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News Snippets

August 2006 News

  • Keeping IT cool 
  • India faces IT wage inflation
  • Who is Humming  the bird song? 
  • HP acquires Mercury Interactive

Keeping IT Cool

As the speed increases so does the temperature. As the components get smaller we pack more of them together and the temperature rises. It is all about physics so physics is needed to solve the problem - who said physics could not be Cool? Disk makers are looking at different ways to use lubricants whilst small "waterjet" sprays are being considered to cool down high-performance chips. Maybe the heat could be directed toward the central heating systems in winter and the heat exchanger in summer - just a thought.

India faces IT wage inflation

Salary inflation is beginning to bite in India as Wipro and Satyam share prices dipped despite healthy profits. They both warned that increased investment is fuelling competition which is driving up the wages. The Indian government has also raised concerns about the ability of the education system to meet the demands to educate sufficient IT resources.

Who is Humming the bird song?

Open Text has launched an hostile takeover bid for Hummingbird after the Hummingbird management has already accepted a $456M offer from Symphony Technology Group. The Hummingbird shareholders think it is not enough but their nest egg has a big SOLD sign on the door (just the buyers name is missing).

HP acquires Mercury Interactive

For the sum of $4.5B HP will buy Mercury Interactive to strengthen the management system portfolio.

Pros and cons of the acquisition
+ Mercury adds scale to HP's software business - HP has had varied success with earlier acquisitions
+ The Mercury and HP product ranges complement each other - The culture and sales strategies are different and need alignment
+ SOA suites will allow "end to end" management of entire IT lifecycle - Slow Marketplace acceptance of SOA as being a viable direction
+ The single sourcing of systems management eliminate "not me" attitude - US Securities and Exchange Commission still investigating Mercury financial anomalies

Snippets

  • IBM are expected to acquire business intelligence software specialist Cognos to fill  in gaps in their BI software portfolio.
  • Oracle has released a new security fix bundle to address 65 flaws including remote and local execution of code, creation of DoS attacks and theft of sensitive data.
  • Microsoft has announced that Office 2007 launch has been delayed until the quality and performance is acceptable.
  • Optimal
  • Intel unveils dual-core Itaniums so at least Microsoft SQL Server 2005 will have a platform to run on.
  • Accenture focus on SOA by announcing a new research facility and a number of support offerings (planning, implementation, industrialisation, management).
  • Lenova ships the ThinkCentre A60 which is its first AMD-based PC. It ships with the Athlon 64, Sempron or dual-core Athon 64 X2 processors.

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