Articles by Security News Desk

Google Launches New Message Security Services

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 11:30:00 EST

'Organizations of all shapes and sizes can get access to Google's industry leading security and compliance technologies,? said Scott Petry, Google's director of product management, as Google this week announced a series of security products Powered by Postini that deliver message filtering, encryption and archiving for any business environment.

Dell Finds 'Evidence of Financial Misconduct'

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 08:00:00 EDT

Dell won't be getting its 10-K out any time soon. It's gonna blow through April 3, the day the 10-K is due, and April 18, the extension date. It's gonna add the annual report for the year ended February 2 to the pile of paperwork it already owes the SEC, It says it's waiting for its Audit Committee to finish the internal investigation it started last August. The SEC is also investigating.

Carly Headhunter Charged with Drug-related Homicide

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 15:30:00 EDT

Jeff Christian, the guy who started Christian & Timbers and the headhunter who got Carly Fiorina the CEO job at HP, is going to be tried for reckless homicide and involuntary manslaughter in the drug overdose death of another executive recruiter, 31-year-old Thomas Wasil, according to a centerfold story in BusinessWeek

Intel To Copy Some More of AMD's Moves

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 15:45:00 EDT

There are times when it looks like AMD is running Intel's design department. This is definitely one of them. Intel disclosed Wednesday that it'll be following AMD down the path of squeezing its previously separate memory controller onto the processor die. Integrating the memory controller is supposed to reduce latency, and the performance boost helped AMD win market share from Intel. The change is set for Intel's 45nm, eight-core, multithreaded (like 16) Nehalem generation set to debut next year, which already represents a shift in microarchitecture. Intel claims it will be the 'the biggest leap' in design since the Pentium Pro in 1996. Among other things it's supposed to abandon the often-criticized front-side bus in favor of some kind of interconnect widgetry like AMD's prized HyperTransport.

Does That Dark Cloud Hanging Over Moto Extend to Dell?

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 17:15:00 EDT

Remember Ron Garriques, the guy that Michael Dell hired a month ago to run his new consumer unit, the guy who used to run Motorola's mobile devices business? Well, Wednesday Motorola up and reorganized, warning of unexpected Q1 losses and complaining about the unprofitable, 'unacceptable' performance of its - you guessed it - mobile device unit. Doesn't exude a lot of confidence does it?

AMD's Pyrrhic Victory

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 17:15:00 EDT

AMD may be teetering on the brink of financial disaster but if it does go down for the count it can comfort itself with the knowledge that it made it to eight-largest semiconductor house in the world last year, up from 15th on the back of a 91.6% increase in revenues, according to market research iSuppli, a gain made at Intel's expense. On the dark side, however, Lehman Brothers thinks AMD's Dell-induced inventory build, which forced it to pre-announce its first quarter, will lap over into Q2.

Start-up Claims It's Got the World's Only Secure OS

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 23:15:00 EDT

Secure64, which as you might expect is best friends with Intel and HP - but not to the point either of them has put money in the joint - claims that it's got the first and only DNS server software that's immune to rootkits and malware and resistant to denial of service attacks. And it got that way because they built it that way from the ground up, taking advantage of certain hardware-architected security protections unique to the Itanium.

Bring Me the Head of Sam Palmisano: Cramer

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 11:15:00 EST

CNBC's inimitable Jim Cramer told his investor following last night to stay away from IBM until they heard that IBM CEO Sam Palmisano was gone. Since taking over the company five years ago, Palmisano has returned 1% to stockholders, Cramer said, 'you might as well have your money in a bank account.' Actually when Palmisano picked up the reins IBM was at $103. Now it's at $98. Cramer consigned Palmisano to his 'Wall of Shame.'

EMC To Monetize VMware

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 11:15:00 EST

EMC is going to IPO 10% of VMware this summer. It'll give VMware a recruiting and retention incentive and money that's not EMC's to grow on. It's also supposed to increase the visibility into VMware's performance and signal that the company is committed to its open platform strategy EMC will keep the other 90% and says it has no intention of spinning VMware out or otherwise divesting itself of the rest of this 'precious' asset, which it called 'one of the fast-growing businesses in the history of the software industry.'

Emergent OnLine Awarded $1.5 Million Virtualization Solution

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 17:30:00 EST

Emergent OnLine, an IT Solutions Provider and one of the most trusted IT integrators in the Washington metropolitan area, announced that it received a $1.5 Million award to modernize the desktop computing infrastructure of a US Department of Defense agency, transforming it into a virtual desktop infrastructure, leveraging the Provision Networks Dynamic Desktop Deployment platform, the VMware Virtual Infrastructure foundation, and the Microsoft SoftGrid application virtualization and streaming technologies.

