IBM and Siemens Business Services to Modernize IT for the German Federal Armed Forces

The German Federal Armed Forces have commissioned a consortium consisting of Siemens Business Services (SBS) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) to modernize and manage its non-military information and communications technology. The 10-year contract is worth approximately 7.1 billion euros including value added tax and will go into effect immediately. Through the HERKULES project, the German Federal Armed Forces will bring their data centers, software and applications, PCs, telephones, and voice and data networks up to the latest standard.

A company called BWI Informationstechnik GmbH (BWI IT), which is based in Meckenheim near Bonn, has been set up to supply the relevant IT services. SBS and IBM -- who are equal partners in the consortium -- together hold 50.1 percent of the shares, while the Federal Government holds 49.9 percent.

As part of the process of modernization, IBM and SBS will support the German Federal Armed Forces in revising workflows and replace the software currently in use with standard software. Together, they will also set up a help desk for users. Within the project, IBM and SBS will focus on these distinct areas:

IBM will be responsible for modernizing both the applications and the operation of the data centers. In this context, individual and standard software (SAP), web-based applications belonging to the intranet of the German Federal Armed Forces, and communication programs such as Lotus Notes will be maintained. In addition, there will be a PKI (Public Key Infrastructure), so that documents sent electronically can comply with signature and encryption regulations.

SBS will be responsible for operating and modernizing the decentralized systems at more than 1,500 locations in Germany. These will include some 140,000 PCs, 7,000 servers, 300,000 fixed-network telephones and 15,000 mobile phones. Activities will also include managing local and inter-regional data networks and voice networks.

IBM has been an IT partner of the German Federal Armed Forces for almost fifty years. "With HERKULES, the German Federal Armed Forces are going for innovation and transformation. The close cooperation between employees of the Federal Government and industry, working together in integrated teams, will ensure that this important project is brought to a successful conclusion. The ongoing regeneration of the systems will keep information and communications in the German Federal Armed Forces at the leading edge," explains Rudolf Bauer, Executive Director of IBM Germany, and the person responsible for the company's IT service business.

This cooperation between the German Federal Armed Forces and industry is currently the largest public-private partnership (PPP) in Europe. Going forward, up to 2,950 German Federal Armed Forces IT employees will be working within the project. Says Jürgen Frischmuth, a member of Group Executive Management at Siemens Business Services: "As Siemens, we are not only bringing comprehensive expertise in IT and processes to this project; we are also contributing the experience we have gained in many successful partnerships between the state and business, both at home and abroad." SBS has been a partner of the German Federal Armed Forces for many years.

Siemens Business Services is an internationally leading IT service provider. This Siemens Group offers services all along the entire value chain -- from consulting to systems integration, right through to the management of IT infrastructures. Thanks to its comprehensive know-how and sector-specific expertise, the company provides measurable added value for its customers. With regard to outsourcing, Siemens Business Services is among the top ten providers worldwide. With around 34,000 employees, the Group posted sales in fiscal 2006 (ending 30 September 2006) of EUR 5.2 billion, 75 percent of which was achieved outside the Siemens organization. Further information at: www.siemens.com/sbs

Federal Court Orders Intel Corporation and Third Parties To Produce Foreign Discovery in AMD VS. INTEL U.S. Antitrust Suit

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced a significant legal victory in its ongoing antitrust suit against Intel Corporation. In an order effective yesterday, the Federal District Court in Delaware overruled Intel’s objections and ordered it to produce documents and other evidence bearing upon Intel’s exclusionary conduct outside of U.S. borders.

AMD believes that the production of this foreign discovery will contain evidence of anticompetitive business practices that show clear violations of not only the Sherman Antitrust Act but also generally accepted anti-monopoly laws worldwide.

"Intel's acquiescence to the Special Master's findings is a big win for AMD,” said Thomas M. McCoy, AMD executive vice president, legal affairs and chief administrative officer. “This case remains firmly focused on the worldwide misbehavior of a global monopolist. This ruling also removes any basis for Intel or its foreign customers to withhold evidence of Intel's exclusion, regardless of where it occurred. We will proceed vigorously to prove that Intel abuses its global monopoly power by limiting or excluding competition, which ultimately hurts consumers worldwide.”

Yesterday’s order resulted from Intel’s decision to accept Special Master Vincent Poppiti’s findings of December 15th, which recommended to presiding Judge Joseph Farnan that "as the undisputed geographic market is global, and approximately 68% of the total worldwide production of computers powered by x86 microprocessors are sold to non-U.S. customers evidence of foreign exclusionary conduct is essential for AMD to demonstrate" that Intel has violated U.S. antitrust laws. Judge Farnan appointed Special Master Poppiti to preside over all discovery disputes in the case.

Special Master Poppiti’s December 15 recommendation that Intel be ordered to produce foreign discovery is available for download at http://www.amd.com/breakfree

AMD’s Position on Fair and Open Competition
AMD stands for fair and open competition and the value and variety competition delivers to the marketplace. Innovative AMD technology allows users to break free to reach new levels of performance, productivity and creativity. Businesses and consumers should have the freedom to choose from a range of competitive products that come from continuous innovation. When market forces work, consumers have choice and everyone wins. For more information, please visit http://www.amd.com/breakfree

Debevoise and Deloitte to start their work at Siemens

Debevoise & Plimpton LLP – the law firm retained by the Audit Committee of the Supervisory Board of Siemens AG in connection with current investigations by the Munich Department of Public Prosecution – has already begun their work. They will be assisted by forensic accountants from the international organization Deloitte Touche Tomahtsu. Both companies have committed large and experienced teams to this investigation.

Dr. Gerhard Cromme, Chairman of the Siemens Audit Committee, has met personally with leaders of the investigation team at Debevoise and Deloitte. He reiterated that the Audit Committee has mandated Debevoise as the independent counsel to conduct an independent and comprehensive investigation to determine whether anti-corruption regulations have been violated and to conduct an independent and comprehensive assessment of the compliance and control systems of Siemens. He further stated that the independent quality of this investigation is very important. Debevoise will report exclusively to the Audit Committee.

Dr. Cromme also underlined that the Company will cooperate with law enforcement authorities and regulators. Debevoise has already contacted the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the US Department of Justice and will continue to do so on a regular basis throughout the investigation. The Munich counsel of Siemens has informed the Munich State prosecution on the investigation of Debevoise and Deloitte.

IBM Milestone Demonstrates Optical Device to Advance Computer Performance

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced its researchers have built a device capable of delaying the flow of light on a silicon chip, a requirement to one day allow computers to use optical communications to achieve better performance.

Researchers have known that the use of optical instead of electrical signals for transferring data within a computer chip might result in significant performance enhancements since light signals can carry more information faster. Yet, "buffering" or temporarily holding data on the chip is critical in controlling the flow of information, so a means for doing so with light signals is necessary. The work announced today outlines just such a means for buffering optical signals on a chip.

"Today's more powerful microprocessors are capable of performing much more work if we can only find a way to increase the flow of information within a computer," said Dr. T.C. Chen, vice president of Science and Technology for IBM Research. "As more and more data is capable of being processed on a chip, we believe optical communications is the way to eliminate these bottlenecks. As a result, the focus in high-performance computing is shifting from improvements in computation to those in communication within the system."

Long delays can be achieved by passing light through optical fibers. However, the current "delay line" devices for doing so are too large for use on a microchip, where space is precious and expensive. For practical on-chip integration, the area of a delay line should be well below one square millimeter and its construction should be compatible with current chip manufacturing techniques.

IBM scientists were able to meet this size restriction and achieve the necessary level of control of the light signal by passing it through a new form of silicon-based optical delay line built of up to 100 cascaded "micro-ring resonators," built using current silicon complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) fabrication tools. When the optical waveguide is curved to form a ring, light is forced to circle multiple times, delaying its travel. The optical buffer device based on this simple concept can briefly store 10 bits of optical information within an area of 0.03 square millimeters. That's 10 percent of the storage density of a floppy disk, and a great improvement compared to previous results. This advancement could potentially lead to integrating hundreds of these devices on one computer chip, an important step towards on-chip optical communications.

The report on this work, "Ultra-compact optical buffers on a silicon chip," by Fengnian Xia, Lidija Sekaric and Yurii Vlasov of IBM's T.J.Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., is published December 22 in the premiere issue of the journal Nature Photonics. This work was partially supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) through the Defense Sciences Office program "Slowing, Storing and Processing Light."

About IBM Research Division

IBM Research is the world's largest information technology research organization, with about 3,000 scientists and engineers in eight labs in six countries. IBM has produced more research breakthroughs than any other company in the IT industry. For more information on IBM Research, visit http://www.research.ibm.com

Photos available at:

http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/pr.nsf/pages/news.20061222_ringresonator.html

Additional information on silicon nanophotonics available at: http://www.research.ibm.com/photonics

IBM Accelerates the Delivery of New Asset Management Solutions From MRO Software

MRO Software, an IBM (NYSE: IBM) company, today announced availability of the latest version of IBM Maximo, used by customers to manage mission-critical assets such as production equipment, facilities, or transportation fleets.

Maximo is the industry-leading asset management solution that IBM recently added to its Tivoli software portfolio with the acquisition of MRO Software, which was completed in October of 2006.

IBM Maximo 6.2 extends IBM's Tivoli service management portfolio beyond data center and IT management to assets as diverse as oil and gas refineries, power plants, facilities and vehicle, aircraft and marine fleets. By tracking and proactively managing these assets with IBM Maximo, customers can improve asset efficiency, extend asset life cycles and improve asset reliability. Organizations with well-managed assets recognize benefits such as improved production levels, increased regulatory compliance and improved reliability.

The new Maximo 6.2 is the result of increased development resources and investment provided by IBM. With a focus on the long-term success in the Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and IT Asset and Service Management markets, IBM has increased the Maximo product development investment in support of these markets, as well as in the Maximo EAM Industry Solution products. IBM also added resources in the form of developers, business process consultants and industry experts as part of the accelerated development program.

In addition to the availability of Maximo 6.2, the company also outlined plans for future product releases for the EAM and industry-specific markets. Scheduled for release in 2007 is a version of Maximo to support the needs of third-party providers of asset management services. This market has specific requirements including third-party billing, contractor management, service level management and the ability to track customer agreements. The Maximo solution will meet those and other needs specific to this market. Also planned are solutions for the transmission, distribution and nuclear utilities and government markets, in addition to product enhancements for calibration, asset configuration, transportation and life sciences.

"We continue to see an increasing demand for Maximo solutions in our traditional core EAM market for customers seeking to more efficiently manage their critical operating assets. With the addition of IBM's EAM and development resources, we've been able to accelerate the delivery of new enhancements and modules for this market," said Jack Young, vice president, products and technologies, MRO Software, an IBM company. "With the added resources, we're working to speed the release of these products, and increase our commitment to this market."

As part of the Maximo 6.2 launch, the company also released a white paper outlining future deliverables and an overview of the current market drivers. These drivers include the ongoing push for systems consolidation and the convergence of operational and IT assets. To read the white paper, please visit: http://www.mro.com/corporate/pdf/TIE10308-USEN-00.pdf

Maximo 6.2 is available today through IBM and IBM Business Partners. For more information please visit www.mro.com

About MRO Software, an IBM company

MRO Software, an IBM Company, is the leading provider of asset and service management solutions. The Company's solution suite, Maximo is delivered on a Web-architected platform and increases productivity, optimizes asset performance and service levels, reduces costs and enables asset-related sourcing and procurement across the entire spectrum of strategic assets.

Maximo solutions allow customers to manage the complete life cycle of all assets strategic to their business. Using Maximo, customers improve production reliability, labor efficiency, material optimization, software license compliance, lease management, warranty and service management across their asset base.

Maximo solutions are used by more than 300,000 end-users in a wide variety of industries around the world. Additional information can be found at http://www.mro.com

EPIC: Leading Supplier to the Telecommunications Industry Selects Epicor® Manufacturing Enterprise Resource Planning Solution

Epicor Software Corporation (NASDAQ: EPIC), a leading provider of enterprise business software solutions for the midmarket and divisions of the Global 1000, today announced that Samkwang Technical Plastics has selected Epicor’s industry leading manufacturing enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite, Epicor Vantage, to further streamline its manufacturing facility in Korea.



Founded in 1974, today Samkwang is a $167 million company delivering advanced telecommunications technology to industry leaders around the globe. Samkwang primarily manufactures Mobile Phone Covers and Windows, and is a key supplier to companies like Nokia. Samkwang is a customer-focused organization, with an unwavering commitment to deliver high quality solutions, competitively priced to meet the needs of its global customers. Epicor Vantage will be implemented at Samkwang’s state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Korea, to further automate production and streamline business processes – thus providing quicker response to customer demand.



“Samkwang is dedicated to achieving world-class production to meet our customers’ needs,” says John Kim, management support team manager for Samkwang. “We’re constantly looking for ways to increase our efficiency through technology, and Epicor was a natural choice for us with its enterprise solutions built on 100% service-oriented architecture to deliver the flexibility and agility that we need.”



Epicor Vantage is a global ERP software solution offering a full range of Manufacturing and Distribution functionality, plus embedded Customer Relationship Management, Supplier Relationship Management, Financial Management and Business Intelligence. Vantage’s distributed common database provides the ability to access the right information, from the right source, at the right time, thus empowering all users throughout the supply chain to make valid, informed decisions. For mid to large sized progressive make-to-order (MTO) and mixed-mode manufacturers, Vantage offers powerful business intelligence, and delivers greater business agility through a flexible service-oriented architecture (SOA).



“Epicor offers manufacturers proven enterprise solutions that support a rapid return on investment,” said Rod Winger, director of product marketing for Epicor. “Like Epicor, Samkwang’s business philosophy places its customers at the center of its business – with a focus on continuous improvement to deliver the best value to its customers – Epicor Vantage will be a key ingredient, enabling them to further streamline business operations and meet customer expectations.”

GENZ: Genzyme Files for Approval of Sevelamer Carbonate for Patients on Dialysis

Genzyme Corp. (Nasdaq: GENZ) announced today that it has filed a New Drug Application (NDA) with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seeking approval of sevelamer carbonate for the control of serum phosphorus in patients with chronic kidney disease on dialysis. Sevelamer carbonate will be marketed under the trade name RenvelaTM (ren-VEL-uh).

Renvela is being developed as a next generation phosphate binder to replace Renagel® (sevelamer hydrochloride), the most-prescribed phosphate binder in the United States. Genzyme is seeking approval for use of Renvela in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) on dialysis. Like Renagel, Renvela is a non-calcium, non-metal, non-absorbed phosphate binder and will be available in 800mg tablets.

"Submission of this NDA marks an important milestone as we prepare to introduce our next generation of sevelamer," said John P. Butler, president, Genzyme Renal. "Development of this therapy demonstrates our commitment to meeting the needs of all patients who can benefit from using sevelamer."

In addition to today's filing, Genzyme is advancing a clinical program investigating the use of Renvela for hyperphosphatemic patients with chronic kidney disease who have not progressed to dialysis. Enrollment has been completed in the study evaluating Renvela for this indication.

Enrollment is also complete in a study comparing a powder form of sevelamer carbonate dosed once a day to Renagel tablets dosed three times a day. Development of a powder form of the product would offer a more convenient option for patients, thereby improving compliance.

About Renagel

Renagel controls serum phosphorus in patients with CKD on hemodialysis. Controlling serum phosphorus is an important element in the care of hemodialysis patients. Elevated serum phosphorus levels are common in dialysis patients and associated with increased risk of cardiovascular mortality. Renagel provides the added benefit of significant LDL cholesterol reduction (32 percent).

The National Kidney Foundation's 2003 K/DOQI guidelines for Bone Metabolism and Disease in Chronic Kidney Disease recommend sevelamer hydrochloride as a first-line treatment option to control phosphorus. Renagel is the only phosphate binder available that does not contain either calcium or a metal. It has an established safety profile, is not systemically absorbed and provides phosphorus control without the concerns of calcium or metal accumulation. Renagel is used by more than 350,000 people worldwide

Product Information

Renagel is indicated for the control of serum phosphorus in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) on hemodialysis. Renagel is contraindicated in patients with hypophosphatemia or bowel obstruction. In a 52-week study, the most common side effects included vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, and dyspepsia. Drug-drug interactions may occur with some medications and should be taken into consideration when instructing patients how to take Renagel.

For more information about Renagel, including complete prescribing information, please visit www.renagel.com

L.L. Bean and IBM Improve Web Shopping Experience for Consumers

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that its Boston Center for Solution Innovation won two prestigious MITX Awards for Best User Experience and Best Consumer Goods experience. IBM received these accolades for the design and development of a new website feature for its client L.L. Bean, a leading retailer of quality outdoor gear and apparel.

IBM Global Business Services consultants applied their user experience design and technology development expertise to create a rich internet application for L.L. Bean's outerwear product line. In response to the way consumers find, browse and purchase their products online -- and to help generate excitement over a re-designed outerwear product line -- IBM helped L.L. Bean create this next-generation web experience.

The Holiday Outerwear Guide allows consumers to compare multiple product collections within multiple departments by product specification, color selection, and compare prices, without having to reload the page. This enables consumers to target the products that specifically meet their needs and helps to drive increased sales and strengthened customer relationships.

The annual MITX Awards is the largest awards competition in the country that recognizes achievements in the development and implementation of interactive technologies. Winners were announced in 25 categories, including five "Best of" awards, at a ceremony attended by more than 800 industry professionals held in November at the Boston Copley Place Marriott. Entries were judged by over 100 industry professionals representing various disciplines including creative directors, designers, technologists, online media representatives, investors and business professionals.

"This year's award submissions showed the most impressive elevation of ambition in quality, functionality, creative and technological achievements we've seen to date," said Kiki Mills, executive director of MITX. "These awards provide a forum to showcase the finalists and winners, and acknowledge the sophisticated work that is being created locally for nationally and internationally recognized brands."

"IBM is a driving force in developing and designing innovative Web applications that help companies create easy-to-use online experiences," said Gorham Palmer, User Experience Director, IBM Global Business Services. "Our work for L.L. Bean provided a rich and compelling targeted online experience that helped to drive demand for its redesigned outerwear product line. The MITX Awards is an honor and demonstrates our commitment to provide our clients like L.L. Bean with the most innovative user experience design, tools and resources to drive traffic and sales."

IBM developed the new feature using Macromedia Flash technology to provide a rich, compelling and optimized user interface. The outerwear online component was integrated using IBM's WebSphere Commerce framework and leverages Java Server Pages to generate dynamic XML to feed the Macromedia Flash movie.

About MITX

Established in 1996, MITX -- the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITX: "my-techs") -- is the industry and professional organization where technology, marketing and digital media intersect. Reaching more than 6,000 professionals in New England, MITX is a dynamic and growing community for thought leadership, building business relationships and professional training and development. Members of the MITX community take advantage of events, sponsorships, speaking opportunities and networking to make meaningful business connections and exchange innovative leadership, management and technical ideas. With more than 60 events each year, MITX provides its members with the opportunity to promote their companies to targeted audiences. MITX events also provide a valuable forum for networking to source potential business leads, partnerships, ideas, funding and other likeminded peers in the industry. MITX is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. For more information please go to www.mitx.org

About L.L. Bean, Inc.

L.L.Bean, Inc. is a leading retailer of quality outdoor gear and apparel. Founded in 1912 by Leon Leonwood Bean, the company began as a one-room operation selling a single product, the Maine Hunting Shoe. While its business has grown substantially, L.L.Bean still upholds the values of its founder and continues his dedication to quality, customer service and a love of the outdoors. Visit L.L.Bean anytime at www.llbean.com or visit its newest store at Wayside Commons in Burlington, Massachusetts.

VRSN: One Communications Selects VeriSign to be Premier Provider of SS7 and Database Services

VeriSign, Inc., (NASDAQ: VRSN), the leading provider of intelligent infrastructure for the networked world, today announced that One Communications has selected VeriSign to be its premier provider of Signaling System 7 (SS7) and database services for its voice network. By outsourcing its SS7 network to VeriSign, One Communications can more quickly deploy new revenue generating services while realizing the benefits of VeriSign’s reliable and scalable infrastructure.

One Communications was formed in July 2006 through the merger of CTC Communications, Conversent and Choice One Communications, creating the largest privately held competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) in the United States. Choice One had already been a longtime VeriSign customer. The convergence of three separate networks presented One Communications with the challenge of creating a single, efficient network in a cost effective manner.

"Based on our past experience with VeriSign, we were confident that they would be able to help us quickly integrate our SS7 network services—allowing us to optimize performance and realize the synergies associated with a common platform,” said Jim Weidman, vice president of engineering, One Communications. “Their commitment, open communication, and knowledge were assets that contributed to the overall success of the project,” he added.

In addition to VeriSign’s SS7 network, the company was able to deliver Calling Name, Toll-Free Services and Local Number Portability, helping One Communications to improve overall performance and profitability.

"VeriSign operates the largest independent SS7 network in North America, which we employ to offer our customers a wide selection of innovative database services to meet their diverse needs,” said Bill Wolfe, senior vice president, VeriSign Communications Services. “That breadth of technology allowed us to quickly achieve network synergies across each of the three networks One Communications was managing, creating a smooth transition."



About One Communications
One Communications—the largest privately held competitive local exchange carrier in the U.S.—is a leading provider of integrated telecommunications solutions serving more than 160,000 businesses, from large to small, in 16 states throughout the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Upper Midwest regions. The company operates a robust, facilities based IP network with 10,000 route miles of fiber connecting over 700 collocation facilities. With more than 2,000 employees and $800 million in annual revenue, One Communications is uniquely positioned to offer a robust portfolio of advanced telecommunications solutions backed by a higher level of personal attention. Visit One Communications online at www.onecommunications.com

SAP Successfully Implemented Change in Share Capital

SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today successfully implemented the increase of the company’s subscribed capital from corporate funds, which was approved by the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders on May 9, 2006. After the close of stock exchange business on Wednesday, December 20, 2006, SAP AG shareholders received three additional shares (“bonus” shares) for each share they already hold. Today, SAP AG shares opened at €39.60.

Total shareholders’ equity was not affected since this measure simply involved a shift between individual components of shareholders’ equity. The subscribed capital rose from approximately €316.9 million to approximately €1,267 million, and SAP AG issued some 950 million new shares. The new shares qualify for dividend with effect from the beginning of fiscal year 2006.

As a result of the change in share capital, the ratio between the ADR and the underlying ordinary shares changed from 4:1 to 1:1, meaning that now one SAP ADR is the equivalent of one SAP ordinary share. ADR holders did not receive additional ADRs.

AMD Opens Advanced Architecture and Technology Lab

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the formation of a new Advanced Architecture and Technology Lab led by Rich Witek, AMD corporate fellow and chief architectural officer. The new lab will focus on technology and platform development beyond the five-year time horizon, further extending AMD’s strong tradition of advanced silicon planning.

“With the help of Rich Witek and some of the brightest minds in the Pacific Northwest, AMD is furthering our advanced development work,” said Phil Hester, AMD senior vice president and chief technology officer. “This forward-looking strategy underscores our commitment to consistent, ongoing innovation in design, software planning, system structures and chip architectures. The Advanced Architecture and Technology Lab helps ensure we are putting in place the foundation for continued innovations beyond the five-year time horizon, allowing AMD to continue delivering the technology our customers need to be successful.”

Rich Witek has been with AMD since 2002 and has more than 30 highly accomplished years of hardware and software experience. He helped architect the ARM, StrongARM, Alpha processors and PowerPC. He also holds 22 patents in the areas of CPU, cache and system design; and has co-authored numerous Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) technical papers.

AMD plans to gradually increase the staff to between 30 and 40 people. AMD is also looking into opportunities to open Advanced Architecture and Technology Labs in other global tech hubs.

CMCSA: Ziddio Teams With Endemol, U.S. Comedy Arts Festival to Provide Professional Outlets for Online Creativity

Ziddio, Comcast's newly launched, user-generated site, and Endemol, the world's largest independent production company, today announced a partnership that will offer users the chance to transform their creative ideas into a real television show.

"Ten Day Take," the new contest offered by Ziddio and Endemol, is a call to users for the next great program idea, and offers the winner a chance to have their video submission fast-tracked into production in Hollywood with the support of Endemol's production resources and a $50,000 production budget. Both the pilot and the shoot itself, which will be completed in ten days and documented "reality style" in a series, will be available on Ziddio and on TV through Comcast's signature ON DEMAND service.

"We recognize the increasing demand for user-generated content and its growing place in the entertainment industry," said Liz Schimel, Senior Vice President, Entertainment, Comcast Interactive Media. "Ziddio is leveraging Comcast's content relationships and multiplatform reach to provide amateur creators great opportunities to showcase their content, including real-world, professional outlets for their creative talent."

"We are thrilled to launch this new partnership that now allows anyone with a great concept for a show to take it from idea to broadcast, which is indicative of where we see the industry moving," said Jon Vlassopulos, Vice President, Business Development, Digital Media and Strategic Planning, Endemol USA. "We are also proud to be presenting our first digital reality series, Ten Day Take, which gives people insight into how shows get made in Hollywood."

In addition, Ziddio is collaborating with HBO's U.S. Comedy Arts Festival to feature "No Talent Nation," a search for comic talent. Aspiring comedians can submit short comedy or musical parody videos which will be featured online and ON DEMAND, and ten winners will get the chance to perform live at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen from Feb. 28 to March 4, 2007. The contest is being sponsored by the premiere online digital music service Rhapsody.com.

Ziddio is a new, user-generated site launched in beta last month by Comcast Interactive Media. The site brings together premium networks and partners to host co-branded contests with unique prizes and the chance for users to showcase their content across multiple platforms -- online, on Comcast's ON DEMAND service and on linear networks. Previous contests include "Join the Jedi Order" with HBO/Cinemax and "Clean House Search for the Messiest Home" with the Style Network, where the winner will be featured on a special episode of the network's "Clean House" series.

About Comcast Corporation

Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) (http://www.comcast.com) is the nation's leading provider of cable, entertainment and communications products and services. With 24.1 million cable customers, 11 million high-speed Internet customers, and 2.1 million voice customers, Comcast is principally involved in the development, management and operation of broadband cable systems and in the delivery of programming content.

Comcast's content networks and investments include E! Entertainment Television, Style Network, The Golf Channel, VERSUS, G4, AZN Television, PBS KIDS Sprout, TV One and four regional Comcast SportsNets. Comcast also has a majority ownership in Comcast Spectacor, whose major holdings include the Philadelphia Flyers NHL hockey team, the Philadelphia 76ers NBA basketball team and two large multipurpose arenas in Philadelphia.

About Endemol

Endemol USA is a leading producer of television programming specializing in reality and non-scripted genres for network and cable television. The company produces the breakout hits, Deal or No Deal, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Fear Factor and Big Brother. Endemol USA is a division of Endemol Holding, a prominent international content developer, producer and distributor of television and online programming. The company, headquartered in the Netherlands, has subsidiaries and joint ventures in twenty-one countries, including the major European markets, the U.S., South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Australia. Endemol Entertainment is a fully owned subsidiary of telecommunications giant Telefonica S.A., one of the largest companies in Spain.

About USCAF

Since its inception in 1995 by HBO, the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen has become known as a primary launching pad for comedic talent and for hosting one-of-a-kind events such as reunions of Swingers!, Monty Python, SCTV, Sex and the City, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Saturday Night Live, as well as of the casts of The Larry Sanders Show, Cheers, Animal House, Waiting for Guffman and In Living Color; The AFI Star Awards to Goldie Hawn, Jim Carrey, Diane Keaton, Mike Myers, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, Steve Martin, Billy Crystal, Albert Brooks, Rob Reiner, Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg; the original The Simpsons Live, and the Freedom of Speech Awards which have honored Russell Simmons and Def Comedy Jam, George Carlin, Bill Maher, Dick Gregory, The Smothers Brothers, Michael Moore, August Wilson and Garry Trudeau.

MSFT: Microsoft Declares Quarterly Dividend, Dividend of $0.10 per share payable in March

Microsoft Corp. today announced that its board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.10 per share. The dividend is payable March 8, 2007 to shareholders of record on February 15, 2007. The ex-dividend date will be February 13, 2007.

HPQ: HP Brings Mobile Device Management to Enterprise Customers with Acquisition of Bitfone Corp.

HP announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to purchase Bitfone Corp., a privately held global software and services company that develops software solutions for mobile device management for the wireless industry.

The acquisition is part of HP's strategy to grow its mobile enterprise business. Acquiring Bitfone will strengthen HP's ability to provide customers with a flexible, modular approach to building a mobile infrastructure by allowing them to choose what they need to meet their business needs.

"Mobile device management is a key component to driving widespread mobile IT deployments," said Dave Rothschild, vice president, Handheld Business Unit, Personal Systems Group, HP. "With the acquisition of Bitfone, HP adds mobile device management to a comprehensive management suite that already includes servers, desktops and notebooks."

The acquisition adds a strategic component to HP's device management software portfolio that is designed to accelerate customers' ability to manage their mobility infrastructure in a reliable, secure and cost-effective way.

