ePostal News articles from September 2005

ePostal News archives from September 2005

Whatever happened to IDP?(ErgoIDP)
September 5, 2005... In January the Norway Post shocked a lot of people, including the country's press, by bankrupting ErgoIDP and stranding what few posts were still using its hybrid mail widgetry without support. It was an ignominious end for an international...

Microsoft makes bid for Taiwan Post's RFID business.
September 5, 2005... Microsoft is trying to push its RFID technology, its interpretation of the soon-to-be-ubiquitous radio frequency identification device, into the post office market. Reports out of Taiwan found the software giant hawking the stuff at a...

Google bypasses the browser.
September 5, 2005... Google, which is dying to stick a shiv between Microsoft's ribs and cut out its search-lusting little heart, has materialized a sharp-edged second Windows-only desktop beta, this one with a free browser-bypassing Sidebar panel that personalizes...

Wintel team to peel the couch potatoes' wallet.
September 5, 2005... Intel doesn't appear to want to give its new microarchitecture a name but it has come up with a brand for its upcoming digital entertainment platform, which we are to understand as the first platform designed from the ground up for the digital...

Intel and the 'touchy-feely machine'.
September 5, 2005... At IDF last week Intel trotted out senior fellow Justin Rattner, director of its Corporate Technology Group, to say that the company has embarked on long-term research to make electronic products "user-aware" so that gismos "intuitively respond...

Gartner pushes PC projections up.
September 5, 2005... Despite anticipating flat revenues--a cue it might have gotten from Dell--Gartner's raised its forecast for worldwide PC unit shipments for this year and next, which is happy news for Microsoft and the chip people. Last month, Gartner...

BEA buys Plumtree for $200m.
September 5, 2005... BEA, everybody's favorite acquisition target, which Credit Suisse figured might turn acquisitive itself before it gets gobbled up, is going to buy Plumtree Software for $200 million in cash (actually $115 million net) on the theory that the...

Intel turns page on Gigahertz.
September 5, 2005... Intel says that its new performance-per-watts mantra is going to conjure up a new category of ultra energy-efficient "Handtop PC" devices that provide a converged communication and PC-like experience but require less than a watt of processing...

IBM intros dual-core Intel workstation.
September 5, 2005... IBM has brought out its first Intel dual-core workstation, the IntelliStation M Pro 6218, using the 64-bit Pentium D chip. IBM has integrated its workstation and x86 server teams so the box was built from the ground up by its server people...

IBM adds third X3-based four-way.
September 5, 2005... IBM is extending its mainframe-borrowing X3 Architecture-based server family with the xSeries 260, a high-performance four-way server designed for remote office locations or storage-intensive applications. The x260 is IBM's third server...

And the envelop please.
September 5, 2005... New share numbers are out. Gartner gives IBM first place in worldwide server revenue for the ninth consecutive quarter, with dramatic growth in Unix and blade server revenue. Apparently IBM increased its share in Unix revenue 5.5 points...

Sun wants to create a DRM version of the Liberty Alliance.
September 5, 2005... Sun, which is not exactly what you'd call a straight-arrow open source loyalist, is proposing that the open source community develop a royalty-free digital rights management (DRM) standard under a project it's calling the Open Media Commons...

Virtual Microsoft.
September 5, 2005... With all the attention virtualization is getting, Microsoft is apparently going to release something called Virtual Server 2005 R2 in Q4 instead of a service pack. The thing is in beta and should improve performance and availability. ...

Novell just breaks even, contemplates further cost cutting.
September 5, 2005... Novell came in with worse-than-expected results for its third fiscal quarter ended July 31. It reported revenues of $290 million, down roughly 5% year-over-year, and broke even just $2 million to the good because of $9 million in...

The Open Source insurance issue.
September 5, 2005... It's unclear whether Open Source Risk Management (OSRM), the wannabe insurance start-up, has ever sold one of those open source indemnification policies that it announced a year ago March. Heck, it's unclear whether OSRM, despite its...

Open Source grid start-up closes $8m a round.
September 5, 2005... Univa Corporation, the Chicago company started last year by the folks behind the Globus open source toolkit for building grids, has gotten an $8 million first round led by ARCH Venture Partners and New World Ventures. Appian Ventures and OCA...

Novell fields ZENworks 7.
September 5, 2005... Novell has put out a ZENworks 7 Suite, calling it the first systems management solution to automate the complete lifecycle of Linux systems and manage Windows workstations from a Linux platform. It could automate a migration to a Linux...

