Datamation Staff

SUN VALLEY, Idaho (Reuters) – Google Inc is planning a direct attack on Microsoft Corp’s core business by taking on the software giant’s globally dominant Windows operating system for personal computers. Google, which already offers a suite of e-mail, Web and other software products that compete with Microsoft, said on Tuesday it would launch a […]

BOSTON (Reuters) – Virtualization software VMware Inc is slashing prices to ward off increasing competition from billionaire Larry Ellison’s aggressive technology giant Oracle Corp. VMware said on Tuesday it will give 40-percent discounts to existing users of Virtual Iron, a software product that Oracle recently acquired. The three-month promotion includes 10-percent discounts on support contracts. […]

TOKYO (Reuters) – Sony Corp said on Tuesday it plans to launch a new Vaio laptop that will sell for around 60,000 yen ($629) in Japan in August, making an entry into the fast-growing netbook market. Netbook PCs are smaller and cheaper than traditional notebook computers and optimised for simpler computing tasks such as Web […]

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The global recession, shrinking advertising sales and fears that the Internet could render big media empires obsolete provide an ominous backdrop for executives at this week’s Sun Valley conference. Herb Allen’s boutique investment bank Allen & Co has organized this retreat in the affluent mountain resort town in south-central Idaho every […]

BOSTON (Reuters) – Cisco Systems Inc is considering offering Web-based alternatives to Microsoft Corp’s popular Office software as the networking giant expands on the Internet. Cisco Senior Vice President Doug Dennerline said on Tuesday his company may develop a service that would allow business users to create documents they could draft and share through its […]

LONDON/SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp’s new Bing search engine gained U.S. market share in its first month in operation but still trails dominant rival Google Inc, according to data released on Wednesday. Bing, launched on June 3 but available to some users a few days earlier, took 8.23 percent of U.S. Web searches in June, […]

(Reuters) – Dell Inc, the worlds No.2 PC maker, is developing a pocket-sized device for tapping into the Internet, the Wall Street Journal said citing people familiar with the company’s plans. The gadget would run on Google Inc’s Android software, the people told the paper. According to the paper, two people who saw early prototypes […]

CANNES (Reuters) – A U.S. recovery is likely to begin this autumn, the worst of the crisis has passed and it is “reasonable to be optimistic for 2010,” internet search giant Google’s chief executive Eric Schmidt said on Friday. Speaking at the Cannes Lions advertising festival in southern France, Schmidt said U.S. jobless claims indicated […]

PARIS (Reuters) – Advertising on mobile phones should really take off within two to three years, driven by new applications on smartphones and the growing popularity of social networks such as Facebook. Executives, who attended last week’s Cannes Lions 2009 ad festival, told Reuters that emerging economies were also promising though the lack of a […]

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The heads of the top U.S. companies might be engaged in the boardroom, but they’re switched off when it comes to social media, according to a new study that said CEOs should be more connected to their customers. Research conducted by the blog UberCEO.com looked at Fortune’s 2009 list of the […]

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) is to sell the standard home-user version of its new Windows 7 operating system for 8 percent less than the comparable version of its Vista system, as the global downturn hits spending on technology. The world’s largest software company, whose recent ads champion low-priced PCs against more expensive Apple […]

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Intel Corp announced a technology partnership with Nokia that could potentially give the chip maker the breakthrough it has been looking for into the mobile market. The companies said on Tuesday they would work together on a new class of mobile computing devices, but would not say when they would […]