Barclay Friesen, Chris Taylor and Raul Varela Join Rapidly Growing Financial Reporting Software Company

In an effort to sustain and support rapid growth, Rivet Software brings in three new directors.

Over the next 18 months, the Securities Exchange Commission, under Regulation S-T, has mandated that all publicly traded companies provide electronic tags on all financial disclosure filed with the organization. In order to remain in compliance and efficiently make their EDGAR filings more discoverable, organizations will need to adopt solutions that automatically apply detailed tags. As such, Rivet Software, a leading developer of financial reporting, XBRL based software is poised for exponential growth.

“Anticipation of the market need means that we must scale our staff and quickly,” said Patrick Quinlan, president of Rivet Software. “As the company that literally wrote the book on XBRL, we insisted on having the highest level of people available to help spur growth and support our growing client base.”

Barclay Friesen comes to Rivet after building a successful sales career within the telecom and manufacturing world. As Director of Sales, he is responsible for providing leadership, business development strategy and management of the sales department within several vertical industries, including mutual funds, corporate compliance, and financial reporting.

Rivet is also benefiting from the addition of Raul Varela, CFA. His technical perspective and business acumen offer unique perspective to his role as Director of Mutual Fund Compliance and Reporting. A former project manager, Raul can help customers and prospects navigate the nuances of IT implementation as well as the impact of new technology on the business user. Prior to joining Rivet, he served in various leadership roles at Oppenheimer Funds, Inc., J.D. Edwards and several software companies. He is a graduate of Colorado School of Mines and holds a MBA from the University of Colorado.

Chris Taylor is Rivet’s new Director of Professional Services. He is responsible for growing and managing Rivet’s accounting, legal and consultant client base. Chris brings more than 25 years of financial and international corporate development in consulting, software and manufacturing to Rivet. Chris previously served as a controller, director of finance, and chief financial officer for several public and private companies. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University and holds a MBA, from Boise State University.

Rivet Software has spent more than 100,000 development hours creating the most comprehensive XBRL reporting solution for public and private companies seeking greater financial transparency. Built by accountants for accountants, Rivet is the only software solution deployable across the enterprise that can offer the highest level of taxonomy required by the government.

We think you could do a lot worse than Acer’s Aspire 1810TZ. Sony’s skinny and compact Vaio X is nice, but it’s not cheap. Acer’s alternative is a wee bit more bulky, but since it’s on sale for around £450, it’s considerably less expensive.

The 1810TZ is part of Acer’s Timeline series of long-endurance laptops, so it’s also a good long runner.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The 1810TZ is a kind of netbook-plus. Its size suggests a netbook – its 285mm width is set more by the large keyboard than by the 11.6in widescreen, LED-backlit display – but it has a dual-core Pentium SU4100 processor clocked at 1.3GHz and 3GB of 800MHz DDR 2 memory.

Full review at theregister.co.uk.

Frost & Sullivan honors Telestream with 2009 Global Competitive Strategy Leadership Award and 2009 World Market Share Leadership Award

Telestream, a provider of world-class video transcoding solutions, affirms its leadership position with the announcement that Frost & Sullivan has presented the company with two 2009 Global Video Transcoders Market Leadership Awards. The Competitive Strategy Leadership Award recognizes Telestream for its accomplishments in the overall global enterprise, broadband and mobile video transcoders market. The World Market Share Leadership award recognizes Telestream’s position in the global broadband video transcoders market sector.

The awards cite Telestream’s best practices as being unmatched in their field; acknowledge the company’s continued double-digit growth rate and market share dominance; as well as the creativity and dedication of its executive team and employees.

Frost and Sullivan’s Competitive Strategy Leadership Award is based on key criteria that benchmarks Telestream against its competitors in the areas of competitive intelligence, competitive strategy, market share, brand positioning and customer satisfaction.

“Telestream has focused on using transcoding as an enabling technology and has been able to successfully merge it with other components to provide customers with complete workflow solutions. Further, Telestream has made two major acquisitions that have helped the company leverage growth,” said Vidya S. Nath, Senior Industry Analyst at Frost and Sullivan. “Despite tough economic conditions and extremely competitive situations, Telestream has enjoyed substantial growth in 2009 and established itself as a leading transcoding vendor across multiple market segments.”

Frost and Sullivan cites several key performance drivers that contributed to the growth of Telestream:

–  A highly diversified line of transcoding products complimented by
other software and workflow automation products have resulted in
higher adoption rates and the ability to address a broader range of
markets.
–  Strong brand recognition driven by its perceived innovation leadership
in spite of the dominance of large broadcast equipment vendors.
–  Year-on-year revenue growth of 30% despite recessionary economic
conditions in 2009.

Frost and Sullivan also recognized Telestream as one of only two vendors that has gained robust growth within the global broadband video transcoders market, while driving innovation. Although the market is highly fragmented, Telestream led its competitors with a 17.9 percent market share.

