Microsoft Targets Google

By Priya Ganapati
Microsoft vows to “win on the web” as the company adds search to Office and doubles its product lineup in the coming year
July 28, 2005

Microsoft on Thursday suggested it will target Google’s dominance of the Internet search market by building search capabilities into the next version of its ubiquitous Office applications.

The announcement came during the company’s annual analyst day as Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer also unveiled plans to virtually double Microsoft’s product pipeline during the coming year with new games, mobile software, and applications, as well as a new version of Windows.

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Vector Buys BroadVision

By Priya Ganapati
The private equity firm plans to revive fortunes of the company that makes portal and e-business software.
July 26, 2005

Private equity firm Vector Capital said Tuesday it’s buying BroadVision, a struggling company that makes software to help enterprises create portals and e-business infrastructure, for $29 million or a 36 percent discount.

BroadVision, which has faced liquidity issues among other problems, said its stockholders will receive $0.84 per share in cash, a 36 percent discount from Monday’s closing price of $1.32 on the Nasdaq. Shares of Broadvision fell 31 percent to $0.90 in recent trading.

BroadVision President and CEO Dr. Pehong Chen said the offer was the best the company could get in light of its financial woes.

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Microsoft Attacks Google Earth

By Priya Ganapati
When worlds collide: Microsoft launches MSN Virtual Earth to compete with Google Earth
July 25, 2005

Microsoft launched the beta version of MSN Virtual Earth on Monday, taking on Google with a search product that combines aerial imagery, maps, yellow pages, and search.

MSN Virtual Earth is similar to Google Earth, which was launched last month. It offers aerial photos overlaid with road networks and point-of-interest information, and a scratch pad that will save the search results so they can be emailed or copied into a document.

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VSNL Buys Teleglobe for $239M

By Priya Ganapati
Indian telecom operator will acquire telecom wholesaler, creating a global player
July 25, 2005

The Indian telecom company VSNL said on Monday it will pay $239 million for Teleglobe, one of the world’s largest wholesalers of international telecommunications services such as voice, data, and IP.

The acquisition will give VSNL, which stands for Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd., access to Teleglobe’s global telecom network along with ownership interests or capacity in more than 80 undersea and terrestrial cables. The Teleglobe network reaches 240 countries and territories.

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Profit Warning Hurts Microsoft

By Priya Ganapati
The software giant loses $8 billion in market cap after it disappoints Wall Street
July 21, 2005

Microsoft posted fourth-quarter profits that topped expectations, but the software giant’s stock fell Friday after the software giant lowered its guidance for the current quarter.

Excluding special items, the world’s No. 1 software maker posted earnings of $0.33 per share, while Wall Street had been expecting $0.31 per share, according to Thomson Financial’s survey of 30 analysts. Shares fell $0.76 to $25.68, erasing almost $8 billion in market value.

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Microsoft to Buy FrontBridge

By Priya Ganapati
The software giant is buying FrontBridge Technologies, which offers secure email and messaging services
July 20, 2005

Microsoft said it is buying FrontBridge Technologies, a secure email and messaging services provider, in a deal that sends a clear message that bolstering the security of the software giant’s products has become a top priority.

Microsoft declined to disclose any terms of the acquisition but an industry source estimated the deal was in the $150-million to $180-million range. Microsoft said it expects the deal to close by the end of September. Privately held FrontBridge offers outsourced services to companies in areas like email security, compliance, and disaster recovery.

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Vector Acquires WinZip

By Priya Ganapati
Vector Capital has acquired the maker of popular file compression software WinZip.
July 18, 2005

Private equity firm Vector Capital said Monday it has bought privately held WinZip Computing in a bid to reinvigorate the file compression software that generates little revenue despite its popularity.

Vector Capital said it closed the deal, for which terms weren’t disclosed, earlier this year. The deal was partly financed by a $15-million loan from Technology Investment Capital, a publicly traded company that offers capital to small to midsize technology-related companies.

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IBM Taps into Universities

By Priya Ganapati
IBM will offer universities free access to its emerging technologies research and labs
July 14, 2005

IBM said Thursday it will give universities free access to new technologies like games and applications that are being developed in its labs, as the computing giant looks to get younger users hooked on its products and to build expertise for its software platforms.
Universities will get access to more than 25 technologies, which include games and simulations, middleware tools that enable grid computing, and open standard technologies such as Java and Eclipse. All of the technologies come from IBM alphaWorks, a web-based lab that works on emerging technologies.

