AAPL: Award-Winning Programming from A&E Television Networks Now Available on the iTunes Music Store

Award-Winning Programming from A&E Television Networks Now Available on the iTunes Music Store
Favorites from A&E Network, The Biography & History Channels Available Beginning Today

A&E Television Networks and Apple® today announced hit television programming from A&E Network, The Biography and History Channels is now available for purchase and download on the iTunes® Music Store (www.itunes.com). The new content features popular series such as “Criss Angel: Mindfreak,” “Driving Force” and “Inked” from A&E Network, “The Revolution” and “Modern Marvels” from The History Channel, and selections from the Emmy Award-winning “Biography” series from The Biography Channel. iTunes offers over 200 TV shows for $1.99 per episode for viewing on a computer or iPod®.

“Teaming up with iTunes is a great opportunity for us to both reach our growing fan base and expand our reach to new viewers wherever they are,” said Steve Ronson, senior vice president, Enterprises, A&E Television Network. “iTunes is the leader in TV show downloads, and we are very happy that A&E Television Network brands and programming will now be available to consumers on their iPod or computer.”

“iTunes customers are going to love this exceptional programming from A&E including the Emmy Award-winning ‘Biography’ series,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “Our catalog of popular television content continues to grow with over 200 network and cable programs now available.”

With Apple’s legendary ease of use, pioneering features such as integrated video and podcasting support, iMix playlist sharing, seamless integration with iPod and groundbreaking personal use rights, the iTunes Music Store is the best way for Mac® and PC users to legally discover, purchase and download music and videos online. The iTunes Music Store features a selection of over 9,000 music videos, Pixar and Disney short films, a variety of hit TV shows, and more than three million songs from the major music companies and over 1,000 independent labels.

Pricing & Availability
iTunes 6 for Mac and Windows includes the iTunes Music Store and is available as a free download from www.apple.com/itunes. Purchase and download of songs and videos from the iTunes Music Store requires a valid credit card with a billing address in the country of purchase. Television shows are available in the US only, and video availability varies by country. Television shows are $1.99 (US) per episode, and music videos and short films are $1.99 (US) each.

A&E Television Networks, a joint venture of The Hearst Corporation, ABC, Inc. and NBC, is an award-winning, international media company offering consumers a diverse communications environment ranging from television programming, to home videos/DVDs and music CDs, to Web sites, as well as supporting nationwide educational initiatives. AETN is comprised of A&E Network, The History Channel, The Biography Channel, History International, The Military History Channel, The History Channel en español, Crime & Investigation Network, A&E HD, AETN International and AETN Consumer Products. The A&E web site is located at www.AETV.com, the Biography web site is located at www.Biography.com and The History Channel web site is located at www.History.com.

ORCL: Small and Medium Businesses Continue to Invest in Oracle Applications Over Microsoft (MSFT)

Small and medium businesses (SMB) across multiple industries continue to select Oracle after evaluating Microsoft, Oracle today announced. Companies such as Advanced Steel Recovery, Cirro Energy, DTS, First Financials Services Co. LLC, Highland Capital Management, Ikanos Communications, Inphi Corporation, Life Data Labs, Natural Health Trends and Oasis Car Wash Systems are finding competitive value in Oracle(r) Applications and are now equipped with affordable, flexible and scalable solutions to address complex business requirements.
As small and medium-sized organizations are increasingly faced with enterprise-level business complexities, they need functionality to increase visibility, standardize business processes and the flexibility to adapt to market demands. To address these challenges, Oracle's standards-based applications are being selected over competing vendors - including Microsoft's solutions for the mid-market - for rich industry functionality, the ability to create a single source of truth and to help lower the total cost of ownership.

"Successful small and medium businesses must find solutions to compete in the global marketplace while controlling costs, effectively allocating resources and reducing business complexities," said Oracle Vice President and General Manager Lenley Hensarling. "Compared to other software vendors, companies are finding that Oracle is the best IT investment for affordable, scalable, enterprise-level functionality that equips them to meet changing market demands and helps them to increase profitability."

Highland Capital Management
Highland Capital Management is a rapidly growing investment advisor that currently manages over $26 billion in leveraged loans, high yield bonds, structured products and other assets for banks, insurance companies, pension plans, foundations and high net worth individuals. The firm selected Oracle because it provided the most flexible offering and it also met all of the IT criteria of the parent company and various subsidiaries. Through a partnership with Lucidity Consulting Group, a Certified Advantage Partner in the Oracle PartnerNetwork, Highland Capital completed a seamless implementation of the Oracle E-Business Suite.

"Although we are a mid-sized company, we still needed enterprise-level functionality to tackle our accounting and reporting processes," said Highland Capital Management CFO David Lancelot. "With Oracle, we now have affordable functionality that has increased the visibility into our reporting and expense practices. We are now equipped to make more accurate, timely business decisions."

Life Data Labs
Life Data Labs, Inc. is a family owned business that has been in operation for over 30 years. The company services approximately 2,400 dealers and over 10,000 retail customers as well as about 12 distributors worldwide. As a formula-based manufacturer, Life Data Labs was relying on an outdated ERP system that provided limited functionality for deploying new formulas. After considering 8 different software offerings from vendors including Microsoft and SAP, Life Data Labs selected Oracle because it offered superior flexibility and robust functionality.

"We needed to make a software applications investment that could support our diverse customer base and distribution channels," said Life Data Labs Director of Information Technology Kelly Kutz. "Oracle surpassed other mid-sized offerings in terms of flexibility and also delivers the functionality we need to bring new products to market. We are confident that our decision to invest in Oracle was the best choice for both our business and IT needs."

Oasis Car Wash Systems
Founded in 1964, Oasis Car Wash Systems is a family-owned and operated manufacturer of high-speed efficient car wash equipment, including touch-free car wash systems. When the company decided to make an investment in an enterprise application suite, it considered Oracle and Microsoft Great Plains. Oasis purchased the Oracle E-Business Suite because it was more affordable, offered better capabilities to manage manufacturing processes and enabled a lower total cost of ownership compared to Microsoft's offering. The company worked with Lucidity Consulting Group in order to complete the Oracle implementation.

"Relying on Oracle, we now benefit from better inventory accuracy, improved efficiencies in our manufacturing operations and have greater visibility into our financials," said Oasis Manager, Information Technology David Eckhart. "We were able to implement Oracle Applications in a little over three months and are already seeing a return on our investment. Our selection of Oracle is proving to be a very smart decision."

INGR: Intergraph Announces I/Incident Analyst

Intergraph Corporation (NASDAQ: INGR) today announced the upcoming release of I/Incident Analyst, an intuitive mapping and pattern analysis solution specifically designed for public safety agencies. With I/Incident Analyst, public safety agencies can distill data that are stored in Intergraph’s Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) or in Intergraph’s Records Management Systems (RMS) into a wide variety of maps and temporal reports. The outputs from I/Incident Analyst effectively delineate incident patterns (i.e. convert complex data points into a view that can be easily read and understood by the layperson).

With this approach, public safety agencies can better leverage the data in their RMS and CAD systems and better serve their communities. Specifically, I/Incident Analyst can be used to: Discern spatial patterns, thereby allowing better understanding of where incidents occur with abnormal frequency and correlate these locations with factors such as time, offense, and other statistics; Prioritize areas and the conditions experienced within them; Locate where tactics have been deployed and assess their positive or negative impact; Identify emerging hot areas and predict where problems may arise; and Discover areas at risk to a specific type of incident.

“Incident locations are human phenomena and therefore have an inherent spatial quality, so we developed I/Incident Analyst to provide public safety agencies and policy makers with a solution to assist in identifying and dealing with areas of concern,” stated Alice Dilbeck, vice president, Intergraph Public Safety & Government. “I/Incident Analyst gathers incident details recorded in the command and control environment or records management system and delivers information that can be employed in strategic and tactical assessment, pattern and risk analysis, and target profiling. This intelligence allows agencies to better manage their resource deployment by anticipating incident activity levels and responding to them in a more timely fashion.”

I/Incident Analyst will be available to Intergraph customers worldwide in December, 2006.

IBM Introduces New Storage Systems and Enhancements Targeting Small and Medium Businesses

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today boosted the scalability, capacity and performance of its ground-breaking IBM® System Storage™ DS4000 Series by introducing a new model -- the DS4200 Express -- as well as major enhancements across other models in the DS4000 family to support the storage needs of small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The new DS4200 Express and the enhanced DS4000 products will help clients more easily implement tiered data storage environments, while offering robust data protection and duplication features.

The DS4200 Express is designed to provide a low total cost of ownership (TCO), high performance, robust functionality and unmatched ease of use for SMBs and enterprise workgroups. New options and features are also available across a range of other products within the DS4000 Series product line, a family of scalable storage systems designed to accommodate the changing value of data over time, while helping maintain data availability.

"Today's announcement tackles one of the hottest segments of the storage marketplace with new systems, performance, and scalability for companies of all sizes," said Barry Rudolph, Vice President Storage Portfolio Management, Disk, and Software. "With the latest additions to the DS4000 series, clients can now find the solution they need with the right focus on reliability, capacity and price."

IBM SYSTEM STORAGE DS4200 EXPRESS

In a continuing drive to provide small- and medium-sized businesses with storage solutions that are designed to provide low TCO, high performance, robust functionality and unparalleled ease of use, IBM is introducing the IBM System Storage DS4200 Express Model storage server. The DS4200 Express is designed to offer powerful system-management, data-management and data-protection features, capability to expand from workgroup to enterprise-wide capability, and support for heterogeneous open operating systems.