“An important factor that has contributed to Telestream’s growth is its highly diversified product line. The company offers both enterprise-scale and desktop encoding and transcoding solutions, enabling customers of all sizes to compress video for web distribution,” stated Nath, at Frost & Sullivan. “Telestream’s market share, especially in the broadband video market segment, has grown tremendously because of these efforts.”

Both awards acknowledge Telestream’s recent acquisitions as contributing to its transcoding expertise and breadth of product offerings for Mac and Windows users. These acquisitions have helped Telestream to leverage its growth and expand distribution.

“Telestream is honored to receive these two awards from Frost & Sullivan, one of the world’s top research firms,” said Dan Castes, CEO of Telestream. “The most important recognition for us is customer satisfaction which is reflected in our sales growth and is the foundation for receiving these awards. We are dedicated to continuing our quest to create the technology and products that enable a broad range of digital media solutions across multiple platforms.”

Founded in 1998, Telestream products make it possible to get video content to any audience regardless of how it is created, distributed or viewed. The world’s most demanding media and entertainment companies, service providers and enterprises rely on Telestream products to streamline their operations and generate more revenue from their media. In addition, a growing number of video prosumers are turning to Telestream to simplify the creation of video for online and mobile distribution. Enterprise-class products include video capture devices, video transcoding and workflow automation server software. Desktop solutions include encoding, live webcasting, screencasting and component software. Telestream enables users in a broad range of business environments to leverage the value of their video content. Corporate headquarters are located in Nevada City, California, and its team of video experts is located in France, Germany, Sweden, UK and US.

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best in class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company’s Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO’s Growth Team with disciplined research and best practice models to drive the generation, evaluation and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from 40 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.frost.com/.

When first announced at IFA earlier this year, Samsung made something of a bizarre marketing move by proudly proclaiming the batteries powering the X-series will not explode. Good news for those with an adverse reaction to spontaneous combustion then, and we’re happy to confirm the X520’s battery remained free of flames during testing. As well as not exploding, Samsung also claims the battery will last a nine-hour road trip from Paris to Barcelona. We’ll come to our own battery tests in a moment.

According to Samsung, the X520 is extremely robust and “doesn’t need any extra protection”. We wouldn’t go quite this far, and while the chassis is by no means flimsy, it does have some weak points – pick it up with a firm grip and you’ll hear a bit of creaking, especially around the optical drive.

Full review at theregister.co.uk.

–  Converged networking is coming in the form of iSCSI over Ethernet or
Fibre Channel over Ethernet. Both strategies can co-exist negating the
need to choose one or the other.
–  WAN optimization has kept its promise of lower utilization and better
application response, both of which have significant real business
benefit.
–  Virtual networking in the hypervisor is adequate for most cases, but
as datacenters become more automated, a uniform management plane is
needed for bridging the physical and virtual network.

“I found the presentations an effective way to listen to the current issues in high-performance networking from some of the industry leaders themselves, and enjoyed interactively asking my questions and making relevant points,” said Brian Morey, Architect at EB3 Communications. “I would highly recommend this format to any computing professionals, and look forward to seeing what you have up next time.”
“Our panel of experts laid out the benefits of converged networking beyond the hype and showed how different tools can be used without requiring disruptive changes,” said Mike Fratto, Editor, Network Computing.
Sponsors of the virtual event included Blue Coat, Citrix, Microsoft, Juniper Networks, Silver Peak, thawte, APC, VMware, Brocade, Infoblox, KACE and nlyte.
Virtual event participation statistics include:
–  Over 1,300 registrants
–  Approximately 700 attendees
–  Average time spent in show: 1 hour,  49 minutes
–  Average booth visit time per attendee: 7 minutes

For more information, please visit, http://techweb.com/nwc-virtual. The event will be archived until November 12, 2010.
TechWeb’s next virtual event is scheduled for December 9, 2009, hosted by InformationWeek’s Dark Reading and Black Hat, titled IT Security: The Next Decade. For more information, please visit http://techweb.com/ITsecurity.
The InformationWeek Business Technology Network provides IT executives with unique analysis and tools that parallel their work flow — from defining and framing objectives through to the evaluation and recommendation of solutions. Anchored by InformationWeek, the multimedia powerhouse that looks across the enterprise, the Network scales across the most critical technology categories with online properties like DarkReading.com (security), IntelligentEnterprise.com (application architecture), NetworkComputing.com (networking and communications) and PlugintotheCloud.com (cloud computing). The Network also provides focused content for key IT targets, such as CIOs, developers and SMBs via InformationWeek Global CIO, Dr. Dobb’s and InformationWeek Small Business and bMighty.com, as well as vital vertical industries with InformationWeek Financial Services, Government and Healthcare sites. Content is at the nucleus of our information distribution strategy — IT professionals turn to our experts and communities to stay informed, get advice and research technologies to make strategic business decisions.
TechWeb, the global leader in business technology media, is an innovative business focused on serving the needs of technology decision-makers and marketers worldwide. TechWeb produces the most respected and consumed media brands in the business technology market. Today, more than 13.3 million* business technology professionals actively engage in our communities created around our global face-to-face events Interop, Web 2.0, Black Hat and VoiceCon; online resources such as the InformationWeek Business Technology Network, Light Reading, Network Computing, and Insurance & Technology; and the market leading, award-winning InformationWeek, Wall Street & Technology, and Advanced Trading magazines. TechWeb also provides end-to-end services ranging from next-generation performance marketing to integrated media, market research and analyst services. TechWeb is a division of United Business Media, a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $2.5 billion.