Mandriva takes a hit.(Revenue reports)(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... Mandriva, the new Mandrake-Conectiva combine, posted its fiscal Q3 results, the first set of numbers to include Conectiva. Together the pair lost 660,000 euros on consolidated revenues of 1.38 million euros. Mandriva blamed the loss on...

Last one in the pool is a rotten egg.(Linux companies from other Asian countries to become Asianux partners to strengthen its influence)(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... The next shoe to drop is Asianux 2.0. That's the Linus distro that Japan-based Oracle offshoot Miracle Linux Corporation, China's Red Flag Software and South Korea's Haansoft Inc have been converging on for the last year. They figure to...

Novell takes direct control of its Indian distribution.
September 5, 2005... Novell is going to buy out of its 50-50 Indian joint venture partner Onward Network. The pair has a 13-year-old sales and distribution operation called Onward Novell Software that Novell intends to integrate into its R&D center in...

Isn't that just too too precious.(Google is proposing to offer in the whopping secondary offering)(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... Not only are the number of shares that Google is proposing to offer in the whopping secondary offering that has everybody speculating about what it's going to buy the first eight digits after the decimal point in the value of pi or 14159265 but...

PC Blades hit Three9s.(Personal Computer)(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... ClearCube Technology, the PC Blade house, has come out with Switch Manager 4.5, which will let administrators remotely and seamlessly move PC Blade users to spare blades in the event of systems problems. It's supposed to virtually eliminate...

Goodness, how kinky!!
September 5, 2005... Dell's shares are down 16% since the end of last year, HP's are up 27%. Just how sexy is Mark Hurd?

Another Microsoft coming-out party.
September 5, 2005... Microsoft has scheduled the Professional Developers Conference, an Office 12/Vista fest, for September 11-16 in Los Angeles. Microsoft is supposed to come armed with a release candidate of Visual Studio 2005 and one of those so-called community...

Intuit redux.
September 5, 2005... Remember Intuit? Remember how the Justice Department aided and abetted by Microsoft's enemies stopped Microsoft from acquiring Intuit in 1995? Well, on September 7 BusinessWeek is expecting Microsoft to open a front attack on Intuit's...

Google lawyers up.
September 5, 2005... Google has gone out and hired Kekar & Van Nest to help represent it in the suit that Microsoft filed to get ex-Microsoft VP Kai-Fu Lee to abide by his non-compete and delay for at least a year his going to work for Google, which hired him to...

Carly takes pen in hand.(Carly Fiorina)(Brief Article)
September 5, 2005... Ousted HP CEO Carly Fiorina is going to write a book. It remains to be seen whether she has anything to say or whether she'll tell the behind-the-scenes story people want to hear. The book notion was reportedly popular enough that publishers...

Mail still down in devastated south.
September 12, 2005... At press time, mail and parcel delivery to the Katrina-ravaged American Southland continued to be operating in crisis mode. It remains impossible for the Unites States Postal Service, Fedex, UPS, DHL and other carriers to function in the...

Korea post scrapping Windows for Linux.
September 12, 2005... Korea Post has announced that it has begun ripping out Windows out of its desktop and replacing it with Linux, according to Korean press reports. The agency reportedly started with the 4,748 PCs used by the public at 2,800 of its branches. ...

Deutsche post goes after Exel.(Deutsche Post AG)(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... Moving to reduce its dependence on the German domestic market, Deutsche Post, privatized but still partially owned by the German government and aggressive, is expanding overseas and has approached Exel, the British contract logistics group that...

Siemens gets whopping USPS PARS extension contract.
September 12, 2005... The United States Postal Service has awarded Siemens Logistics and Assembly Systems' Postal Automation Division a giant $560 million contract to provide additional software, equipment and services to expand its Postal Automated Redirection...

Pitney buys Firstlogic.
September 12, 2005... Pitney Bowes, which already owns 10% of Firstlogic Inc, is buying the rest of the 20-year-old privately held company for roughly $50.3 million, excluding the cash and debt on its balance sheet. Firstlogic had revenues of $55 million in 2004....

RFID watch.
September 12, 2005... Those intelligent mailboxes that the Saudi Post has begun installing in support of its new $270 million nationwide subscription-based home delivery service called Wasel are reportedly outfitted with RFID chips, making the country the site of...

Koizumi having second thoughts?(Junichiro Koizumi)(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who put his administration on the line in the name of privatizing the post, said in a recent TV interview that the sale of the state-run post office may be delayed if he and his Liberal Democratic...