Highlights of the DS4200 Express include:

-- High-performance 4 Gbps-capable Fibre Channel interface technology
replacement for the DS4100;
-- Up to 56 terabytes of physical Serial ATA (SATA) storage capacity;
-- Powerful system-management, data-management and data-protection
features;
-- Capability to expand from work-group- to enterprise-wide capability
with up to six Fibre Channel/SATA expansion units with the DS4000 EXP420;
-- Support for heterogeneous open operating systems.
ENHANCEMENTS TO IBM SYSTEM STORAGE DS4000 SERIES


With the addition of 500 GB SATA drives, the DS4700, DS4800 and EXP810 is suited for tiered data storage strategies such as near-line data backup, online transaction processing, data warehousing, e-commerce, content management, computer generated animation (CGA), medical imaging, and data acquisition.

Other highlights include:

-- End-to-end 4 Gbps-capable Fibre Channel interface technology on the DS4700 and DS4800 systems to help optimize performance;
-- A 16 drive EXP810 storage expansion unit, allowing for the addition of more drives for higher capacity;
-- Scalability up to 56 Terabytes (TB) of physical capacity on the DS4700 using six EXP810 Expansion Units with 500GB SATA disk drive modules (E-DDM);
-- Scalability up to 112TB of physical capacity on the DS4800 using 14 EXP810 Expansion Units with 500GB SATA disk drive modules (E-DDM);
-- Fibre Channel support and SATA disk drive expansion units for the DS4700 Express;
-- Support for IBM General Parallel File System (GPFS), Version 2.3 and Version 3.1 on DS4700 Express;
-- Support for VMware Infrastructure 3 on both the DS4700 and DS4800.
The new enhanced DS4200 Express Model, DS4700 Express Model, DS4800 Model, and DS4000 EXP810 Storage Expansion Unit offer clients increased storage capacity, connectivity, flexibility and versatility.


Robust Data Protection and Data Duplication

The new and upgraded IBM System Storage DS4000 products will be well suited for use with IBM DS4000 FlashCopy® Software, which is designed to help protect data. FlashCopy is designed to create point-in-time images of data volumes and is ideal for backup, restore, and checkpoint. Additionally, the new and enhanced DS4000 systems will be optimized for use with IBM DS4000 VolumeCopy Software. VolumeCopy is designed to replicate complete data volumes at a rate of up to eight concurrent active copies per source volume. This functionality is ideal for analysis, testing, data mining, and enhanced backup. VolumeCopy is also designed to enable clients to migrate data between tiers of storage.

For businesses that need scalable, highly available, high-performance systems for on demand computing environments and mission-critical applications, these new and enhanced midrange disk solutions from IBM are designed to provide high performance capability with 4 Gbps Fibre Channel technology.

Pricing and Availability

The new IBM System Storage DS4200 Express will be available on August 25, 2006, starting at a list price of $11,474.

The enhanced IBM System Storage DS4700, DS4800 and EXP810 upgrade are available immediately at no increase over current list prices for those products.

BORL: Borland’s Developer Tools Group Announces Plans to Rev Up Classic Turbo

Borland’s Turbo Pascal® Pioneered Early Software Development Tooling; New Turbo™ Products Offer a Fast and Easy Way to Develop Microsoft® Windows® and .NET Applications

Today, the Developer Tools Group of Borland Software Corporation (NASDAQ: BORL) announced plans to release single language versions of Borland Developer Studio, the company’s development environment for Microsoft® Windows® and .NET applications. Bringing back the popular Turbo™ moniker, the new Borland Turbo products offer low-cost, language-specific rapid application development capabilities for students, hobbyist developers, occupational developers as well as individual professionals.

The Turbo product set includes Turbo Delphi® for Win32, Turbo Delphi for .NET®, Turbo C++® and Turbo C#®. Each version will be available in two editions: Turbo Explorer, a free downloadable version, and Turbo Professional, a version priced less than $500 which is designed to accept thousands of available third-party tools, components and plug-ins. All Turbo editions enable developers to rapidly build high performance GUI, Database, Web, and Web Services applications for Microsoft Windows. Turbo Delphi for .NET and Turbo C# support the Microsoft .NET and ASP.NET platforms. More information is available at www.turboexplorer.com.

“Even a development novice, who hasn’t written a line of code, will find the Turbo editions extremely easy to use,” said David Intersimone, vice president of developer relations and chief evangelist at Borland. “The Turbo products enable simplified but feature-rich software development via a user-friendly development tool for building and delivering software applications. As the Developer Tools Group prepares to embark on a new and independent venture, solely committed to the creation and improvement of tools and technology for the individual software developer and teams of developers, the release of these products couldn’t come at a more exciting time for us.”

In 1983, Borland revolutionized software development with one of the first PC development environments, Turbo Pascal®, which helped make the commercial development of PC applications possible. The new products revive the popular Turbo brand and provide users with a simple but powerful development environment that combines quick and easy learning with rapid productivity gains.

“The brand is classic, but the technologies and capabilities in the new Turbo editions are leading edge,” said Michael Swindell, senior director of product management for the Borland Developer Tools Group. “There are three categories of user for the Turbo products: the student or individual who is learning programming, the individual professional or hobbyist programmer, and the non-programmer who has that great idea they’ve been wanting to bring alive. If the Turbo user’s requirements expand, they can seamlessly move into the Borland Developer Studio line.”

The Turbo brand already has the strong support of industry leaders who helped cultivate Borland’s original developer community. Zack Urlocker, now executive vice president for marketing and products at MySQL, and former product manager for Turbo Pascal and Delphi, explained the importance of today’s announcement, “The Turbo brand and more importantly, the focus on developer productivity, is just what the industry needs. Borland has been legendary in providing more than 20 years of software craftsmanship.”

Gene Wang was previously vice president of the languages business unit at Borland, and today he is chairman and CEO of Bitfone Corporation. “In the 90’s, Turbo Pascal and Turbo C++ brought the power of programming to everyone,” said Wang. “And now, Turbo power is back and ready to rev up the next generation of programmers to full productivity.”

Technology partner Raize Software provides innovative tools and components that integrate with Borland development platforms and products including the upcoming Turbo releases. “While the full-featured Developer Studio product is an excellent development environment, there are many developers that simply do not need all the frameworks and programming languages that are included,” said Ray Konopka, president of Raize Software. “Providing low cost, single language/frameworks, the new Turbo editions are a clear indicator that the Developer Tools Group is focused on all developers, not just those in large corporate development shops. Raize Software is committed to supporting the new Turbo editions with all of our developer tools.”

The free Turbo Explorer editions are fixed, all-in-one solutions which let programmers learn and develop in a single language and platform environment. The Turbo Professional editions are extensible and customizable with over 200 pre-built drag and drop components. With everything developers need to start Windows or .NET development, the Turbo Professional editions also provide an extendable environment to build-your-own integrated tools and components or purchase and install any of thousands of available compatible third-party components.

Pricing and Availability
Turbo Delphi, Turbo Delphi for .NET, Turbo C++ and Turbo C# will be generally available in the third quarter of 2006. The Turbo Explorer editions of these products will be free. Pricing for the Turbo Professional editions will be under $500. Student academic pricing for the Turbo Professional editions will be under $100. For more information, visit www.turboexplorer.com.

BORL: Borland’s Developer Tools Group Announces Plans to Rev Up Classic Turbo

Borland’s Turbo Pascal® Pioneered Early Software Development Tooling; New Turbo™ Products Offer a Fast and Easy Way to Develop Microsoft® Windows® and .NET Applications

Today, the Developer Tools Group of Borland Software Corporation (NASDAQ: BORL) announced plans to release single language versions of Borland Developer Studio, the company’s development environment for Microsoft® Windows® and .NET applications. Bringing back the popular Turbo™ moniker, the new Borland Turbo products offer low-cost, language-specific rapid application development capabilities for students, hobbyist developers, occupational developers as well as individual professionals.

The Turbo product set includes Turbo Delphi® for Win32, Turbo Delphi for .NET®, Turbo C++® and Turbo C#®. Each version will be available in two editions: Turbo Explorer, a free downloadable version, and Turbo Professional, a version priced less than $500 which is designed to accept thousands of available third-party tools, components and plug-ins. All Turbo editions enable developers to rapidly build high performance GUI, Database, Web, and Web Services applications for Microsoft Windows. Turbo Delphi for .NET and Turbo C# support the Microsoft .NET and ASP.NET platforms. More information is available at www.turboexplorer.com.

“Even a development novice, who hasn’t written a line of code, will find the Turbo editions extremely easy to use,” said David Intersimone, vice president of developer relations and chief evangelist at Borland. “The Turbo products enable simplified but feature-rich software development via a user-friendly development tool for building and delivering software applications. As the Developer Tools Group prepares to embark on a new and independent venture, solely committed to the creation and improvement of tools and technology for the individual software developer and teams of developers, the release of these products couldn’t come at a more exciting time for us.”

In 1983, Borland revolutionized software development with one of the first PC development environments, Turbo Pascal®, which helped make the commercial development of PC applications possible. The new products revive the popular Turbo brand and provide users with a simple but powerful development environment that combines quick and easy learning with rapid productivity gains.