Full story at theinquirer.net.

The new supercomputer can perform more than 14 trillion calculations per second — nearly 50 times faster than what had been available at Brown — making it the most powerful computing system in Rhode Island, according to IBM. The system operates at a peak performance speed of more than 14 teraflops, widely considered to meet supercomputer standards.
Examples of the wide areas of research that will take advantage of the increased computing horsepower include advances in genomics that could lead to drugs for treating specific diseases such as cancer; investigation of the mechanics of human and animal movement; exploration of the web of animal life and ocean ecosystems; and studies of the terrain of planetary bodies, such as Mars.
“We live in an era where computer-enabled research cuts across all research and opens entirely new pursuits and innovations. However, this work demands greater computational capacity in terms of speed and the ability to handle large amounts of data,” said Jan Hesthaven, professor of applied mathematics and director of the Center for Computation and Visualization. “We now have a computing system for these times.”
The benefits to faculty and graduate researchers are many. Research projects that involve intricate, voluminous datasets will be executed on campus, rather than having to be done elsewhere. The supercomputer also enhances research that involves multiple departments, capitalizing on Brown’s strength in interdisciplinary research, as well as increasing funding opportunities for major research initiatives.
“This new system will help scientists make our world smarter – through the ability to address problems that are orders of magnitude larger than what they could address just a few short years ago – from mapping the human genome to helping figure out how to cut down on carbon emissions to helping ensure our waters and food are safe and sustainable,” said Nick Bowen, vice president of technology, IBM.
Researchers at the University of Rhode Island and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., who will be among its first users, collaborated with IBM to make sure the system will meet their requirements.
“This system will transform my ability to analyze the genomes of microbes in the ocean,” said Bethany Jenkins, an assistant professor at the University of Rhode Island’s Department of Molecular and Cell Biology and Graduate School of Oceanography. “Having the most advanced computing resources is essential to make sure Rhode Island researchers remain leaders in studying the environment.”
Next year, the supercomputer is expected to be available to other universities in Rhode Island, as well as to hospitals and nonprofit organizations throughout the state. Researchers will be able to access the supercomputer at costs competitive with similar computing systems.
The new supercomputer – with a total of 1,440 microprocessors – is based on three IBM iDataPlex systems, equal to the size of six refrigerators; an IBM Cluster 1350; and multiple IBM storage systems running General Parallel File System, supported by IBM Global Services.
Highlights of the system:
–  Operates at a peak performance speed of more than 14 teraflops, nearly
50 times faster than what had been available at Brown.
–  Has 390 terabytes of storage capacity, an amount of data which if
printed and stacked, would extend from Providence to Hong Kong.
–  Holds 4.5 terabytes of memory, about 70 times more memory than what
had been available at Brown.
–  Allows parallel programs to be run, that, in aggregate, are 20 times
faster than what had been available at Brown. Researchers can now
compute a problem that is 20 times larger in the same time.
–  Combined with the supercomputer, Brown has increased its backbone
network tenfold, to 10 gigabits from one gigabit. The greater
bandwidth means more data can be moved within the system or into
another system.
–  Is six times more energy efficient than what had been available at
Brown.

IBM has long been a collaborative partner of Brown, having supported many research and educational activities across the Brown campus for decades. The supercomputer partnership began to take shape in spring 2008, when Briant introduced Bowen to Rhode Island’s Science and Technology Advisory Council, and the parties explored IBM’s statewide relationship model and the unique challenges and opportunities that Rhode Island brought to a partnership model. Since then, Brown has convened several statewide working groups, comprising elected officials, academic leaders and representatives in health care and information technology. From those talks emerged the partnership and the initiative to use the supercomputer to address major societal issues.
In June 2009, Brown and IBM signed an agreement for the order, delivery, and set up of the computing system at Brown. The new supercomputer was a shared investment by Brown and IBM.
Founded in 1764, Brown University is the nation’s seventh-oldest institution of higher education and a member of the Ivy League. Brown provides close mentoring of students and the vibrant engagement of a research-intensive university. Deeply committed to teaching and research, Brown faculty members view graduate and undergraduate students as vital members of their scholarly teams. In fiscal 2009, sponsored research exceeded $138 million at Brown.
More information about IBM’s Smarter Education and University programs is available at www.ibm.com/press/smartereducation and www.ibm.com/press/university.

The cognitive computing team, led by IBM Research, has achieved significant advances in large-scale cortical simulation and a new algorithm that synthesizes neurological data — two major milestones that indicate the feasibility of building a cognitive computing chip.

Scientists, at IBM Research – Almaden, in collaboration with colleagues from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, have performed the first near real-time cortical simulation of the brain that exceeds the scale of a cat cortex and contains 1 billion spiking neurons and 10 trillion individual learning synapses.