Melissa data embraces Linux & Solaris.
September 12, 2005... Twenty-year-old Melissa Data, which sells North American SMEs the wherewithal to validate the addresses in their databases, has ported its Address Object API, previously only Windows-based, to the Linux and Solaris operating systems. Accounts...

QAS now validates names as well as addresses.
September 12, 2005... QAS, the Experian subsidiary, has released a program called QuickAddress Names that validates consumer names along with addresses at the point of data entry. The company observes, practically enough, that by getting names and addresses...

HongKong post promotes e-Cert.
September 12, 2005... The Hongkong Post is trying to tickle local e-Cert use with a new five-month promotion campaign called "Use More Get More" that will tempt folks with giveaways. The agency says that from now until the end of January, smart ID e-Cert...

Elma's HelpDesk goes round-the-clock.(Elma Electronic Inc. )(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... Finland Post subsidiary Elma Electronic Trading, the Nordic B2B service provider, has opened its HelpDesk 24/7 to its e-commerce customers claiming the service is unique in Europe. It says clients will have continuous access to technical...

USPS cuts exclusive CCTV deal.
September 12, 2005... The USPS has awarded Vicon Industries Inc., a Long Island designer and producer of video surveillance systems, an exclusive two-year contract to supply the agency with CCTV systems. Contract terms include three two-year renewal options....

Sun to unveil Andy Bechtolsheim's fabled Opteron boxes.
September 12, 2005... Sun co-founder and prodigal-sheep-returned-to-the-fold Andy Bechtolsheim, inventor of the workstation that originally catapulted Sun to the front racks and first backer of Google, is about to deliver a couple of the Opteron boxes that he was...

Open source patron saint pairs with industry pariah.
September 12, 2005... At the risk of courting the uncivil wrath of the open source scolds, MySQL AB, the "M" of the storied Linux-based LAMP stack, has cut a business and market development deal with SCO, the company the open source community most wants to implode...

U.S. loses New Orleans, Microsoft loses Massachusetts.
September 12, 2005... Massachusetts has decided to dump Microsoft Office into Boston Harbor. The state--and its revolutionary mood could easily spread--is proposing to mandate that all documents created and saved by state employees be based on open formats...

Curtain rises on second act of historic AMD v Intel suit.
September 12, 2005... Intel has filed its answer to the antitrust suit that AMD lodged against it right before the Fourth of July. Young as it is, the case already has the bookmakers laying odds that it'll produce a crushing 70 million-90 million pages of...

That crunching sound is Sun chowing down on StorageTek.
September 12, 2005... The oddly matched $4.1 billion Sun-StorageTek acquisition is a fait accompli. Sun is now a $13.3 billion company with a product line that holds 36% of the world's total archived data run by a man who's been know to observe that "privacy...

Google & Microsoft dispute jurisdiction.
September 12, 2005... Google, which countersued Microsoft in California hoping to leverage a certain California antipathy for non-compete restrictions and trump Microsoft's legal enforcement moves in the state of Washington, is asking a San Jose federal court to set...

Windows Server 2003 R2 makes RC.
September 12, 2005... Microsoft is circulating a Release Candidate of Windows Server 2003 R2, which is built on Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 and adds 64-bit chip support, Active Directory Federation Services, new storage management and centralized file...

Chalk up another one for AMD.
September 12, 2005... Fujitsu Siemens Computers says it's going to add dual-core Opteron boxes to its lily-white Intel-based Primergy server line and that it expects first shipments before the end of the year. Primergy servers currently use Xeon MPs and...

JBoss to OEM Hyperic.(JBoss Group L.L.C.)(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... JBoss, the service model open source house, reportedly sought out 18-month-old Covalent Technologies spin-out Hyperic Inc and, after of couple of months of negotiations, has cut an OEM deal to put Hyperic's proprietary inventory, monitoring,...

Microsoft sees itself as the Underdog.
September 12, 2005... Microsoft, we come to find out, code named its search development effort "Underdog," recognizing perhaps that Google is the most Microsoft-like company it's ever competed again.

Zend core for Oracle hits beta.
September 12, 2005... PHP commercializer Zend Technologies is closing the loop on its promised Oracle deal first announced in May. The other day it made a free beta version of its so-called Zend Core for Oracle available, saying it would have a production...