“The brand is classic, but the technologies and capabilities in the new Turbo editions are leading edge,” said Michael Swindell, senior director of product management for the Borland Developer Tools Group. “There are three categories of user for the Turbo products: the student or individual who is learning programming, the individual professional or hobbyist programmer, and the non-programmer who has that great idea they’ve been wanting to bring alive. If the Turbo user’s requirements expand, they can seamlessly move into the Borland Developer Studio line.”

The Turbo brand already has the strong support of industry leaders who helped cultivate Borland’s original developer community. Zack Urlocker, now executive vice president for marketing and products at MySQL, and former product manager for Turbo Pascal and Delphi, explained the importance of today’s announcement, “The Turbo brand and more importantly, the focus on developer productivity, is just what the industry needs. Borland has been legendary in providing more than 20 years of software craftsmanship.”

Gene Wang was previously vice president of the languages business unit at Borland, and today he is chairman and CEO of Bitfone Corporation. “In the 90’s, Turbo Pascal and Turbo C++ brought the power of programming to everyone,” said Wang. “And now, Turbo power is back and ready to rev up the next generation of programmers to full productivity.”

Technology partner Raize Software provides innovative tools and components that integrate with Borland development platforms and products including the upcoming Turbo releases. “While the full-featured Developer Studio product is an excellent development environment, there are many developers that simply do not need all the frameworks and programming languages that are included,” said Ray Konopka, president of Raize Software. “Providing low cost, single language/frameworks, the new Turbo editions are a clear indicator that the Developer Tools Group is focused on all developers, not just those in large corporate development shops. Raize Software is committed to supporting the new Turbo editions with all of our developer tools.”

The free Turbo Explorer editions are fixed, all-in-one solutions which let programmers learn and develop in a single language and platform environment. The Turbo Professional editions are extensible and customizable with over 200 pre-built drag and drop components. With everything developers need to start Windows or .NET development, the Turbo Professional editions also provide an extendable environment to build-your-own integrated tools and components or purchase and install any of thousands of available compatible third-party components.

Pricing and Availability
Turbo Delphi, Turbo Delphi for .NET, Turbo C++ and Turbo C# will be generally available in the third quarter of 2006. The Turbo Explorer editions of these products will be free. Pricing for the Turbo Professional editions will be under $500. Student academic pricing for the Turbo Professional editions will be under $100. For more information, visit www.turboexplorer.com.

MSFT: Microsoft announces Office Communications Server with speech platform services; demonstrates Speech Recognition for Windows Vista.

Microsoft Corp. announced that the full capabilities of Microsoft® Speech Server 2007 will be integrated into Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, extending the company’s commitment to unified communications and breaking down today’s silos of instant messaging, Internet Protocol telephony, voice response, audioconferencing and videoconferencing. At the show Microsoft also demonstrated Windows® Speech Recognition, which will be available in Windows Vista™ in eight languages, marking the first time a Microsoft Windows operating system will include speech recognition technologies, so the user can issue commands and dictate text in applications.

Microsoft announced Office Communications Server 2007 earlier this summer as a key component of the company’s unified communications road map. Office Communications Server 2007 is a real-time communications hub, enabling people to connect to colleagues and information quickly and easily within familiar applications, devices and networks. The addition of speech capabilities gives developers the opportunity to create new and powerful communications applications or extend existing applications using an integrated set of application programming interfaces (API) and by extending existing applications for Office Communications Server 2007, enabling new revenue streams for their businesses.

“Today, the Speech Server platform is trusted by a number of major Microsoft customers to successfully answer millions of customer calls,” said Anoop Gupta, corporate vice president of the Unified Communications Group at Microsoft. “The integration of this proven, reliable technology into Office Communications Server further demonstrates Microsoft’s commitment to providing our customers and partners with a truly unified communications solution and platform.”

Expanding Scenarios for Unified Communications

Using the new integrated APIs in Office Communications Server 2007, Microsoft today demonstrated how a unified communications solution can bridge communication methods such as instant messaging and phone calls through spoken commands and presence capabilities. The demonstrations included the use of an intelligent agent to help a caller locate and communicate with a person based on previously defined preferred methods, such as e-mail or instant messaging. A second demonstration showed an instant messaging conversation taking place with one person speaking and the other typing. The spoken words were translated to text and the typed words were converted to speech, creating a seamless communications experience for both parties. Other solutions demonstrated include presence-aware help desks, integrated contact center solutions, and multimodal applications that can be accessed from a variety of clients.

“The addition of speech technology to Office Communications Server gives us a more extensive set of capabilities on which to build compelling unified communications solutions for our customers,” said Ruchi Prasad, vice president of Global Enterprise Marketing for Nortel. “Through our Innovative Communications Alliance, with Microsoft, we have the ability to bring new and unique capabilities to communications applications with Microsoft’s speech engine technology integrated with Nortel’s own industry-leading IVR and contact center solutions.”

Introducing Windows Speech Recognition

Also being shown this week at SpeechTEK are demos of the upcoming release of Windows Speech Recognition, which is designed for users who want to significantly limit the use of mouse and keyboard while maintaining or increasing their overall productivity. The new speech technologies in Windows Vista, which will be available in eight languages, enable users to interact with their computer by voice, and dictate documents and e-mail messages in mainstream applications, fill forms on the Web, and command applications and the operating system. Users are empowered from the beginning through a new interactive training tutorial that will familiarize them with the voice commands, while simultaneously optimizing the system for their voice. Microsoft has expanded the number of Speech Recognition languages it will ship with Windows Vista. In addition to U.S. English, Windows Vista will also support U.K. English, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, Japanese, German, French and Spanish.

Continuing Support for Speech Server

With the integration of Speech Server 2007 into Communications Server 2007, current Speech Server customers will be fully supported by Microsoft until 2014, and Speech Server 2004 R2 will remain on the Microsoft price list until the end of 2007. In addition, current Speech Server customers who want to leverage these new capabilities will be able to migrate to Communications Server 2007 when it ships next year.

More information about Microsoft’s Unified Communications Group can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/uc. Additional information about Speech Recognition in Windows Vista is available at http://www.microsoft.com/vista.

AAPL: Columbia Records & Apple Offer Exclusive Digital Pre-Order of Bob Dylan’s New Album Modern Times

Columbia Records and Apple® today announced that the new album “Modern Times” from Bob Dylan will be offered through an exclusive pre-order on the iTunes® Music Store (www.itunes.com). Beginning today, iTunes customers who pre-order “Modern Times” from iTunes for $13.99 will also be offered the opportunity to participate in an exclusive Ticketmaster pre-sale for concert tickets to select dates on Bob Dylan’s upcoming fall tour. Apple has also created an exclusive Bob Dylan digital box set, entitled “The Collection,” that includes all of Bob Dylan’s albums with nearly 800 tracks spanning his career. The Bob Dylan digital box set will be available for purchase and download with just one click for $199, exclusively from iTunes beginning August 29.

“We’re excited to offer Bob Dylan fans this dynamic package through iTunes,” said Steve Barnett, chairman of Columbia Records. “Dylan fans are going to be really excited to have the opportunity to pre-order the new album and have access to concert tickets before they go on sale to the public.”

“Bob Dylan is one of the most respected poets and musicians of our time, and he is a personal hero of mine,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Being able to offer his new album and the exclusive box set of his works on iTunes is a real thrill for us.”

“Modern Times,” set for release on August 29, has already been heralded by critics as, “Epic. Heartbreaking. Dynamic. Apocalyptic,” and “Another classic from the revitalized master.” The iTunes special edition of “Modern Times” includes five Bob Dylan videos: “Cold Irons Bound” (shot live on the film soundstage during the making of “Masked & Anonymous”), “Blood In My Eyes,” “Things Have Changed,” “Love Sick” (from the 1998 Grammy Awards), and the iTunes exclusive “Jokerman.” The iTunes exclusive Bob Dylan digital box set entitled “The Collection” includes every song from each of his studio albums and “The Bootleg Series” releases, plus 42 rarities. Also included with “The Collection” is a special digital booklet featuring liner notes from Grammy Award-winning writer, Tom Piazza.

Beginning today, customers can pre-order a copy of Bob Dylan’s new album “Modern Times” for $13.99 to be downloaded on August 29 when it is released. Bob Dylan fans who pre-order “Modern Times” on iTunes will receive an email with a code that they can use at Ticketmaster.com starting August 30 for an opportunity to participate in a pre-sale to purchase concert tickets before they go on sale to the general public on September 9. Further information about the digital download concert ticket pre-sale is available on Bob Dylan’s official website at www.bobdylan.com, at www.ticketmaster.com/bobdylan and at www.itunes.com.

With Apple’s legendary ease of use, pioneering features such as integrated video and podcasting support, iMix playlist sharing, seamless integration with iPod® and groundbreaking personal use rights, the iTunes Music Store is the best way for Mac® and PC users to legally discover, purchase and download music and videos online. The iTunes Music Store features a selection of over 9,000 music videos, Pixar and Disney short films, a variety of hit TV shows, and more than three million songs from the major music companies and over 1,000 independent labels.

Pricing and Availability
iTunes 6 for Mac and Windows includes the iTunes Music Store and is available as a free download from www.apple.com/itunes. Purchase and download of songs and videos from the iTunes Music Store requires a valid credit card with a billing address in the country of purchase. Television shows are available in the US only, and video availability varies by country. Television shows are $1.99 (US) per episode, and music videos and short films are $1.99 (US) each.

