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Wednesday, November 24, 2010

SAP at a crossroads after losing $1.3B verdict (AP) : Technet

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SAP at a crossroads after losing $1.3B verdict (AP) : Technet

SAP at a crossroads after losing $1.3B verdict (AP)

Posted: 24 Nov 2010 02:24 PM PST

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer Jordan Robertson, Ap Technology Writer – Wed Nov 24, 5:24 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – On the losing end of a $1.3 billion jury verdict for stealing a rival's intellectual property, SAP AG is facing the difficult decision about whether to double down — by appealing — or folding.

Either route is going to cost the German company dearly, and will have implications for how other technology companies approach copyrights.

A jury in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Tuesday found that SAP's behavior in plundering software and documents from archenemy Oracle Corp.'s secured websites was so egregious that it awarded Oracle nearly all of the damages it was seeking.

If SAP appeals, it will have to endure several more years of disastrous publicity, a jackpot for Oracle.

"I'm not sure what the grounds for an appeal are — I'm not sure what the argument would be," said Patrick Walravens, an analyst with JMP Securities. "It's not like this was a trial that was done in a quick and dirty manner. It was three years and hundreds of millions in legal fees — things were pretty well vetted."

The judge in the case still has to formally affirm the jury's verdict, and could reduce the award. An order could come sometime in the next week.

Many analysts suspect that SAP will stand down and try and figure out a way to pay one of the biggest software piracy penalties on record. Doing so would put the $10 million acquisition of the tiny, now-shuttered company called TomorrowNow that landed SAP in this mess that much farther in the rearview mirror.

SAP would only say that its legal team is "currently assessing all options available to us after this disappointing verdict," including post-trial motions and appeals. "Unfortunately, this is a process that we expect to last a while. We continue to hope that an appropriate resolution can be reached without years of additional litigation."

Oracle has already reaped a windfall by damaging SAP's reputation, and will likely hammer on the verdict in negotiations to try and steal SAP customers in its quest to dethrone the German company as the world's biggest maker of business applications. Oracle has spent more than $40 billion on acquisitions over the past half decade to muscle into that business, building a sideline to its core database software.

Oracle's public relations blitzkrieg during the trial also ensnared another rival, Hewlett-Packard Co. Its new CEO, Leo Apotheker, was previously at SAP, and Oracle tried to force him to testify in the case. Apotheker stayed out of the public eye for the three weeks the case was going on, leading Oracle to believe he was dodging the subpoena.

HP repeatedly said that Apotheker had limited knowledge of the matter, and accused Oracle of harassing its new executive.

While Oracle succeeded at stoking controversy about Apotheker's absence from the trial, investors ultimately didn't seem that concerned. HP's stock rose after Apotheker appeared this week on HP's quarterly earnings call and he articulated a strategy that apparently satisfied shareholders.

HP and SAP have maintained that Oracle's interest in Apotheker was a sideshow. Oracle argued that Apotheker was a key player in the scheme.

If SAP decides to pay, coming up with the money is going to hurt. The $1.3 billion that the jury awarded Oracle is more than half of SAP's total profit from last year. But Ross MacMillan, an analyst with Jefferies and Co., noted that SAP could easily pay for the verdict with cash on hand. At the end of September, SAP's cash stockpile stood at about $4.1 billion, at current exchange rates.

MacMillan said the verdict wouldn't likely harm SAP in the long term.

"It has no real bearing on either company's product portfolios or customer relationships, in our view," he wrote in a note to clients Wednesday.

SAP had set aside just $160 million to pay a judgment against the company, and has already spent $120 million of that paying Oracle's legal fees.

One reason that SAP's courtroom drama might not damage its prospects is that it's expensive and time-consuming for companies to change back-office software. Another is that SAP is the market leader in business applications that companies already rely on for some of their most vital tasks, including managing payroll and human resources.

"Customers are sophisticated. They buy software that solves problems, and SAP solves a lot problems," said Walravens. "The implications from this are more around the way people do business, which is, you have to be really careful about infringing people's copyrights. Even if you think the damages from that behavior aren't very big, you can end up having to pay a lot of money."

If the verdict is allowed to stand, it will set the tone for other technology copyright cases. Few cases can match Oracle vs. SAP for scandal and star power, but the size of the award is a warning shot for others embroiled in similar disputes, and an incentive for plaintiffs to push more cases through to trial instead of settling.

While SAP can decide whether to let the lawsuit die, it's powerless in another key element of the case that has yet to play out: the company has acknowledged an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into the matter, and criminal charges are a possibility.

Review: Paper wins over e-books for travel guides (AP)

Posted: 24 Nov 2010 02:45 PM PST

By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Technology Writer Anick Jesdanun, Ap Technology Writer – Wed Nov 24, 5:45 pm ET

DRESDEN, Germany – It sounded like a better, lighter way to pack for a trip to Germany: a Kindle with a Lonely Planet travel guide in lieu of an 844-page brick of a book.