Wyse Announces First Thin Computing Reference Platform for Enterprise Desktop Virtualization

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:30:00 EST

Wyse Technology, the global leader in thin computing, today announced the availability of the first in a series of Thin Computing Reference Platforms designed for major industry players looking to incorporate thin-computing technology into their product portfolios. The first Thin Computing Reference Platform from Wyse is targeted at supporting VMware's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), called The Wyse Reference Platform for Enterprise Desktop Virtualization. Wyse also announced that NEC will be the first co-development partner leveraging this new reference platform. In a related announcement, NEC is introducing the NEC US100 desktop terminal powered by Wyse Thin OS.

VMworld Confidential: DataCore iSCSI SAN Software and VMware Virtualization Make Virtual Infrastructures Practical for Everyone

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:30:00 EST

Today at VMworld, DataCore Software is showcasing the versatility of its SANmelody(TM) SAN software, which supports both Fibre Channel (FC) and iSCSI connectivity. SANmelody software, with its auto fail-over, enterprise-level iSCSI capabilities and state-of-the-art storage services, is an ideal solution for enterprises seeking to implement business continuance and disaster recovery infrastructures supporting VMware ESX environments. Customers who have not implemented a VMware Virtual Infrastructure because of the high cost of FC SANs are finding that SANmelody, which gives users the choice of iSCSI, FC or mixed networks, makes it affordable and practical to do so.

EMC Rainfinity Extends File Virtualization Leadership with New Enterprise Archiving Support for Content Addressed Storage

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:30:00 EST

EMC Corporation, the world leader in information management and storage, today announced version 7.0 of the Rainfinity(R) Global File Virtualization(TM) solution, extending EMC's market-leading capabilities in file virtualization and management to support enterprise archiving from heterogeneous file and network attached storage (NAS) systems to the EMC Centera(TM) content addressed storage (CAS) platform. The Rainfinity Global File Virtualization solution now offers customers a single platform to manage both active and inactive files throughout a file's lifecycle across heterogeneous environments.

Beam Me Up, Scotty, There's a Teraflop Monster Here!

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 09:30:00 EST

Well, if it can make it x86-compatible, get somebody to write a workable operating system for it, teach the world a new way of parallel computing-style programming, and produce it in volume, Intel is going to have itself a general-purpose 'Teraflops' chip in a few years. The company has so far managed a 'shock and awe' 80-core research prototype that it unveiled this week for all to gaze on in admiration at the Integrated Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco. The disclosure is considered an industry proof-point.

It Works!! It Works!!!

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 11:15:00 EST

Start-up semiconductor house P.A. Semi Inc. has confounded the doubters and naysayers who claimed it could never develop a freaking complicated 2GHz Power chip - with every feature currently known to man - that typically consumes just 5W-13W - or worse case 25W with both of its cores running full tilt at 2GH and all its peripherals active. Well, sounding a little surprised itself, it says it has and will be producing what it calls 'the most power-efficient high-performance processor ever designed' in volume at some secret fab by the fourth quarter. For volume read tens of thousands initially.

Intel & IBM Claim To Have Hit on a Modern Day Philosopher's Stone

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 15:45:00 EST

Intel has figured out a way to make its 45nm chips more threatening to AMD - at least this year and adding to its current momentum - while at the same time reinforcing Moore's Law, which says transistor counts double every two years. It claims it's made one of the biggest leaps in transistor technology in the last 40 years and has gained what it thinks is a year's lead over everybody else. Intel will be using two 'dramatically' new materials wrapped up in a technology called high-k to build the insulating walls and switching gates of its next-generation Core 2 Duos, Core 2 Quads and Xeons.

Dell Dumps Rollins

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 12:00:00 EST

Michael Dell has come back to clean up the mess left by CEO Kevin Rollins, whose immediate resignation was accepted late Wednesday after the market closed. Rollins is gone from the Dell board as well as its executive suite. His departure has been widely expected, despite Michael's insistent public backing of his lieutenant. Dell offered no reason why Rollins is gone now. It may be that he was given a performance deadline and failed because along with the notice of his resignation, Dell said that it expects its fiscal Q4 results to be below First Call estimates of both earnings and revenues.

