EDS Plans Tenfold Increase In India Staff Size By 2008EDS Plans Tenfold Increase In India Staff Size By 2008

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In This Issue:
1. Editor's Note: IT News Revue
2. Today's Top Story
    - EDS Plans Tenfold Increase In India Staff Size By 2008
    - Dell CEO: $100 Billion Annual Revenue Achievable
    Related Stories:
    - Careers: Monster Says Employers Want To Hire Entry-Level IT Staff
    - CareerBuilder.com: Job Market, Salaries Improving For Grads
3. Breaking News
    - Coming From Microsoft: SQL Server Everywhere
    - Microsoft Launches Linux Site
    - Virtual Machine Loads Windows, OS X On Intel Macs
    - Hackers Worm Into Hard Disk Through HP Printer Software
    - Embedded Software Expert: Test Everything
    - Government Information Brokers Often Fail To Protect Privacy
    - RIM To Offer Yahoo Services On The BlackBerry
    - Google, EarthLink Move Closer To Free Wi-Fi In San Francisco
    - Nigerian Scammers Scramble As IRS Deadline Looms
    - Apple Pushes Into New Music Area While Fighting Beatles
    - NetSuite 11 Flaunts More Ajax, Easy Scripting
    - Researchers Grow Tiny Nanotube Brushes
4. Grab Bag: News You Need From Around The Web
    - A Big Blue Point For The Little Guy (BusinessWeek)
    - The Black Box That Would Conquer Telecom (Business 2.0)
    - Antisocial Networking Gets Hip (Wired.com)
    - Who's Building The Next Web? (Newsweek)
5. In Depth: Personal Tech & Reviews
    - PayPal To Allow Text Message Payments
    - Adobe Signs First Flash Deal On U.S. Mobile Phones
    - Review: Lenovo Series 3000 N100
    - Americans Have Love/Hate Relationship With Cell Phones
    - International Dragnet Targets Illegal Music File-Sharing
    - Brief: Microsoft Unveils Two Desktop Mice
    - Disney To Launch Parent-Controlled Phone For The Kids
6. Voice Of Authority
    - Enterprise Software Wakes Up From Nap Time, Wants Juice And A Cookie
7. White Papers
    - NTR's InQueiro Remote Support
8. Get More Out Of information
9. Manage Your Newsletter Subscription

Quote of the day:
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire

1. Editor's Note: IT News Revue

I spend all week collecting, reading, and posting the news. Inevitability some stories stay with you, often raising as many questions as they answer. Here are some highlights from this week's batch of news, along with some things to consider in their wake:

Do you really want to supersize that? Nicholas Negroponte makes a pretty good point. Do we really need a lot of oversized, bloated software running on our computers? Do we want more of it? Does the average person use even a quarter of the features on standard desktop applications? Can Microsoft have its cake and eat it too in this spat? Sure it can. Gates can build his fancy-shmancy lightweight ultra-portable PC and offer a no-nonsense set of considerably slimmed down apps to populate the cheapie low-end computers for the rest of the world. It would fit in well with Gates' philanthropic bent while also building a pool of potential customers down the road for his more expensive bells and whistles. Sounds like a win-win to me.

Is this a hint? Did you note the catch regarding Apple's Windows XP support? Was it named Boot Camp in anticipation of a "no pain, no gain" experience awaiting users who will have to install the Microsoft operating system themselves? Just exactly what kind of hell are these pioneers in for?

They all look the same to me. Apple's embrace of Window XP, coupled with Microsoft talking up "co-opetition" with open source and its plans to offer virtual machine additions for Red Hat and Novell Suse Linux distributions, led me to wonder: If everything can run everywhere, what's left to differentiate the suppliers? Great customer service? Real help desks? Better system quality? Faster responses to exploits, bugs, and vulnerabilities? Wouldn't any one of these be insanely great?

This week's "duh!" moment: eBay Sellers Can No Longer Offer To Receive Cash. In a bid to deter scam artists, the online auction site has come to its senses and will no longer allow sellers to accept cash payments. I always marveled at the occasional sellers--typically a paranoid lot--who said they'd accept cash and wondered about the buyers (who ought to be paranoid) who would actually mail it in. What planet did these people shop on?

We don't care what everyone else is doing. How many times did my parents rap us over the head with that one? That rebuke immediately sprang to mind when I read this week's pout by a defensive Microsoft security researcher, who must have been feeling the strain, perhaps, of the recent spate of IE exploits. The poor guy looked up from his computer screen just long enough to sound the alert that, you know, "social engineering" tricks that fool users into visiting malicious Web sites are...just as dangerous as those that exploit software vulnerabilities! "So what's your point? This is about you, not them," my parents would have snapped back. In other words, let someone else worry about the consumer cons and get back to work! Because, you know, we're still waiting on Microsoft's "official" IE exploit patch due for release on the 11th.

Just when you think you've got it covered, something else comes along. Like Adobe Computer signing the first flash deal on U.S. mobile phones. No sooner do the states start cracking down on cell phone yakking drivers, then along comes an even greater danger to road safety: watching TV shows, streaming video, and other graphic images on your tiny little cell phone screens. We've seen people do everything else in their cars, why not watching the little screen instead of the road?