Yet to my surprise, the 10-day visit to Munich, Dresden and Berlin turned into a lesson about the pitfalls of cramming an old medium — the book — into a new one — the electronic reading device.

It's a good thing that I had the foresight to bring a paper copy of Lonely Planet's "Germany," borrowed from the public library. My plan was to bring it as a backup in case something went wrong with the Kindle, but leave it in the hotel room to lighten my backpack. Instead, I ditched the Kindle and carried the book around.

That made me sad, because the Kindle, and the e-reading revolution, promises so much.

The e-reader from Amazon.com Inc. is light and can store not only the travel guide, but all the bulky novels I've been meaning to catch up on. A built-in dictionary lets me look up strange words.

The Kindle lets me type notes, highlight passages, and find them easily again. I added tips on tipping and transit fares as well as a reminder to visit a concentration camp memorial outside Berlin. The Kindle also lets me add bookmarks, the digital equivalent of the folded corners, or doggie ears, that I've marred many paperbacks with in the past.

Preparing for the trip, there was no need to go to a book store or even a computer. I just bought the book through the Kindle's wireless connection. The Kindle version of the Lonely Planet guide was cheaper, too — $15.39, compared with the paper version at $18.47 on Amazon (the list price for both is $27.99).

Lonely Planet also let me buy individual chapters — for example, the one on Munich and surrounding Bavaria — for less than $5 (though it wasn't clear that I'd be getting the same content contained in the main book, rather than a distinct guide for the region).

But I quickly came to realize what I like most about paper books: I can touch the pages, and I can see more at once, whether it's a map, some text or a combination.

I missed all that reading on the Kindle, which was clumsy by comparison. There were two main reasons for this: the screen technology and the way the book was converted for e-reading

Consider the Lonely Planet's 2.2-mile, 16-stop walking tour of Dresden, which takes me by the major churches, markets and other sights rebuilt following the Allied bombings of the city in the waning days of World War II. The narrative gave me bare-bones descriptions of each sight. To learn more, I had to flip to a different section in the book and sometimes consult the index to find the right page. To navigate the route, I had to flip to a map and follow a black line marking my route.

Holding the paper version, I simply kept my thumb on one page and a finger on another to flip back and forth between the narrative and the deeper descriptions. The map was either on the same page or just one page away.

With the Kindle, I had to hit "next page" and "prev page" repeatedly, and the pages took their sweet time to turn, because the "electronic ink" technology of the screen doesn't respond as fast as a computer screen. Out of frustration, I flicked a switch to turn the device off instead.

E-ink also means scrolling and zooming doesn't work well. The Lonely Planet's solution was to break maps into four, so that you could get a closer look at each quadrant on the full screen. The idea is good in principle, but clunky in practice. I found I had to flip back and forth too many times because the legends telling me what sight each number corresponds to ended up on the wrong quadrant. Had the guidebook been developed in digital form from scratch, points on the map could have taken me to the corresponding entry with one click.

In the paper version, the region I explored was printed on the top of each page, whether it was Berlin or Central Saxony. On the Kindle, I had no such guide. I came across a listing for Thomaskirche, a church where composer Johann Sebastian Bach once worked. I thought it would be a good place to visit, until I realized I had already left the Dresden section of the book and moved on to Leipzig, which wasn't part of my journey.

Another example of poor conversion from paper to bits: There's an index at the end of the Kindle book that serves no purpose. The listings aren't clickable. I would have expected the digital index to function like a search — click on it for all the references to those keywords throughout the book.

And because the Kindle can't handle columns well, some text was presented as a graphic, making it unsearchable.

As a technology writer for more than a decade, I hardly consider myself a Luddite. I do believe e-books have their place in society — even as travel guides, when designed properly. The Kindle works well for linear novels, but stumbles badly when given another task. The experience might have been different on, say, an iPad, which has a responsive color screen.

Even then, I'd have to hope for a guidebook specifically designed for the screen, rather than a conversion from paper. Or I'd at least hope for an e-book that gets updated frequently, something more difficult with paper. As it was, the Kindle edition I bought in August was based on the 2007 version of the guidebook, not the 2010 edition that just came out four months earlier.

And perhaps if I ever get to take an around-the-world trip one day, I'd appreciate being able to bring multiple guidebooks for multiple destinations without having to carry all that weight, even with the Kindle's limitations.

One of the Lonely Planet executives I talked to after my trip pointed out that printed books have a head start of several centuries.

That's true. I'm dealing with first-generation e-book technology at best.

So for my next trip to a single destination, I'll stick with the tried and true: I'll just carry the book.

Facebook moves closer to trademarking 'face' (AP)

Posted: 24 Nov 2010 12:18 PM PST

Checking work e-mail during Thanksgiving dinner? (Who, me?) (Ben Patterson)

Posted: 24 Nov 2010 12:54 PM PST

Why I hate my DVR, but have yet to tune in to TiVo (Ben Patterson)

Posted: 24 Nov 2010 09:37 AM PST

By Ben Patterson ben Patterson – Wed Nov 24, 12:37 pm ET

Like many of you, I rent a sluggish, stubbornly quirky DVR from my cable carrier — and boy, do I hate it, so much so that I often dream of swapping it out for a speedy, easy-to-use TiVo. So what's stopping me, you ask?

