Technology Headlines – 02 November 2009

IBM, HP shortlisted for $700m Microsoft deal: Multinational outsourcing firms IBM and HP have been shortlisted for around $700m contract for managing Microsoft’s global network of desktops, servers and other IT infrastructure, as the world’s biggest software maker seeks to lower its operational costs and focus better on its core business. India’s top outsourcing vendors had also bid for this contract, but they lost out to the multinational rivals who have better global footprints and are even ready to take over assets, including Microsoft’s staff. (Economic Times)

Capgemini to have more staff in India than in France: Capgemini has revealed that it will soon have more staff in India than it does in its home market of France after it decided to create a new business information management unit in Bangalore, which will help increase its workforce in India to beyond 21,000. Its headcount in France is about 20,000. "We are able to access abundant application and technical skills in business information management in India and we can scale-up there much more quickly than we could in onshore locations," said Paul Nannetti, general manager of Capgemini's global business information service line. (FT)

Technology Headlines – 03 November 2009
Microsoft: Ballmer still sceptical on IT spend rebound: “The economy went through a set of changes on a global basis over the course of the last year which are, I think is fair to say, once in a lifetime,” Ballmer told a meeting of South Korean executives in Seoul, according to the AP. “While we will see growth, we will not see recovery." (TechTrader)

Windows 7 market share on the rise: Though it's been available to consumers for just over a week, the software's share of the operating system market has jumped from 1.89% on Oct. 22nd, the day of its release, to 3.67% as of Tuesday, according to data from Net Applications. All versions of Windows, including XP, Vista, and Windows 7, continue to dominate the computer operating system market, with a total share of 92.5%. Apple's Mac OS is a distant second, with a 5.3% stake. The open source Linux OS is third most popular, with a market share of about 1%. (InformationWeek)

Blinkx Placing: Blinkx Plc said it aimed to raise about 5 million pounds through a share placing of 27,927,971 new ordinary shares at a placing price of 18 pence each (Bloomberg).

Intuit Completes acquisition of Mint.com: Intuit has completed its acquisition of online personal finance services provider Mint.com. The transaction, announced Sep. 14, is valued at approximately $170m. It is expected that Mint.com’s technology will be available to Intuit customers, starting with TurboTax® products for the upcoming 2009 tax season. Aaron Patzer, former CEO of Mint.com, becomes VP and GM of Intuit’s personal finance group, responsible for Mint.com and all Quicken online, desktop and mobile offerings. Intuit will maintain both the Mint.com and Quicken brands, and continue to offer Quicken products. Inclusive of the transaction, Intuit expects a reduction of approximately 2c to its FY2010 non-GAAP diluted EPS with on material effect seen on FY2011 EPS. (Intuit)

Technology Headlines – 04 November 2009

Brussels set to launch complaint over Oracle's deal to buy rival Sun: Oracle is braced for a formal objection from Brussels to its planned $7.4b (£4.5b) acquisition of fellow US technology company Sun Microsystems, escalating the company's legal wrangle with Europe's competition authorities. The US software company has refused to offer any concessions to European regulators to meet their concerns about the deal, according to one person close to the process. That has left Brussels close to issuing an official statement of objections, the first step on the path to blocking it, this person added. The complaint could come within days, but there is still a chance that one side or the other will back down, according to observers in Brussels. Neither side commented yesterday. (FT)

Cisco and EMC form Cloud Computing JV: Cisco's alliance with EMC and EMC’s majority-owned VMware is aimed at dislodging HP and IBM from atop the $350b annual mkt for core computing products, consulting and maintenance. Cisco’s JV, dubbed Acadia, will bundle EMC storage gear, VMware management tools and Cisco networking and computing products with dedicated services - “a single throat to choke,” EMC CEO Joseph Tucci told the FT. Cisco’s CEO John Chambers, told the FT that the deal could be the most significant technology alliance in a decade. “This is about changing the industry,” Mr Chambers said. Acadia will start with 140 employees, but most of the sales of the new technology bundles, called Vblocks, are expected to come from outside consulting firms such as Accenture, Computer Sciences and Tata. (FT)

Cognizant 3Q09 - rev, EPS top ests: Q4 outlook upbeat: Cognizant posted 3Q09 rev of $853.5m (+16% y/y, +10% q/q) well ahead of cons $805.6m. Non-GAAP EPS of 48c beat the Street by 7c. For Q4, Cognizant sees rev of at least $880m vs. cons $830.5m and non-GAAP EPS of 49c vs. cons 42c. (TechTrader)

IBM taps SAP For Global Single-Instance Project: IBM is consolidating its extensive global collection of individual SAP applications and versions into a single global instance that will deliver greater resilience and flexibility to IBM's operations in 170 countries around the world, revealed IBM CIO Pat Toole in an interview yesterday. The project called "Blue Harmony s expected to take five years, and IBM is currently nearing completion of its global design system. It will be deployed initially in pilot projects in one growth market and one established market; following the pilot, a worldwide rollout will ensue. The global single instance will include SAP CRM 7.0 and SAP ERP Central Component 6.0. (InformationWeek)

Reuters preview - Capgemini Q3 sales seen down 3% to EUR 2034.9m: Capgemini has forecast an underlying sales decline of 3-4% for 2009, with an operating margin of around 7%. Analysts are awaiting details on order books and on the revised terms of its Aspire IT services contract with Britain's tax authority. (Reuters)

Microsoft Offers free SaaS to Salesforce, Oracle Customers: Microsoft announced Tuesday that it's offering six months of free service to customers that switch from Salesforce.com or Oracle CRM On Demand to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. The offer came a day after Microsoft dropped prices for cloud versions of Exchange and SharePoint. CRM continues to be the strongest and most attractive area for SaaS. The worldwide market for CRM was up 12.5% to $9.15b in 2008, according to Gartner. SaaS versions of CRM amounted to 20% of that market, up from 15% in 2007. (InformationWeek)

Jet Airways implements Autonomy Teamsite: Autonomy announced that leading Indian airline Jet Airways has implemented Autonomy Interwoven's web content management solution to enhance the performance of its websites, including jetairways.com, jetlite.com and 9wagents.com. (Autonomy)

Technology Headlines – 05 November 2009
Software AG 3Q09 broadly in line: Software AG 3Q09 revenues came in at EUR 214m (including IDS Scheer since August 20th i.e. for 40 days). Excluding IDS, the top line came in a tick higher compared to estimates (3Q09 total revenues at EUR 175m vs. cons EUR 174.8m vs. NOM EUR 173.5m) due to higher ETS maintenance revenues, while WebMethods licenses were weak. One the bottom line results are difficult to compare due to consolidation, but taking the company’s comments, the opex reduction for Software AG as a standalone, was about EUR 8m ahead of our forecast. The company slightly increased the FY EBIT margin guidance by 25bp at the mid point. WebMethods license revenues were down 30%y/y (Q209 -15%). While the deceleration in license activity reflects the difficult market for new projects, it is important to note that WebMethods comparables for H2 are substantially more difficult. As such, the company’s comment on a normal seasonal pattern for WebMethods on a sequential basis is in our view valid (Software AG).

Capgemini sees 2009 sales down 5.5%; reiterates 2009 operating margin of 7%; Aspire contract to hit 2010 rev by EUR 100m: Capgemini reported consolidated rev of EUR 1946m (-9% on like-for-like basis). Outsourcing services posted a slight 2.7% decline in rev due to the expected – and announced – fall in business under a major contract in North America. Rev for the Group’s other three business segments retreated 12.5% on average with consulting Services and Local Professional Services recording the largest decline. France rev fell 9.9% while decline in North America moderated to 7.3% y/y. Q3 Bookings represented EUR 1,981m and book-to-bill remained above 1. Like-for-like, Capgemini sees its Q4 rev to experience a similar decline to that recorded in Q3, leading to 2009 sales decline of 5.5% on like-for-like basis. However, it reiterated its operating margin guid of c.7% in 2009. Capgemini said that although there are signs that activity is stabilizing and even picking up in some market segments, benefits are not expected to filter through immediately. Capgemini added that the revised terms of the Aspire IT contract with the British tax authority will cut 2010 revenue by EUR 100m (Capgemini, Reuters)

Logica Q3 sales fall 4%, lowers year forecast: Logica posted Q3 rev of 862m GBP ($1.4b), 4% lower on a pro forma basis but just ahead of analyst expectations. Outsourcing grew 11%, not enough to offset a 12% drop in consulting rev with particular weakness in the industrial and financial sectors in Benelux and Germany. Logica cut its full-year guid, saying rev would fall 3% (vs. prev decline of 2%), reflecting continued weak demand for consulting and professional services. Margin guid remained unchanged at about 7.5%. Logica is expected to report full-year rev of 3.67b GBP and pre-tax profit of 180.6m GBP. Logica added that it had good visibility on orders for the remainder of the year, and was confident the decline had stabilised. (Reuters)