Mobile devices are increasingly becoming part of the core IT infrastructure and there is a growing requirement that they need to fit into existing management systems and frameworks. This acquisition provides HP the software tools to help business customers reduce device support costs and smooth device deployments, migration and replacement.

"As a leading technology innovator in the mobile device management and wireless space, Bitfone has built a world-class software platform over the past six years," said Gene Wang, chairman and chief executive officer, Bitfone Corp. "We are proud to be joining HP, where we can continue to innovate and provide software solutions that deliver a more compelling mobile experience."

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The transaction is subject to certain closing conditions and is expected to be completed by February 2007.

Following completion, Bitfone will be integrated into the Handheld Business Unit of HP's Personal Systems Group.

About Bitfone Corporation

Bitfone Corporation is an innovative global software and services company focused on maximizing the mobile experience for subscribers, enterprises, operators and OEMs. Bitfone's innovative solutions provide the essential mobile foundation enabling valuable real-time access to the mobile device to enhance wireless services and promote widespread adoption. Bitfone is a private company headquartered in Laguna Niguel, Calif., with offices in Canada, China, Korea and the U.K. and approximately 134 employees. For more information, visit http://www.Bitfone.com

ORCL: Oracle Europe, Middle East & Africa Announces Key Customer Wins for Second Quarter, Fiscal Year 2007

Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ GS: ORCL) reported notable key customer wins within the Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) region during the second quarter of fiscal year 2007. Customers are endorsing Oracle's strategy to offer a broad portfolio of innovative, open-standards software, to enable them to make better decisions, to become more competitive, and to lower costs and increase performance. During the period, Oracle reported a 35 percent increase in as reported applications revenues in the region over the same period last year.
"We see sustained demand across our product offerings including those from acquisitions, and are winning new customers against our competitors," said Sergio Giacoletto, Executive Vice President, Oracle Europe, Middle East and Africa. "Our technology products and our applications, both horizontal and industry-specific solutions such as retail, healthcare and manufacturing, are forming the strategic business-critical foundation for our customers' success and future growth."

Customer wins this quarter include large enterprise customers such as banks and telecommunications companies who are deploying Oracle® Database 10g, Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle SOA Suite as their strategic global architectural platform; public services where transparency and cost-efficiency are priorities; and smaller businesses who need affordable applications such as Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne that will grow with their businesses. Customer solutions range from real-time high volume transaction processing using Oracle Times Ten In-Memory Database, Schengen information systems, RFID logistics checking systems, disaster recovery systems, compliance, fraud prevention, complex asset management, and the delivery of shared services. Standardisation, consolidation and centralisation of disparate systems remain key trends.

Customers endorse Oracle products and services
As a driving force in one of the world's most dynamic telecommunications markets, Etisalat, the UAE's leading telecommunications provider, is maximizing human capital - one of the company's most critical assets. To achieve this, Etisalat has deployed the Oracle's Human Resources Management System (HRMS) to complement the company's existing Oracle Financials, Supply Chain, Logistics and Contracts modules of the Oracle E-Business Suite software. "Our people are the backbone of Etisalat's strength, and they constitute a strategic investment in the long-term growth of the company," commented Abdul Azuiz Al Sawaleh, Chief Human Resources Officer, "Enabling us to implement world-class Shared Services Systems, linked with compensation schemes, training, analytics and other human resource-linked activities, the Oracle HRMS solution integrated with Oracle E-Business Suite will deliver speedy returns to our HR team as well as senior management."

In the UK, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) is live on the first stage of their Shared Services roll-out. "DEFRA is a sophisticated and experienced user of the Oracle E-Business Suite," said Roger Atkinson, Chief Operating Officer, DEFRA Shared Services Organisation. "Our latest purchase allows us to build on our establishment of our in-house Shared Services provider and to start delivering the benefits of standards-based, world class business applications to organisations both within the DEFRA family and potentially in the broader base of the UK Government."

The National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) has selected Oracle Database 10g and Oracle Fusion Middleware to streamline operations and maximise efficiency. "In order to operate with maximum efficiency, a financial institution at the size and focus of NBK needs to have the best business processes in place," said Dr. Fadi Chehayeb, CIO at NBK. "During the selection process, it became increasingly obvious that Oracle E-Business Suite, with its comprehensive range of modules specifically adapted for the banking industry, was difficult to match."

Industry Awards and Recognition in EMEA during the first half of Fiscal Year 2007
Oracle's products, services and excellence as an IT company received positive endorsement during the second half of fiscal 2006 in a number of honours, and awards, for example:

Best Business Software Company - First Place (Middle East Arab Technology Award) - Oracle Corporation Middle East
Company of the Year (Scottish Business in The Community) - Oracle Scotland
Database Product of the Year 2006 (Databazovy svet ) - Oracle Database 10g R2 Enterprise Edition
Top 10 best places to work in 2006 (Great Place to Work® Institute Danmark in cooperation with business weekly Berlingskes Nyhedsmagasin) - Oracle Denmark


Key Industry Sectors Selecting Oracle Offerings during the Second Quarter Fiscal 2007
Many organisations in EMEA adopted or expanded implementations of Oracle Database, Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Grid technologies and Oracle Applications, including Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise, Siebel CRM, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and JD Edwards World in the second quarter of fiscal 2007 across a wide range of industries. Customers include:

Public Services
CIRB (Belgium); Mechanical and Electrical Department - Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation (Egypt); Ministry of Communication and Information Technology - Land Registration (Egypt); Ministry of Finance (Greece); Central Data Processing and Registration Office (Hungary); National Development Agency (Hungary); National Communications Authority (Hungary); City of The Hague (Netherlands); Ministry of Finance (Poland); Correios de Portugal - state postal service (Portugal); Ministry of European Integration (Romania); Ministry of Internal Affairs (Russia); Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Saudi Arabia); Turkish Navy (Turkey); Ministry of Family Youth and Sport of Ukraine; Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (UK)

Financial Services
Drei Banken EDV GmbH (Austria); ecetra Internet Services AG (Austria); Raiffeisen International Bank Holding (Austria); Erste Bank der österreichischen Sparkassen AG (Austria); Cetrel (Belgium); Hrvatska poštanska banka d.d. Zagreb (Croatia); Central Bank Of Egypt - CBE (Egypt); Banque Misr (Egypt); GaVi GmbH (Germany); Bank of Attica (Greece); BPU (Italy); Banca Intesa (Italy); Capitalia (Italy); National Bank of Kuwait; Bank Aljazira (Saudi Arabia); Jadwa Investment (Saudi Arabia), Pelayo (Spain); La Caixa (Spain); National Bank of Fujairah (United Arab Emirates)

Telecommunications
Telecom Egypt; Deutsche Telekom (Germany); Kabel Deutschland (Germany); Lannet (Greece); OTE Hellenic Telecommunications (Greece); ON Telecomms S.A. (Greece); KPN (Netherlands); TP SA (Poland); Dialog (Poland); VimpelCom (Russia); Mobile Telesystems (Russia); Turkcell (Turkey); Ukraine Mobile Communications (Ukraine); Etisalat UAE (United Arab Emirates); Ericsson/Etisalat Misr (United Arab Emirates)
Manufacturing, Transportation, Automotive & Logistics
NMBS (Belgium); Vaisala Oyj High Tech (Finland); CMA CGM (France); Lafarge (France); Schenker (Germany); Softlab (Germany): Mazzucchelli 1849 SPA (Italy); Rolfo SPA (Italy); Daimler Chrysler Customer Assistance Centre NV (Netherlands); Grontmij (Netherlands); Abdul Latif Jameel (Saudi)

Retail
Prenatal (Netherlands); Ruch SA (Poland); Consum (Spain); Teknosa (Turkey)

Other Industries
Education and Professional Services: Vedior (France); Professionecasa SPA (Italy); Gabetti Property Solutions SPA (Italy); Fundeon (Netherlands); Haagse Hogeschool (Netherlands), UTI Grup (Romania); Utilities: CEZ Bulgaria (Bulgaria); Hrvatska elektroprivreda d.d.(Croatia); Energa SA (Poland) Healthcare & Pharmaceutical: Boehringer Ingelheim (Germany); Adhesie (Netherlands); Consumer Products: Bakoma (Poland) Media and Entertainment: De Persgroep NV (Belgium); TVP National Television (Poland); Hospitality, Food & Drink: AC Hoteles (Spain); Nueva Rumasa (Spain)

IVGN: Invitrogen Introduces New Patent-Protected E-Gel Product

Invitrogen Corporation (Nasdaq:IVGN), a global leader in life sciences, announced the availability of E-Gel(R) CloneWell(TM) SYBR(R) gels, the newest addition to the company's patented E-Gel(R) line of products. These gels provide a fast and convenient way to obtain improved cloning efficiency without exposing the user to harmful UV trans-illumination.

Users of these new products can avoid gel slicing and UV exposure, leading to a safer and more efficient DNA recovery method. The DNA is stained with non-toxic, non-mutagenic SYBR(R) Safe stain, which is visualized with the Safe Imager(TM) device to deliver DNA free of strand breaks and mutations, resulting in higher cloning efficiencies.

The E-Gel(R) CloneWell(TM) SYBR(R) Safe gels are the latest Invitrogen products to be launched that are protected by a U.S. patent. The company holds more than 800 patents on key technologies that accelerate research and scientific discovery. The patents span the spectrum from molecular biology to stem cells.

In October, Invitrogen was named as an inaugural constituent of the Ocean Tomo 300 Patent Index, the first equity index based on the value of corporate intellectual property. The Index is priced and published by the American Stock Exchange and is a diversified, market-weighted index of companies that own the most valuable patents relative to their book value.

The Index is the first major, broad-based market equity index to be launched in 35 years. Its purpose is to provide a tool for identifying and valuing innovation and intellectual capital.

"Invitrogen is very pleased to be included as an inaugural member of the Ocean Tomo 300 Index," said Greg Lucier, Chairman and CEO of Invitrogen. "Innovation is the cornerstone of our business and we take great pride in how our scientific breakthroughs can accelerate research and development that will one day lead to lifesaving therapies."

The company has vigorously defended its patents against any type of infringement. Last month the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas entered a favorable decision to Invitrogen in their ongoing patent infringement lawsuit against Stratagene, Inc. Invitrogen was awarded more than $16 million in damages for Stratagene's infringement of its competent cell patent. The court also entered an injunction against further infringement by Stratagene.

IBM DB2 Drives Oracle Out at Automotive Business Management Provider

IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced that Arkona, Inc. (OTCBB: ARKN), a leading supplier of business management solutions for the automotive dealership industry, has selected IBM DB2 for its database infrastructure.

Arkona will use DB2 as the database for Axway Synchrony Gateway (formerly Cyclone Interchange), which helps auto dealers maintain a wide array of key business activities from business-to-business communications to specific industry functions such as parts inventories and maintenance records. DB2 was chosen for its database reliability and significant time and cost savings for Arkona.

"Customers are telling us that they face tight budgets and significant time constraints on their staffs," said Arvind Krishna, vice president, IBM data servers. "DB2 incorporates advanced autonomic features that enable our customers to manage their expanding data servers with their existing staff while recognizing an increase in performance and reliability."

Arkona's decision to develop their applications with DB2 demonstrates the momentum behind IBM's cross-company Information on Demand initiative, which is aimed at helping customers find, access and manage information as a strategic business asset. Other customers recently choosing to move their databases from Oracle to DB2 include: American Electric Power, Central Michigan University, Farmers Insurance and Teleglobe. These new customers have cited the product's combination of industry-first features, along with new security and disaster recovery enhancements, as the reasons for their migration.

For more information about IBM, visit www.software.ibm.com/data

RVSN: RADVISION Signs New Distribution Agreement with Imago

RADVISION® (NASDAQ: RVSN), a leading provider of video network infrastructure and developer tools for unified visual communications over IP, 3G, and emerging next-generation networks, announced today that it has entered into a marketing and distribution agreement with Imago Group PLC, Europe’s largest distributor of videoconferencing products. The agreement, which closed in September 2006, is expected to boost sales in several key markets, most notably the UK and France.

"We are excited about our alliance with RADVISION,” said James Vickerage, Head of Marketing for Imago. “Endpoint-agnostic video network infrastructure strengthens our portfolio significantly, along with the addition of innovative 3G capabilities and a scalable desktop conferencing platform like Click to Meet®. These will open many opportunities for qualified Imago resellers. We are witnessing strong growth in demand for video-based communications from resellers that do not specifically specialize in videoconferencing. RADVISION’s interoperable platforms for scalable desktop and mobile deployment will deliver real added value to their offerings.”

Under the agreement, Imago will market, distribute and support RADVISION’s full line of products, including the SCOPIA v.5 platform, SCOPIA 3G Gateway and the award winning Click to Meet desktop collaboration suite, to qualified resellers. Imago Group PLC has offices throughout the UK and France.

“In addition to offering highly practical and competitive bridging solutions, RADVISION’s videoconferencing endpoint-independent infrastructure will help us penetrate new market segments,” added Nicolas Jouan, Managing Director of Imago France.

"Imago is an important player in the videoconferencing space, with broad reach in key markets,” said Bob Rickwood, General Manager of RADVISION’s operations in Europe, Middle East and Africa. “Adding our solutions to Imago’s rich portfolio of equipment from leading manufacturers, including several of our partners, will give RADVISION a much stronger presence in the UK, France and Germany as well as in China, where Imago is also active. We look forward to working together to deliver more powerful unified communications solutions to customers in the enterprise, government and education markets.”

JNPR: Juniper Networks, Inc. Announces Completion of Independent Investigation of Historical Stock Option Practices

Juniper Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ-JNPR) today announced the completion of the independent investigation related to Juniper Networks' historical stock option granting practices. This comprehensive seven-month review was conducted by Juniper Networks' Audit Committee, which was assisted by both independent counsel and forensic accountants. The investigation involved the review of more than 785,000 documents. Juniper Networks' Board of Directors has reviewed and adopted the Audit Committee's findings.

As previously announced, the Company reached a conclusion that the actual measurement dates for financial accounting purposes of numerous stock option grants issued in the past differ from the recorded grant dates of such awards. The Audit Committee determined that there were numerous instances in which grant dates were chosen with the benefit of hindsight as to the price of the Company's stock, so as to give favorable prices. In this regard, the Audit Committee identified serious concerns regarding certain former management. In addition, formal documentation often lagged the referenced grant date and there was insufficient exercise by management of responsibility for the stock option process. The Company currently anticipates that it will record additional non-cash charges for stock-based compensation expense of approximately $900 million, 99.9 percent of which relate to options granted between June 9, 1999 and December 31, 2003.

Juniper Networks' CEO, Scott Kriens, received two stock option awards with measurement date issues. However, both options were canceled unexercised in 2001. Kriens has not exercised any stock options since 1998, approximately a year before the Company's IPO.

The Audit Committee and the Board of Directors expressed their continuing confidence in Scott Kriens and the current management of the Company.

"As the leader of this company, I would like to express our regret, to everyone who relies on Juniper, for the difficulties this situation has caused for us all. In prior years, we should have had better stock option granting processes, controls and oversight in place, and we did not," said Scott Kriens, Juniper's CEO. "While we cannot undo the past, we will focus going forward on the filing of our financial statements, further improving the robustness of the Company's stock option granting procedures, the ongoing cooperation with government agencies and the continued execution of our business strategy."

The Company intends to file its Form 10-Q for each of the quarters ended June 30, 2006 and September 30, 2006, and any other required financial restatements during the first quarter of 2007. Juniper received a written notification from the staff of The NASDAQ Stock Market that the NASDAQ Listing Qualifications Panel has granted the Company's request for continued listing on The NASDAQ Stock Market, subject to the conditions that the Company shall file on or before February 12, 2007 a written summary of the audit committee's finding and its Forms 10-Q for the quarters ended June 30, 2006 and September 30, 2006. It is our intent to come into compliance with the NASDAQ listing qualifications.

SCHW: Fixed Income Investors Get Expanded Trading Hours, Access to Extensive Inventory, More Research and Improved Screening Tools on Schwab.Com

Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. is making it easier to invest in fixed income vehicles -. a key component to a well-balanced portfolio, especially for people in or near retirement. The company has enhanced its BondSource(TM) platform, allowing investors to more easily view its wide range of fixed income choices and access enhanced research and screening tools. And now investors can research and trade 22 hours a day, every day of the week.

"Investors' needs are changing," said Jim White, senior vice president of Fixed Income Trading. "We have seen online fixed income trading double over the past two years, as investors are increasingly looking for ways to reduce portfolio risk while earning an income stream in retirement."

With a daily average inventory of roughly 25,000 fixed income investment products from more than 300 suppliers -- comprising one of the largest inventories at any brokerage firm -- investors have a multitude of choices to suit their needs. Because of fluctuating interest rates, it is important for investors to consider both their long and short term investing strategies. The BondSource platform gives them the ability to customize their fixed income portfolio by choosing among a wide set of criteria including investment type, grade, maturity and representative yield.

"Although the market has recently favored cash and other short-term investments because of high short-term rates, both fixed income and growth investors can benefit by investing in longer-term investments now to add more stability to their portfolios," said White. "It's the story in which both the tortoise and the hare win."

Schwab added new functionality that allows investors to see all types of fixed income products on a single page. An expanded matrix lets them compare yields by maturity for all fixed income products, including a variety of CDs, U.S. Treasuries and zero income bonds, government agencies, mortgage-back securities, hybrid preferred securities, and investment-grade corporate and municipal bonds (including credit ratings). The BondSource matrix shows 11 maturities ranging from one month to 30 years. A sample of the matrix is available at http://www.schwab.com/bondsource_preview

The unique inventory sorting logic ranks the available investment selection by the highest yield to maturity whether it is from Schwab's own inventory or not. Unlike some rate pages, the yields seen in the matrix are live and executable with a mouse click. The system sorts through thousands of line item per product and displays the highest yield at the time on the rates page. By clicking on the rate, investors are taken to the offering page where they can find details about the bond and execute the trade.

Resources Available to Fixed Income Investors
Schwab offers a suite of fixed income services including:

-- Multiple regional fixed income trading centers
-- Bond specialists with an average of 15 years of industry experience who can assist clients, create investment ladders and provide trade history
-- New Issue Bond Alert Service
-- Extensive online articles from proprietary and third party sources
-- Educational Web casts
-- Online economic events calendar
-- Briefing.com Bond Market Analysis
-- Toll-free number for assistance

Brokerage Products: Not FDIC Insured * No Bank Guarantee * May Lose Value

IBM Signs IT Services Agreement With Scotiabank Mexico

IBM (NYSE: IBM) has entered into a multi-million-dollar deal with Scotiabank Mexico to integrate its IT operations, including mainframe and midrange servers, site support, large-scale printing and help desk support.

The agreement covers the bank's 7,000 employees and 400 branches in Mexico. The agreement was signed earlier this year.

Additionally, IBM is implementing a new Disaster Recovery Plan that will allow the bank to restore its critical IT operations quickly in the event of a disaster.

IBM uses its global presence to support leading financial services institutions. Scotiabank is Canada's largest international bank and offers a full range of financial products and services to individuals.

Scotiabank Mexico and Grupo Financiero Scotiabank Inverlat, S.A. de C.V. are wholly owned subsidiaries of the Bank of Nova Scotia.

For more information about Scotiabank visit: www.scotiabank.com (or www.scotiabankinverlat.com for the Spanish version).

IBM Tops Analyst Rankings of Worldwide and US Application Management Services Companies for Fourth Consecutive Year

IBM today announced that it has been ranked as the world's leading application management services company for the fourth consecutive year, according to IDC. In its recent study, "Worldwide and US Application Management Services Vendor Shares, 2005: IDC's Top Ten Vendors," IDC reports that IBM (NYSE: IBM) holds the number one position in worldwide application management services revenue. Additionally, according to IDC, IBM is the top vendor in application management services in the US, collecting 20.6 percent of total US revenues in 2005. [1]

"IBM continues to show itself as a nimble and innovative competitor in Application Management Services," said Barry Rubenstein, Program Manager, Application Outsourcing & Offshore Services at IDC. "IBM is differentiated in its ability to shift work around its global network of service centers, as customer and delivery needs dictate, and it is utilizing its presence in emerging markets such as Brazil, Eastern Europe, India, and China as a beachhead for clients looking to enter those markets. Not only is IBM able to deliver services from nearly any location, it is also able to use that presence to help clients become more global themselves -- a two-way street that truly unleashes the power of globalization."

"IBM has been able to consistently remain the market leader in application management services by meeting our clients' needs for application development and management services, while harvesting best practices and deploying them globally, and continuously investing in skill development around the world," said Katherine Hegmann, General Manager for Application Services, IBM Global Business Services. "By providing our clients with new efficiencies and innovation in the applications that run their businesses, we enable them to focus their resources on growth and delivering increased value to their customers."

IBM's growth in application management services was driven by investments in new capabilities to strengthen its position in developing and managing applications, as well as continued focus on furthering its global reach and delivery. Additionally, IBM's investment in standardized services to provide customers with Services Oriented Architecture, has fueled growth in its application management services business. IBM recently signed application management services contracts with Thomson Scientific and HypoVereinsbank.

IBM's portfolio of application management services addresses client needs for business and technology expertise, increased productivity, flexibility, and value. The portfolio includes offerings ranging from: IT focused staff augmentation -- where IBM application experts team with companies to address skill and resource shortages; business application modernization -- where IBM aligns companies' business objectives and IT investments; and assisted transformation -- where IBM optimizes applications to help companies drive revenue, focus on core competencies and improve speed to market.

IBM is also continuing to grow in locations around the world, most recently announcing an agreement with the Chengdu High-Tech Zone in China, to establish a Global Delivery Center within the Chengdu Tianfu Software Park. Scheduled to be operational by February 2007, this new center will provide multilingual application development and maintenance services to clients globally in English, Japanese and Chinese, and to IBM's Global Procurement Center, recently located in Shenzhen, China.

IDC's market share study evaluates the top 10 application management services vendors, both worldwide and in the United States, and ranks them based on these two geographic regions according to 2005 revenue from contracts primarily designed to provide application management services. It provides an analysis of the competitive landscape in 2005 and discusses key trends in areas such as hosted application management services, high-end services, the increasing importance of packaged applications, and the evolving role of global sourcing.



1 [1] Based on IDC, Worldwide and U.S. Application Management Services Vendor Shares, 2005: IDC's Top 10 Vendors, Doc #203995, Oct 2006.

MSFT: More Customer Momentum Around the Microsoft-Novell (NOVL) Agreement

Deutsche Bank AG, Credit Suisse and AIG Technologies today became some of the first customers to tap the benefits of the recently announced collaboration between Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. on interoperability between Microsoft® Windows® and Linux.* Under three separate customer agreements, Microsoft will deliver to each company SUSE® Linux Enterprise subscription certificates, allowing these customers to take advantage of the Microsoft and Novell agreement. Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and AIG Technologies, which is a member company of American International Group Inc., highlighted the benefits of interoperability, the patent cooperation agreement and the road map for bidirectional virtualization solutions as the deciding factors in their choice.

Deutsche Bank, already a significant user of Novell and Microsoft products, was pleased that the collaboration would improve interoperability among various systems. “Employing both Windows and Linux in our company always seemed the right thing to do, but making the systems work together would require a significant amount of time and resources,” said Clemens Jochum, chief technology officer of Deutsche Bank AG. “Microsoft and Novell’s agreement gives us the benefit of choice of platforms and tremendous flexibility that will help make our company more competitive and efficient.”

“For us, interoperability is key,” said Tom Sanzone, chief information officer at Credit Suisse. “We see both Windows and SUSE Linux as strategic platforms going forward, and we’re very pleased to see Microsoft and Novell, who support these platforms, step up and work on interoperability. This is a great model because it provides a bridge to connect the open source and proprietary software to benefit customers. We commend the two companies for taking this step.”

“It’s critical that our technology offerings be forward-looking, integrated and positioned to support our mission of delivering high value at market price,” said Mark Popolano, global chief information officer for AIG. “Microsoft and Novell’s commitment to working together to deliver interoperability and IP assurance helps us achieve that mission. Our goal of engaging in this pilot program is to explore how we can become a more flexible organization.”

On Nov. 2, 2006, Novell and Microsoft announced a series of agreements to jointly build, market and support new solutions to improve interoperability, deliver powerful new virtualization capabilities, make Microsoft and Novell products work better together, and give customers peace of mind that both companies stand behind the products they deliver.

“Deutsche Bank’s, Credit Suisse’s and AIG Technologies’ decisions to deploy SUSE Linux Enterprise, following so closely on the heels of our announcement with Microsoft, are powerful, early proof points of the value of our joint collaboration, and we expect more success stories like this over the coming quarters,” said Ron Hovsepian, president and CEO of Novell. “By solving a real customer problem, taking the complexity out of the customers’ hands and addressing it ourselves, we create a compelling incentive for customers to deploy Linux. This shows that SUSE Linux Enterprise is, in fact, absolutely ready for the datacenter.”

“Customers have been very clear that they want Windows and Linux to work better together in mixed-source environments,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “We are pleased that customers such as Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and AIG Technologies have moved so quickly to act on the value of the interoperability commitments and intellectual property benefits of our collaboration with Novell.”

A recent survey of 201 IT professionals, jointly commissioned by Microsoft and Novell from independent market research firm Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates Inc., found that over 90 percent of respondents approve the collaboration, saying the agreement will benefit customers by increasing the interoperability of IT systems. A copy of the survey is available at http://www.novell.com/news/press/item.jsp?id=1257. To date, more than 16,000 new certificates for SUSE Linux Enterprise have been activated under the Microsoft and Novell collaboration agreement.

More information on the agreement can be found at http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft and http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab

About Novell

Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) delivers infrastructure software for the Open Enterprise. We are a leader in enterprise-wide operating systems based on Linux and open source and the security and systems management services required to operate mixed IT environments. We help our customers minimize cost, complexity and risk, allowing them to focus on innovation and growth. For more information, visit http://www.novell.com

ADSK: Autodesk Solutions Bring Magic to the Big Screen This Holiday Season With the Covenant, Casino Royale, Stranger Than Fiction and More

Autodesk Inc.'s (NASDAQ: ADSK) media and entertainment products have helped digital artists create some of this season's blockbuster films. Post-production facilities relied on Autodesk solutions for visual effects creation, editing and finishing, color grading and 3D animation.

"Autodesk provides end-to-end solutions for the entire film workflow, from idea creation and story boarding to final production," explained Marc Petit, Autodesk's Media & Entertainment vice president. "This allows Autodesk to have a deep understanding of all aspects of the film workflow, enabling us to create unique solutions that meet the specific needs of post-production facilities. Also, facilities with an Autodesk pipeline enjoy the seamless movement of data through the various stages of film workflows."

The Autodesk Flame visual effects system was used by Buzz Image Group to create 33 shots for the supernatural film The Covenant. Flame artists at the facility composited 3D set extensions and actors shot on bluescreen and greenscreen into filmed backgrounds. Digital artists also used the system to create and adjust various elements such as lighthouse lighting and skies, as well as for various wire and lighting rig removals.

Furthermore, Buzz Image Group used Autodesk Flame to shape futuristic scenes for The Fountain. For one of this film's final scenes, the system was used to create the effect of skin ripping as plants grow through it. The facility's Flame work also involved compositing live and computer-generated (CG) growing plant elements into live-action footage. "Autodesk Flame allows us to take full advantage of our artists' talent and creativity," said Jacques Levesque, executive visual effects producer. "The system's speed and interactivity let us experiment in real-time until we perfect the shot."

Framestore CFC used the Autodesk Inferno visual effects system to create the title sequence for Casino Royale, the story of James Bond's first mission as a "double O" agent. As this was the 21st Bond film created, director and titles designer Daniel Kleinman wanted to refresh the franchise's famous title sequence. Using gambling-related imagery and fight sequences, Framestore CFC's Head of Inferno, William Bartlett, created a modern sequence with a retrospective feel.

Los Angeles-based LaserPacific Media Corporation used the Autodesk Lustre digital color grading system on a variety of this season's films, including Babel, The Black Dahlia, For Your Consideration and Stranger Than Fiction. For Stranger Than Fiction, the facility played a key role in integrating many of the film's visual effects shots. Lustre was used to build the film's timeline.

Colorist Mike Sowa also used the system to achieve the perfect color choices and saturation for the film. "We recalled the look, style and feeling of Jacques Tati's 1967 film Play Time," said cinematographer Roberto Schafer. "Now that Roberto has seen the tremendous degree of control, he is a firm believer in the DI process," added Sowa.

Autodesk 3ds Max 3D animation, modeling and rendering software was used by Youngu-art to model and animate legendary creatures that return to devastate planet earth in the Korean film D-War. "We chose Autodesk 3ds Max for its powerful polygon modeling, which allowed us to create the complex and detailed characters in a very intuitive and efficient way," noted Ho-Suk Jang, computer graphic supervisor for the film. "The software's biped character animation tools also allowed us to easily control the various types of characters as they interacted with crowds of humans."

