Michael Hickins

Symantec  today announced a beta program that will allow small- and medium-sized business (SMB) customers to subscribe to a data back-up and recovery service for free. The Symantec Protection Network (SPN) will become generally available later this year and will allow customers to reduce their IT costs by outsourcing the hardware and maintenance of an […]

Microsoft  today unveiled Silverlight, an application that will allow developers to disseminate content across multiple platforms. In doing so, it is warning Adobe  that it won’t have the rich Internet application (RIA) space all to itself. Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering RIAs, two- and three-dimensional graphics, text, animation and video to a […]

Salesforce.com  today announced that developers can now use the Flex developer toolkit from Adobe  on its Apex platform. Apex is a programming environment that allows developers to customize applications running on AppExchange, the Salesforce.com on-demand platform. Flex, introduced by Adobe last year, is a Web programming environment the company refers to as “AJAX on steroids.” […]

Crossing the English Channel might not seem like a big deal, but it can be depending on the tools you have to make the trip. Independent software vendors (ISVs) face much the same predicament when trying to cross over from their familiar on-premise, perpetual license businesses to the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. Microsoft is launching the […]

Broadcom  accused rival wireless technology vendor Qualcomm  of engaging “in a pattern of misconduct” in a lawsuit filed yesterday in Orange County, Calif. The company is asking the court to hold some of Qualcomm’s patents unenforceable and to pay unspecified damages resulting from business Broadcom said it lost as a result of Qualcomm’s behavior. Qualcomm […]

Microsoft  raises its hackles whenever hackers or software pirates threaten to disrupt its business. However, the Redmond, Wash.-based software vendor downplayed the importance of a hack currently getting its 15 minutes of cyber-fame. The OEM Activation (OA) hack and its variant are sniffing around Windows systems, but, according to Alex Kochis, senior product manager for […]

Wireless chipmaker Qualcomm  today rejected the $20 million check that Nokia  sent last week in a bid to resolve their protracted patent dispute. Qualcomm said in a statement that the $20 million represents only “a fraction of the royalty to which Nokia [previously] agreed.” Qualcomm added that both the payment, and the terms upon which […]

Vonage , shaken by a dangerous patent lawsuit with Verizon, today booted CEO Mike Snyder over what chairman and new interim CEO Jeffrey Citron termed “disappointing” results. The Holmdel, N.J.-based VoIP  broadband voice carrier will attempt to reboot its operations, principally by slashing its marketing budget by $110 million. Vonage stock rose almost 11 percent […]

Electric utilities companies are being driven to upgrade their aging transmission networks in the face of increased competition in a formerly regulated industry, pleas for cleaner and more efficient energy distribution and increased demand from both developing economies and the digital economy at home. To help utilities providers address these issues, IBM  today introduced the […]

IBM  is rolling out two Express versions of its all-in-one System i business server. System i is used to help customers manage their IT infrastructure by running disparate operating systems, such as Windows and Linux, and applications in a single location. As with other IBM Express products, System i Express, unveiled at an event at […]

LiveOffice, a vendor of hosted e-mail security, archiving and retrieval services, is making its services easier to use and customize. The company is introducing Sentinel Portal, a tool that allows IT administrators and end users to customize its archiving, encryption and mailbox management functions through a single Web-based interface. Now is a good time given […]

UPDATED: Finnish handset maker Nokia  sent Qualcomm  a $20 million payment today, but all it got for its trouble was another complaint. The company said the check represents what it thinks it owes for using Qualcomm’s intellectual property in wideband CDMA (WCDMA) handsets for the second quarter of 2007. The two companies are embroiled in […]