Additionally, in collaboration with researchers from Stanford University, IBM scientists have developed an algorithm that exploits the Blue Gene® supercomputing architecture in order to noninvasively measure and map the connections between all cortical and sub-cortical locations within the human brain using magnetic resonance diffusion weighted imaging. Mapping the wiring diagram of the brain is crucial to untangling its vast communication network and understanding how it represents and processes information.

These advancements will provide a unique workbench for exploring the computational dynamics of the brain, and stand to move the team closer to its goal of building a compact, low-power synaptronic chip using nanotechnology and advances in phase change memory and magnetic tunnel junctions. The team’s work stands to break the mold of conventional von Neumann computing, in order to meet the system requirements of the instrumented and interconnected world of tomorrow.

As the amount of digital data that we create continues to grow massively and the world becomes more instrumented and interconnected, there is a need for new kinds of computing systems — imbued with a new intelligence that can spot hard-to-find patterns in vastly varied kinds of data, both digital and sensory; analyze and integrate information real-time in a context-dependent way; and deal with the ambiguity found in complex, real-world environments.

Businesses will simultaneously need to monitor, prioritize, adapt and make rapid decisions based on ever-growing streams of critical data and information. A cognitive computer could quickly and accurately put together the disparate pieces of this complex puzzle, while taking into account context and previous experience, to help business decision makers come to a logical response.

“Learning from the brain is an attractive way to overcome power and density challenges faced in computing today,” said Josephine Cheng, IBM Fellow and lab director of IBM Research – Almaden. “As the digital and physical worlds continue to merge and computing becomes more embedded in the fabric of our daily lives, it’s imperative that we create a more intelligent computing system that can help us make sense the vast amount of information that’s increasingly available to us, much the way our brains can quickly interpret and act on complex tasks.”

To perform the first near real-time cortical simulation of the brain that exceed the scale of the cat cortex, the team built a cortical simulator that incorporates a number of innovations in computation, memory, and communication as well as sophisticated biological details from neurophysiology and neuroanatomy. This scientific tool, akin to a linear accelerator or an electron microscope, is a critical instrument used to test hypotheses of brain structure, dynamics and function. The simulation was performed using the cortical simulator on Lawrence Livermore National Lab’s Dawn Blue Gene/P supercomputer with 147,456 CPUs and 144 terabytes of main memory.

The algorithm, when combined with the cortical simulator, allows scientists to experiment with various mathematical hypotheses of brain function and structure of how structure affects function as they work toward discovering the brain’s core computational micro and macro circuits.

After the successful completion of Phase 0, IBM and its university partners were recently awarded $16.1M in additional funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for Phase 1 of DARPA’s Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) initiative. This phase of research will focus on the components, brain-like architecture and simulations to build a prototype chip. The long-term mission of IBM’s cognitive computing initiative is to discover and demonstrate the algorithms of the brain and deliver low-power, compact cognitive computers that approach mammalian-scale intelligence and use significantly less energy than today’s computing systems. The world-class team includes researchers from several of IBM’s worldwide research labs and scientists from Stanford University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Cornell University, Columbia University Medical Center and University of California-Merced.

“The goal of the SyNAPSE program is to create new electronics hardware and architecture that can understand, adapt and respond to an informative environment in ways that extend traditional computation to include fundamentally different capabilities found in biological brains,” said DARPA program manager Todd Hylton, Ph.D.

Modern computing is based on a stored program model, which has traditionally been implemented in digital, synchronous, serial, centralized, fast, hardwired, general-purpose circuits with explicit memory addressing that indiscriminately over-write data and impose a dichotomy between computation and data. In stark contrast, cognitive computing — like the brain — will use replicated computational units, neurons and synapses that are implemented in mixed-mode analog-digital, asynchronous, parallel, distributed, slow, reconfigurable, specialized and fault-tolerant biological substrates with implicit memory addressing that only update state when information changes, blurring the boundary between computation and data.

For more information about IBM Research, please visit www.ibm.com/research.

“Arkeia Network Backup is a proven network backup solution with broad platform support and a robust enterprise feature-set,” said Steve George, vice president of sales and product management, corporate services at Canonical. “With the Arkeia Network Backup Enterprise Edition for Ubuntu, Arkeia Software makes a significant commitment to the Ubuntu user community and supports Ubuntu’s ongoing growth in the enterprise.”

Arkeia Software was the first professional network backup solution for Linux and has supported the community since 1999. Today, Arkeia continues to provide the deepest and broadest support for Linux and open source with more than 100 platforms supported. With these new offerings Arkeia acknowledges the work of thousands of Linux users who have donated time and expertise toward the goal of making Linux a viable OS alternative. Fully-licensed Arkeia Network Backup, Enterprise Edition for Ubuntu can be downloaded from the Ubuntu 8.04 LTS repository by using the Synaptic Package Manager or with the ‘apt-get’ command.