Several other post-production facilities used Autodesk solutions to create this season's blockbuster films, including the following:

-- Mokko Studios completed 8 hero shots for The Fountain using the
Autodesk Toxik digital compositing software. In the Mayan pyramid
final scene, Toxik was used to composite live-action footage of Hugh
Jackman with various elements
-- For Night at the Museum Rhythm & Hues used Autodesk Maya to model
approximately 60 of the museum's characters and Autodesk Inferno
2007 for compositing and color correction. The facility also used
Inferno and Maya to bring a classic story to life in Charlotte's Web
-- Cinesite used Autodesk Maya 3D animation, modeling and rendering
software to create shots of a CG steam train for Miss Potter
-- For The Curse of the Golden Flower Moving Picture Company created 20
shots including a CG army using Autodesk Maya
-- Asylum used Autodesk Inferno and Autodesk Flame, as well as the
Autodesk Smoke editing and finishing system to shape Déjà Vu.
Autodesk Lustre digital color grading system was also used to
maintain color continuity. In addition, the facility completed work
for Apocalypto using Inferno, Toxik and Lustre
-- Look Effects created visual effects shots for Apocalypto, Blood
Diamond, Unaccompanied Minors and Rocky Balboa using Maya as well as
the Autodesk Flame and Autodesk Flint visual effects systems

VRSN: AxiomTV Selects VeriSign to Enable Superior Download of Family-Friendly Films

VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSN), the leading provider of intelligent infrastructure for the networked world, today announced that AxiomTV will be the first movie download service launched on the new VeriSign® Intelligent Content Delivery Network (CDN), distributing secure, family-friendly films with an exceptional customer experience.

The VeriSign Intelligent CDN is the first solution to combine the power of VeriSign’s broadly deployed Kontiki peer-to-peer (P2P) technology with the capabilities of a traditional CDN, delivering faster download speeds while maintaining high standards for reliability and security. This solution fundamentally changes the economics of the broadband delivery of DVD-quality video and provides a significant technical advantage over existing CDNs.

“One of the greatest challenges media and entertainment companies face is how to meet the growing demand for more Internet-based content in an economically viable and secure manner,” said Todd Johnson, vice president for broadband content services, VeriSign. “By leveraging the patented Kontiki peer-to-peer technology and the latest streaming technology, the VeriSign Intelligent CDN offers an end-to-end solution which enables our customers to choose the right viewer experience for each specific piece of content. For short previews and user generated content it is likely to be streamed, for long form content, it likely to be delivered with P2P.”

VeriSign Intelligent CDN enables media companies, like AxiomTV, to safely distribute their copyrighted content with full digital rights management, at a lower cost and higher quality. With a legacy in Internet security, VeriSign is leveraging its scalable, global infrastructure to offer a range of streaming, download and play options in addition to the Kontiki P2P technology.

“We are a groundbreaker as the first Internet movie service focused on delivering family conscious entertainment as it pertains to online video,” said Daniel Cobb, president of AxiomTV. “As families bring their children online, we need to ensure that the movie content is not only high quality, and most of all, legal and secure. We chose VeriSign because they are the trust mark of the Internet. The fact that they have the highest quality video delivery and a global infrastructure is a bonus.”

VeriSign Intelligent CDN not only provides increased flexibility from a technology standpoint, it offers customers an economic benefit of approximately 40% when choosing a P2P delivery option.

"As global demand for online video increases, content owners and providers are looking for the most cost efficient and secure way to make their content available to viewers, on-demand," said analyst Allen Weiner, managing vice president, Gartner. "Growth in this market will be realized by those able to capitalize on the benefits of legitimate peer to peer distribution while providing a seamless customer experience for high quality video over broadband.”

Online purchases of media reached $19 billion in 2005 and will increase to $67 billion by 2010 according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2006-2010. Except for MP3 music, most of this content is still delivered by mail. Now, analysts suggest that Internet video services are on the brink of becoming the next mainstream phenomenon in the United States. According to InStat, the annual value of consumer video delivered over Internet Protocol networks will grow to $4.6 billion by 2008, an increase from only $1.38 billion in 2005 (Research and Markets).

The VeriSign Kontiki peer-to-peer technology is already deployed by some of the world’s largest broadcast media companies and enterprises. Current customers include AOL, BBC, Channel 4 and SkyTV.

About Axiom
Axiom.TV is the World’s first family friendly and parental controlled Internet TV channel. Focusing on families, Axiom.TV is developing a website that makes the movie download process user-friendly for all ages and for all computer skill-levels, taking the next step to blur the line between your PC, your TV and your DVD player. In addition, Axiom.TV will be the first movie download technology that will protect children from inappropriate content including pornography, violence and vulgarity through a military-grade web-blocking technology called “Mother.” The pre-launch dummy-website, axiomtv.com, gives a visual representation and overview of how Axiom.TV will work for its beta launch on January 8, 2007. The consumer launch is planned for February 1, 2007.

IVGN: Invitrogen Sets 4th Quarter and Full Year 2006 Earnings Release Date for Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Invitrogen Corporation (Nasdaq: IVGN) announced today that it will report financial results for its fourth quarter and full year 2006 results on Tuesday, February 13, 2007, after the markets close and will hold a conference call on the same day at 5:00 p.m. Eastern time. During the call, the company management will discuss its financial and business results, as well as future expectations.

To listen to the live conference call, please dial 800-901-5231 (domestic) or 617-786-2961 (international) and use passcode 17485643. The call also will be webcast in a listen only mode on Invitrogen's Web site at www.invitrogen.com under the Investor Relations tab and will be archived at the site for one month. A replay of the call will be available for one week by dialing 888-286-8010 (domestic) and 617-801-6888 (international). The passcode is 14382291.

Invitrogen has regularly reported pro forma results that exclude merger related amortization and business integration costs to provide a supplemental comparison of results of operations. Management excludes these costs when analyzing operations since they are principally non-cash or other costs resulting primarily from business restructurings or purchase accounting, which are separate from ongoing operations. Management also believes that the pro forma results provide investors with additional useful information concerning the company's ability to generate cash flow. The financial information excluding these items should be considered in addition to, not as a substitute for, or superior to, financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of Invitrogen's pro forma financial results to financial results calculated in accordance with GAAP can be found in the "Investors Relations" section of Invitrogen's website at: http://www.invitrogen.com

Dell Announces Donald J. Carty To Serve As Company Vice Chairman And Chief Financial Officer

Dell announced the appointment of Donald J. Carty to serve as the Company’s Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer, effective January 1, 2007.

Mr. Carty has been a member of the Company’s board of directors since 1992 and for much of that time has served as chairman of the Audit Committee. From 1998 to 2003, Carty served as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of AMR Corporation. He also previously served as President of AMR Airline Group and American Airlines, Inc. Prior to that he was the Chief Financial Officer and held various other executive positions at AMR and its subsidiaries. Mr. Carty has also served as a director of a number of public companies, including Sears Holding Corporation, Barrick Gold Corporation, CHC Helicopter Corporation, and Hawaiian Holdings, Inc. Mr. Carty is chairman of the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, a member of the Board of Trustees of Southern Methodist University and of the Executive Board of the SMU Cox School of Business, and a member of the board of directors of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts Foundation.

Michael Dell, the Company’s founder and Chairman of the Company’s board of directors, said, "Don has had a long association with the company and we are delighted that he is joining our senior leadership team." Kevin Rollins, Dell CEO, noted that "Don’s remarkable management experience and his strong understanding of our company make him an ideal candidate to help lead our Dell 2.0 initiative."

Mr. Carty succeeds James M. Schneider, the company’s Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Schneider will remain with the Company through the end of the current fiscal year to assist Mr. Carty in his transition. Mr. Schneider has recently agreed to become Executive Chairman of the Board of Frontier Bancshares Inc.

Mr. Schneider joined Dell in September 1996 from MCI Communications Corp., where he was senior vice president of finance. Before joining MCI in 1993, Mr. Schneider was associated with Price Waterhouse for 19 years, including 10 years as a partner.

Thomas W. Luce, III, a member of the board of directors, will assume Mr. Carty’s duties as Chairman of the board’s audit committee. Mr. Carty, who as CFO will report to Mr. Rollins, will continue to serve as a member of the company’s board of directors and will continue to work directly with Mr. Luce and the audit committee in connection with the ongoing investigation previously disclosed.

ADSK: Autodesk Receives Additional Nasdaq Notice

Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) today announced that, as expected, it has received an additional Nasdaq Staff Determination notice stating that the Company is not in compliance with Nasdaq Marketplace Rule 4310(c)(14), due to the Company's delay in filing its quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the third quarter ended October 31, 2006. The notice stated that the delay in filing could serve as an additional basis for delisting of the Company's securities.

As previously disclosed, Nasdaq initially informed the Company on September 13, 2006 that its securities would be delisted due to the Company's delay in filing its Form 10-Q for the second quarter ended July 31, 2006 unless the Company requested a hearing in accordance with applicable Nasdaq Marketplace Rules. Autodesk subsequently requested and was granted a hearing before the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel and requested an extension for continued listing on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. As of today, the Company is awaiting a decision on its extension request. While the Company remains optimistic, there can be no assurance that the Panel will grant a request for continued listing. Shares of Autodesk common stock will continue trading on the Nasdaq pending the Panel's decision.

IBM and Business Partners Realize Significant Growth on the Mainframe and Linux

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a mainframe milestone as more than 390 IBM business partners now offer nearly 1,000 applications for System z customers running Linux, a 100 percent increase over the last year. IBM recently reported a 30 percent year-to-year growth of mainframe customers running Linux and this surge is giving IBM's channel partners the opportunity to capitalize on the mainframe's continued growth.

This increase in Linux application development for the mainframe is being driven by a number of factors, including the overwhelming acceptance of partitioned Linux virtual servers -- and the associated great price and performance -- which is driving new workloads on System z.

In addition, IBM Business Partners are reporting customer interest in new IBM technology including the z9 Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) and z Application Assistant Processor (zAAP) specialty engines. More than 60 percent of IBM mainframe revenue is now driven by new workloads, with approximately 20 percent of revenue and 30 percent of MIPS (million instructions per second) coming from Linux customers. This demand paves the way for independent software vendors looking to capitalize on the combined strengths of Linux and the mainframe.

IBM has also seen a significant increase in the number of venture-backed software companies using the mainframe. In fact, the number of start-ups using the IBM mainframe has tripled in the past two years.

"Mainframe strengths including computing power, security and scalability led to a 25 percent jump in hardware revenue in the third quarter of this year," said Buell Duncan, general manager of ISV and Developer Relations, IBM. "But this success is not ours alone. Our valued business partners are reaping the benefits as companies are looking for new, powerful solutions running on System z."

In addition, several independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators (SIs) around the world are realizing double-digit growth for software applications and support for System z. Some of the ISVs and SIs offering these solutions and benefiting from the mainframe's continued momentum include:

-- San Antonio-based Sirius Computer Solutions, an IBM Premier Business Partner and provider of advanced infrastructure solutions, has seen System z sales grow 34 percent in the last year and had their best System z sales volume ever.

-- Omaha-based MSI Systems Integrators, an IBM Premier Business Partner and solution provider of hardware, software and services, bought 44 percent more System z hardware from IBM on behalf of their clients when comparing third quarter 2006 to third quarter 2005. For the 4th quarter, they are expecting growth in the System z business between 75 and 150 percent over 2005.

-- Toronto-based Glass House Systems, an IBM Premier Business Partner providing infrastructure expertise specializing in IBM servers, software systems, SAN and high-end storage subsystems, is forecasting 25 percent year-over-year revenue growth in System z sales primarily due to increasing momentum of new workloads.

"With the modernized capabilities of the mainframe, we're increasingly looking at start-ups that are developing their offerings to take advantage of the system's security, combined with advantageous data center simplification and interoperability," said Mike Gurevich, technology advisor of FTVentures, a private equity firm focused on services and software companies and also a strategic partner of IBM Venture Capital Group.

"Our portfolio company Nexxar recently implemented an IBM mainframe z9 server platform that is integrated with an open source client platform," said Gurevich. "Based on a single code, the integrated solution has significantly streamlined the start up's IT maintenance. The z9 has reduced 75 percent of the head count required to maintain the data center while the interoperability of z9 with open source has further simplified development and quality assurance efforts of the re-usable code, a significant cost savings for Nexxar. In addition, the z9 easily scales up as the company grows."

Customers appreciate the cost benefits and flexibility of Linux, coupled with the unparalleled security and scalability properties of the mainframe. As a result, IBM has made an effort to support ISVs and application developers to foster the growth of Linux on System z with technical support in 33 IBM Innovation Centers worldwide. These resources and benefits are all part of IBM's PartnerWorld program, which was just named the leading worldwide partner program by analyst firm IDC.

"Our goal to help companies position their IT environment as the change agent that makes them more competitive is strengthened by IBM's System z," said Harvey Najim, President and CEO, Sirius Computer Solutions, Inc. "We focus on preserving IT investments in mainframe solutions, taking advantage of the platforms' core strengths and enabling on demand features such as virtualization that help companies respond to customer demands and market opportunities."

Earlier this year, IBM announced Systems z for ISVs, a new worldwide initiative that provides software vendors with technical, sales and marketing resources to build applications that run on IBM middleware, including WebSphere Application Server and DB2, and System z. The initiative, offered through IBM's PartnerWorld Industry Networks, starts by providing ISVs with no-cost consulting sessions with IBM IT architects. IBM then creates a customized online environment where vendors can develop, port and test applications on System z, with IBM consultants supporting the ISVs throughout development and porting.

System z, the flagship for IBM Systems innovation and the hub of the infrastructure, provides an advanced combination of security and resiliency features to enterprises that require high levels of application availability and information processing, and the capability to reallocate resources on the fly to match changing business priorities. System z leadership in virtualization, storage connectivity, Linux, mixed workloads, and service oriented architectures (SOA) means that customers migrating to an IBM mainframe can realize compelling levels of value, help reduce total cost of ownership, and enhance overall workload performance. Other compelling System z mainframe attributes include specialty processors that help reduce IBM software usage costs and accelerate workload execution as well as industry leading security certifications.

IDC recently announced that IBM held 37.1 percent revenue share of high-end enterprise server sales in the third quarter of 2006.

For more information about IBM partner programs, visit http://www.ibm.com/partnerworld

Thoma Cressey Invests Over $100 Million in Companies Engaged With IBM Small and Medium Business Platform

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced Thoma Cressey's recent investment of over one hundred million dollars in technology companies that serve users of IBM's "all-in-one" System i business computing platform. A private equity investment firm known particularly in the Software, Services, and Healthcare industries, Thoma Cressey has made three major investments in this marketplace in as many months -- signaling the firm's positive view of the System i platform.

"Within the last five years, Thoma Cressey has increased its focus on mission-critical software for small and mid-sized businesses, making its investments around IBM's premier system for customers of this size a natural," said Orlando Bravo, a managing partner at Thoma Cressey. "Thoma Cressey's recent investment activity is a reflection of the System i market's potential for growth and the opportunities we expect it to provide."

The System i platform has built-in security, virus-resistance, database and storage as well as systems management recognized for its simplicity. This allows companies to run programs across the entire business -- from accounting, supply chain, customer relationship management, email and high availability -- all on one open, integrated system that automatically backs-up and helps manage the data.

"The System i provides value unique in the industry in that it is specially designed to free businesses from IT complexity -- helping them install applications faster and manage them more easily. Because companies continue to name IT simplification a top priority, this unique capability makes the System i marketplace an attractive investment," said Scott Crabill, partner at Thoma Cressey.

Thoma Cressey acquired in September high availability solution provider Vision Solutions International, Inc. Vision, of Irvine, Calif., offers its software exclusively on the System i platform and has more than 2,000 customers and 12,000 licenses around the world.

In November, Thoma Cressey announced that it would also acquire high availability solution provider iTera, Inc. and merge it with Vision, making the newly formed, privately held enterprise the world's largest provider of high availability solutions for the System i. By merging the two companies, Thoma Cressey plans to leverage Vision's global reach and the companies' innovative technology to penetrate a marketplace it believes has huge potential -- only 5 percent of the hundreds of thousands of System i customers are currently running high availability solutions.

Less than a week after the purchase of iTera, Thoma Cressey announced a recapitalization agreement under which it will acquire an equity interest in Sirius Computer Solutions, Inc., an IBM Premier Business Partner and the largest IBM System i business partner. Thoma Cressey's investment in Sirius was driven by the company's standing as the leading U.S.-based IBM Solution Provider and its track record of delivering real benefit to customers with advanced solutions. Thoma Cressey expects the financial partnership to allow Sirius to continue its aggressive growth strategy in the System i arena and beyond.

"We are pleased to see top investment firm Thoma Cressey influencing the future direction of the System i marketplace by helping companies that have catered to this space for years provide new value for our mutual customers," said Mark Shearer, general manager of IBM System i. "Thoma Cressey's growing interest in System i demonstrates the strength of IBM's integrated, open platform."

For more information on IBM System i, visit http://www.ibm.com/systemi

About Thoma Cressey Equity Partners Inc.

Thoma Cressey is a leading private equity investment firm that has been providing equity and strategic support to experienced management teams building growing companies for more than 25 years. In the software industry, Thoma Cressey has amassed a portfolio of software earnings in excess of $400 million. Thoma Cressey's investment focus is on companies in the software, healthcare, business services and consumer products industries. Thoma Cressey currently manages approximately $2 billion of equity capital. For more information on Thoma Cressey, visit www.thomacressey.com

ORCL: Oracle Application Server 10g Release 3 on HP Servers Sets World Record with Java Application Server Perf Benchmark; Outperforms BEA and IBM

Oracle today announced that Oracle® Application Server 10g Release 3, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, together with Oracle Database 10g Release 2, set a record-breaking result with the SPECjAppServer2004 industry standard benchmark(1). This achievement builds on Oracle's commitment of providing customers with the highest performing and most scalable Java Application Server. Oracle has a history of world records in Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE) application server benchmarks, as Oracle Application Server 10g Release 3 continues to outperform rivals BEA WebLogic(2) and IBM WebSphere(3).

Oracle Application Server 10g Release 3, the industry's only grid-ready application server, together with Oracle Database 10g Release 2, achieved a world record performance result of 6812.79 JOPS@Standard (jAppServer Operations Per Second). The database was running on an HP Integrity Superdome server with 32 Dual-Core Intel® Itanium® 1.6 GHz processors. The J2EE application servers were 11 HP Integrity rx3600 servers each with 2 Dual-Core Intel Itanium 1.6 GHz processors. Both database and application server machines were running the HP-UX 11i v2 operating environment.

Oracle's world record result outperformed the best SPECJAppServer2004 result from BEA WebLogic. In addition, this winning combination of Oracle Application Server 10g Release 3 with Oracle Database 10g Release 2 surpassed the best IBM WebSphere with IBM DB2 UDB 9.1 SPECjAppServer2004 result by more than 55 percent.

"Oracle's customers run some of the largest and most sophisticated Java-based applications in the world and rely on the high performance and scalability of Oracle Application Server 10g Release 3," said Richard Sarwal, vice president of Server Performance at Oracle. "This benchmark is further validation that Oracle delivers the premier application server on which to develop, integrate, deploy and manage business critical enterprise applications, portals and Web services."

Over the past five years, Oracle has submitted record-setting application server benchmarks on a broad range of hardware and software platforms. Oracle is the performance and price/performance leader in multiple SPECjAppServer 2001(4) and SPECjAppServer2002(5) benchmark categories and also holds the world records for best performance and price/performance in the ECperf(6) benchmark of J2EE application servers reported in July 2002.

SPECjAppServer2004 is a client/server benchmark for measuring the performance of a representative J2EE application and each of the components that make up the application environment, including hardware, application server software, JVM software, database software, JDBC drivers, and the system network. The workload is an application that emulates information flow among an automotive dealership, manufacturing, supply chain management, and an order/inventory system.

About Oracle Application Server
Oracle Application Server 10g sits at the core of Oracle Fusion Middleware and delivers comprehensive software for developing, integrating, and deploying enterprise applications, portals and Web services. Based on a powerful and scalable J2EE server, Oracle Application Server 10g includes best-in-class business integration, business intelligence and portal capabilities. It is the only platform designed for grid computing and to have full lifecycle support for SOA. It features everything necessary to successfully develop and deploy enterprise Java applications, a certified J2EE 1.4 compatible container, a rich set of tools and runtimes, Oracle JDeveloper, Oracle Application Developer Framework (ADF) and Oracle TopLink® persistence architecture. For more information about Oracle Application Server 10g visit: http://www.oracle.com/appserver

ORCL: Oracle Streamlines Pricing with New Licensing Models, Approach Provides Customers with Consistency Across Oracle Applications

Continuing its commitment to provide customers with simple, flexible and transparent licensing models, Oracle today announced that it has streamlined pricing across the Oracle(r) Applications portfolio, including JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, Siebel, and Oracle E-Business Suite products.
With a number of pre-existing and newly acquired products, each with its own licensing metrics, Oracle's new simplified licensing model creates consistency across all product lines. Oracle now offers licensing models for Oracle Applications with simplified pricing designed to ensure that customers can find the pricing and licensing solutions that meet their specific business needs and can derive the most value from their software. The new models include:

* Component Model - simple a la carte pricing primarily based on named user metric;

* Custom Application Suite Model - provides the ability to create unique custom bundle based on a customer's specific business needs;

* Enterprise Applications Model - based on an enterprise metric, such as revenue or number of employees, and provides unlimited application usage; and

* SMB Model - offers specific SMB pricing for customers that generate less than $100M in revenue; also providing additional partner support in tools, pricing and territory protection.

Designed for "transitions to success," the new pricing models offer a range of options that align with customers' specific business goals as needs evolve. Successful transitions that enable customers to grow from one phase of their business to another with software licensing that supports each is a simple and consistent approach.

"We are combining the best of Oracle, PeopleSoft, Siebel and JD Edwards licensing programs to provide our customers with a variety of flexible licensing models from which to choose," said Jacqueline Woods, vice president, Global Pricing and Licensing Strategy, Oracle. "These new pricing models provide transparency and simplicity and helps ensure that our customers are getting the most value for their IT expenditures."

In keeping with the company's philosophy of providing flexible licensing options, customers can use either the new pricing models or previous licensing models when purchasing additional products from old price lists. Newly released products will be offered under the new pricing models. Oracle's award-winning, 24x7 global support for all Oracle Applications will continue to be offered at 22 percent of net license fees.

The Oracle Software Investment Guide provides comprehensive guidelines regarding its global software pricing and licensing. Oracle continues to provide customers with the most transparent pricing models to help them best manage their current and future software investments. Oracle's Software Investment Guide and all of its policies, metrics and options are published online on Oracle.com.

VZ: Verizon Names Denny Strigl President and Chief Operating Officer

Verizon Wireless President Denny Strigl has been named President and Chief Operating Officer of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), a new position reporting to Verizon Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ivan Seidenberg, effective January 1, 2007. Strigl will have responsibility for the operations of all of Verizon's network-based businesses - Verizon Wireless, Verizon Telecom and Verizon Business - as well as Verizon Services Operations, which provides financial, real estate and other functional services to all of the company's operations. He also will remain a member of the Verizon Wireless Board of Directors.

Verizon also named Lowell McAdam, currently Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Verizon Wireless, to become President and Chief Executive Officer of Verizon Wireless, succeeding Strigl. Separately, Verizon named John Stratton, currently Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Verizon Wireless, to the newly created position of Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, responsible for the marketing and brand initiatives of all Verizon's business units. Shaygan Kheradpir, currently Chief Information Officer for Verizon Telecom, has been named to the newly created position of Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer, responsible for the information technology initiatives of all Verizon's business units. McAdam, Stratton and Kheradpir will report to Strigl, and all of the positions are effective Jan. 1, 2007.

Also reporting to Strigl will be John F. Killian, President of Verizon Business; Daniel S. Mead, President of Verizon Services Operations; and Virginia P. Ruesterholz, President of Verizon Telecom.

The revised management structure will enable Verizon to focus more effectively on opportunities to grow and strengthen the business. As Chief Operating Officer, Strigl will provide a single point of accountability for all business units. The leadership provided by Stratton and Kheradpir will establish overall direction, policies and standards for marketing and information technology in the network-based business units and at Verizon Services Operations, which is focused on helping the customer-facing business units improve efficiencies, reduce costs and bring services to market faster. Stratton and Kheradpir will have oversight of functions common to all business units. The three network-based business units - Verizon Wireless, Verizon Business and Verizon Telecom - will execute their own network, sales and marketing strategies in their specific markets.

Verizon Chairman and CEO Seidenberg said, "This is a logical and effective evolution of our leadership structure, which recognizes the outstanding management talent and depth inherent in our businesses, as well as the rapidly changing dynamics of our markets. Denny Strigl, who has led Verizon Wireless, one of the nation's most successful high-technology companies and the largest wireless carrier by revenue, will be in a position to build partnerships that will develop the growth of our entire business, identify and take advantage of additional opportunities for synergies, and leverage Verizon's operational assets. Denny is a proven operational leader. He and his new team will focus on maximizing the full growth potential of Verizon's businesses."

Strigl said he will focus on driving organic growth from the investments Verizon is making in mobility, broadband and large-business services, while increasing speed to market. "Verizon is unique in the industry, having chosen a network-based investment strategy that will enable us to win market share and customer loyalty. Over the last year, we have established strong management teams with diverse capabilities in each of our business units, and we now are putting in place an execution-focused model that will give them overarching support while they expand their markets."

Verizon Vice Chairman Lawrence T. Babbio Jr., who announced on Dec. 11 that he will retire from Verizon at the end of the first quarter 2007, will continue to report to Seidenberg. Babbio will assist Strigl and Seidenberg in effecting the management transition, as well as advising on current business repositioning activities. Also continuing to report to Seidenberg will be Doreen A. Toben, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; William P. Barr, Executive Vice President and General Counsel; Thomas J. Tauke, Executive Vice President of Public Affairs, Policy and Communications; John W. Diercksen, Executive Vice President, Strategy, Development and Planning; Marc C. Reed, Executive Vice President, Human Resources; and Daniel C. Petri, Group President, International.

HPQ: HP Awarded Five-year U.S. Postal Service Contract

HP has been awarded a five-year contract extension by the United States Postal Service to deploy a breadth of products and services, including HP servers, desktops, notebooks, printers, and integration and warranty support services.

This indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract that dates back to 1994 builds upon a long-term mutually successful relationship. HP has delivered more than $1.8 billion worth of products and services to the Postal Service from 1994-2006.

“Our goal at the Postal Service is to become more streamlined and efficient while continuing to increase the number of innovative services we offer our customers,” said Bob Otto, vice president and chief technology officer, United States Postal Service.

HP will deliver a wide array of hardware, software and services to upgrade the Postal Service’s distributed computing environment and support more than 3,000 servers and 140,000 client systems.

“With more than 700,000 employees, 37,000 post offices and an extensive network of processing and distribution facilities, the Postal Service is a complex enterprise with evolving technology needs,” said Jack Novia, managing director and senior vice president, Technology Solutions Group – Americas, HP. “HP is building on our partnership with the Postal Service by delivering the infrastructure and support needed to enable continuous change.”

About United States Postal Service

Since 1775, the United States Postal Service and its predecessor, the Post Office Department, have connected friends, families, neighbors, and businesses by mail. An independent federal agency that visits more than 144 million homes and business every day, the Postal Service is the only service provider delivering to every address in the nation. It receives no taxpayer dollars for routine operations, but derives its operating revenues solely from the sale of postage, products, and services. With annual revenues of $70 billion, it is the world’s leading provider of mailing and delivery services, offering some of the most affordable postage rates in the world. The U.S. Postal Service delivers more than 46 percent of the world’s mail volume – some 212 billion letters, advertisements, periodicals and packages a year – and serves 10 million customers each day at its 37,000 retail locations nationwide.

BRCM: Broadcom Announces Industry's First All DSP-Based 10 Gigabit Ethernet Serial Transceiver With Breakthrough Equalizer Technology

Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, today announced a new 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) physical layer (PHY) device that leverages its field proven digital signal processing (DSP) technology. The industry's first all DSP-based 10GbE serial transceiver enables IT professionals to preserve their existing multi-mode and single-mode fiber infrastructures by providing an upgrade path from 1 Gigabit Ethernet (1GbE) to 10GbE. The unique high-speed DSP provides significant performance, manufacturing and reliability advantages over competing analog solutions that will help drive significant growth in the 10GbE market. Utilizing the new Broadcom® DSP-based 10GbE PHY, enterprise data centers can now achieve higher bandwidth and performance, while maintaining significant savings in cost, resources and manpower when upgrading to 10GbE links.
Broadcom's 10GbE DSP PHY exceeds the requirements of the new IEEE802.aq standard, which was developed to provide a low cost 10x speed upgrade for existing Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) links in multi-mode fiber (MMF) applications. Today, more complex and higher cost 10GBASE-LX4 optical modules are currently servicing this market creating the need for simpler and lower cost solutions. Additionally, as density of 10GbE line cards increase from 8 to 16 channels today to as many as 48 channels on next generation designs, new smaller form factors and lower cost 10 Gigabit modules (such as SFP+) will be required. Broadcom is uniquely positioned to address these market deficiencies with its new 10GbE serial PHY.

