Posted 11/20/09 at 07:24:20 AM by Paul Lilly

Despite the growing popularity of open source software, there's still the issue of how to make money with it. No easy task, warns Miguel de Icaza, Vice President of Novell, who also heads up the firm's open source Mono project.

"If your livelihood depends on the product that you're selling, until you can figure how you're going to make money on that thing, I say, keep it proprietary," de Icaza said.

The VP went on to say that it's "incredibly difficult" making an open source business. His remarks were in response to an audience member at the Microsoft PDC (Professional Developers Conference), who raised the question of making money via open source. The issue of making money by selling support also came up.

"You need to take those steps carefully in my opinion," de Icaza said. "And support, by the way, is a horrible business. I want to be writing code, and I want to be paid to write code."

The VP did note that if you're a young developer without a lot of obligations, like a family and tuition, then it's far easier to consider doing open source projects.

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Posted 11/20/09 at 07:24:09 AM by Paul Lilly

Dell didn't deliver in the third quarter the way analysts were expecting, instead missing the mark even on modest expectations, Businessweek reports.

According to the OEM's earnings report, sales dropped 15 percent to $12.9 billion. Net income took a bigger hit and fell by 54 percent to $337 million, or 23 cents per share, well below Wall Street's prediction that Dell would earn 28 cents per share on sales of $13.1 billion.

The poor performance affected just about every aspect of Dell's businesses, but sales to large businesses were hit particularly hard. That's bad news when close to 80 percent of Dell's sales are businesses and government customers.

Even the launch of Windows 7 didn't do much to bolster sales, at least not yet. According to company CFO Brian Gladden, customers had put off purchasing a PC in the weeks leading up to Windows 7, and Dell's quarter ended just eight days after launch.

"We built a bit of a backlog as a result, and we'll ship through that in the fourth quarter," Gladden said.

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Posted 11/19/09 at 07:06:30 AM by Paul Lilly

Some CIOs worry that underpaid IT pros may be a flight risk once the economy rebounds. That's because IT workers have been asked to work more for less money, while also watching their benefits be taken away, and that's not something they'll soon forget once job opportunities open up elsewhere, suggests a new survey.

Robert Half Technologies pinged 1,400 CIOs and found that 43 percent of them plan to make retaining existing workers their top staffing priority in 2010.

"Employers need to focus on preventing burnout and keeping their best people engaged at work. This may be a challenge, given that staffing cuts and the reduction or elimination of benefits have left many employees feeling overworked and undervalued," said Dave Willmer, executive director at Robert Half Technology, in a statement.

But it's not all gloom and doom for CIOs. To prevent a mass exodus among IT staff, Robert Half Technology suggests that IT employers begin implementing training and career development programs. The firm also recommends communicating regularly with staff and encouraging team-building activities that promote a balance between work and life.

"Companies may have to work at 're-selling' themselves to existing employees in much the same way the would when promoting themselves to prospective hires," Willmer said.

But will it be enough?

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Posted 11/19/09 at 07:06:21 AM by Paul Lilly

Netbooks have been selling exceptionally well without much support in the enterprise sector, but they won't stay relegated to the consumer side forever, and that's something IT managers should be preparing for, some observers say.

Maulik Pandya, Dell's senior planning manager for commercial notebooks, says netbooks could conceivably ease into 5 percent of enterprise sales, but there's potential for much more. Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst for the Enderle Group, says that if end-users had any say in the matter, netbooks would blaze past the 5 percent mark.

"Small portable computers for less than $400 is where the market should be," Enderle said. "Portability and the price point really tear up the laptop. Many vendors don't wan to build a strong corporate netbook model because they don't want to pirate their laptop lines."

The obvious downside for enterprise applications is the lack of power inherent in most netbooks. However, this might not be as big an issue as some believe. According to Allen Gwinn, senior director and chief technologist for the Edwin L. Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, there are workarounds. He cites an example of one faculty member who works with demanding SAS models.

