Microsoft says Google acts raise antitrust issues

27. Feb. 2010

SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp made its most vehement and public attack on Google Inc on Friday, calling its internet rival's actions potentially anti-competitive, and urging victims to file complaints to regulators.

The broadside comes days after a Microsoft-owned business, along with two other small online companies, complained to European Union regulators about Google's operations there. Microsoft is also fighting a plan by Google to digitize millions of books, currently under scrutiny by the Department of Justice.

"Our concerns relate only to Google practices that tend to lock in business partners and content -- like Google Books -- and exclude competitors, thereby undermining competition more broadly," wrote Dave Heiner, Microsoft's deputy general counsel, in a blog published on the company's website on Friday.

"Ultimately the competition law agencies will have to decide whether or not Google's practices should be seen as illegal," he wrote.

Google declined to comment on Microsoft's blog.

For the past two decades, Microsoft has been among the prime targets of competition regulators in the United States and Europe, over the way it handled its near monopoly of computer operating systems.

The world's largest software maker now seems keen to direct regulatory scrutiny onto Google, by far the world's biggest internet search company.

"As Google's power has grown in recent years, we've increasingly heard complaints from a range of firms -- large and small -- about a wide variety of Google business practices," wrote Heiner.

"Some of the complaints just reflect aggressive business stances taken by Google. Some reflect the secrecy with which Google operates in many areas. Some appear to raise serious antitrust issues."

Heiner said Google's way of working with advertisers and publishers makes it hard for Microsoft's competing Bing search engine to win search volume.

He suggested firms who feel they have been hurt by Google should complain to "competition law agencies". The European Commission has not at this stage opened a formal inquiry into Google after it received complaints this week.

Microsoft's attack is certain to heat up relations between the two companies, which now compete on a broad spectrum of technology products, from software applications and mobile phone systems to internet search and e-mail programs.
[Reuters]

Facebook urged to act after memorial sites defaced

25. Feb. 2010

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Cyber attacks on Facebook pages set up to pay tribute to two murdered Australian children has prompted calls for the social networking site to be more accountable for its users.

Social media experts say it is natural that people who use sites such as Facebook or MySpace as a major form of communication should turn to these sites with personal tragedies.

These memorial sites often attract thousands of friends and well-wishers, as in the case of the pages set up after the deaths this month of Elliott Fletcher, 12, and Trinity Bates, 8.

Students from Brisbane College in the state of Queensland flocked to a memorial site set up after Fletcher was stabbed in a schoolyard fight two weeks ago, but it was defaced with offensive comments and images including child pornography and bestiality.

The same happened to a site set up in memory of Bates who was taken from her bed in Bundaberg, Queensland, with her body found in a nearby storm drain on Monday. A teenager accused of her murder was also revealed to be a Facebook friend of her parents.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has appealed to the owners of U.S.-based Facebook to find ways to stop a recurrence of these types of "sickening incidents."

"To have these things happen to Facebook pages set up for the sole purpose of helping these communities pay tribute to young lives lost in the most horrible ways adds to the grief already being experienced," Bligh wrote in a letter to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg which was released to the media.

"I seek your advice about whether Facebook can do anything to prevent a recurrence of these types of sickening incidents."

A spokesman for Bligh said the premier had yet to receive a response from Zuckerberg.

But Facebook spokeswoman Debbie Frost said the site had rules to check content and reviewers were quick to respond to any reports of hate or threats against an individual, pornography, or violent photos or videos, and would remove the content, and either warn or disable the accounts of those responsible.

"Facebook is highly self-regulating, and users can and do report content that they find questionable or offensive," Frost said in a statement.

She said in the tragic case of Elliott Fletcher, Facebook responded to reports of vandalism from others users and the police by removing the groups and disabling the accounts of the people responsible but that was about all the action possible.

"It is simply not possible to 'prevent' a person with a sinister agenda from undertaking offensive activity anywhere on the Internet where people can post content. Nor is it really possible in real life," Frost added.

Detective Superintendent Peter Crawford of Queensland police said people should think twice before setting up such social networking groups. As well as memorial sites, Facebook pages popped up vilifying the man accused of murdering Bates.

"I would say anybody thinking about putting these sites up in the future need to realize that they're going to attract these kinds of people," Crawford told radio station Fairfax Radio 4BC.

"The reality is once you open these sites up to open access to anyone on the Internet, you are going to attract unsavory people and clearly that's occurred again."
[Reuters]

Google notified of EC complaints

24. Feb. 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - The European Commission is considering complaints from three online companies regarding Google Inc's practices including its search rankings, the company said on Tuesday.

The complaints from two of the companies -- UK price comparison site Foundem and French legal search engine ejustice.fr -- allege that Google's search algorithm demotes their sites in Web search results because they compete with Google, Google said in a post on its corporate blog.

Microsoft Corp- owned Ciao from Bing has also complained to European authorities about Google's standard terms and conditions, Google said.

Google, the world's No.1 search engine, said it will be providing feedback and additional information on the complaints and said that it was confident that its business is "in line with European competition law."

Microsoft was not immediately available for comment.

Google has come under increasing regulatory scrutiny as it has grown. The U.S. Department of Justice has challenged Google's settlement with book publishers and authors groups to create an online digital archive, and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is seeking more information on the competitive impact of its proposed $750 million purchase of mobile advertising company AdMob.

News of the EC complaints was first reported by the Daily Telegraph in its Wednesday edition.

The paper said the European Commission has written to Google to find out how its search functions work.

"Though each case raises slightly different issues, the question they ultimately pose is whether Google is doing anything to choke off competition or hurt our users and partners," Google Senior Competition Counsel Julia Holtz said in the company's blog post. "This is not the case."

Google had 90 percent of the global search market compared with 7.4 percent for a combined Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing, according to November data from Web research firm StatCounter.
[Reuters]

Chinese schools deny link to Google attack

23. Feb. 2010

SHANGHAI - A prestigious Chinese university and a lesser-known vocational school have denied a report they were the source of recent cyber attacks on Internet giant Google and other U.S. corporations, Xinhua news agency said on Saturday.

