Former Hewlett-Packard vice president Atul Malhotra has been indicted by federal prosecutors for allegedly passing a confidential email from his previous employer, IBM Corp., to senior H-P executives. According to an indictment filed June 27 in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., Atul Malhotra was the director of sales and business development for IBM’s printing-services division in March of 2006. That’s when he requested confidential pricing information about IBM services. Mr. Malhotra became a vice president of H-P’s printing division in May of that same year.
That July, the indictment alleges, he “sent an e-mail to an H-P senior vice president with the subject ‘for your eyes only’” with an attachment including the confidential information. He allegedly followed it up with a similar email to a second senior vice president.
Bill Gates, the founder and creator of Microsoft, and in many ways the father of computers worldwide is leaving the company he created on Friday. Gates founded the company 33 years ago, and he leaves it in great operating shape. He stepped back a number of years ago to pursue other work, leaving the CEO position to the current chief executive of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer.
Gates has worked mainly with the charity foundation he started with his wife Melinda for the last eight years.
There is buzz throughout the technology and media world that Apple CEO Jobs’ health is failing. Many say that Jobs didn’t look well onstage during the introduction of the new 3G iPhone at the 2008 Worldwide Developers Conference. They say the already slim and trim Jobs looked even thinner than usual…almost crack head like.
SF Gate Columnist Mark Morford wrote that Jobs’ trademark denim jeans were riding a little too high and the even more trademark black mock turtleneck looked a size or two too large. All of which caused the rabid Mac blogosphere and even the cold-hearted suits over at Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, et al, to frumple and frown and wonder about Steve Jobs’ potential ill health. Read More.
In a move that is sure to create ill will from music lovers, U2 manager Paul McGuinness has called for illegal music file-sharers to have their service cut off by their ISPs if they download music without paying for it. McGuinness also said ISPs should face prosecution if they don’t participate in the crackdown.
“A simple three strikes and you are out enforcement process will see all serial illegal uploaders who resist the law face a stark choice: change or lose your ISP subscription”, said McGuinness.
The group is also calling upon their friend Steve Jobs to help with the situation. Bono and crew recently allowed Apple to release a U2 branded ipod…and they’re hoping that Jobs can use some of his ipod, iphone, Mac Air magic to help craft a solution to the music industry’s biggest revenue challenge. Read.
Here’s a dream scenario:
Start a technology or internet-based company. Grow and nurture that company over the next 1-5 years. Generate some nice revenue and publicity from your venture. Become an acquisitiion target for $50 million-$1 billion. Sell out and live happily ever after.
That’s the dream of most technology company founders. Well Microsoft corporation may have just made it a little easier to achieve that dream.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says that instead of the company pouring tons of dollars into research and development to come up with the next big thing, his company will have a change in strategy. Ballmer says that the company plans to invest more in small acquisitions costing between “$50 million and $1 billion”.
Lord knows they’ve got the capital to do it. The company is sitting on $23 billion in cash and has already purchased 23 companies in 2007…with the biggest deal being the purchase of aQuantive for $6 billion.
At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, CEO Steve Ballmer said, “We’ll probably buy 20 companies a year for the next five years”.
There are Rumors that Microsoft is already looking to buy into the Social Networking site Facebook. Some are also saying that Microsoft is considering purchasing a stake in Yahoo to try and team up on Google.
So get your business plans tight people. Microsoft is watching!
During a spirited discussion at the Web 2.0 Summit taking place in San Francisco, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer compared his company’s attempt to become a respected player in web search to Google.
In his normal passionate kind of way, Ballmer said Microsoft’s aspirations to become a web search giant is like when you’re just three years old, and you’re in there playing basketball with a 12-year-old”. “You’re growing up quick and getting better every day, and you’ve got all the potential in world, and it may take you ’til you’re seven, eight, nine or 10, but you’re gonna dunk and you’re gonna dunk on the other guy some day, Johnny.”