I'm sure executives at TiVo are worrying over the same question: Why have home viewers been so slow to go the TiVo way?

TiVo is bleeding both users and revenue, with the company telling Wall Street on Tuesday that it lost more than $20 million last quarter, versus $6.4 million for the same quarter last year, according to the Associated Press.

TiVo still managed to rake in $50.9 million in third-quarter revenue, but that figure is down by about $6 million from the third quarter of 2009, and the suits at TiVo are warning that the picture won't be any prettier in the fourth quarter

Even worse is the news that TiVo lost 112,000 subscribers last quarter. Currently, TiVo has a total membership base to about 2.3 million users, down from 2.7 million subscribers last year, AP reports.

At least TiVo lost fewer users last quarter than it did during the third quarter of 2009, when 314,000 TiVo subscribers tuned out. But TiVo says it's seeing about 2 percent of its users cancel their subscriptions each month, according to the AP story.

Uh oh.

TiVo hasn't been taking the grim numbers sitting down, though. Last week, it announced new holiday pricing for its flagship Premiere DVR, which is now available for $99 down and $20 a month for a year, or zero down and $20 a month for two years.

TiVo also just announced a slick iPad app that lets you scan what's on and schedule recordings while you're watching shows. TiVo users will also be getting access to Hulu Plus in the "coming months."

And behind the scenes, TiVo is hoping to bag $300 million if it wins a protracted patent lawsuit against EchoStar, a much-needed chunk of change that would temporarily stanch the bleeding.

Unfortunately for TiVo, not even a $300 million windfall will help stop the steady drip of departing users — and that's a shame, because for my money, TiVo's DVRs (including the new Premiere, which arrived last March) are still the best in the business.

Getting back to the original point, though — if I'm so eager to swap out my DVR from Time Warner Cable (sure, I'll name names), why haven't I done it already?

Like many of you, I rent my sluggish, tricky-to-use DVR (manufactured by Scientific Atlanta, in my case) from Time Warner through a "double-play" (digital cable plus broadband) package deal.

Now, I could trade in my Time Warner DVR for a TiVo, but the only way to stop paying my monthly DVR rental fee would be to go a la carte—and after looking up Time Warner's a la carte rates and doing the math, I found I'd actually be paying a tiny bit more to dump my DVR rental than I would if I just kept it. (That's intentional, of course.)

Meanwhile, I'd also owe monthly subscription fees for the TiVo, starting at $13 a month if you pay $300 for the TiVo Premiere hardware, or $20 a month for the $99 or zero-down deals.

That means I'd paying a good $20 more for using a TiVo with Time Warner than I would by sticking with my old DVR … and what am I getting in return, again? Yes, a vastly improved DVR interface would be great, but would it be $20-plus-a-month-on-top-of-my-cable-bill great? Hmm.

And yes, TiVo offers services like Netflix, Amazon, Pandora and (soon) Hulu Plus, but I already get all those from my various game consoles and set-top boxes.

In the end, I always wind up throwing in the towel (reluctantly) on TiVo, figuring I'd rather put up with the lousy interface on my existing DVR than cough up even more money for cable. (And how much TV am I really watching, anyway? Not enough to pay $20 more a month.)

Now, one easy way for TiVo to instantly draw more customers would be to end its subscription fees once and for all. But based on its latest quarterly numbers, I wouldn't count on TiVo slamming the door on that monthly revenue stream anytime soon.

So that's why I'm still stuck with my poky DVR from Time Warner — basically, because it's too much trouble, and not (quite) enough return.

Don't get me wrong, though — I'm ready to be convinced, if someone out there has a compelling pro-TiVo argument.

If you do — or if you're got your own TiVo tale to tell — I'd love to hear it.

Related:

— Ben Patterson is a technology writer for Yahoo! News.

Follow me on Twitter!

'Fallout: New Vegas' ups the ante with downloads (AFP)

Posted: 24 Nov 2010 06:28 PM PST

– Wed Nov 24, 9:28 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Bethesda Softworks is building on the rock star debut of "Fallout: New Vegas" with the December release of a new chapter of the epic videogame exclusively for play on Xbox 360 consoles.

"Dead Money" software that builds on post-apocalyptic adventures in "New Vegas" will be available for download at console-maker Microsoft's online Xbox Live service beginning December 21.

"The release of 'Dead Money' illustrates our commitment to creating entertaining add-on content for players to enjoy in already massive games," said Bethesda vice president of marketing Pete Hines.

Videogame studios are increasingly selling "downloadable content" that augments game play in titles bought on packaged compact disks.

"New Vegas" predecessor "Fallout 3" was crowned Game of the Year after its release in 2008 and proved so popular that Bethesda expanded the action title with adventures in an array of downloadable software.

