Today Alfresco announced a $9 million strategic funding round from SAP Ventures while Zenoss announced an $11 million round from Grotech Capital.
While I don’t expect 2008 to have the volume of open source related fundings that we saw in 2006 and 2007, it’s because the majority of the companies who raised money are not strapped for cash.
Now I’ll just sit back and wait for these guys to send me my stock options and/or sign over 15% of all future earnings.
Hewlett-Packard completed on Tuesday its mega-acquisition of computer services giant EDS.
The deal, worth about $13.9 billion when it was first announced in May, is among the largest in the technology industry. It’s also the second largest one for HP since its acquisition of Compaq was completed in 2002.
HP executives have said they are buying EDS to expand HP’s business beyond traditional computing and printers. HP has been trying to develop its software and services business over the last few years. EDS adds a service component that will help the company compete head-to-head with IBM.
Annual revenue for HP and EDS, combined, in fiscal 2007 was more than $38 billion with 210,000 employees between them operating in more than 80 countries.
But bigger doesn’t always mean better. Merging the companies’ businesses and cultures won’t be easy. And once the combined company manages to get through the integration, some experts say it still has a long, tough road ahead of it as it tries to compete with IBM.
Under the deal, EDS will operate a new business unit, which will be called EDS. It will continue to be led by EDS’ current CEO, Ronald Rittenmeyer.
The deal has had the support of HP shareholders from the beginning. It won approval from U.S. antitrust authorities on June 30 and passed muster with European regulators on July 26.
The low starting prices are part of the plan to appeal to companies with one to 25 employees who need business-level systems, but don’t have a full-time information technology staff. Hardwarewise, the laptops aren’t very different from Dell’s existing lineup; the key differentiator lies in security and support options. The Vostro line offers such niceties as a Trusted Platform Module, Webcam, and fingerprint reader, as well as a generous 30-day return policy that lets you take the laptop for a test drive without paying any restocking fees.
Though Tuesday marks the global announcement of the new Vostro laptops, they won’t be available in North America until May 1 (and the Vostro 1710 isn’t expected until mid-May). We have a Vostro 1310 review unit in our offices, and so far, we’re pleased with its upscale looks and sturdy construction. We’re still putting it through the paces, though, so keep an eye out for a full review of the Vostro 1310 within the next few days.
Dell announced Tuesday that it would introduce three new laptops in its Vostro line for small businesses. The 13.3-inch Vostro 1310, with a starting price of $749, brings a new form factor to the lineup. Meanwhile the 15.4-inch Vostro 1510 (starting at $599) and 17-inch Vostro 1710 (pricing not yet available) are refreshes of existing models.
Vostro owners also have access to a dedicated support line (with “small business trained” technicians), plus one year of free access to 10GB of online backup space and to the company’s Automated PC Tune-up, which regularly performs basic system maintenance. More details can be found on Dell’s site.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
Apple TV 2.1 can be automatically downloaded when the update is detected by the Apple TV device. The patches may take up to one week to be detected, depending on the day a device checks. A manual update can be accomplished by using the TV interface and selecting Settings > Update Software. This update will not appear in your computer’s Software Update application or in the Apple Downloads site.
Apple released a security update on Thursday for its Apple TV. Version 2.1 includes six patches that address buffer overflow and arbitrary code execution vulnerabilities.
Here’s an overview of the six patches, which affect only users of Apple TV:
The update addresses a buffer overflow vulnerability described in CVE-2008-1015. According to Apple, “an issue in the handling of data reference atoms may result in a buffer overflow. Viewing a maliciously crafted movie file may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution.” Apple credits Chris Ries of Carnegie Mellon University Computing Services for reporting this issue. The update addresses a buffer overflow vulnerability described in CVE-2008-1017. Apple says “an issue in the parsing of ‘crgn’ atoms may result in a heap buffer overflow. Viewing a maliciously crafted movie file may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution.” Apple credits Sanbin Li, working with TippingPoint’s Zero Day Initiative, for reporting this issue.
The update addresses a buffer overflow vulnerability described in CVE-2008-1018. Apple says “viewing a maliciously crafted movie file may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution.” This update addresses the issue through improved handling of format strings.” The update addresses an arbitrary code execution vulnerability described in CVE-2008-2314. Apple says “a URL-handling issue exists in the handling of ‘file:’
URLs. This may allow arbitrary applications and files to be launched when a user plays maliciously crafted QuickTime content. This update addresses the issue by no longer launching local applications and files. Apple credits Vinoo Thomas and Rahul Mohandas of McAfee Avert Labs, and Petko D. (aka pdp) Petkov of GNUCitizen working with TippingPoint’s Zero Day Initiative, for reporting this issue.
