Applications

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based network security company Blue Coat Systems has reached an agreement to purchase Cupertino, Calif.-based bandwidth management company Packeteer for approximately $268 million, or $7.10 per share -- a 15 percent premium on Packeteer's closing price Friday of $6.18. The acquisit...

Benefiting from strong overseas sales and a weak U.S. dollar, IBM posted strong quarterly results and raised its guidance, adding to what's becoming a winning streak for technology stocks. On the heels of a strong report from fellow tech bellwether Intel, IBM beat expectations for its first quarter,...

Ten years after the Internal Revenue Service first flipped the switch on electronic tax filing, key lawmakers said Monday the time has come to make e-filing free for all taxpayers -- a move that could cost software makers millions in annual revenues. Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, and Se...

Adobe may still enjoy a resounding lead with its Flash rich-media runtime and player, but Microsoft appears to be gradually gaining ground with its Silverlight application platform. At the National Association of Broadcasters Show 2008 in Las Vegas, Microsoft on Monday announced a raft of new compan...

"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction," said Sir Isaac Newton. While he made that observation centuries before the dot-com boom and bust, his words remain quite relevant today. After large corporation executives took advantage of their positions and wreaked financial havoc, the federal go...

Over the past five years, 42 of the technology companies that Mercury Ventures has invested in have made the transition from publicly traded to private firms. That is part of a larger trend among smaller publicly traded companies, for whom the benefits of being public no longer clearly outweigh the ...

If you consider the traditional quality assurance process -- in which QA is a set of tasks that occur in a serial fashion after development -- it becomes clear that many of the desired service-oriented architecture benefits such as agility, cost efficiency and higher quality are placed at risk. The...

The government has temporarily banned IBM from attaining new contracts with federal agencies while investigators look into interactions between some company workers and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency employees. The EPA issued a notice of temporary suspension related to an agency investigation ...

North American manufacturers have faced years of intense, globalized competition. This onslaught compelled them to modernize their manufacturing processes to compete effectively. The result has been that many plants have become models of efficiency and agility. This modernization allowed manufactu...

In a bid to boost confidence in the reliability of its cloud computing initiative, Amazon Web Services on Thursday launched functionality that allows users to have static IP addresses. Previously, the service did not offer static IP addresses, which made it more difficult for Web developers to creat...

Most organizations are under the misimpression that by simply maintaining a generic legal hold policy, they will avoid any adverse consequences in litigation. Those organizations are wrong. In fact, one could have a brilliant legal hold plan and still face sanctions if it fails to address the down...

The Software and Information Industry Association filed eight more lawsuits against eBay sellers the group says are hawking pirated versions of software from Adobe, bringing to 17 the number of suits filed so far this year. The SIIA said it filed suits against sellers based in Arizona, California, C...

Software maker BMC will buy data center automation firm BladeLogic in a move that could help it fend off incursions into its core market from rivals such as EMC and IBM. BMC will use BladeLogic's products to round its own business service management software portfolio. When combined, the platform wi...

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer offered frank answers -- and a few dance moves -- on a host of topics Thursday, addressing his company's bid for Yahoo and sharing his thoughts on rivals such as Google and Apple. Venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki interviewed Ballmer at the Microsoft MIX Conference -- a gat...

SOA has been increasingly adopted during the past five years, with its promised benefits validated by early adopters. One of the clearest lessons learned is that SOA is all about finding a better approach -- rather than a better technology -- for enterprise application development. In 2008, we will ...