"Broadcom's all DSP-based 10GbE PHY will enable future products that are consistent, predictable and have more tolerance to power supply noise and temperature variations. Additionally, when the PHY performs signal detection using advanced signal processing with DSP, it provides a significant performance advantage when compared to analog solutions," said Nariman Yousefi, Vice President and General Manager of Broadcom's Physical Layer line of business. "As a result of this new technology, the all DSP-based PHY provides the highest level of production quality that can also be easily integrated in complex ASICs, and together with Ethernet switch and controller products, provides a complete end-to-end solution that guarantees network design interoperability."

Broadcom changed the industry by being the first company to ship PHYs in high volume production based entirely on DSP technology. Today, all 10/100/1000 Megabit per second (Mbps) PHYs in the market are DSP-based, and Broadcom's new 10 Gigabit DSP equalizer technology will help to enable the rapid growth in data-intensive applications in next generation designs.

"With the growth of computational power and the number of servers in data centers, the requirement for high-speed connectivity becomes a critical requirement. As 10GbE technology becomes more cost-effective over the existing infrastructure that includes MMF, it will make strides to become the interconnection of choice in servicing the high bandwidth needs of the enterprise," said Jag Bolaria, Senior Analyst at The Linley Group. "We expect Broadcom's new 10GbE PHY technology to enable these high bandwidth links, which are expected to grow at a significant rate for the next few years."

Announced today is the Broadcom BCM8706 10GbE (SFP+ to XAUI) transceiver that builds on five generations of field proven 10GbE serial PHY technology, and will be used in SFP+ line card applications and inside X2 optical modules. The DSP equalizer provides optimal performance over 300 meters of multi-mode fiber that exceeds the IEEE specified link distance of 220 meters. An on-chip micro-controller provides additional flexibility to maintain optimal performance in even the most challenging operating conditions.

In support of the new SFP+ optical module standard, the BCM8706 product family incorporates multi-tap transmit pre-emphasis to compensate for FR-4 board material loss in line card applications. For additional flexibility, it supports backward compatibility using existing 1GbE SFP modules, providing a single PHY design that is capable of interfacing to both new and legacy Ethernet interfaces from a single PCB design.

Broadcom's complete end-to-end Ethernet networking product portfolio includes switching products, transceivers, security processors and high-speed controllers for servers, workstations, desktops and mobile PCs, providing the industry's most comprehensive portfolio of GbE networking solutions, and the most widely deployed and field proven in the industry.

Availability and Pricing

The BCM8706 serial 10GbE transceiver is a low power, 90nm device that is now sampling to early access customers. It is available in a 13mm x 13mm, PBGA, RoHS-compliant package and is compliant to all serial 10GbE interfaces including 10GBASE-SR, 10GBASE-LRM, 10GBASE-LR and 10GBASE-ER. Volume production is scheduled for the second quarter of 2007. Pricing is available upon request.

CSCO: Cisco and SAVVIS(NASDAQ: SVVS) to Launch Next-Generation Network for Enterprise Applications

Cisco® (NASDAQ: CSCO) and SAVVIS, Inc. (NASDAQ: SVVS), a global leader in IT infrastructure services for business applications, today announced an agreement to enable deployment of a next-generation Internet Protocol (IP) network based on Cisco products and services. This new network will enhance SAVVIS' global application infrastructure and expand SAVVIS' ability to deliver "IT-Infrastructure-as-a-Service" through:

• Integration of network and hosting infrastructures tuned to the unique needs of individual applications;


• An architected service provider model that connects network and hosting services to virtualized applications, policy decisions and automated management and provisioning systems;


• Rapid provisioning of new network-based high-availability services such as business continuity systems, packet-flow optimization with "bursting" capacity, and managed security services;


• MultiProtocol Label Switching (MPLS) core services combined with high-speed Metro-Ethernet access;


• End-to-end monitoring and management resulting in application-specific service-level guarantees; and


• Pay-as-you-go managed utility services.

"The concept of a global, high speed, QoS sensitive, interconnected IT infrastructure is something that the IT industry is embracing," said Melanie Posey, Research Director at IDC. "The integration of SAVVIS' global networking and hosting infrastructures creates the type of service-oriented architecture needed to support the high performance, high availability application delivery environments that business and government enterprises increasingly require."

This new SAVVIS infrastructure will be based on a combination of the Cisco IP Next Generation Network (IP NGN) service provider architecture, featuring Cisco CRS-1 routers and Cisco Internetworking Operating System (IOS) XR software at the core and Cisco 12000 Series routers as multi-service edge platforms; and the Cisco Service Oriented Network Architecture (SONA). SONA will deliver an architectural approach to connect network services to applications, transforming networks into service-delivery platforms designed to support critical business applications. SAVVIS has begun the planning and deployment of the core and edge infrastructure and plans to begin offering services over the network in mid-2007.

"SAVVIS' next-generation network is a leading high availability, highly-secure, integrated hosting and network application infrastructure," said Mike Volpi, senior vice president and general manager of the Cisco Router and Service Provider Technology Group. "We are pleased that SAVVIS has chosen Cisco technology as the cornerstone of this strategic initiative and we look forward to working with SAVVIS to realize its vision of delivering a responsive IT infrastructure designed to improve the availability and performance of enterprise applications."

SAVVIS' next-generation infrastructure will enable development and dynamic deployment of new network-based IT services based on SAVVIS intelligent networking and utility datacenter products and Cisco network technology and architectures. These services include business continuance and disaster recovery, application performance management and business-to-business integration services that align application performance and business priorities with IT infrastructure capabilities.

"The combination of Cisco technology and SAVVIS' global server, storage, network, security, and hosting infrastructure, enables a new service provider model that complements and extends current enterprise IT systems and truly delivers 'IT infrastructure as a service,' said Phil Koen, chief executive officer of SAVVIS. "It improves application performance and lowers overall costs presenting a compelling alternative to traditional approaches."

About SAVVIS
SAVVIS, Inc. (NASDAQ: SVVS) is a global leader in IT infrastructure services for business applications. With an IT services platform spanning North America, Europe, and Asia, SAVVIS leads the industry in delivering secure, reliable, and scalable hosting, network, and application services. These solutions enable customers to focus on their core business while SAVVIS ensures the quality of their IT systems and operations. SAVVIS' strategic approach combines virtualization technology, a global network and 25 data centers, and automated management and provisioning systems. For more information about SAVVIS, visit: http://www.savvis.net

ORCL: Actuate Corporation (NASDAQ: ACTU) Renews Agreement with Oracle

Actuate Corporation (NASDAQ: ACTU), the world leader in Enterprise Reporting and Performance Management Applications that empower 100% of users to achieve breakthrough corporate performance, and Oracle (NASDAQ GS: ORCL) today announced that the companies have signed an agreement to extend the use of Actuate's reporting capabilities within Siebel CRM for a further three years. The agreement marks a decade of Actuate's world class reporting technology constituting a fundamental part of Siebel CRM.
Encompassing 490 discrete applications and 21 industry-specific solutions, Siebel CRM is the market-leading, multi channel solution that enables organizations to establish an enterprisewide view of their customers across all lines of business, geographies and communication channels. With Siebel CRM, organizations are able to analyze and optimize customer, partner and employee interactions to dramatically increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, maximize revenue, and increase productivity and performance. With over four million CRM deployed seats and over 100 million registered self-service users, Siebel CRM applications are positioned in the Leaders quadrant in several Gartner Magic Quadrants for CRM. Actuate reporting capabilities will benefit Siebel CRM users.

"Actuate and Oracle have forged a relationship that adapts to current and future reporting needs for CRM as well as incentive compensation applications," said Edward Abbo, senior vice president of CRM Products at Oracle. "With Actuate, application users such as customer service professionals, sales representatives and partners will continue to have real-time visibility into everything from compensation associated with sales efforts to the steps required to improve customer satisfaction."

"Our decade long relationship with Siebel CRM is testament to the best in class reporting capabilities that Actuate provides," said Pete Cittadini, president and CEO of Actuate Corporation. "Our commitment to Siebel CRM is firm, and we will continue to deliver the best reporting technology in the market to ensure that users receive valuable insight across all of the business processes and associated systems that touch a customer."


About Actuate Corporation
Actuate Corporation is the world leader in Enterprise Reporting and Performance Management Applications that empower 100% of users to achieve breakthrough corporate performance. Actuate provides the most scalable, reliable, flexible and high-performing reporting capabilities for every application in the enterprise. Customers use Actuate to deliver information in context to users inside and outside the firewall as Performance Management and Customer Self-Service applications, managed spreadsheet applications and Java reporting applications. Actuate has over 3,500 customers globally in a range of industries including banking, insurance, manufacturing, communications, and government. Founded in 1993, Actuate has headquarters in South San Francisco, Calif., with offices worldwide. Actuate is listed on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol ACTU. For more information on Actuate, visit the company's Web site at www.actuate.com

VRSN: HSBC to Implement Fraud Detection Service from VeriSign to Enhance Customer Protection

HSBC USA Inc., the U.S. banking unit of one of the world’s largest financial services companies, and VeriSign, Inc., (NASDAQ: VRSN), the leading provider of intelligent infrastructure services for the networked world, today announced an agreement for HSBC USA to deploy the VeriSign® Identity Protection (VIP) Fraud Detection Service (FDS) to enhance the protection it provides to customers to prevent identity theft and fraud.

“The VeriSign Fraud Detection Service provides additional online authentication and fraud monitoring, which will enhance the measures the bank already employs to safeguard customer information and assets when banking over the Internet” said Martin Hayes, senior vice president and head of e-business, HSBC USA. “Protecting customers’ accounts and identities is of paramount importance.”

VIP FDS includes a state-of-the art risk engine that offers layered, risk-based authentication and fraud prevention capabilities. VIP FDS runs behind the scenes, utilizing advanced anomaly detection technology which flags potentially fraudulent activity while continuing to ensure a favorable user experience and timely delivery of services.

“We are extremely proud that HSBC has put its trust in VeriSign,” said Judy Lin, executive vice president and general manager, VeriSign Security Services. “We are confident that our solution will protect the online identities of HSBC consumers and allow HSBC to meet specific regulatory requirements, such as the FFIEC guidance, by the end of 2006.”

About HSBC USA Inc.
HSBC USA Inc. is the holding company for HSBC Bank USA, N.A., HSBC National Bank USA and other U.S. banking subsidiaries, which together have a U.S. branch network of more than 430 branches in nine states and the District of Columbia, with nearly 400 branches in New York State. These entities serve more than 3 million U.S. individual and corporate customers and offers a full range of banking products and services. HSBC USA Inc. is an indirectly held, wholly owned subsidiary of HSBC North America Holdings Inc., one of the nation’s 10 largest bank holding companies by assets.

ORCL: Oracle Corporation announced fiscal 2007 Q2 GAAP earnings per share

Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ-GS: ORCL) today announced fiscal 2007 Q2 GAAP earnings per share were up 20% to $0.18, compared to the same quarter last year. Second quarter total GAAP revenues were up 26% to $4.2 billion, while quarterly GAAP net income was up 21% to
$967 million. Total GAAP software revenues were up 23% to $3.2 billion with database
and middleware new license revenues up 9% and applications new license revenues up
28%. Services revenues were up 41% to $949 million, compared to the same quarter last
year.

Second quarter non-GAAP earnings per share were up 18% to $0.22, and non-
GAAP net income was up 20% to $1.17 billion, compared to the same quarter last year.
“We delivered strong top line revenue growth along with solid earnings for the
second quarter,” said Oracle President and CFO, Safra Catz. “We are now halfway
through our five year plan targeting EPS growth at 20% per year. For the first two-anda-
half years we are comfortably ahead of that target.”

“We continue to gain market share in applications from SAP, in middleware from
BEA, and in database from IBM,” said Oracle President, Charles Phillips. “In Q2 our
middleware new license growth was exceptionally strong. We expect to pass BEA in
total middleware new license sales later this year.”

“Our applications acquisition strategy has strengthened our competitiveness in
several industries including retail, banking, telecommunications and utilities,” said
Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison. “Now, the very first industry vertical we entered via
acquisition, our retail software business, is beginning to see the benefits of operational
integration with Oracle. In Q2, our retail new software license sales more than tripled.
During the second half of the year the retail business unit expects to do even better.
Eight of the top ten retailers in North America use Oracle retail software, only one uses
SAP.”

INTC: Intel Chairman Unveils Egypt's First 'Digital Village'

In a small city near the Nile River where cars compete with cattle and modern conveniences are scarce, Intel Corporation is using computers and wireless technology to help Oseem's 200,000 residents tap into vast "knowledge resources" on the Internet in hopes of bettering their lives.

"Technology has expanded what is possible for the people of Oseem," said Intel Chairman Craig Barrett. "Intel is committed to support Egypt's leaders in accelerating access to technology so its people can get better health care, education and work skills."

Working with Egypt's government, business and education leaders, Intel installed a state-of-the-art WiMAX network to connect two public schools, a health care center on wheels, a municipal building and an e-government services kiosk. Intel also donated and installed computers in the mobile health center and PC labs at the two schools where students and teachers can regularly connect to the outside world for the first time.

"The next billion Internet users will be from rural areas like Oseem," said Barrett, who toured the village to explore how similar programs could be replicated in other regions. This issue has led Barrett, who also chairs the United Nation's Global Alliance for ICT and Development, to 10 developing countries from the Amazon to Africa in the past 100 days.

In each country Barrett visited Intel unveiled efforts -- through its World Ahead Program -- to create economic opportunities and improve quality of life. The new programs focused on improving education and accelerating access to computers and the Internet.

"The Internet is a great technological advancement because it helps us learn and advance," said Khaled Mohamed Ragab, a 14-year-old student at Oseem's BORTOS School. "We can also talk to the rest of the world and meet new friends on the Internet."

To improve health care in Oseem, Intel enabled the use of electronic medical records and audio and video interaction between patients and specialists hundreds of kilometers away.

"In remote areas we cannot diagnose most cases, so we have to transfer or refer cases to the central location," said Dr. Osama El Gameel, house officer for Kasr El Aini Hospital. "To transfer a whole family to Cairo or Giza is a problem for most families. This way we can easily diagnose their condition without any complaints from the family. A junior doctor in these areas also does not have enough experience. With telemedicine they can gain experience through video conferences and by e-mail."

The WiMAX wireless infrastructure in Oseem has an extended transmitting range of up to 30 kilometers. WiMAX is designed to be a less costly and more efficient way to deliver Internet connectivity to cities and remote areas.

Intel's Platform Development Center in Cairo contributed to the development of the computers in the e-government kiosks and schools. The PCs were designed to operate in hot climates such as Upper Egypt. The Community PCs used in the kiosks can connect to car batteries for power and have dust filters that are easily removed for cleaning. The full-feature, energy-efficient PCs used in the schools are designed for first-time computer users and are equipped with Arabic software.

Barrett's visit and meetings with government officials culminates a year-long effort to use technology to help communities in the Middle East and Turkey. It is called the Digital Transformation Initiative.

To extend the reach of technology to benefit students, Intel pledged to donate 8,000 PCs to Egypt's schools. The PCs will be equipped with educational software supported by the Ministry of Education and Microsoft XP Professional Edition, Microsoft Office 2003 Small Business Edition and Learning Essentials software donated by Microsoft Corporation. Intel also plans to train 650,000 teachers in Egypt by 2010 on how to apply technology to enhance classroom learning with 54,000 teachers trained to date. For the first time in the world, the Intel® Teach Essentials training program is being offered online in Egypt. Intel aims to extend the training's reach to a larger number of Egyptian educators, in cooperation with the Ministry of Communications and Technology.

ORCL: SendThisFile Turns to Oracle With Despatch, Fast Growing Small Business Relies On Oracle 10g to Send Big Files

SendThisFile is a small company whose business is big files - and Oracle technology plays an important part in its success. SendThisFile, Inc. operates website sendthisfile.com, which offers an internet-based file transfer service for consumers and businesses alike. By expediting the fast, reliable and secure transfer of large files, SendThisFile enables its customers to bypass the usual problems associated with using e-mail for this purpose, such as inadequate quotas, ISP limitations, insecure transfers and more.
For consumers, SendThisFile operates a basic, fast transfer service for single large files at no charge to the user. For businesses, its Trusted File Transfer Service provides logging, encryption and integration into customer websites among its premium services. Using Oracle 10g technology as the backbone of its IT systems enables SendThisFile to offer a fast, reliable and secure service demanded by large enterprises such as Dupont and Siemens, who number among SendThisFile's 400,000 users.

"We need a bullet-proof infrastructure for our service, and Oracle has a great reputation for providing reliable, high-performance and scalable technology," said Aaron Freeman, founder of SendThisFile. "More than that, our use of Oracle gives us credibility when we do business with large enterprises, as this differentiates us from our competition and marks us out as using a world-class foundation with an award-winning support organization on call. We can thus feel comfortable going after the big business market, which again sets us apart from the rest."

Oracle Database 10g Standard Edition One is at the heart of their website, running on Linux-based commodity hardware. It offers small business like SendThisFile the performance, reliability and security of Oracle Database 10g at a low entry cost on two-processor servers. It also offers complete upward compatibility to larger servers, thus providing the scalability that SendThisFile needs. Currently, business is booming and the company is adding servers and capacity on a regular basis. The database itself has grown by over 150 per cent in only six months and SendThisFile has shipped well over 6 million files. .

"We started up using MySQL, but soon found that we had problems scaling up to meet the rising demand," continued Freeman. "Our prior experience with Oracle in a different firm led us to evaluate and select Oracle Database 10g Standard Edition One, which is doing a fantastic job for us now - administratively, it's practically hands-off. It's also very comforting to know that, as we go on, we can call on functions such as Oracle Real Application Clusters and Oracle Enterprise Manager to give us the cost-effective scaling and top-notch management capabilities that a service such as sendthisfile.com has to offer to stay ahead of the competition."

"Oracle Database 10g Standard Edition One is a key part of our proposition for small and medium-sized businesses," said Willie Hardie, vice president of Database Product Marketing, Oracle Corporation. "SendThisFile's adoption of it is a textbook example of what Oracle does very well - enable an organization to start small with competitively-priced IT that meets customers service level expectations, and easily to scale those IT systems to meet demand as it grows."

About SendThisFile
SendThisFile, Inc., based in Wichita, Kansas, USA, has operated its file transfer website -- http://www.SendThisFile.com -- since 2003. The website offers a wide variety of accounts, from free accounts for low volume users to Enterprise Plans capable of filling the needs of major multinational corporations and government entities that have to serve many users with maximum security. For more information see the SendThisFile.com website

VZ: Verizon Business Joins Asia-Pacific Consortium to Build First Next-Generation Optical Cable Directly Linking U.S., China

Verizon Business today signed a construction and maintenance agreement with a consortium that includes China Telecom and China Netcom to build the first next-generation undersea optical cable system directly linking the U.S. mainland and China.

The new system, to be named Trans-Pacific Express (TPE), will use the latest optical technology to provide greater capacity and higher speeds to meet the dramatic increase in demand for IP, data and voice communications with the Asia-Pacific region.

The new fiber-optic cable can support the equivalent of 62 million simultaneous phone calls, more than 60 times the overall capacity of the existing cable directly linking the United States and China.

While TPE will initially provide capacity of up to 1.28 terabits per second (Tbps), the system will have design capacity of up to 5.12 Tbps to support future Internet growth and advanced applications such as video and e-commerce. In another first, individual customers can access the cable system at wavelengths of up to 10 gigabits per second (Gbps), the equivalent of nearly 121,000 simultaneous phone calls.

Verizon Business is the only U.S.-based member among the initial parties of the consortium, which consists of - in addition to China Telecom and China Netcom - China Unicom, Korea Telecom and Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan). The TPE cable also provides more diversity from other undersea routes and more efficient connections to a number of countries in Asia where Verizon Business has large business customers.

"This state-of-the-art cable will support high-speed traffic to the world's fastest-growing region - the Asia-Pacific," said Fred Briggs, Verizon Business executive vice president of operations and technology. "Our leadership in this project builds on our important existing relationships in China, further recognizes the emergence of China as a diverse communications hub for Asia, and reflects our company's commitment to help U.S. and other global companies compete worldwide."

Construction of the new cable system, which will extend more than 18,000 kilometers, will begin in the first quarter of 2007. Completion is scheduled in the third quarter of 2008. The project represents an investment by consortium members of more than $500 million (U.S.).

"In addition to a diverse route directly to China, this cable will add capacity and the higher-speed service customers are demanding," Briggs said. "We also will improve provisioning intervals and reduce latency for traffic between the United States and many countries in the region."

The cable will have a landing point provided by Verizon Business at Nedonna Beach, Ore., on the U.S. West Coast and will land on the China mainland at Qingdao and Chongming. TPE will also have landings in Tanshui, Taiwan, and Keoje, South Korea.

Verizon Business already owns and operates one of the largest global IP networks, spanning 150 countries across six continents with more than 446,000 route miles. The company is involved in more than 65 submarine cable networks carrying mission-critical traffic for multi-national customers worldwide. Recently, Verizon Business deployed an advanced technology trans-Atlantic "mesh" network that interconnects, or meshes, various existing cables, resulting in more diverse routes and multiple millisecond restoration paths.

When completed, TPE will complement the company's capacity in existing submarine cables in the Asia-Pacific region. It also represents a continuation of the company's strategy to remain an active leader in the development of submarine cable systems. Verizon Business has ownership in more than 18 cable systems in the Asia-Pacific region including: Japan-U.S., China-U.S., Southern Cross (United States, New Zealand and Australia) and the new SEA-ME-WE-4 cable, put into service in December 2005, linking Europe and Asia.

MSFT: Geeks to the Rescue: Best Buy(BBY) Bolsters Its Field Technicians and Business Consultants With Microsoft Solutions

Microsoft Corp. today announced that Best Buy Co. Inc., a leading specialty retailer of consumer electronics, computers and applications, has selected multiple Microsoft® technologies to help its field technicians and consultants increase productivity, better understand and serve consumers and small businesses, and develop stronger relationships with its customers.

The retailer’s Geek Squad service team, a group of more than 11,000 specially trained Agents who solve computer problems for customers by visiting their homes and small businesses, is now using 3,000 Windows Mobile®-powered Smartphones to schedule and route customer service calls, to improve communication and collaboration capabilities, and to easily access Internet-based technical content. In addition, Best Buy For Business — a growing unit of more than 1,000 consultants who sell, implement and support solutions for small-business customers — is now using Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM 3.0 in-house as part of a comprehensive solution for supporting its complex sales cycle.

“Microsoft technologies such as Windows Mobile are playing a key role in enabling Geek Squad to deliver on its fundamental commitment: to give the customer a superior service experience,” said Rich Christensen, vice president and business information officer at Best Buy. “It provides our field personnel with rapid and constant access to comprehensive real-time customer information, an obvious competitive advantage over businesses that don’t.”

“Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides tremendous insight into the most effective way to manage our outside sales force, as well as complete visibility into what our consultants are doing,” said Jay Devers, director of technology solutions for Best Buy For Business. “Today we have a comprehensive sales force automation tool in place that salespeople can use every day as a part of their regular business rhythm to maximize their customer relationships.”

Familiarity with other Microsoft technologies and the ability to utilize existing IT investments played a key role in Best Buy’s decisions. For Geek Squad, Best Buy preferred Windows Mobile’s easy collaboration with its current installation of Microsoft server technology, its native support for mobile messaging through Exchange Server 2003, and its ability to take advantage of emerging Exchange Server capabilities for direct push technology, security and management. In addition, with Windows Mobile-powered Smartphones, Geek Squad Agents have access to technical content when and where they need it and can easily communicate and collaborate with their peers.

For the retailer’s Best Buy For Business unit, feature-rich Microsoft Dynamics CRM was chosen for its native Microsoft Office Outlook® experience and the ability to implement it quickly and easily. Microsoft Dynamics CRM serves as a centralized repository of customer data that integrates with Microsoft Office applications which employees use every day, such as the Office Outlook messaging and collaboration client. Within the same familiar Office Outlook interface, employees can now access Microsoft Dynamics CRM sales, marketing and customer service modules to make sales decisions, market products, solve problems and obtain strategic views of their business.


“Best Buy is extremely focused on providing the best service and support for its customers, and recognizes how important its people are to that success,” said David Gruehn, industry solutions director for the U.S. Retail and Hospitality Industry Group at Microsoft. “We are pleased with Best Buy’s success using Microsoft software and solutions to help empower its employees to develop and strengthen customer relationships, respond decisively, and drive the business forward.”

Best Buy also recently decided to add Microsoft Dynamics CRM to its own IT services and solutions offerings. This will enable Best Buy For Business customers to benefit from the same features and functionality within the product that the major retailer uses in managing its customer relationships. Best Buy also offers Microsoft Dynamics – Point of Sale, an easy-to-use, affordable single-store application that enables small retailers to track and manage sales, inventory and customer information. Microsoft Dynamics – Point of Sale 2.0 will be demonstrated in select Best Buy For Business stores.

BRCM: Broadcom Announces Conclusions of Option Grants Conduct Review

Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM) today announced that its Board of Directors has approved the findings and recommendations of its Audit Committee's review of the conduct and performance of Broadcom management, employees and directors involved in the company's stock option grant and equity award processes. The Audit Committee conducted its investigation with the assistance of independent legal counsel Kaye Scholer LLP and with the forensic accounting assistance of LECG.
During the Audit Committee's four-and-a-half month investigation, more than six million pages of documents and electronic information were reviewed. The Committee's independent counsel also interviewed more than forty individuals. The investigation was accomplished with the full support and cooperation of the company's management and personnel.

Broadcom previously announced that the Audit Committee had determined that the accounting measurement dates (for purposes of Accounting Principles Board Opinion No. 25, Accounting for Stock Issued to Employees, and related interpretations) for most option grants awarded between June 1998 and May 2003 differ from the measurement dates originally used for such awards. The company is working expeditiously and presently expects to file an amended Annual Report on Form 10-K/A for 2005 and an amended Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q/A for the first quarter of 2006, reporting adjustments to its prior financial statements, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in January 2007.

Broadcom also previously announced that it received an informal inquiry from the SEC. On December 14, 2006, the company was informed that the SEC has issued a formal order of investigation. Broadcom continues to cooperate with the SEC.

The Audit Committee's Conclusions

The Audit Committee determined that in mid-2003 significant corrective changes were made to the option granting and documentation process. As a result, each of the option grants and other equity awards made since May 2003 has complied with prevailing accounting rules and is not subject to restatement.

The Committee also determined that between June 1998 and May 2003 Broadcom's informal option grant procedures and processes lacked adequate controls, and that the company's documentation and recordkeeping were insufficient to verify many of the original measurement dates.

The Committee concluded that, for option grant dates between November 3, 1998 and May 19, 2003, certain executives and employees selected numerous grant dates after the fact. The Committee further found that, particularly with respect to several company-wide option grants, allocations of grants to individuals occurred after the grant dates for the total shares awarded had been established.

Each of the individuals deemed to have been actively responsible for the selection of option grant dates after the fact has either previously left the company for reasons unrelated to the options investigation, or has recently departed Broadcom as a result of the investigation. In addition, acting on the Committee's recommendation, the Board of Directors is canceling outstanding unexercised options granted since Broadcom's initial public offering held by three of the responsible individuals. The value of the options cancelled, based on the difference between their original exercise prices and the fair market value of the underlying shares on December 15, 2006, is more than $37 million.

The Committee also concluded that certain other employees could have made additional inquiry or could have taken additional action to address the inadequacies in the option granting process. As a result of the Committee's investigation, those individuals have voluntarily agreed that the exercise prices of their outstanding options will be increased to the prices as of the new accounting measurement dates determined by the company.

The Committee further found that, reflecting the lack of adequate controls, there was uncertainty and confusion as to the accounting rules for options, and certain individuals may have acted without fully understanding the rules or whether compensation charges should have been taken.

The Committee determined that all options and other equity awards granted to the company's founders and all current and former members of the Board of Directors were properly granted. It also found that Broadcom's Chairman and Chief Technical Officer, Henry Samueli, and all outside Directors reasonably relied upon management and professionals regarding the correct option accounting treatment and grant approval process.

As a result of its investigation, the Audit Committee reaffirmed its full faith and confidence in the integrity of Broadcom's current President and Chief Executive Officer, Scott A. McGregor, and the company's Acting Chief Financial Officer, Bruce E. Kiddoo. The Committee further concluded that both Mr. McGregor and Mr. Kiddoo can appropriately serve as officers certifying Broadcom's financial statements. Finally, the Committee found that Broadcom's current equity award processes and procedures are appropriate and provide effective controls.

Management's Comments

Mr. McGregor said: "Broadcom is fully committed to compliance with all applicable accounting standards and regulations. The rigor with which the company has addressed this issue once it was discovered is testimony to our commitment. In addition to conducting an extremely thorough investigation with the assistance of experienced professional advisors and counsel, we have taken appropriate steps to ensure that the company maintains appropriate controls in its equity award processes, and complies fully with relevant accounting practices. Our investors deserve nothing less."