The update addresses a buffer overflow vulnerability described in CVE-2008-0234. Apple says “a heap buffer overflow exists in the handling of HTTP responses when RTSP tunneling is enabled. Playing maliciously crafted QuickTime content may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution.”
The update addresses a buffer overflow vulnerability described in CVE-2008-0036. Apple says “a buffer overflow may occur while processing a compressed PICT image. Opening a maliciously crafted compressed PICT file may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. This update addresses the issue by terminating decoding when the result would extend beyond the end of the destination buffer.” Apple credits Chris Ries of Carnegie Mellon University Computing Services for reporting this issue.
Hopefully, a government agency won’t take offense to that work, as well.
In an interview with the The Boston Globe, Anderson defended the presentation the students planned to make at Defcon. “It wasn’t to enable others to get a free fare or cause any sort of havoc,” Anderson told The Globe. “It was really to show how major the issues are in this system, which also might resonate in many other systems around the world.”
The MBTA, not surprisingly, doesn’t seem so willing to participate in this particular scientific discourse. In a hearing last week, a federal judge ordered the students to hand over classroom material and any correspondence they’ve had with Defcon organizers. The students have already provided the judge and T officials with two reports, including a 30-page paper that included details the students say they didn’t intend to reveal in their Defcon talk.
Anderson is one of three Massachusetts Institute of Technology students who were blocked by the MBTA and a judge’s order from making a presentation on vulnerabilities in the T’s card-based fare system at the recent Defcon conference in Las Vegas. They’re still blocked from making that presentation under a gag order that expires Tuesday. A hearing will be held in federal court in Boston Tuesday morning to determine whether the temporary restraining order should be converted into a preliminary injunction.
After he’s done with his security dust up with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, Zack Anderson plans on slightly different work: A company that turns heat from a
car’s shock absorbers into energy for the car’s engine.
The students and the MBTA are still fighting over what documents they should have to reveal, including unpublished research notes.
The CBS Audience Network consists of more than 300 partners, including video-sharing start-ups such as Joost and Veoh, social networks such as Bebo, portals such as AOL and Microsoft, as well as a number of other companies and Web sites. Among them is CNET Networks, publisher of News.com.
But at least for now, you won’t be seeing these TV shows, or any other CBS content, on the nascent online-video hub Hulu. Despite rumors that additional players, such as Viacom and Time Warner, are close to jumping on board, the site remains a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp.
An array of classic TV shows from CBS are now available online, the network’s CBS Interactive division announced Thursday.
NBC Universal, meanwhile, announced on Tuesday that it will similarly stream online a number of its classic TV shows, including The A-Team, Kojak, and Buck Rogers. But instead of openly syndicating them, as CBS plans to do, NBC’s streaming operations will be centered on genre sites such as SleuthChannel.com, ChillerTV, and SciFi.com, as well as on NBC’s own video site and Hulu.
Five classic CBS shows, now playing at a browser near you.
(Credit:
CBS)
Full-length episodes of Star Trek, Melrose Place, Hawaii Five-O, MacGyver, and The Twilight Zone have been added to the lineup of the company’s CBS Audience Network, as well as its central streaming-video site. All of it is free and ad-supported; only select seasons of each show are currently available, but CBS has hinted that more episodes, as well as additional TV shows, will go up in the near future.
The front page of Yahoo's Shine is clean and, at least right now, light on ads.
The site is Yahoo’s latest foray into vertical sites, which include the popular Yahoo News and Yahoo Finance, as well as Sports and Entertainment, and the much less popular Yahoo Tech and Yahoo Green. Shine is also Yahoo’s first targeting a specific audience and not just a topic.
Updated 8:45 a.m. PDT with site being launched.
The site will compete with iVillage and fashion- and celebrity-news heavy Glam.com, but its content partners and editors will set it apart, Holley said. Shine will distinguish itself by having more of an editorial voice than the other sites and by interacting more with readers, she said.
Yahoo’s efforts at doing original content haven’t all panned out, but this site is more of a hybrid. Articles and original blogs will come from a range of sources, including Glamour, Epicurious.com, Style.com, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, Women’s Health, and Good Housekeeping.
On a quick glance, Shine looks more aesthetically appealing and less cluttered than the rival sites, despite the fact that Yahoo is not exactly known for simple site design. The site will be at http://shine.yahoo.com.
You will also be able to get to your Yahoo Mail on Shine, and there is integration with Yahoo Search, Food, Health, and Astrology. But there could be even more integration with things like Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Answers.
Eight editors are overseeing the various sections (such as home, parenting, fashion, culture, and career) and the editor in chief is Brandon Holley, former editor in chief of Jane magazine.
“This is really a key audience for Yahoo,” she said. “We’ve been calling them ‘chief household officers’ internally.”
Shine readers will be able to start their own blogs and that content, if deemed worthy, can end up as some of the featured content in different sections on the site.
