Beyond Binary

Updated 4:05 p.m., with comment from Yahoo.

A Department of Justice probe into hiring practices among high-tech firms appears to have stretched out to include some of the best-known names in the industry.

The Washington Post first reported the story on Tuesday evening, listing Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Genentech as among the companies that were being looked at. Microsoft and Intel are also believed to have received requests for information, according to sources as well as to a New York Times report.

to The issue is believed to center on whether certain companies agreed not to hire from one another.

Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Intel all declined comment. Late on Wednesday, Yahoo confirmed it had received an inquiry from the government "a while ago."

"We have been contacted (by the DOJ), and we are cooperating," A Yahoo representative said.

Word of the probe took some in the tech industry by surprise, given several prominent cases of tech firms suing one another over worker poaching. Two of the companies said to be involved in the probe--Microsoft and Google--waged a fierce, multistate court battle after Microsoft executive Kai-Fu Lee was hired by Google. (The two sides eventually settled.)

More recently, Apple and IBM duked it out after Apple hired IBM executive Mark Papermaster. He eventually took up work at Apple, but only after a lawsuit and eventual settlement. IBM also sued over a recent Dell hire, David Johnson.

CNET News' Tom Krazit contributed to this report.

With billions in stimulus dollars available to help doctors and hospitals digitize their health records, it stands to reason that tech companies want to make spending that money as easy as possible.

Several of the players--Allscripts, Cisco, Citrix, Dell, Intel, Intuit, Microsoft, and Nuance Communications--have teamed up in an alliance aimed at educating doctors on the many tools available to help set up electronic health records.

The EHR Stimulus Alliance is pulling out all the stops, with a road tour, Webcasts, telephone hotline, and other tools all aimed at demystifying the technology and showing case studies of where it has worked.

President Obama's stimulus package provides on the order of $20 billion for health care technology, with the central focus being nudging hospitals and doctors to move their records from manila folders to computers. Even with the money, though, it's seen as a daunting task.

"The EHR Stimulus Alliance is a unified movement toward turning the national dialogue surrounding the EHR transition into action," Nuance Healthcare President John Shagoury said in a statement. "Each of the partners involved has unique solutions that are crucial to EHR implementation. In our case, because most doctors speak at least three times faster than they type, speech recognition technology helps increase the meaningful use and efficiency of EHRs by decreasing physician reliance on the keyboard and mouse."

The alliance hopes to reach half a million doctors with its message.

Although the alliance represents a number of the big names in tech, there are a lot of other players in the electronic health records business, including Cerner, General Electric, eClinicalWorks, McKesson, and NextGen, as well as start-ups such as Medsphere. Other tech players also pushing hard for their piece of the industry include IBM and storage giant EMC.

By the way, I and some colleagues will have a ton more to say on this topic next week as CNET News takes an in-depth look at the push toward electronic health records.

Dell joined a growing chorus of IT companies trying to grab a bigger slice of the market for digital health care records.

The computer maker announced a series of partnerships on Monday aimed at bolstering its health care chops. At the high-end, the company announced a strategic alliance with Perot Systems aimed at selling to hospitals, health systems, and physician practices. At the low-end, Dell said Sam's Club will start selling a system for doctors to manage their records electronically, combining Dell hardware and software from eClincalWorks.

The announcements come at the start of a healthcare technology trade show this week in Chicago. The show is drawing particular attention this year because of the billions of dollars in federal stimulus money being targeted at the digitization of medical records.

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, which is putting on the conference, said its annual survey found that implementing electronic medical record and computerized order entry systems was the top IT priority for hospitals and other large healthcare providers. In its survey, it found less than half--41 percent--of those surveyed have even one facility with a fully functioning electronic medical record system. That is up from 32 percent two years ago, however.

Dell is far from the only big computer name making news at that HIMSS convention. Sun is showing off work it did to build the National Health Information Network (NHIN), while Microsoft is touting a deal with New York-Presbyterian Hospital to offer patients access to their electronic records.

As for the Dell partnership, Perot Systems' health care unit vice president, Chuck Lyles, said the deal comes just as the industry is taking off.

"Only 10 percent of the market uses (electronic health records) in some form or fashion," Lyles said at a press conference on Monday. "We really are at an inflection point in the industry."