Technology Headlines – 06 November 2009

Teradata 3Q09 - rev miss, EPS beat; reiterates FY rev outlook but lifts FY EPS view: Data warehousing systems provider Teradata posted Q3 rev of $425m (-3% y/y), a bit below cons $425.7m. Non-GAAP EPS of 38c beat cons 29c. The data warehousing systems provider said sales were down 2% in the Americas, up 3% in EMEA and down 14% in Asia Pacific/Japan. For all of 2009, the company repeated its previous forecast for rev down 1%-3% in constant currency. The company, however, lifted its full year EPS forecast to a range of $1.34 to $1.38 a share, from $1.22 to $1.28. (TechTrader)

Activision Q3 edges guid; no change in full year view: Video game publisher Activision posted 3Q09 non-GAAP rev of $755m vs. guid $700m and non-GAAP EPS of 4c ahead of guid 3c. For all of 2009, Activision repeated its forecast of rev on a non-GAAP basis of $4.5b vs. cons $4.55b, with non-GAAP EPS of 63c vs. cons 64c. (TechTrader)

JDA Software to buy rival i2 for $434.4m: Supply chain management (SCM) software firm JDA Software said it plans to buy i2 Technologies Inc. for $434.4m, after its previous acquisition attempt (which valued i2 at $346m) fell apart in Dec. The offer has been increased to $18 a share, a 9% premium to Wednesday's closing price, from the old deal's $14.86. Including the cash on i2's books and the retirement of preferred stock, JDA's net purchase price is about $396m. JDA intends to sell about $275m in notes by Dec. 18. If it raises the necessary funds and meets other conditions, each i2 share will be swapped for $12.70 in cash and 0.256 JDA share. If not, each share will be exchanged for $6 and 0.58 share of JDA. (WSJ)

Technology Headlines – 09 November 2009

Sun Micro: Crumbling continues; FY Q1 rev drop 25%: Sun posted F1Q10 (ended Sep) rev of $2.24b (- 25% y/y, -14.5% q/q). Product revenues were down 32% y/y to $1.19b, with q/q drop of almost 20%. Sales on a y/y basis were down 19% in North America, down 29% in Europe, down 33% in emerging markets and down 23% in APAC. Sun posted a net loss for the quarter of $120m, or 16c; on a pro forma basis it actually managed a profit of 2c. “We are still seeing the results of IT budget cuts instituted last year by our largest customers due to the economic downturn", said Sun, adding that revenue was also negatively impacted by the uncertainty associated with its proposed acquisition by Oracle. (TechTrader)

IBM seeks to cut borrowing costs with exchange offer: IBM is planning a debt exchange for as much as $2b of securities, taking advantage of lower bond yields to reduce borrowing costs. IBM is offering to swap its 7.125% bonds due 2096, 7% bonds due 2045 and 8% bonds due 2038 for new 5.6% senior notes due 2039 and cash. IBM said there were $1b of the 2038 bonds outstanding, $150m of the 2045 issue and $850m of the 2096 maturity. (Bloomberg)

Technology Headlines – 10 November 2009

Accenture to hire 8,000 in India by end of next year: "We are 42,000 right now and we imagine we will be about 50,000 by the end of 2010," Accenture Chairman and CEO William D Green said on the sidelines of the India Economic Summit. Indicating a recovery from the global downturn, Green said the company will continue to focus in India, especially in the areas of analytics. Accenture, which has annual revenue of $21.58b for fiscal 2009, will strengthen its focus on clients in pharmaceutical, telecommunications and energy in the country. (Times of India)

Gartner downgrades SaaS forecast: The worldwide market for software-as-a-service is forecast to hit $7.5b (down from prev $8b) in 2009, a healthy 17.7% increase from 2008. The latest forecast, released Monday, also predicts the SaaS market to hit $14b (down from prev $16b) in 2013. Gartner said as companies downsize, they cut SaaS subscriptions. And when they buy fewer PCs, they buy fewer SaaS subscriptions. Garter's research shows the greatest sales are happening in what it classifies as content, communications, and collaboration. Sales in that area are forecast to hit $2.6b this year, up 20% y/y. The CRM SaaS market, lead by Salesforce.com, is projected to rise 22% y/y to $2.29b. (InformationWeek)

Electronic Arts F2Q10 - rev beat, EPS a penny light; to cut 1,500 jobs: EA posted F2Q10 (ended Sep) non-GAAP rev of $1.147b (+2% y/y), and a bit ahead of cons $1.13b. Non-GAAP EPS of 6c was below cons 7c. EA said it will reduce headcount by about 1,500 (~17% of workforce) as part of a plan to reduce annual costs by at least $100m a year. The plan will result in $130m to $150m in restructuring charges. EA said the plan will include the shutdown of several facilities. For the March 2010 fiscal year, the company sees non-GAAP rev of $4.2-4.4b vs. cons $4.26b, with non-GAAP EPS of 70c to $1 vs. cons 89c. (TechTrader, WSJ)

Electronic Arts to buy Playfish for up to $400m: Electronic Arts said it will acquire Playfish, a creator of social network games. Terms call for ERTS to pay $275m in cash and about $25m equity retention agreements; the company will pay out up to another $100m in cash contingent on certain performance milestones through the end of 2011. Playfish has over 60m active players across 10 titles on Facebook, MySpace and other platforms. (TechTrader)

Wipro sees good deal pipeline: "The deal pipeline is good ... the demand environment is building up. The IT demand situation is improving," Suresh Vaswani, joint CEO of the company's IT business, told reporters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum. (Economic Times)

Technology Headlines – 11 November 2009
Adobe restructures, cuts 680 jobs: Adobe stated that as part of a corporate restructuring, it will cut 9% of its workforce, or approximately 680 jobs. The company said it is making the cuts to “align costs with its fiscal 2010 operating plan…and the realities of the business environment…[and] to ensure its ability to continue investing in long-term growth opportunities.” The move will result in a pre-tax charge of $65-71m, with $18-20m of that to be recorded in the current quarter. Adobe also expects to incur additional costs related to its acquisition of Omniture, which the company announced on Sep 15. (TechTrader)

Oracle will plead Sun case to EC Nov. 25 in Brussels: revealed a source with knowledge of the transaction to eWeek. (eWeek)

Health IT sector to grow at 11% CAGR through 2013: says a study from consulting firm Scientia Advisors. To remain competitive, vendors must take into account govt incentives, requirements for clinical decision-making and electronic health record systems, and emerging competitors in Asia and elsewhere in the developing world, the study said. Health IT will grow from 4% of the worldwide health care products market to 5% - a 25% increase in HIT mkt share, Scientia said. (InformationWeek)

Technology Headlines – 12 November 2009
SAP rejects WSJ report that SAP intended to facilitate Oracle-Sun merger: SAP issued a press release rejecting the speculation made by WSJ last week that SAP CEO Leo Apotheker may have intended to offer facilitating the Oracle-Sun merger in the ongoing European Commission's review of the Oracle-Sun deal when he wrote a letter to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison in Sep. The letter was leaked to WSJ. SAP said that like many others, it also has concerns about customer choice in the database market and the future open licensing of Java. SAP added that it communicated its concerns to both Oracle and Sun at the working level at the end of July 2009. (SAP, Bloomberg)

EU’s Kroes Is ‘Optimistic’ About Oracle Settlement: “Let’s be optimistic, and let’s find out if they could take us to a point that we say, ‘OK, here we can take the result as a satisfying result for fair competition,’” Kroes told journalists in Brussels when asked whether a sale of MySQL would resolve competition concerns. Kroes also responded to questions about U.S. regulators’ decision to issue a statement supporting Oracle in the case. She said it’s not normal practice for U.S. or EU regulators to publish a statement during a review. (Bloomberg)

Computer Sciences FY Q2 rev in line; EPS beats; Affirms FY 2010 guid: IT services firm Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) posted F2Q10 (ended Sep) rev of $4.04b, in line with cons $4.01b with EPS of $1.40 beating cons $1.39. New business awards in the quarter totalled $4.58b. It also repeated its guid for the fiscal year ending Mar 2010: the company sees revenue of $16-16.5b vs. cons $16.28b and EPS of $4.80 to $5 vs. cons $4.94. CSC said that new business is strong in the managed services sector, as businesses look to outsourcing to reduce costs, and that federal business “continues to experience growth.” But the company said that its business solutions and services sector has been hurt by “subdued” demand for short-term IT consulting projects. (TechTrader)