ORCL: Dendreon Corporation Implements Oracle E-Business Suite Applications to Manage Corporate and Clinical Information

Oracle Applications Help Biotechnology Company Ensure Patient Privacy and Manage Regulatory Compliance

Oracle today announced that Dendreon Corporation (Nasdaq: DNDN), a Seattle-based biotechnology company that develops innovative therapeutics that harness the immune system to fight cancer, has implemented the Oracle(r) E-Business Suite to help it manage the manufacture and distribution of patient-specific cancer treatments in its clinical trials, document regulatory compliance and ensure the security of patient data.
Dendreon selected applications from the Oracle E-Business Suite, including Oracle Order Management, Oracle Process Manufacturing and Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning, to streamline logistics and manufacturing processes and help ensure that its active immunotherapy product candidate, PROVENGE(r) (sipuleucel-T), is processed efficiently and cost effectively. PROVENGE is a first-in-class product currently under investigation that is designed to use the patient's own immune system to fight cancer. Dendreon plans to submit an application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration later this year to obtain approval to market PROVENGE.

"In planning our commercial strategy, we recognized the need to automate to meet our expanding business and regulatory requirements. Oracle understands our business and the intricacies of the biotech industry - making it the clear choice over other vendors," said Linda Staley, Dendreon Corporation's Vice President of Information Technology. "With Oracle applications, we can support our clinical processes and prepare for future anticipated commercial needs, providing us with the ability to reliably introduce our innovative products."

It is important that Dendreon know exactly where each patient-specific treatment is in the supply chain at any given time to ensure quality and prompt delivery. Oracle E-Business Suite enables such visibility.

The Oracle system has the ability to document the entire procurement, manufacturing and distribution process, providing important data required for compliance with U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) regulations. It will help Dendreon secure patient privacy and enable creation of a secure chain from order placement through manufacturing to patient billing.

Dendreon has also implemented Oracle Financials and Oracle iProcurement to create an integrated and secure financial management system that enables real-time visibility of critical business data and automated purchasing processes.

INGR: Pictometry and Intergraph form Marketing Alliance

Leading Technologies Enable 9-1-1 Centers to Link Oblique Aerial Imagery and Measuring Software with Emergency Incident Management Solution

Pictometry International Corp., the worldwide leader in digital, aerial oblique imagery and measuring software systems, and Intergraph Corporation (NASDAQ: INGR) a leading global provider of Spatial Information Management (SIM) software, today announced a marketing alliance. The two firms will provide integration solutions to their mutual customers whereby Pictometry’s aerial imaging and measuring technology can be accessed via Intergraph’s emergency incident management solution.

Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs), also known as 9-1-1 call centers, are tasked with ensuring fast and accurate responses to calls for service. Intergraph’s emergency incident management solution serves as the core of the decision support process for 9-1-1 centers, seamlessly utilizing an interactive, real-time map display of caller locations, dispatching, records and information management, remote access, and mobile data. Pictometry’s software enables users to easily access up to 12 different oblique (at an angle, 3D-like) views of any property, building, highway, or other feature. The software also helps users obtain measurements such as distance, height, elevation, and area directly from the oblique imagery. The combined solution gives 9-1-1 dispatchers a better understanding of situations in progress as well as enabling them to provide additional data to first responders en route. Intergraph and Pictometry have recently integrated their products into the 9-1-1 communication center serving Howard County, Md.

"I am very excited to have Pictometry along with Intergraph in our 911 center," said Howard County PSAP Director Lt. Glenn Case. "Our dispatchers recently used this combined solution to quickly guide police officers to a burglary scene where a suspect was apprehended. It's great and I'm looking forward to many more success stories regarding this technology as we use it more."

”As city and county governments modernize their emergency response technologies, they will seek out comprehensive solutions to best serve their communities,” said Alice Dilbeck, vice president and general manager, Intergraph Public Safety. “By uniting Intergraph’s emergency incident management solution with Pictometry’s imaging and measuring software, emergency responders will be better equipped to respond to and prevent critical incidents.”

"Having instant access to vital information is crucial in 9-1-1 situations," said Pictometry Chief Marketing Officer Dante Pennacchia. "The value of Pictometry’s day-time, high-resolution views linked with Intergraph’s emergency incident management technology provides the industry with a powerful solution for improving public safety service to their communities.”

Both companies will be demonstrating their public safety technologies at that 2006 APCO (Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International, Inc.) International Conference from August 7-9, 2006 in Orlando Fla. Intergraph will be exhibiting in booth number 1043 and Pictometry will be in booth number 1213.

AGIL: Cimmetry is first-to-market with support for AutoCAD 2007

Cimmetry Systems Corporation, an Agile Software company, today announced the availability of 2D and 3D native document visualization for AutoCAD 2007, Mechanical Desktop 2007, Inventor 11, and Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 3.0. Native document viewing enables customers, suppliers, and partners to instantly and reliably view original documents without undergoing costly and error prone file conversions.


Service Pack 1 for AutoVue 19.1 (Windows) is immediately available to AutoVue customers currently under maintenance. With the release of SP1, Cimmetry continues its commitment to delivering rapid support for the latest versions of major CAD systems.


AutoVue can be purchased from Cimmetry or through a global network of Value Added Resellers.

DELL: Dell, Discovery Education Form Exclusive Educational Partnership

Have you ever wondered why volcanoes erupt, wanted to learn about the behavior of great white sharks or want to know how the planets formed? Dell and Discovery Education are joining forces to help consumers find the answers to these questions, and so many more, through a new partnership to distribute COSMEO.

The companies today announced an exclusive partnership in which Dell customers will receive a special offer to subscribe to COSMEO, Discovery Education’s comprehensive broadband learning and homework help for kids and families. As part of this partnership, Dell customers can purchase a one-year $99 membership or receive a free 30-day trial to Discovery’s interactive content when they configure Inspiron notebook or Dimension desktop computers at www.dell.com or by phone with a Dell sales agent. With a one-year membership, Dell customers will also receive two free DVD’s from Discovery with exclusive content.

"The information Discovery has, and the way it’s divided between all classroom levels and by curriculum for each state, is astounding," said Rocky Mountain, vice president and general manager of Dell’s consumer business. "This is the beginning of a broader relationship with Discovery to provide customers incredible content with their customized computer system."

"We’re getting a glimpse of how our students will learn in the future," Mr. Mountain added.

The content Discovery Education provides through COSMEO is highlighted by more than 30,000 educational video segments, 60,000 encyclopedia articles, 20,000 images and clip art images, hundreds of interactive "brain games," online reference materials and more. The service offers content for kindergarteners to 12th graders and is correlated to state curriculum standards allowing parents and students can easily reference video clips and other learning tools specific to their individual needs.

"This partnership is an exciting first step in Discovery Education's relationship with Dell," said Melanie Bowen, executive vice president, Discovery Education. "The pairing of Cosmeo's unique broadband educational content and Dell's state-of-the-art technology demonstrates how each company can provide powerful and innovative resources to consumers."

More information on the offer can be found at www.dell.com/discovery.

AAPL: Apple Unveils New Mac Pro Featuring Quad 64-bit Xeon Processors

Apple Unveils New Mac Pro Featuring Quad 64-bit Xeon Processors
New Mac Pro Completes Apple’s Intel Transition

Apple® today unveiled the new Mac® Pro, a quad Xeon, 64-bit desktop workstation featuring two new Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors running up to 3.0 GHz and a new system architecture that delivers up to twice the performance of the Power Mac® G5 Quad*. With advanced performance, greater expansion, higher performance graphics options and unprecedented customization, the newly designed Mac Pro is the ideal system for the most demanding user. The introduction of the Mac Pro marks the completion of a rapid and seamless transition for Apple, with the entire Mac family now using Intel’s latest processors.

“Apple has successfully completed the transition to using Intel processors in just seven months—210 days to be exact,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “And what better product to complete it with than the new Mac Pro, the workstation Mac users have been dreaming about.”

The new Mac Pro features the new Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5100 series processor based on the revolutionary Intel Core microarchitecture, delivering breakthrough performance and power efficiency. The new Mac Pro is up to twice as fast as the Power Mac G5 Quad running industry standard benchmarks and features two Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors running up to 3.0 GHz, each with 4MB of shared L2 cache and independent 1.33 GHz front-side buses. With 667 MHz DDR2 fully-buffered memory, the Mac Pro also boasts a 256-bit wide memory architecture for amazing bandwidth.

With more than 4.9 million possible configurations, the Mac Pro delivers unprecedented customization to meet even the most demanding performance, expansion and storage needs. The newly redesigned Mac Pro features an all new, direct attach storage solution for cable free, snap in installation of up to four 500GB Serial ATA hard drives for a total of 2TB of internal storage—the most ever on a Mac—and support for two optical drives to simultaneously read and/or write to CDs and DVDs. Every Mac Pro includes three full-length PCI Express expansion slots and one double-wide PCI Express graphics slot to support high-powered, double-wide graphics cards without sacrificing multiple slots. Providing quick and convenient access to connect the most popular external devices, the front panel of the Mac Pro includes a FireWire® 800 port, a FireWire 400 port and two USB 2.0 ports with additional FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and three USB 2.0 ports on the back panel. Mac Pro also includes dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, optical digital input and output, analog audio input and output, and optional built-in support for AirPort® Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR.

Every Mac Pro comes standard with the NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT with 256MB of video memory, providing built-in support for dual-displays and Apple’s 30-inch Cinema HD Display. The ATI Radeon X1900 XT and the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500, both with 512MB of video memory, are available as build to order options and provide built-in support for up to two 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays. The Quadro FX 4500 also includes a stereo 3D port to connect goggles for stereo-in-a-window applications and is ideal for the most demanding animation, special effects and scientific visualization applications. The Mac Pro supports up to four PCI Express graphics cards to drive up to eight displays at once for advanced visualization and large display walls.

