Articles by Jennifer LeClaire

In its first major innovation since its August IPO, Google has launched a desktop search engine tool that allows users to search personal computer files at the same speed they "google" the Web. The new application throws the gauntlet directly in Microsoft's front court "Google Desktop Search brings the power of Google to your personal information o...

A day after visual computing company SGI announced its relationship with ATI Technologies, competitor Nvidia is boasting about its new alliance with Sun Microsystems Sun has bundled Nvidia's Quadro graphics technology into its Java Workstations running Solaris, Windows or Linux operating systems in its W1100z and W2100z models, based on the AMD Opt...

The European Union today expanded its investigation into Intel's alleged anticompetitive practices, filing formal charges that demand explanations from four countries that require purchased computers to contain chips that only Intel can offer The European Commission said such requirements might violate European law on public procurement, but it is ...

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates introduced Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 today at a gala media event at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium with high hopes of bringing his market-dominant operating system out of the office and into the living room "Today, the dream of digital entertainment becomes a reality," Gates said. "People want to choose how ...

Apple just might be preparing for a coup d'etat in the digital media world, if gossip about new iPod functionality making its way across the Mac grapevine proves to be true Apple rumor site ThinkSecret said "highly reliable sources" have revealed that the computer-maker will announce a 60 GB iPod within the next 60 days, just in time for the holida...

Nintendo is enforcing its dominance in the portable gaming world with the launch of its wireless Nintendo DS, a handheld double-screen console that will allow players to control games with touch or voice, monitor two-screen action and even compete wirelessly with others Nintendo DS will launch in the United States on November 21 for about US$150, j...

Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates tomorrow will officially launch the latest version of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 operating system, complete with extensions that play or record video, music and other media The update to Windows XP Professional will offer users an all-in-one system designed to take the place of ...

In lieu of facing a court judgment, Sun Microsystems has agreed to pay US$92 million to settle a long-running patent infringement case with Eastman Kodak. Now, observers are perusing the details to get a handle on what it means for the companies and the Internet Kodak won the jury trial October 1 and was seeking $1.06 billion in licensing fees and ...

Computer Associates (CA) has introduced a usage-based pricing model for its portfolio of mainframe management software products. The overhauled pricing strategy is called Measured Workload Pricing and moves the software industry another step closer to utility computing "Our FlexSelect licensing program has introduced a lot of new innovation," Mark ...

Sun Microsystems has settled its long-fought patent infringement case with Eastman Kodak, heading off a jury decision on the penalty Faced with the prospect of paying damages of more than US$1 billion in federal court, the software giant reached an out-of-court agreement late last night, according to court papers filed this morning....

Software development is a much different animal than it was 20 years ago. Today's programs rely on interprocess communication and shared memory that often result in tens of millions of lines of code, compared with just a few kilobytes of code in decades-old programs As program size has increased, so has the number of security flaws. In the latest d...

The perfect online customer spends thousands of dollars per year on a wide variety of merchandise and returns repeatedly to order more goods. For e-tailers, the quest for such a customer is like the search for the Holy Grail. No one leaps into the e-commerce waters as a fully formed mega shopper. Only over time do occasional Web surfers mature into first-time buyers and eventually repeat purchasers...

In its annual 10-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) reported that its order backlog has fallen 30 percent over the past year. The networking giant said that as of September 9th, its backlog totaled about US$1.4 billion, down from about $2 billion last year However, Cisco executives wrote in the filing, "...

In the early days of e-commerce, small businesses flocked to the Web with grandiose visions of transforming mom-and-pop shops into mega retailers. Those visions turned out to be pipe dreams for most merchants, and the dawn of reality convinced many early adopters to retreat to the brick-and-mortar world. But small e-tailers are not finished, accor...

Despite all the reports of bankruptcies and losses, some companies are doing just fine on the Internet. But the list of companies that are "getting rich" may be surprising. Aside from the obvious handful of bellwether e-tailers, such as Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) and eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY), some seemingly unlikely candidates are raking in cash from online shoppers seeking hard-to-find items and deep discounts...

The worldwide server provider router (SPR) market dipped 7 percent in the second quarter of this year, according to a Gartner Dataquest report Dataquest defines SPRs as carrier-class routers capable of providing multigigabit bandwidth in support of high-speed wide area network (WAN) interfaces. These devices are typically designed for installation ...

In a move to beef up its security products, IBM has inked a deal with identity management software provider Access360 to acquire all the assets of that company. IBM executives said the acquisition of the privately held firm, which is based in Irvine, California, will strengthen the tech giant's Tivoli software offerings in the fast-growing securit...

Hewlett-Packard on Tuesday reported a US$2 billion third-quarter net loss, which it attributed to a weakened economy and costs associated with the $18.7 billion Compaq merger in May. The company booked revenue of $16.5 billion for the quarter ended July 31st, compared with $18.2 billion in second-quarter revenue on a combined company basis Excludin...

Cisco Systems on Tuesday announced an agreement to acquire privately held Andiamo Systems, which develops intelligent storage switching products for the storage area networking (SAN) market. The deal is the latest in a string of acquisitions by the networking giant, and it marks Cisco's first foray into the high-growth SAN switching market. Resear...

In a move to woo subscribers away from competing Internet service providers(ISPs), EarthLink has released a new feature that allows Web surfers to block pop-up ads The company said its Pop-up Blocker is designed to prevent advertising windows from appearing above or under a customer's main browser window. Each time an unwanted ad window is suppress...