Microsoft Seeks Patent on Build-It-Yourself 'Lego' Operating System

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 11:45:00 EST

Imagine a completely deconstructed operating system that the user, or service provider, glues together out of just the pieces he needs and pays for it à la carte. Okay, now imagine Microsoft - which has repeatedly told antitrust authorities the world over for years that it can't possibly pull so much as a hair out of Window for fear it will crash to smithereens around their feet - fielding one. Well, Microsoft has filed for a US patent on such a beast, leading some folks to speculate that it might be Microsoft's parry to Google's thrust into its platform space. It also might be Microsoft rejigging the whole economics of computers to get a bigger tax.

HP Accused of Spying on Dell

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 11:45:00 EST

According to ex-HP VP of business development and strategy Karl Kamb, a guy HP fired in 2005 and is suing, HP paid the former president of Dell Japan Katsumi Iizuka for Dell's printer plans - product configurations, specifications, target costs, pricing estimates, third-party manufacturers and suppliers and introduction dates. This was allegedly in 2002 before Dell started peddling its own printers and threatening HP's very profitable corner on that marketplace. It was also seven or eight years after Iizuka left Dell. Iizuka didn't take the money directly but had it handled by a third party and paid to an outfit called Dinner Inc, Kamb said.

Somebody Get Dell a Calculator

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 11:45:00 EST

The Nasdaq is willing to let Dell stock continue to trade provided the company explains a few things to the exchange about that completely opaque audit committee investigation that's been going on internally seemingly interminably by March 1 and file its delinquent financial reports with SEC by March 14. In response, Dell, which hasn't filed a quarterly report with the SEC since last spring, said it will have to beg more time to get its financial reports filed. It should be able to provide the investigation information by the deadline.

AMD Shot Down in Mid-Flight

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 11:30:00 EST

The war with Intel has left high-flying AMD shot full of holes with its precious server ASPs limping and its stock price in tatters, a situation that might maintain at least until it can get Barcelona, its highly touted quad-core, out and take some of the wind out of Intel's sails. Apparently the newfangled Clovertown quad is already winning significant business for Intel and AMD is anticipating a worse first half than second, but AMD management expects this whole year to be 'very, very challenging.'

Apple Chief Grilled

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 11:00:00 EST

Federal prosecutors and SEC lawyers interviewed Apple CEO Steve Jobs last week about Apple's backdating practices. Nobody's talking about what transpired but doubtless the ground they covered included how an options award that went to him happened to be explained away by forged board minutes and how he came to sign an SEC disclosure attesting to the phony board meeting and price.

Sun To Use Intel Chips

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 16:00:00 EST

In a move akin to the Peace of Westphalia that brought an end to that nasty little European episode known as the Thirty Years War, Sun and Intel this week formally ceased hostilities. Laying religious differences aside like the Protestants and Catholics in 1648, Sun is going to sell Intel-based Xeon workstations and servers - presumably because it can make a buck selling Intel-based workstations and servers - presumably because Intel is making better server chips right this minute than AMD and customers want them.

IBM Hit with Mega-Buck Antitrust Tying Charges

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 15:45:00 EST

Platform Solutions Inc. (PSI), the mainframe wannabe whose Itanium-based servers can run IBM's z/OS mainframe operating system as well as Windows, Unix and Linux, has sued IBM for antitrust, charging Big Blue with, among other things, tying the sale of z/OS to the sale of its mainframe hardware, a serious antitrust no-no and something IBM is specifically forbidden to do under the lingering terms of its now-dissolved 1956 consent decree with the United States government.

Good Lord, Sun Returns a Profit!

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 09:45:00 EST

On a roll after its détente with Intel, Sun Tuesday came in with respectable numbers for a change and announced that - for some illusive reason - Guernsey-based KKR Private Equity Investors LP had put $700 million in the company in the form of convertible notes. Sun, which has close to $3.5 billion at hand, said it would use the money for growth. Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz described the investment as 'an opportunistic transaction.'