Lyles said that virtualization should allow hospitals to digitize some of their records using existing servers. He noted that most servers inside hospitals are only being used to about 20 percent efficiency.

"Historically, hospitals have been this one server, one application environment," Lyles said.

Perot and Dell also talked about the ability to run some medical applications in a hosted, "private cloud" offering, which would lower start-up costs and help shift computing into a more variable cost.

In addition to the partnerships, Dell added a healthcare section to its IdeaStorm, electronic brainstorming tool. The discussion started with a pretty universal question--"Why can't there be a standard (global, ideally) for electronic medical records?"

LAS VEGAS--As he takes the stage Wednesday, Steve Ballmer has a mighty big task ahead of him.

Not only is he taking over Consumer Electronics Show keynote duties from Bill Gates, he is also aiming to convince the tech world that Microsoft is serious about defending its turf on the PC as well as making headway on the Web, television and phone. Oh yeah, and then there's that whole economy-melting-down thing.

Ballmer hasn't arrived in Sin City empty handed, however. In perhaps the biggest announcement of the night, he will announce Microsoft is ready with a beta version of Windows 7 and he will show off some of its key consumer features.

Microsoft will also announce new deals for Windows Live that will see Microsoft's search engine become the default on PCs from Dell as well as touting a deal with Verizon Wireless that leaked earlier in the day. The company is also counting on two Halo game releases this year to help keep the Xbox 360 going in the right direction.

But Microsoft faces considerable competition in each of the areas Ballmer is discussing. On the PC front, a resurgent Apple has increased its share. In search, Google continues to dominate. In the phone market, Apple's iPhone has grabbed much of the spotlight, not to mention significant market share. Google also has joined the fray, while longtime competitors such as Research in Motion and Palm are trying to maintain their slices of the pie as well.

And then, of course, there's the substantial financial headwind. Ballmer is expected to express his usual optimism--despite the global financial outlook--and discuss the company's commitment to research and development in both good times and bad. That said, Microsoft is clearly not immune from the problems that led Intel Wednesday to announce that fourth-quarter revenues were down 23 percent from the same quarter a year ago.

On the PC side, Microsoft is looking to turn the page from Vista to its successor, Windows 7. Microsoft isn't talking about any new features of Windows 7, saying it talked about all of the key features at the Professional Developer Conference last year. Instead, it will attempt to demonstrate what features like improved home networking really mean for the average household.

As for the beta of Windows 7, Microsoft said it will be immediately available for technical beta testers and those in Microsoft's TechNet and MSDN developer programs and will be made publicly available on Friday. The company still isn't officially committing to a final release in time for this year's holiday season, although the company is clearly still aiming for that.

Ballmer will also discuss Windows Live. In addition to the global PC deal with Dell and the five year U.S. deal with Verizon Wireless, Microsoft has expanded its relationship with Facebook to allow users to see within their Windows Live homepage certain of their buddies' Facebook updates. The company is also stripping the beta tag off many of its Web-based and downloadable Windows Live products.

On the phone side, Ballmer is expected to talk about the improved mobile browser Microsoft released at the end of last year, but the company is not talking yet about when to expect a serious upgrade to the Windows Mobile operating system, which has grown rather long in the tooth. Microsoft has made reference to an interim Windows 6.5 release that could serve as a bridge until the more significant overhaul of the operating system--Windows Mobile 7--makes its delayed debut.

On the automotive side, Microsoft is announcing a new version of its Ford Sync entertainment system that uses voice recognition software from its Tellme acquisition.

While that's the main news of the show, check out our live blog to get some live quotes, our commentary, as well as updates on any celebrity guests or funny videos that are often the hallmark of Microsoft's keynotes.

See also: Windows 7 beta: First impressions

When it comes to picking a spot for a data center, Google and Microsoft often have the same sites in mind. But when it comes to how they build, the two companies take far different approaches.

Google relies largely on its own design expertise, contracting for and building its own server designs. Microsoft, meanwhile, relies on outside companies to build the hardware, though it certainly takes an active role in designing the centers themselves.

Dell is one of the companies that helps power Microsoft's server farms, including the ones that power Microsoft's operating system in the cloud, Windows Azure.