A "Broken Steel" addition to "Fallout 3" even modified the end of the original game to resurrect the hero, who had sacrificed himself for the sake of other survivors in the post nuclear war scenario.

"New Vegas" sold more than five million copies in the three weeks following its release on October 19, taking in "well over 300 million dollars," according to Bethesda.

The videogame was ranked by industry tracker NPD Group as the best-selling title for consoles and for personal computers in October.

"We recognize that there are many high-quality games that come out during this time of year," said Bethesda president Vlatko Andonov.

"We couldn't be more pleased at how well the game has been received.

"New Vegas" is the fourth title in a winning franchise launched in 1997.

Readers Sound Off: Best new iOS 4.2 features (Macworld)

Posted: 24 Nov 2010 12:00 PM PST

David Chartier David Chartier – Wed Nov 24, 3:00 pm ET

Macworld is getting social with you, dear readers, not only to give you more ways to stay on top of the latest Apple news and reviews, but also to hear what you think. To do so, we're launching a new series of polls on Facebook, the Internet's largest water cooler. I posted our latest poll Tuesday to find out what your favorite new iOS 4.2 features are, and the results are in.

Since iOS 4.2 was a more significant update for the iPad than its siblings, I spread the ten choices out between truly new features for all devices (AirPrint, AirPlay) and iPad-specific additions like multitasking and folders, which the iPhone and iPod touch have enjoyed since this past summer.

Unsurprisingly, multitasking for the iPad took the gold medal by a landslide, with 29 percent of your votes. The closest contender was AirPlay (for all devices) with 18 percent, followed closely by folders for the iPad at 15 percent.

Interestingly, none of you voted for Game Center for iPad or for the new parental controls, which can prevent children from deleting or installing apps, playing multiplayer games, or changing account information (see Macworld's what you need to know about iOS 4.2 coverage for more details). I hear from a lot of friends whose children unwittingly bought $50 worth of apps or nuked mommy's e-mail accounts, and I was sure that one would at least place.

The other iOS 4.2 features that placed are: unified inbox in Mail for iPad at 10 percent, search current page in Safari at 8 percent, new SMS alert options for iPhones and changing the Notes app’s font tied at 7 percent, and, in a surprise upset considering all the fuss, AirPrint pulling up the rear at 6 percent.

That's it for our latest Macworld poll, and thanks to everyone who participated. We'll be doing more of these in the future, so let us know what you think or if you have ideas for future polls. Be sure to follow Macworld's official Facebook page and @macworld on Twitter for the latest news and to sound off on future polls.

Mobile phone firms face big govt charges in India (AFP)

Posted: 24 Nov 2010 06:56 PM PST

– 2 hrs 43 mins ago

LONDON (AFP) – Vodafone and other mobile phone companies operating in India could be forced to pay more than one billion dollars (750 million euros) each to the government, officials told Thursday's Financial Times.

The Indian government came under fire for the alleged undervaluation of the second-generation mobile licences it issued in 2008, forcing telecoms minister Andimuthu Raja to resign.

A report by India's national auditor found the government gave spectrum to existing operators -- Bharti Airtel, BSNL and Vodafone -- beyond the set time limit without charging any upfront fees, resulting in eight billion dollars lost revenue.

"This is payback time," a senior government official told the newspaper. "Those who were given more at less will have to pay something back to the government."

"The exact amount is being worked out but BSNL, Bharti and Vodafone are the ones that benefited the most so they will pay the most," the official added.

Vodafone broke into the Indian market in 2007 when it forked out almost 11 billion dollars to purchase a controlling stake in a local operator, but has since been caught in a price war.

NJ anti-Facebook pastor taking leave over affair (AP)

Posted: 24 Nov 2010 05:05 PM PST

Record Labels Withhold Key to Google's Digital Music Locker [REPORT] (Mashable)

Posted: 24 Nov 2010 08:27 AM PST

HOW TO: Help Feed the Hungry with Online Donations (Mashable)

Posted: 24 Nov 2010 02:30 PM PST

Jolie O'Dell Jolie O'dell – Wed Nov 24, 5:30 pm ET

Around this time of the year, as many of us begin to celebrate our blessings, our thoughts turn toward those in need.

Especially as those Americans among us prepare for our Thanksgiving feasts, it's difficult to think of others -- perhaps even people in our own towns -- who might be going hungry without making some effort to help.

These days, however, it's easier than ever to help others. You don't have to pick up any canned goods or make a trip to a soup kitchen. With a just a couple minutes and a few mouse clicks, you can donate to any number of food banks, charitable organizations and homeless shelters.

Many organizations, from big-name charities such as the Salvation Armies to your local food bank, have websites that can accept donations; a lot of these sites even accept Paypal, too. And many will allow you to set up automatic monthly donations so you can keep helping others even when the holidays are over.

Check out some of the organizations here, and please let us know in the comments if you've found a great way to help others by making online donations.