HP Operative Pleads Guilty

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 08:15:00 EST

One of HP's low-level operatives, Bryan Wagner, 'a/k/a mike@yahoo.com,' apparently HP's chief pretexter, has pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy and aggravated identity theft. It could mean seven years in the calaboose and a fine of $500,000. His plea agreement is sealed. Wagner is the guy who said he destroyed his computer so California's attorney general couldn't get his hands on it. He lives in Colorado and Nebraska and worked on HP's so-called Kona investigations trying to track down press leaks from HP's boardroom at the behest of Florida-based subcontractor Action Research Group (ARG). The US Attorney charged him last week with wire fraud, illegal sharing and use of social security numbers, accessing a computer without authorization and siphoning off a Wall Street Journal reporter's phone records through an e-mail account set up for the purpose - to wit, mike@yahoo.com. Within 48 hours he caved and became the first of the HP Five to plead guilty. Wagner, 29, as well as the principals of ARG and Security Outsourcing Solutions (SOS), the Boston outfit that hired ARG, are also up on felony charges made by State of California authorities as is former HP chairman and Kona kingpin Patti Dunn and HP's former ethics officer Kevin Hunsaker. They all pleaded not guilty and are currently supposed to appear in court for a hearing on February 28. Wagner is cooperating with the authorities reportedly providing evidence. The pressure on the others has now obviously increased and there has been talk of the US Attorney charging them too. Bloomberg reported Wednesday that the others have been offered the same deal as Wagner. Then the AP - quoting Wagner's lawyer - reported Thursday that California had offered to drop the four felony charges against Dunn, Hunsaker and the two others in exchange for a guilty plea to one misdemeanor charge. Dunn and Hunsaker didn't seem amenable and it's unclear whether they would still be open to federal charges if they took the California deal. The state charges against Wagner are expected to be dropped because you can't be prosecuted in state court for an offense you admitted in federal court.

Microsoft Discovers E-Commerce

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 16:45:00 EST

With only 12 day left to go before the Great Vista Rollout to consumers on January 30 and missing no trick, Microsoft said late Wednesday that it would break with its tradition of boxed or pre-loaded software and supply the thing online. It's come up with three ways for customers to buy, upgrade or license multiple copies of Vista over the net: Windows Anytime Upgrade, Windows Marketplace and Windows Vista Family Discount.

Intel Feels the Pinch Too

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 15:30:00 EST

Cutting AMD off at the knees in Q4 left Intel limping a bit too. Sequentially Intel did great - revenues up 11%, hitting the top of its projections, income up 15%, operating income up 8% - enough for CFO Andy Bryant to characterize Intel's performance as a 'strong ending to a difficult year' - but the year-over-year comparison shows the blood spatter - revenues down 5%, earnings down 39%, and operating income down 55%. Specifically Intel earned $1.5 billion, or 26 cents a share, on revenues of $9.7 billion. After-hours trading sheared upwards of 4% off Intel's stock price, which was up 10% since the first of the year, even if Intel beat the Street coming in with 26 cents, a penny ahead of Wall Street's consensus, which only figured it would do $9.4 billion.

Dell Eats More of HP's Dust

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 12:00:00 EST

For the second time in a row HP beat out Dell in moving PCs worldwide, this time increasing its lead, according to both Gartner and IDC. Gartner reckons HP shipments in Q4 grew 24% in Q4, giving it 17.4% of the world market, and it figures Dell's sales dropped 8.7%, reducing its share to 13.9% from 16.4% year-over-year. IDC gives HP 18.1% to Dell's 14.7%. In Q3 HP had 16.3% and Dell 16.1%, according to Gartner.

Dell To Carve Up its Main Business Unit

Sun, 14 Jan 2007 14:45:00 EST

Joe Marengi, the 51-year-old general manager of Dell's commercial business group, which includes servers, storage and PC and accounts for 85% of the company's revenues, will be leaving at the end of March, retiring they say, and then Dell is going split the unit into two separate units. One, called the commercial business unit, will focus on large corporations, Dell's main stock-in-trade, and will be run by Bill Rodrigues. The other, called the public business unit, will concentrate on government, education and healthcare and will be run by David Marmonti. Dell, a company in search of solutions, has lost its edge; HP is now the hot PC company.

Intel Won't Buck Discovery Decision in AMD Antitrust Case

Sun, 14 Jan 2007 12:15:00 EST

Intel has decided not to contest the special master's decision handing AMD certain discovery rights in its US antitrust suit against Intel. The discovery relates to Intel's business dealings and sales transactions with customers in foreign countries. AMD is fishing for evidence that Intel forbid OEMs to buy from AMD and threatened retaliation if they did. The US court decided months ago that it doesn't have jurisdiction over strictly foreign business dealings and that AMD can't claim damages if it was stopped from selling German-made processors to overseas accounts, but the special master sided with AMD on discovery and said it should have the scope to prove its claim that Intel is a monopoly and foreclosed AMD's chances of selling American-made products at home and abroad and foreign-made products to domestic accounts.

