Google may not be an established name in the business services market but the inroads it’s making have some of the more established players noticing. IBM, one of the biggest names in enterprise software, is launching a new product for its Lotus suite that will compete with Google Apps at least when it comes to price. The product, called LotusLive iNotes, is a bare-bones email service that will sell for $36 per user per year.

“Remote employees, retail workers and anyone who doesn’t work behind a desk will appreciate the easy access to company e-mail. With web-based e-mail, all of your employees will have real-time e-mail access from a Web browser and Internet connection,” IMB describes the product. “LotusLive iNotes gives you the best of both worlds. It simplifies e-mail administration but still offers robust, flexible services. You’ll have access to all the essential messaging features – previously only found in desktop software – via the Web browser.”

On the face of it iNotes doesn’t really offer any advantages over Google Apps and only competes on price. The professional version of Apps costs $50 per user per year, a premium that rapidly adds up at large companies. However, iNotes just offers a web email client and nothing else. As an email client though, it is a fairly complete application and the service supports POP, authenticated SMTP and IMAP capabilities allowing it to be accessed through IBM’s own Lotus Notes or Microsoft Outlook.

Google Apps on the other hand comes with a complete set of applications like a word processor, spreadsheet editor, an instant messenger, calendar and others, all completely web based. IMB though has one very big advantage over Google, its name. The company has been in the business for decades and has built a lot of trust from most companies. Google on the other hand is a newcomer and has just entered the business sector. What’s more, problems like the Gmail outage last month, which left all users, including business ones, without access for a few hours, aren’t doing it any favors.

Source: Reuter

Motorola has unveiled its first phone using Google’s Android system, banking on it to power features that will attract consumers looking to use their phones to connect with friends, family and colleagues.

The Cliq comes with a touch screen and a standard, “Qwerty” keyboard that slides out from its side. Software on it will let users aggregate contact information from various social networks and e-mail accounts. Small application “widgets” will show such information as your friends’ Facebook status updates on the home screen.

The Cliq, which Motorola unveiled Thursday during a GigaOM mobile internet conference in San Francisco. Pricing information has not yet been released.

The Cliq and other Android-based handsets that Motorola plans to release could be the key to luring consumers back to its handsets. The Schaumburg, Ill.-based company hasn’t produced a hit since the wildly popular Razr phone in 2005.

Sanjay Jha, Motorola’s co-CEO and head of mobile devices, said Google’s free Android software is a modern, well-architected operating system that allows people do many different things with their handsets.

It also allows handset makers like Motorola to customize their handsets and offer distinctive features – something that will be key as the company tries to convince cell phone shoppers that the Cliq is more worthy of their dollars than Apple’s iPhone and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry devices.

Motorola plans to unveil a second handset in the coming weeks that will also be available for the holidays.

Samsung Electronics has said it is making an Android phone as well.

Source: Reuters

News Corp, which is trying to stem newspaper revenue declines, could charge for access to its news websites by the middle of next year, and might break off its relationship with Amazon.com Inc’s Kindle e-reader if it cannot get better terms.

Rupert Murdoch, chief executive of the global media empire, said on Thursday that he is unhappy with the Kindle’s control of relationships with newspaper subscribers, and might seek a better deal with rival e-reader maker Sony Corp.

Amazon officials did not return calls seeking comment.

Murdoch’s comments come after News Corp, whose properties include The Wall Street Journal, cable programmers, local TV stations and movie studios, reported a 10.7 percent drop in quarterly revenue to $7.67 billion, which was in line with expectations, according to Reuters Estimates.

It forecast operating revenue for fiscal 2010, which ends next June, would rise in the high single digits on 4 percent revenue growth.

“I think it looks reasonable,” said RBC Capital Markets analyst David Bank. “They gave a pretty realistic view of where the growth is coming from and where it is not going to come from, particularly the advertising-supported businesses.”

Source: Reuters

Sprint Nextel Corp said on Tuesday it would buy out Virgin Mobile USA Inc in a deal that values the small wireless carrier at $483 million and pushes Sprint deeper into the low-end prepaid mobile market.

Sprint, which already owns 13.1 percent of Virgin Mobile, will pay a mix of shares and cash to buy the rest of the company from Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, South Korea’s SK Telecom and public shareholders.

