Michael Singer

A federal judge Friday ruled that the U.S. Department of Defense and several IT companies must let lawyers for Oracle view their trade secrets, but only under certain conditions. During a pretrial hearing at the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Judge Vaughn Walker said that Oracle’s two in-house lawyers should not be “handicapped” in […]

Technology trade group PCMCIA launched new initiative Friday to rapidly expand its ExpressCard hardware standard. The San Jose, Calif.-based non-profit launched a new compliance program for the high-performance I/O module standard and demonstrated a handful of prototypes at this week’s CeBIT show in Germany. The modules are being designed to let consumers install flash memory, […]

AMD launched new chips this week to capture the attention of both the home and mobile office user. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based semiconductor maker Thursday introduced its Athlon 64 FX-53 processor. Designed for gamers and PC enthusiasts, the chip is initially available in limited quantities from a handful of AMD’s partners. The company said it would […]

U.S. Trade officials filed a case at the World Trade Organization Thursday asking that China drop its 17 percent value-added tax (VAT) on imported semiconductors and integrated circuits. While not a legal lawsuit, the complaint suggests that the preferential tax treatment to chips produced in China is harming the U.S. and other imports. In a […]

With Longhorn at least two years on the horizon and delays announced for Yukon and Whidbey, Microsoft is aiming to keep its more than 800,000 partners happy in the meantime with a redesign of its Partner Program. The Redmond, Wash.-based software vendor Wednesday profiled two new components, Microsoft Competencies and Partner Points, which are being […]

The U.S. Department of Defense and several IT companies supporting the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Oracle to block its purchase of PeopleSoft have asked a federal judge this week to shelter their inside trade secrets. The companies are responding to Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruling last week that Oracle’s in-house attorneys should be granted access […]

SAN FRANCISCO — Seeing a need to compete more with the open source movement, Microsoft has been broadening the horizons of its Shared Source Initiative. The Redmond, Wash.-based software vendor is wooing open source advocates as part of the Open Source Business Conference 2004 here this week. Microsoft is a gold sponsor of the OSBC, […]

SAN FRANCISCO — If enterprise has any misgivings on the marketability of open source , the major IT vendors are certainly providing testimonials to its value this week. Companies like IBM , HP and Novell , which have invested in projects such as the Apache Web server, FreeBSD, GNOME, GNU, KDE and of course Linux, […]

UPDATE: A New York-based startup is preparing to offer “open source insurance” to some of the largest corporations in the world in response to legal concerns like the one being played out by SCO Group. Open Source Risk Management, which provides consulting services as well as vendor-neutral indemnification to clients, is expected to debut an […]

Oracle’s $9.4 billion bid to purchase Pleasanton, Calif.-based PeopleSoft got another vote of no confidence this week. The Redwood Shores, Calif.-based software vendor said it received a “statement of objections” from the European Commission (EC) Friday, although it did not specify what the complaint entailed and would not comment further than to say it was […]

Hoping to cash in on China’s insatiable thirst for software, Microsoft and HP signed independent deals this week to open new enterprise development labs in Beijing. Signed within a few hours of each other, the software vendors now have memos of understanding (MOU) with China’s Ministry of Information Industry (MII) as part of the country’s […]

Oracle’s financial reserves saw an infusion of cash from an outpouring of outsourcing contracts secured in the last three months, the company said. The Redwood Shores, Calif.-based firm, which reported its fiscal third quarter financial statement Thursday, said at least seven new large-scale contracts helped contribute to its $2.5 billion in third quarter revenues and […]