Intel Releases First Mainstream Quad

Sun, 14 Jan 2007 11:45:00 EST

Intel came out at the Consumer Electronics Show with its first mainstream quad chip, a part branded a Core 2 Quad for the occasion and made immediately available. There are also two other new quads, giving Intel a total of nine versions of the widget for the desktop and enterprise markets. AMD has none yet but is expected to have a superior design when its Budapest chip arrives in a few months with the four cores integrated on a single sliver of silicon rather than two dual-cores soldered together and so have lower latency and require less power.

Backdating Watch

Sun, 14 Jan 2007 11:45:00 EST

Comverse Technology's former general counsel William Sorin is going to pay $3 million to settle a criminal SEC backdating-cum-stock manipulation suit. He will also be barred from ever again serving as a lawyer, officer or director of a public company and faces a possible five years in jail when he's sentenced in a few weeks. He is the first of the backdating lawyers - and there are a flock of them - to catch hell. The US government is still trying to extradite runaway ex-Comverse CEO Kobi Alexander from Namibia. Meanwhile, both BEA and Wind River are still trading on the Nasdaq on sufferance because they haven't filed their financial results because of backdating investigations. BEA has been told it has to file its missing 10-Qs for its July and October quarters by the end of February and Wind River either had to come up with a copy of its final report regarding its ongoing stock option investigation on January 8 or submit a written response to questions posed by Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel. Wind answered the questions. It also has to file its 2Q07 10-Q by February 7 and its 3Q07 10-Q by February 21. Otherwise, its shares could be delisted.

Feds Charge HP Operative

Sat, 13 Jan 2007 04:00:00 EST

Federal authorities have moved against one of HP's operatives, charging Bryan Wagner, 'a/k/a mike@yahoo.com,' apparently HP's chief pretexter, with conspiracy and aggravated identity theft. It could mean seven years in the calaboose and a fine of $500,000. US Attorney Kevin Ryan filed suit in district court in California on Wednesday.

Intel's Prices Hit AMD's Fourth Quarter

Sat, 13 Jan 2007 03:45:00 EST

Late Thursday, very late in fact, AMD put out a statement saying that its Q4 revenues - excluding anything it might see out of its ATI acquisition - would only be up 3% from the $1.33 billion it reported in calendar Q3, a number, roughly $1.37 billion, that is lower than expected. Wall Street was figuring on about $1.44 billion in sales, up over 8%. AMD also said that its Q4 operating income, which again it limited to chips, is 'expected to be positive but substantially lower than in the third quarter.'

NCR To Spin Off Teradata Later This Year

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:15:00 EST

NCR said Monday that it's going to spin its Teradata data warehousing business off into a publicly traded company. When exactly depends on board authorization, an IRS ruling, SEC filings and the usual IPO preparations, but it won't be for another six-nine months. During a short conference call, NCR, which came close to ruination when it was acquired by AT&T 15 years ago, said it has been teasing with the idea for 'many, many, many quarters' but was hamstrung by the fact that the unit wasn't making any money. That situation apparently brightened a year ago. NCR said Teradata earned $309 million on $1.5 billion in revenues, up 9%, in 2005.

Might "Prototype Hijacking" Subvert AJAX?

Sun, 07 Jan 2007 12:45:00 EST

Does JavaScript, which was never intended to do anything resembling what it does within the approach now called AJAX, have a fundamental design flaw? That's the question being asked by Stefano Di Paola and Giorgio Fedon.

Adobe XSS Flaw: Vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat – Versions 7.0.8 and Earlier

Sat, 06 Jan 2007 12:30:00 EST

Adobe confirmed this week that a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in versions 7.0.8 and earlier of Adobe Reader and Acrobat could allow remote attackers to inject arbitrary JavaScript into a browser session. Exploitability depends on the browser and browser version being used, but upgrading to Reader 8 and Acrobat 8 'addresses the issue immediately,' says Adobe.

db4objects Releases Rev 6.0

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 11:15:00 EST

db4objects Releases Rev 6.0 db4object has got a production-ready release of db4o 6.0 that it says is 10 times faster and 90% leaner on memory consumption than version 5. The new open source object database rev also supports a new server-side cursor technology for deterministic response times when querying multi-user client/server environments.

Symantec, McAfee Get Draft Vista APIs

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 11:15:00 EST

Microsoft Tuesday gave security vendors like Symantec and McAfee, who two months ago very publicly complained of being locked out of Vista because of Microsoft's new 'you-can't get-to-the-64-bit kernel' PatchGuard widgetry, draft APIs that are supposed to let them access the operating system enough to create products.