Technology Headlines – 13 November 2009

L&T to pare Satyam stake, raise over US$65m: L&T, India's largest engineering company, is likely to raise over INR 3b (US$65m) by selling one-third of its stake in Mahindra Satyam by Friday morning. A person close to the development said the company on Thursday evening put 27m Mahindra Satyam shares on the block with an asking price of INR 112.50 apiece. The company has appointed Nomura for the sale. L&T had bought 81m shares in Satyam last year at an average price of INR 79 a share. It also made an abortive bid to acquire the company. Tech Mahindra, part of the Mahindra group, acquired the company, and renamed it Mahindra Satyam. (Economic Times)

Infosys eyes US insurance market with $38m buy: Infosys acquired the US-based back-office firm McCamish Systems for $38m in order to tap into over $5b insurance services market in the country. Infosys added in a statement that it will pay McCamish an additional $20m provided some financial targets agreed mutually are achieved over next few years. With around 260 employees, the BPO firm reported $38.2m in rev during the year ended Dec 2008. (Economic Times)

Technology Headlines – 16 November 2009

SAP plans to raise licensing fees - report: SAP plans to raise licensing fees for thousands of clients who use older versions of its software, German weekly Wirtschaftswoche reported on Sat. The magazine said older clients who do not switch to newer versions of software applications or have not switched to a new incremental price structure will see the largest cost changes. Commenting on the new price structure an SAP spokesman told the magazine: "The price increases concern single accounts and therefore are a mixture of price reductions and also, in part, price increases." (Reuters)

Capgemini wins green IT contract of over GBP 300m: The contract is for 7 years with Environment Agency of England and Wale and should see the Agency reduce IT carbon emissions by around 50 pct within the next few years. (Reuters)

Technology Headlines – 17 November 2009

Indian IT firms EU billing rates may come under tax strain: Starting Jan 1, the EU plans to impose value-added tax (VAT) on services delivered from non-EU nations such as India, a move which will put a renewed squeeze on profit margins of companies such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro, offshore outsourcing experts and tech firms say. European companies that outsource IT and back-office work will be looking to extract better value out of their service providers to offset the financial implications of the tax. Europe accounts for over a quarter of the $60b rev of the Indian outsourcing industry. (Economic Times)

IBM launches Business Analytics cloud: IBM on Monday announced plans to deploy an internal cloud computing environment that will make more than a petabyte of information instantly available to employees under a project called Blue Insight. IBM will also market the Blue Insight cloud computing architecture externally under the name IBM Smart Analytics Cloud. The commercial offering will also run on a System z mainframe, and will include business intelligence tools from IBM Cognos 8 BI. (InformationWeek)

Technology Headlines – 18 November 2009
SAP tweaks contracts amid tight IT budgets: "We will give our customers the option to decide which software they want to use," CEO Leo Apotheker told journalists, adding clients can rent or buy. "All in all we want to make SAP faster, simpler and more agile," Apotheker said. Apotheker added that the delayed Business by Design software aimed at the SMB segment would be launched in 2010. SAP said it also hopes to offset the decline in license revenue with more smaller contracts and an increase in global enterprise agreements. SAP also has high hopes for its in-memory data bank technology, which is designed to save and access data on a chip instead of a server. Apotheker said that while the worst of the economic crisis was over it was too early to speak of an upswing. (Reuters)

SAP CEO - Company is looking for larger acquisition targets: SAP makes two to three “smaller” acquisitions every quarter, and will continue to do so, its CEO Leo Apotheker said. “We are also looking into whether there are other somewhat larger possibilities.” “I am convinced that it is in the interest of customers and shareholders that SAP remains a strong and independent business,” Apotheker said, responding to speculation that SAP itself may be bought. (Bloomberg)

Technology Headlines – 19 November 2009
Dassault CFO optimistic on 2010 new licence sales: "I am relatively optimistic on new licence revenue in 2010," Thibault de Tersant said at a conference in Barcelona. "Overall growth is not going to fantastic," he said, adding it would not be on the historic growth levels of the group. "It's not going to be higher." (Reuters)

Technology Headlines – 20 November 2009

Intuit F1Q10 - tops ests; Q2 outlook misses: Intuit posted F1Q10 (ended Oct 31) rev of $493m (+2% y/y) ahead of cons $487.7m. Non-GAAP loss of 10c was smaller than the expected loss of 16c. For Q2, however, it sees rev of $800-835m vs. cons $833m, with non-GAAP EPS of 29-32c vs. cons 37c. For the full year, the company affirmed its previous forecast of $3.3-3.43b in rev with non-GAAP operating income of $985m to $1.025b. (TechTrader)

European IT services firms see more gloom ahead: Clients's decision-making was still taking longer than expected, Gilles Grapinet, CEO of Atos Origin said at an investor conference. Spanish IT company Indra's finance director, Juan Carlos Baena, said: "Customers are very lazy making decisions. Projects remain in the pipeline for a very long time". "2010 will be reasonably tough. You can expect it to be a pretty tough Q1," said CEO of Logica, adding most clients' 2010 IT budgets remained at 2009 levels. (Reuters)

Capgemini CEO says eyes acquisitions: Capgemini could use its strong cash position to make acquisitions or pay an extra dividend, CEO Paul Hermelin said. Capgemini had net cash of 576m Euros ($857m) at mid-2009. "Could we see extra dividend? Maybe. But it's up to the board to decide," he said, adding that the company was looking for acquisitions outside Europe, in the United States and Asia, but was not interested in mega-deals. "I don't think we should buy back shares," Hermelin also said, adding small buy backs were still possible. (Reuters)

Technology Headlines – 23 November 2009
Oracle wins more time for $7.4bn merger The European Commission has agreed to a request by Oracle to extend the deadline for approval of its proposed $7.4bn merger with Sun Microsystems, it emerged yesterday. The Commission, which has been holding up the deal because of antitrust concerns over Oracle's acquisition of a Sun-owned open source database company, said that the US software group had requested the extension in order to "have the opportunity to further develop its arguments in relation to the Commission's concerns". The extension will push back the latest date for a Commission decision from January 19 to January 27 (ft.com).

Microsoft and News Corp hold talks over locking out Google Microsoft has had talks with News Corp over a plan that would involve the media company's being paid to "de-index" its news websites from Google, setting the scene for a search engine battle that could offer a ray of light to the newspaper industry.The impetus for the discussions came from News Corp, owner of newspapers, ranging from the Wall Street Journal of the US to The Sun of the UK, said a person familiar with the situation, who cautioned that talks were at an early stage. However, the Financial Times has learnt that Microsoft has also approached other big online publishers to persuade them to remove their sites from Google's search engine (ft.com).

Technology Headlines – 24 November 2009
SAP Creates New Business Intelligence Solution for Defense Organizations To help defense organizations manage and sustain their resources — even when this information is scattered across disparate databases and systems — SAP has developed a preconfigured set of business intelligence solutions from the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio for rapid readiness assessment (sap)

SAP Research Aims to Accelerate “Internet of Services” With the rise of commoditized, on-demand services, the stage is set for the acceleration and access to services on an Internet scale, according to SAP Research. The global technology research unit of SAP has launched the Internet of Services community. The community aims to foster collaboration, dissemination and uptake of Internet of Services concepts, technologies and use cases, in order to leverage the significant investments and experience gained to date. It is a company-neutral, non-for-profit, open forum for researchers, technology vendors, service providers and end users (sap).

Dassault Systèmes Helps French Pavilion Become First World Expo Participant to Launch True Interactive 3D Pavilion: Dassault Systèmes today unveiled the first true, interactive, 3D virtual pavilion among participants of World Expo Online 2010, bringing unprecedented real time 3D interactivity and 360-degree immersive walkthrough experience to hundreds of millions of online visitors (dassault systemes).

Microsoft in move to cut out Google Microsoft is offering different terms to different publishers as it seeks to boost Bing by paying some content owners to cut their sites off from Google's rival search engine, industry executives said yesterday. Many executives and analysts welcomed the idea of large content owners including Rupert Murdoch's News Corp being paid to "de-index" from Google's dominant search engine, first reported on FT.com (ft.com)

Technology Headlines – 25 November 2009
Windows 8 in 2012, Maybe, but with 128-Bit Architecture? The blog Microsoft Kitchen posted two road map slides--purportedly shown by Microsoft during PDC in Los Angeles--suggesting that both the next Windows Server and Windows 8 would be released in 2012. Earlier in October, the LinkedIn page for one Robert Morgan, "senior member of Microsoft's Research & Development team," stated that his current projects included, "128-bit architecture compatibility with the Windows 8 kernel and Windows 9 project plan (bberg).