Data centers have been a bright spot for Dell, which has struggled in recent years. On its own, Dell's data center business would be a top 5 server vendor, said Forrest Norrod, the Dell vice president who heads its data center effort. In its most recent earnings conference call, CEO Michael Dell called out Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon.com, Akamai, and Baidu as key customers in that arena.

The story of how Dell got into the data center business is an interesting one. A couple of years back, the company was noticing that its share of the largest data centers was less than it might expect. Plus, it noticed that whether it won or lost a bid, the terms tended to be such that Dell didn't stand to make money.

"That was curious," Norrod said.

It turned out that customers at the highest end didn't really need some of the hallmarks of Dell's servers. Built-in management code and redundancy might appeal to the average business, but to a customer that expects to burn through their servers, such features are costly and unnecessary.

Meanwhile, other features like extreme power efficiency and density were the things that companies would pay a premium to get.

At the beginning of 2007, Dell set up a separate unit to explore this area. Its mission was to look at the 50 biggest data center customers worldwide and work to understand what those companies needed.

It turns out there are a lot of things you don't need when building a server that is going to go in one of these data centers. For example, expansion ports are definitely out, as are legacy I/O ports. Memory slots need to be limited to the minimum necessary (and then kept full so they don't change the thermodynamics).

Instead of redundant fans or power supplies, Norrod said, Dell learned what customers really needed was one good one, since a system wasn't likely to be touched until it failed, at which time it would be replaced.

Norrod said that Dell has learned a lot by working with Microsoft, including the need to start a system's design by knowing where the server is going. And that is a rapidly changing environment as servers move from racks, to pre-equipped containers and even to entire prefabricated data centers.

"Whether the room is a room or a container, looking at the environment is one of the key parameters in system design," Norrod said.

And companies like Microsoft are looking to get rid of anything they can.

"They want computers and servers sitting in a field with a power cord and network cord going to them. Period," Norrod said. "Everything else is overhead--the building, the rest of the infrastructure. We're at the end game of how close can you get to that. "

Microsoft announced on Tuesday that its so-called Gen 4 data centers will consist of prefabricated buildings that can be up and running in three to six months.

CARLSBAD, Calif.--Michael Dell acknowledged Wednesday that his company has in the past missed some key industry trends, such as the importance of retail sales and consumer products.

But he promised that the PC maker will not be a technology laggard going forward.

"We've tripled our resources in design and user experience," the company's founder and CEO said in an interview with technology journalist Walt Mossberg at the D6 conference here.

Pinned down on where the company went wrong, Dell pointed to a couple of factors--in particular a lack of attention on the consumer market at a time when it was becoming increasingly important.

"We missed some pretty big things that were going on in the industry," Dell said.

Also, as the price of computers came down, the company didn't offer enough options for people to buy PCs. After years of focusing on direct business, the company has added its products to 13,000 retail locations.

Dell said the company has a few test Dell-branded stores operated by partners in places like Dubai and Moscow, but said that Dell is not focused on its own retail outlets.

"I think this year we will grow our earnings per share again pretty nicely."

--Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell

"Right now what is more interesting to us is to pick the best retailers in the world (and sell there)," Dell said.

Mossberg also pointed out several times that HP continues to lead Dell in PC unit shipments.

"True enough, although we are ahead in revenue."

Dell also noted that the company's business is growing quickly again, even outpacing Apple in some segments.

"I think this year we will grow our earnings per share again pretty nicely," Dell said. Asked about impact of the economy, he said, "In the U.S. there is definitely caution," noting that PC sales in the U.S. rose only 3.5 percent in the first quarter, although Dell itself was up more than 15 percent.

Dell also said that Microsoft is being more forthcoming with PC makers on information about Windows 7, the upcoming version of Windows, than it was in the past with Vista.

"What we are seeing right now is an unprecedented level of engagement from Microsoft on Windows 7...That's fantastic. It's what we need. That early-on engineering engagement with our engineering teams is how you create (a thriving) ecosystem."

A new, smaller desktop
Dell also promised the company was coming out soon with a new desktop that is 80 percent smaller than a traditional PC and uses 71 percent less energy.

"Think of it as the hybrid PC," he said.

Pressed on whether Dell would come out with its own phone, Dell said the company was focused on devices that were a little larger than a basic phone and smaller than a PC. "In between that there is all kinds of opportunity for different devices."