A representative of Shanghai Jiaotong University, considered one of China's best, said the allegations in a New York Times report were baseless and even if the school's computers appeared to be involved, it did not mean the hackers were based there.

"We were shocked and indignant to hear these baseless allegations which may harm the university's reputation," Xinhua quoted the unnamed Jiaotong University spokesperson saying.

"The report of the New York Times was based simply on an IP address. Given the highly developed network technology today, such a report is neither objective nor balanced."

The Communist party boss at Lanxiang Vocational School, the other institution fingered in the report, also denied any role.

"Investigation in the staff found no trace the attacks originated from our school," Li Zixiang, party chief at the school in coastal Shandong Province, was quoted as saying.

The New York Times said Lanxiang was established with support from the Chinese military and has trained computer scientists who later joined the military, but Li said there was no relationship with the military, Xinhua reported.

He also disputed the statement that investigators suspected a link to a computer science class taught by a Ukrainian professor.

"There is no Ukrainian teacher in the school and we have never employed any foreign staff," Li told Xinhua. "The report was unfounded. Please show the evidence."

Lanxiang, founded in 1984, has about 20,000 students learning vocational skills such as cooking, auto repair and hairdressing.

Google announced in January that it had faced a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack" in mid-December, allegedly from inside China, and declared that it was no longer willing to censor search results in the country as required by Beijing.

The attacks have been a source of friction in Sino-U.S. relations at an already tense time.
[Reuters]

China PLA officer urges new Internet control agency

22. Feb. 2010

BEIJING - A senior Chinese military officer has called for a new national body to enforce Internet controls, while China faced fresh claims on Monday about the source of hacking attacks that hit search giant Google.

People's Liberation Army Major General Huang Yongyin said China needed to keep pace with the efforts of other big powers to fight online infiltration and attacks.

"For national security, the Internet has already become a new battlefield without gunpowder," Huang wrote in the February issue of Chinese Cadres Tribune, a magazine published by the Communist Party's influential Central Party School.

In January, the giant Internet search engine company, Google, threatened to pull back from China over complaints of censorship and sophisticated hacking from within China.

Huang's comments appeared after Western media reports pinpointed a vocational school whose graduates include military recruits as one source of the hacker attack on Google.

The reports said the author of spyware used in the assault had government ties.

U.S. government analysts believe the programme's creator is a Chinese security consultant in his 30s who posted parts of the code on a hacker forum and described it as something he was "working on," the Financial Times reported on Monday.

He works as a freelancer and did not launch the attack but Chinese officials had "special access" to his programing, the paper added, quoting a single, unnamed government researcher.

"If he wants to do the research he's good at, he has to toe the line now and again," the researcher was quoted saying.

The allegations over the spyware are the latest episode in a dispute that has pitted Google and the United States against China, with its wall of Internet controls and legions of hackers.

Washington has backed Google's criticisms and urged Beijing to investigate hacking complaints thoroughly and transparently. Beijing has said it opposes hacking.

"LAWLESS ELEMENTS"

Huang's comments underscore the influential currents within the Chinese government that see the Internet as a key security concern.

"Lawless elements and hostile forces at home and abroad have increasingly turned to the Internet to engage in crime, disruption, infiltration, reactionary propaganda and other sabotage activities," wrote Huang, who appears to play no direct role in China's online policy.

The magazine was dated February 6, but arrived with subscribers on Monday, after China's Lunar New Year holiday.

The government needs to surmount the fragmented control of the Internet to confront these problems, preferably with a national administrative system, Huang said.

Over a dozen ministries and agencies have a hand in enforcing the Chinese government's Internet policies. Huang called for China to reduce its reliance on foreign technology which is vulnerable to attacks by "hostile forces abroad."

His concerns are matched by worries overseas about attacks from within China.

The Financial Times report quoted unidentified sources backing an earlier claim that analysts had traced the online attacks to two Chinese colleges, the prestigious Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang vocational school.

The two establishments have denied the reports. Allegations that the latter, a high-school level institute that also trains hairdressers, chefs and car mechanics, could take on Google have been mocked widely in Chinese cyberspace.

"How can these future cooks be such powerful hackers?" a web user from Zhejiang province said on the portal www.163.com.

Lanxiang's website also boasts it has the "biggest" computer lab in the world.

There was less online comment about the well-respected Jiaotong University, which attracts top graduates and has a School of Information Security Engineering.
[Reuters]

New Web site asks people to share spending habits

21. Feruary. 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - By asking what's happening or what's on our minds, Facebook and Twitter have prodded people to broadcast just about anything, from what they ate for lunch to what movie they're going to see. Now a new site wants to unearth more -- by asking people to automatically reveal things they buy.

Blippy, which is backed by a Twitter co-founder, asks people to share their spending habits. If you register a credit card with the site, every transaction bought on the card would be displayed to your friends on Blippy.

It might sound like ridiculous oversharing, but Blippy is serious. While there already are plenty of Web sites focused on what people are purchasing, the site's founders think it offers a new way to learn about deals and new products. And knowing your spending habits are being transmitted to a flock of friends might make you think twice before spending $500 on a pair of designer shoes. Charities could use Blippy to show the public that their donations are being used responsibly, too.

Blippy co-founder Ashvin Kumar poses his credit card in front of his Web site. If you register a credit card with the site, every transaction bought on the card would be displayed to your friends on Blippy.

Co-founded by entrepreneur Philip Kaplan, the joker behind a profane Web site that mocked failed startups during the dot-com bust, Blippy encourages you to connect credit cards and accounts at e-commerce sites like eBay and Apple's iTunes Store to your profile on the site. Then, whenever you buy something in person or on the Web -- a cup of coffee at Starbucks or, say, a pair of boots at Zappos.com -- the purchase is immediately posted for your friends to see and comment on. They'd see something like "Joe1234 spent $2.98 at iTunes."

Some purchases are more descriptive than others. If you buy an iPhone game Blippy can show its name, not just how much you paid. But -- at least for now -- if you spend $250 at a grocery store using a linked credit card, Blippy would just indicate the total amount rather than everything you put on the conveyor belt. Users can enter more details about their transactions on their own.