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Adobe-Macromedia Deal Probed

By Priya Ganapati
The U.S. Department of Justice wants more info on the proposed merger of the two design software firms
July 11, 2005

The U.S. Department of Justice wants to take a closer look at desktop publishing software firm Adobe’s pending $3.4-billion acquisition of Macromedia, requesting more information on the outfits’ web authoring/design and vector graphics illustration products. The DOJ’s demand is known as a second request because as in most mergers, Adobe and Macromedia, which makes web design software, have already submitted preliminary information about their proposed union.

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$250K reward to Sasser worm informants

By Priya Ganapati
Microsoft will pay $250,000 in reward to two informants who helped track down the creator of the Sasser worm.
July 8, 2005


After the creator of the Sasser Internet worm was convicted by a German court Friday, software giant Microsoft said the two individuals who helped track the “cracker” down will share a $250,000 reward, the first of its kind.

The money will come out of a $5-million antivirus reward fund Microsoft created in November 2003 with help from Interpol, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Secret Service.

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Big Growth Seen for Storage

By Priya Ganapati
The market for external disk systems is expected to grow at a 60 percent rate, IDC reports
July 6, 2005

New regulatory requirements and the demand from smaller companies will lift shipments of external storage disk systems at a 60 percent rate through 2009, IDC reported Wednesday.

Shipments of internal terabyte systems are, however, expected to increase at a less aggressive 37 percent compound annual growth rate over the same period, said IDC. While the growth in terabytes is brisk, revenues are expected to grow at a slower pace. Worldwide disk storage system sales will increase to $26.3 billion in 2009 from $22.6 billion in 2004.

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Microsoft Cranks Up RFID

By Priya Ganapati
Microsoft plans to release some RFID products within months.
July 6, 2005

Microsoft demonstrated its RFID products Wednesday and said it would release an early version of the technology during the third quarter.

Microsoft also announced an alliance with Alien Technologies to support Alien’s RFID reader and tags that are available for applications like supply chain management, logistics, and anti-counterfeiting. Microsoft is displaying tags from the Morgan Hill, California-based company at the show, along with products from companies like SamSys Technologies of Ontario, Canada.

At the TechEd conference in Amsterdam, the company handed out RFID (radio frequency identification) tags and told attendees they would be contributing data just by walking around the show. The company said it used SQL Server 2005 and RFID readers placed throughout the conference to gather the data.

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Big Growth Seen for Storage

By Priya Ganapati

The market for external disk systems is expected to grow at a 60 percent rate, IDC reports.
July 6, 2005.

New regulatory requirements and the demand from smaller companies will lift shipments of external storage disk systems at a 60 percent rate through 2009, IDC reported Wednesday.

Shipments of internal terabyte systems are, however, expected to increase at a less aggressive 37 percent compound annual growth rate over the same period, said IDC.

“Compliance-related issues like Sarbanes-Oxley and mandates for hospitals by HIPAA are adding to the growth. Companies have to store and maintain email inboxes for many years while hospitals have to store digital copies of patient’s medical records including X-Rays and MRI scans for 7-10 years,” said Dave Reinsel, director, storage research at the research firm.

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Erotica site sues Amazon

By Priya Ganapati
Perfect 10 sues Amazon for providing sneak peek of its adult content.
July 1, 2005

The adult entertainment company Perfect 10 is suing Amazon and its search engine subsidiary, A9, for allegedly giving users a sneak peek of its erotica.

Perfect 10 charges its members $25.50 a month to pore over pictures of sultry nudes, and it claims the search engine allows web surfers to see some of the content for free.

Publisher Norm Zada claims his site, while erotic, is a world apart from sites offering pornographic content involving deviant sexual acts. Mr. Zada has alleged that search engines A9.com and Google are displaying links to pornographic sites that carry Perfect 10's copyright content without its permission.

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Tech Industry cheers CAFTA

By Priya Ganapati
U.S. Senate approval of Central American trade pact heartens Microsoft and a key tech trade group.
July 1, 2005

Microsoft and a key technology trade group Friday applauded the U.S. Senate’s approval of the Central America Free Trade Agreement, as the pact could better protect the software giant and other tech firms from software piracy and intellectual property infringement in the region.

On Thursday, the Senate voted 54 to 45 to approve the pact, which would eliminate tariffs among the U.S. and the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Microsoft and the Information Technology Industry Council had both lobbied heavily for the bill, which includes a commitment to intellectual property rights.

“It is particularly important for Microsoft and other U.S. technology companies that CAFTA and other free-trade agreements negotiated by the U.S. mandate strong intellectual property protections and fair treatments for products delivered online,” said Jack Krumholtz, Microsoft’s managing director for federal government affairs at Microsoft.

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