Asked whether Dell needed to do something different on the marketing front to better compete against Apple, Dell noted that his company and advertising firm WPP created a new agency just for Dell to help unify what has been a very disparate marketing effort.

For no clear reason, another questioner asked whether Dell could handle Apple CEO Steve Jobs if it came down to a physical fight. "Absolutely I could take him."

Click here for full coverage of the D: All Things Digital conference.

Dell is abruptly abandoning its Dell Direct Store effort, saying customers now have other ways to get their hands on the company's products.

The computer maker said Wednesday that it will close all 140 of its U.S. kiosks as part of the company's ongoing shift in how it sells its products. The company launched the kiosk effort in 2002 as a way for customers to see products firsthand before ordering online or by phone.

"In the past six months the company has adopted a retail strategy that enables Dell to connect with customers it has not necessarily reached in the past," the company said in a statement.

Dell spokesman Bob Kaufman said the company plans to close the kiosks, the majority of which are in malls and shopping centers, in a matter of days. Kaufman declined to say how many workers are losing their jobs, or the cost to Dell of ending the effort, but said that affected workers would receive severance and outplacement assistance.

The company is not closing its kiosks outside the U.S. In recent months, the company has moved its products into a number of retailers, most notably Best Buy, but also Wal-Mart Stores and Staples.

"Moving into retail is a prime example of Dell listening to its customers," said Tony Weiss, vice president for Dell's Global Consumer business, in a statement. "Ever since we began our journey into retail, we wanted to give customers the opportunity to call, click, or visit Dell and have access to our award-winning products. This move fits in with how our broad global retail strategy is evolving."

The move follows a similar one several years back by Gateway, which had built up a larger network of stores, but closed them as it acquired retail specialist eMachines and started selling more broadly in stores. Gateway has since been acquired by Acer.

Microsoft and Dell very much want the world to know about their new line of (Product) Red PCs, benefiting the Global Fund, which provides AIDS treatment in Africa.

The rich and famous will get to hear about the product at this week's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, but the two companies also want the computer-buying masses to know what they are doing.

In the coming days, the new Dell XPS systems and a "red-ified" printer will start showing up at Best Buy, which will be the exclusive U.S. retailer of Dell's products, according to Dell global consumer marketing director Susan Kittleson. Then, a week from Sunday, the companies will launch a TV push, starting with the Super Bowl ad, to be followed by a significant print and broadcast campaign.

Kittleson said the idea to go Red came up last February, after Dell announced its efforts to be more green. Customers wanted the company to pursue other social efforts, with one poster to the company's IdeaStorm site suggesting it link up with (Product) Red.

The idea struck Dell as a good one. "We are really focused on allowing consumers to pursue their passions through technology," Kittleson said.

Microsoft already had a big (Product) Red supporter in Bill Gates, one of the effort's early backers. Gates had been looking for a way for Microsoft to get involved in the program.

It had already been beaten to the punch by Apple, which inked the rights to sell (Product) Red iPods. Companies that create a Red product typically sign a multiyear partnership which also gives them exclusivity for a particular category or region.

That means the future doesn't look so bright for a (Product) Red Zune. But now that Dell has the PC rights and Microsoft the software rights, it also means a Product (Red) Mac is equally unlikely, agreed Susan Smith-Ellis, CEO of Product Red, the 20-month-old effort launched by U2's Bono and Bobby Shriver.

Now a (Product) Red Xbox, that sounds intriguing, said Smith-Ellis, though Microsoft was quick to say it had no plans to announce in that area. Smith-Ellis said that global partners like Microsoft and Dell are helping the effort branch out beyond the United States and the U.K. into 30 countries across five continents.

"Their marketing budgets are significant, and they will help us build awareness for the Red project and the AIDS pandemic," she said.

LAS VEGAS--Every year, I schedule too many meetings at the Consumer Electronics Show and don't get enough time to just roam the show floor in search of gadgets that are either ultra-cool, absurd, or preferably both.

This year, I made a commitment to wander the show floor and absorb as much as possible. It should be said, in three hours on the show floor, I covered a very small portion of the south hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Special coverage
CES 2008 is here

Check out the latest reports, photos, and videos from
the massive electronics show.