Blippy doesn't store its users' credit card numbers. Instead you give the site the username and password that you use to access your credit card account online. Other sites, such as the popular personal finance site Mint.com, have a similar setup.

For those wary of baring all, Blippy lets you hide individual purchases from your activity stream or make it so only approved friends can see your transactions.

The idea for the site emerged late last year when Ashvin Kumar and Chris Estreich, the site's other founders, started thinking about how people are comfortable sharing all sorts of information on social networking sites, but not financial transactions. They decided to see what would happen if people could easily share that information with others.

At first, it was a tough sell. Kumar says the founders needed to convince a handful of friends to try an early version of the site. Even Kaplan admits that at first he shared only one credit card that he didn't use that much.

"There is a hump people need to get over, including me, before you feel comfortable sharing this information," he says.

But since launching publicly in January, Blippy has gotten more than 13,000 consumers to do the same.

Chris Broyles, a Blippy user who works as a litigation consultant in Chicago, understands the site isn't for everyone -- including his wife. Still, he sees it as a way to keep track of what he's spending while saving up to move his family of five to a new home.

Broyles shares two credit cards and several online accounts on Blippy and says it has helped him cut down on nonessential purchases. He was recently tempted by a $300 Blu-ray disc player from Best Buy, but hesitated when he thought about how the information would be shared and where the money could go instead.

"I'm thinking that by being more outwardly exposed with what I'm purchasing, it's going to help," says Broyles, 37.

Blippy has also piqued the interest of investors, snagging about $1.7 million from Sequoia Capital and Charles River Ventures, where Kaplan had been the entrepreneur in residence. Twitter co-founder Evan Williams also has invested.

Kaplan thinks there are several ways Blippy could make money. Companies might pay to mine the posted data in order to get in touch with their best customers. Blippy also could link to products that users have bought online and get a fee when another Blippy user clicked through and purchased the same thing.

Kumar noted that people were initially wary of sharing such detailed information on sites such as Facebook, but now it's common.

"For people that already talk about what they buy on Twitter, this could be harnessing that kind of energy," says Amanda Lenhart, a senior researcher at the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
[SunTime]

A Twitterer teaches us the value of time

21. February. 2010

'Time is money" is a popular saying for today's Type-A high achievers. But in fact, time is more valuable than money, says an author I first encountered on the Twitter microblogging service.

Maryland-based Tisa Silver, 31, (@ tisasilver) has written a concise but insightful book entitled The Time Value of Life. She packs much wisdom about the nature of life and work into just 90 pages, along with several mathematical formulae to back up her assertions.

The book, self-published in July 2009, nicely complements an older one many personal finance writers cite as having influenced them: Your Money or Your Life, by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin (Penguin, 1999). The central insight in that book is how money should be considered a form of life energy.

Most jobs consist of exchanging life energy for money. So, when it comes time to spending that money, we should ask ourselves if a proposed expenditure justifies the loss of life energy that money represents.

Silver goes further, reminding us money is a replaceable commodity but time is not. Hence her premise that time is more valuable. More importantly, she explains a concept that often trips people up when estimating how much money is needed for retirement: the formula of Present Value versus Future Value of Money. She defines Present Value (PV) as the amount of money you're willing to invest today or initial investment. Future value (FV)--also called Terminal Value -- is the amount of money you will have at some point in the future after making your initial investment.

If you spend today on depreciating items like luxury handbags or cars, you're failing to maximize their future value. By contrast, when you invest today on items that increase in value (usually equities) you can create value in the future. Silver concludes future value is more important because "delayed gratification is worth the sacrifice of investing today.

She then tackles the Time Value of Money and introduces variants of the concept I've not seen before, such as the book's title: The Time Value of Life. This does not refer necessarily to monetary gains, but to gains in knowledge, experience, relationships or "whatever is important enough to you to make your investment worthwhile." Note again the parallel to Robin & Dominguez's concept of life energy

In an interview, Silver says she aimed the book at teenagers, although parents often buy the book on their offspring's behalf. It was the No. 1 bestseller on time management at Amazon.comin September. "The message I'm getting from older people is they really love the book because they're old enough to appreciate the value of time as they look back on their lives." Indeed, Silver reinforces the message at the core of many personal finance books: "The earlier you start (saving and investing), the lighter the burden later in life." Or, as she writes in the chapter on Present Value: "You don't have to invest right now, but the sooner you invest, the better. By investing early, you can invest less now to reach the same goal later."

The book was conceived after Silver taught finance to junior business majors at the University of Delaware. (She later left to become a freelance financial writer). "Most of the course was based on the time value of money. I kept finding different ways to explain why it's so important, mostly examples from daily life with things they're dealing with already." She also has a sequel she's begun working on. "It's another time value idea."

Most of the numerical examples in the book are variants of a basic TVM equation: FV = PV (1 + r) raised to the power of t, or time. "R" is the rate of return expressed as a percentage.

A chapter on Rate of Return shows how returns are directly proportional to risk: Higher risks usually mean higher returns and vice versa. This relates directly to the widely publicized investment scams we've seen the past two years on both sides of the border. Here Silver is again insightful: "If an opportunity offers a large reward and requires little or no investment, something is wrong."

Her chapter on Time moves from "fast and safe" investments like certificates of deposit (the U.S. equivalent of GICs) to the "gradual and risky" world of entrepreneurship.

In the afterword, Silver concludes that "in an instance when the choice is between time and money, I hope you will give time a chance. Stop spending time and start investing it."
[Canada.com]

Microsoft steps up search assault on Google

21. February. 2010

SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp's assault on search engine leader Google Inc took a major step forward on Thursday as U.S. and European regulators cleared the software company's search partnership with Yahoo Inc.

The 10-year deal, struck last July, is the biggest effort yet by Microsoft to establish an online business to rival Google, an area where Microsoft has lost $5 billion over the last four years.