“Ubuntu has been adopted by millions of users because of its ease-of-use, speed, and affordability,” said Dave Elliott, vice president of marketing at Arkeia Software. “As Canonical and Ubuntu move into larger environments, Arkeia is proud to provide Arkeia Network Backup, which is similarly fast, easy-to-use, and affordable.”

Arkeia Network Backup, Enterprise Edition for Ubuntu is fully-featured and is not time-limited. One free, perpetual license is granted per individual or company and only web registration is required.

The enterprise license includes:
>  one backup server running on Ubuntu
>  up to 250GB capacity for backup to disk
>  support of any single drive, tape or disk
>  2 client agents to backup many types of client machines including
Windows workstations and desktops, and the vast majority of Linux
machines, Mac OS X and BSD computers

Arkeia Network Backup features an easy-to-use web interface so that backup policy setup and management is a breeze. Arkeia’s backup engine leverages parallelism extensively, making Arkeia Network Backup one of the fastest backup and restore solutions in the market. Source-side data deduplication will be available in early 2010, making backups and restores faster and easier than ever. More than 150 different applications and platforms are supported with specific packages.

The Arkeia Network Backup, Enterprise Edition for Ubuntu, package is available now for download from Ubuntu’s repository and can be accessed by using the Synaptic Package Manager or by typing the ‘apt-get install arkeia’ command. More information can be found at http://www.arkeia.com/en/partners/technology-partners/ubuntu.

Arkeia Software delivers fast, easy-to-use and affordable solutions for data backup and disaster recovery. The award-winning Arkeia Network Backup Suite is designed for both mid-sized organizations and multi-site enterprises, and safeguards more than 100,000 networks for 7,000 customers in 70 countries. Arkeia Software products protect data on over 150 platforms, including virtually all Linux and Windows platforms, as well as AIX, BSD, HP-UX, Irix, Macintosh, Netware, and Solaris. Arkeia Backup Servers are deployed in three modes: as software applications, hardware appliances, or virtual appliances. Complementary suite software includes file agents, application agents, database agents, virtual machine agents, disaster recovery agents, backup replication servers, and central management servers. Arkeia shipped the industry’s first network backup solution for Linux in 1999 and is headquartered in San Diego, California.

The development center, managed by Infosys’s subsidiary, Infosys Technologies S. De R.L. De CV, provides technology services for clients in all industries including banking, financial services, manufacturing, retail, distribution, insurance, and many others.

“From our first development center opening with a few clients and a dozen employees, we now have some 30 clients and 330 professionals and the future looks muy brillante,” said Ashok Vemuri, Senior Vice President and member of Executive Council, Infosys Technologies. “Our public-private partnership with the city of Monterrey and the government of Nuevo Leon, Mexico demonstrates that such unions create opportunities for the city’s very talented new graduates from local universities. And it clearly creates tremendous value for clients around the world who increasingly look to our centers in Latin America for the solutions they need.”

Both Monterrey facilities provide Infosys with dedicated resources to serve clients primarily in North America, Latin America and Europe with bilingual talent in an agreeable time zone and close proximity. Furthermore, it strengthens the company’s global delivery model capabilities with such other development centers in the Czech Republic, Poland, Thailand, Philippines, China, Australia and India.

After examining several countries in the region, Infosys chose to establish a presence in Mexico due to the broad language skills available in the region, its geographical proximity to Canada, the U.S. and Europe. Latin America is a strong emerging market and one where many of Infosys’ clients have operations already.

Infosys Technologies Limited defines, designs and delivers IT-enabled business solutions that help Global 2000 companies win in a Flat World. These solutions focus on providing strategic differentiation and operational superiority to clients. With Infosys, clients are assured of a transparent business partner, world-class processes, speed of execution and the power to stretch their IT budget by leveraging the Global Delivery Model that Infosys pioneered. Infosys has over 105,000 employees in over 50 offices worldwide. Infosys is part of the NASDAQ-100 Index and The Global Dow. For more information, visit www.infosys.com.

PC manufacturers are starting to get worried that they cannot get enough of AMD’s new 40nm GPUs.

The problem is due to AMD’s foundry having trouble ramping up production of a new 40nm process, and it means that some PC makers are having to delay shipments of desktop and laptop computers.

It seems that the difficulty is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). It can’t make enough of AMD’s 5800 series 40nm GPUs. The foundry is running flat out but yields apparently are still below expectation.

Matt Davis, a spokesman for AMD, told Computerworld that the design of the chips was sound. It was all just a matter of trying to get TSMC to a point where they can yield.

“They’re feeling the manufacturing crunch,” said Davis. “We’re a little bitter under yield but we’re working back into a manufacturing schedule we want for these parts. TSMC can only kick them out so fast at this point.”

We think he actually meant to say, “a little bit” and hope Chimpzilla’s not really bitter about it. AMD said that it hopes to have production up to speed by year’s end.

If it was a product that no one wanted then there would be no problem but demand for the chips is higher than expected. The company’s HD5800 series GPUs have the industry performance lead at the moment.