Linux version of VB.
September 12, 2005... Nine-year-old Real Software Inc, the Austin, Texas-based providers of REALbasic, which the company calls a "cross-platform that really works," is supposed to ship REALbasic 2005 for Linux on September 13. It's a rapid application...

OpenOffice/StarOffice.
September 12, 2005... There's a beta 2 of OpenOffice 2.0 out for Windows and Linux. Nothing for the Mac. It's got a redesigned interface and new database component. Meanwhile, Sun is now supposed to release StarOffice 8 on September 12, a tad late.

NSF to re-architect the net.
September 12, 2005... The National Science Foundation wants to completely re-architect the Internet and has produced an unfunded, reportedly "from-the-ground-up" plan called the Global Environment for Networking Investigations that could cost an estimated $300...

Apple insures its transition to Intel.
September 12, 2005... Despite Apple's head-spinning move to Intel, the company has insured that it will have a steady supply of PowerPC G4 chips for notebooks and low-end Macs through 2008 by virtue of a new agreement with Freescale Semiconductor, according to the...

Microsoft contemplates Shopkeeping.
September 12, 2005... According to the New York Post, Microsoft is gonna set up a retail store in Times Square, where it can push Xboxes, Microsoft phones and TVs and work the media crowd for its DRM software. The particular piece of real estate in question is One...

Koizumi gets his mandate.
September 19, 2005... Well, it looks like the Japanese Post will be privatized after all though when exactly remains a mystery considering it may be delayed until April 2008 depending on the development of the computer systems--at least that will be the excuse. ...

Katrina update.(United States. Postal Service providing services to katrina victims)(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... The USPS said Wednesday that it had restored full delivery service to roughly 82% of the residents and businesses affected by Hurricane Katrina. In Alabama, 100% of the post offices statewide were fully operational and in Mississippi,...

EMC gets five-year USPS contract.
September 19, 2005... EMC, the storage biggie, has gotten a five-year indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract from the US Postal Service. The agency wants to maximize its existing 650TB EMC infrastructure and extend its information lifecycle...

NewAddress goes live in Ireland.(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... Ireland has got itself a private change-of-address notification service. Privately held NewAddress.ie, An Post's first redirection reseller, went live Wednesday. NewAddress managing director Derek Quinn claims that research indicates...

The press takes on Deutsche post--literally.(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... According to a story in the Financial Times, the German press is going to go into the business of delivering letter mail up against the Deutsche Post once the market is fully liberalized in 2008. The paper says three of Germany's largest...

Bowe one previews.
September 19, 2005... Bowe Bell + Howell has been showing off Bowe One, a next-generation integrated software suite that stuffs a reported 28 technologies into one modular and scalable solution. The company expects to deliver it early next year. The...

Norway Post appoints acting CEO.
September 19, 2005... Norway Post has tapped the company's CFO Klaus-Anders Nysteen to be acting CEO while the company looks for a permanent replacement for incumbent Kaare Frydenberg, who said he was resigning six months ago. Nysteen's new job starts October 1. ...

Credit Suisse tells Novell to dump its management.
September 19, 2005... Credit Suisse First Boston, which owns 1% of Novell and has Novell as an investment banking client--or did before this--has written an open letter to Novell's board telling it to dump its failed management and reorganize--fast--to save the...

Microsoft moves on SMBs, starts harrying Intuit.
September 19, 2005... Microsoft has opened a frontal attack on Intuit's Quicken/ QuickBooks kingdom by fielding Office Small Business Accounting and Office Small Business Management Edition. The first is a standalone financial accounting package; the other...

So now it's eBay and Skype.(eBay Inc. acquiring Skype Technologies S.A.)(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... After a flurry of speculation that Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gate or Yahoo might buy Skype, followed by Skype hinting around that it wasn't for sale, followed by IPO talk sparked when the Luxembourg firm hired Morgan Stanley, eBay is buying Skype...

Google hires Vince Cerf.(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... Google, who thanks to Microsoft now has the reputation of the being the omnivorous employer, has hired Vince Cerf, the man called the Father of the Internet, to be its chief Internet evangelist or CIE, creating in the process a new "C" title....

Microsoft files second EC appeal.
September 19, 2005... Microsoft has filed a second appeal in the European antitrust case against it, objecting to the European Commission's order, handed down in June, that it open communications protocols to the open source community. Microsoft, saying it must...

Intel twiddles Q3 guidance.
September 19, 2005... Intel said during its mid-quarter update that it expects to see revenues of $9.8 billion-$10 billion, both an up and down adjustment of the guidance it gave when it posted its Q2 results. Then it said it might do $9.6 billion-$10.2 billion....

