Sun Microsystems is cutting more jobs to try to return to profitability, the company confirmed late Wednesday, the third round so far in the company's effort to recover from the high-tech downturn. Sun representatives weren't immediately available to provide details. [as they have been layoff.]
Sun began a 3,900-employee layoff in October 2001. In April 2002, the company more quietly began 1,000 more job cuts, partly through attrition, cuts that later were folded into a larger 4,400-employee layoff announced in October 2002. That round was part of an attempt to be profitable in the first half of 2003, a plan that failed.
Helmut Panke, chairman of the board of management of German auto manufacturer Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW), and Charles H. Noski, former vice chairman of AT&T will be put forward for election to the board at the annual shareholders' meeting in November. The board also nominated the existing eight directors for re-election, Microsoft said in a statement.
The move is the latest in a series which seek to improve corporate governance at Microsoft, the company said. Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect, said Panke would be the company's first director from outside the U.S., adding that his experience as chairman of one of Europe's most successful companies will be invaluable, according to the statement.
Just days after announcing a partnership with Motorola to develop Windows CE based smart phones, an e-mail sent to beta testers reveals an inkling of detail about where Microsoft intends to enhance its partners' products. The e-mail invitation, sent to Redmond testers on Wednesday, introduces a new product for PDAs and phones dubbed Voice Command.
According to Microsoft's invite, "Voice Command works with your PDA or phone so you can use your voice to control your device and receive information in a way that is easier, more convenient, and safer while you are on the go such as in the car or walking down the street carrying packages or even while sitting on a park bench."
Bill Gates and IBM Software chief Steve Mills joined together here today to give an update on their companies' combined work in advancing Web services.
In an intimate setting at the St. Regis hotel, Gates, Microsoft's chief software architect and chairman, and Mills, IBM Software Group's senior vice president and general manager, demonstrated for the first time reliable messaging and secure, authenticated transactions across a federated, heterogeneous environment.
They also announced that they plan to take the specifications used to pull off the demonstration, and which the companies have been developing for three years, to open standards bodies soon, and that they would not seek royalties for the specs.
A security flaw in Linux editions of IBM's DB2 database could allow unauthorized users to seize control of a database's contents, Big Blue revealed. Engineers at the security company said the vulnerability, which could allow a person to get "root" privileges to a DB2 database, is simple to exploit. A company employee, for example, with only limited database access rights could trick the system into giving him or her access to the entire data store.
"This flaw is serious because it allows somebody to get control of a system...DB2 is a database, and we assume there is sensitive information in the database," said Paul Paget, CEO of Core Security Technologies.
While Dell has announced support for Itanium-based 64-bit computing, Rollins said Tuesday that it's "premature" for Dell to begin supporting 64-bit computing in a big way. Instead, he said Dell would go where the mass market goes. Dell will mass-market 64-bit systems "when customers want it; and when their hardware and software are ready to use it," he said. "It's going to happen, but it's going to be a little slow." He added, however, that in a few years, 64-bit systems might be the norm. "We have no doubt that 64-bit is the wave the future."
Likewise, when it comes to open-source computing, Dell will support whatever the market demands. While Dell ships Red Hat Linux-based servers as well as Windows, Rollins said he still has not seen an appreciable demand for Linux on the desktop side. "We offered Linux as a standard feature in a desktop, but nobody was buying it," he said.
Microsoft is preparing the ground for a December entry into the UK customer relationship management (CRM) market with a plan for some flexible pricing and by recruiting a large number of integrators with expertise in specific industries.
The software giant's first UK release will be called CRM 1.2 and will be a modified version of the 1.0 product already available in the US. It will be a global release with one tariff that Microsoft hinted will be lower than the original entry-level US price of $395 (£250) per named user.
Furthering its efforts to spur adoption of OneNote, Microsoft has struck a deal with Toshiba to preinstall the new note-taking software on laptops and Tablet PCs. Toshiba, one of the world's largest mobile computer vendors, will deliver OneNote preinstalled on laptops and Tablet PCs introduced after Oct. 21, the date Microsoft officially launches its new Office products, including OneNote, the companies said Tuesday.
The first Toshiba product to come with OneNote is a new Satellite laptop that will be announced on Oct. 21, said Terry Cronan, director of customer marketing for Toshiba's computer systems group. Satellite is Toshiba's laptop line for consumers, small and medium-sized businesses and the public sector.
Goal: Spread the embedded Windows CE gospel among leading chip makers and partners. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Microsoft's embedded devices group is hosting a private event for chip makers and a few key integration partners aimed at providing them with an update on Redmond's Windows CE 4.2-based technologies.
At its second annual ARM summit, Microsoft and its chip partners will provide roadmaps and demonstrations of its Smartphone, Pocket PC PDAs, home-network gateways, voice-over-IP (VOIP) phones, set-top boxes, Media2Go portable media player and other products that embed the Windows CE operating system.
Microsoft has finished development work on its Small Business Server software, opening the way for the company to relaunch the line with two versions of the server operating system package.
The software maker said Tuesday that it is releasing Small Business Server 2003 to manufacturing this week. The product, which combines Microsoft's Windows server operating system with its Exchange e-mail management tool and other server-based software, is being repackaged to provide a cheaper "standard" edition for businesses and a "premium" version, which is similar to the existing bundle.