4 National Organizations That Help Feed the Hungry

Name: The Global Foodbanking Network
Minimum Donation Accepted: $1.00
Paypal? No; Visa, MasterCard and American Express cards are accepted
Automatic Recurring Donations? Yes; annual and monthly donation options are available.

This group's ambitious mission is to alleviate world hunger. This organization is the only one of its kind operating not only on a national level but on a global level, as well. It operates in 18 countries, supplying food to existing food banks. It also works with nongovernmental organizations to create more food banks where they're needed.

The Global Foodbanking Network was founded in 2006 by four of the largest hunger-helping organizations from around the world.

Name: The Salvation Army
Minimum Donation Accepted: $5.00
Paypal? Yes, Paypal is accepted, as are Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express cards.
Automatic Recurring Donations? Yes; a monthly donation option is available.

The Salvation Army is one of America's best-known charitable organizations. Its programs range from substance abuse rehabilitation to disaster relief, and its holiday fundraising drives are a staple of holiday shopping in the United States.

When you donate to the Salvation Army, you can name a specific use for your funds. If hunger is a particular concern of yours, you can ask that your funds be used to purchase food for Salvation Army shelters' sit-down dinners or for food distribution to needy persons.

Name: Feeding America
Minimum Donation Accepted: $5.00
Paypal? No, but Amazon Payments are accepted, as are Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express cards.
Automatic Recurring Donations? Yes; a monthly donation option is available.

Feeding America is a leading organization in the struggle to fight hunger in the United States. It helps a network of food banks around the country by securing and distributing food and raising funds; these efforts have allowed member food banks to supply food to more than 37 million Americans each year.

Name: United Way
Minimum Donation Accepted: $5.00
Paypal? No, but Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express cards are accepted.
Automatic Recurring Donations? No.

According to the United Way, education, income and health are the building blocks for a good life. In attempting to build the public health, many local United Way organizations also offer assistance to hungry people, from operating food banks to helping needy folks find and use community- and government-provided resources.

Finding a Food Pantry or Food Bank Near You

If you'd like to make an impact on your own community, you can always find a food bank or food pantry near you. Many have websites, and many of those websites take credit card or Paypal donations. If they don't take online donations, many food pantries may list items needed and times when physical donations of food can be dropped off.

You can always use Google Maps to locate a food bank near you; however, the information Google has can sometimes be inaccurate.

Other ways to find food banks locally are through FoodPantries.org, which allows you to search by state or ZIP code to find a food pantry near you, and the Feeding America food bank locator, which does roughly the same.

One great resource for finding food banks and pantries is Ample Harvest's food pantry finder, which lists critical information about local food pantries including website URLs, directions, donation days and times, food and other items needed, and other programs offered by that pantry. Ample Harvest also helps local gardeners donate excess produce to food pantries around the country.

We encourage you all to give as you are able, and for those of you who are celebrating tomorrow's holiday, we wish you a very happy Thanksgiving.

Image courtesy of Flickr, SamPac.

iOS 4.3 rumored for December; ngmoco, DeNA expanding Mobage next year (Appolicious)

Posted: 24 Nov 2010 11:01 AM PST

Oracle ruling slams SAP's reputation (Reuters)

Posted: 24 Nov 2010 02:31 PM PST

By Nicola Leske and Ritsuko Ando Nicola Leske And Ritsuko Ando – Wed Nov 24, 5:31 pm ET

FRANKFURT/NEW YORK (Reuters) – SAP AG, slapped with a record $1.3 billion fine for stealing Oracle's software, faces the task of salvaging its tarnished reputation and convincing U.S. clients not to flee to Oracle or International Business Machines Corp.

While SAP may get the damages reduced through an appeal, a prolonged legal battle could hurt its credibility and give rivals, which also include Microsoft Corp and Salesforce.com Inc, an advantage.

With U.S. Federal investigators looking into a possible criminal case against SAP, analysts see serious consequences beyond the actual fine.

"Even though SAP may appeal the judgment, the huge amount should be negative for the stock price and, will weaken SAP's position in the U.S.," said Jacques Abramowicz, analyst at Silvia Quandt research.

"Oracle will use the decision as a marketing tool, wielding the moral cudgel every time new contracts are negotiated."

SAP and Oracle's three-week courtroom drama captivated Silicon Valley with a slew of high-profile executives testifying.

The verdict, announced after the market closed on Tuesday, sent SAP shares down 1 percent to 35.84 euros, one of the biggest losers in Germany's blue-chip index DAX. Oracle, on the other hand, rose 2 percent to $27.74.

SAP, based in the small town of Walldorf near Heidelberg, is considering appealing the decision by a U.S. district court jury in Oakland, California. Analysts said the fine was the biggest-ever related to software patent infringement.

The verdict and the maelstrom of negative publicity that followed are just the latest troubles for SAP. The company was criticized for angering customers with fee hikes in the midst of a recession, and former CEO Leo Apotheker -- now the head of Hewlett-Packard Co -- left abruptly in February.

