Corporate and legal

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion has sought to clarify what it claims is confusion over whether the company records all employee telephone conversations in the interest of maintaining control over intellectual property.

During a visit to Sydney in early March, RIM Chief Information Officer Robin Bienfait said that all actions carried out on RIM's internal network were logged, meaning some employees may want their own private handset if they wanted to have personal conversations. "Everything. I record everything," she said.

But a RIM spokesperson, in a follow-up statement, said Bienfait's comments had been misunderstood.

"Robin … Read more

Update at 9:13 a.m. PDT, with IBM comment and Sun's stock price.

With Sun Microsystems reportedly in merger talks with IBM and its stock soaring as high as 83.7 percent in morning trading, Sun's largest shareholder may find its activist role is paying off.

Southeastern Asset Management, which holds a 22 percent stake, announced in October that it was seeking an active role in the company and would engage in talks with not only Sun's management but also third parties, in an effort to maximize shareholder value.

That was followed in December with an … Read more

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines. Also, see update at bottom.

IBM is reportedly in talks to buy Sun Microsystems for $6.5 billion and the deal is long overdue. The companies mesh on the open-source software front, Sun is struggling, and IBM can consolidate some server market share.

First, the headlines. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that IBM could acquire Sun as early as this week. IBM would pay all cash for Sun. The Journal also reported that Sun has approached a number of large companies about an acquisition; a move that throws cold … Read more

Google had planned to announce on Tuesday the ideas for its Project 10-to-the-100th to improve the world through Google-sponsored work, but the search giant delayed the announcement a second time.

"We will unfortunately have to delay announcing the top ideas for Project 10^100 for a while longer. We've never managed a project like this and it's taken more time than we ever imagined possible. We apologize for our overoptimistic assumptions about how quickly we could analyze all the ideas that we've received, and thank everyone for their patience," said Andy Berndt, managing director of … Read more

Globalfoundries has named former Cypress Semiconductor executive Jim Kupec to its top marketing position, as the newly established company begins to assemble its executive team.

Globalfoundries is the chip manufacturing company recently formed by a joint venture between Advanced Micro Devices and Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC).

Kupec spent 15 years with Cypress Semiconductor, rising through a variety of engineering, operations, and management positions to the role of senior vice president, according to a statement from Globalfoundries.

After leaving Cypress, Kupec became president of United Microelectronics Co. (UMC) USA. Taiwan-based UMC is one of the largest contract chip manufacturers in … Read more

The Pentagon should thank NASA hacker Gary McKinnon for "exposing the fragility" of U.S. military systems, according to Terry Waite.

Waite, who was held hostage in Lebanon for four years after being kidnapped in 1987, said that McKinnon's motives were "harmless," according to an article by Jack Doyle, a Press Association legal affairs correspondent.

"Gary is clearly a very clever chap," said Waite. "He has that unique ability to find his way through the Internet jungle and enter the inner recesses of the Pentagon. Full marks for his ingenuity. Was Gary … Read more

In a move to tie their collaboration tighter, Microsoft and Lexmark on Tuesday announced that they have entered into a broad patent cross-licensing agreement.

Under the arrangement, Lexmark will license its patents for its printers and multifunction devices, as well as its other products, to Microsoft. And the Redmond, Wash., based company, in return, will offer access to a wide range of its software.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

"We believe this agreement will improve the productivity of both our companies and result in enhanced product offerings and increased satisfaction for all our customers," Marty Canning, … Read more

Nokia, the world's largest maker of cell phones, said Tuesday it will cut 1,700 jobs as demand for its products continues to wane.

The job cuts will affect workers who work in its Devices and Markets units as well as in its Corporate Development Office and global support functions. The company said in a statement that it plans to scale its sales, marketing and technology business units to match the slowing demand for its products.

The company is based in Finland and about 700 workers there will likely lose their jobs, according to a report by Bloomberg News. … Read more

NEW YORK--At first glance Cisco Systems' latest announcement that it's entering the server market seems like another boring corporate IT announcement, but take a closer look. The company's long-term vision of a "virtualized" data center could eventually revolutionize how consumers will one day access new services via the Net.

First, let's look at what Cisco actually announced. On Monday, the company unveiled a new data center architecture it's calling Unified Computing. This new architecture includes new hardware from Cisco, namely blade servers, an interconnection "fabric," a chassis for the blade servers, Fabric … Read more