Microsoft CFO leaving Microsoft announced that CFO Chris Liddell is leaving the company at the end of 2009, and will be replaced by Peter Klein, who is now CFO of the Microsoft Business Division. Liddell joined the company in May 2005, after serving as CFO at International Paper.In a statement, the company said Liddell “is looking at a number of opportunities that will expand his career beyond being a CFO.” release every four to five years (techtrader).

Logica margins Logica Chief Executive Officer Andy Green expects “margins will remain pretty much the same as last year.” The Anglo-Dutch computer-services provider’s CEO sees better companies getting on with innovation and with change, Green said in an interview with Sky News. (Bberg)

Technology Headlines – 26 November 2009
SAP seeing emerging markets stabilising: SAP is seeing a stabilisation of demand in emerging markets, including China and India, as its deal pipeline improves and companies loosen their purse strings for IT spending. "We are absolutely seeing a level of stabilisation in markets across Asia," said Stephen Watts, chief operating officer of SAP Asia Pacific Japan, at the Reuters India Investment Summit. SAP sees incremental growth in the region from utilities, the public sector and financial services, said Watts. Japan, however, will remain a weak link and take longer to recover than some other markets, Watts said. (Reuters)

Software AG looking for 3 fold growth in Brazil: Software AG expects its service revenues in Brazil to triple next year, the company's chief services officer, Ivo Totev, said. Software AG also expects its service sales in Latin America to double every year beginning next year, the executive said. Totev said demand for such services is strongest in the banking, government and telecommunications sectors, but noted that the company is looking to diversify its client base, particularly in Brazil. (BNAmericas)

Dassault IBM purchase cleared: Dassault Systemes was cleared by U.S. antitrust enforcers to buy part of IBM's sales and customer support unit. The approval was disclosed yesterday by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on a list of proposed mergers permitted by antitrust officials. Dassault agreed in October to pay about $600 million in cash for the acquisition. (Bberg)

Users tell SAP: 'We need to talk more' SAP needs to better communicate with customers about the products in its portfolio as well as the technology it's developing. That's according to customers attending the SAP UK and Ireland SAP user group conference in Manchester this week when asked what the business software company could improve on (silicon.com).

Satyam shares tumble over fresh charges Shares in Mahindra Satyam, the fraud-hit IT services group, fell nearly 11 per cent on Wednesday after India’s main criminal investigation agency filed new charges against the company’s former chairman and nine other people. The Central Bureau of Investigation said that the alleged accounting fraud at the former Satyam Computer Services’ was significantly larger than previously stated by the former chairman and founder of the company. Satyam was acquired by Tech Mahindra in April and renamed after the Indian authorities had seized control of the company (ft.com).

Technology Headlines – 27 November 2009
IBM sets up global development centers for telecom industry IBM has announced the opening of telecommunications development centers to help communication service providers (CSPs) create new business models and improve operational efficiencies. The centers, located in in China, South Africa and Malaysia, provide technical skills and specialized offerings, said IBM. IBM also announced a dedicated center in France for solutions based on products and services from Comverse, a supplier of software and systems for the telecom industry.

China market saw increased B2B, B2C online sales in 3Q09 In the China market, web portals of B2B (business to business) e-commerce services generated total transactions of 1.51 bn yuan (US$221m) during the third quarter of 2009, growing by 2.8% on quarter and 16.2% on year, according to China-based consulting company Analysys International. Also In the China market, sales transactions of B2C (business to customer) online shopping during the third quarter reached 6.06bn yuan (US$887m), increasing 33.4% on quarter and 171% on year, Analysys indicated (digitimes).

Technology Headlines – 30 November 2009

Atos does not see recovery before H2 2010: Atos Origin will see a sales decline of about 3-4% this year, Chief Executive Officer Thierry Breton told Les Echos in an interview. Breton confirmed the company’s operating performance target for 2009, the newspaper said. He added that he doesn’t expect a recovery in demand before the second half of 2010, according to the newspaper (Bloomberg).

IBM to buy start-up Guardium for $225m - report: IBM is expected to announce this week the acquisition of database security start-up Guardium for $225m, Israeli financial newspaper TheMarker reported. The deal is due to close on Monday and will then be announced to the public, TheMarker said on Sunday. Guardium started as an Israeli firm in 2002 but moved to Boston in 2003. It has about 60 employees and all will profit from the sale, TheMarker cited a source close to the company as saying. Guardium is a subsidiary of Israel's Log-On Software. Officials at Log-On declined to comment on the report. (Economic Times)

Indian IT majors worried about cascading effect of Dubai crisis: “Global confidence is coming back. We were hoping for more spends. But now the confidence of our customers is shaking. I expect they are going to be a bit more cautious about spends and will not open up so much. Budgets were getting firmed up in Dec—clients will now relook at the whole thing,” said a senior software executive with one of the IT firms that was looking at the West Asia and Africa as a growth markets. Publicly, though, few firms are willing to admit to these worries. (Economic Times)

Technology Headlines – 01 December 2009
JDA Software to sell $275m of notes to fund i2 purchase: JDA Software, the maker of business-management programs for retailers, plans to sell $275m of senior notes in a private offering, according to a statement distributed by Business Wire. Proceeds from the sale will help the company pay for its acquisition of i2 Technologies, the statement said. The cash-and-stock deal, announced in Nov 2009, is valued at $234.1m. (Bloomberg)

SAP BusinessObjects OEM Partner Program Delivers Enhanced Value to Customers More than 750 SaaS and packaged application vendors have joined the SAP BusinessObjects OEM partner program to date, selling SAP business intelligence software, accelerating their time-to-market with less risk and reduced product-development times and increasing deal sizes by offering customers expanded product portfolios that enable better insights and promote faster decision-making (SAP).

IDC ROI study on SaaS vendors that partner with SAP for BI and analytics functionality In a recent study conducted by industry analyst IDC and sponsored by SAP, SaaS vendors that partner with SAP for BI and analytics functionality from the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio achieved an average of 235% return on investment versus developing the functionality on their own. The 64 SAP BusinessObjects partners interviewed in the study also reported the benefits of a mean payback period of 6.3 months and the ability to focus their developers on creating innovation and value (SAP).

Technology Headlines – 02 December 2009
Sage FY 09 – rev broadly in line, sees stabilization: Revenues come in at £1439m (cons. £1441m) broadly in line with UK and North American revenues slightly weaker than our forecasts, but Mainland Europe numbers and ROW slightly ahead. EBITA £320.7 m (cons 326m) looks a little light; however looking at EBITA excl. restructuring 347.1m (Nom £ 348m) numbers are broadly in line. While not seeing a general recovery, Sage sees a stabilization since the second half. (Sage)

SAP delays decision on higher maintenance fees: SAP postponed to early 2010 a decision on higher maintenance service fees in order to gather more feedback from customers, some of whom had criticized the software maker for considering a mark-up. "(SAP) takes the concerns of its customers seriously and also recognizes the ongoing pressures bearing down on IT budgets in the current economic environment," SAP said. The software maker had argued for an adjustment after 10 years of stable prices. Some customers had complained the amount of services they need did not justify the planned mark-up, which prompted SAP to launch a user survey. The company said on Tuesday that feedback so far has "shown clear value to participating SAP customers". (Reuters)

Intuit to sell real estate unit to Vista Equity for $128m, FY2010 rev outlook unchanged: Intuit said it agreed to sell its Intuit Real Estate Solutions unit to private equity firm Vista Equity Partners for $128m in cash. The unit has 340 employees and the deal is expected to close by the end of Intuit’s F2Q10 (ending Jan 31). The business contributed about $4m in non-GAAP operating income and $74m in rev in FY2009, and was expected to produce $8m in non-GAAP operating income and $80m in rev in FY2010. The company expects about a 2c reduction in non-GAAP EPS from the deal will be offset by other savings. Intuit continues to see FY2010 rev growth of 4%-8% excluding the real estate unit. The company expects to report a gain on the sale of 10-12c a share. (TechTrader)

Larsen's IT unit looking for $200-500m rev acquisition: India's L&T InfoTech is looking for an acquisition in a revenue range of $200-500m to achieve its goals of $1b rev and listing on stock exchanges by Mar 2012, V. K. Magapu, director, L&T group, told DJ Newswires in a recent interview. He said that the company currently clocks about $450m annual rev, adding that L&T InfoTech sees synergy in acquiring a company in the U.S., which will give it market presence in the Indian software industry's biggest market. L&T InfoTech CEO Sudip Banerjee termed reports of the company seeking to pick up a stake in rival Patni Computer Systems Ltd. as "market speculation." Funding any acquisition isn't a concern as the company has a strong parent in Larsen, Mr. Banerjee said. (WSJ)