Approximately 95% of the stock options granted between June 1998 and May 2003 were awarded to employees other than executive officers.

HPQ: HP Strengthens and Simplifies UNIX Security

HP today reinforced its UNIX security offering with additions to the HP-UX 11i operating environment that extend and simplify the protection of data residing on HP Integrity servers.

The new features include encryption and hardening capabilities that help address growing data security and compliance challenges facing customers in virtually all industries, including public utilities, banking and healthcare. Fully integrated into the HP-UX 11i v2 operating environment and available at no extra cost, these enhancements allow customers with minimal security expertise to lock down and protect their IT environments.

“HP recognizes the importance of providing customers with rock solid, easily manageable security solutions. Unified protection is critical for companies looking to build a next-generation data center,” said Nick van der Zweep, director of virtualization and software, Business Critical Systems, HP. “Our new automated security features proactively mitigate risks, greatly reducing the costs of compliance.”

A part of HP’s Adaptive Infrastructure portfolio, HP-UX 11i now includes a comprehensive set of security features not found in any other UNIX operating system.

Comprehensive protection for data in-use and at-rest

With easy-to-deploy data protection features, HP helps IT administrators preserve their system’s integrity in the face of attack. The latest capabilities on HP-UX include:

• Encrypted Volume and File System – an operating system-based data encryption solution that helps ensure the confidentiality of critical business information by transparently protecting “data-at-rest.” The system automatically encrypts data on storage devices to prevent unauthorized use of data obtained through theft. It also allows customers to retain existing storage devices with no additional storage upgrades or modifications.
  
• Trusted Computing on Integrity – a low-cost embedded security chip option for select HP Integrity servers that offers solid, “machine-bound” protection for cryptographic keys, virtually eliminating vulnerabilities in software-only solutions.
  
• HP Protected Systems – applies the technology in HP-UX Security Containment to isolate data in compartments and allow customers to automatically configure and deploy more secure systems. By setting up fine-grained privileges and role-based access control, HP Protected Systems reduces configuration time and required customer skill level.

“HP Integrity servers running HP-UX 11i help ABB customers keep pace with the constantly changing, data-intensive regulatory issues found in the utilities industry,” said Gordon Woolbert, vice president and head of the Network Management business unit, ABB Inc. “The multiple layers of security in HP-UX increase adherence to stringent compliance requirements, helping to ensure network stability and optimum system performance.”

Addressing compliance challenges

To help reduce the rising costs of compliance, HP is expanding its portfolio of operating system-integrated offerings to further simplify common compliance-related tasks.

The latest version of HP-UX Bastille, an open-source software tool for security hardening, now features assessment and drift reporting features that check the consistency of a system’s hardening configuration with previously applied hardening policies. With HP Systems Insight Manager – HP’s Unified Infrastructure Management software for servers and storage – Bastille provides efficient multi-system deployment that increases the number of systems manageable by a single administrator.

The enhanced HP-UX AAA server offers enterprise customers simplified auditing and compliance for more flexible data base integration and easier user authentication. The server provides authentication, authorization and accounting services using RADIUS and EAP protocols to authenticate users and then account for time and billing use of network services.

More information about HP-UX security solutions is available at www.hp.com/go/hpux11isecurity

YHOO: Yahoo! Appoints Jill Nash Chief Communications Officer

Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company, today announced the appointment of Jill Nash to senior vice president and chief communications officer.

In this role, Nash will direct Yahoo!'s global communication efforts, overseeing functions including media relations, policy communications, internal communications, product promotion, and corporate reputation management. Nash will also serve as the top advisor to the executive team and guide a world-class communications team.

Nash will be based in Sunnyvale, California and will report to Yahoo!'s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Terry Semel. Her appointment is effective January 16, 2007.

"Jill has had extensive experience and considerable success shaping the communications efforts for large, blue chip brands," said Semel. "Her proven track record developing strategic and holistic communications programs for both external and internal audiences makes her a valuable addition as Yahoo! enters its next phase of growth."

Previously, Nash was vice president, global communications for Gap Inc., where she led all aspects of communications including public relations, issues management, public affairs, business communications, employee communications and global recognition. Nash's communications efforts were focused on reputation management, cultural transformation and strategic change at both the corporate and brand levels. Nash was also a member of the Gap Inc. Foundation Board of Directors.

"I look forward to being part of a company that has such a significant impact by connecting people to their passions, their communities, and the world's knowledge," said Nash. "This is an exciting time to join Yahoo! as the company continues to expand its influence around the world and pursue new growth opportunities. I look forward to working with Terry and the talented communications team to tell the Yahoo! story."

Prior to Gap Inc., Nash served as senior vice president of corporate communications at Charles Schwab Corporation, where she helped position the company as a leader in technology and online brokerage. While at Schwab, her achievements included garnering a broad range of recognition for the company including placement on Fortune magazine's list of "Best Companies to Work For in America" as well as Working Woman's "Top 25 Companies for Executive Women."

Prior to Schwab, Nash worked in marketing and communications at KPMG and earlier headed corporate communications for the Transamerica Life Companies.

Nash has received numerous industry honors including multiple Gold Quill awards. A past president of Organization of Women Executives, Nash is active in a variety of community organizations.

Nash holds a B.A. in journalism from San Diego State University.

ADSK: Autodesk and PTC (NASDAQ: PMTC) Announce Interoperability Agreement

Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) and PTC (NASDAQ: PMTC) today announced a technology exchange agreement to expand interoperability options for their customers and the manufacturing industry. This agreement brings together two software leaders with the common goal of facilitating software interoperability for organizations with multi-CAD environments.

Today's manufacturers are under increased pressure to get high quality products to market faster, with increased efficiencies and lower costs to the consumer. As part of this effort, many have adopted a multi-CAD strategy, either internally between departments or externally with partners and supply chains. This interoperability agreement aims to decrease the overall effort and costs that are commonly associated with supporting these environments. Autodesk and PTC plan to provide customers with out-of-the-box integrations between their solutions that will enable organizations to work more efficiently with the product development strategies currently in place and the flexibility to adopt future strategies.

"Interoperability continues to be a major challenge in manufacturing sectors including aerospace, automotive, high technology and industrial machinery," said Robert "Buzz" Kross, vice president of Manufacturing Solutions at Autodesk. "We understand that our customers use a mix of products in their workflow and providing them with the flexibility they need to get their jobs done is our priority."

"PTC recognizes that manufacturers manage complex business processes which often include heterogeneous design environments," said Brian Shepherd, divisional vice president, product management at PTC. "We have chosen to continue our focus on eliminating interoperability challenges so that customers can place greater attention on the true value-added activities of product development."

This agreement enables PTC to leverage Autodesk's RealDWG™ software development toolkit and deliver solutions using Autodesk's DWG™ technology, so that PTC's solutions will be interoperable with Autodesk® Inventor™ 3D software for the manufacturing industry and AutoCAD® software. Similarly, Autodesk can utilize PTC's GRANITE® 3D modeling and interoperability kernel to provide enhanced integration with Pro/ENGINEER®, PTC's integrated 3D CAD/CAM/CAE software.


About PTC

PTC provides leading product lifecycle management (PLM), content management and dynamic publishing solutions to more than 40,000 companies worldwide. PTC customers include the world's most innovative companies in manufacturing, publishing, services, government and life sciences industries. PTC is included in the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 indices. For more information on PTC, please visit http://www.ptc.com/

IBM and Eurotech initial partnership in pervasive computing

IBM (NYSE: IBM) announces today an agreement with Eurotech (Star:ETH) to embed IBM Lotus Mobile Connect software in Eurotech's "NanoPC" devices that include: Embedded PCs, Network Appliances, Wearable PCs. Eurotech is an Italian leading designer and developer of high performance and low power embedded computing systems.

IBM Lotus Mobile Connect provides easier, more secure and more cost-efficient access to key information through the optimized usage of wireless technology. This allows mobile workers to improve productivity, protect the privacy of important data and maximize companies' return on their wireless IT investments.

With Lotus Mobile Connect, users can move with portable devices from location to location unaware of network issues across Wi-Fi, cellular, satellite data telecommunications or even wirelines without interruptions to Web or other application connections, while secured in a high speed access to information. The software creates a mobile VPN (Virtual Private Network), for Internet Protocol (IP) networks, that protects sensitive enterprise data by encrypting data, optimizing performances and reducing transmission costs.

Without the secure, seamless, cross networking roaming capability of this software, an end user would experience disconnections from their sessions and be forced to repeatedly re-authenticate to the firewall, obtain a new IP address, and renew the VPN connection to finally restart each application from scratch.

Eurotech's mobile device users like Zypad, a wearable PDA, can now benefit from a new customized network roaming feature, which enables enterprises to prioritize the network they prefer to use based on important business priorities -- for example, the most cost-effective network, which network offers the highest-speed access to data, or provides the better security. IBM Lotus Mobile Connect is used by the Eurotech Group to realize solutions for their customers wishing to get the maximum from their networks. Lotus Mobile Connect complements the current Eurotech's offering with an easy to integrate component that can optimize network usage, enhance effective throughput, enable networks roaming while keeping a VPN certified to FIPS 140-2 standard.

"This agreement extends the collaboration with Eurotech already in action with Arcom Inc (USA), an Eurotech Company with IBM Sensor and Actuators group to implement IBM Middleware in Eurotech devices", said Monica Tassinari, Manager of Lotus Italy, IBM Software Group.

Roberto Siagri, President and CEO of the Eurotech Group, says "I believe that this agreement could be considered as an important step in the development of pervasive computing, Eurotech and IBM are truly looking toward the future, this marks the migration of the information technology domain to a totally ubiquitous era where a single device has multiple capabilities."

For more information on IBM Lotus Mobile Connect go to: http://www-142.ibm.com/software/sw-lotus/products/product1.nsf/wdocs/mobileconnect

Lotus Mobile Connect V6.1 is the new version of IBM WebSphere Everyplace Connection Manager V5.1, with additional features and greater synergy with other Lotus products like Lotus Sametime and Lotus Expeditor.

Eurotech

Eurotech designs and develops innovative high performance and low power embedded computing systems. With operations in Europe, North America and Asia, the Group's product are used in industrial, defence, transportation and medical applications. Eurotech miniaturised computer business designs and manufactures products to the miniaturisation requirements of its customers. The product range from compact stationary PCs (headless or HMI) to embedded, ruggedised mobile computers designed to operate in harsh environments.

Eurotech through Arcom Inc (USA) has been in action for the last three years with IBM Sensor and Actuators group focused on developing software frameworks for pervasive computing devices used in vertical markets. The result of thus co-development is a line of RFID Edge Controller incorporating the IBM sensors and actuators group: IBM Websphere RFID Device Infrastructure (WRDI) framework.

IBM Enables Drug Authentication, E-Customs With Release of New RFID Technology

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new technology to give clients the unprecedented ability to securely share and analyze accurate and real-time data generated by sensors like Radio Frequency ID tags, enabling significant consumer and business applications like drug authentication and e-customs for the first time.

The new technology, WebSphere RFID Information Center, is based on a recently completed EPCglobal standard called EPCIS, which provides a standard way to securely communicate the data created by sensors and RFID tags, and tie it to existing business information and trading partners.

The growing trend of item-level tagging will create exponential growth in sensor data well beyond that generated from conventional barcode technology. This creates a need for a new way to manage this explosion of data in a manner that does not overwhelm a business and its supply chain partners. In addition to managing the massive amount of data RFID creates, two other barriers to widespread RFID adoption to date have been the lack of standards and data sharing capabilities. RFID Information Center solves all of these issues, clearing the way for wider-spread RFID adoption in various industries.

The IBM WebSphere RFID Information Center has already been successfully deployed for a number of early-adopter IBM clients across several industries, including consumer packaged goods company Unilever, the e-customs project ITAIDE in Europe, and 'Big Three' pharmaceutical distributor AmerisourceBergen.

"AmerisourceBergen sees tremendous potential in the IBM WebSphere RFID Information Center, which will be a key component to meeting track and trace regulatory requirements in California," said Shay Reid, AmerisourceBergen Vice President, Integrated Solutions. "It will also become the data backbone in our pilot program that will enable AmerisourceBergen to improve its service by quickly and efficiently authenticating products and transactions through direct data exchange with pharmaceutical manufacturers."

IBM's WebSphere RFID Information Center is the first standards-based EPC Information Service (EPCIS) and high performance data repository that can manage the heightening volume of data, and also provide real time business information to support use cases that prove ROI. The system also integrates with Master Data systems to leverage product, location and supplier information to provide additional business context.

The technology is designed to help clients reliably and efficiently capture, manage, search and securely share RFID, sensor and 2D barcode events enterprise-wide, as well as with external trading partners and government agencies. The standards-based platform can help businesses more easily deploy and take advantage of RFID technology for better business decisions and improved operations.

"By enabling standards-based data sharing among trading partners, WebSphere RFID Information Center will give clients ROI that has not yet been possible," said Christian C. Clauss, Director, Sensor Information Management, IBM Software Group. "After years of testing and investing in RFID, companies can now begin to see real business benefits from the use of RFID data provided back to them by their trading partners."

RFID Information Center receives data from RFID middleware, which aggregates, filters and interprets data directly from the readers. Then RFID Information Center stores, manages and enables sharing of all or portions of the data with various business applications across the enterprise, and with trading partners. New classes of information-intensive solutions can be built on the latest generation of sensor network repositories linked to master data.

In addition to the base components of RFID Information Center, the new offering will also include a Shipment Verification capability which provides automated means to track shipments and confirm receipts. This capability is expected to help companies reduce losses and the significant labor required to resolve discrepancies when errors in the shipment/receipt process occur. WebSphere RFID Information Center will also provide the data platform to enable additional business use cases such as diversion tracking, inventory management, targeted recalls and enable regulatory compliance.

RFID Information Center allows businesses to prove return on investment in RFID, and begin to leverage the data created from the technology to link organizations and people for economic growth, improved healthcare and education, and enhanced security and safety.

For more information on IBM WebSphere RFID Information Center, please visit: http://www.ibm.com/software/data/masterdata/rfid/

IBM and Circuit City Join to Explore the Application of Virtual Worlds to Business

SECOND LIFE -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced it is working with Circuit City Stores, Inc., a leading specialty retailer of consumer electronics, to explore how to apply virtual worlds and 3-D environments to retail business models.

The relationship aims to experiment with the introduction of virtual worlds and 3-D environments into the multi-channel retailing environment. As retailers focus on improving the customers' experience, connecting the virtual world with the real world to solve business problems can create a richer, more immersive experience for Circuit City's customers. This work is an extension of IBM and Circuit City's existing systems collaboration.

To kick off this experimental work, the companies have opened a prototype virtual Circuit City store, which replicates in 3-D products available in real Circuit City stores and on circuitcity.com. The Circuit City prototype store is part of an IBM complex opening to the public next week in the virtual world of Second Life.



"Teaming with IBM in the virtual world is as much about sensing and learning from the community as it is about commerce. These immersive environments provide an interactive forum for testing and feedback as we focus on the next generation of customer service," said Bill McCorey, senior vice president and chief information officer of Circuit City. "Our ultimate goal is to understand the implications of virtual 3-D worlds on multi-channel retailing and to extend the connection we have with our customers to new spaces."

A number of experiments are already underway with the virtual store. For example, instead of browsing through a catalog on a Web site, consumers can use their "avatars" -- a 3-D virtual representation of themselves -- to walk the aisles of the virtual Circuit City store and pick up and examine products in a way that is closer to real life. Customers can then order those items to be delivered to their homes, much like the way they would order on the Internet.

Some of the richer features under development will showcase Circuit City's strategy of providing multi-channel touch points to the consumer, driving customer service and extending its community of customers and experts from its stores and forums online to the virtual world.

An immersive feature that IBM and Circuit City are experimenting with includes an interactive home theater setup, where customers can easily recreate their own home environment, and figure out the optimal size television to purchase based on room dimensions. These features allow a user to have their avatar move a couch back and forth to set it at the proper distance from where they would like to position a new TV, and it automatically tells them the optimal size TV to purchase for their room dimensions. The companies will explore additional features, such as where to set up speakers and other audio and visual components.

The companies are also researching the potential to add other features in customer service. For example, instead of a customer calling in with a technical issue, they can actually go to the 3-D virtual environment and figure out exactly how and where to fix or examine the product to find the problem and get it resolved. If someone purchases a new digital camera on circuitcity.com and wants to learn how to use all of the features, instead of reading a product manual they can immerse themselves in the 3-D environment and actually "see" how to use the camera and all of its features.

Circuit City is also exploring how to extend its online forums -- where its customers help each other by rating and reviewing products they have purchased -- into the virtual worlds. The virtual worlds are built around communities and provide a natural forum for people to connect and collaborate.

IBM's Virtual Worlds and 3-D Internet Strategy

These experimentations -- with innovative companies like Circuit City -- are part of an IBM-led initiative to collaborate with clients and partners in three ways -- conducting business inside virtual worlds; connecting the virtual world with the real world to create a richer, more immersive Web environment; and to solve business problems in a new way.

IBM is opening up areas in Second Life previously inaccessible to the general public. On these "islands" -- which are spaces where people can build three-dimensional objects and interact with other people in a way that is more visual and real -- IBM has been experimenting on extending virtual worlds for business. Three key areas in business include: virtual commerce and work with clients to apply virtual worlds to business problems; driving new kinds of collaboration and education; and experimentations on pushing the limits with a broad community on what might be possible in virtual worlds.

IBM is working with dozens of clients to experiment and help them understand and apply virtual worlds to their business. While IBM is prototyping and developing in Second Life, it has a bigger strategy to collaborate with a community in an open source fashion to build out the next generation Web, which IBM and others call the 3-D Internet. IBM also aims to build a platform for "serious" business, including 3-D Intranets inside of a company firewall where private and confidential business can be conducted.

In addition to virtual commerce, IBM works with clients, employees and alumni to use virtual worlds to drive collaboration and provide a more immersive online educational experience. For example, IBM uses virtual worlds to connect with its alumni population and for on-boarding and educating new and current employees. Virtual worlds have proven an effective tool to help simplify the complex, with 3-D models and interactions that cannot be recreated in a Web conference or phone conversation, and have been useful in connecting people around the globe to drive collaboration.

Dell Receives NASDAQ Notice Due to Delay in Filing of Form 10-Q

Dell Inc. announced that the company received, as expected, a NASDAQ Staff Determination letter on December 15, 2006, indicating that the company is not in compliance with the NASDAQ continued listing requirements set forth in Marketplace Rule 4310(c) (14). The Determination letter relates to the company's Form 10-Q for the fiscal third quarter ended November 3, 2006.

The company previously announced the receipt of a NASDAQ Staff Determination letter on September 15, 2006, indicating that the Company was not in compliance with the NASDAQ continued listing requirements set forth in Marketplace Rule 4310(c) (14) due to the delay in the filing of its Form 10-Q for the fiscal second quarter ended August 4, 2006. On November 2, 2006, the Company appeared before the NASDAQ Listing Qualifications Panel to present a plan for regaining compliance and to request continued listing on The NASDAQ Stock Market. The panel has not yet rendered a decision.

As previously announced, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Company’s Audit Committee are conducting investigations into certain accounting and financial reporting matters, including the possibility of misstatements in prior period financial reports, and the company previously received a related subpoena from the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. The company is delaying the filing of the Form 10-Q for its fiscal third quarter ended November 3, 2006 because of questions raised in connection with those ongoing investigations. The company is committed to resolving the issues raised in connection with the investigations, and regaining compliance with all SEC filing requirements (including the filing of its Forms 10-Q for the fiscal second and third quarters of 2007) and all NASDAQ listing requirements, as soon as possible.

P Announces Timeline for “Bonus” Shares

The resolution of the May 9, 2006 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders to increase the Company’s subscribed capital from corporate funds (retained earnings and APIC) became effective today when it was entered in the commercial register.

For each share they already hold, SAP AG shareholders will receive three additional shares (“bonus” shares) after the close of stock exchange business on Wednesday, December 20, 2006. The Company’s stock exchange listing will be amended accordingly with effect from December 21, 2006. The measure will increase subscribed capital from the current level of approximately €316.9 million to approximately €1,267 million, and the Company will be issuing some 950 million new shares. The effect will be to quadruple the number of shares outstanding, but each single share will be worth a quarter of the old value.

The new shares resulting from the subscribed capital increase will automatically be credited to shareholders’ share accounts. Shareholders themselves need take no action. The new shares will qualify for dividend with effect from the beginning of fiscal year 2006.

The aim of the measure is to make SAP stock more attractive, especially for individual shareholders.

Information for ADR holders
With the change in share capital, the current ratio between the ADR and the underlying ordinary shares of 4:1, meaning that four SAP ADRs are the equivalent of one SAP ordinary share, will change to 1 ordinary share : 1 ADR. Holders of the SAP ADRs will not receive additional ADRs as a result of the capital increase and no action needs to be taken by ADR holders.

CSCO: Cisco Announces Agreement to Acquire Tivella

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) - Cisco today announced a definitive agreement to acquire the privately held company, Tivella, Inc. of Half Moon Bay, California. Tivella is a leading provider of digital signage software and systems.

Digital signage is an emerging technology that has the potential to transform the customer experience and to promote richer communications. Digital signage is quickly gaining traction as companies face a variety of challenges. These include revenue and growth, building and maintaining brand identity and customer loyalty, and effectively reaching target audiences with advertising and marketing. Companies conducting deployments of digital signage solutions have clearly demonstrated higher brand awareness and sales uplift by targeting relevant information to an audience near the point of purchase.

"We feel there is enormous potential for digital signage to be integrated into our existing enterprise streaming and live video broadcasting platform," said Marthin De Beer, Senior Vice President of Cisco's Emerging Market Technologies Group. "This will allow Cisco to provide live video, video-on-demand, and other rich media content to desktops and digital signage displays using IP for applications such as targeted communications, advertising, and training."

The acquisition is subject to various standard closing conditions and is expected to close in the second quarter of Cisco's fiscal year 2007.

Tivella was founded 2001 and has 10 employees based primarily in Milpitas, CA, with Corporate offices in Half Moon Bay, CA.

Upon close of the transaction the Tivella team and product portfolio will be integrated in Cisco's Emerging Markets Technology Group, reporting into De Beer.

ORCL: Oracle and COMETA Consortium Combine Approach to Grid Computing for Sicilian Pilot Project

Oracle today announced a partnership with the Italian COMETA Consortium (COMETA) to work on a pilot project called S-Sicilia over the next three years. This study of a Grid environment will address a number of issues including accountability, licensing and support. The S-Sicilia project will highlight the differences between commercial and enterprise grids and will enable Oracle to share best practice and raise awareness of the demands and skills needed in developing a Grid infrastructure.
COMETA will set up the pilot project to see how a service provider can track the resources of a Grid as they are used by different organisations, and charge accordingly. In addition the project will examine how to plan resource allocation and capacity based on previous resource usage.

Under the S-Sicilia project, Oracle and COMETA will tackle the challenge of licensing in a distributed environment and analyse the problem of accountability with a specific focus on Grid Licensing Schemes, Service Level Agreements and Quality of Service. The collaboration also plans to create a Competency Centre on Oracle-based solutions within COMETA.

COMETA's advanced Competency Centre in Sicily will promote research and develop advanced solutions in high performance computing. COMETA's goal is to establish and maintain a regional distributed computing and storage infrastructure to improve the scientific cooperation of Sicilian Universities and research institutions with the rest of the world.

"We're working with Oracle to create a powerful Competency Centre that has a nucleus of highly skilled people," said Antonio Puliafito, VP of COMETA. "We must ensure that we have the intelligence and capability to train local people in Sicily, giving them key skills to develop applications and an understanding of the demands of Grid. We're turning to Oracle for the guidance and support we need in this area."

Oracle will provide COMETA with consulting and technology support including software installation and system configuration. Oracle will also offer the testing of programmes administered through Oracle.

"The S-Sicilia project enables the R&D and commercial worlds to join forces to advance the development of Grid Computing," said Monica Marinucci, EMEA Oracle in R&D Programme Director.. "This is an important opportunity for COMETA to break out beyond its experience of the scientific world. It will enable them to understand how Grid works in the enterprise and how businesses can get the most results from their computing resources and related services."

About COMETA
COMETA is a multi-party consortium for the promotion and adoption of high performance computing. The funding members of the COMETA consortium are: National Institute of Nuclear Physics, National Institute for Astrophysics, National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology, University of Catania, University of Messina, University of Palermo, Consorzio SCIRE.

COMETA's goal is to establish and maintain a regional distributed computing and storage infrastructure, which has to be on-demand, general purpose, open and able to improve the scientific cooperation of Sicilian Universities and research institutions with the rest of the world.

COMETA also intends to bring in the GRID multi/inter-disciplinar scientific and industrial applications through the adoption of web portals and high level user interfaces remotely accessible by any user with a plethora of devices (personal computer, hand-held devices, cellular phone etc.).

COMETA is currently managing the PI2S2 project, an €11 Million project supported from the MIUR which, together with the €4 Million Trigrid project, sponsored by the Sicilia region, intends to create in Sicily a powerful high performance computing infrastructure which will be part of the European GRID network. Access to the Sicilian GRID infrastructure is open for the entire length of the PI2S2 project to all the researchers and virtual organizations that express their interest.

BEAS: BEA Systems Announces Joint ISV Solutions Designed To Accelerate Adoption of New Services Based On Next-Generation Service Delivery Architecture

BEA Systems, Inc., a world leader in enterprise and communications infrastructure software today announced two significant milestones in its telecommunications partner strategy. First, several new and existing ISV partners, including Exit Games, Intervoice (Nasdaq: INTV), Iperia, IP Unity, Mofinity, Protel and RadiSys have developed innovative applications on BEA WebLogic® SIP Server. Secondly, BEA has expanded its global ISV partner ecosystem for the BEA WebLogic® Communications Platform product family to include several new partners worldwide. These new partners include the aforementioned Exit Games, Mofinity, Protel and RadiSys, as well as Bridgewater Systems, Centile, Convergin, NGC Systems, Telenity and Vantrix.

The applications and completer technologies delivered by ISV partners are a key contributor to the success of BEA WebLogic® Communications Platform products, which consists of BEA WebLogic® SIP Server and BEA WebLogic® Network Gatekeeper. New and innovative applications and services based on these products can lead to enhanced revenue opportunities for telecom network operators. Network operators can now leverage a more diverse and compelling ecosystem of new applications such as conferencing, ring-back tones, data collaboration, mobile multi-player gaming multimedia messaging and IVR applications running on BEA WebLogic SIP Server to help increase revenue and drive customer loyalty.

“The next-generation of telecom networks will not be successful without a broad portfolio of compelling new services and applications to drive incremental revenue and customer loyalty,” said Brian Partridge, senior analyst, Yankee Group. “BEA recognizes the importance of a strong ISV partner ecosystem and has shown a strong ability to attract a wide and diverse set of ISVs worldwide to the benefit of its customers.”

These solutions powered by BEA WebLogic SIP Server underscore the importance of a unified, service-oriented IMS-NGN Services Layer architecture, where new applications can leverage the convergence of IT and the telecom networks. By implementing an integrated IMS-NGN Services Layer architecture based on ISV applications and BEA WebLogic Communications Platform products, and relying on a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) paradigm for rapid service composition and feature re-use, network operators can prepare themselves to become more agile, responsive, and competitive in the rapid-changing marketplace.

“The worlds of the Internet, SOA, and communications are converging and this brings new challenges and opportunities for network operators, service providers, and enterprises,” said Mike McHugh, vice president and general manager, BEA WebLogic Communications Platform. “By partnering with a global ecosystem of industry leading ISVs, we are helping to facilitate the creation of a powerful portfolio of converged services, which can help in a phased transition from legacy networks to next-generation service delivery architectures.”

ISV Ecosystem Expansion Designed to Help Bring New Revenue Opportunities for Network Operators

BEA is committed to engaging with these and other ISV partners worldwide to support the porting, integration and development of new, and existing, SIP-IMS applications on BEA WebLogic SIP Server. By delivering applications that are designed to run on, or integrate with, BEA WebLogic SIP Server, BEA and its ISV partners are collaborating to help telecom network operators increase revenue through new, innovative service opportunities. The converged IT-SOA-IMS service infrastructure technologies in BEA WebLogic SIP Server and BEA WebLogic Network Gatekeeper are designed to provide ISV partners with a uniquely differentiating, and powerful foundation for creating compelling new application products, and partners can also benefit from BEA’s market breadth and industry reach.

Many of these ISV partners have already ported and integrated with BEA WebLogic Communications Platform products. The portfolio of joint solutions created by BEA and its ISV partners is designed to offer powerful business value for customers, and broaden the set of features which can be re-used, and re-composed using SOA principles, to create additional new services based on BEA WebLogic Communications Platform products.