"This is a bad day for SAP that punctuates some rather poor decision-making over the past few years," said Wells Fargo senior analyst Jason Maynard.

"From this episode of corporate theft to the ill-timed, recession-period maintenance price hikes, and then the sudden ousting of CEO Leo Apotheker, we think SAP needs to demonstrate better leadership going forward."

HIT TO REPUTATION, WALLET

SAP has acknowledged that its TomorrowNow subsidiary in the U.S. had wrongfully downloaded millions of Oracle's files, and co-CEO Bill McDermott took the stand and apologized.

With the admission of liability, the main issue before the jury was how much was owed in damages. SAP said it was no more than $40 million, while Oracle sought at least $1.65 billion. Analysts had figured it would be somewhere in between.

Most say SAP won't have a problem paying up or servicing debt, as the company had around $3.8 billion in cash as of the end of the third quarter and enjoys a healthy cash flow.

Some estimated the $1.3 billion award represents a loss of around $1 to $1.20 per share for SAP stockholders, but most forecast a smaller payment after an appeal.

More serious than the amount of fine, however, is the hit to its reputation, particularly risky in a business that is more about multiyear relationships rather than one-off sales.

Oracle sales staff could use it as one factor in persuading clients not to deal with SAP.

"There may be some reputational damage to sales, and government agencies in the U.S. may be particularly sensitive to the trial's outcome," UBS analyst Michael Briest said.

In addition to the trial, SAP faces a possible probe by U.S. officials. The government is conducting a criminal investigation into the events surrounding TomorrowNow, but has not disclosed details. SAP said it has been cooperating with Department of Justice investigators.

PRESSURE ON MANAGEMENT

Analysts said the case was yet another result of SAP's troubled management, as seen in the sudden departure of former Apotheker. Apotheker stayed away from the trial, with HP refusing to accept a subpoena.

One of SAP's biggest missteps in recent years was an across-the-board price hike during the recession, a move it reversed after complaints from a large number of customers.

Tuesday's outcome was a vindication of sorts for Oracle and its chief executive, Larry Ellison, the flamboyant billionaire famous for his no-holds-barred attacks on SAP and other rivals.

But Cross Research analyst Richard Williams said there was also a risk Oracle's "scorched earth" strategy could alienate clients.

"The harsh tactics evident in the lead-up to the trial and its conclusion could backfire, creating sympathy for SAP in the minds of key enterprise customers that both companies vigorously compete for to win large deals," he said.

(Editing by Edwin Chan, Phil Berlowitz)

Netflix Turns From Oracle, IBM to Amazon to Save Cash (PC World)

Posted: 24 Nov 2010 11:00 AM PST

Chris Kanaracus Chris Kanaracus – Wed Nov 24, 2:00 pm ET

Netflix moved some of its most crucial IT operations over to Amazon Web Services' Elastic Compute Cloud in order to save money and gain flexibility compared to using more Oracle software and IBM iron.

"Our datacenter runs Oracle on IBM hardware, we could have switched to commodity hardware in a data center, but skipped that step by going to AWS," Netflix cloud architect Adrian Cockcroft told the consulting firm Cloudscaling in an interview posted Tuesday. "There are three points on cost, one is that Oracle on IBM is very expensive, so AWS looks cheap in comparison, and we have flat-lined our datacenter capacity."

In addition, Netflix "could not have hired enough [system and database administrators] to build out our own data center this fast. We have added 4-5x as many systems in the cloud as the total we have in our data center over the last year," he said.

Finally, EC2's pay-as-you-go model means costs are elastic. "If you own a resource it sits around a long time waiting to be delivered and installed, and if you no longer want to use that type of resource you are still paying for it for three years."

Cockcroft's remarks add some color to Netflix's announcement in May that it would significantly expand its use of AWS. The company had already been using the service for various customer-facing and internal applications, but decided to add "critical pieces" of its service, including member movie lists, a recommendation engine and film transcoding.

The move enabled Netflix to free up "scarce engineering resources from the undifferentiated heavy lifting of running its own infrastructure," it said at the time.

Netflix's skyrocketing customer count, which now stands at about 16 million, also made the job of running and expanding data centers too unpredictable, according to a presentation Cockcroft gave at the recent QCon conference. In addition, the company has been rapidly transitioning from a DVD-delivery outfit to a mainly streaming operation.

For actually streaming the movies to customers, Netflix contracts with companies like Akamai and Limelight, Cockcroft told Cloudscaling. It also runs systems for account sign-up, billing and other needs elsewhere, he added.

Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris's e-mail address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com

5 Holiday Tech Scams to Avoid (PC World)

Posted: 24 Nov 2010 07:57 AM PST

Ubuntu Will Begin Updating Daily, Report Says (PC World)

Posted: 24 Nov 2010 01:07 PM PST

Katherine Noyes Katherine Noyes – Wed Nov 24, 4:07 pm ET

Ubuntu may shift from updating every six months to updating every day, according to a report Tuesday in The Register.