Logica closes defined-benefit pension scheme: Logica is the latest UK employer to close its final-salary pension scheme, affecting 470 of its longest-serving employees. Logica said that it planned to close the defined-benefit scheme to new accrual from the second quarter of next year, offering the casualties the chance to join an inferior defined-contribution scheme. An existing defined-contribution scheme for another 3,200 Logica employees in the UK will also be closed. Members of that scheme will be offered the opportunity to join the new scheme. Dennis Bell, manager for UK remuneration and benefits, said the new system would give Logica more certainty. The UK defined-benefit scheme, with £178m of assets, was £14.9m in deficit at the end of 2008. (Times)

Autonomy in $5m deal with major pharma company: to license its Introspect 6.0 IDOL for collections, early case assessment, archiving and e-Discovery. (Autonomy)

Technology Headlines – 03 December 2009
Wipro expects “no further cuts” in IT budgets by its clients: Wipro today said it plans to hire 5,000 people in the next 1-2 months, according to the Times of India. Girish Paranjpe, co-CEO of Wipro’s IT business, said the company expects “no further cuts” in IT budgets by its clients, and that 2010 should be a better year than 2009. The company has about 100,000 employees. (TechTrader)

SAP Won’t Raise Fees for Austrian Enterprise Support Clients: SAP will “definitely” not raise charges next year for Austrian clients with Enterprise Support contracts, SAP Österreich GmbH said in an e-mailed statement. (Bloomberg)

Infosys to nearly double work force in U.S. mkt: Infosys plans to nearly double its work force in the U.S. and remains on the lookout for acquisition targets in Germany, France and Japan, its CEO S. Gopalakrishnan said. It is planning to hire 1,000 employees in the U.S., he added. "Ordinarily we look at a company of 10% of our size" for acquisition, Mr. Gopalakrishnan said, adding that a prospective target would have $300 million to $500 million in annual revenue. He didn't provide details on the business segments it is targeting for acquisitions. Mr. Gopalakrishnan said Infosys's revenue growth in the next fiscal year, starting April 1, will be driven by new outsourcing contracts. But for this fiscal year, "we are looking at almost zero-percent growth," he added. (WSJ)

Progress Software says it plans to cut jobs by 12%-14% (Bloomberg)

Technology Headlines – 04 December 2009
Novell FY Q4 EPS Beats; Q1 Rev View Misses: Linux and IT management software provider Novell reported revenue for F4Q09 (ended Oct 31) of $215.6 million, right in line with cons $215.7m. Non-GAAP EPS of 11c beat cons 7c. It sees rev for F1Q10 of $200-210m, shy of cons $214.2m. The company sees non-GAAP operating margin in the quarter of 14%-16%, down from 17.1% in Q4. (TechTrader)

Wal-Mart picks up Infosys, Cognizant and UST Global contracts worth over $600m: Wal-Mart Stores picked Infosys, Cognizant, and UST Global for multi-year contracts worth over $600m, a news report said on Friday. Initially the three vendors are expected to earn $54-$65m each annually, which will rise as Wal-Mart increases outsourcing more work. Infosys and Cognizant, which will provide application development and support, are expected to get a larger share of the contract, the report said. UST will be responsible for testing these applications, it said. Infosys, Cognizant and Wal-Mart all declined to comment. (Economic times/Reuters)

Tieto seeks Polish takeovers, may buy Sygnity, newspaper says: Tieto, the biggest Nordic provider of computer services, is seeking to buy companies in Poland and may consider the takeover of Polish software company Sygnity SA, Parkiet reported without citing anyone. Tieto is considering several companies and is already doing due diligence on some, according to Wojciech Zaremba, Tieto’s Polish market manager, Parkiet said. The Nordic firm wants to complete takeovers in 1H10, the newspaper said. (Bloomberg)

Take-Two lowers FY Q4 outlook; sees FY ‘10 loss: Take-Two Interactive reduced its guid for F4Q09 (ended Oct 31), and offered a projection for FY2010 that fell well short of Street expectations. For Q4, the company now sees revenue of $325-350m (vs. prev guid $350-375m), with non-GAAP EPS of 5-10c (vs. prev 30-35c). Take-Two said the largest reason for the shortfall was disappointing performance by its Major League Baseball titles in the quarter, reducing EPS by about 9 c. For FY Q1, it sees rev of $210-260m vs. cons $244c, and a non-GAAP loss of 40-50c vs. cons loss of 26c. For all of FY 2010, Take-Two expects rev of $1-1.2b, and a non-GAAP loss of 40-60c a share; the Street had been forecasting $1.24b and a profit of 64c. (TechTrader)

Outsourcer HCL to cut Insurer's costs by $150m: Equitable Life, a 250-year-old insurance company with half a million policyholders expects to save up to $150m by choosing Indian vendor HCL Technologies to manage an end-to-end chain of processes including policy administration, finance, actuarial services, IT operation support, and call-center services. HCL intends to deliver that savings of $150m to Equitable Life over a number of years—including $12m in the first year—through a variety of means, said a senior HCL official. In addition, 500 Equitable Life employees will be transferred to HCL, joining 3,000 other "on-boarded" employees who have joined the company in the course of similar large deals HCL was won in financial services. (InformationWeek)

Technology Headlines – 07 December 2009
Oracle - NYP says Ellison reportedly offers Compromise On MySQL; Reuters says Oracle denies the NYP report: According to the New York Post, Ellison has offered to create a separate entity within a combined Oracle/Sun to house MySQL which would be “firewalled” off from the rest of the company, possibly with its own board of directors. As the story notes, that is a change in approach by Oracle, which had previously said it planned to “vigorously” oppose the European regulators position on the deal. A spokesperson for Oracle says the Post report is “completely untrue,” according to Reuters. (TechTrader)

Microsoft, Yahoo Finalize Search Pact; Still See Closing In Early 2010: Yahoo and Microsoft said they have “finalized and executed” a definitive “Search and Advertising Services and Sales Agreement and License Agreement,” following the letter of intent they announced in July. The companies said they “remain hopeful” that the deal will close in early 2010. (TechTrader)

Technology Headlines – 04 January 2010 (all the news over the holidays from Dec 21)

Tibco F4Q09 - rev, EPS beat; 2010 pipeline encouraging: Mid-size Infrastructure Software firm Tibco which competes with Software AG in the BPM/SOA market posted F4Q09 sales up 5% to $195.6m vs. cons $180m and EPS of $0.23 vs. cons $0.20. Tibco said they felt very good about how the pipeline was shaping up for 2010.

Technology Headlines – 05 January 2010
Oracle to buy Silver Creek Systems: Oracle today said it agreed to acquire Silver Creek Systems, a Westminster, Colorado-based provider of “product data quality solutions.” Terms of the deal were not disclosed. (TechTrader)

Salesforce.com rings in new year with massive service disruption: For Salesforce.com 2010 began with an ignominious start — a widespread service outage on the first business day of the new year. According to the software-as-a-service vendor’s system status page, service degradation issues that began at around 7 AM PST on Jan 4, 2010 and evolved into full-blow disruptions by 12:10 PM PST and continue to plague that company. At one point 9 of 16 Salesforce instances were down, leaving thousands of customers without access to its offerings. The issue was finally resolved as of 1:58 PM PST. (AllThingsDigital)

Technology Headlines – 06 January 2010
Autodesk, Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Settle Suit: Autodesk and Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks agreed to settle a lawsuit pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. In the lawsuit, Autodesk’s allegations included that SolidWorks inappropriately used Autodesk’s trademarks AutoCAD and DWG. SolidWorks asserted counterclaims against Autodesk. Autodesk and SolidWorks agreed to dismiss all claims and have entered into a confidential settlement agreement. (Bloomberg)

Cloud computing to be adopted by more than 50% of SMEs in 2010: according to new research published today by internet service provider Easynet Connect. The report found that the figure had jumped from 22 per cent in October 2008. SMEs planning on implementing the technology over the next five years, meanwhile, had risen from 47 per cent in 2008 to nearly three-quarters in 2009. (V3.co.uk)

Technology Headlines – 07 January 2010
Autonomy sees 2009 in line; cash collection strong: Software firm Autonomy said it would report revenue and adjusted EPS in line with analysts' forecasts of $740m and $0.97, respectively, after new products helped trading in 2009. It also said on Wednesday it expected to report strong cash conversion for the year. The company said cash conversion in the fourth quarter showed expected seasonality, while the tax rate was in line with the 28% rate expected for the year and R&D capitalisation returned to traditional levels. (Reuters)