IBM Announces Software for Enterprise Communications: Exstream Dialogue Now Available From IBM

IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today the availability of Exstream Dialogue for workstation server platforms, a comprehensive suite of business communications middleware. Exstream Dialogue is a single product comprised of over 65 integrated modules that can be used by companies to design, manage, produce and distribute a wide range of variable documents for multi-channel delivery -- including high-volume print and interactively through the Internet.

Exstream Dialogue is especially focused on streamlining complex document creation processes and producing higher value communications such as customer statements, 401(k) reports, policies, correspondence, marketing and bills. Companies in a variety of industries, including financial services, insurance, service provider, telecommunications, utilities, hospitality, retail, and government can benefit from Dialogue's unique ability to help get communications to market faster, reduce document production costs, and increase customer response.

Dialogue is designed to integrate with and work within companies' existing infrastructures, systems and workflows -- including high-volume print environment; with application systems such as CRM, archival and customer service; as well as with web and interactive systems.

"Companies are looking to create high-value documents and extend how they reach their customers while at the same time controlling overall costs," said Karen Fukuma, vice president for IBM's Printing Systems. "IBM and Exstream provide a powerful combination to address these challenges."

Improve customer response with high-value documents

Dialogue can help transform customer communications into highly personalized, high-value documents. Customer-specific information can be added and formatted for maximum impact. Basic information can be enhanced with variable graphics, tables, images, and a wide variety of dynamic charts. These capabilities can help expand touch points, boost response rates, improve cash flow, improve customer service and satisfaction, and reward the best customers.

Expedite time to market

Dialogue can help reduce document development time and decrease time to market in a number of ways. A collaborative design workflow enables key stakeholders to be actively involved in the design process. With the "design once, deliver anywhere" architecture of Dialogue, documents can be designed once and then automatically produced for a wide range of print and electronic delivery channels.

Reduce costs

Dialogue can help take cost out of the business communication process, including design, review, test, production, print, and electronic delivery. Programming costs can be reduced as documents are produced via a graphical design process. Print costs can be reduced with better performing high-volume documents and an efficient print workflow. Print costs can also be substantially reduced by moving communications to electronic delivery or householding documents for mailing. More effective documents integrated with CRM and customer service functions can help reduce overall call center costs.

A key part of the wider output management infrastructure

Exstream Dialogue is available on a variety of system platforms including Windows®, IBM AIX®, Sun Solaris™, and Linux®. It is designed to interface with key middleware components such as IBM WebSphere®, Content Management, MQ Series®, Print Services Facility™, and Infoprint® Manager. It has proven to be a key component in the production printing environment, working with IBM production printers and IBM workflow applications. Finally and most importantly, IBM and Exstream are uniquely positioned to put these pieces to work for enterprise companies.

About IBM Printing Systems Division

For more information on IBM's comprehensive output management offerings, contact an IBM sales representative or visit www.ibm.com/printers

About Exstream Software

Exstream Software provides enterprise software solutions for businesses around the world to streamline document creation processes and produce higher quality, relevant communications of all types for delivery through print/mail and online channels. Companies in the financial services, insurance, service provider, telecommunications, utilities, hospitality, retail, government and other industries benefit by getting communications to market faster, reducing document production costs, and increasing customer response.

IBM and Intel Initiative Accelerates Virtualization on Multi-Processor Servers

IBM and Intel Corporation have joined in an initiative aimed at improving how IT managers select, deploy and measure virtualized server solutions for enterprise data centers. Virtualization technology, such as VMware Infrastructure, on Intel-based servers is becoming widely used in production environments and is increasing capturing mid-tier application workloads.

“As mid-sized and large enterprise IT organizations strive to cash in on the cost savings of data center consolidation through server virtualization, hosting applications on larger, more expandable multi-processor servers delivers the best return on investment,” said Jim Northington, vice president, System x, IBM. “Nevertheless, many organizations need the tools to help them select the server platform that works best in their unique environments.”

One of the first tools to emerge from this joint initiative is a new virtualization benchmarking methodology called vConsolidate that runs multiple instances of consolidated database, mail, Web and JAVA(1) workloads in multiple virtual CPU partitions on Intel-based System x servers to simulate real-world server performance in a typical environment. IBM and Intel are contributing the vConsolidate methodology to an industry standards body for consideration.

“Intel took a major step toward accelerating virtualization with the introduction of our first processors with integrated Intel® Virtualization Technology more than a year ago, and we have built a broad software ecosystem to support it,” said Boyd Davis, general manager of Intel Server Platform Group Marketing. “By creating the vConsolidate methodology with IBM, we are helping to make it easier for IT managers to adopt the technology and compare processor platforms and system configurations.”

Using vConsolidate to benchmark the IBM System x3950 server with four dual-core Intel® Xeon® 7100 processors shows the x3950 delivers up to 46 percent more performance throughput than a competing system when running a mix of larger two- and four virtualized processor partitions(2).

Based on this and other customer test results, IBM and Intel created a VMware Infrastructure Sizing Guide aimed at helping customers select and appropriately configure the various virtualized server options available to them. This tool draws from IBM’s vast virtualization experience, dating back to its pioneering work on mainframe virtualization 40 years ago, and the lessons learned from helping customers consolidate their server environments. The result is a tool that provides recommendations for target utilization rates, the total number of virtual machines that will be needed to run the application, and the number of physical servers required to support the computing workload and goals. The tool identifies an economy of scale associated with larger server configurations based on:

Ability to support more applications when usage peaks
Conservation of reserve memory across all virtual machines on a server
More processor targets for scheduling job execution
Both the sizing guide effort and the vConsolidate testing results identified memory as a key limiting factor in determining how many virtual machines can be loaded onto an Intel-based server. IBM and Intel researchers have studied the impact of increased addressable memory on virtualization performance. By collecting data from more than 10,000 servers through IBM’s Consolidation Discovery and Analysis Tool, the researchers determined that while virtualization increases total processor utilization, additional reserve memory is required to allow for application usage spikes.

This insight prompted further joint development using the IBM System x3950 as a large memory system reference configuration to increase the total addressable memory pool from 64GB to 128GB. Intel and IBM expect this expanded memory addressability to be supported in the leading virtualization platforms beginning next year.

“The success we’ve seen with our System x servers and the Intel Xeon 7100 processor series architecture gives us the confidence to invest in a fourth generation of our Enterprise X-Architecture supporting quad-core Intel Xeon processors for multi-processor servers in the middle of 2007,” said Northington.

To assist customers with making virtualization adoption decisions, IBM expects to open the Virtualization Resource Center (VRC) in early 2007. Customers will be able to apply principles gleaned from vConsolidate and sizing guide activities to their particular environments and software workloads. The VRC will help IBM resellers translate the general benefits of using large Intel Xeon processor-based servers to specific “proof of concept” application tests conducted over 30- to 60-day studies.

To learn more about IBM virtualization, go to www.ibm.com/virtualization. To learn more about IBM System x™ and BladeCenter® offerings go to www.ibm.com/systems/x

VRSN: VeriSign and Demand Media Join Forces to Promote .tv Domain Names

VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN), the leading provider of intelligent infrastructure for the networked world, today announced a strategic alliance with Demand Media to leverage its industry relationships and Web 2.0 expertise to market the .tv Top Level Domain Name (TLD) as the preferred Web address for rich media content. VeriSign will continue to manage the underlying domain name registry for the .tv TLD, including the back end operations and management of the wholesale channel.

The .tv TLD reflects more than the location of a Web site, it reflects the content of that site – in this case, a compelling and entertaining rich media destination.

“VeriSign is very excited to be working with Demand Media to promote .tv—one of the most recognizable domain names in the world,” said Mark McLaughlin, executive vice president, VeriSign. “By creating an intuitive destination for professional and user-generated video content, everyone from social networking communities to leading media portals can instantly attract consumers and new revenue opportunities. The alliance with Demand Media will increase the global visibility of the .tv TLD and its inherent brand value.”

“The Internet media landscape is rapidly evolving and users want to publish and share their personal video content. By registering a .tv domain name and adding video content of their choosing, users can program their own channel,” said Richard Rosenblatt, chairman and CEO, Demand Media. “We are thrilled to leverage the synergy of domain name registration and new media for the benefit of .tv registrants and Internet users worldwide.”

The new alliance, which combines VeriSign’s domain name registry expertise with Demand Media’s innovative new media strategy, will offer companies new revenue streams and consumers more engaging experiences. For case studies and examples of companies and individuals who are using .tv, visit www.tv

About Demand Media
The Demand Media™ proprietary media platform powers the company's unique content verticals and highly-trafficked domains and unique content verticals. The Company leverages cutting edge, user-driven publishing, community and monetization tools in its quest to define the next generation of new media companies. The privately held company was founded in May and is based in Santa Monica, CA, with offices in San Francisco and Seattle, WA. For more information or to register a .tv name, visit http://channelme.tv

CSCO: Cisco Makes Strategic Investment in China Communications Services

Cisco announced that it has made a strategic investment of US$50 million in China Communications Services Corporation Limited (CCS). Cisco is the largest foreign strategic investor in CCS.

CCS is the specialized telecommunications support businesses arm of a major telecommunications group in China. CCS has been reorganized and spun-off to form a separate independent entity, with China Telecom Group, China Mobile and China Unicom also as shareholders. CCS is now publicly traded on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with the ticker 0552.hk.

Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco and CCS will jointly provide managed telecommunications services, such as network operation and administration, to enterprise customers in China. Additionally, the two companies will provide customers with new network solutions, including IP infrastructures, digital video, and 3G platforms and applications.

"We are pleased to be working with Cisco to bring advanced telecommunications services to enterprise customers in China," said Li Ping, Chief Executive Officer of CCS. "This is an exciting time for CCS as we plan to capitalize on the growing demand of high value-added voice and data supporting services across the country. We expect Cisco will play an important role in helping us realize our plan."

"China is an extremely important market for Cisco, and in cooperation with CCS, we intend to help make China one of the most connected countries in the world," said Owen Chan, senior vice president of Cisco's Asia Pacific business. "By working with CCS, we hope to help Chinese businesses adopt and deploy new productivity-enhancing communications services."

Today's announcement marks another milestone in Cisco's longstanding strategy to invest in new and innovative businesses in China. While CCS is Cisco's largest direct investment in China, the company has also committed over $700 million in venture funding to help launch nearly 30 Chinese start-up companies such as e-learning company Ambow and gaming company Shanda.

"Cisco is proud that its venture capital funding is helping to build a new generation of entrepreneurial companies in China," said Ned Hooper, Cisco vice president of corporate business development. "The further development of publicly traded companies in China will create lasting value because the company, its profits, its intellectual property and its constellation of suppliers and partners are all rooted in the local economy."

MSFT: Introducing HP & Microsoft Solutions for the People-Ready Business

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq “MSFT”) and HP (NYSE “HPQ,” Nasdaq “HPQ”) today announced a three-year agreement to deliver an expanded portfolio of solutions for enterprise customers around the world. HP is the first premier global partner to deliver comprehensive solutions for the People-Ready Business, Microsoft’s vision for how people, armed with the right software, are the key to driving business success.

“With the recent announcement of the largest product launch to business customers in our company’s history with Windows Vista™ and the 2007 Microsoft® Office system, we are bringing to market more than 30 new products and services in the next year that will further enable People-Ready Businesses,” said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. “Through our collaboration with HP, our more than 20,000 joint customers will have access to an expanded set of solutions and services to tackle their most pressing business problems.”

“Extending our strategic alliance with Microsoft further strengthens HP’s enterprise strategy, which is focused on empowering CIOs to align IT with business by delivering more cost-effective, scalable, secure ways of enhancing employee productivity,” said Ann Livermore, executive vice president of the Technology Solutions Group at HP. “HP itself is a great example of the power of Solutions for the People-Ready Business, as we are using many of the technologies in the portfolio to empower our people to conduct business at any time, from anywhere.”

To help enterprise customers worldwide realize greater value from their existing IT assets, capitalize on next-generation technologies, and achieve a more agile, adaptive enterprise, the new HP & Microsoft Solutions for the People-Ready Business portfolio will focus on five high-growth areas of IT investment: messaging and unified communications; collaboration and content management; business intelligence; business process integration; and core infrastructure.

John Gantz, chief research officer with IDC, said the agreement is significant for customers. “This agreement means that the two companies and their combined ecosystems have an opportunity to bring complete solutions to their customers in these critical areas,” he said. “Just the software markets alone in business intelligence, collaboration, content management and infrastructure software running on Windows® will be a $49 billion market in 2007. Add in communications, hardware, and services, it is easily over $100 billion.”

Building on a more than 20-year alliance, Microsoft and HP plan to invest at least $300 million over three years to cover collaborative efforts in solution development, testing, validation, deployment, and joint sales and marketing. Additional components of this initiative include these:

• Expansion of a joint solutions portfolio to include new and updated offerings that enable customers to capitalize on the shift toward the next-generation data center trend, in the following high-growth solution areas:

• Messaging & Unified Communications

• Collaboration & Content Management

• Business Intelligence (BI)

• Business Process Integration

• Microsoft Core Infrastructure


• Creation of a new, dedicated Microsoft Solutions Practice chartered with the ongoing design, development and launch of Microsoft-specific offerings. HP will ensure that over 22,000 highly skilled professionals at the company are prepared to deliver on the promise of the People-Ready Business, and the number will grow to 30,000 or more Microsoft-skilled professionals over the next three years.

• Increased joint development in additional solutions to help ensure that all solution components provide customers with the greatest return on investment.

• Establishment of a Solutions for a People-Ready Business Training Program that will offer a curriculum that covers both technical and sales training in all the new solution focus areas and which will result in more than 3,000 newly Microsoft-trained consultants at HP.


Microsoft and HP share more than 20,000 joint customers worldwide today, many of which have already begun deploying products in the Solutions for the People-Ready Business Portfolio. Microsoft recognizes HP Services as Worldwide Prime Integrator for Microsoft’s next-generation products and technologies, which can deliver one of the broadest IT portfolios to customers around the world.

“HP consultants provided a great deal of education to ensure that our people quickly became familiar and well-versed in Exchange administration,” said Brian Shield, executive vice president and chief information officer at The Weather Channel. “Everything was exceptionally well-aligned as we implemented our HP & Microsoft Solutions for the People-Ready Business, like ‘the perfect storm’ with the many different elements coming together to produce a successful outcome. We were extremely pleased with the HP team consultants’ high level of commitment to success and their ability to guide a smooth implementation.”

More information about the HP & Microsoft Solutions for the People-Ready Business can be found at http://www.hp.com/microsoft

BEAS: BEA Announces Latest Version of Industry's Fastest Java Virtual Machine for Optimizing Performance in SOA and Virtualized Environments

BEA Systems, Inc., a world leader in enterprise infrastructure software, today announced JRockit® Mission Control 2.0, the latest version of the most advanced tool for monitoring and optimizing application behavior at the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) level. Using JRockit Mission Control 2.0, enterprises can achieve the performance and reliability required to run mission-control applications on a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) through precise metering with the core infrastructure.

JRockit Mission Control is designed to provide low overhead, non-intrusive instrumentation for Java in development and production environments. New features built into 2.0 include support for the Eclipse graphical user interface (GUI), integration with the Eclipse IDE and WebLogic Workshop environments, and enhanced behavior monitoring and customizability, which can help enable high optimization of both performance and hardware utilization for the virtualized enterprise.

Additional features include drag-and-drop monitoring customization, context-sensitive online help, view customization, auto-discovery of running JVMs and access to more detailed diagnostics information around Deterministic Garbage Collection, via the JRockit Management Console and Java Runtime Analyzer.

“BEA is extending its leadership role in application platform instrumentation with this release,” said Guy Churchward, vice president and general manager of the Java Runtime Products Group at BEA Systems. “In addition to providing greater support for open source development, JRockit Mission Control 2.0 supports BEA’s Virtualized strategy, also announced today, and is uniquely designed to allow Java customers moving towards virtualized computing to achieve unprecedented improvements in performance and efficiency.”

A key component of BEA SOA 360º, JRockit Mission Control is designed to provide more visibility into application and service operations than any other Java environment, which is particularly important for developers and operations managers. This line of sight view supports a cornerstone of the SOA 360º framework – that is the ability of each stakeholder in a SOA environment to see everything about the system relevant to him or her.

Announced earlier this year, BEA SOA 360º spans the three BEA product families – BEA AquaLogic™, BEA WebLogic®, and BEA Tuxedo® and is designed for business transformation and optimization in order to improve cost structures and grow new revenue streams.

Availability
BEA JRockit Mission Control 2.0 will be available later this month. For more information, visit http://www.bea.com/jrockit

BEAS: BEA Systems Ships BEA WebLogic SIP Server 3.0 to Help Accelerate Adoption of Converged IMS-NGN Services Layer

BEA Systems, Inc., a world leader in enterprise and communications infrastructure software, today extended its leadership role at the Services Layer of next-generation telecom networks with the release of BEA WebLogic® SIP Server 3.0.

The converged Java EE-SIP-IMS application server component of the BEA WebLogic® Communications Platform product family, BEA WebLogic SIP Server 3.0 adds new capabilities designed to further enhance BEA’s position in the marketplace. New features include on-line and off-line charging support, geographical redundancy, hot application and platform upgrade capability, IPv6 and SCTP support, a plug-able Profile API, full Diameter base protocol access and complete Java EE1.4 compliance. BEA WebLogic SIP Server 3.0 is designed to meet the needs of network operators committed to deploying a feature-rich and cost-effective services layer for next-generation networks (NGN)

“The number one concern of telecom network operators is increasing the top-line and generating new revenue streams,” said Mike McHugh, vice president and general manager, WebLogic Communications Platform, BEA Systems. “In a competitive landscape where they must innovate and deliver, they need a powerful IMS service creation, composition and execution platform to rapidly create and launch competitive services. With the release of BEA WebLogic SIP Server 3.0, BEA continues to deliver on its promise of providing these network operators with powerful innovation capabilities at the IMS-NGN service middleware level.”

New Features in BEA WebLogic SIP Server 3.0 Designed to Address High Availability, Performance and Extensibility

BEA WebLogic SIP Server 3.0 is a full-featured, standards compliant IMS application server that is designed to offer network operators and application developers unparalleled support for Java EE 1.4, Java SE 5, and Web services standards, as well as seamless integration with both SOA and IMS environments.

The new features in BEA WebLogic SIP Server 3.0 are designed to address three key areas: high availability and performance, increased extensibility, and powerful container capabilities.

• High Availability and Performance – Geographically redundant deployments using tunable SIP session replication, a multi-tiered, massively scalable cluster architecture, hot upgradeable platform and applications, TCP connection pooling, SIP header compact form, and zero-latency state caching.

• Increased Extensibility – Plug-able Profile API for custom profile providers, Diameter base protocol API for development of new Diameter applications

• Powerful Container Capabilities – Java EE 1.4, 3GPP compliant on-line/off-line charging (Ro/Rf), IPv6, Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP), Tel URLs, Globally Routeable User Agent URIs (GRUU)

The new features in BEA WebLogic SIP Server 3.0 are designed to help network operators increase revenues, improve customer satisfaction, and maintain the lowest possible total cost of ownership (TCO) to implement new IMS-NGN services.

• Improved Customer Satisfaction – High availability and performance for converged SOA-IMS services can help minimize dropped sessions, and maximize uptime for new services.

• Increased Revenue Opportunities – Operators can realize increased revenue potential through the delivery of innovative new SIP-IMS applications, using new container capabilities such as native access to telephone numbers and SCTP, Diameter Ro/Rf applications, GRUU, as well as add custom capabilities thru.

• Lower TCO for IMS-NGN – BEA WebLogic SIP Server 3.0 is designed to help enable lower total cost of ownership by providing a single application container architecture for the IMS-NGN Services Layer, in lieu of a costly, multi-container architectures for the same level of container capabilities.

In addition to these new features, BEA WebLogic SIP Server customers can benefit from a market-leading ecosystem of applications, completers and partners.

Pricing and Availability

BEA WebLogic SIP Server 3.0 is generally available today, December 13, 2006. For more information on BEA WebLogic SIP Server, please visit http://bea.com/sip , or for more information about the BEA WebLogic Communications Platform, please visit http://www.bea.com/wlcom

The BEA WebLogic Communications Platform product family, including BEA WebLogic SIP Server, is a key component of the BEA SOA 360o platform. Announced in September at BEAWorld 2006 in San Francisco, the BEA SOA 360o platform is designed to deliver the industry’s most unified SOA platform and spans all three of BEA’s product families, AquaLogic®, WebLogic®, Tuxedo and the company’s newly unveiled SOA collaborative tooling environment, BEA Workspace 360o. (See Sept. 19, 2006, press release titled “BEA Announces SOA 360o; Industry’s most unified SOA Platform to transform and optimize business.”)

IBM Delivers New Data Governance Service to Help Companies Protect Sensitive Information

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a first-of-its-kind consulting service designed to measure the way businesses govern data -- such as sensitive customer information or financial details -- across an organization. IBM consultants evaluate the gaps between current company-wide practices and the client's desired position to identify opportunities and specific activities for improving the way data is governed, valued and protected.

As more companies do business online, it becomes difficult to manage and control the mountains of data that reside within different parts of the organization. It also becomes hard for businesses to measure the value of their data, and calculate the risks around data loss. As a result, many businesses protect all information in the same way. For instance, a bank might over-protect low quality data, and under-protect high value information like customer account details or employee social security numbers. Data governance addresses this need, providing processes to help companies govern their critical data, by assessing value, measuring risk and mitigating security and operational exposures associated with access to data.

The new service, called the IBM Data Governance Maturity Model Assessment, measures data governance competencies of organizations based on 11 disciplines of data governance maturity, such as organizational awareness, risk lifecycle management, compliance, and auditing and reporting. IBM consultants provide recommendations based on the company's unique stage of data governance in order to match the needs of the businesses, avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach.

"Often times companies don't know how to examine their data governance practices, which teams should be involved, and what kind of structure it takes to govern effectively," said Chris Deger, Risk Data Governance Program Manager, at Wachovia, a Data Governance Council member. "There is an industry need for services, like the one announced today, to help companies be more pro-active and gain insight on where important information resides within their company so they can govern its use appropriately."

In addition to safeguarding corporate information from exposure or theft, improved data governance practices can help businesses satisfy auditors and regulators by using technology and processes to ensure specific guidelines are followed. Data governance policies can also help drive new business opportunities and retain existing customers by improving data quality.

"Effective data security requires broad organizational buy-in," said Ed Keck, Assistant Vice President and Lead Security Strategist, at Key Bank, a Data Governance Council member. "Today's challenges require organizational awareness and support in areas that never participated in data security before. The Data Governance Assessment is an important step forward because it helps to educate other stakeholders on how they can help make the strategy more effective."

The IBM Data Governance Assessment was developed based on input from Data Governance Council members. The Council, formed by IBM in 2004, today consists of nearly 50 leading companies, institutions and technology solution providers dedicated to developing technologies and methods to help the industry better protect critical data. The insight of the Council members, combined with IBM Global Services methodology provides a common assessment benchmark and a new approach to measuring data governance.

"Data Governance is a strategic priority for companies and governments throughout the world. One of the first activities any company has to do when developing a Data Governance program is assess where you are today and where you want to go tomorrow," said Steve Adler, program director of Data Governance Solutions for IBM. "The IBM Data Governance Assessment is a benchmark developed with input from 47 organizations, and that makes it the perfect tool to evaluate the strength of a client's Data Governance program in comparison to many others."

The Data Governance Council continues to grow with recent additions such as Abbot Pharmaceuticals, Bucerius Law School, Discover Financial, Wachovia and Washington Mutual.

The Data Governance Maturity Model Assessment offering will be available in the first quarter of 2007.

IBM Extends Product Lifecycle Management With SOA to Improve Executive-Level Decision Making

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced plans to create a Product Development Integration Framework to better link the design and development of products with core business processes, elevating product lifecycle management and development from an engineering-centric function to a strategic business process that improves executive decision-making abilities across the enterprise.

IBM is leveraging its industry lead in service oriented architecture and its 25-year experience delivering PLM Solutions to tackle the tough customer problems of integration.

IBM has secured support for its new framework from eight leading PLM and integration solution providers who have signed on to build solutions around this new, open standards-based platform that emphasizes the interoperability of applications from vendors across the product development domain. The new, open framework, combined with business partner PLM applications, will allow clients to easily extend design and business collaboration throughout their value chain.

"The area of product development, with its broad cross-enterprise reach and critical impact on the success and profitability of the enterprise, requires a degree of flexibility that can only be achieved through a service oriented approach," said Robert LeBlanc, general manager, IBM WebSphere Software. "IBM is committed to helping our clients advance their product development processes in the most effective manner possible, and the PDIF will play a critical role in achieving that goal."

The eight application providers supporting the new IBM framework are Agile Software Corp, Centric Software Inc., Engineous Software Inc., Geometric Software Solutions Co. Ltd., MSC Software Corporation, PROSTEP AG, PTC and UGS Corp. Other vendors are being encouraged to evaluate the technical criteria required to enable their applications to support the framework.

On October 3, IBM introduced its largest-ever lineup of new software and services for building and expanding a service oriented architecture, including a new SOA technology platform enabled by IBM's WebSphere Business Services Fabric. The IBM product development framework is an extension of this platform, adding Business Partner applications, business services and other SOA assets dedicated to product development and related business processes. It takes advantage of SOA to help integrate multiple enterprise systems and applications, enabling flexible business processes built on reusable services without relying on rigid, hard-coded connections.

According to IBM market research, companies will spend some $80 billion by 2008 on solutions to align their business strategies with product development. For companies that rely on successful products as a key element of their success, the PDIF puts product innovation at the heart of the entire business, linking product development into enterprise business processes -- from customer service management to enterprise resource planning and supply chain management.

Because it is based on a foundation of SOA, the PDIF makes enterprise information readily available to executives, improving their view of the business. It helps companies model and manage flexible, reusable product development processes that can be changed quickly and easily. It also provides an IT foundation on which all enterprise applications can operate synchronously, enabling the sharing and reuse of processes and information while displaying results in a consistent manner across the enterprise.

"We are pleased that IBM is launching its integration framework with a PLM SOA approach that will support our own best practices and principles," says Yves Boccon-Gibod, VP Thales Engineering & Process Management. "Thales' core business is to deliver complex systems for the aerospace & defense industries. Over the past 12 years, we have begun to define, develop and deploy for end-users 'service-oriented solutions' to support the various engineering disciplines and the management of their parts and models. We trust and can already demonstrate the value of SOA-based solutions in the PLM domain."

The aforementioned leading infrastructure ISVs and traditional PLM application software vendors are aligning with the framework and enabling their software to take advantage of the capabilities delivered by all of IBM's software brands -- WebSphere, Information Management, Lotus, Rational, and Tivoli -- to address client issues within a broad range of industries. IBM will work with these vendors to develop PLM standards recommendations that solve customer integration and exchange problems to reduce the total cost of ownership and enable return on investment.

In addition, other PLM application and integration solution providers are working to integrate their offerings with a software authoring and systems development solution from IBM Rational to help improve governance of the product lifecycle across all engineering disciplines and bring higher-quality products to market as companies increasingly rely on software in their products. To support this, IBM Rational on December 5, 2006, announced the Rational Software Delivery Platform 7.0 to help accelerate and improve the design, development, implementation and management of the delivery of software and systems architectures.

For more information on IBM PLM solutions, visit www.ibm.com/solutions/plm

ORCL: Oracle Database 10g Release 2 Sets World Record TPC-H 10 Terabyte Non-Clustered Benchmark Result on HP Integrity Superdome Server

Oracle today announced a new world record TPC-H 10 Terabyte (TB) benchmark result for Oracle® Database 10g Release 2(1), representing the fastest performance result for a non-clustered configuration and the best price-performance overall with this benchmark. Along with this achievement, Oracle also holds world record performance results for the Three TB(2), One TB(3) and 300 Gigabyte(4) TPC-H scale factors, showcasing the company's superior data warehousing capabilities.
Running on an HP Integrity Superdome server with 64 Dual-Core Intel® Itanium®2 1.6 GHz processors using the HP-UX 11i operating environment, Oracle Database 10g Release 2 achieved a world record non-clustered performance of 171,380 QphH@10000GB with a price-performance ratio of $38.98/QphH@10000GB.

"Customers continue to strive for better business intelligence to stay competitive, which requires exceptional performance from their databases to process increasingly complex queries," said Richard Sarwal, vice president of Server Performance at Oracle. "Oracle devotes significant resources to continuously grow its leadership in providing superior performance with Oracle Database 10g."

As the leading database for large data warehouses and business intelligence systems, Oracle Database 10g provides a fast, reliable and scalable server engine to help customers improve business performance, refine market strategies and identify opportunities to reduce costs. This new benchmark illustrates the advantages that lead customers to Oracle to run very large databases.

About Oracle Database 10g
The only database designed for grid computing, Oracle Database 10g delivers superior performance, scalability, availability, security and ease of management on a low-cost grid of industry standard storage and servers. Oracle Database 10g is designed to be effectively deployed on everything from small blade servers to the biggest SMP servers and clusters of all sizes. It features automated management capabilities for easy, cost-effective operation. Oracle Database 10g's unique ability to manage data from traditional business information to XML documents and spatial/location information makes it the ideal choice to power online transaction processing, decision support and content management applications.