"Microsoft really has room to throw money at this," said Kim Caughey, senior analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group. "I think it can work. If they can make inroads in specific target areas, they could have something positive to report."

Microsoft has already made some progress with its search engine, Bing, picking up 3.3 points of market share since its launch last June. But Bing is not likely to "push Google off a very big pedestal any time soon," said Caughey.

The battle for online search ads is only one front on a sprawling war for revenue between Microsoft and Google, which also encompasses operating systems and mobile phones. But neither has yet managed to compete on equal terms in each other's core market.

"In terms of our modeling, we really don't see any impact from Microsoft-Yahoo on our Google numbers," said Clayton Moran, an analyst at The Benchmark Co.

"It doesn't change much in terms of the competitive dynamics of the industry right away," he warned. "From a Google perspective, looking out over the next couple of years, it's a nonevent."

The deal, cleared unconditionally by the Department of Justice and the European Commission on Thursday, is not expected to impact Microsoft's bottom line, but could lay the foundation of a profitable online business.

"Really now, the goal is about share gain. If we grow share, we will grow our way into profitability, and we have confidence we can do that," said Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi, who is charged with making Bing and the MSN portal a financial success, in an interview with Reuters earlier this month.

Microsoft shares rose 1.2 percent and Yahoo's rose 0.7 percent on Nasdaq, in a broadly higher tech market.

The Justice Department's Antitrust Division said the deal was unlikely to substantially lessen competition.

U.S. market participants had expressed support for the partnership as a way to create a more viable alternative to Google, the division said in a statement issued late Thursday.

Google, which did not oppose the partnership, did not comment specifically on the regulatory approval but said that there has always been "robust" competition in the search ad business. Its shares rose 1.1 percent.

HOW IT WORKS

The deal means Bing becomes the search engine for Microsoft and Yahoo sites, while Yahoo focuses on attracting big advertisers.

Microsoft will handle the automated auction of search ads for use on both companies' sites, and pay Yahoo a portion of search ad sales generated on Yahoo pages.

Microsoft is hoping that by making itself a single conduit for advertisers to access customers on both sites, it will become a credible alternative to Google.

Last month Yahoo handled 17 percent of U.S. Internet searches, while Microsoft took 11.3 percent, according to comScore. Theoretically, that would now give Microsoft over 28 percent of search traffic, against Google's 65.4 percent.

"At 30 points we are now a credible option, so that number matters," said Mehdi earlier this month.

Globally, Google is even more dominant, with 90 percent of the search market compared with 7.4 percent for a combined Yahoo and Bing, according to November data from Web research firm StatCounter.

FULLY COMPLETE EARLY 2012

The Microsoft-Yahoo deal was broadly expected to gain approval, but some had thought the companies might have to alter the deal's terms.

The partnership took months to hammer out last year. It followed Microsoft's aborted $47.5 billion Yahoo takeover attempt the year before. Google abandoned its own advertising deal with Yahoo in 2008, which Microsoft opposed, under pressure from the U.S. Justice Department.

Approval means Microsoft can begin the task of putting its Bing search engine into Yahoo sites. Neither company has laid out exactly how Yahoo's new search pages will look, but they will essentially be Bing searches with some customization of results by Yahoo.

The companies aim to get the partnership fully operational in the United States by the end of this year, with the transition of advertisers taking place before the holiday shopping season, if possible. The partnership should be globally complete by early 2012.

The deal had already been cleared by regulators in Australia, Brazil and Canada, but needed U.S. and European approval to take effect. The companies said they are still working with regulators in Korea, Taiwan and Japan.
[Reuters]

The Internet will make you smarter

21. February. 2010

LOS ANGELES - An online survey of 895 Web users and experts found more than three-quarters believe the Internet will make people smarter in the next 10 years, according to results released on Friday.
Most of the respondents also said the Internet would improve reading and writing by 2020, according to the study, conducted by the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon University in North Carolina and the Pew Internet and American Life project.

"Three out of four experts said our use of the Internet enhances and augments human intelligence, and two-thirds said use of the Internet has improved reading, writing and the rendering of knowledge," said study co-author Janna Anderson, director of the Imagining the Internet Center.

But 21 percent said the Internet would have the opposite effect and could even lower the IQs of some who use it a lot.

"There are still many people ... who are critics of the impact of Google, Wikipedia and other online tools," she said.

The Web-based survey gathered opinions from scientists, business leaders, consultants, writers and technology developers, along with Internet users screened by the authors. Of the 895 people surveyed, 371 were considered "experts."
[Reuters]

It was prompted in part by an August 2008 cover story in the Atlantic Monthly by technology writer Nicholas Carr headlined: "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

Carr suggested in the article that heavy use of the Web was chipping away at users' capacity for concentration and deep thinking. Carr, who participated in the survey, told the authors he still agreed with the piece.

"What the 'Net does is shift the emphasis of our intelligence away from what might be called a meditative or contemplative intelligence and more toward what might be called a utilitarian intelligence," Carr said in a release accompanying the study. "The price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking."

But Craigslist founder Craig Newmark said, "People are already using Google as an adjunct to their own memory.

"For example, I have a hunch about something, need facts to support and Google comes through for me," he said in the release.

The survey also found that 42 percent of experts believed that anonymous online activity would be "sharply curtailed" by 2020, thanks to tighter security and identification systems, while 55 percent thought it would still be relatively easy to browse the Internet anonymously in 10 years.

HP raises 2010 outlook as results beat Street view

18. February. 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Hewlett-Packard Co posted better-than-expected results on strong server and personal computer sales and a resurgence in its printing business, and the company raised its full-year outlook.

Analysts say HP is well-positioned to benefit from an expected surge in enterprise technology spending in 2010, as businesses replace aging equipment. The company said the so-called refresh cycle is underway, with more strength anticipated in the back half of the year.

Its profitable printing business rebounded from a slump during the recession, with sales rising 4 percent in the fiscal first quarter, and higher-margin supplies revenue growing 1 percent. Sales of laser printers, however, were hurt by supply constraints.

HP's server business benefited from higher average prices. Revenue from industry standard servers surged 27 percent.