The latest release of the world’s most advanced operating system, Mac OS® X version 10.4.7 Tiger, comes with every new Mac Pro, including Safari™, Mail, iCal® and iChat AV, running natively. Tiger includes an innovative software translation technology called Rosetta® that lets customers run most Mac OS X PowerPC applications seamlessly.** Intel-based Mac customers have more than 3,000 Universal applications to choose from including all of Apple’s own consumer and professional applications. Universal Mac software includes versions of Xsan®, a high performance, enterprise class Storage Area Network (SAN) file system and Mac OS X Server, Apple’s award-winning server operating system. An updated list of Universal applications for Mac OS X is available at guide.apple.com/universal and is growing each day with hundreds of developers announcing support for Mac OS X Intel-based applications.

Apple’s award-winning widescreen flat panel Cinema Displays offer the perfect match for the Mac Pro and are now more affordable than ever. The 30-inch Cinema HD Display with an industry-leading 2560-by-1600 pixel resolution and the 23-inch Cinema HD Display with a 1920-by-1200 pixel resolution, ideal for editing High Definition Television (HDTV) content, are now priced at $1,999 and $999, respectively. The 20-inch Cinema Display is now just $699 and offers a 1680-by-1050 pixel resolution, more than enough space to edit full size images with plenty of room for on-screen palettes.

Pricing & Availability
The Mac Pro is shipping today with the standard prebuilt configuration, including two 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors and priced at $2,499 (US), through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. The 20-inch Cinema Display, 23-inch Cinema HD Display and the 30-inch Cinema HD Display are available through the Apple Store (www.apple.com), at Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $699 (US), $999 (US) and $1,999 (US), respectively.

The Mac Pro, with a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:

two 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors;
1GB of 667 MHz DDR2 fully-buffered ECC memory expandable up to 16GB;
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT with 256MB of GDDR2 SDRAM;
250GB Serial ATA (3Gb/s) hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
16x SuperDrive™ with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
four PCI Express slots: one double-wide graphics slot and three full-length expansion slots; and
ships with Mighty Mouse and Apple Keyboard.

In addition to the standard configuration, the Mac Pro offers more than 4.9 million build-to-order options including: two 2.0 GHz or 3.0 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors; up to 16GB of 667 MHz DDR2 fully-buffered ECC memory; up to four 500GB Serial ATA hard drives running at 7200 rpm; up to two 16x SuperDrives with double-layer support; ATI Radeon X1900 XT and NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 graphics cards, both with 512MB of GDDR3 SDRAM; AirPort Extreme module, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR module; Apple USB Modem; Apple Wireless Keyboard and Apple wireless Mighty Mouse; Mac OS X Server Tiger; Apple Xsan; and Apple Fibre Channel PCI Express Card. Complete build-to-order options and pricing are available at www.apple.com/macpro.

*Based on estimated results of industry-standard SPECint and SPECfp rate tests. SPEC is a registered trademark of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC); see www.apple.com/macpro for more information.

**See www.apple.com/rosetta/ for information on Rosetta supported Apple software. Contact the manufacturer directly for third party software.

AAPL: Apple Introduces Xserve with Quad 64-bit Xeon Processors

Apple Introduces Xserve with Quad 64-bit Xeon Processors
New Xserve is Over Five Times Faster Than its Predecessor
Apple® today announced the new Xserve®, a quad Xeon, 64-bit server featuring Mac OS® X Server Tiger on two Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors running up to 3.0 GHz, resulting in performance that is over five times that of its predecessor.* With an industry-leading high bandwidth server architecture that includes PCI Express, independent 1.33 GHz front side buses with 4MB of shared L2 cache, and fully-buffered DIMMs (FB-DIMMs), the new Xserve delivers up to four times the I/O bandwidth, up to three times the memory bandwidth and twice the storage bandwidth of the Xserve G5. The new Xserve is Apple’s most customizable server yet with dozens of options, including faster processors, larger hard drives and dual power supplies. With over one million possible build to order configurations, the Intel-based Xserve delivers unbeatable flexibility, manageability and price performance that make it ideal for everything from creative workgroups to scientific computing.

“Xserve has always been the perfect server for Mac workgroups and now it will run over five times faster for the same breakthrough price,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With new Intel processors, a redesigned hardware architecture, and an unlimited Tiger Server client access license, no one can offer better price performance and manageability in a 1U server.”

Configurable with two Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors running either 2.0, 2.66 or 3.0 GHz, the new Xserve supports up to 32GB of 667 MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM memory with twice the capacity and three times the bandwidth of the Xserve G5. Two eight-lane PCI Express expansion slots provide up to 2GB/s of throughput each to support the next generation of fibre channel, networking and graphics cards. Apple delivers industry-leading storage flexibility with support for up to three 3Gb/s SATA or SAS drives that can achieve an unrivaled 2.25TB of hot-plug storage in a 1U server while advanced thermal management capabilities take advantage of the low power of the Intel processors, running as low as 65W.

Apple has made the system even easier to manage with quick deployment rails for rack mounting, a new lights out management system that lets administrators control the hardware from a remote location and by including Apple’s Server Monitor software and Remote Desktop agent.

The new Xserve ships with internal graphics that can drive up to a 23 inch Cinema Display as well as industry standard VGA devices and offers an ATI Radeon X1300 256MB PCI Express graphics card for professional graphics and video applications as a build to order option.

The Intel-based Xserve will be the first system to ship with a preinstalled unlimited client edition of Tiger Server software that is optimized to run on Intel-based systems. Tiger Server integrates over 100 leading open source projects and standards-based software applications with easy-to-use management tools that make it easy to deploy for Mac®, Windows and Linux clients.

Apple offers a choice of world-class services and support programs for Xserve including AppleCare Premium Service that offers four-hour on-site response and 24x7 technical support. For self servicing customers, Apple offers complete Service Parts Kits to address the majority of potential field problems.

Pricing & Availability
The new Xserve is scheduled to be available in October 2006 through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com) and Apple Authorized Resellers. The Xserve base configuration includes two 2.0 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors with 1GB of 667 MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM RAM, a single 80GB 3Gb/s SATA Apple Drive Module, dual Gigabit Ethernet on-board, internal graphics, three FireWire® 800 and two USB 2.0 ports, and an unlimited client license of Mac OS X Server version 10.4 Tiger for a suggested retail price of $2,999. Build to order options and accessories include dual 2.66 or 3.0 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors; up to 32GB of 667 MHz FB-DIMM RAM; 80GB and 750GB 7200 rpm 3Gb/s SATA or 73GB and 300GB 15,000 rpm SAS Apple Drive Modules; ATI Radeon X1300 graphics card with 256MB SDRAM; Combo or SuperDrive™; and 650W redundant power supply.

*Based on estimated results of industry-standard SPECint rate tests. SPEC® is a registered trademark of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC)

AAPL: Apple Previews Mac OS X Leopard

Apple Previews Mac OS X Leopard
Time Machine, Spaces, Plus Enhanced Mail & iChat Extend Apple’s Leadership in Software Innovation

Apple® today previewed Mac OS® X version 10.5 Leopard, the sixth major version of Mac OS X, to its third party developers. Leopard, scheduled to ship in spring 2007, extends Apple’s leadership in software innovation with groundbreaking new features, including Time Machine, a revolutionary new way to automatically back up and restore everything on your Mac®, and Spaces, an entirely new way to instantly switch between groups of applications required for various tasks. Leopard also includes industry-first advancements in Mail and iChat, including Stationery, Notes and To Dos in Mail; and Photo Booth™-style effects, the ability to “place” yourself in any photo or video as the backdrop for your chat, and live presentations of iPhoto® slideshows, Keynote™ presentations and videos in iChat.

“Breakthrough features like Time Machine and Spaces are good examples of how Mac OS X leads the industry in operating system innovation,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “While Microsoft tries to copy the version of OS X we shipped a few years ago, we’re leaping ahead again with Leopard.”

With its unique ability to let users travel back in time to find deleted files, applications, photos or other digital media, Time Machine is a revolutionary way to protect a consumer’s digital life. Time Machine automatically backs up everything on the Mac to an external hard drive or Mac OS X Server. In the event a file is lost, users can search back through time using an intuitive time-based visual display to find and then instantly restore the file. With one click, Time Machine can restore anything from a single file or photo to everything on a Mac.

Spaces is an intuitive new way to group applications required for a given task into a “space,” then instantly switch between different spaces to bring up the specific applications required for that given task. Users can get a bird’s eye view of all their Spaces and choose where they want to go next with just one keystroke or click of a mouse.

With Leopard’s iChat, Apple takes communicating with friends, family and colleagues to an entirely new level. iChat now makes video chats more fun with the ability to use Photo Booth effects and put images and videos in the background. iChat Screen Sharing enables users to share their desktops with others to work together in real time on an activity, such as editing an iPhoto book, or helping a buddy get the most out of their Mac. With iChat Theater, users can share an iPhoto slide show, a QuickTime® movie or a Keynote presentation within an iChat window.