"We couldn't find a laptop powerful enough for him to do his work at home," said Gwinn. "So we gave him a netbook. He uses the remote desktop feature to connect to his desktop machine in the office."

Scenarios like this are what IT professionals would be wise to prepare for.

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Posted 11/17/09 at 07:05:44 AM by Paul Lilly

How seriously does Cisco want to acquire Norwegian video conferencing firm Tandberg? Serious enough to increase its original takeover offer by another $390 million.

"The new offer represents the offeror's final price for this transaction," Cisco said, adding that it will withdraw the offer if it doesn't achieve the desired 90 percent level of acceptance, the Wall Street Journal reports.

In early October, Cisco offered to buy Tandberg for a little under $3.1 billion, which already represented an 11 percent premium to Tandberg's share price. Cisco said it was a "fair price" for the firm and hinted that it might walk away from the deal if not approved, but several minority shareholders disagreed and ultimately rejected the original offer.

It's believed that the new offer will probably be accepted, which already has the support of several bigger shareholders.

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Posted 11/17/09 at 07:05:34 AM by Paul Lilly

3Com's board of directors and the company's shareholders appear to be at odds over a proposed $2.7 billion merger agreement with HP that was announced last week. Displeased with the potential merger, the shareholders have filed a class action lawsuit in hopes of preventing the deal.

The complaint names the entire company's board of directors and accuses the defendants of attempting to deceive 3Com shareholders by agreeing to a deal that undermines the true value of their investment in the company, TechCrunch reports.

Under terms of the agreement, HP would pay stockholders of 3Com $7.90 per share, but the bankruptcy lawyer who filed the case on behalf of the plaintiffs argues that 3Com's directors should have insisted on a higher price.

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Posted 11/16/09 at 08:30:32 AM by Paul Lilly

With the $1.25 billion settlement between Intel and AMD the talk ot the tech industry, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang used the situation as an opportunity to take more potshots at Intel and call out its business practices in the mobile sector.

"Intel's tactics with Ion have been the most aggressive we've seen from a competitor. They have offered the Atom [a total of three chips] for $25, but when the one-chip Atom is used with Ion, it sells for $45," Huang said in a statement to CNet. "A customer can't even choose to resell the chipset and use Ion instead. What's the point of Nvidia getting an Intel bus license if it's impossible to overcome Intel's pricing bundles?"

Huang went on to say that "further action needs to be taken to protect consumers," but Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy says Nvidia's CEO is only telling part of the story.

"He's playing a trick of numbers," said Mulloy. "He's giving you a $45 list price -- that nobody pays -- for a part and then a negotiated price (which is more realistic). He's mixing apples and oranges. We have scrubbed and continue to scrub our pricing practices as it relates to chipsets and processors. It's all above cost. And that meets the legal standard worldwide."

Intel and Nvidia have publicly criticized the other on numerous occasions, most often relating to chipset licensing issues. Huang at one point went so far as to declare the CPU a decaying business, while Intel released a document bashing Nvidia's Ion platform.

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Posted 11/13/09 at 07:14:15 AM by Paul Lilly

Pharmaceuticals aren't the only ones benefiting from the H1N1 virus. According to Computerworld, vendors of remote access technologies are reporting increased demand for their products in the past several months as companies try to enable more employees to work from home and other remote locations in an emergency.

"What companies are really looking for is the ability to provide secure, remote access to more of their employees," said Micheal Oldham, CEO of Portcullis Systems, a Malborough, Mass-based vendor of secure access appliances. "Most companies already have mobile workforces. What they are doing is planning for scale."

Oldham added that most of the demand is coming from government agencies and larger enterprises, both of which seem to be more aware of the need for planning.

By investing in secure access technologies like the ones offered by Portcullis, IT administrators can ensure that any devices connected to a corporate network from a remote location won't become a security concern. It also buys enterprises a bit of insurance in the event of a pandemic so that business can go on as usual.

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