HP, which under Chief Executive Mark Hurd has pursued multibillion-dollar acquisitions to move into higher-margin business such as IT services, has met or beaten Wall Street earnings expectations every quarter for more than two years.

For 2010, it forecast earnings, excluding items, of $4.37 to $4.44 a share on revenue of $121.5 billion to $122.5 billion, up from its previous estimate of $4.25 to $4.35 a share on $118 billion to $119 billion.

Collins Stewart analyst Louis Miscioscia said the hardware business outperformed his expectations.

"IT (information technology) is starting to come back. We're seeing it right now in the numbers here. I think 2010 is going to be a good year for tech," he said.

In a sign of improving corporate demand, data storage equipment manufacturer NetApp Inc also issued forecasts on Wednesday that were ahead of expectations.

HP generates more than three-fifths of its revenue internationally, and the company said sales from fast-growing emerging countries Brazil, Russia, India and China leapt 41 percent from a year earlier. But Europe remained be weak, with sales up a mere 1 percent.

"Domestically, you have some of the macro headwinds subsiding. Europe is still a wild card, but the strength in emerging markets more than offsets any weakness," said Northeast Securities analyst Ashok Kumar.

HP, the world's top PC vendor, saw revenue in that segment rise 20 percent. Chief Financial Officer Cathie Lesjak noted that PC revenue in China alone nearly doubled in the quarter.

"We executed very well, especially in the hardware business," Lesjak said in an interview.

POISED FOR THE REBOUND?

Shares of the world's largest technology company by sales climbed 1 percent in after-hours trading on Wednesday.

HP's gross margin for the quarter came in at 22.8 percent, down from last year and below analysts' forecasts, due to strength in lower-margin PC and printer hardware.

HP reported net income of $2.3 billion, or 96 cents a share, in its fiscal first quarter ended January 31, up from $1.9 billion, or 75 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

Excluding items, it earned $1.10 a share, beating the average Wall Street estimate of $1.06 a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Net revenue rose 8 percent to $31.2 billion, versus the average analyst forecast of $30 billion.

HP ranks No. 1 or 2 in a diverse array of technology segments, including PCs, services, printers and servers, following several high-profile buys spearheaded by Hurd including 3Com in 2009 and a $13 billion deal for Electronic Data Systems in 2008.

Hurd, who succeeded Carly Fiorina in 2005 and has earned a reputation on Wall Street as an aggressive cost-cutter, has kept the company focused on integrating its purchases and weaning away expenses.

Personal computers make up roughly a third of HP's sales, with services accounting for another 30 percent. The printing segment comprises about a fifth of HP's revenue, but provided around 30 percent of its operating profit last year.

HP shares are up around 45 percent from a year ago, versus a roughly 40 percent rise for arch-rival International Business Machines Corp.
[Reuters]

Twitter dating for tech-savvy singles

17. February. 2010

TORONTO - For tech-savvy singles who are unlucky in love, shy or just looking for a new way to meet people, Flitter could be the answer.

Hundreds of singles attended the first Flitter parties across Canada last week in the latest dating game which is a play on words of the microblogging site Twitter and flirting.

Each guest wore a white sticker with a number and gazed closely at their iPhones and Blackberrys in a dimly lit room in Toronto, their thumbs tapping away at their mobile devices on Twitter.

They were Flittering and trying to catch the attention of other tweeters who were flying solo on the eve of Valentine's Day.

"#129, you're so fine, but #152, you're hot too. Man oh man, what will #72 do?" tweeted one guest as the comment showed up on a giant projector screen set up inside the venue.

Will Lam, a 27-year old banking professional and Twitter fanatic, attended the event because he was interested in seeing how Flitter worked.

"I was just wondering how they would leverage Twitter and facilitate interaction between people," said Lam, who found the tweeting to be awkward and distracting in his attempts to strike up conversations with women.

"I actually tweeted #19 was really cute, but I can't even find her anymore," he said.

But Halley Trusler, a 23-year old event co-ordinator who recently moved to Toronto, found Flittering to be a great way to meet people.

"It allows people who are a little more shy to put themselves out there," she said.

Trusler received plenty of tweets offering to buy her drinks and revealed she may have someone in mind by the end of the night.

The tweeter can choose to sign off with his, or her, assigned number or send an anonymous message or compliment. The recipient can respond and meet the tweeter if interested, or just read the anonymous compliment and move on.

All senders must end the tweet with the word "Flitterme."

Justin Parfitt, founder and CEO of Fastlife, the Canadian-based dating service provider, originated Flitter singles events in Australia and introduced them to North America.

He thought there must be some way of getting people to interact using work devices, such as their Blackberrys or iPhones, to make people feel social as oppose to anti-social.

The Flitter parties, which were also held in Vancouver, Ottawa and Montreal, were advertised on the Internet.
[Reuters]

Skype strikes first major mobile deal

17. February. 2010

BARCELONA - Internet telephony firm Skype made its first major leap into cellphones on Tuesday, striking a deal with the largest U.S. mobile carrier Verizon Wireless.

Skype's free calls on computers have become an Internet phenomenon since the company was founded in 2002, and it has some 520 million registered users around the globe.

So far it has found little traction on wireless -- with only British operator 3 embracing it -- as most telecoms operators have seen it as a risk to their core business of voice calls.

"Verizon and Skype getting together is like Tom and Jerry making peace," said one senior telecoms industry executive, who wished not to be named.

While operators such as AT&T Inc tolerate customers using Skype applications on cellphones, Verizon is the first U.S. operator to actively push the service, which will work on phones such as Research In Motion's BlackBerry.

"This is a breakthrough," Skype Chief Executive Josh Silverman told Reuters in an interview.

"We sense a real shift in operators thinking. Some operators attitude is rapidly changing," Silverman said.

Verizon said it was looking to win new consumers with the deal.

"There are 200 million Americans that are not on our service, that drives us crazy. We think by providing this rich application we will attract a whole new group of users," John Stratton, Verizon's Chief Marketing Officer told Reuters.