Autonomy enters into license agreement with BAE: Autonomy today announced that it has entered into a seven figure license agreement with aerospace firm BAE Systems to license Autonomy's IDOL. (Reuters)

Technology Headlines – 08 January 2010
Google raises offer for price for On2 Technologies: Google is bowing to pressure from shareholders of On2 Technologies in its takeover bid for the software company and raising its offer price. The new offer hikes the deal value to roughly $132m, up from $106.5m. Google reached an agreement to buy the company in August, a deal that would give it video compression technology that could be used to cut costs at the YouTube video sharing site. But On2 shareholders have balked at the price. On Thursday, Google said it will give On2 stockholders an extra 15c in cash for every On2 share they hold in addition to 0.001 Google share — or about 60c worth of its stock, based on the closing price Wed. (ABC News)

IT firms seek a share of $3b city council projects from UK: Almost three months after TCS won a 15-year technology services contract worth nearly $250m from the Cardiff City Council, UK’s Lancashire, along with a dozen other borough councils, is seeking suppliers for shared services projects worth almost $3b. As UK’s city councils, including Cardiff and Lancashire, seek to modernise their citizen services and gain efficiency, India’s top tech firms such as TCS, Wipro, Infosys and Patni apart from multinational rivals IBM and HP-EDS are competing for their share of this lucrative opportunity. However, unlike many private sector customer discussions “the government buyers are extremely sensitive about local job losses, and are insisting that at least 20-30% of work be done onshore for creating jobs,” said a senior executive at one of the Indian tech firms. (Economic times)

Technology Headlines – 11 January 2010
Sage rival Allscripts Reports F2Q10 Results - 2010 seen as year of EHR: Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, Sage rival in the US healthcare software (EHR) space, reported non-GAAP rev of $170.7m, non-GAAP net income of $24m (+45% y/y) and non-GAAP EPS of $0.16. "Second quarter results exceeded our plan," said Bill Davis, CFO of Allscripts. "We are especially pleased with our strong bookings in the first half of our fiscal year. Bookings in the first six months of fiscal 2010 reflect a 30% growth rate over the same period in our fiscal 2009. Glen Tullman, CEO of Allscripts said "We believe that 2010 will be the 'Year of the EHR' in which we expect to see significant acceleration in the adoption and utilization of healthcare information technology to improve quality and reduce cost. This is a once in a lifetime market opportunity, driven by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act". For Sage, we have modelled the first additional revenues from the stimulus package in 2011 of $40m of additional software revenues, assuming about 1.6K installations (out of a total available market of about 200K physician practices that currently operate without EHR) and an ASP of $25K (Bloomberg, Nomura Research)

Autonomy wins 'multi-million' contract: Autonomy announced that a major French financial services firm has placed a multi-million dollar order for Autonomy solutions. (Reuters)

Technology Headlines – 12 January 2010
Infosys posts strong December quarter; ups FY guidance: Infosys late Monday posted better-than-expected results for its fiscal third quarter ended December - and provided strong guidance for the March quarter. The IT outsourcing company posted Q3 revenue of $1.23b and profit of 59c; that was ahead of the Street at $1.17b and 51c. For Q4, the company sees revenue of $1.24b to $1.25b and a profit of 56c; the Street consensus was for $1.19b and 51c. For the full year, INFY now sees revenue of $4.75b to $4.76b with a profit of $2.26; previous guidance had been for $4.6b to $4.62b; the Street had been expecting profits of $2.14. (TechTrader)

Electronics Arts holiday sales miss: Electronic Arts this afternoon issued disappointing preliminary results for its fiscal thrid quarter ended Dec 31. The video game company said it now sees non-GAAP revenue of $1.33-$1.35b, with non-GAAP EPS or 29-33c; the Street has been expecting $1.42b and 56c. For the March 2010 fiscal year, the company now sees non-GAAP revenue of $4.125b to $4.2b, down from previous guidance of $4.2b to $4.4b, and non-GAAP EPS of 40-55c, down from previous guidance of 70c to $1. The company blamed the miss on “weakness for EA and the overall packaged goods sector in Europe in December, and a product mix shift to lower margin distribution products in the December quarter, primarily in North America. (TechTrader)

Salesforce.com to sell $500m convertible notes: Salesforce.com said it plans to offer $500m of unsecured, unsubordinated convertible senior notes due 2015 in a private placement. In connection with the offering, the company will enter into hedge transactions to reduce dilution from the offering. The company will use a portion of net proceeds for the hedge, and the rest for general corporate purposes, including potential acquisitions. (TechTrader)

Progress Software acquires Savvion for $49m: Infrastructure software vendor Progress Software acquired Business Process Management (BPM) firm Savvion in a deal worth $49m. Savvion has more than 300 customers for its standards-based BPM suite. (eWeek)

CA Acquires Oblicore: CA said it has acquired Oblicore, a provider of service level management software for enterprises and service providers. Oblicore received over $30m in venture funding from Jerusalem Venture Partners, Favonius Ventures and Concord Ventures. Terms were not disclosed. (TechTrader)

Technology Headlines – 13 January 2010
Google threatens to leave China over security breach: In a post to its corporate blog, the company said that in mid-December it detected “a highly sophisticated and targeted attack” on its corporate infrastructure that originated in China and “resulted in the theft of IP from Google.” The company adds that it has turned up attacks on at least 20 other large companies in the Internet, finance, tech, media and chemical sectors. It also says there is evidence to suggest that a primary goal was to gain access to to the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. The company said that in response it has decided it is no longer willing to continue censoring results on Google.cn, and that it will discuss with the Chinese government the basis on which it could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law - if at all. “We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially out offices in China,” the company writes. (TechTrader)

Microsoft and HP to host a joint teleconference: on 13-Jan at 11:15 ET (16:15 GMT) where MSFT CEO Steve Ballmer and HP CEO Mark Hurd will take questions regarding a new joint agreement and joint investment to prepare customers for the next generation of business computing. Bob Muglia, president of MSFT's Server and Tools Business and Dave Donatelli, HPQ's GM of Enterprise Servers and Networking will also participate. (Bloomberg)

Logica wins healthcare contract in Norway: South-Eastern Norwegian Regional Health Authority has signed a framework agreement with Logica in Norway for the acquisition and maintenance of a clinical desktop solution designed to simplify access to patient data and improve patient care at the hospitals in the region. The South-East Health Region is Norway's largest, and includes a total of 69,000 employees across 16 hospitals, covering the health needs of nearly 2.7 million inhabitants. (Logica)

Infosys to increase overseas headcount threefold: Infosys Technologies has warned that India's information technology outsourcing industry will begin to face staffing constraints and rising costs again as the sector stages a rapid recovery from the global financial crisis. Infosys CEO S Gopalakrishnan, said India's second-largest IT group would increase the portion of overseas staff in its headcount threefold to help overcome talent shortages as the cycle turns. Prior to the crisis, in 2007, India's IT outsourcing industry was growing at up to 30 per cent a year, leading to a talent crunch and acute wage inflation and raising concerns that its competitiveness was being undermined. During the crisis, most companies froze salaries. But this has begun to thaw. Infosys late last year raised salaries by 8%, with its main rivals expected to follow early this year. (FT)

Technology Headlines – 14 January 2010
Microsoft, HP in $250m Cloud Computing Deal: HP and Microsoft today announced a three-year deal to invest $250m in a new cloud computing venture. The two companies said they “will collaborate on an engineering roadmap for data management machines; converged, pre-packaged application solutions; comprehensive virtualization offerings; and integrated management tools.” (TechTrader)

Ubisoft cuts FY guidance sharply: Ubisoft said that sales targets for Q3 and FY 2009-10 have been revised downwards to EUR 495m and around EUR 860m (vs. cons EUR 1026m) respectively, from the previously announced figures of EUR 540m and EUR 1,040m, on back of 50% y/y drop in casual segment sales and lower-than-expected sales of some of company's AAA high-quality games and several non-casual Wii titles reporting lower-than-expected sales. (Ubisoft, Bloomberg)

IBM’s Palmisano: World “Has Stabilized Somewhat”: IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano said in a speech in London that the global economy “has stabilized somewhat,” but that the world for the foreseeable future “will be faced with addressing many pressing global issues with less, rather than more, resources.”(TechTrader)

Activision Says Modern Warfare 2 Sales top $1b: Activision Blizzard announced that retail sales of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 now tops $1b since launch. The company said the game sold an estimated $550m worldwide in the first five days of sale alone