AMD has a little time to get manufacturing in line before PC vendors start looking for greener pastures. AMD’s rival Nvidia also uses TSMC and is also reporting trouble with 40nm parts yields.

Full story available at theinquirer.net

After a 20-month investigation, attorney general Andrew Cuomo accused Intel of striking deals in which computer makers such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM agreed to choose its microprocessors over those of competitors in return for billions of kickbacks disguised as “rebates”.

“In Intel’s market, there were no laws of supply and demand,” said Cuomo. “Instead, it was the law of ‘my way or the highway’.”

Cuomo’s action follows complaints by Intel’s leading rival, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), over unfair tactics in sales of microprocessors. The charges are along similar lines to those laid by the European Commission, which imposed a €1.03bn (£922m) fine on Intel in May, in the biggest punishment ever enacted by Brussels for anti-competitive behaviour.

“Rather than compete fairly, Intel used bribery and coercion to maintain a stranglehold on the market,” said Cuomo. “Intel’s actions not only unfairly restricted potential competitors, but also hurt average consumers who were robbed of better products and lower prices.”

Click here to read full story.

The package will no longer be distributed after November 16, Microsoft said Friday. Versions of the product affected are the Express, Standard, Professional, Professional Plus, three-user and Small Business Accounting in North America and the UK.

The company said it had determined that the existing, free templates in Office and Excel would suit small businesses, and that its Dynamics ERP suite would be adequate for mid-sized organizations.

The decision to chop Office Accounting and have people use existing features in Office and Dynamics is likely part of Microsoft’s attempts to cut its costs in product development, marketing and sales in areas where there are overlap.

Click here to read the full story at theregister.co.uk.

In conjunction with the online software piracy reporting network at NoPiracy.com, BSA also maintains the manned 1-888-NO PIRACY hotline. Individuals can confidentially offer information on unlicensed software use as well as register to claim rewards of up to $1 million. Since 2008, BSA has paid a total of $220,650 in rewards for verifiable tips of software piracy. Despite the rewards program, many opt not to take the reward, citing their motivation as simply “to do the right thing.”

Reporting by the general public over the past nine months shows that the state of Texas is a top five hotspot for reports of illegal software use with a large portion coming from the Houston area. Dallas-Ft. Worth was a close second in terms of reports of software piracy, while the Austin and San Antonio regions were a distant third and fourth.

“This is the first time BSA has identified specific U.S. states as ‘Software Piracy Hotspots,’ although our records over the last years have shown that Houston has consistently been active in terms of illegal software reports,” said Jenny Blank, Senior Director of Legal Affairs for BSA. “Our analysis of the trends suggests two things: First, given the number of leads from Southeastern and central Texas, people in the state are obviously quite concerned about this issue and don’t like the idea of local companies using what amounts to stolen software products. Second, there are clearly a lot of companies in Texas who are not concerned that they are breaking the law and are willing to take the risks associated with that decision. For many companies, such blatant disregard for the law has proven costly.”

Each year, BSA receives on average over 2,500 reports of software piracy from across the country. The majority of the reports come from current or former employees who had information related to the unlicensed software activity.

According to the Sixth Annual BSA-IDC Global Software Piracy Study, the retail value of unlicensed software installed in 2008 – representing revenue losses to software companies – was estimated at $9.1 billion in the United States and $53 billion worldwide.

The national average software piracy rate in 2008 was 20%, meaning that one in five pieces of PC software installed in the United States was unlicensed. Texas’ rate however is also 20% according to the 2007 State Piracy Report released last year and also conducted by IDC. While in line with the national average, the rate is still dismally high given the cost of piracy to the economy.

Software piracy in Texas cost software vendors an estimated $627 million, which is the third-highest figure of the eight states included in the study. Lost revenues to a wider group of Texas software distributors and service providers cost an additional $1.7 billion, which is, for example, enough to hire more than 9,200 tech workers. The lost state and local tax revenues – $223 million – would also have been enough to fund the hiring of more than 4,000 experienced police officers. These are significant economic losses especially in light of the troubled economy.

Reducing piracy brings tangible economic benefits to the local IT industry and local communities. For every $1 of PC software licensed, there is another $3 to $4 of revenues for local service and distribution firms, as well as tax revenues to support local services, according to the BSA-IDC Global Software Piracy Study.

“Staggering economic losses like these clearly appear to resonate with many individuals in Texas who have decided to come forward and confidentially report instances of unlicensed software use in their organizations,” said Blank.

Financial Risks

Businesses found to be using unlicensed software may be required to pay thousands of dollars in damages to BSA. A company found using unlicensed software and violating copyright laws could pay damages of up to $150,000 for each software title copied. If convicted, violators can be fined up to $250,000 per title or given a jail term of up to five years, or both.

When BSA receives a tip about a company using pirated software, it typically contacts the company and asks it to conduct an audit of its software assets. If unlicensed software is found, the next step is for both parties to work toward a resolution that involves immediate legalization of software.

Security Risks

Pirated software can also pose security risks to the users’ networks and computers. Company computers can be infected with trojans, viruses, malware, and other threats, and this in turn can expose sensitive data and personal information of employees and customers. As companies and government agencies have found, having confidential information exposed to outsiders is costly and can put an organization’s reputation at risk.