"When we put out the press notification (on the press conference) on Friday we got all sorts of blog comments like 'when pigs fly', 'when hell freezes over'.

Verizon customers with data service plans will be able to use the Internet telephony service on nine different smartphone models starting next month, Verizon and Skype said at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Tuesday.

The companies said they had created a Skype mobile offering for 3G smart phones allowing users to make unlimited Skype-to-Skype calls on the U.S. carrier's network as well as international calls on Skype calling rates.

"This is one way to make customers more "sticky" to Verizon - reduce churn," said Steven Nathasingh, chief executive of research firm Vaxa Inc.

He said his firm would consider switching from AT&T to Verizon due to the Skype move.
[Reuters]

Samsung, Sony Ericsson roll out new smartphones

15. February. 2010

BARCELONA - Samsung Electronics and Sony Ericsson unveiled their new top smartphone models on Sunday, both hoping to improve their positions in the more lucrative part of the phone market.

Samsung, the world No 2 handset maker, unveiled its flagship smartphone model Wave -- using a new touch screen technology and the first phone to use its bada operating system.

"Samsung's commitment to Bada is underlined by the fact that it is using it to power its flagship product for the show but it's going to be an uphill struggle to get the developer community on board," said Ben Wood, research director at CCS Insight.

Earlier this month Samsung unveiled a plan to treble smartphone shipments in 2010 and promote its own bada software platform.

Analysts, however, have been doubtful of Samsung's efforts to belatedly build a new open platform. With limited volume, phones using bada will have difficulty attracting application developers or operator support.

"I think the ecosystem is just not ready yet," said analyst Carolina Milanesi from research firm Gartner.

Samsung said it plans to launch five to seven phone models using bada software in 2010.

GROWING MARKET

Samsung and Sony Ericsson have seen consumers seeking Web and other PC-like functions increasingly turning away from their feature phones to computer-like smartphones from top vendors Nokia , Apple and Research In Motion.

JK Shin, the head of Samsung's mobile operations, told Reuters in an interview that with the help of bada - which can be used also in cheaper models -- the company would benefit from surging demand for new smartphones in emerging markets.

"I believe that the smartphone market will grow more than 20 percent every year for a three-year time frame, and the growth rate in emerging markets is much higher than that of advanced countries," he said in an interview.

JK Shin said the company could make phones for Google's Nexus lineup in the future, but Sony Ericsson Chief Executive Bert Nordberg said the company had turned down an offer to make phones for Google.

"(We) will only sell phones under our own brand," Nordberg said.

SONY ERICSSON: HOPE FROM NEW MODELS

The world's fourth-largest phone maker Sony Ericsson, which has reported seven straight quarterly losses, unveiled three smartphone models, using Google's Android operating system in two of them, and Nokia's Symbian in one.

"Some of the obituaries that have been written on Sony Ericsson may be a little premature. There is no doubt the company still has challenges but these new products are a first step to help fuel a recovery," CCS's Wood said.

Sony Ericsson new mini smartphones remind consumers from last small models of Ericsson itself about a decade ago.

"I think the products are competitive and certainly encouraging. The user interface is pretty good and will help them over LG Electronics," said Gartner's Milanesi.

Sony Ericsson said it aims to return to profit as soon as possible. Analysts have said parent companies could be forced to put more money into the venture already during the first half.

"We firmly support Bert (Nordberg) and his leadership team," Sony's chief Howard Stringer told a news conference.
[Reuters]

Sweden beats U.S. to top tech usage ranking

11. February. 2010

Sweden took the number one spot from the United States to top the annual rankings on the usage of telecommunications technologies such as networks, cellphones and computers, a report released on Thursday shows.

The Connectivity Scorecard, created by London Business School professor Leonard Waverman in 2008, measured 50 countries on dozens of indicators, including technological skills and usage of communications technology.

"Sweden not only has the best current mix of attributes, but it also shows few signs of losing its lead," said Waverman.

"By contrast, there is the beginning of a gap in what was once the essence of U.S. leadership in most industrial and service sectors - education and skills."

Sweden was second in the last survey behind the United States. Norway placed third, up from fifth spot last year.

Researchers say the new indicator -- commissioned by telecom gear maker Nokia Siemens Networks -- is already used by several countries in developing innovation strategies.

"Economic recovery and government stimulus packages aimed at boosting broadband deployment and ICT development should provide room for optimism in the coming years," Waverman said.

Countries in eastern and southern Europe -- including Italy, Spain, Greece and Poland -- took the last spots on the list of 25 developed countries.

Malaysia, helped by good co-operation between the public and private sectors, continued to top the list for developing countries, while South Africa rose to second spot, helped by strong corporate spending on IT hardware, software and services.

Following are the ratings for top 10 "innovation driven economies" measured in the study, scale 1-10, with last year ranking in the brackets:

1 Sweden 7.95

2 United States 7.77

3 Norway 7.74

4 Denmark 7.54

5 Netherlands 7.52

6 Finland 7.26

7 Australia 7.04

8 United Kingdom 7.03

9 Canada 7.02

10 Japan 6.73

Following are indexes for top 10 "efficiency and resource driven economies," scale 1-10, but not comparable with indexes for innovation-driven economies, with last year ranking in the brackets:

1 Malaysia 7.14

2 South Africa 6.18

3 Chile 6.06

4 Argentina 5.90

5 Russia 5.82

6 Brazil 5.32

7 Turkey 5.09

8 Mexico 5.00

9 Colombia 4.76

10 Ukraine 4.67
[Reuters]

Billionaires make more from ideas than bubbles

10. February. 2010
ArabianBusiness (by: William Pesek)

All the buzz about losers if Google Inc leaves China ignores a potential winner: India.

In any China-versus-India contest, 2009 belonged to China. Its 10.7 percent growth in the fourth quarter blew the doors off the 6.5 percent India may have experienced. It was the toast of the town in Davos, Switzerland, last week at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

China's "old economy" is clearly booming, and investors haven't made a lot of money betting against it. Why, then, would China's leaders imperil their future prospects as 2010 gets under way? That's what they may do by letting Google, the Information Age's biggest name, walk away.
 