Leopard’s Mail includes breakthrough new features that have never been seen before in a Mail application. Mail Stationery includes more than 30 customizable stationery designs to create stunning emails enriched with beautiful photos and graphics. Templates include photo collections, invitations, birthday cards and other greetings that look great when received on either a Mac or a PC. With Mail Notes, users can quickly jot down thoughts and ideas, add graphics and attachments and use the familiar Mail application to manage them like an email message. In addition, To Dos can be created from any email message or note and viewed in iCal® or sent to friends and colleagues. RSS news feeds now appear in Mail, allowing users to receive news in their inboxes, receive notifications when new stories appear and use Smart Mailboxes to organize news about the same topic in one place.

Additional features in Leopard include:

full native 64-bit support that allows applications to take complete advantage of 64-bit processing while maintaining full performance and compatibility for existing 32-bit Mac OS X applications and drivers;
enhancements to Boot Camp, Apple’s innovative technology that was previewed as a public beta in April 2006, making it possible to run Windows natively on Intel-based Macs;
Front Row™, now available with all new Macs to play back digital content, including video Podcasts using the simple Apple remote*;
Photo Booth, Apple’s fun-to-use application that lets users take quick snapshots with an iSight™ video camera, add entertaining visual effects with the touch of a button, and share them via email;
iCal 3 with group calendaring capabilities, event drop box, and standards-based CalDAV support;
improved Spotlight™ searching that’s even faster, provides richer previews, and lets users search across network mounted folders on other machines;
a new Movies Dashboard widget for movie times and Web Clip for clipping any part of a web page as a live widget;
new parental controls including curfews, time limits and remote administration;
Core Animation, a new graphics technology that makes it easy to create stunning visual effects and animations;
major enhancements in Universal Access, including improvements in VoiceOver, Apple’s built-in screen reader;
security enhancements including anti-phishing protection in Mail and Safari™, and an automatic firewall that limits network resources available to an application; and
new development tools, including Xcode® 3 with full 64-bit support, DashCode™, an easy way to create new Dashboard widgets without writing a line of code, and Xray, for optimizing application performance.

*Apple Remote sold separately.

AAPL: Apple Previews Mac OS X Server Leopard

Apple today previewed Mac OS® X Server version 10.5 Leopard, the next major release of Apple’s award-winning UNIX® server operating system. Leopard Server, scheduled to ship in spring 2007, builds on Apple’s legendary ease of use with new Server Assistant and Server Preference features that make it easy for even non-technical users to setup and manage a server with just a few clicks of a mouse. For the first time, Apple is delivering native 64-bit server applications that take advantage of the increased processing power of 64-bit computing. Other new features include iCal® Server, the easiest way to share calendars, schedule meetings and plan events; a wiki server that makes it simple for teams to share and communicate; Spotlight™ Server, the fastest way to find content on servers; and Podcast Producer, the ideal way to automate Podcast production.

“Leopard Server brings a new level of 64-bit power together with Apple’s legendary ease of use in one server operating system,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Leopard Server is our best Mac OS X Server release yet and includes many new innovative features, such as iCal Server, a wiki server and Spotlight Server, making it ideal for education, small businesses and large enterprises alike, and a great alternative to Windows and Linux servers.”

Leopard Server enables small businesses and workgroups to take full advantage of the benefits of a server without an IT department. Leopard Server features a new setup interface with built-in Network Health Check, a new Server Preferences administration interface and automatic client setup support that automatically configures Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard clients to use the server for all essential services, including file and printer sharing, Mail, iCal, iChat, Address Book and backup.

The core services in Leopard Server, including Apache 2, MySQL 5, Postfix, Cyrus, iChat Server and QuickTime® Streaming Server, are now 64-bit, allowing users to take full advantage of their 64-bit hardware’s performance and processing power, and to work with larger data sets. Since Leopard Server is fully 32-bit compatible, users can run 32-bit and 64-bit applications natively side-by-side.

For the first time, Mac OS X Server will include a calendar server for users and groups to coordinate events, schedule meetings, reserve resources and use time more effectively. iCal Server uses the open CalDAV standard for integration with leading calendar programs, including iCal 3 in Leopard, Mozilla’s Sunbird, OSAF’s Chandler and Microsoft Outlook. Leopard Server also includes a wiki server to make it easy for teams to create and share information through their own shared website and provides web-based access to shared resources such as team calendars, weblogs and Podcasts. Spotlight Server is the fastest way to search and find content on servers within a network. Designed for workgroups with shared documents, projects and file archives, Spotlight Server works with Leopard clients to deliver quick, lightning fast searches of content stored on mounted volumes across the entire network.

With Podcast Producer, anyone can record content, automatically upload it to the server and convert it into a Podcast. Using Xgrid®, Podcast Producer can leverage any Mac® on the network to encode the video. The Podcast can then be delivered over the Internet or even to multimedia enabled cell phones over high speed wireless networks using QuickTime Streaming Server.

Other new features in Leopard Server include:

Mail Clustering for higher availability and reliability when used with Xsan®, Apple’s clustered file system for storage area networks*;
iChat Server 2 with instant message federation that lets users communicate with GoogleTalk and other XMPP instant messaging systems;
QuickTime Streaming Server 6 with support for 3GPP Release 6 bit rate adaptation for smooth streaming when delivering content to mobile phones regardless of network congestion;
new Adaptive Firewall technology to actively monitor for attacks and proactively block individual hosts from connecting to the server; and
Xgrid 2 featuring GridAnywhere for distributed computing in environments without dedicated controllers, and Scoreboard for prioritizing job distribution to the fastest available CPU.

*Xsan sold separately.

BOBJ: Business Objects Crystal Vision Server XI Named One of VARBusiness Magazine's Midmarket Products of the Year

Business Objects (Nasdaq: BOBJ; Euronext Paris ISIN code: FR0004026250 - BOB), the world's leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced that Crystal Vision Server XI has been named a Midmarket Product of the Year by CMP Media's VARBusiness magazine. Crystal Vision Server XI, a web-based reporting and data visualization solution, is featured and profiled in the special August 7, VARBusiness "Best of the Midmarket" issue.

VARBusiness solicited input from information technology (IT) vendors and solution providers to determine which products and services were best for mid-market customers - companies with between 100 and 999 employees. Entries were considered and reviewed by VARBusiness editors who selected only 45 of the more than 350 nominated products.

"Our readers tell us that the middle market is one of the fastest-growing IT categories today," said VARBusiness Publisher Robert C. DeMarzo. "Crystal Vision Server XI from Business Objects is one product that best meets that unique segment's needs."

Crystal Vision Server XI gives small to medium-sized companies everything they need to create sophisticated business reports and dashboards, and easily deliver and manage them via Microsoft Office and the Web. Crystal Vision Server XI includes Crystal Reports® Server XI, Crystal Xcelsius™ 4.5, and Crystal Live Office.

"We're pleased to see Crystal Vision Server XI get the recognition it deserves as one of the top mid-market products of the year," said John Woodburn, president of Woodburn Group. "The commitment Business Objects shows to this market is one of the reasons our partnership has been so fruitful. Their emphasis on serving small and medium-sized companies allows us to better focus on providing best in class BI solutions and services to our customers."

"With a network of more than 6,000 partners and resellers, and a set of business intelligence solutions tailored for small and medium businesses, Business Objects is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the growth of business intelligence in the mid market," said Todd Rowe, vice-president of mid-market business at Business Objects. "This recognition from VARBusiness is further proof that Business Objects understands the unique needs of small to medium-sized companies. Our focus and leadership in this segment of the market is a key reason that so many customers and partners choose to work with Business Objects solutions every day to improve the performance of their business."

SUNW: Barnyard Uses Sun Technology for Groundbreaking Computer-Generated Animation

Nickelodeon Movies' computer-animated movie "Barnyard," distributed by Paramount Pictures, which hit theaters nationwide Friday, features complex computer-generated animation that required unique and creative solutions from Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW). The film is Nickelodeon's most challenging animated film to date – featuring vast landscapes with vivid details, realistic shading and lighting, and scenes that incorporate more than 200 characters that move with surprising fluidity – the complex data requires more time-intensive computing. Leveraging a rendering farm based on Sun Fire servers and Sun StorageTek data management systems, "Barnyard's" artists were able to quickly identify incomplete scenes, make necessary edits, and manage finished shots. The complex scenes were executed using high-performance 64-bit computing solutions from Sun that revolutionized how computer-generated imagery (CGI) is created and managed.


"With a state-of-the-art computer-animated movie like 'Barnyard,' a seamless interaction between the technology and artist is essential to make the characters come to life," said executive producer Aaron Parry. "Sun raised the bar by providing the only solutions that met this challenge and exceeded business expectations."

"We were thrilled that Sun was able to come up with a solution for us," said executive producer Julia Pistor. "Steve Oedekerk had some very specific and complex ideas that he wanted to see up on the screen and Sun was integral in helping Steve and his team realize them."

Sun provided a 620-node server farm and storage solution that was crucial in the completion of the complex animation required. The solution is based on Sun Fire x64 enterprise servers powered by AMD Opteron processors with Direct Connect Architecture, and 100-terabyte Sun StorageTek 3510 and 3511 FC arrays and a Sun StorageTek tape library for online storage and backup of shot files and other movie assets. Sun Customer Ready Systems helped migrate the production from its previous 32-bit render farm, and then configured, assembled and tested the new Sun render farm for the production. In addition, Sun provided continuous on-site consultation and support to the Barnyard production team.

"Barnyard's" producers believe their Sun solution may represent the first time a studio has relied entirely upon 64-bit technology to render a full-length animated movie.

