Articles by Erika Morphy

For better or worse, 2006 is going to be remembered as the year the U.S. court system should have set up a special turnstile for patent cases; litigation in this usually less-than-sexy body of law seemed to continually challenge once-established points of law The result? Major case law was established -- not once, but several times -- that has caus...

SAP will miss revenue targets for the 2006 fourth quarter, according to its preliminary review of the quarter's results Wall Street's expectations have been that the company's Q4 sales would increase by at least 15 percent, based in part on SAP's initial guidance for the year, which projected revenue to grow by 15 to 17 percent....

A few weeks ago, Wikipedia inadvertently blocked users in Qatar from amending posts to the collaborative Web site as it hurried to respond to a spike in spam The mistake is easy to understand -- the spam was originating from an IP address belonging to Qtel, the only telecom provider in the country. Qatarians, however, could be forgiven for assuming...

Consumers -- at least those that own either Motorola'snew MotoRazr maxx V6 and MotoRazr V3xx devices -- arestarting to downloadYahoo's beta version of its Go For Mobile 2.0, whichlaunched this week at the International CES (Consumer Electronics Show) Key among the new features in thisversion is Yahoo's oneSearch search engine, which is designed to ...

Dell on Wednesday introduced its new "Plant a Tree for Me" program, in which customers can donate a small portion of the purchase price of a Dell product to funds that plant trees around the world The program, which complements Dell's recycling service it has been offering customers since 2004, is a reflection of the company's overall commitment to...

More than half of all American teenagers network online, according to new research conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project In growing numbers, teenagers are using the Internet to form and maintain friendships, network and get advice and information about nearly any subject, according to the report....

Auto manufacturers face stark choices over the next five to seven years, a period that is likely to see increasing bankruptcies and consolidations, according to KPMG's annual global automotive survey Some 87 percent of executives said they think the bankruptcy rate will remain the same or slightly increase over the next few years....

When Matthew Card tried to return a ski jacket toL.L. Bean's flagship store in Freeport, Maine, he was pleasantlysurprised Card, a marketing manager at Davies Murphy Group in Burlington, Mass., bought the jacket online and could not produce a receipt or even an exact amount of the purchase price. Despite that, "they didn't give me a hard time. The ...

One of the most recent cases to go before the Supreme Court, KSR v. Teleflex, was also one of the most significant, at least to patent attorneys, as the basic standards used to grant a patent are now under review. It was a fitting end to 2006, during which a number of high profile patent disputes made their way into mainstream headlines Part 1 in t...

It's 12:30 p.m. on Jan. 2. You are at the local food court for lunch, and acutely conscious of your New Year's resolution, which is to lose those pesky 10 pounds you've been trying to shed forever You narrow your choices to two options: a fruit smoothie and a bagel from Dunkin' Donuts or a sandwich from Arby's. Which would best help you stay on a ...

A new report finds that the banking-specific business process outsourcing (BPO) market is poised for significant growth At the same time, vendors are realigning -- or aware that they must realign services -- in order to reflect changing directions in banks' customer service and business strategies....

Renault is marketing a car called the Logan -- a starter vehicle that retails for about US$6,300. A safety conscious consumer may pause before getting in -- but he shouldn't, or at least not more so than he would with any other car. Renault is not cutting corners in its manufacturing process. Instead, Renault is reverse engineering its landed costs to make sure its manufacturing and sources processes are done at the lowest cost possible...

A hacker who calls himself Muslix64 has Hollywood and music studios on edge this New Year's Eve weekend as they wait to see whether their latest digital rights management software standard will work as designed Muslix64 has posted on the Internet the tools and title keys he said he has used to decrypt the next generation DRM standard for high defin...

An application that Microsoft filed last year with the U.S. Patent andTrademark Office could be interpreted to give the software giant broad rightsto RSS, or really simple syndication, technology The possibility that Microsoft might wind up charging license fees forany RSS-type application has caused denizens of the blogosphere to take up arms agai...

Since Jimmy Wales' announcment last week that he plans to launch a newsearch engine in Q1 2007, speculation has been rife over what it could mean for the search industry -- and specifically for Google Wales, the founder ofWikipedia, is one of the few Web 2.0 players with enough clout to take on the search giant....

Him: "What purchases have you made lately? Just the last one would be fine." Me: "Umm, let's see. I think I spent around (US)$100 at a cosmetics store last weekend."

Earlier this month, Sage Software announced it had acquired one of its longtime partners, Corum, a Canada-based provider of CRM technology It was a significant deal for the company, saidDave Batt, senior vice president and general managerof Global CRM, as the acquired technology matches one of the functional areasthe company intends to push -- and ...

Google upgraded its Blogger service from the beta that had been in place. The new Blogger is still only available to a select user group, with Google planning to make the upgraded version generally available in the future Now, though, "New Blogger" -- as the application is called -- is only available to users that log in via a Google account. Other...

M2M Holdings has signed an agreement to acquire CRM provider KNOVA Software, in an all cash transaction valued at approximately US$47 million. The deal is expected to close at the end of the first quarter of 2007, subject to approval by KNOVA shareholders KNOVA provides a niche CRM application called Intelligent Customer Experience, which leverages...

Nintendo is providing Wii users with a beta version of Opera's Web browser that has been specifically developed for Wii games and software Wii's customer base -- a huge group, considering the product has been on the market for barely a month -- will be able to download the beta starting Friday in what will be an extended free trial lasting through ...