Tech Law: Sun Suits, Former EMCer Barred from HP, UK Software Patent, More

Sun may have broken bribery laws, and shareholders sue over Oracle acquisition; FTC eyes Google, Apple board relationship; Calif. judge may have weakened state email law; Genius and Numark get control of Scratch from Activision and 7 Studios; Craigslist to talk to attorneys general about prostitution ads; former EMC exec prevented for now from joining HP; another would-be class action targets Apple, this time for cables; and the UK allows a software patent and plans on IP criminal breach fine increases.

• May 11, 2009

Yahoo 10-Q: 3 Year Regression, Product Development Emphasis

Back in April, there were plenty of headlines announcing a big drop in Yahoo's revenue and profit when the company released its Q1 numbers. Unfortunately, the 10-Q is never out when the earnings release hits the wires, and it's only about a month or so later that you can start to see what actually happened. In this case, although there have been significant changes since 2008, the numbers show that the real story is how Yahoo has regressed to a financial picture of three years ago.

• May 11, 2009

Why The World Is A-Twitter With Acquisition Rumors

Google, Microsoft and Apple have all been rumored to be poking around at Twitter, the hot new social media sensation, with good reason. Meanwhile, Google, Facebook and Twitter have been playing follow-the-leader with each other. Google recently introduced Profiles in an attempt to create its own ...

• May 10, 2009

Facebook Suspicious Of The Cloud

Facebook, one of the fastest-growing cloud companies around, keeps personal information on millions of users in the cloud, but isn't very keen on the cloud when it comes to its own IT management data. While in San Diego at the Service-now.com user conference, I ran into a couple of IT admins from...

• May 10, 2009

What Did Eric Schmidt Know About Apple (And When)?

Steve Jobs is supposed to reclaim his perch as CEO of Apple next month, but no one knows for sure. Except, of course, for Apple's board of directors, which probably does. This brings us to the propriety of Eric Schmidt's place at the table, as a director of both Apple and Google, which competes w...

• May 8, 2009

Who Will Head the USPTO? [Updated]

With a new administration and new Secretary of Commerce comes a new head of the US Patent and Trademark Office -- an administrative body of particularly keen import to the high tech industry. After years of the USPTO and the patent bar often sniping at each other, new leadership could mean a chance to improve the way things work at the office. And now the choice is down to two candidates -- and potentially different philosophies and approaches. However, signs suggest that the next director of the USPTO might come with a Big Blue t-shirt.

• May 8, 2009

HP, BMC Hearing Footsteps In Strategic Area

HP, BMC, and other legacy software vendors are in danger of losing a strategic foothold in enterprise IT departments to insurgent Service-now.com, which could eventually lead to overall account losses. Service-now.com sells software used by IT departments to support corporate networks. Its applic...

• May 8, 2009

Tech Companies' Top 20 Concerns

For the last couple of years, BDO Seidman has gone through the 10-K filing of the hundred largest (based on revenues) publicly-held U.S. high tech firms and compiled the most-commonly cited risk factors. Although many of the factors will be obvious, and clearly of interest beyond the sector, what is interesting is looking how the list from this year compares to that of last year and how the concerns of companies are changing.

• May 7, 2009

Amazon Becomes an Electronics Company

Amazon's emphasis on the Kindle has been obvious. But rather than being a simple extension of the company's focus, you could say that the device is a natural outgrowth of a longer term trend at Amazon -- the process of becoming an electronics company, not a media company. And results over the last few years clearly show this.

• May 7, 2009

iPhone And BlackBerry Engage In App-To-App Combat

iPhone maker Apple and BlackBerry vendor Research in Motion are exchanging high-caliber bursts in the form of tantalizing new mobile applications in their desperate efforts to woo new users. Recent figures show that underdog BlackBerry is not just making it a close fight, but could emerge victorious...

• May 6, 2009

Q&A with Lance Ulanoff, PCMag.com Editor, on New Kindle

Amazon today announced its Kindle DX, with the 9.7-inch e-ink display, PDF reader, and automatic display rotation feature. The New York Times, Boston Globe, and Washington Post will offer reduced-rate subscriptions for people not in their usual delivery areas, and Amazon has textbook deals with Pearson, Cengage, and Wiley, which, Amazon claims, cover 60 percent of textbook sales. According to Amazon, Case Western Reserve University, Princeton University, Reed College, and Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia will all launch trial programs this fall, making the Kindles available to their students. PCMag.com editor-in-chief Lance Ulanoff had mentioned on Twitter that he was heading to the Kindle launch, so I talked with him for a few minutes about his impression of the new device and some of its business aspects.

• May 6, 2009

April Tech Layoffs: Things Improve

Challenger, Gray & Christmas just came out with its tally of April layoffs, and there's good news: layoffs continue to drop for the third month running.

• May 6, 2009

Is Apple Developing a Game and Media Console? [Updated]

It's well known that games are a big seller in Apple's app store, and you can see why. The question is whether Apple is going to be satisfied with getting a tiny slice of the gaming market. Some evidence is suggesting that there are larger ambitions out in Cupertino. But is it limited to games on the iPhone? Recent hiring and some recent patent applications suggest that Apple is working on a combination gaming console and media player -- not simply additional capabilities in an iPhone or iPod, but an integrated approach never before seen.

• May 6, 2009

Obama Tax Plan Hitting Silicon Valley

President Barack Obama's new plan to tax overseas profits is getting heat from technology companies which believe they will be adversely affected. While technology companies are not specifically targeted by the tax package, many, like Cisco, HP, IBM, Microsoft and Dell have substantial overseas a...

• May 5, 2009

Semiconductors Sales Start to Strengthen?

In news that must be welcome to many in high tech, semiconductor sales may have bottomed out and seem to be on the rise again, according to a number of reports and data. That would be good news for high tech in general, given that more chips out the door means more products being purchased. The question is how long might it take for a rebound?

• May 5, 2009

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