"Animated movies are evolving rapidly, demanding more and more lifelike characters and scenes that are challenging artists, directors and the technology industry to create better CGI in faster and easier ways," said Pradeep Parmar, Sun's x64 product line business driver. "Sun is excited to meet these challenges with our expanded product line and range of service offerings."

About "Barnyard"

From Steve Oedekerk and Nickelodeon Movies, two of the co-creators of "Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius," and filmed entirely in CGI, comes this hilarious look at what really happens in a barnyard when the farmer's back is turned. "Barnyard" is a lighthearted tale centering around Otis (voiced by Kevin James), a carefree party cow, who enjoys singing, dancing and playing tricks on humans. Unlike his father Ben (voiced by Sam Elliott), the respected patriarch of the farm, and Miles, the wise old mule (voiced by Danny Glover), Otis is unconcerned about keeping the animals' humanlike talents a secret. But when suddenly put in the position of responsibility, the "udderly" irresponsible cow finds the courage to become a leader.

Paramount Pictures presents in association with Nickelodeon Movies an O Entertainment production, a Steve Oedekerk film, "Barnyard." Written and directed by Steve Oedekerk, the film is produced by Steve Oedekerk and Paul Marshal. The executive producers are Julia Pistor and Aaron Parry. Animation production is by Omation Animation Studios. The film is rated PG for some mild peril and rude humor.

ERICY: Ericsson first to complete WCDMA calls on all 3GPP-defined frequency bands

Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERICY) is the first vendor to complete WCDMA calls on all nine 3GPP-defined frequency bands, giving its customers the most flexible platform solution on the market.

Initially deployed on the 2100MHz band, WCDMA and HSDPA are now being deployed on frequency bands used for 2G technologies, such as GSM, and new frequency bands, such as 2500MHz and the 2100/1700MHz used in the US. This enables operators to offer 3G services to a broader market and gives regulators the opportunity to grant new 3G licenses.

Using its new U310 and U360 WCDMA/HSDPA mobile platforms, Ericsson is the first vendor to successfully test its platforms on all nine frequency bands standardized by 3GPP. The U310 and U360 platforms support full commercial deployment on eight of the nine bands - an adapted variant of the U360 was used for testing on 2500MHz.

Robert Puskaric, head of Ericsson Mobile Platforms, says: "We are the first mobile platform vendor to successfully test operation on all frequency bands standardized by 3GPP. This enables our customers to bring WCDMA and HSDPA phones to the market covering all frequency bands open for 3G services. Operators will also benefit strongly from the capabilities of the U310 and U360 platforms, which allow rapid migration of end users to 3G."

BRCM: Broadcom Intensi-fi Draft-802.11n Technology Equips New Acer Notebooks with High-Performance Wi-Fi Connectivity

Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, today announced that its Intensi-fi™ draft-802.11n wireless chipsets are now available in Acer's new Ferrari notebook computers, providing high-performance Wi-Fi® connectivity. By integrating next generation Broadcom® wireless LAN technology into the Ferrari 1000 computers, Acer is providing notebook customers with the speed and reliability to handle the most intense applications on a Wi-Fi network, such as gaming and audio/video streaming.

Broadcom Intensi-fi chipsets power Acer's InviLink™ Nplify™ accelerated mobile wireless technology, which enables notebook customers to experience new voice, video and music applications when connected to a wireless network. Intensi-fi technology delivers robust wireless connections throughout a home or office with up to seven times faster throughput than current 802.11g products. Notebook PCs equipped with Broadcom Intensi-fi solutions are also compatible with the leading brands of wireless routers, including draft-802.11n products from companies such as Buffalo Technology, Linksys and NETGEAR.

"High-performance wireless connectivity is becoming a must-have feature for notebooks as consumers use their PCs for bandwidth-intensive multimedia applications beyond typical data transfers and Internet surfing," said Michael Hurlston, Vice President and General Manager of Broadcom's Wireless LAN Business Unit. "Broadcom is working with industry leading vendors to integrate Intensi-fi technology into a variety of PCs and networking equipment, creating an ecosystem of interoperable, standards-based products that provide an unparalleled wireless experience for next generation applications."

As the world's fourth largest notebook brand, Acer combines state-of-the-art performance, elegant design and proven reliability to reflect the spirit and passion of Formula One racing. The ultra-portable Ferrari 1000 integrates Broadcom's Intensi-fi and Blutonium® Bluetooth® 2.0 wireless technologies to deliver seamless communication. The Ferrari 1000 also features wired technologies, including a Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet solution and an integrated 56K ITU V.92 modem.

"Broadcom Intensi-fi solutions enable our customers to stream large-content files from their notebooks to other digital devices via extremely fast and reliable Wi-Fi connections," said David Lee, Head of Product Management, Mobile Computing Business Unit, Acer Inc. "Acer selects the most advanced technologies to deliver notebooks with uncompromising performance and mobility -- exemplifying our long term commitment to empower people to achieve more through dependable and easy-to-use technology."

Broadcom's Wireless LAN Product Family

Broadcom's high performance AirForce™ wireless LAN product line includes 54g® (the world's most popular Wi-Fi technology), and Intensi-fi (the industry's best-selling draft-802.11n chipsets). In addition to transceiver solutions that provide single- and dual-band wireless connectivity, Broadcom integrates wireless network processors, communications technologies and its OneDriver™ software solutions into reference designs that speed customer time to market. The industry's leading manufacturers are developing computers, routers, peripherals, phones, broadband modems and a variety of consumer electronics devices connected by Broadcom technologies.

TXN: Texas Instruments Introduces 16-BIT, 2MSPS SAR ADC With Serial LVDS Interface

Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) today announced the industry's first 16-bit, 2MSPS SAR analog-to-digital converter (ADC) family to offer a serial LVDS interface. The ADS8413 and ADS8410 utilize serial LVDS outputs to provide data transfer of up to 200Mbps with reduced digital noise. The devices are well-suited for high-speed, high-precision applications such as medical instrumentation, communications, data acquisition and closed-loop systems. (See www.ti.com/sc06143.)



The ADS8413 has a pseudo-bipolar, differential input and features excellent AC performance without compromising DC precision: -107dB total harmonic distortion (THD), 92dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and +/-1LSB integral nonlinearity (INL). The ADS8410 has a unipolar, single-ended input and features -98dB THD, 87.5dB SNR and +/-1LSB INL.

The LVDS interface is designed to support daisy chaining or cascading of multiple devices on the same bus. Both devices feature low power dissipation of 290mW at 2MSPS and offer two additional power-saving modes. When used at lower throughput rates, the nap mode enables substantial power-saving options. When not in use, a hardware power-down mode helps conserve energy (5uW).

TI provides customers with an advanced signal chain solution for high-speed, high-precision applications including wideband amplifiers, such as the THS4031, to drive the analog inputs of the ADC and deserializers, such as the SN65LVDS152, to convert serial LVDS into parallel data.


Availability and Packaging

The ADS8413 and ADS8410 are available now in 48-pin QFN packages from TI and its authorized distributors. The ADS8413 is priced at $24.05 in 1,000-piece quantities; the ADS8410 is priced at $23.00 in 1,000-piece quantities (suggested resale pricing). Evaluation modules (EVMs) are also available.

SNDK: Toshiba and SanDisk Mark Construction Start of 300mm Wafer Fab for NAND Flash Memory at Yokkaichi Operations

Toshiba Corporation (Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan) and SanDisk® Corporation (Milpitas, CA, USA) today announced that, further to definitive agreements that the companies entered into in July 2006, construction has started of Fab 4, a 300-millimeter (mm) wafer fab, in Yokkaichi, in Mie Prefecture, Japan.

The NAND flash memory market is growing fast, on healthy growth in a wide range of digital electronic applications, including MP3 music players, mobile phones and several kinds of memory cards. Toshiba and SanDisk started operation of a state-of-the-art 300-millimeter (mm) wafer fab, Fab 3, in summer 2005, at Yokkaichi Operations, and have boosted the facility’s capacity to meet market demand. Today’s start of construction reflects the need for a new facility, in parallel with expansion of Fab 3, in order to meet anticipated demand for NAND flash memory products in 2008 and beyond.

Investment in Fab 4 over the two years from April 2006 to March 2008 is expected to reach about 300 billion yen. Toshiba will fund construction of the building and Flash Alliance, Ltd., a new joint venture between Toshiba and SanDisk for Fab 4, will fund the fab’s advanced manufacturing equipment. The production output from Fab 4 will be equally shared between Toshiba and SanDisk.

Fab 4 is expected to come on line in the fourth quarter (Oct-Dec) of 2007, with an initial capacity of 2,500 wafers a month. It is currently estimated that the capacity of 67,500 wafers a month will be reached by the fourth quarter of 2008. At the time of production start-up, Fab 4 is intended to employ cutting-edge 56-nanometer (nm) process technology and to subsequently migrate to finer geometries.

In order to limit impact on operations from natural disasters, Fab 4 will adopt the latest earthquake-absorbing structure that is expected to dampen quake force by almost two-thirds. It will also deploy superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) that is designed to be triggered instantaneously by any sudden, momentary loss of power supply, from a lightning strike for example, to prevent any impact on production.

Through construction of Fab 4, Toshiba and SanDisk will continue to expand production capacity. Combined with advanced process technology and multi-level cell technology, this expansion is expected to allow the companies to further enhance their competitiveness and secure continued leadership in the NAND flash memory market.