Tools & Resources to Ensure Compliance

BSA works with businesses to help ensure that their company isn’t at risk of the financial, technical, and legal risks associated with illegal software. In addition to the educational and self-audit resources provided online at www.bsa.org, BSA has partnered with the U.S. Small Business Administration to educate up to 100,000 small businesses on software licenses, copyright laws, tips on how to purchase safe and legal software online, and how to develop an SAM program.

Businesses trying to determine whether their organizations are using unlicensed software can download the free software audit tools at www.bsaaudit.com.

Please visit our Facebook page under keyword Business Software Alliance (BSA) Anti-Piracy.

About BSA

The Business Software Alliance (www.bsa.org) is the foremost organization dedicated to promoting a safe and legal digital world. BSA is the voice of the world’s commercial software industry and its hardware partners before governments and in the international marketplace. Its members represent one of the fastest growing industries in the world. BSA programs foster technology innovation through education and policy initiatives that promote copyright protection, cyber security, trade and e-commerce. BSA members include Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Bentley Systems, Corel, CyberLink, Dassault Systemes SolidWorks Corporation, Embarcadero, McAfee, Microsoft, Minitab, Quark, Quest Software, Rosetta Stone, Siemens, Sybase, Symantec, and The MathWorks.

So, why would Apple adopt a Core i processor in a laptop? The short answer is OS X Snow Leopard. The new operating system is designed to be better at wringing more performance out of multicore processors–and the Core i chips pack four cores.

The long answer is the Core “i” chips themselves. The Core i, a.k.a. “Nehalem,” is a brand new Intel microarchitecture brimming with performance improvements over the current Core 2 design.

For starters, the recently announced mobile i7-820QM processor integrates a hefty 8MB of cache memory–compared with the 6MB in the fastest Core 2 Duo that Apple currently offers on the MacBook Pro. Generally, the larger the cache memory, the better the performance.

But Intel has done a lot more than just up the transistor count via a larger cache. While the quad-core i7-820QM is rated at 1.73GHz, a single core can be “overclocked” to 3.06 GHz. Intel does this with a technology dubbed Turbo Boost, which speeds up and slows down individual cores to meet processing and power-efficiency needs, respectively.

Need more convincing? The Core i7 also comes with Hyper-Threading, which can double the number of tasks–or threads–a processor can execute. You won’t find that in the Core 2 chips.

Digital media creation also gets a boost. Intel claims up to 81 percent faster video encoding.

Click here to read the full story at cnet.com.

Qualified AT&T High Speed Internet customers, including AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet customers, will receive a complimentary subscription to McAfee anti-virus software as part of their existing AT&T Internet Security Suite. AT&T’s comprehensive suite of security services includes anti-virus protection, anti-spyware, two-way firewall protection, anti-phishing solutions, PC tune-up tools, McAfee SiteAdvisor technology – a Web site safety tool – and McAfee Active Protection technology to provide the fastest protection against malicious threats to PCs.

“We want our customers to have peace of mind online knowing their computers and personal information are protected from cybercriminals,” said Bob Bickerstaff, vice president of consumer data products for AT&T. “It’s important that our customers be able to enjoy a safe online experience, and by installing our strong security suite, they can stay ahead of common potential threats.”

“With more malicious software than ever before, AT&T customers will be able to take advantage of the McAfee-based technologies, such as the Active Protection technology in our anti-virus solution, which is number one in malware detection [according to ComputerBild magazine] and our award-winning SiteAdvisor site rating service, so consumers can surf the Web more safely,” said Todd Gebhart, executive vice president and general manager, McAfee Consumer, Mobile and Small Business. “This furthers our strategy of protecting consumers with the most essential security as they interact on PC and Web environments.”

In order to protect Internet users from scams and other online threats, AT&T and McAfee offer the following security tips:

> Before making an Internet purchase, make sure that the Web site has
encryption. If it is safe, it will display a key or closed lock in the
Web browser. You can also check the Web address; it should begin with
https:/// (not just http:///) if it is secure.

> Type your e-mail address into a Web search engine to check if it is
visible to spammers.

> Be careful when opening e-mail attachments, especially with subject
titles related to holidays, financial services, higher education
diplomas, and at-home work offers. You could download malware onto
your PC. Don’t click on links if you do not know the sender.

> Make sure that your anti-virus software is up to date.

> Create an alphanumeric password by including a combination of capital
letters, numbers and special characters and using more than six
characters.

> Never respond to e-mail requests to validate or confirm any of your
personal or account information, as this could be a phishing scam. If
you are unsure if a request for information from a company is
legitimate, contact the company directly.

To download the AT&T Internet Security Suite, AT&T High Speed Internet customers can click on “software center” on the att.net portal homepage. For more information about consumer scams and security, visit www.att.com/safety. For more information about McAfee products, visit www.mcafee.com.

