth to the rumor. "Nvidia's strategy is very, very clear. I'm very straightforward about it. Right now, more than ever, we have to focus on visual and parallel computing."

Huang went on to describe where the chip supplier sees its best opportunities for growth. "Our strategy is to proliferate the GPU (graphics processing unit) into all kinds of platforms for growth," he said. "GPUs in servers for parallel computing, for supercomputing--and cloud computing with our GPU is a fabulous growth opportunity--and streaming video."

"And also getting our GPUs into the lowest power platforms we can imagine and driving mobile computing with it," Huang added, referring to its Tegra chip, which, for example, powers Microsoft's Zune HD media player.

Despite Huang's denials, Doug Freedman of Broadpoint AmTech is the latest to postulate that Nvidia will enter the x86 central processing unit market. "We feel Nvidia could become a supplier of x86 CPUs by necessity, perhaps in the next 12 months (if not sooner) to preserve both GPU and chipset revenue," Freedman said in a note recently.

"We believe the company has hired former Transmeta staff extensively," Freedman said. Transmeta was at one time a low-power x86-compatible chip supplier. Earlier this year, Intellectual Ventures acquired the patent portfolio of Transmeta.

Huang also dismissed the the possibility of Nvidia using Globalfoundries as a manufacturing partner--typically referred to as a "foundry" or a "fab"--for its chips, after saying in the earnings conference call that Nvidia's longstanding foundry partner--Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)--was not allocating it enough capacity.

"Globalfoundries is an AMD fab, right?" he said. "Globalfoundries is AMD's fab. Our strategy is TSMC."

If the iPhone didn't finish off Windows Mobile in the smartphone market, the Motorola Droid may.

Windows Mobile is losing the last vestiges of its mojo--if it really had any to begin with--as the Droid and other phones based on the Android 2.0 operating system push the buzz meter needle into the red zone. Many in the media--which can play a big role in steering users to one technology platform or another--sense that Windows Mobile has now been relegated resolutely to has-been status.

Let's do a quick canvas of what some in the press are saying now that we're at the start of the Droid era. A post on SFGate.com (the Web site of the San Francisco Chronicle) is, like other commentary out there, clearly dismissive of Windows Mobile. "Curiously, Microsoft is nowhere to be seen in this battle royal," the author states, referring to the iPhone and Android.

And there's this more damning comment from a blog at SeattlePI.com. "Rarely mentioned, however, is another player in the mobile OS market--Microsoft. Why not? Because not many people in the smartphone world seem to really give a hoot about Windows Mobile anymore."

The litany of like articles is long. This post on PC World asks: "Has Microsoft Placed Its Last Mobile Bet?" The article cites research from Canalys showing Windows Mobile slipping from 13.9 percent of the worldwide smartphone market in 2002 to 9 percent in the second quarter of 2009.

The numbers are even less favorable in an accounting by ad service Admob, which compiles data on which operating systems are in use on mobile devices that access online ads. In August, according to AdMob, Windows Mobile had only a 4 percent share of the mobile OS market worldwide, down from 7 percent in February.

But getting back to my original premise of no mobile mojo for Windows. The fact is that consumers don't care about Windows on smartphones. In other words, while Windows seems to be a prerequisite for many consumers when buying a PC, it just doesn't come into play in a big way in a smartphone purchase.

This will have ramifications beyond Microsoft of course. Companies like Toshiba (and its attractive TG01 smartphone) will probably not be as successful on Windows Mobile as they would (will) be on Android 2.0. Or, at the very least, will not get the necessary buzz.

Then there's the Intel factor. Intel also wants to be a player, eventually, in the smartphone space. If it is indeed able to beat back Texas Instruments (whose chip is used in the Droid), Samsung (iPhone), Qualcomm (BlackBerry), and Marvell, it probably won't do it by sticking to the tried-and-true "WinTel" combination that's been so outrageously successful in the PC space.

And Intel is chasing a fast-moving target. TI, and all the other ARM-based chip suppliers cited above, are slated to bring out dual-core designs that can hit speeds as high as 2GHz (think next-generation tablets and media pads). In other words, they'll also be able claim the coveted speed mantle on phones, such as the Droid, where Windows Mobile is no where in sight.

So the Droid may not be the iPhone killer but rather the Windows Mobile slayer. Microsoft, of course, will always have the unassailable PC franchise. But, wait, isn't Android coming to Netbooks next year? Maybe the real battle royal for Microsoft is yet to come.

It looks as though Microsoft may have a winner in Windows 7, at least in comparison to Vista.

The software giant saw relatively strong early adoption of Windows 7 in the 10 days since its official launch. According to Net Applications, more than 3 percent of PCs accessing the Web in the past two days have been doing so using the new operating system. Usage of the operating system has been growing strong in recent days, though Windows 7 already accounted for 2 percent of global Web traffic in the days ahead of its formal launch.

Judging by its initial sales, Windows 7 is certainly proving more popular than Vista. Microsoft sold 234 percent more boxed editions of Windows 7 than it did Vista in the initial releases of both products, according to research released by NPD Group.

In actual dollars, Windows 7 has also been more successful than Vista. However, early discounts on pre-sales copies and a lack of a promotional boost behind Windows 7 Ultimate led to revenues only 82 percent greater than those of Vista.
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More headlines

New York antitrust suit accuses Intel of bribery

Intel used payments to keep computer makers from selling systems with AMD chips, according to New York's attorney general. It's a new front in an old Intel war.
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T-Mobile experiencing widespread outage

The cellular carrier acknowledges problems affecting both its voice and data networks.
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•  T-Mobile says software error behind outage

AT&T vs. Verizon: There's a lawyer for that

AT&T is suing Verizon Wireless over its "There's a Map for That" ad campaign, stating that it misleads consumers about AT&T's network coverage.

Corporate bank accounts targeted in online fraud

Small and medium-size businesses, governments, and school districts are targets of online bank fraud involving malicious e-mails, key loggers, and money mules, FBI says.
•  Phishing, worms spike this year, say Microsoft and McAfee
•  New Trojan encrypts files but leaves no ransom note
•  Hacker breaks into jailbroken iPhones, asks for $7

Barnes & Noble hit with suit over Nook

A Cupertino, Calif.-based start-up claims the bookseller misappropriated its trade secrets in its design of a similar e-reader.
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Microsoft gives the MSN butterfly a makeover

It's given a new look to both its home page and the MSN butterfly logo. The main page now has just half as many links, with more videos and photos.
•  Microsoft to fix holes in Windows, Office

Mozilla: Firefox 3.6 won't be late

The first beta of Firefox 3.6 may have crossed the finish line weeks late, but Mozilla says the final version should still be done this year.
•  Firefox gets a quick fix
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Lack of global climate deal won't crush green tech

No matter what happens in Copenhagen next month, green-tech companies say industry and national governments will drive investment in the near term, an analysis shows.
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•  LA changing its glow for more efficiency
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Mac game: Art project or malware?

Is the Lose/Lose game a legitimate art project, or should it be flagged as malware because it deletes files?

Virtual goods: Duping the masses?

When is ad not an ad? When it's an offer for something other than what you think you are signing up for.
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Beatles copyright case down a legal rabbit hole

BlueBeat is streaming Beatles recordings for free and selling them for 25 cents apiece, claiming that they aren't the original recordings and therefore aren't copyright-protected.
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Also of note
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