Technology Headlines – 15 January 2010
Google Said to Have Tried to Get Support over Attack: Google approached other companies to seek their help drawing attention to a cyber attack from China last month and was frustrated by their reluctance to come forward, according to a person familiar with the matter. Since then, three other companies, Adobe Systems, Juniper Networks and Rackspace Hosting, have said they were targeted by cyber attacks. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said yesterday in an interview with Bloomberg that his company intends to stay in China and wants to be “part of the solution” in the country. Intel said there is no change in its view of the Chinese market and it hadn’t seen evidence of a “broad-based attack” on its systems. Cisco said it’s closely following discussions of censorship in China. (Bloomberg)

Sage event on global products in Paris: Sage will host an event on its global mid-market positioning and on the launch of Sage ERP X3 v6 with a number of customers, press and trade analysts in Paris on January 20th. The programme is 3.30pm-5pm CET: Sage’s global positioning in the mid-market, Sage ERP X3 market and product strategy, with Paul Walker, Chief Executive. 5.15pm-6pm CET – Q&A audiocast (WebEx):

Technology Headlines – 18 January 2010
TCS gains after quarterly profit beats estimates: TCS rose as much as 4.8% in Mumbai trading on Monday morning after saying quarterly profit rose 33% to 18b rupees in the three months ended Dec. 31, from a year earlier. (Bloomberg, See Nomura Research below for analyst comments)

TCS CEO sees US driving its sales; China a marathon: “In the immediate future definitely it is 50 percent but even when it comes down it will come down by a percent, two at a time,” TCS CEO, said in an interview in Mumbai on Jan. 16. China “is more like running a marathon; it’s not going to be easy to ramp up in China overnight". He added that “The U.S. is still the largest spender in IT. We may be $3 billion in the U.S. but still it’s very small considering the overall tech spending in the U.S. So while we continue to focus on other markets, we always said that the U.S. will grow, financial services will grow.” “We more or less started at the same time in Latin America and China,” he said. “Even in revenue terms Latin America has grown faster.” (Bloomberg)

Google says it’s in talks with China on Search Engine: Google said it has begun talks with the Chinese government about the company’s plan to stop censoring results from its search engine, after saying it may quit the country because of cyber attacks. Google will hold more talks with Chinese authorities “in the coming days,” it said in an e-mailed statement today. Google added that its Google.cn Chinese-language site is still operating in compliance with local regulations. (Bloomberg)

Alibaba upset with Yahoo for taking Google's side on cyber attacks in China: Alibaba, an online commerce company in which Yahoo owns roughly a 40% stake, said on saturday that "Yahoo's statement that it is 'aligned' with the position Google took last week was reckless, given the lack of facts in evidence". Yahoo said Wednesday it is "aligned with Google" in condemning the cyber attacks that Google said it experienced from hackers in China. (WSJ)

19/01/2010

Microsoft's browser under fire in Europe: Microsoft challenged recommendations by European officials that people stop using its Internet Explorer browser because of a security hole that hackers exploited in the recent attack on Google and other companies. In an unusual move, German and French agencies posted notices on their Web sites warning against using Internet Explorer and advising computer users to switch to alternatives. Microsoft competitor Opera Software said the number of downloads in Germany of its Opera browser doubled to 18,000 a day over the weekend. The firm didn't have statistics for France. A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company has been talking to the French and Germany agencies, along with other govt organizations, about the security issues "to ensure they have current and up-to-date information." (WSJ)

L&T to sell more Mahindra Satyam shares, CNBC TV-18 Reports: L&T plans to sell more shares in Mahindra Satyam Ltd. this week, CNBC TV-18 said, citing people it didn’t name. L&T holds 4.58% in Mahindra Satyam worth 6.14b rupees, the television channel reported. (Bloomberg)

Fallout from cyber attack spreads: Google is investigating whether any of its employees in China played a role in a massive cyber attack, according to people familiar with the matter. Some of Google's roughly 700 employees in China have had their network access cut off during the investigation, according to one person briefed on the matter. Meanwhile, Alibaba yesterday slammed Yahoo for its public support of Google in the conflict. Yahoo responded that its earlier remarks condemned Internet attacks, not the Chinese government. (WSJ)

21/01/2010

Sage, Buy, Company Update - Global launch of Sage ERP X3 V6 in Paris, Dr. Gunnar Plagge, Sage - Company Update - Global launch of Sage ERP X3 V6 in Paris
Investment Conclusion
Sage yesterday launched its global mid-market ERP product X3 V6 (version 6) which is based on its French product ERP X3 V5 in Paris. While X3 accounts for only about 3% of Sage's revenues, the product grew 13% last year and we are expecting a strong acceleration in the current year based on a more international role-out and a development of the distribution platform. As such we believe X3 is one of Sage's strongest growing products with a substantial international growth potential. Integration with other Sage software products is at the moment not very well developed. However, it was mentioned that this is an important focus going forward (e.g. with Sage CRM and Saleslogix CRM).

Summary
• Event
• Sage X3
• Distribution
• Sage X3V6
• Geographic roll-out and availability of X3 V6

IBM buys intelligence firm from D.C. Capital: IBM said on Wed it would buy intelligence technology firm National Interest Security Co from private equity firm D.C. Capital Partners. The purchase price was not disclosed, but D.C. Capital Partners will make nine times its original investment, realizing $180m in equity value, a source familiar with the transaction said. D.C. Capital Partners invested $19.6m in June 2007, the source said. IBM said National Interest Security's expertise in biometrics and systems engineering would contribute to its analytics business. Last year, IBM bought business analytics company SPSS Inc for $1.2b in cash to better compete against rivals like Oracle and SAP. D.C. Partners declined to comment. (Reuters)

Amdocs FY Q1 hits high end Of guid: For F1Q10 (ended Dec) the company posted rev of $725m and non-GAAP EPS of 55c; guidance had been for $705-725m and 51-55c. The Street consensus split the difference at $715.5m and 53c. For Q2, the company sees revenue of $730m to $750m and non-GAAP EPS of 52-56c; the Street has been expecting 54c. (TechTrader)

eBay Q4 rev, EPS edge ests: Revenue for 4Q09 was $2.37b (+16% y/y) ahead of cons $2.29b. Non-GAAP EPS of 44c beat cons 40c. The company said results reflected “excellent growth” at PayPal and StubHub, and improvement in growth rates in the core eBay business, as well as positive effects from currency. For Q1, the company sees rev of $2.1b to $2.2b, with non-GAAP EPS of 39-41c. That is about in line with the Street at $2.16b and 40c. For the full year, eBay sees rev of $8.8b to $9.1b, up 9%-12% ex-Skype, with non-GAAP EPS of $1.63 to $1.68. The Street has been expecting $9.03b and $1.60. (TechTrader)

22/01/2010

EU Clears Oracle to Buy Sun Microsystems: Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes gave the deal unconditional approval, opening the door for the technology companies to close the transaction soon. Russian and Chinese antitrust authorities are expected to follow in approving the deal soon, with the US already having cleared the acquisition. Two factors alleviated the concern of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm. First, in Dec, Oracle pledged to "continue to enhance" development of MySQL. It even promised to publish some programming details and abstain from copyright suits against others who do. Second, the commission concluded that in most cases Oracle's own programs aren't interchangeable with MySQL, which meant that having them under the same roof isn't a threat to consumers. Oracle says it will discuss its plans for Sun on Wed. (WSJ)

Google 4Q09 - rev, EPS beat; "quite committed" to business in China: The Internet search giant posted rev ex-traffic acquisition costs of $4.95b, a hair ahead of the Street consensus at $4.92b. Non-GAAP EPS of $6.79 topped the Street at $6.50. Total rev was $6.67b, up 17%; TAC was 27% of revenue, flat with a year ago. Google sites rev was up 16%; network revb was up 21%. The company finished the year with $24.5b in cash. Google CEO said that it is “quite committed” to continue doing business in China, adding that the company is in conversations with the Chinese govt., and that its business in China today remains unchanged. The CEO also said Google's "business structures" with Apple were quite stable, but he declined to comment on media reports that Apple was in talks with Microsoft about replacing Google as the iPhone's search engine. (TechTrader, Reuters)

SAP and Hasso Plattner Ventures announce Joint Strategic Investment in RIB Software: SAP and Hasso Plattner Ventures today announced they have made a minority co-investment in RIB Software AG, a leading technology company in the construction industry. The investment underscores SAP's commitment to fuel the development of innovative solutions built on the integration of RIB iTWO and SAP software. (SAP)

25/01/2010

Google founders Page, Brin to sell 5m Shrs each over 5 years: Google disclosed in an SEC filing this afternoon that founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin each intend to sell 5m shares of the company’s common stock over the next five years, via a stock trading plan, adopted on November 30 of last year, after the completion of a previous five-year plan which the two created after the company went public in 2004. Using these plans, they can gradually diversify their investment portfolios and can spread stock trades out over an extended period of time to reduce market impact. The filing notes that the two men hold 57.7m Class B shares, or about 18% of the company’s stock, with about 59% voting power. If each sells 5m shares, as scheduled in the plan, in five years they would still own 47.7m shares, or 15% of Google’s shares, and 48% voting control. (TechTrader)


26/01/2010
Sage trading in line Sage released its interim statement for Q1 (to 31 December 2009) saying that trading was consistent with management expectations in all regions. Overall subscription revenue growth continues to offset a more difficult markets for software and software-related services. Net debt was reduced to £392m from £439m at 30 September 2009, reflecting continued strong cash generation (sage).

