Technology Industry Archive

It seems only fitting that on the same day Intel announced it will spend $7 billion over the next two years to modernize and expand its manufacturing capacity, rival chip maker AMD had to admit that shareholders failed  to approve the financing of construction of a new plant of its own. Intel’s star has been rising of late, while AMD management announced last year that it would split the...

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Cisco sees the same economy we see, but with a twist: it sees an opportunity to literally cash in on the financial crisis and make acquisitions that could make some of its partners, especially Microsoft, pretty uncomfortable. Given its stated ambitions in the data center and unified-communications spaces, it’s possible the company could have its eye on a larger stake in VMware, the leader...

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When the economy is bad, companies often pull in spending everywhere, including R&D. But cutting back on the innovation seems like a potentially dangerous move. So I spoke with Scott Anthony, president of consulting firm Innosight, lead author of The Innovator’s Guide to Growth, and author of the upcoming title, The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times. BNET: Many...

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Last week I wrote about potentially missing prior art in Apple’s multi-touch patent. The entire exercise got me wondering more about the company’s patents and invention process. Interestingly, the facts suggest that potentially losing Steve Jobs may be more of a fundamental problem than would be the case for other CEOs, because he’s listed as an inventor on literally more than...

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French court slaps Google — A French court is fining Google €350,000 for infringing on the trademarks of two companies by letting its ad clients specify the marks as search terms. [Source: Out-Law.com] French court takes bite out of Apple – A French court upheld a ruling that, in France, at least, a deal between Apple and wireless carrier Orange is a risk to competition. [Source:...

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When the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued patent number 7,479,949 for a “touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics,” eyebrows shot up throughout the industry. On first glance, it seemed that Apple had locked down the concept of a multi-touch interface, posing problems for Palm and anyone else who might want to...

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Back in October we had the report that MySQL co-founder David Axmark was leaving Sun Microsystems because, according to his resignation letter, “I HATE all the rules that I need to follow, and I also HATE breaking them.” At the time there were rumors that the other MySQL co-founder, Monty Widenius, was considering leaving. Now it’s official. In this case, the rumors had some elements...

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As of late there has been considerable turmoil in the memory semiconductor industry. Spansion, the leading NOR memory manufacturer, saw its CEO resign in the wake of trying to restructure its balance sheet and sell itself to another maker of flash memory. SanDisk took a big financial hit last quarter. DRAM vendor Qimonda, over three-quarters of whose shares are owned by Infineon, is shutting...

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A typical knee-jerk reaction of companies to bad financial conditions is to lay off workers. From one view, you can understand the managerial logic. When revenues drop enough, you lower expenses or lose money. But it turns out that companies are opening a veritable Pandora’s box of issues and problems when they show enough people the door, and the total cost might well exceed the...

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Apple gets multi-touch patent — It sure as heck is an innovative interface, and now Apple has received a 358-page patent on multi-touch. Smell that strange odor? It’s the aroma of lawsuits brewing. [Source: AppleInsider] Microsoft and trade secret suit — Microsoft has sued a former employee for allegedly stealing trade secrets. [Source: CNET] EU to Intel – “No...

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