Users familiar with the wildly popular Linux distribution have long been accustomed to its twice-a-year updates, marked with names starting with successive letters of the alphabet. Version 10.10 released last month, for example, is "Maverick Meerkat," while version 11.04--due in April--will be dubbed "Natty Narwhal."

Soon, however, such updates may become a ongoing phenomenon.

'In the Next Five Years'

Ubuntu founder and CEO Mark Shuttleworth reportedly said during a conference call last month that a move to daily updates would help the Linux distribution "keep pace with an increasingly complex software and platform ecosystem as Ubuntu goes on more devices and syncs up Android and iPhones," the Register wrote.

"Today we have a six-month release cycle," Shuttleworth reportedly said. "In an Internet-oriented world, we need to be able to release something every day. That's an area we will put a lot of work into in the next five years."

And such capabilities will likely be implemented via Ubuntu's Software Center.

An Embedded Advantage

While undoubtedly more work for developers, a daily update cycle would be a boon for Ubuntu users and partners.

Most notably, manufacturers of devices featuring Ubuntu embedded would be able to keep their systems better updated, matching more closely or even surpassing the update cycles seen on competing platforms.

Users, meanwhile, won't need to wait for changes to be included in their operating system, helping them stay up to date and secure.

An Exciting Future

A separate story on NetworkWorld asserts Wednesday that Canonical has since said it won't be making any such switch. Which turns out to be true remains to be seen.

Nevertheless, between Unity, Wayland, a bunch of new business tools and the potential for a more frequent release cycle, the future Ubuntu is looking pretty exciting.

Follow Katherine Noyes on Twitter: @Noyesk.

5 Websites That Used to Rule the Internet (PC World)

Posted: 24 Nov 2010 05:00 PM PST

Keir Thomas Keir Thomas – Wed Nov 24, 8:00 pm ET

The Internet generation is stunningly disloyal. Brands mean very little to us. Our parents might never have bought anything other than a Ford car, or a Westinghouse refrigerator, but we switch online services without a second thought.

So join me as I take a look at five Websites that, once upon a time, we simply couldn't live without, but which are either no longer with us, or have perhaps seen better days.

1. GeoCities

Once of the original Internet startups created back in 1995, GeoCities offered everybody their very own homepage. Although HTML at the time was pretty easy to master, GeoCities offered tools that made creating pages a matter of a few clicks. And it was all free.

Back then declaring you had your own home page would stop a conversation. Women would swoon and men would regard you jealously.

Just about anybody could create a Website using GeoCities. Sadly, nearly everybody did. It became clear that graphic design skills are not a dominant characteristic among the American population. Most pages looked like somebody had taken a load of animated GIFs, put a stick of lit dynamite under them, and retired to a safe distance.

GeoCities' gimmick was to build its online community around a geographical location model. Pages of a supposedly financial orientation would end-up under the WallStreet heading, for example, while celebrity gossip would end up in the Hollywood section.

This was a potent concept back in 1999, weak as it might sound today--so much so that GeoCities claimed one third of all Web visitors as the 20th century came to a close. Then again, AOL accounted for even more at the time, so you have to question our priorities back then.

So what happened to GeoCities? Yahoo. Conditions and rules were imposed to tame what was turning into the wild west of the Internet; in the late 90s and early 00s, searching for illegal stuff, such as pirated software or dodgy MP3s, would invariably lead to a GeoCities page. The ease of creating pages had turned into a hindrance. Policing so many pages was a logistical nightmare.

But, most of all, the Internet simply moved on. Fashions changed. Blogs and wikis came along, and it just wasn't cool any longer to have a static home page. Home pages belonged to an era of 14-inch monitors and floppy diskettes.

In 2009, Yahoo! discontinued GeoCities, although--like many of the best things in life--it's available in Japan. Its demise was greeted with dismay.

Several commentators suggested that GeoCities was the first example of how it's impossible for an online service to make money. But we must never forget how important GeoCities was in the evolution of the Internet. It showed people were willing to express themselves online. It proved the Internet was first and foremost a community. And it was the best place to find dodgy MP3s.

2. MySpace

Somebody transported in time from 1999 might be forgiven for thinking that MySpace was GeoCities' natural successor. They would have a point. Home pages are replaced with MySpace Profiles, and the whole thing is glued together via a social networking overlay, but there are distinct similarities.

In particular, the same eye-scratching, soul-destroying design is still a feature, although a typical MySpace profile benefits from music that starts to play automatically and reflects the individual's taste in music (or lack thereof).

Both sites are or were about creating communities. However, the key difference is that users can choose to make their MySpace profiles private, so that only people they've "friended" can access it. Additionally, MySpace features other social networking tools such as messaging, the ability to create groups of friends, blogging, and so on.

