corporate

Motorola might not sell off its mobile phone and networking business unit after all, according to a report Thursday in The Wall Street Journal.

Unnamed sources have told the Journal that the business unit, which includes handsets and cable TV set-top boxes, hasn't elicited high enough bids from potential buyers. Motorola is looking for an offer in the range of $4 billion to $5 billion, but has so far received bids between $3 billion and $4 billion, the Journal reports.

The company is also reconsidering whether phones and set-top boxes need be kept together under the same roof, or … Read more

LAS VEGAS--This year's CES sported an expanded showcase for green-oriented gadgets. But arguably the more significant eco-action was tucked away in the booths of the consumer electronics industry's behemoths.

Behind the barrage of wall-to-wall TVs and mobile devices, you can find "eco-products" from familiar suppliers, such as Panasonic, Sanyo, Toshiba, Philips, and LG. In the technology-themed areas, such as the wireless Zigbee zone, there were displays for managing home energy or more fuel-efficient driving.

Green technologies are clearly still on the periphery of the sprawling consumer electronics business, but brand name manufacturers say they are innovating … Read more

Greenpeace is using its latest green-ratings guide to press consumer electronics companies to do more than just clean up their own act.

The 14th quarterly "Guide to Greener Electronics," (PDF) which rates hardware makers on chemical waste, e-waste, and recycling efforts, now assesses each company's public efforts on environmental issues.

The report, issued Thursday, considers whether a company actively lobbies for industrywide laws that would prevent other companies from using environmentally damaging materials, as part of their corporate sustainability obligations.

Specifically, Greenpeace said companies should support a new version of the European Union's RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances in electronics). The update would ban brominated flame retardants (BFRs), chlorinated flame retardants (CFRs), and PVC vinyl plastic from being used in the manufacturing of electronics. (The regulation already restricts how much lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB), and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants can be used.)

As far as who's the greenest, Nokia still ranks at No. 1, but Greenpeace reduced the company's overall score by one point for "failing to do proactive lobbying" for the RoHS revisions.

The strategy brings an interesting idea to the forefront. With the new criteria, Greenpeace is essentially attempting to harness consumer buying-power to press private industry to pressure politicians.

But does this strategy really work? When picking out a new cell phone or computer, does the average consumer's thought process include a rundown of whether a company has stopped using BFRs in their products and has lobbied to prevent other companies from using them too.

Still, if no one can use a cheap-but-polluting manufacturing material, the playing field is leveled. Lobbying for a revised RoHS could be a win-win for companies that would like to eliminate the use of certain substances but fear creating an advantage for their competition.

Greenpeace asserts there's good reason for the change.

"The use of harmful chemicals in electronic products prevents their safe recycling once the products are discarded. Given the increasing evidence of climate change and the urgency of addressing this issue, Greenpeace has added new energy criteria to encourage electronics companies to improve their corporate policies and practices," Greenpeace said in a statement.… Read more

Facebook isn't just for kids anymore, but it looks like Disney's still an admirer: The entertainment conglomerate has nominated Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of the massive social network, to its board of directors.

In a release Wednesday, Disney made the announcement and stated that shareholders will vote on Sandberg's nomination (along with the re-election of its 12 current directors) at the company's annual meeting on March 12 in San Antonio, Texas.

"Sheryl has been at the forefront of a technological revolution that's opened up a world of new possibilities for consumers and which … Read more

Showing it's serious about smartphones, Dell is reorganizing the company around its newest product.

Dell is forming a new communications business unit to be helmed by Ron Garriques, a former Motorola executive brought in to run Dell's consumer business two years ago, Reuters first reported Friday. Dell officials confirmed that the consumer group will be folded into the small and medium business group run by Steve Felice.

Dell started selling its first smartphone at the end of November in China and Brazil only. The new unit run by Garriques will develop hardware and software for phones and other … Read more

The organization responsible for managing the assignment of domain names and IP addresses has approved a new plan to allow non-Latin characters in Web extensions.

Known as Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), the system is designed to globalize the Net so regions around the world can use their own local alphabet characters to surf in cyberspace, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, said Friday.

Calling IDNs the "biggest technical change" to the Internet since its birth 40 years ago, ICANN unanimously approved the plan on the final day of its six-day conference in Seoul.

IDNs … Read more

Wall Street Raider provides a realistic simulation of the wheeling-dealing stock market lifestyle. Much like the real Wall Street, this game is incredibly complex and not for novices.

The program's interface was so confusingly dense that it practically gave us a headache with its multicolored, compartmentalized display. Unfortunately, we quickly discovered that Wall Street Raider is reserved for those with prior stock-trading knowledge, since the Help file was just as dense with text and jargon. From our limited understanding of Wall Street dealings, the program does an impressive job of recreating a trader's life, despite its horrible organization. … Read more

ORLANDO, Fla.--You may not have looked closely at yourself in the mirror recently, but it appears you have a bloated applications portfolio.

When it comes to companies adding new abilities to their computing infrastructure, not enough thought goes into deciding whether it's really a good idea to do so and what the true cost of that change will be, said Gartner Vice President Andy Kyte. He spoke here Monday at the Gartner Symposium, a hub for information technology staff.

"Both business and IT managers are very happy to engage in the process of acquiring new applications," Kyte said. That has unfortunate consequences once the applications are running, though, he said.

"We're not interested in responsible parenting; we're interested in making babies," Kyte said. "The result: hundreds of orphan applications that wander the corridors of your enterprise, approaching every adult they see and saying, 'Are you my daddy? Are you my mommy?'" … Read more

A new RAND Corporation report suggests the U.S. may be better off playing defense and pursuing diplomatic, economic, and prosecutorial efforts against cyberattackers, instead of making strategic cyberwarfare an investment priority.

The study comes as the U.S. military fires up its new unified Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) program this month. The new outfit will be responsible for network-related operations, defense, and attacks and will operate under the U.S. Strategic Command.

Cyberwarfare is better at bothering an adversary than defeating it--given that permanent effects are illusive, author Martin C. Libicki wrote in the report, titled "Cyberdeterrence and Cyberwar.&… Read more