"I would look going forward for new investment increasingly to go somewhere else - probably India, Brazil and other big markets," William Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council in Washington, said last month.

Google's announcement last month that it is considering leaving China amid misgivings about censoring the internet won't change everything on its own. China's top-down economy is thriving, while India's is bureaucratic, inefficient and notoriously corrupt.

Yet India has a track record of innovation and a stable of internationally competitive companies that China doesn't. India also has far superior laws on intellectual property and corporate governance. And China's willingness to blow off Google plays to India's relative advantage in these areas.

China should be concerned about the most influential internet tool bypassing its $4.3 trillion economy and 1.3 billion people - and the specter of other Silicon Valley giants following suit. Executives at multinational companies who dragged their feet on diversifying investments away from China may now expedite the process.

At issue is the next phase of China's development. Too much attention is on ideas of the last century: keeping labour cheap, holding down the currency, picking and subsidising national champions and favouring exports for growth. China's spat with Google underlines how the Communist Party relies on the strategies of yesterday, not tomorrow. It's really a proxy for how the past and future are colliding.

Who knows, perhaps China's mix of free-market policies and limits on free speech is a viable new model. It's possible that China can thrive while censoring cyberspace and the media. Perhaps China will prove that it can leapfrog over years of domestic company building - as with Lenovo Group Ltd's purchase of International Business Machines Corp's personal computer business. China does, after all, have $2.4 trillion of currency reserves to deploy around the globe.

The odds don't favour it, though. Letting Google leave may dull the long-term benefits of the trillions of yuan that China is throwing at the economy. It limits the participation of entrepreneurs in an age where ideas and impulses mean more than sweat on factory floors. It also makes it less likely that massive stimulus efforts lead to the kind of self-sustaining, indigenous economy that China needs.

The question is where China wants to be in five or ten years. The world is now driven by knowledge flows, making it vital to stay attuned to the latest developments in any field. Only then can innovators ride the latest waves in international business and finance and create the hundreds of millions of jobs needed to raise living standards.

Here, my thoughts are with India's billionaires. They must be rubbing their hands together in glee as China's leaders make an expensive miscalculation. According to a 2008 Forbes magazine poll, India may have the most billionaires by 2017.

China's ultra-wealthy are growing in numbers. It's better, though, for one's billions to come from new ideas than from bubbles in the Chinese stock market, which rose 80 percent last year. What China lacks is a growing roster of homegrown knowledge-based and technology outfits creating jobs, pushing the country up the value chain and inspiring young people to become the next Bill Gates.

Nandan Nilekani, the co-founder of Bangalore-based Infosys Technologies Ltd, is often called India's answer to Microsoft Corp's co-founder. When asked about the secret of India's success in technology, Nilekani points to a free press and a rabid embrace of information flows. In other words, if India censored cyberspace, companies such as Infosys or Wipro Ltd wouldn't be what they are today.

India's challenges are overwhelming. It scores low on global efficiency scales, infrastructure is dodgy and bottlenecks to investment are many. India lags far behind China in reducing poverty. That's where billionaires such as Nilekani re-enter our story.

Millions of rural poor people claim that corrupt officials steal their paltry wages, withdrawing money from post-office accounts without providing proof of identity. India turned to Infosys to devise a fraud-proof deterrent.

A year from now, Nilekani will roll out the world's biggest biometric database to enable India's 1.2 billion people, half of whom lack access to financial services, to open an ICICI Bank Ltd account or sign up for a Vodafone Group Plc mobile phone.

It's not the Three Gorges Dam or the Shanghai skyline, yet India's technology billionaires are helping the government devise new strategies and spread the benefits of growth. China, for all its advantages, could use more of that dynamic. Waving goodbye to Google won't help.

Google Gmail tweak challenges Facebook, Twitter

10. February. 2010
Reuters

Google Inc is tapping its huge network of Gmail users and Web surfers to create a Buzz that it hopes will help it catch up with online social networking leaders Facebook and Twitter.

The world's No. 1 search engine on Tuesday launched Google Buzz, which allows users to quickly share messages, Web links and photos with friends and colleagues directly within Gmail, the company's popular email product.

Also, a new arsenal of products make the new social networking features compatible with mobile devices such as smartphones based on Google's Android operating system.

Google's new technology mimics some of the key features of popular social networking services like Twitter and Facebook, which are increasingly challenging Google for Web surfers' online time.

By integrating Buzz directly into Gmail, Google hopes to jumpstart its social networking push by leveraging the large pool of Gmail users.

"There's always been a giant social network underneath Gmail," said Google Product Manager Todd Jackson at a press event at Google's Mountain View, California headquarters on Tuesday.

Gmail is the third most popular Web-based email in the world, with 176.5 million unique visitors in December, according to comScore. Microsoft Corp's Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo Inc's Mail were No. 1 and No. 2, with 369.2 million and 303.7 million unique visitors, respectively.

Google will roll out Buzz to Gmail users over the next few days, it said.

Status messages that users publish on Buzz and flag as viewable to everyone will be automatically indexed by Google's search engine and be available within Google's recently launched real-time search results. Google said users can also keep messages private by sharing only with customized groups of friends and colleagues.

Executives said users can easily share content from various Google online properties like photo-sharing service Picasa and video site YouTube.

Content from certain third-party services such as Twitter can also be shared, although users can only view Twitter messages -- or Tweets -- within Buzz and cannot publish new messages to Twitter's service.

Executives said that Buzz is not currently able to display messages that originated on Facebook, the world's No. 1 social network with 400 million active users.

"The fact that Gmail did not connect and allow broadcasts out to Twitter and Facebook could be a real challenge to them," said Forrester Research social media analyst Augie Ray. But he noted that Google's experience serving Web surfers' relevant search results could be a strength for the company in the social media segment as users are increasingly inundated with status messages.

Google has tried to ride the social networking wave before, launching the Orkut social network in 2004. But while Orkut is big in certain overseas markets like Brazil, it has failed to attract as many users as social giants like Facebook and MySpace in the United States.