About TPC-H
TPC-H is a decision support benchmark consisting of a suite of business oriented ad-hoc queries and concurrent data modifications. The performance metric is called the TPC-H Composite Query-per-Hour Performance Metric (QphH@Size) and reflects multiple aspects of the capability of the system to process queries. More information is available at http://www.tpc.org


As of December 12, 2006: Source: Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC), www.tpc.org


(1) HP Integrity Superdome server with 64 Dual-Core Intel® Itanium®2 1.6 GHz processors running the HP-UX 11i operating environment and Oracle Database 10g Release 2 171,380 QphH@10000GB $38.98/QphH@10000GB, available 4/01/07.

(2) HP BladeSystem, BL25p Cluster running Oracle Database 10g Release 2 Enterprise Edition with Partitioning, 110,576 QphH@3000GB, $37.80/QphH@3000GB, available 6/8/06. (TPC-H 3000GB World Record Performance Result)

(3) HP Integrity Superdome server with 64 Dual-Core Intel Itanium 2 1.6 GHz processors running Oracle Database 10g Release 2 Enterprise Edition with Partitioning, 68101 QphH@1000GB, $59.00/QpH@1000GB, available 1/18/06. (TPC-H 1000GB World Record Performance Result)

(4) Dell PowerEdge 6800 running Oracle Database 10g Release 2 Enterprise Edition with Partitioning, 18,881 @QphH@300GB, $24.37/QphH@300GB, available 4/24/06. (TPC-H 300GB World Record Performance Result)

IBM and Yahoo! Unveil Free Enterprise Search Software

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) today introduced new, free enterprise search software with Web search services powered by Yahoo! that enables departments and businesses of all sizes to quickly and easily find, access and capitalize on information stored within organizations and across the Web.

IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition is a no-cost, entry level enterprise search product developed to help eliminate financial and technology barriers to intranet and Web search. Unlike other enterprise search solutions that can cost thousands of dollars to purchase and implement, the new offering from IBM with Web search services powered by Yahoo! can be downloaded for free and is simple to install and use with existing hardware.


"Together, IBM and Yahoo! are delivering on the promise of making information easier to find, use and share while providing a better search experience for users," said Eckart Walther, vice president of product management for Yahoo! Search. "This is a valuable tool for helping organizations improve employee productivity by enabling them to more quickly find needed information. By empowering customers and partners to quickly find information on the Web, we're also able to reduce their support costs."

This announcement supports IBM's company-wide Information on Demand strategy aimed at helping clients of all sizes unblock the barriers to using information as a strategic asset. By enabling organizations to more easily take advantage of enterprise and Web search, IBM and Yahoo! are helping organizations improve access to information, gain new business insight, and create new opportunities for the use of information no matter where it is found.

"Organizations of all sizes are faced with the problem of too much information residing in different locations and in different formats, making it nearly impossible to quickly extract meaning," said Ambuj Goyal, general manager, IBM Information Management, IBM Software Group. "IBM and Yahoo! are bringing clients closer to the reality of being able to use all of their information and analyze it to resolve customer issues, spot trends, recognize business opportunities and become more flexible."

With support for up to 500,000 documents per server, more than 200 file types and documents in more than 30 languages, IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition offers a unique combination of simplicity, openness, and functionality. It features a three-click installation process and takes customers only minutes to go from download to live search and information access. IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition also uses the open source Lucene indexing library to provide cross-platform full text indexing.

IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition offers advanced features such as automatic spell correction, support for synonyms and shortcuts, wildcard support to substitute for unknown characters, query reporting, and graphical user interface customization. In addition, it is fully integrated with Yahoo! Search, providing one-click access to send queries to Yahoo! web, image, video, audio, directory, local and news search services.

The new software announced today complements IBM's existing OmniFind search and content discovery software. It provides a no-cost entry point for clients who want to get started with basic search but might have future needs for advanced secured search, or capabilities beyond traditional search such as business analytics, quality insight reporting, e-commerce or customer service self-help, or who want to leverage their unstructured information more broadly as a service throughout the enterprise. IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition is available at no charge and can be downloaded at http://omnifind.ibm.yahoo.com Worldwide, enterprise-class phone support is available from IBM.

IBM Global Financing Helps Saint Leo University Deliver on Lenovo ThinkPad Notebooks for Students, Faculty

IBM Global Financing, the lending and leasing division of IBM (NYSE: IBM), today announced that it will provide a comprehensive leasing solution for Saint Leo University, Florida's first Catholic Institution of higher learning, to help the institution acquire new computers for its more than 13,000 traditional campus and adult continuing education students.

Under the terms of the agreement, IBM Global Financing will provide a 36-month fair market value lease at competitive rates on Lenovo ThinkPad notebooks and Lenovo personal computers. IBM Global Financing is the preferred financing provider for all Lenovo products.

"Today, more educational institutions are looking at leasing as a viable option," said Richard Dicks, general manager, Americas, IBM Global Financing. "IBM Global Financing solutions can enable colleges and universities to leverage new technology, attract and retain the best and the brightest faculty and students and get more IT equipment, software and services with fewer resources and limited up front costs."

Growing pressures on educators are creating new challenges for learning institutions, including reduced funding, increasing costs, security concerns, new standards to implement, increased accountability, stronger integration, more student services, new networks, devices, and online services. Colleges and universities are challenged to do more with less, while improving the quality of education.

Technology leasing can bring a host of benefits for academic institutions, including providing a hedge against technology obsolescence. Leasing preserves cash and credit lines for more strategic university investments and can accelerate the implementation of the most current technology to improve efficiency and productivity. From a purely financial standpoint, leasing reduces the total cost of ownership, improves price-performance and improves key financial measurements such as return assets or debt-to-equity ratios.

More than 1,000 students live and study at the main campus in Saint Leo, nestled in the rolling hills of west central Florida just 30 minutes north of Tampa. Another 12,000 students pursue associate's and bachelor's degrees at the university's 15 Continuing Education centers in five states and through the Saint Leo's Center for Online Learning. Throughout its history, Saint Leo has provided a solid liberal arts education grounded and based on the 1,500-year-old tradition of Benedictine values.

About IBM Global Financing
IBM Global Financing (IGF), the financing business segment of IBM and the world's premier single-source provider for multivendor IT financing solutions, serves commercial clients ranging from small businesses to the majority of the Fortune 100. With assets of $31 billion worldwide, IGF provides project financing, commercial financing and asset-recovery services to 125,000 clients in more than 40 countries. Additional information can be found at http://www-03.ibm.com/financing/us/

About Lenovo
Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) is dedicated to building the world's best engineered personal computers. Lenovo's business model is built on innovation, operational efficiency and customer satisfaction as well as a focus on investment in emerging markets. Formed by Lenovo Group's acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, the company develops, manufactures and markets reliable high-quality, secure and easy-to-use technology products and services worldwide. Lenovo has major research centers in Yamato, Japan; Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, China; and Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information, see www.lenovo.com/us/en

YHOO: Yahoo! News & ABC News Expand Video Content Agreement

Yahoo! News today announced an expanded video content agreement with ABC News which increases the amount and visibility of ABC News video available on Yahoo! News. As the premier provider of video content to Yahoo! News, ABC News will provide expanded daily content packages that include breaking news stories across a variety of categories, as well as additional features and interviews, including video segments from "Good Morning America." The agreement is an extension of the current relationship between ABC News and Yahoo! News, which began in September 2005. All of the video will be available for free to Yahoo! users, and will be advertising-supported.

"Yahoo! News' relationship with ABC News has played an important role in offering our users the world's best journalism over the past year," said Scott Moore, head of news and information, Yahoo! Media Group. "Video streams on Yahoo! News have increased more than ten-fold over the past year, so we have no doubt that additional content from one of the most recognized brands in news will be met with great enthusiasm by our audience."

The ABC News video will continue to be integrated throughout Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com ), including on its front page, within relevant story pages, and in other special sections of the site.

"We are thrilled to be the premier content provider for one of the leading online global resources," said Bernard Gershon, senior vice president and general manager, ABC News Digital Group. "At ABC News, our digital strategy is to have the most trusted and up-to-the minute news content available to consumers anywhere, anytime, on any device. This expansion further emphasizes our commitment, as well as Yahoo!'s, to providing consumers with exactly that."

HPQ: HP Gives Consumers Free, Simple Upgrade to Microsoft Windows Vista

Starting today, HP customers can register qualifying consumer PCs for a free Microsoft Windows® Vista™ operating system upgrade with the confidence that HP has created a unique support experience to help them with the installation process.

By requesting an upgrade at www.hp.com/go/windowsvistaupgrade , the majority of customers will receive a kit with a Windows Vista upgrade DVD and an additional DVD(1) with drivers needed to complete the process.

The HP DVD offers a simple, step-by-step guide that helps ensure customers follow the correct procedure when upgrading their PCs. From validating the necessary physical components to backing up files, HP helps customers protect their data and makes upgrading easy.

In addition to the driver disk, HP will have drivers available via the HP Support website for customers to download. HP plans to update the Windows Vista drivers page as additional drivers become available so customers can have access to the most current versions.

“HP began working with Microsoft in 2001, devoting thousands of hours of hardware and software testing and development to ensure consumers experience an affordable, easy-to-follow upgrade path to the new Windows Vista operating system,” said Mark Sanchez, vice president, Consumer Computing – North America, HP.

HP works to ensure a smooth transition to Vista across its broad product lineup

HP has worked closely with Microsoft to help ensure that HP imaging and printing products work smoothly with Windows Vista. More than 450 consumer, small business, and enterprise HP imaging and printing products, including HP LaserJet and inkjet printers, cameras and scanners, are Windows Vista Ready.

HP also has worked with Microsoft to qualify Windows Vista compatible drivers and other key software. By incorporating drivers and other key HP software into the installation process, HP addressed one of the primary reasons customers request tech support when upgrading operating systems.

When used in conjunction with Windows Vista, HP Update will download relevant software as well as technical support content such as user guides and troubleshooting tips right on the PC. HP Update is a tool that 8 million customers currently use to automatically update software to avoid issues with out-of-date drivers or firmware.

HP also is prepared to help address common issues customers face in their transition to Windows Vista in real time through self-paced classes. When customers call HP for help, they may be offered an impromptu class on that issue at no charge. The class would be followed by a live question and answer session with a tech support agent. HP has successfully used these classes in the past to respond to virus outbreaks.

For customers in need of individual support, HP began extensive training sessions with its tech support agents in November. The training gives agents hands-on experience with Vista and the potential questions customers may raise. Agents may use HP Instant Care to connect to customers’ PCs over the Internet and provide personalized advice and assistance while customers watch and learn.

These services are part of HP Total Care, the service and support program that backs HP’s consumer products. HP Total Care delivers 24x7 service, advice, learning and support – in and out of warranty. It was recognized by J.D. Power and Associates for consistently providing “An Outstanding Customer Service Experience.”(2)

Eligibility

Customers who have purchased a new HP Pavilion, Compaq Presario or HP Digital Entertainment Center PC designated “Microsoft Windows Vista Capable”(3, 4) between Oct. 26, 2006, and March 15, 2007, direct from HP or select retailers are eligible for a free upgrade to Windows Vista when it becomes available in early 2007. Customers may request an upgrade to the version of Windows Vista equivalent to the system’s existing, qualifying version of Windows XP.

Customers can now visit www.hp.com/go/windowsvistaupgrade for complete instructions on how to take advantage of this upgrade offer. All upgrade requests must be placed no later than March 31, 2007, and require proof of purchase. Shipping and handling may be required, per certain retailer restrictions.

The services above are designed for North American consumer products and will be available when Vista is released.



(1) Certain models will have driver support via the web only.

(2) J.D. Power and Associates Certified Technology Service and Support ProgramSM, developed in conjunction with the Service & Support Professionals Association. For more information, visit www.jdpower.com or www.thesspa.com.

(3) Not all Windows Vista features are available for use on all Windows Vista Capable PCs. All Windows Vista Capable PCs will run the core experiences of Windows Vista, such as innovations in organizing and finding information, security and reliability. Some features available in premium editions of Windows Vista –such as the new Windows Aero™ user interface – require advanced or additional hardware. Check www.windowsvista.com/getready for details.

(4) Upgrading a Windows Vista Capable Media Center Edition PC that does not display the Window Vista Premium Ready designation may require additional hardware to run premium features offered with some Windows Vista versions. However, all Windows Vista Capable PCs can run the core functionalities of Windows Vista, when properly installed. Please visit www.windowsvista.com/getready for more details.

VZ: Verizon Business Takes Enterprise Collaboration to the Cutting Edge

Verizon Business is now offering its large-business customers a video "telepresence" system that creates lifelike virtual meetings for participants and makes them feel as though they are all in the same room with one another. The solution, developed by Polycom (NASDAQ: PLCM), is enhanced by Verizon Business's advanced IP network services and can help businesses - especially those with employees stationed around the world - increase collaboration and productivity.

The new offering, the Polycom RPX modular conference suite, combines Verizon Business' intelligent Private IP network and Ethernet services with Polycom's standards-based RealPresence(tm) Experience (RPX(tm)) family of telepresence solutions. RPX systems simulate face-to-face communications via crystal-clear video transmissions and are sold as custom rooms with flat-screen projection displays, ceiling microphones and pop-up LCD screens for sharing data. The modular rooms come in six configurations to accommodate from four to 28 participants.

"Quality collaboration can improve a company's overall business performance," said Nancy Gofus, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Business. "By tying together our advanced IP network services with Polycom's state-of-the-art telepresence equipment, Verizon Business is helping to unleash the power of IP and provide new ways for its customers to use collaboration for creating competitive advantages."

Collaboration has strategic value and is a key driver of business performance, according to a June study sponsored by Verizon Business and conducted by Frost & Sullivan, "Meetings Around the World: The Impact of Collaboration on Business Performance." The study found that professionals from seven countries around the world see their collaborative efforts linked to sustainable competitive advantages for their companies. To download the full report, visit Verizon Business at http://www.verizonbusiness.com/us/about/news/presskits/meetings/.

Bob Hagerty, chairman and CEO of Polycom, said, "Verizon Business is a longstanding and important relationship of Polycom's, and we are excited they are now offering our new RPX telepresence suites to enterprises. Verizon Business is well-suited to helping enterprise customers enhance the value of next-generation virtual-meeting solutions. Because of their advanced networking services and experience, Verizon Business will help ensure the RPX is easy to deploy and use, and that it delivers high Quality of Service (QoS) and security."

Verizon Business is offering the combined suite of services in the United States and will support a company's multimedia traffic at video conferencing suites around the world. The Verizon Business Private IP network allows for a uniform communication platform that is ideally suited for carrying voice, video and data over a single network - making it easy for customers to prioritize applications.

Available in more than 116 countries, the Private IP Layer 3 service is based on multi-protocol label switching technology, which integrates performance and traffic management capabilities into a fully meshed environment.

In addition, Verizon Business can deploy the Polycom telepresence system and other unified collaborative communications applications over Verizon Business' Ethernet offerings, enabling customers to cost-effectively take advantaged of emerging workforce collaboration tools. Verizon Business Ethernet solutions include Ethernet LAN Service, Ethernet Virtual Private Line, Ethernet Private Line and Ethernet Over SONET.

Verizon Business also enables enterprises to mix and match unified collaborative communications systems, including conference room and desktop solutions, from Polycom and other leading vendors. Also supported are point-to-point conferencing tools as well as simultaneous multisite conferencing and content sharing.

The expanded relationship with Polycom further expands Verizon Business' portfolio of conferencing and collaboration solutions offered globally and featuring a range of audio, video and net conferencing offerings, IP-based services and some of the most advanced meeting tools available. With more than 30 years of experience delivering conferencing services, Verizon Business today handles millions of meetings each month.

About Polycom
Polycom Inc. (NASDAQ: PLCM) is the worldwide leader in unified collaborative communications (UCC) that maximize the efficiency and productivity of people and organizations by integrating the broadest array of video, voice, data and Web solutions to deliver the ultimate communications experience. Polycom's high-quality, standards-based conferencing and collaboration solutions are easy to deploy and manage, as well as intuitive to use. Supported by an open architecture, they integrate seamlessly with leading telephony and presence-based networks. With its market-driving technologies, best-in-class products, alliance partnerships and world-class service, Polycom is the smart choice for organizations seeking proven solutions and a competitive advantage in real-time communications and collaboration. For more information, visit the Polycom Web site at www.polycom.com

MSFT: Microsoft Robotics Studio Now Available to Provide Common Development Platform

Among the many remarkable innovations emerging out of the robotics industry, from surveillance robots that can defuse roadside bombs to robotic arms that perform surgeries, one persistent challenge has been the lack of a common development platform that would allow developers to easily create robotic applications for varied hardware platforms. Today, Microsoft Corp. is closing this gap with the release of Microsoft® Robotics Studio, a new Windows®-based development environment for creating robotic software for a wide variety of hardware platforms. Microsoft also introduced a new third-party partner program featuring Microsoft Robotics Studio-enabled applications, services and robots from independent software vendors, service providers, hardware component vendors and robot manufacturers. Already more than 30 third-party companies have pledged support for the new robotics development and runtime platform, which is available for download and evaluation at http://microsoft.com/robotics

“Microsoft will help us extend the reach of the iRobot Roomba Open Interface to a broader community of developers,” said Helen Greiner, co-founder and chairwoman of iRobot. “A common development platform like Microsoft Robotics Studio will help ignite the robotics industry and encourage more developers to design new robot applications.”

The Microsoft Robotics Studio environment is an end-to-end, scalable and extensible robotics development platform that includes the following:

• A visual programming language that enables nonprogrammers to easily program robots using a drag-and-drop environment

• A 3-D tool that simulates robotics applications in physics-based virtual environments, using the licensed PhysX™ engine from AGEIA™ Technologies Inc.

• A lightweight, services-oriented runtime that enables applications to communicate with a wide variety of hardware


“Microsoft Robotics Studio is our response to requests from many hobbyist, academic and commercial robotics developers,” said Tandy Trower, general manager of the Microsoft Robotics Group. “We have quickly built a strong community with over 100,000 downloads of our preview releases, and we are excited to see the breadth of partner support across a wide variety of hardware platforms.”

With Microsoft Robotics Studio, robotics applications can be developed using a selection of programming languages, including those in Microsoft Visual Studio® and Microsoft Visual Studio Express languages (Visual C#® and Visual Basic®), which are free to download, as well as Microsoft IronPython. Third-party languages that support the Microsoft Robotics Studio services-based architecture are also supported.

For hobbyists, students and academics, Microsoft Robotics Studio is available to license free of charge. Commercial robot developers interested in generating revenue from applications, services and robots based on Microsoft Robotics Studio can license the development platform starting at $399. Full licensing details are available at the Microsoft Robotics Studio Web site.

Robotics Industry Shows Broad Support for Microsoft Robotics Studio

Microsoft Robotics Studio is now compatible with applications, services and robots from the following companies: CoroWare Inc., fischertechnik, iRobot, KUKA Robot Group, Larsen & Toubro InfoTech Ltd., the LEGO Group, Lynxmotion Inc., Parallax Inc., Phidgets Inc., RoboDynamics Corp., Robosoft, RoboticsConnection, Senseta, Sharp Logic, Surveyor and WhiteBox Robotics Inc. In addition, many leading companies from around the world have joined the Microsoft Robotics Studio Partner Program with plans to ship compatible applications, services and robots in the future. They include Braintech Inc., Camelot Robotics ApS, Cerebellum, ED Co. Ltd., Graupner, Hanulkid Co. Ltd., InTouch Health, JADI Inc., LG CNS, MicroInfinity, Mostitech Inc., RE2 Inc., RidgeSoft LLC, Robo3, SRI, VIA Technologies Inc. and Yujin Robot.

Microsoft also continues to work closely with many top universities and research institutions in the area of robotics, such as the Institute for Personal Robots in Education (http://roboteducation.org ) hosted at Georgia Tech with Bryn Mawr College, and the Center for Innovative Robotics (http://www.cir.ri.cmu.edu ) hosted at Carnegie Mellon University.

“We hope to put a robot in every home in Korea by 2013,” said Dr. Ho-Gil Lee, director of the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology (KITECH). “We welcome the advanced technologies of Microsoft Robotics Studio to our rapidly growing, emerging robotics industry, as it will help us get to this level of competitiveness in the decades ahead.”

Microsoft Supports RoboCup 2007
Furthering its support for innovation in robotics, the Microsoft Robotics Group is a primary sponsor of RoboCup 2007. The ultimate goal of this leading international robotics competition is to develop a team of fully autonomous, humanoid robots that can defeat the human world champion team in soccer by the year 2050. At the RoboCup 2007 competition, set for July 1 through July 10 on the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta, contestants will participate in a demonstration soccer competition using Microsoft Robotics Studio. In addition, Microsoft hopes to work with the many robot manufacturers that are drawn to the RoboCup competition. More information can be found at http://www.robocup-us.org

VRSN: VeriSign Combats Online Fraud with New Digital Brand & Fraud Protection Services

VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN), the leading provider of intelligent infrastructure for the networked world, today launched a suite of new Digital Brand and Fraud Protection services. The services help organizations detect, prioritize and rapidly respond to suspicious activities on Web sites, blogs, online user communities, and other sources that can damage brand equity and consumer confidence.

“Brand equity and reputation, which can be valued at billions of dollars for well known companies, can easily be compromised by online fraud, negative opinions, trademark infringement and improper logo usage,” said Mike Denning, vice president and general manager, VeriSign Digital Brand Management Services. “For the first time, companies can protect revenue and their brands by rapidly responding to incidents in near real time. Our new Brand and Fraud Protection Services provide marketing, legal and IT professionals with actionable brand protection and management solutions to detect and counter any unauthorized or improper online activity that could damage their brand image and lead to lost revenues.”

“Firms have to ensure that their brand integrity remains consistent both online and offline,” writes Mike Rasmussen, vice president, Forrester Research. “Malicious attacks or internal negligence can lead to compromised customer privacy, inconsistent company communications, or inaccurately published information that ultimately harms the firm's overall brand and online presence.”1

With the proliferation of online fraud such as phishing and typo squatting, protecting brands online has become increasingly more important for enterprise companies. According to the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), the number of distinct spoof Web sites rose 52 percent in October 2006 to a record-shattering of 37,444, up from 24,565 a month earlier.

VeriSign’s Brand and Fraud Protection Services are accessed through a Web-based portal that supports legal, marketing and IT departments by allowing comprehensive global management of a corporation’s brand and reputation online. The portal enables multiple groups within a company to maintain brand consistency by providing highly relevant detection, prioritization and analysis of brand abuses.

VeriSign Brand and Fraud Protection Services enable companies to:

• Detect and
  Respond to Online Phishing Attacks - Anti-phishing services monitor
  email spam, Web sites and domain names and images to detect attempted
  phishing activity and enable rapid response.


• Track Counterfeit
  Goods - Counterfeit good services monitor targeted sources for
  the presence of leaked information, locations that facilitate fraud,
  or the sale or distribution of imitation or grey market products.


• Monitor Online
  Affiliates – Affiliate management services monitor Web sites and domain
  names to ensure online partners are in compliance with licensing terms
  and are displaying logos and content properly.


• Protect Online
  Reputation – Reputation management services detect and prioritize incidents
  related to trademark infringement, copyright violations, negative sentiment
  and unauthorized logo use.

(1) Forrester, Understanding and Mitigating Online Risks, Mike Rasmussen, April 13, 2006.

VRSN: FCC Appoints VeriSign to Commercial Mobile Service Alert Advisory Committee

VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSN), the leading provider of intelligent infrastructure for the networked world, announced today that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has appointed the company to serve on its Commercial Mobile Service Alert Advisory Committee. Anthony M. Rutkowski, Vice President for Regulatory Affairs and Standards, will represent VeriSign on the Committee.

The FCC was directed by Congress to form the Committee as part of the recently-passed Warning, Alert and Response Network (WARN) Act (Title VI of Public Law 109-347). The committee will establish a national emergency alert system to warn the public in case of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other crisis. Over the next year, the Committee will develop and recommend technical standards and protocols to enable mobile service providers to transmit alerts to subscribers’ mobile phones.

“VeriSign is honored to serve on this important FCC committee that will be working to ensure that the most advanced technologies are used to alert Americans about emergencies, no matter where they occur or how large-scale they are,” said Rutkowski. “VeriSign has unique insights to share as the leading provider of intelligent infrastructure services for the networked world. Every day, VeriSign enables and protect billions of digital interactions around the globe. We look forward to participating actively and helping to bring such a valuable service to the nation.”

Rutkowski recently served as the industry keynote presenter, in October 2006, at the first international technical workshop on emergency messaging at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland. His 40-year career included more than 12 years at the FCC, as well as serving as a counselor to the Secretary-General at the ITU in Geneva.

VeriSign also assisted the FCC in the 04-296 proceedings, and has collaborated with industry leaders to develop workable solutions for emergency messaging at the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) and the ITU.

VeriSign holds seats on a number of Federal and Presidential advisory bodies. VeriSign’s Chief Executive Officer Stratton Sclavos holds one of 30 seats on the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) and is a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

For a complete list of all companies appointed to the CMSSA Committee, please visit www.fcc.gov

VZ: Verizon to Voluntarily Withdraw Listing on NYSE Arca

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) announced today that it plans to voluntarily withdraw its common stock from listing on NYSE Arca, Inc., formerly known as the Pacific Exchange. Verizon made this decision in order to eliminate duplicative administrative requirements inherent with dual listings as a result of the NYSE Group's recent merger with Archipelago Holdings, the parent company of NYSE Arca.

Verizon securities will continue to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

SUNW: Sun Expands System Packs Offering with 15 New Servers

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW), the creator of the Solaris Operating System (OS), today added 15 new systems to its Sun System Performance Packs offerings, including its x64 (x86, 64-bit) Sun Fire x4500 and X4600 servers and Sun Blade 8000 and 8000 P modular systems, which run the Solaris OS, Windows and Linux. Sun System Packs integrate Sun software, such as the Solaris 10 OS -- the most advanced OS on the planet -- and Sun server technologies with Sun support services into one offering, simplifying IT acquisition and helping to reduce total cost of ownership. Sun also announced a new promotion for Sun System Packs, dubbed Sun System Performance Plus Packs, which add higher-level services like installation and access to Sun's proven expertise to provide customers with the ability to quickly implement solutions, train staff and maximize performance of their IT environments.


"Sun System Packs provide a unique model for purchasing Sun server, storage, software and the right services in one predictable and affordable package," said Brian Winter, vice president of Services Marketing, Sun Microsystems, Inc. "By increasing the number of Sun System Pack offerings, we're providing customers with even greater choice and simplifying the acquisition process. What's more, Sun System Packs help customers maximize return on investment through reducing the cost of support and increasing operational efficiencies – all as a single offer for one transparent price."

"We evaluated Sun System Packs for theStreet.com as we worked with them to refresh their server infrastructure. With no tolerance for downtime, we knew services would be a core part of the solution," said Joe Morgan, account executive, MTM Technologies. "Ultimately, the Sun System Performance Packs for the Sun Fire T2000 server provided the right combination of compelling economics with the functionality and services theStreet.com needed. With the broad range of Sun servers available as Sun System Packs, we expect other customers will be interested in the Sun System Performance Packs offerings."

Sun today also announced a Sun System Performance Plus Packs promotion for the Sun Fire X4500 and X4600 servers and Sun Blade 8000 and 8000 P modular systems. The Sun System Performance Plus Packs promotion includes higher-level services to address three key phases of deploying IT – implement, optimize and manage.

IMPLEMENT: Includes the hardware system, Sun System Support Services, plus Enterprise Installation Services, allowing a customer to rapidly and effectively deploy systems into their own IT environment.
OPTIMIZE: Includes all 'Implement' features plus Learning Services and access to Sun's Web-based data bank of preferred practices, allowing a customer to fine-tune systems to best meet their ongoing operational needs.
MANAGE: Includes all 'Optimize' features plus Sun Update Connection and Incident Response Services, allowing a customer to be current and to rapidly react to potential issues.


For more information on the Sun System Packs, visit: http://www.sun.com/systempacks
For more information on the Sun System Performance Plus Pack promotion visit: http://www.sun.com/promotions/campaigns/?pid=perfpacks&cid=250604

ORCL: Oracle Assumes Ownership of Stellent, Inc.

Oracle Corporation today announced that Stellent, Inc. shareholders tendered approximately 28.8 million shares (including shares tendered by notice of guaranteed delivery), representing approximately 92 percent of Stellent's outstanding common stock, pursuant to Oracle's tender offer for all of the outstanding common stock of Stellent which expired at 12:00 midnight, New York City time, on Monday, December 11, 2006. Oracle has accepted for payment all shares tendered in the offer.

Additionally, Oracle will designate seven representatives to serve on Stellent's board of directors, giving Oracle majority board representation. One of the current Stellent board members will remain on the Stellent board until the merger between the companies is completed.