The No. 3 U.S. mobile service also plans to retire all of Virgin Mobile USA’s debt, estimated to be no more than $205 million by September 30.

Virgin Mobile USA shares jumped 23 percent or $1 to $5.21, close to the $5.50 per share that Sprint is paying in shares to public shareholders.

The price is a 31 percent premium over Virgin Mobile’s closing price of $4.21 on Monday, though Sprint said the share swap ratio was subject to a collar of 1.0630 to 1.3668 Sprint shares per Virgin share.

While Sprint already rents space on its network to Virgin Mobile, some analysts were puzzled by its decision to buy the small carrier. Sprint already has its own prepaid unit, Boost, which offers consumers unlimited calls for a set monthly fee.

The deal will make Sprint more exposed to the toughest part of the prepaid market, in which customers pay in advance for calls on a per minute basis.

Analysts said the deal could be an indication that Sprint was having a difficult time turning around its main postpaid business, which serves high-value customers who pay monthly bills. Sprint is set to report quarterly results on Wednesday.

“I think Sprint is looking to delve deeper into prepaid possibly because the postpaid segment remains extremely challenged,” said Soleil Nelson Alpha Research analyst Michael Nelson. “It could be indicative of how tough things are in the postpaid side.”

Boost, Leap Wireless and MetroPCS have seen strong growth in prepaid services that offer unlimited calls for a monthly fee.

Sprint, which has been struggling to stem customer defections from its own mobile service over the last few years, said the deal would increase its free cash flow but did not give a specific forecast for the impact of the transaction.

“Sprint will continue to be challenged, as Virgin Mobile has been in the last few quarters, to retain their pay-per-minute subscribers,” said Nelson.

Source: Reuters

The first undersea cable to bring high-speed internet access to East Africa has gone live. The fibre-optic cable, operated by African-owned firm Seacom, connects South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique to Europe and Asia. The firm says the cable will help to boost the prospects of the region’s industry and commerce. The cable – which is 17,000km long – took two years to lay and cost more than $650m.

Seacom said in a statement the launch of the cable marked the “dawn of a new era for communications” between Africa and the rest of the world. The services were unveiled in ceremonies in the Kenyan port of Mombasa and the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam.

School benefits

The cable was due to be launched in June but was delayed by pirate activity off the coast of Somalia.  It’s hanging and keeps wasting time and frustrating me
Kenyan internet user

Cable ushers in broadband era

The BBC’s Ben Mwangunda in Dar es Salaam says five institutions are already benefiting from the faster speeds – national electricity company Tanesco, communications company, TTCL, Tanzania Railways and the Universities of Dar es Salaam and Dodoma. The BBC’s Will Ross in Nairobi says the internet revolution trumpeted by Seacom largely depends on how well the service is rolled out across the region.

To the disappointment of many consumers, our correspondent says some ISPs (internet service providers) are not planning to lower the cost of the internet, but instead will offer increased bandwidth. But businesses, which have been paying around $3,000 a month for 1MB through a satellite link, will now pay considerably less – about $600 a month.

The Kenyan government has been laying a network of cables to all of the country’s major towns and says the fibre-optic links will also enable schools nationwide to link into high quality educational resources. But our correspondent says it is not clear whether the internet revolution will reach the villages, many of which still struggle to access reliable electricity.

After becoming the first major music label to officially join YouTube’s content party in 2006, Warner Music Group is now the first to leave. Revenue sharing renegotiations between the two respective giants broke down this weekend, and Warner has opted to remove all of its content—including user-created videos that feature its music—from Google’s video showcase.

The key ingredient of Warner’s content licensing disagreement with YouTube won’t surprise anyone: money. Two years ago, Warner surprised the industry by being the first major label to sign a revenue-sharing deal with YouTube that green-lighted user videos that had otherwise illegally put its music in their soundtrack. Keep in mind, this was a month before Google bought the video sharing startup for a whopping $1.65 billion in October that same year, which made Warner’s decision to come to terms with what was then an upstart look pretty bold.

Part of Warner’s original deal (the other majors also cut similar deals of their own later) gave it a slice of YouTube’s advertising revenue pie, as well as a per-play fee that is reportedly a fraction of a penny. Because of YouTube’s explosive growth and eventual market domination, Warner was banking on those fractions adding up eventually.