Shortly after the software was released Tuesday for download by customers, VMware issued a support alert about its upgrade portal, blaming “overwhelming demand” for the upgrade problems. The alert remained on the Web site early this morning.

Fusion 3.0 is virtualization software that allows Windows, and other guest operating systems, to run on Intel-based Mac OS X. VMware Workstation 7, also released Tuesday, is a virtual machine platform that supports multiple operating systems on a PC. Most of the VMware portal problems appear to be with Fusion.

One problem was difficulty in getting activation codes for the new products. In a blog post, Pat Lee, director of VMware’s personal desktop products, posted the 30-day free trial key as a workaround.

Click here to read the full story at computerworld.com

Under the agreement, IBM will implement a hosted, virtualised server and storage environment and provide emergency back-up from a further IBM data center, enabling a flexible, robust disaster recovery system.

By using a variety of virtualisation systems the University will reduce the number of machines from around 250 to 25 at the primary data center; electricity usage by 40%, from around 47 kW/hour to 27 kW/hour; and physical space requirements from approximately 1,000 square feet to 400 square feet.

The University will also see a reduction in the power and space requirements of its on campus machine rooms, helping it meet government energy saving targets.

The new infrastructure will also bring other significant benefits including: lower operating costs; improved collaboration tools; increased storage space; improved storage management tools; and higher levels of service to teaching staff and students alike.

For Middlesex University, the scalability of the solution was critical. The University already has a campus in Dubai and will shortly open another in Mauritius and this project enhances its ability to underpin plans for international expansion.

Steve Knight, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, explained, “We need a system that allows flexibility according to our changing requirements and this solution does just that. We were looking for a platform solution to complement our longer term plans to achieve a dynamic infrastructure. In IBM we have a found a partner who shares our technology vision and can help us achieve our strategic goals.”

Fraser Davidson, IBM UK Vice President, Public Sector commented, “Middlesex University has an impressive vision to use technology to consistently deliver the best teaching materials both remotely to students and for students using IT on campus.”

Paula Vickers, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Director of Computing and Communication Systems Service at Middlesex, said, “We needed to upgrade our existing hardware and were looking for a solution that offered reliable, modern, scalable infrastructure to underpin the University’s business systems and activities. A key requirement was a solution that also helped reduce our carbon footprint through the deployment of modern, energy-saving hardware.”

Under the agreement, IBM will provide Remote Managed Information Services, offering IT management and support to Middlesex University, thus freeing its IT team’s time to focus on skills and knowledge development in areas of strategic significance to the University. Round the clock monitoring of the University’s IT infrastructure will enable IBM staff to proactively address issues before anyone at the University is even aware of them.

“By minimising the day-to-day support and maintenance our IT team provides, we can refocus our time on strategic initiatives and new technologies. As a result of this agreement, teaching staff and students will also experience less disruption as routine maintenance work can increasingly be conducted out of hours,” said Paula Vickers.

The solution also addresses Middlesex University’s email and file storage requirements. Through server and storage consolidation and virtualisation, the organisation’s storage capacity will be increased by 45%, from 48 to 70 terabytes, exploiting the benefits of IBM XIV Storage System and IBM System x3850 M2 hardware.

VClouds users will now have the ability to archive email for an unlimited period of time in the “Cloud.” Users can archive and store emails based on user groups, content, or simply companywide. Information is securely encrypted and can be accessed on a permission only basis via numerous parameters. Archives are conveniently retrievable through various search options including date, time, user, direction, and subject.

“This is a really exciting step for VClouds as it enables customers in all sectors to very simply archive their email without the headache of managing storage and policies. We are especially excited about what this can do in the education sector in the US where inexpensive archiving is becoming an absolute must,” stated Owen Dukes, Commercial Advisor to the Board of VClouds Limited.

“We believe in helping our customers to be compliant in every possible way, be that through email retention policies, filtering content in the cloud or alerting administrators to a breach in corporate policy. With the launch of our new archiving module, we just empowered organizations to tick more boxes on their compliance requirement sheet,” stated David Lovatt, President and CEO of VClouds Limited.

VClouds Ltd is a global provider of Email Management Software offering both a Hosted Service and a platform developed specifically for large IT Service Providers with their own DataCenter infrastructure. Delivering ‘Cloud Based’ services through a Security as a Service model, VClouds system will scan emails for spam, viruses, breaches in corporate compliance policy, monitors, and polices Data Leaks within corporate emails. All of our services are managed through one easy to administer web portal and are charged on a ‘per user, per month’ basis making working with Cloud a simple process.

IJJ Corp is a Diversified Technologies company focused on developing high tech solutions for the government and the private sector to provide rapid decisions through information processing. The Company’s technologies include: Voice, Data and Video Rapid Conferencing Solutions; Disaster Shelter Recovery Systems; Mobile Disaster Management Systems; Medical Hospital Advisor Systems; IT Management and Consulting Services; Secure Data Center Services; Network Operation Centers; and Enterprise Management Power Suites. The Company’s objective is to continue to develop and integrate services and products in order to provide the most comprehensive, cutting edge, turnkey solutions to its clients.