Note: 1 nanometer = one billionth of a meter

ERICY: Ericsson completes its public offer to shareholders and holders of warrants in Netwise

Ericsson completes its public offer to shareholders and holders of warrants in Netwise
Shares and warrants representing 96.8% of the share capital and 98.1% of the voting rights in Netwise have been committed in Ericsson's cash offer to shareholders and holders of warrants in Netwise. Ericsson is completing the offer and the acceptance period has been extended up to and including August 25, 2006.

On June 5, 2006, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson ("Ericsson") announced a public offer ("Offer") to shareholders and holders of warrants in Netwise AB ("Netwise").

The acceptance period for Ericsson's Offer to shareholders and holders of warrants in Netwise ended on August 2, 2006. Calculation of the total commitment to the Offer has not been completed yet, but it can be already established that valid acceptances representing 4,874,732 shares and 169,1001 warrants in Netwise have been committed in the Offer, which represents 96.8% of the share capital and 98.1% of the voting rights in the company, based on the exercise of all warrants in Netwise.

All the terms of the Offer have been fulfilled, which is why the Offer is being completed. For those shares and warrants that were committed in the Offer by August 2, 2006 at the latest, the settlement date is estimated to begin on August 11, 2006.

To facilitate further acceptance within the framework of the Offer, Ericsson is extending the acceptance period up to and including August 25, 2006, at 5 pm (CET). This gives shareholders and holders of warrants in Netwise, who have not yet committed their shares and/or warrants to the Offer, the opportunity to accept the Offer. Settlement for this extended acceptance period is estimated to begin on September 5, 2006.

Ericsson intends soon to request compulsory purchase of the outstanding shares and warrants in Netwise.


1 Including 107,900 warrants owned by Netwise Finans AB, a wholly owned subsidiary to Netwise AB.

TWX: AOL to Provide 5 GB of Online Storage (XDrive) for Free to All Web Users

AOL today announced that, starting in early September, it would make 5 GB of online storage available for free to all Web users. The storage offering, powered by AOL's award-winning Xdrive® service, will allow users to back up important files like photos, documents, music, videos, and more. Users will be able to access their files from any PC or mobile device with a Web connection, share them with others by granting file/folder permission, move them via easy drag-and-drop tools, automatically back up important files or folders, and auto-upload any e-mail attachments they receive via major providers. There will be no charges for user to upload or download.

"People are accumulating personal digital assets at a fast pace, especially in areas like digital photos and videos," said John McKinley, president of AOL Digital Services. "Yet our in-home research shows that few people are taking steps to protect their digital memories from accidental loss or destruction. By offering consumers the combination of 5 GB of free secure online storage and Xdrive's powerful automated backup and online sharing tools, AOL is giving people a simple, effective and free way to protect their digital memories and have access to them anywhere they go."

Features of AOL's 5 GB free storage offer include:


* 5 Gigabytes (GB) secure online storage at no cost

* No charges for uploads or downloads

* Ability to store any type of file, including photos, music, video, and documents

* Drag and drop interface between online storage and hard drive

* Access to files through any Web-connected PC or mobile device

* Permission-based file and folder sharing

* Online collaboration via shared files

* Scheduled automatic backups

* Automatic upload of e-mail attachments from providers including AOL Mail, AIM Mail, or any non-AOL POP3 or IMAP-compatible mail providers

* Full-resolution photo storage

* Easy access to AOL Pictures for professional prints and photo gifts


The new free 5 GB storage offering will be available to any users with an AOL or AIM screenname starting in early September. All files stored on the Xdrive service are protected in secure, state-of-the-art data facilities. Users can access their files via the Web at www.xdrive.com or through special Xdrive software.

Users who need more storage can upgrade to a premium service with 50GB of storage -- enough space to store tens of thousands of files or to back up a typical hard drive in its entirety.

More information about Xdrive is available at www.xdrive.com. Video footage of AOL and Xdrive's current offering is available at http://www.thenewsmarket.com/AOL. Xdrive, a leading provider of digital asset management, online storage and backup services, was purchased by AOL in August 2005.

AMZN: Amazon.co.jp launches Health & Beauty Store!

Online Store Amazon.co.jp (http://www.amazon.co.jp/) launched its new Health & Beauty Store (http://www.amazon.co.jp/hb/) on Thursday, August 3rd. The store handles a total of over 30,000 items in 12 categories, including supplements, drinking water & soft drinks, condiments, processed foods and health foods, as well as cosmetics and products for bath care, nursing care and aroma relaxation. Amazon.co.jp's Health & Beauty Store is the second of its kind to be launched worldwide, following that of Amazon.com in 2003.

The Health & Beauty Store carries a total of approximately 1,300 varieties of popular brand-name products, including cosmetic brands such as 'GRACEOR', created by Kanebo Cosmetics exclusively for mail orders , and 'INGRID MILLET', the esthetic salon-exclusive brand by French company Laboratories Ingrid Millet S.A., first sold through Amazon.co.jp. Other products include kewpie Diet related foods, 'Nature Made' supplements imported and sold by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. the aromatic 'Tree of Life,' loved by women everywhere, as well as miscellaneous daily goods from Gillette, Lion, and Johnson & Johnson. For more information regarding each of the categories please refer to the supplementary section titled "About the Health & Beauty Store."

To commemorate the opening of our new Store, we have created a column on our website with the assistance of Mitsuyasu Uchibori, the well-known 'vinegar sommelier,' about different ways to enjoy vinegar. Limited quantities of Amazon.co.jp's own vinegar blend, 'ASSEMBLAGE,' are also available for purchase.

Furthermore, the Health & Beauty Store will have all of Amazon.co.jp's usual useful functions such as the Search function and Navigation, the Recommendation and Personalization functions for recommending items based on a customer's shopping or click history, and Customer Reviews to reflect the actual opinions of our customers. We are also going to sell the products via Amazon Mobile very soon after the launch.

Jasper Cheung, President and CEO of Amazon Japan K.K. gives his view as follows: "Amazon.co.jp has developed the know-how of EC services through the opening of media stores such as books and DVDs, as well as Electronics, Home & Kitchen, Toys & Hobby, and Sports Stores. I am extremely pleased to see that with the opening of the Health & Beauty Store and by being able to really begin dealing in these consumable goods, we are now able to offer goods that are even closer to our customers' hearts and everyday lives based on our know-how. Amazon.co.jp will further develop as an online store to provide a wide selection of goods from those for daily needs to hobbies."

Furthermore, to commemorate the opening of the new Store, customers will receive an Amazon Gift Certificate for JPY 1,000, which can be used immediately, when they purchase items to the value of JPY 5,000 or more (including tax) between August 3rd and August 24th. Also, as always, we offer free delivery within Japan for purchases totaling JPY 1,500 (including tax), and purchases can also be paid for COD (Cash On Delivery).

About Amazon.co.jp < http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/browse.html/249-1667377-3846704?node=489986>
Amazon.co.jp opened its virtual doors on November 1st 2000, and strives to be the world's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online. Amazon.co.jp today offers more than ten million Japanese and foreign language book titles, CDs, DVDs, videos, PC software, video games, Electronics, Home & Kitchen, Toys & Hobbies, Sports items and Health & Beauty related products. Through the Amazon Mobile platform for mobile commerce, Amazon.co.jp is also accessible via i-mode, EZweb and Vodafone Live! wireless devices. Amazon.co.jp customers enjoy the benefits of industry-leading, online shopping technology such as secure credit-card payment; COD payment; personalized recommendations; and streamlined 1-Click ordering. Amazon.co.jp is one of six internationally focused websites operated by Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, Washington, USA. Amazon.com and its affiliates operate seven Web sites: www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.ca and www.joyo.com.

TYC: Tyco Announces Agreement to Sell Printed Circuit Group to TTM Technologies

Tyco International Ltd. (NYSE: TYC; BSX: TYC) today announced that the company has entered into a definitive agreement to sell the Tyco Printed Circuit Group (TPCG) business -- currently part of the company's Electronics segment -- to TTM Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: TTMI) for $226 million in cash. The transaction has been approved by Tyco's Board of Directors and is expected to close in the fall of 2006.

TPCG, with approximately 2,000 employees and 2005 revenue of $383 million, is a leading manufacturer of high-technology printed circuit boards for the military, aerospace and commercial markets. The business has eight manufacturing facilities in the United States and one in China.

TTM Technologies, based in Santa Ana, Calif., is a leading supplier of time-critical and technologically advanced printed circuit boards to original equipment manufacturers and electronics manufacturing services companies. The company is one of North America's largest independent printed circuit board manufacturers.

The sale of TPCG is consistent with Tyco's strategy to divest certain businesses in an effort to streamline its portfolio and reallocate resources to its core operations. This transaction will also help to secure the long-term future of the TPCG business and its employees with a strong parent company that is exclusively focused on the printed circuit board business.

Completion of the transaction is subject to contractual closing conditions, regulatory approvals and expiration of the requisite waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, as amended.

ABOUT TYCO INTERNATIONAL

Tyco International Ltd. is a global, diversified company that provides vital products and services to customers in four business segments: Electronics, Fire & Security, Healthcare, and Engineered Products & Services. With 2005 revenue of $40 billion, Tyco employs approximately 250,000 people worldwide. More information on Tyco can be found at http://www.tyco.com.

ABOUT TTM TECHNOLOGIES, INC.

TTM Technologies, Inc. is a leading supplier of time-critical and technologically advanced printed circuit boards to original equipment manufacturers and electronics manufacturing services companies. TTM stands for time-to-market, representing how the company's time-critical, one-stop manufacturing services enable customers to shorten the time required to develop new products and bring them to market.