That apparently hasn’t panned out. Warner’s contract is up for renegotiation now, and it seems to have fallen short of the “tens of millions” that other labels, like Universal Music, are touting as coming from their YouTube deals. There is no word on exactly what terms Warner is looking for or how much more money it wants, but talks between the companies have stalled. In an official statement, Warner says that it “simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide.” Ars has learned that Warner is still hoping for a resolution with YouTube, but the takedown of its content began at midnight Saturday morning.

YouTube warned its users about the takedown with an official blog post that discussed the ups and downs of music licensing for YouTube. Arguably understating the situation as “complicated,” YouTube apologized for not being able to “maintain these innovative agreements,” then directed users to audio-license clearinghouses like AudioSwap, where they can find pre-sanctioned music that should keep the takedown notices at bay.

Ars has also learned that no other labels have reached new agreements with YouTube, but they haven’t gone as far as Warner has in terms of pulling their content or snuffing user-generated videos, either. Besides providing an unpleasant surprise to YouTube users, Warner’s spat serves as another reminder that digital content licensing is still in its infancy, and growing pains are inevitable.

Source:  Yahoo!

Korea is facing a spiraling backlash for failing to nail down the culprit behind the latest cyber attacks on key government and corporate websites.

Security experts are now warning of a possible fourth wave of attacks on the weekend.

The government, which reportedly was alerted to the on-line attacks as early as July 4, was criticized for its delayed response.

“It took over eight hours to respond to the attacks on Tuesday, which seemed to be a prolonged response, especially considering the signs were there days before,” said Rep. Park Young-sun of the DP.

Lawmakers have been continuously briefed on the attacks.

The National Intelligence Service told them yesterday that a North Korean cyber warfare unit appears to be responsible for spreading the distributed denial of service virus.

The spy agency has yet to offer concrete evidence to prove the link between the attacks and North Korea since Pyongyang was not on the list of nations from where the cyber assault may have been launched.

In a briefing to members of the parliamentary Intelligence Committee, the agency said the latest attacks were traced to 86 internet protocol addresses in a total of 16 countries including South Korea, the United States, Japan and China, among others.

But the agency said “this does not necessarily rule out North Korea,” according to lawmakers who attended the briefing. It also claimed that the North was clandestinely operating hacking missions in China and Eastern Europe.

The DDoS attack hit the United States on July 4, shutting sites including the White House. Washintgon has so far failed to confirm the origin of the cyber assault.

The government has held series of emergency meetings since Tuesday’s attack that left over 25 websites infected at both home and abroad.

This particular type of virus shuts down websites by creating an excess in online traffic, jamming a website.

Corporate websites were the hardest hit, as sites such as Auction generate profit from on-line buyers.

The government yesterday said it had requested a 20 billion won ($15.6 million) to cover the costs for countering the recent cyber attacks and establishing preventive measures.

The military said it would push to formulate a cyber command by January next year, up from the initial target of 2012.

On-line security firms are warning of a fourth possible assault over the weekend, advising users to take preventive measures. ‘

The attacks seemed as of yesterday to dwindle due to active countermeasures including the demolition of the “zombie” computers used by hackers without the owners’ knowledge to spread the virus.

Source:  Reuter

Bill Gates, one of the most powerful men on the planet, appears to be taking on one of Mother Earth’s most fearsome forces: the hurricane.

An application filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Jan. 3, 2008, lists Gates and 12 others as the inventors of a number of methods to control and prevent hurricanes.

“Billions of dollars of destruction and damage is regularly attributable to hurricanes and hurricane-like tropical storms,” the document says. “Thus, great interest has arisen in controlling these powerful storms.”

The document goes on to describe a process of using fleets of vessels to mix warm water from the surface of the ocean with colder water from greater depths in an effort to cool the surface of the water.

Hurricanes draw their strength from condensation driven by heat. That condensation leads to higher wind speeds. By cooling the surface of the ocean, the plan attempts to sap energy from growing hurricanes.

The filings were submitted by Searete LLC, a sub-entity of Intellectual Ventures, a Bellevue, Wash.-based invention acquisition and development firm founded by former Microsoft chief technology officer Nathan Myhrvold.

A spokeswoman for the company declined to elaborate on the patent application but confirmed that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates was involved in the weather modification plan.