VMware Crushes Q4 Estimates; Stock Jumps VMware (VMW) posted better-than-expected Q4 results, in the latest indication that corporate IT spending is picking up. For the quarter the company reported revenue of $608m, up 18% from a year ago, and well above the Street consensus at $553.7m. Non-GAAP EPS of 31 cents a share beat the Street by a nickel. For Q1, the company sees revenue of $580-600m, above consensus at $530.3m. For all of 2010, the virtualization software company sees revenue of $2.45-2.55 bn, up 21%-26% from the $2 bn reported for 2009, and ahead of the consensus at $2.28bn (techtrader).

IBM helps software partners gain skills and generate leads: More than two-thirds of IBM software partners expect improved profitability from its new skills initiative according to a global survey. The initiative includes new sales and technical resources for IBM Software partners to help jump-start new business opportunities. For the first time, IBM will pass new midmarket sales leads valued below $50,000 (USD/EU) to authorized IBM Software partners, deliver new cloud computing architecture certification for partners and provide direct access to more than 130 industry training sessions online (IBM).

HP Expands Security Portfolio HP on Monday plans to expand its HP Secure Advantage security services portfolio with a variety of new offerings aimed at making corporate security solutions easier to acquire, integrate, and manage. Building upon the EDS acquisition- now called HP Enterprise Services - HP aspires to be a one-stop shop for enterprise security and compliance. HP estimates that there are about 800 vendors offering "point solutions" -- products and that enterprise customers may be managing 100 or 200 different security and compliance products. HP Secure Advantage aims to address the array of options by offering consulting and training, and security solutions for both managed and traditional computing environments (information week).

Boxed Software Revenues Slipping Despite a 35% increase in operating system sales, boxed software revenue at U.S. retailers fell 7% in 2009, a research firm said Friday. The 7% dip in 2009 was an improvement over the double-digit drop in 2008, and came on sales of Microsoft Windows 7 and Apple Snow Leopard. But despite the decline, the $2.4 bn taken in at stores represented an improvement over the 10% drop in sales in 2008, The NPD Group said. Year-over-year unit volume in 2009 fell 6% and average selling price declined 2%. Besides OSes, business software was the only other non-game, boxed software to post a unit gain. The category grew 6%, due mostly to a 15% drop in average selling prices (information week).

29/01/2010

Microsoft Crushes FY Q2 Ests; Revs $19.2B; EPS 74 Cents: The software giant posted revenue for the quarter of $19.12b, with EPS of 74c, ahead of the Street at $17.84b and 59c. Revenues were up 14% from a year ago. “Exceptional demand for Windows 7 led to the positive top-line growth for the company,” CFO Peter Klein said in a statement. “Our continuing commitment to managing costs allowed us to drive earnings performance ahead of the revenue growth.” Microsoft said the company has now sold 60m units of Windows 7 since launch in Oct. Microsoft estimated that PC unit sales were up 15%-17% in the quarter from a year ago, and that its own unit sales and revenue were substantially ahead of the market. (TechTrader)

CA FY Q3 Solid; Affirms 2010 View: CA, the old Computer Associates, posted rev for its fiscal third quarter ended December 31 of $1.128b, a hair ahead of the Street at $1.10b. Non-GAAP EPS of 43 cents beat the Street by a penny. For the March 2010 fiscal year, the company continues to see revenue of $4.3b to $4.4b and non-GAAP profits of $1.60-$1.71 a share; the Street consensus is $4.3b and $1.68. (TechTrader)

1/2/2010

Informatica Buys Siperian, Reports Strong Earnings: The data integration firm steps into the master data management market (MDM) with the $130m acquisition. MDM software helps organizations ensure data consistency and reliability across dimensions such as customers, products, locations and employees. The market for MDM software will reach $1b in 2010 and is growing 20% per year, according to Forrester Research. The acquisition sets up yet another market in which Informatica competes with the industry giants. But the move may rankle Oracle, which uses Informatica identity resolution technologies in its own MDM offerings (InformationWeek)

Google takes aim at Beijing censorship: "We like what China is doing in terms of growth...we just don't like censorship," Mr. Schmidt said, speaking at the World Economic Forum's annual summit here. "We hope that will change and we can apply some pressure to make things better for the Chinese people." He added, "We would very much like to stay in China. We would very much like the censorship we oppose to improve in China." (WSJ)

Microsoft Enterprise Sales Fizzle: Microsoft posted record quarterly revenue, but most of the growth was driven by a recovery in consumer sales. Microsoft cautioned that Windows client sales to the corporate market were weaker than in the consumer sector. Management said businesses are showing "enthusiasm to adopt" Windows 7, but it's too early to gauge how many will upgrade from Windows XP, and when. Windows Vista, Windows 7's predecessor, was shunned by enterprises due to concerns about cost and compatibility. Meanwhile, Microsoft's sales of server software that runs corporate datacenters grew just 2% during the second quarter, to $3.8 billion (InformationWeek).

CA Shopping For Cloud, Security Deals, CEO Says: CA CEO William McCracken says the company plays to spend at least $300m a year on cloud computing and security software deals both this year and next year, Bloomberg reports. McCracken, who yesterday was named CEO of the company - he had already served as executive chairman - says CA wants to be “the heterogeneous, bring-it-all-together guy.” (TechTrader)

Google Phasing out Support for IE 6.0, Firefox 2.0: Google says it will cease fully supporting Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 for its Google Docs and Google Sites applications on March 1. This deadline also applies to other older Web browser versions, including Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and Google's own Chrome 3.0. The move is part of Google's push to put Google Chrome in its place. Chrome has 4.63% of the browser market and Google would love to chomp away at IE's 63%. (eWeek)

2/2/2010

Wipro, GE pact may open gates for $1b deal: India’s third-biggest software exporter Wipro has been empanelled by General Electric as one of the outsourcing vendors as part of a master services agreement (MSA) signed between the companies recently, at least three persons familiar with the transaction told ET last week. The agreement with GE will allow Wipro to bid for nearly $1b worth of outsourcing projects fleshed out by different business units of GE every year, against rivals Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Genpact. (Economic Times)

03/02/2010

Autonomy reported Q4 results in line with expectations. Q4 revenues came in at $223m at a gross margin of 89% (NOM 86%). EPS at $0.33 in line. The company stated that growth expected to continue in protect and promote business with strongest growth in OEM. Company also saw at the end of Q4 signs of a macro pick-up. Autonomy signed 12 OEM deals in Q4 in line with expectations. Cash collection was $216m up from $192m in Q3. DSOs remain in normal range of 88 days (autonomy).

Google Plans Store for Online Business Software: Google is preparing to launch a store selling online business software that integrates with its Web services, according to people briefed by the company, enlisting software developers in its battle against Microsoft. These people said the store will sell business software designed by outside developers to integrate and add capabilities to Google Apps, such as enhanced security features or the ability to import contacts. Google could announce the new store as soon as March, they said. Google eventually plans to allow customers to purchase its partners' software through the site, taking a cut for itself and sharing some revenue with the developers, these people said. (WSJ)

Google Pushing Chrome Browser In Europe Via Billboards, Newspaper Ads: As Reuters reports, Google is running billboard and newspaper ads for Chrome in London, Paris and Amsterdam, as the EU opens up the Internet browser market, as part of a regulatory settlement with Microsoft. The story notes that one Paris billboard lists many things someone might do on Chrome while deciding to book a trip to the World Cup. “Twenty-one tabbed windows open, zero bugs, one web browser,” the ad reads. Google declined to say how much it is spending on the ad campaign. (TechTrader)

Kenexa Swoons As Outlook Misses Kenexa (KNXA), the HR software company, gave a disappointing profit guidance for both the March quarter and 2010. For Q4 KNXA posted revenue of $39.1m (cons. $39.6m), and non-GAAP profits if 13 cents a share (cons. 15 cents). For the March quarter, the company sees revenue of $38-40m million (cons. $40.3m), with non-GAAP profits of 8-0 cents a share (cons 16 cents) (TechTrader)