AMD hires Hester to replace Weber as CTO.
September 19, 2005... AMD has hired Phil Hester, the former CEO of Newisys, the start-up that gambled on building Opteron servers and lost, and an old IBM guy who had a lot to do with IBM's first Unix boxes, as CTO reporting to Dirk Meyer, president and chief...

Intel buys into Czech anti-virus house.
September 19, 2005... Intel Capital is buying a $16 million stake in 15-year-old Grisoft, a classic multi-platform anti-virus outfit in Brno in the Czech Republic. It's Intel Capital's largest investment in Central and Eastern Europe to date and has to be...

LeftHand gets another $25m.(Valhalla Partners invests in LeftHand Networks)(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... LeftHand Networks, the iSCSI SAN pioneer with the patented storage clustering technology, has picked up $25 million in C financing, bringing its total equity investment to $75 million. Valhalla Partners led the round, with new participation...

VMware tries freebie.(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... VMware said that customers purchasing its P2V Migrations Jumpstart service, its on-site consultancy to move from physical to virtual boxes, will get its P2V Assistant migration tool for free. The tool, which is supposed to telescope the...

HP wheels out NAS appliances.
September 19, 2005... At Storage Networking World Europe in Frankfurt, HP introduced new products and services for data protection and archiving, calling them critical components in managing information throughout its lifecycle and sniffing that EMC and Network...

CA pledges patents to open source.
September 19, 2005... Computer Associates, which is now, we might point out, being run by an ex-IBMer, has cut a patent cross-license agreement with IBM and followed IBM down the path of pledging a set of 14 of its reportedly "key" US patents and their overseas...

Oracle's potential worst nightmare gets funding.(from Charles River Ventures and Valhalla Partners)(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... EnterpriseDB, the Linux start-up with the potential to stick it to Oracle, has picking up $7 million in venture capital financing. To date it's been operating on a million-dollar seed round. Charles River Ventures and Valhalla Partners...

Sun retires SISSL license.
September 19, 2005... Sun has canned SISSL, the Sun Industry Standards Source License, the original open source license that it created and started using five years ago for OpenOffice and a piece of the seminal Network File System (NFS) and later added GridEngine....

Red Hat to learn Russian.(Red Hat Inc. is enhancing its Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system )(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... Red Hat says that because of increasing demand in Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Russia it's going to expand its Russian-language support services starting at the end of September as an integral part of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The...

SCO to present at DEMO.
September 19, 2005... This is gonna come as a shock to a lot of people but SCO has been invited to present its new unseen reportedly platform-agnostic mobility widgetry at the chi-chi Demo conference later this month. DEMO is where TiVO, Palm Pilot and Java...

Salesforce apes giants.(Salesforce.com Inc. developed operating systems as Microsoft Office killer and AppExchange)(Brief Article)
September 19, 2005... When summer started Salesforce.com delivered MultiForce, the little software-as-service number, a platform that applications can be built on that the start-up called the world's first on-demand operating system and a "Microsoft Office killer,"...

Office ban could gave thorns.
September 19, 2005... CIBC points out that if Massachusetts goes ahead and bans Office in favor of open formats such as OpenOffice and Adobe's PDF, as it's proposing, it will be isolating state government since other people--like other states and the federal...

EPlus sues SAP.
September 19, 2005... It has just come to light that US ISV ePlus sued SAP, its biggest rival, in its home state of Virginia for e-procurement patent infringement in April. It did the same with Ariba and settled for $37 million before the penalty phase of the...

Has Siebel tamed the SEC?
September 19, 2005... Siebel may have broken a few of the teeth that the SEC sprouted five years ago when its "level playing field" FD regs were enacted. A federal judge has thrown out the "loose lips" case the SEC had brought against Siebel, saying the agency...

Deutsche Post to buy Exel.
September 26, 2005... To offset the end of its domestic letter monopoly in 2007 --not to mention the increasing spread of e-mail--the fabled Deutsche Post announced Monday that it had cut that anticipated deal to acquire British logistics house Exel plc for $6.7...

Australia Post begins move on America.
September 26, 2005... PrintSoft Americas Inc, the Chicago hybrid mail operation scooped up when Australia Post acquired its Melbourne parent PrintSoft Products this summer, has just pushed out what it calls its new enterprise software dubbed DeskDirect. It is...