The completion of the tender offer is the first step in Oracle's two-step acquisition of Stellent. The second and final step, the merger of Stellent with an Oracle subsidiary, is expected to occur within the next several days. All remaining outstanding Stellent shares, other than those held by shareholders who properly perfect dissenters' rights under Minnesota law, will be converted into the right to receive $13.50 per share, net to the seller in cash without interest, less any required withholding taxes.Following the merger, Stellent will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oracle.

IVGN: Invitrogen and Blue Heron Biotechnology Enter into Strategic Development and Distribution Relationship

Invitrogen Corporation (Nasdaq:IVGN), a global leader in life sciences, today announced they have entered into a strategic development and distribution relationship with Blue Heron Biotechnology. Invitrogen will invest in Blue Heron in exchange for worldwide rights to distribute Blue Heron's custom gene synthesis services. Under the terms of the agreement, Invitrogen will become the exclusive worldwide distributor of Blue Heron's synthetic genes. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Blue Heron Biotechnology's proprietary GeneMaker(R) platform can synthesize any gene sequence, with perfect accuracy regardless of length or complexity, which makes it ideal for the synthetic biology market. Researchers worldwide are increasingly turning to synthetic genes as a convenient, cost-effective alternative for traditional cloning. Accurate and rapid synthesis of synthetic genes has allowed pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to speed the drug discovery process through an ability to rapidly and accurately synthesize known genes, and produce from them novel proteins, new vaccines and diagnostics.

"Invitrogen recognizes the tremendous new possibilities that gene synthesis offers life science researchers," said Nathan Wood, Vice President of Cloning and Protein Expression. "We have developed a broad array of products that complement Blue Heron's GeneMaker(R) platform and this agreement continues to enhance our portfolio offerings to our customers."

Invitrogen is a leading provider of recombinant cloning and protein expression products, as well as the premier provider of the largest fully sequenced human open reading frame clone collections. Gene synthesis builds upon this strength and will be especially useful in emerging fields such as synthetic biology.

"Partnering with a life sciences leader such as Invitrogen is an important milestone in Blue Heron Bio's continued growth and signals an important milestone for the overall gene synthesis market as well. We are very pleased to be able to make our gene synthesis services available through Invitrogen's unmatched distribution and marketing channels," said John Fess, CEO of Blue Heron Biotechnology.

As part of the agreement, the companies will co-develop new products and services for the research and bio-pharmaceutical markets.

About Invitrogen Corporation

Invitrogen Corporation (Nasdaq:IVGN) provides products and services that support academic and government research institutions and pharmaceutical and biotech companies worldwide in their efforts to improve the human condition. The company provides essential life science technologies for disease research, drug discovery, and commercial bioproduction. Invitrogen's own research and development efforts are focused on breakthrough innovation in all major areas of biological discovery including functional genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics and cell biology -- placing Invitrogen's products in nearly every major laboratory in the world. Founded in 1987, Invitrogen is headquartered in Carlsbad, California, and conducts business in more than 70 countries around the world. The company globally employs approximately 4,800 professionals and had revenues of more than $1.2 billion in 2005. For more information, visit www.invitrogen.com

About Blue Heron Biotechnology

Blue Heron Biotechnology is a pioneer and leader in the gene synthesis market, producing nearly ten million base pairs of DNA since its inception in 1999. Blue Heron Bio regularly produces simple to complex DNA sequences from less than 100 base pairs to over 20,000 base pairs, serving hundreds of life science researchers including 17 of the 20 top pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the world. Blue Heron Bio's proprietary GeneMaker(R) technology provides customers access to complex DNA sequences that are difficult or impossible to synthesize with other companies' standard processes. Customers choose Blue Heron for their unmatched customer service, the strength of their technology and their record of success. For more information, visit www.blueheronbio.com

IBM Planning and Design Services for Data Center, Keep WakeMed Operations Running Smoothly

WakeMed Health & Hospitals selected IBM (NYSE: IBM) to help plan and design the move of its data center as part of a multi-million dollar commitment to information technology to support patient care and hospital operations.

WakeMed's data center contains the health care information for more than 500,000 patients who are treated within the hospital system annually. The data center has grown significantly and currently houses more than 56 terabytes of data, including everything from medical records to billing information to critical heart labs and images -- that's twice the amount of text housed by the U.S. Library of Congress.

"With this kind of move, you only have one chance to get it right," said Denton Arledge, Vice President of Information Services, WakeMed. "This data center supports every facet of the hospital system -- from patient care to operations to finance -- and it had to stay up and running while we moved the equipment to a new, secure location miles away from our main campus."

IBM's Site and Facilities Services consultants teamed with WakeMed’s technical staff to plan the move, which included millions of dollars worth of equipment and hundreds of miles of cable that support WakeMed’s 11 different sites in Wake County. IBM also worked with WakeMed to ensure design of the new data center would meet the health system's future needs.

"In this type of situation, nothing beats experience," said Ric Anderson, IBM Project Manager. "I've worked on numerous data center moves for our clients and that experience really pays off when you're working on an intricate project like this one."

The data center was moved to a secure location featuring a new command center that allows WakeMed staff to monitor their systems 24/7. Redundant systems were put in place so that in the event one system goes down, another system provides backup so there is never an interruption in service. Security and data center operational procedures were also enhanced to improve the overall efficiency of the center.

IBM’s Site and Facilities Services business unit delivers leading services in four areas: IT Facilities Consolidation and Relocation Services, which was implemented with WakeMed; Data Center and Facilities Strategy Services; IT Facilities Assessment Design and Construction Services; and Specialized Facilities Services.

About WakeMed Health and Hospitals

WakeMed Health & Hospitals, one of the first hospital systems in the country, is a private, not-for-profit health care organization based in Raleigh, N.C. The 851-bed system comprises a network of health care facilities throughout Wake and Johnston Counties, including: a Level I Trauma Center and tertiary referral hospital and rehabilitation hospital in Raleigh, a community hospital in Cary, a comprehensive outpatient center and freestanding emergency department in North Raleigh, seven outpatient rehabilitation sites, two skilled-nursing and outpatient facilities, a 100+ physician multispecialty practice, and home health services. The system includes two accredited Chest Pain Centers and one JCAHO-certified Stroke Center. Throughout the system, there are an additional 118 beds under construction. WakeMed also provides management services for Betsy Johnson Regional Hospital in Dunn, NC. Centers of excellence include cardiac and vascular care, women's and children's services, physical rehab, emergency and trauma, orthopaedics, neurosciences, home care and numerous wellness and community outreach programs. WakeMed's team of 7,000 nurses, technologists and medical support staff and more than 1,000 affiliated physicians serve the residents of North Carolina using the most advanced technologies and facilities to ensure the finest in health care.

For more information, visit: www.wakemed.org

Dell Announces New Leader of Global Services Business Steve Schuckenbrock

Dell today announced the appointment of Steve Schuckenbrock to lead the company’s global services organization. As senior vice president of global services, Mr. Schuckenbrock will report to CEO Kevin Rollins and serve as a member of the Dell Global Executive Management Committee. He will begin work with Dell on Jan. 8.

"Our services business is one of Dell’s fastest growing businesses and it is one of our strategic pillars for Dell 2.0," said Mr. Rollins. "Steve has worked as CIO of one of the most recognized brands in the world and as chief operating officer of one of the premier service delivery companies. “We believe his experience as both a customer and a leader of IT services will bring our customers a high level of understanding and innovation."

Analysts estimate the worldwide IT services market at $640 billion.

Mr. Schuckenbrock’s experience ranges from automating an entire supply chain to providing innovative IT outsourcing and delivery solutions worldwide. Prior to joining Dell, Mr. Schuckenbrock served as co-chief operating officer and executive vice president of global sales and services for EDS. Before joining EDS in 2003, he was chief operating officer of The Feld Group, an IT consulting organization.

Serving as global chief information officer for PepsiCo from 1998 to 2000, Mr. Schuckenbrock developed and established the Business Solutions Group. Additionally with PepsiCo, he served as global chief information officer for Frito-Lay from 1995 to 1998. He held numerous sales and technology management positions at IBM from 1983 to 1993.

Mr. Schuckenbrock earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Elon University.

AMD and IBM Detail Early Results Using Immersion and Ultra Low-K in 45NM Chips

At the International Electron Device Meeting (IEDM) today, IBM (NYSE: IBM) and AMD (NYSE: AMD) presented papers describing the use of immersion lithography, ultra-low-K interconnect dielectrics, and multiple enhanced transistor strain techniques for application to the 45nm microprocessor process generation. AMD and IBM expect the first 45nm products using immersion lithography and ultra-low-K interconnect dielectrics to be available in mid-2008.

“As the first microprocessor manufacturers to announce the use of immersion lithography and ultra-low-K interconnect dielectrics for the 45nm technology generation, AMD and IBM continue to blaze a trail of innovation in microprocessor process technology,” said Nick Kepler, vice president of logic technology development at AMD. “Immersion lithography will allow us to deliver enhanced microprocessor design definition and manufacturing consistency, further increasing our ability to deliver industry-leading, highly sophisticated products to our customers. Ultra-low-K interconnect dielectrics will further extend our industry-leading microprocessor performance-per-watt ratio for the benefit of all of our customers. This announcement is another proof of IBM and AMD’s successful research and development collaboration.”

Current process technology uses conventional lithography, which has significant limitations in defining microprocessor designs beyond the 65nm process technology generation. Immersion lithography uses a transparent liquid to fill the space between the projection lens of the step-and-repeat lithography system and the wafer that contains hundreds of microprocessors. This significant advance in lithography provides increased depth of focus and improved image fidelity that can improve chip-level performance and manufacturing efficiency. This immersion technique will give AMD and IBM manufacturing advantages over competitors that are not able to develop a production-class immersion lithography process for the introduction of 45nm microprocessors. For example, the performance of an SRAM cell shows improvements of approximately 15 per cent due to this enhanced process capability, without resorting to more costly double-exposure techniques.

In addition, the use of porous, ultra-low-K dielectrics to reduce interconnect capacitance and wiring delay is a critical step in further improving microprocessor performance as well as lowering power dissipation. This advance is enabled through the development of an industry-leading ultra-low-K process integration that reduces the dielectric constant of the interconnect dielectric while maintaining the mechanical strength. The addition of ultra-low-K interconnect provides a 15 per cent reduction in wiring-related delay as compared to conventional low-K dielectrics.

“The introduction of immersion lithography and ultra-low-K interconnect dielectrics at 45nm is an early example of the successful transfer of technology from our ground-breaking research work at the Albany Nanotech Center to IBM’s state-of-the-art 300mm manufacturing and development line at East Fishkill, New York, as well as AMD’s state-of-the-art 300mm manufacturing line in Dresden, Germany,” said Gary Patton, vice president, technology development at IBM’s Semiconductor Research and Development Center. “The successful integration of leadership technologies with AMD and our partners demonstrates the strength of our collaborative innovation model.”

The continued enhancement of AMD and IBM’s transistor strain techniques has enabled the continued scaling of transistor performance while overcoming industry-wide, geometry-related scaling issues associated with migrating to 45nm process technologies. In spite of the increased packing density of the 45nm generation transistors, IBM and AMD have demonstrated an 80 per cent increase in p-channel transistor drive current and a 24 per cent increase in n-channel transistor drive current compared to unstrained transistors. This achievement results in the highest CMOS performance reported to date in a 45nm process technology.

IBM and AMD have been collaborating on the development of next-generation semiconductor manufacturing technologies since January 2003. In November 2005, the two companies announced an extension of their joint development efforts until 2011 covering 32nm and 22nm process technology generations.

HPQ: HP Expands Business Intelligence Services Capabilities with Acquisition of Knightsbridge Solutions

HP today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Knightsbridge Solutions Holdings Corp., a services company specializing in the information management areas of business intelligence, data warehousing, data integration and information quality.

Headquartered in Chicago, Knightsbridge has 700 employees, with offices across the United States and in London, and a focus on Fortune 500 customers and their global divisions. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“Recognized for excellence and innovation, Knightsbridge advances HP’s leadership position in delivering business intelligence and data warehouse solutions,” said John W. McCain, senior vice president and general manager, HP Services. “Together, the two companies provide our customers with a world-class portfolio of information management solutions.”

“Combining Knightsbridge with HP represents a huge advantage for our collective customers and partners,” said Roderick S. Walker, president and chief executive officer, Knightsbridge Solutions. “By combining our business intelligence expertise with HP Services, we believe we can deliver more complete end-to-end information management services for our clients than either firm could have accomplished on its own.”

The transaction is subject to certain closing conditions and is expected to be completed within approximately 30 days. Following completion, the business will be fully integrated into HP Services within HP’s Technology Solutions Group.

About Knightsbridge Solutions

Knightsbridge is a leading professional services consultancy focused exclusively on the information management disciplines of business intelligence, data warehousing, data integration and information quality. Large or data-centric organizations turn to Knightsbridge for their most difficult data problems – problems rooted in massive data volumes or complex information challenges. Knightsbridge delivers actionable and measurable business results that inform decision-making, optimize IT efficiency and improve business performance.

Visit Knightsbridge online at www.knightsbridge.com

HPQ: HP Unveils Comprehensive Software Portfolio that Aligns Business and IT to Drive Business Outcomes

HP today announced a significantly broadened software portfolio that leverages the power of HP’s management software with recently acquired Mercury assets to help customers align business and IT, manage IT services and automate end-to-end change.

At HP Software Universe, the company’s annual software customer event, HP detailed its approach to transforming the way chief information officers (CIOs) can optimize the business outcomes of IT investments.

Built around three “lifecycles” – change and configuration, IT service, and performance and availability – the company’s expanded portfolio helps customers integrate key IT functions across strategy, applications and operations. Using the lifecycle approach, customers can deliver better business outcomes by making the right spending decisions, delivering applications and services on time with the right quality and performance, and meeting business service-level agreements.

To enable IT organizations to easily implement this approach, HP launched nine software centers, which are suites of integrated software, services and best practices, as well as additional new and enhanced software offerings.

HP leads the industry in business technology optimization, a category of software and services that addresses the key challenges chief information officers face every day – cutting IT costs, speeding delivery of new services and aligning IT for business value – all to enable profitable growth. HP’s software portfolio integrates Mercury’s leading application management and delivery and IT governance capabilities with HP’s extensive management solutions to help CIOs drive business technology optimization.

“Building bridges between IT strategy, applications and operations is essential for every CIO who wants to run IT as a business and evolve from the function of IT to the business of IT,” said Thomas E. Hogan, senior vice president, Software, HP. “Through a lifecycle approach, HP Software is a strategic partner to CIOs to help them collapse silos in IT – leaving no broken links in the value chain. For every IT organization, delivering quality, reliability and visibility across all functions of IT is essential. We partner with our customers to address their toughest challenge – transforming IT to deliver tangible business outcomes. Running IT like a business is the real goal for the CIO of the future.”

Collapsing silos, building bridges

HP’s lifecycles take the guesswork out of creating an integrated infrastructure. When the silos of IT strategy, applications and operations are collapsed, CIOs can directly link functional initiatives to broader strategic initiatives – both within and beyond IT. HP’s lifecycle approach helps customers do this by controlling costs while keeping services up and running and providing better information to speed decisions, drive growth and reduce financial, compliance and business risk – all to deliver better business outcomes.

The three lifecycles are:

• Change and Configuration Lifecycle – Optimize business agility, ensure regulatory compliance and mitigate risk to business services by automating the change and configuration process;


• IT Service Lifecycle – Automate IT services from demand through delivery to operations, while optimizing use of capital, people and assets in line with business priorities; and


• Performance and Availability Lifecycle – Optimize availability and performance metrics most critical to the business.

HP software centers support lifecycles with open, heterogeneous products, services

In support of the lifecycle approach, HP is delivering a new way to purchase and deploy integrated software products. HP’s software centers perform essential discrete functions such as quality management or performance validation. Each is composed of a common dashboard, integrated applications and single foundation and includes products that are open, standards-based, heterogeneous and modular. The centers include:

• HP Project and Portfolio Management Center – provides a web-based solution that standardizes, manages and captures the execution of project and non-project work;


• HP Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Center – designed to assist customer’s SOA transformation, this center addresses SOA governance, operational management, QA and security. HP SOA Center spans these four key areas necessary to enhance the efficiency, performance and operational integrity of SOA deployments.


• HP Performance Center – validates and optimizes performance with an integrated set of applications for automating load-testing, performance tuning, application diagnostics and capacity planning;


• HP Quality Center – performs quality assurance and software testing across IT and application environments and arms customers with the capabilities to manage the release process;


• HP Business Availability Center – allows customers to manage the health of business services and applications, as well as optimize their availability, performance and effectiveness;


• HP Operations Center – improves IT infrastructure efficiency and reliability and lowers total cost of ownership by delivering insight to service impact from operations to task prioritization and improving mean time to repair;


• HP Network Management Center – increases service levels by managing performance, configuration and optimization of network infrastructure to maximize the business value from the network infrastructure, which is critical for network applications such as IP telephony and MPLS;


• HP Service Management Center – automates critical IT processes for management, support and delivery of IT services that are aligned with business requirements for increased service-level quality; and


• HP Change and Configuration Management Center – gives complete visibility and control into all IT operational changes and allows IT executives to reduce the costs and risks of change, while enabling compliance.

New product highlights

To enable customers to reach a higher level of IT service management, HP has introduced HP ServiceCenter Software 6.2, part of the IT Service Lifecycle. The new version includes an embedded service catalog to standardize the interface for IT goods and services to increase IT capability at efficient cost; embedded knowledge management to integrate organizational wisdom in incident management; and enhanced configuration management.

HP was also integrally involved in authoring the revised versions of the ITIL v3 core texts to be issued in early 2007.

HP also announced HP Configuration Management Software 5.0, part of the Change and Configuration Lifecycle. This offering automates the management of software to help ensure that each computing device has the right software configuration to support the business at all times. Version 5.0 is also now enhanced with HP PC Configuration Manager Software and HP Server Configuration Manager Software. Additionally, HP announced HP Change Control Management, the industry’s first automated, change management offering built to mitigate the business risk of change.

More information about this announcement is available in an online press kit at www.hp.com/go/swuniverse2006media

VRSN: VeriSign Issues First Ever Extended Validation SSL Certificate in Support of IE7 and Microsoft Vista Launch

VeriSign, Inc., (NASDAQ: VRSN), the leading provider of intelligent infrastructure for the networked world, today announced the general availability of its Extended Validation (EV) SSL Certificates, which help protect users against online fraudulent activity by providing third party verification of a Web site’s authenticity. These new certificates support Microsoft’s IE7 and Vista operating system and also incorporate VeriSign’s unique EV Upgrader technology enabling all Windows XP clients using IE7 to display the same green address bar and other interface enhancements as Windows Vista clients. VeriSign issued the first of these certificates to Overstock.com, one of the largest online retailers in North America.

"As one of the first Web sites to implement the new VeriSign Extended Validation SSL Certificates, Overstock.com continues to demonstrate leadership in making online shopping safer," said Jacob Hawkins, senior vice president of marketing at Overstock.com. "When customers see the green browser bar and trusted VeriSign Secured Seal on our site, they can be confident that their online transactions are secure."

VeriSign’s Extended Validation SSL Certificates help maximize consumer confidence when visiting Web sites by providing a visual cue that these sites are who they claim to be and that their online transactions are secured by encryption. When a user enters a URL in a supporting high-security browser such as IE7, the browser address bar will turn green, indicating that the site’s identity has been verified using known, reliable authentication methodology. The green browser bar will also display the registered organization’s name and the name of the SSL provider, which allows site visitors to confirm the genuine name of the businesses they are interacting with online.

“As the most recognized sign of trust on the Internet, VeriSign is the SSL provider of choice for over 93% of the Fortune 500, 47 of the 50 biggest e-commerce sites, and the world’s 40 largest banks,” said Chris Babel, vice president and general manager, SSL, for VeriSign. “As of last Wednesday, we’ve been issuing the industry’s first EV certificates. These new certificates continue our tradition of assuring site visitors that their personal and financial information is safe during online transactions.”

VeriSign’s EV SSL Certificates include EV Upgrader technology, which enables IE 7 users on Windows XP to display the green address bar for Web sites secured by VeriSign EV SSL Certificates. EV Upgrader utilizes the VeriSign Secured Seal to prompt the IE7 browser to safely update its VeriSign SSL roots. The VeriSign Secured Seal is currently displayed on over 65,000 Web properties and viewed by consumers approximately 100 million times per day.

“Protecting consumers online is a high priority for Microsoft and we are working hard to make the Internet a safer place. Internet Explorer 7’s support for Extended Validation SSL Certificates is another example of our dedication to this commitment,” said Markellos Diorinos, product manager for Internet Explorer at Microsoft. “As one of the industry’s recognized leaders in Web site authentication, VeriSign’s support for EV Certificates will help increase identity awareness in online transactions, thereby boosting consumer confidence.”

Pricing and Availability
Browser recognition of Extended Validation SSL certificates are expected to be activated by Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 by the end of January 2007. Through a special promotional offer, customers can purchase VeriSign SSL Certificates with EV now and save up to $500. EV Upgrader (a $300 value) is also included in this limited time offer. This offer expires January 31, 2007.

VeriSign Secure Site Pro with EV combines SGC (Server Gated Cryptography) for the best encryption protection and Extended Validation for the industry’s most vigorous authentication procedures. Buy Secure Site Pro with EV for $1299 (1-year) and save $200 off the regular one-year price, or $2495 (2-year), and save over $500 off the regular one-year price. After this limited time offer, Secure Site Pro with EV will retail for $1499 (1-year) and $2695 (2-year).

MSFT: Microsoft Unveils VoIP Solution as Part of Desktop Communications

Microsoft Corp. today opened a private beta of its new enterprise voice communications server, Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007, to 2,500 IT professionals. Office Communications Server 2007 allows companies to integrate voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) technology into existing telephony infrastructure, eliminating the need for expensive network overhauls and also extending the useful life of existing investments. The new voice server will also allow workers to instantly launch a phone call from 2007 Microsoft Office applications, such as Office Word 2007, Office Outlook® 2007 or Office Communicator, by simply clicking on a colleague’s name to determine his or her availability and initiate a person-to-person or multiparty call.

With native support for Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communicator, part of the 2007 Microsoft Office system, interoperate with products from industry partners including Nortel Networks, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., LG-Nortel Co. Ltd., Mitel Networks Corp., NEC Philips Unified Solutions, Polycom Inc. and Siemens Communications Inc. Through these relationships, customers worldwide will be able to support VoIP using their existing desktop phones, data networks and time division multiplexing (TDM) or Internet protocol (IP) private branch exchanges (PBXs). Customers will also able to leverage the softphone capabilities of Office Communicator to make and receive phone calls from their PCs, eliminating the need to purchase expensive IP-compatible phones.

“The convergence of telecom and data networks is happening rapidly. Software will integrate these two worlds, enabling IT managers to deliver new communications possibilities that include VoIP,” said Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president of the Unified Communications Group at Microsoft. “With this open architecture and broad interoperability, Office Communications Server 2007 will give IT managers the flexibility to determine when and how and in what way they move their communications infrastructure forward.”

Microsoft is bringing the pace of software innovation to communications to deliver a people-centric experience. According to a recent Gartner Inc. report, “The ultimate driver of VoIP is not merely cost savings, but is in business process integration. Enterprises should evaluate their long-term strategy toward developing IP telephony applications beyond basic telephony, including business application integration.”1

In conjunction with opening the private beta, Microsoft is hosting a Technology Adoption Program (TAP) Summit this week. Approximately 250 representatives from nearly 100 enterprises will participate in the weeklong event. Attendees represent enterprise IT departments that serve more than 7 million information workers worldwide. The event will kick off with a keynote address by Microsoft Corporate Vice President Gurdeep Singh Pall and includes a showcase of partner solutions, including a demonstration of Innovative Communications Alliance (ICA) scenarios incorporating Microsoft unified communications software and the Nortel Communications Server 1000 IP-PBX.

Office Communications Server 2007, the successor to Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005, is part of Microsoft’s unified communications portfolio. Companies using Office Communications Server 2007 can deploy enterprisewide presence; enable security-enhanced enterprise instant messaging; host on-premise audio, video and Web conferences; and deploy VoIP capabilities. Some of the capabilities available in the private beta of Office Communications Server 2007 are placing and receiving voice calls; advanced call routing; streamlined integration with the new unified messaging capabilities in Exchange Server 2007; multiparty conferencing; call holding, forwarding and transferring; and compliance capabilities, all while working in concert with existing telephony infrastructure.

Office Communications Server 2007 can be deployed with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, a cornerstone of Microsoft’s unified communications portfolio. Exchange Server 2007 complements the voice capabilities of Office Communications Server 2007 with a built-in auto-attendant for answering and routing inbound voice calls as well as unified messaging that unifies voice mail and e-mail in a single inbox. Exchange Server is available for evaluation at http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/eval

VZ: Verizon Vice Chairman and President Larry Babbio Announces Plans to Retire After 41-Year Career

Verizon Vice Chairman and President Lawrence T. Babbio Jr. has notified the Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) Board of Directors of his intention to retire from the company by the end of the first quarter 2007.

A 41-year veteran of Verizon and its predecessor companies, Babbio is responsible for the Verizon Business and Verizon Telecom business units, and is a member of the Board of Directors of Verizon Wireless.

"My decision comes at a time when we have successfully positioned Verizon to extend its industry-leading position in both the wireless and wireline businesses," said Babbio. "Our strategies are in place and producing outstanding results. We have a strong and experienced executive team leading Verizon's key networked-based businesses. With Verizon Business meeting all our post-merger expectations and our broadband and video business opening new opportunities in the marketplace, this is the right time to transition to the next generation of leadership."

Verizon Chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg said, "Larry has proven over and over again his innate ability to think beyond the status quo and to embrace change, no matter how transformational. He has been one of the industry's most adept technology leaders and has been instrumental in helping chart the right course for Verizon. In fact, Larry has been deeply involved in all of Verizon's technology platforms, having provided early leadership to our wireless business, strong guidance in the acquisition and integration of MCI, and relentless drive as we have deployed broadband. We will miss him as a gifted colleague, but we are very pleased that he will remain with us through the first quarter so we can work together on the transition."

Verizon will announce transition plans in the coming weeks.

Babbio began his career in the communications industry in 1966 with New Jersey Bell Telephone. After working in engineering, network construction and technology development leadership positions at New Jersey Bell and AT&T, Babbio in 1995 was elected Vice Chairman of Bell Atlantic.

Prior to the Bell Atlantic-GTE merger in 2000, Babbio was President and Chief Operating Officer for Bell Atlantic, where he shared oversight for all of the company's business operations. He also served as Chairman of Bell Atlantic's Global Wireless Group, one of the world's largest wireless operations at the time. Babbio today also serves as Chairman of the board of trustees of Stevens Institute of Technology, and is a member of the boards of the Hewlett-Packard Company, ARAMARK Corporation and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

BRCM: U.S. International Trade Commission Upholds Finding of Patent Infringement Against Qualcomm(Nasdaq: QCOM)

Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, announced today that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has upheld an initial determination that Qualcomm Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM) infringes five claims of a Broadcom® patent.
The Commission will now consider the appropriate remedy for Qualcomm's infringement, which could include a permanent exclusion order barring the importation into the United States of infringing Qualcomm chips, a cease and desist order barring Qualcomm from further use or sale of infringing products in the United States, and/or an exclusion order barring the importation into the United States of cellular phones containing infringing Qualcomm chips.

On October 10 ITC Administrative Law Judge Charles E. Bullock determined that all three patents asserted in the ITC proceeding by Broadcom were valid, and that one, U.S. Patent No. 6,714,983, was infringed by Qualcomm. The Commission's decision, issued December 8, rejected Qualcomm's challenges to those findings. The infringing products include cellular baseband processor chips that comprise Qualcomm's core suite of enhanced multimedia and convergence handset platforms.

"Qualcomm expects other companies to respect and pay dearly for the use of its intellectual property, but refuses to respect the intellectual property of others. The Commission's decision is an important step toward leveling that lopsided view," said David A. Dull, Broadcom's Senior Vice President and General Counsel. "We fully intend to prosecute this ITC case to conclusion, and to continue to aggressively enforce our patent rights against Qualcomm in other pending cases."

In the next step of the ITC process, the Commission will receive additional briefing from the parties regarding the appropriate remedy for Qualcomm's infringement, and will issue its determination on remedy by February 9, 2007. The President then has sixty days to approve or disapprove the remedy.

A recent IEEE Spectrum magazine survey ranked Broadcom at No. 5 among hundreds of companies worldwide rated for the power of their patent portfolios.

CSCO: GarantiBank Selects Cisco Systems for New Turkish Datacentre Backbone

Cisco Systems® today announced that Garanti Bank, the leading Turkish retail, commercial and corporate bank, has selected Cisco to provide a new backbone network infrastructure for its datacentre operations comprising storage area networking, data centre switching and integrated security. The new data centre infrastructure will help the bank support the data security requirements of its mainframe applications