In building a social network on top of an email product, Google is following in the footsteps of Yahoo, which has taken a similar approach in efforts to keep up with Facebook but has seen lackluster results according to analysts.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin said he was not deterred by other companies' experiences in melding email and social networking.

"I wouldn't discount something because it's similar in the one sense ... to something else in the past that may not be that successful," Brin said on the sideline of the event following the main presentations.

Google appears to be putting a heavy emphasis on mobile and location-based capabilities, weaving Buzz technology into the mobile versions of its flagship website and its online maps products. The company also announced a special mobile application for Buzz that will run on smartphones based on Google's Android software, Windows Mobile and the Symbian operating system.

Google shares rose $2.97 to close at $536.44 on Nasdaq.

Barnes & Noble's Nook e-reader to hit stores

8. February. 2010
Reuters

Bookseller Barnes & Noble Inc said on Monday that its Nook electronic reader would be available in most of its physical stores as of Wednesday, ahead of Valentine's Day, ending weeks of delays.

The Nook e-reader, which Barnes & Noble launched in October and competes with devices such as Amazon.com Inc's Kindle, had previously only been available for order on the retailer's website or at in-store kiosks as the No. 1 U.S. bookstore chain struggled to meet what it said in late 2009 was strong demand for the e-reader.

Barnes & Nobles, based in New York, said it was shipping Nook e-readers to the majority of its stores beginning this week, with devices on sale in stores as of February 10.

The Nook's in store debut, originally expected in December, was delayed after Barnes & Noble sold out of the device before the holidays and was unable to get production sufficiently ramped up.

IBM begins Power server upgrade to battle HP, Sun

8. February. 2010
Reuters

IBM is beginning a long-awaited upgrade to a range of servers and other hardware to make them more energy-efficient and competitive than rival products by Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems Inc.

International Business Machines Corp said on Monday its new POWER7 system, including new microprocessors, storage and middleware, will be able to process more data than its predecessor POWER6, making them useful for utilities with electrical grids or banks conducting electronic trading.

"The innovation starts at the chip level," said Ross Mauri, general manager of IBM's Power systems business. "And they can dynamically adjust their own electrical usage based on the workload."

IBM's business has increasingly shifted to software and services from hardware over the past decade. But advanced servers are still a crucial part of its sales strategy as it competes with HP, Sun, and, more recently, Cisco Systems Inc to offer a comprehensive set of technology products.

Sun is due to be bought by Oracle.

China shuts down largest hacker training website

8. February. 2010
Reuters

China has closed what it claims to be the largest hacker training website in the country and arrested three of its members, domestic media reported on Monday.

The "Black Hawk Safety Net" website taught hacking techniques and provided malicious software downloads for its 12,000 members in exchange for a fee, the Wuhan Evening News newspaper reported this weekend, citing police in Huanggang, just east of Wuhan.

Hacking from China has received international attention since Google Inc threatened to quit China last month after a serious hacking attempt originating from China, resulting in the theft of its intellectual property.

China has denied involvement in the hacking episode and said it does not condone hacking.

The website was shut in late November and three of its members arrested on suspicion of criminal activity, the newspaper reported, without saying why the news was only released now.

Wuhan happens to be home to the Communication Command Academy, which trains hackers, according to U.S. congressional testimony by cyber expert James Mulvenon in 2008.

The popularity of hacking in China, and hackers' use of multiple addresses and servers, in Taiwan and elsewhere, makes it hard to prove how or by whom they are coordinated.

Would-be hackers in China do not have to look far to figure out how to do it, thanks to a healthy hacking industry and sites such as Black Hawk Safety Net (www.3800hk.com), which was unavailable on Monday.

Facebook removes Microsoft banner ads from site

7. February. 2010
Reuters

Facebook is taking full control of display ads on the world's No. 1 social networking website, cutting short an exclusive deal that had allowed Microsoft Corp to manage part of that business.

However, Microsoft -- the exclusive provider of Web search on Facebook -- will continue to sell text-based search ads on the website as the partners extended the arrangement beyond 2011, when it had been due to expire. A Facebook spokesman declined to say how long the deal has been extended.

Microsoft also said it will further integrate its Bing search engine into Facebook while expanding its reach beyond the United States.

Facebook, which counts nearly 400 million users, said its own display ads feature interactive aspects and can target viewers based on their personal information, making them better suited to its social networking service than Microsoft's standard Web banner ads.

"Ad formats that feature social actions perform better and provide a better user experience since they are more consistent with the look and feel of Facebook," the company said in a statement. "This combination of targeting and social relevance is the primary driver behind the shift in strategy."

Facebook said it stopped displaying Microsoft banner ads in some international markets recently, and following additional talks with Microsoft, has agreed to stop running the banner ads across all of Facebook. The change will take place over the next 30 days.

Facebook has long sold its own display ads on users' profile pages and other parts of the site, but the company allowed Microsoft to sell banner ads in certain sections of its website in 2006. The deal, which was extended in 2007, was supposed to run until 2011.

A Facebook spokesperson would not provide details on whether the advertising deal with Microsoft entailed any revenue sharing agreement, or whether Facebook would pay Microsoft a fee for altering the deal early.

The news comes as Facebook has increased its focus on its financial performance. In September, Facebook said it had become free cash flow positive -- meaning that the company makes enough money to cover the costs associated with running the service -- ahead of schedule.

Microsoft said on its corporate blog on Friday that Web searches within Facebook will bring up information from Bing beyond just links to websites. Microsoft's search technology will be available on Facebook worldwide, instead of just the United States, it added.

Facebook, which lets users connect and share information with friends online, has emerged as one of the Internet's most popular destinations and is increasingly challenging the Web's established powerhouses like Yahoo Inc and Google Inc.

Microsoft invested $240 million in Facebook for a 1.6 percent stake in the company in October 2007.

On Thursday, Facebook said it expected to reach 400 million active users of its site within the week, representing a gain of 50 million new users since December. The company also announced a new design to its homepage.

Microsoft shares finished Friday's regular trading session up 18 cents at $28.02.