She said Intellectual Ventures, which holds about 27,000 patents for technologies spanning multiple industries, didn’t expect the patent to be approved for at least another 18 months.

But Gates and his partners are hardly the first to set their sights on the sky.

“Some people sometimes don’t have a grasp of the magnitude or the power of hurricanes,” said Moshe Alamaro, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “The power of a hurricane is at least the power of all the electric power plants in the world combined.”

Still, despite the probable impossibility of actually stopping a hurricane, Alamaro doesn’t criticize those for trying. (In fact, he has proposed his own plan for taming hurricanes.)

Source: AP

Just when you thought you were done with IE 6 and its hacks and exceptions, now you’ve got a new browser to consider: Google’s Chrome.

The good news is that Chrome is a lot more compatible with web standards than IE 5 and 6. However, Chrome has its own idiosyncrasies and bugs.

No one knows if Chrome is here to stay, but it has already captured a surprisingly decent share of the web browser market in a short period of time.

Here are some tips to get your web pages working in Chrome and hopefully looking the way they were designed to look.

As of February 2009, Chrome is still a browser for Microsoft Windows PCs. If you use a Mac, you will need to run Microsoft Windows through Bootcamp, or one of the virtualization products for the Mac (Sun’s VirtualBox, Parallels, VMWare Fusion). If you are really daring, you can try and get Chrome to run using Darwine. Google promises to have a native Mac version of Chrome available in the coming months.

Pop-Up blocking is great unless your website really needs pop-up functionality. If you have a web page that must use pop-ups, you won’t see them in Chrome. By design, Chrome only displays the title of a pop-up and minimizes it to the bottom right corner of the browser window. Users will need to click and drag the pop-up’s title in order to view its content.

By design, Chrome will only certify a valid SSL (secure sockets layer) page with the padlock icon if all the elements on the page are served via SSL. In other words, if your page is served via SSL but it calls elements via non-secured HTTP, Chrome will give your page an exclamation point icon indicating that it considers your page to be an inconsistent SSL transmission. To get around this, make sure that all the resources loaded by your web page, including all images, are prefaced with HTTPS.

Source:  Reuters

Amazon.com  has cut ties with Rhode Island Web sites that make referrals to the online retailer because a law designed to collect sales taxes on these transactions will soon come into force, the Providence Journal reported Tuesday.
Seattle-based Amazon  wrote to Rhode Island Web site operators, telling them its “Associates program” ended Monday. Web sites that posted links to the company about its products have received up to a 15 percent cut on sales.
On June 17, the Rhode Island legislature passed a budget provision that would force Amazon to collect 7 percent in sales taxes on these so-called “click-through” transactions.
Amazon argues the law is unconstitutional, so eliminating the commission would prevent the company from having to collect the sales tax most consumers pay on purchases at in-state stores.
Rhode Island taxpayers currently must pay sales taxes for out-of-state purchases on their annual tax return, but it’s an honor system.
Amazon spokeswoman Patty Smith did not immediately respond to an Associated Press e-mail seeking comment Tuesday.
She, however, told the Providence Journal on Monday that “The government in Rhode Island is attempting to go about tax collection in what we feel is an unconstitutional manner.”
Amazon’s decision will have no immediate effect on Rhode Island’s revenues because the state didn’t project any new tax income immediately, according to House Finance Committee chairman Steven M. Costantino.
Amazon’s announcement is the latest in a legal fight involving states trying to get out-of-state companies that perform commerce largely online with their residents but have little or no physical presence in the state to collect taxes.
The stakes are large. Governments could generate $3 billion in new revenues if Web retailers had to collect taxes on all sales to consumers, according to Forrester Research.
Amazon sued New York in 2008 over a law similar to what Rhode Island lawmakers passed because it argued it unlawfully imposes tax-collection obligations on out-of-state entities. A trial court judge dismissed the case in January.
“It should be noted that while Amazon is fighting this measure in New York, they have not stopped doing business with the affiliates in New York state,” Gov. Don Carcieri’s spokeswoman, Amy Kempe, said.
On Friday, Amazon pulled the plug on commissions for North Carolina Web sites because a similar law could soon be enacted.
The company currently collects sales taxes from customers in states in which Amazon has a bona fide physical presence, including Washington, Kentucky and Kansas.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: Reuters