MySpace has always been rough and ready. It's about putting your personality online. This should have succeeded but it didn't, and Facebook's more rigid approach focusing on status updates has ultimately proved more appealing. Perhaps the biggest difference was setup: MySpace was all about personalization, which had to be done before you could get down to the business of finding friends, while Facebook let you get going straight away.

Over recent years MySpace has become most popular with musicians and performers, who appreciate its multimedia-friendly orientatio, something that's still largely lacking in Facebook. This ultimately led to MySpace being rebranded as an entertainment portal, although some have questioned its decision to focus exclusively on the under 30s age group.

MySpace is still a giant in the social networking space, but it's losing visitors by the handful as time goes on. Tie-ins with Facebook aside, the writing appears to be on the wall.

Next page: An e-mail service that keeps ticking, and a search engine that doesn't

they'd be using Gmail, like the rest of us cool kids. But at least they're not stupid enough to use the e-mail address provided by their ISP, which makes as much sense as accepting free samples from a drug dealer.

I'm always left wondering why anybody would want to use Hotmail. The ads are intrusive and annoying. It took until June for them to finally remove the annoying tagline ads that were added to every single e-mail sent through the service. The interface is clunky and slow, and the whole shebang is tied into Windows Live (previously known as MSN/Passport), Microsoft's also-ran attempt to keep-up with Google. Unsurprisingly, this is rather biased towards those who use Windows computers. At one point Linux users were locked out of Hotmail and were only allowed read-only access.

Hotmail's failing was that, once upon a time, it was pioneering and clever, but then fell into a period of stagnation. It took the launch of Gmail to provide a kick up the derrière so that significant improvements were made. But by that point it was too late. Hotmail was having to catch up.

I don't know about you but I'm always left with a sour taste in the mouth when a service I use improves only when its competitors force it to do so. That doesn't seem the right way to treat customers.

4. Slashdot

Ah, Slashdot. I have such fond memories of you. We'd spend days together, reading geeky news stories that seemed really important at the time. Where else could I find out about a new battery technology that will change the world (but never actually did)? Where else could I hear the latest crazed proclamation from Richard Stallman?

Where else could I argue pointlessly with fellow geeks and prove my masculinity by writing a witty reply that only 0.0001% of the population could understand? If you ever get bored, try searching Slashdot for passive aggressive phrases; "I think you'll find" has been said almost 27,000 times by various commentators, for example.

Slashdot was cool back when Linux was cool. Yes, that long ago. At times it's been referred to as a communal blog and a news aggregator. Its definition seems to change depending on what Internet technology is fashionable. Unsurprisingly, now it's referred to as a social news site.

Slashdot is the grandfather of sites such as Reddit and Digg, of course, which do the same thing, only better. Before it clambered onto the slippery slope itself, Digg was arguably nothing more than Slashdot for teenagers.

Attempts by Slashdot management to draw new readers lead to the creation of the Idle section, which expands the geek news brief to include Reddit- and Digg-like funny stories, pictures, and videos. It's hardly been a success, and it feels like a dad trying to disco dance at his daughter's birthday party.

A "slashdotting" could bring down a Website, back when the Internet was held together with elastic bands and had a beer coaster shoved under its leg to stop it wobbling. A mention on the Slashdot front page would drive hundreds of thousands of visitors to a Website. Times change. The recent slashdotting of an article here on PC World's blog pages lead to a modest increase in traffic, but it was quite a bit short of what we might have expected in the old days.

This is evident on Slashdot itself; in the old days front-page articles would draw at least 600 comments, if not more. Currently, getting beyond 300 is unusual.

While it might not be as popular as it once was, Slashdot keeps on going, catering to its core market like no other news site on the planet. Nobody is more in tune with the pure geek spirit.

5. AltaVista

It's hard to believe that there are young people reading this who might never have used AltaVista. In the late 1990s it was the only search engine worth using. This was when finding stuff online took actual skill. You might think you're clever using the likes of operators in your Google search, but back then it was all about crafting the perfect search phrase. If you didn't get the results you wanted you phrased your search query differently and had another try. Eventually you'd find what you were interested in. Probably.

It's also hard to believe that, back then, not all search engines indexed the entire Web. They kept the exact figures under wraps, but some search engines were more knowledgeable than others. AltaVista was arguably the best of all, and this inspired confidence in its users.

It's probably obvious what appeared on the horizon and eventually brought carnage: Google. I'm a very faithful person and wasn't about to give up on AltaVista, but I remember the first few times I used Google, sometime around 2000. In comparison to AltaVista, Google seemed to have a second sense of what I was looking for.

Backing up my decision to move was the fact that AltaVista had become a Web portal, in an attempt to keep up with Yahoo, which was dominant at the time. Just like modern-day Google, one of AltaVista's strongest points had always been its simplicity and uncluttered interface. In fact, Google pretty much copied AltaVista's old look and feel in those early days, something that's remained broadly unchanged on the Google home page up until this day.

Keir Thomas has been writing about computing since the last century, and more recently has written several best-selling books. You can learn more about him at http://keirthomas.com.
at 9:49 PM

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