So the seventh wonder of the tech world could have been in the north hall, central hall, or the far-flung Sands expo hall, but I couldn't tell you.

What did I learn? First of all, there was not one product that everyone was talking about. If there was a universal hit, it was the huge flat-screen displays that many companies were showing off. I spent a few minutes watching video on a 100-inch screen. It's by no means the biggest on display here at CES, but it was three times the diameter of anything in my house.

From there, I decided I needed a rest, stopping at what might be the best massage chair I've sat in--a $4,000 model from Anaheim, Calif.-based Omega Massage. I make it a point to always try these out, whether at trade shows or the airport Sharper Image. It's all part of my sacrifice for you, my loyal blog readers (or you, the random clicker on this post).

From there I made my way to the folks who needed the massage chair far more than I did--the HD DVD booth. There, association members and technology partners put on a brave face, despite the major blow delivered by Warner Bros. last week, announcing that they would exclusively support rival Blu-ray.

I'd heard about some wireless earbuds from Sennheiser, so I went by the booth to check them out. They were behind glass, but I could see enough to know they weren't for me. They look kind of like a pair of those Bluetooth earpieces I already find annoying, plus they require your iPod or other device to wear a somewhat bulky transmitter. I think there's probably a market for these. It's just probably not for the average iPod owner.

Continuing on the headphone theme, I went to the booth of Skullcandy, a company whose hipness factor is hurt only by the fact that I own a pair of its earbuds. There were DJs and hip-hop musicians performing and an artist doing a skull drawing as the company showed off a variety of products, including a set of iPhone earbuds and a DJ-style headset that also includes a built-in SD card slot for playing music without a separate MP3 player. Both products sell will sell for $89, with the wireless SD headphones due out around March. I also stopped by Shure, which was showing off an attachment that turns its line of in-ear headphones into an iPhone headset by adding an in-line microphone.

Having heard enough, I moved on to other areas of the hall. Among the places I stopped was a Dell environmental booth that consisted of some eco-furniture and two glass whiteboards where people could scribble their ideas on how to improve our ecological impact. The booth rep told me the ideas would be taken to an executive meeting back at Dell headquarters. Not sure what they will do with the posts, which included "Take public transit," "No more products, no more people," and "Killjoy."

My favorite moment was when a woman from Baton Rouge asked if she could get a brochure.

The booth rep tried to handle it politely. Well, no, see, the whole point is...

I decided to let Dell save the planet without me and continued on in search of more tech fare. I stopped by several random booths that caught my eye, including a company peddling a mini-photo studio perfect for snapping shots of your eBay trinkets without casting a shadow. I stopped by HP and Kodak to check out the latest in photo-printing kiosks. I'd been pretty impressed with the HP model I tried out at a drugstore this holiday season, and found Kodak's models even more versatile. Both make choosing prints easy, but I liked the quick photo books that it was capable of cranking out, as well as a new Photo DVD maker that lets you set your photos to one of about 20 songs, ranging from a Hootie and the Blowfish track to the theme from St. Elmo's Fire.

I found myself drawn to the Brother booth, where it was showing software, apparently not new, that turns your digital photos into something stitch-able with one of its embroidery machines. The software sells for around $1,000 and the machines range from a $600 model to one that sells for $13,000.

I was also drawn to a small booth in the corner, with a sign "We buy closeouts" and showing a smattering of non-tech and low-tech items such as whiteboards and fax machines. Carolina Wholesale owner Larry Huneycutt said the Charlotte-based company has been coming to CES for 20 years and finding customers and sources for his far-from-state-of-the-art gear.

His catalog includes label makers, digital projectors, and calculators. "We even sell typewriters," Huneycutt said.

But some of the latest gadgets were also low-tech, including the oft-maligned Quik Pod, a camera attachment that holds a camera at a distance allowing for better pictures of oneself. It's a gadget that I reckon plenty of people would like, but few would want to admit to needing, much less buying.

The latest model is an even tougher challenge. It's an SLR model for larger cameras. My colleague points out that this only increases its dorkiness factor.

I don't disagree, but also think that there is a market, even for pros who want to snap their own picture as well as the legions of wannabes. I just think that the pros (and wannabes, myself included) are less likely to want to admit it. That's why it's nice that the SLR model can also be used as a monopod.