Yahoo launched a new Web site aimed at women on Monday. The site, called “Shine,” will feature original blogs and content from major publishing partners including Conde Nast, Hearst, and Time.
(Credit:
Yahoo)
Yahoo aims to be the top destination site in the lifestyles category, said Amy Iorio, general manager of Lifestyles at Yahoo. Women as a demographic is a good target, particularly given the number of women who use Yahoo (40 million women between the ages of 25 and 54 every month) and the fact that females tend to blog more than males.
Patrick Pichette
According to his employment offer letter, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Pichette will receive a salary of $450,000 and an annual bonus up to one and half times that amount.
It looks like Patrick Pichette, Google’s new chief financial officer, will be rewarded for his new job with up to $2.125 million after the first year if he earns his full bonus.
Pichette, who had been president of operations at Bell Canada, starts at Google August 1 and will formally become CFO on August 12, Google said Wednesday.
(Credit:
Bell Canada)
He’ll also get 910 Google stock units that will vest in 6 months and another 910 that vest in 12 months. They also convert into Class A shares.
Pichette also gets a signing bonus of $500,000 and another cash bonus of $500,000 after 6 months at the search and advertising giant–though he must pay a prorated amount back if he decides to leave within a year. However, if Google terminates his job within the first 6 months, he’ll get the cash bonus right away.
Stock options also are a part of the package. He’ll get an option to 11,112 shares of Class A common stock, vesting over a four-year period. He’ll also get 5,556 “Google stock units,” vesting over a four-year period. At the end of that, the units convert to Google Class A shares.
This is changing. Major companies such as AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google are on the OpenID standards committee. AOL and Yahoo, in fact, already act as OpenID “authentication providers;” if you have a login on either of these networks, you have an OpenID.
It remains to be seen when, or if, banks will get this idea, and start leveraging their your-money-is-safe-with-us message into digital safekeeping as well.
JanRain's OpenID Selector makes it much easier for users to understand OpenID logins.
On Monday, one of those companies, JanRain, will announce OpenID Selector, a widget that Web site owners can use to make logging in via OpenID easier.
But the concepts of OpenID are still a bit too weird for ordinary mortals to use. It’s in the interest of OpenID technology providers to fix that.
JanRain, not surprisingly, gets this, and will provide a complete white-label OpenID technology infrastructure for companies or brands that want to become authenticators. So if you want to log on to Web sites with an ID from your alma mater or local Rotary club, JanRain will make that possible.
Major sites, such as portals, could still do a much better job pushing the OpenID concept. That would be good for them, not just because it’d make OpenID more accessible to users, but because there’s a lot of brand affinity that sites can win by having users authenticate against their sites even when they’re using some other company’s service. Think of OpenID branding as the affinity credit card of the Web: Every time a user logs on to a service they’d get the authenticator’s brand popped up in front of them–just like Harley-Davidson does when its Visa affinity card users make purchases.
Users who don’t have an OpenID can set one up from the widget. The default provider is JanRain’s MyOpenID, which I use and find pretty straightforward.
Webware has been covering the Web authentication standard OpenID since September 2006. It’s a powerful alternative to traditional name-and-password Web access control, but it’s so completely different from the sign-on methods that people are accustomed to that it remains still unknown to the majority of Web users.
It’s a simple thing: It shows a list of OpenID providers and lets users click on the one they know they have an ID with. Then the user logs into their provider, and the site using the widget authenticates against it.
You cannot control the online/offline state of Google Docs, as you can in Google’s RSS reader. That’s not a major loss, since there’s no advantage to working offline. The offline site is no faster than the online site, for example.
I finally got access to Google Docs offline, the launch of which I covered yesterday. I understand why Google is pitching it as a safety net for a flaky online connection, as opposed to an honest-to-goodness offline application. As we noted yesterday, you cannot yet create a new document when offline. And something we weren’t told: when working offline, you can’t insert a picture into a file nor review its revision history.
Don’t get me wrong: offline access to Google Docs is a necessary addition to the app, and I am sure it will improve over time. Google’s Ken Norton was clear that document creation is coming to the offline version of Docs. But at the moment it’s really just a nice insurance policy if you work on a wonky connection, or if you want to edit–but not create–documents when you’re in an offline environment like an airplane.
Cues that Google is working offline: one, the connection icon in the upper-right is grey, not green; and two, it tells you.
Furthermore, offline edit reconciliation isn’t quite what I was told it would be. I fired up a shared Docs file, pulled the Ethernet plug on my machine, and started to make changes. Meanwhile, I asked Josh, still online, to edit the same block of text I was working on. When I plugged my machine back into the Net, Josh’s changes overwrote mine with no warning. The revision history kept a record of all edits, but unlike the real-time collaborative editing that occurs when all parties are online, Josh did not have a chance to see the changes I was making; his text just took precedence.