Corporate & legal

I just returned from a two-day industry and analyst event hosted by Juniper Networks. Last year, Juniper held its conference in swanky Dana Point, but this year's event was held at the San Mateo Marriott near the San Francisco airport.

A sign of the times? Definitely.

After a killer 2008 in which the network-equipment maker increased revenue 26 percent over the previous year, the company is now managing through troubled economic waters like everyone else. What's Juniper's strategy now? New CEO Kevin Johnson laid out it at the event. His plans include:

• Staying focused. Don't … Read more

Whitebox vendors in the Asia-Pacific region may warm up to the One Laptop Per Child's decision to open its design, according to market research analyst IDC.

Multinational PC makers, on the other hand, will continue their focus on mini-notebooks, Reuben Tan, IDC's senior manager for personal systems research in the Asia-Pacific region, told CNET News sister site ZDNet Asia in a phone interview.

Earlier this month, OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte announced the organization's intention to open-source its hardware design and invite commercial PC makers to copy it. In an e-mail interview with ZDNet Asia, Negroponte said the … Read more

The largest cell phone operator in Japan said Friday that it has stopped selling Research In Motion's BlackBerry Bold because the phone overheats while the battery is being recharged.

NTT DoCoMo began selling the Bold in Japan last week. And so far it has sold about 4,000 devices. Of those devices, NTT DoCoMo says it has received complaints from about 30 users that the phone's keyboard area had heated up, Reuters reported. The company said it doesn't know of anyone getting burned from the overheating nor has it received any reports of the phone catching on … Read more

Update at 9:10 a.m. PST: Comments added from an Ovum analyst.

The top three executives at Sony soon will all be named Howard Stringer.

The Japanese electronics giant on Friday announced a management shake-up in which Stringer, who already is serving as chairman and CEO, will also take on the role of company president. In doing so, Stringer replaces Ryoji Chubachi, who will become vice chairman.

At a press conference in Japan, Stringer played up the efficiencies of his becoming president. "Why do we need another executive in between me and this group?" he said, according … Read more

This was originally published in ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Novell's fiscal first-quarter results were a mixed bag, and Linux invoices fell sharply as the company failed to sign big deals.

For the first quarter, ended Jan. 31, Novell reported non-GAAP earnings of $24 million, or 7 cents a share, on revenue of $215 million. Those results were a penny better than Wall Street estimates. Net income for the first quarter was $11 million, or 3 cents a share.

On the surface, Novell's quarter told a familiar tale. Open platform sales, which are dominated by Linux offerings, were $… Read more

Despite Microsoft assurances that a patent lawsuit against GPS navigation company TomTom is not targeting the overall Linux community, open-source leaders said on Thursday that the legal action is antagonistic toward the movement.

Microsoft on Wednesday filed two separate actions against TomTom before the U.S. District Court in Washington and the International Trade Commission, alleging infringement of eight patents, three of which involve Linux. Microsoft deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez said the legal actions were taken after attempts to negotiate on licensing failed.

Asked whether Microsoft would sue other open-source developers, Gutierrez said the software giant's dispute was … Read more

Chief Executive Carol Bartz announced how she reorganized Yahoo in a blog post Thursday, but she shared a bit more about the priorities in an internal memo to Yahoo employees. Here's the full text of the memo.

From: Carol Bartz

Date: Thursday, February 26, 2009

To: All employees

Subject: Our New Organization

Yahoos,

As I've gotten to know Yahoo! over the past several weeks, I've developed a point of view on how our organization should be structured to set us up for success.

Our goal is simple: to consistently deliver awesome consumer and advertiser experiences, everywhere in … Read more

In the six weeks since Carol Bartz took over as Yahoo chief executive, she's interviewed employees and executives, learned the company's businesses, assessed what's good, diagnosed what's wrong, and now reorganized Yahoo management to set it on a new course.

Now comes the hard part.

The assertive Bartz expects the new, simpler management structure to produce faster decisions and better accountability among executives. She also ousted Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen, hired Elise Steele to the new chief marketing officer post, and set up a customer advocacy group to make sure Yahoo pays due attention to … Read more

Faced with a whopping $1.7 trillion deficit, President Obama is proposing tacking on a spectrum license fee to wireless operators to help generate revenue for the government.

The Obama administration's proposal was loosely outlined in the new budget plan for 2009 and 2010 submitted Thursday. In that plan, the administration proposes adding a new fee to be paid by wireless carriers that license wireless spectrum from the government.

These annual fees would start at $50 million in 2009 and jump to $200 million in 2010, Reuters reported. The fees will gradually increase over the next 10 years to $… Read more