Patricia Keefe
[email protected]
www.information.com

2. Today's Top Story

EDS Plans Tenfold Increase In India Staff Size By 2008
EDS, which now has 3,000 workers in India, plans to increase its workforce there by both making acquisitions and hiring individuals.

Dell CEO: $100 Billion Annual Revenue Achievable
The company is looking beyond the United States to boost revenue. Foreign sales reached a company record of 43% of total revenue in Dell's most recent fiscal quarter.

3. Breaking News

Coming From Microsoft: SQL Server Everywhere
A preview is due this summer, and final shipment is slated by year-end. It's unclear how the new software differs from the current Microsoft SQL Server Database Engine, which is the lightest existing database option from the company.

Microsoft Launches Linux Site
Sponsored by Microsoft's Open Source Software Lab, the site will offer blogs and other content on the company's efforts to support Linux and Unix and help them interoperate with Windows.

Virtual Machine Loads Windows, OS X On Intel Macs
Parallels Workstation 2.1 is the first commercial virtual machine software for Intel-based Macs. In beta now, it will cost $50 a copy when it ships later this month.

Hackers Worm Into Hard Disk Through HP Printer Software
The bug, which Danish vulnerability tracker Secunia dubbed "less critical," affects the Toolbox software included with the Color LaserJet 2500 and Color LaserJet 4600. One security expert suggests users upgrade as soon as possible.

Embedded Software Expert: Test Everything
Take a lesson from "dead" code that helped destroy two communications satellites, says Jack Ganssle, speaking at a conference this week.

Government Information Brokers Often Fail To Protect Privacy
Information resellers often fail to follow privacy protection guidelines when dealing with the federal government, according to the GAO.

RIM To Offer Yahoo Services On The BlackBerry
Research In Motion plans to add Yahoo's Web services to the BlackBerry, including E-mail, instant messaging, and search.

Google, EarthLink Move Closer To Free Wi-Fi In San Francisco
The team has cleared its first hurdle. But before construction can begin, the vendors have to negotiate a contract with the city and then get it approved by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Nigerian Scammers Scramble As IRS Deadline Looms
The tricksters are increasingly targeting events and users directly, experts say, and tax day is April 17.

Apple Pushes Into New Music Area While Fighting Beatles
As the case with the Beatles' record company began its closing stages this week, Apple Computer announced it will sell both music and concert tickets for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

NetSuite 11 Flaunts More Ajax, Easy Scripting
The newest version of the hosted ERP/CRM suite promises more flexibility and will let even non-techies customize implementations and business processes, the company promises.

Researchers Grow Tiny Nanotube Brushes
The brushes can clean up pollutants in water, among other uses, and have fibers up to a thousand times thinner than human hair.

All Our Latest News

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Chris Murphy With 'A Closer Look At Technology Jobs'
Here's a look at what's in store for today's entry-level IT workers.

Sacha Lecca With 'Big Dog's Debut'
Sacha takes a look at a quadra ped robot from Boston Dynamics.

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4. Grab Bag: News You Need From Around The Web

A Big Blue Point For The Little Guy (BusinessWeek)
When inventor Jeff Conklin took on IBM in a patent dispute, the tech behemoth played hardball, then blinked.

The Black Box That Would Conquer Telecom (Business 2.0)
An open-source project tries to break Cisco's lock on the $4 billion corporate router business.

Antisocial Networking Gets Hip (Wired.com)
Snubster, a Web site created to poke fun at social discovery sites and isolate annoying people, develops into its own sort of hub. Do its users have to snub themselves?

Who's Building The Next Web? (Newsweek)
Got a lot of free time? You're going to need it to enjoy the fruits of Silicon Valley's latest labors: startups that want you to spend even more of your life online.

5. In Depth: Personal Tech & Reviews

PayPal To Allow Text Message Payments
With the new service, consumers can use their cell phone to buy or rent DVDs and services from 20th Century Fox, MTV, and the National Basketball Association's store.

Adobe Signs First Flash Deal On U.S. Mobile Phones
The new service will allow customers to more quickly view graphic images on their Verizon cell phone screens. For Adobe, it pushes the company beyond computers and into the potentially lucrative mobile phone market.

Review: Lenovo Series 3000 N100
Lenovo caused a stir with its innovative ThinkPad X41 Tablet PC in June 2005, but many shrugged off the success as something it had purchased from IBM. Almost a year later, the next generation of portables has arrived. The Lenovo 3000-branded line of notebooks is specifically targeted at small-business professionals, but the pricing should make it attractive to consumers.

Americans Have Love/Hate Relationship With Cell Phones
We love mobile phones for their convenience and ability to kill time, but dislike the gadgets for the interruptions and cost.

International Dragnet Targets Illegal Music File-Sharing
Along with filing over 2,000 lawsuits, a music industry group has warned parents to watch over their children's online activities because they could face penalties.

Brief: Microsoft Unveils Two Desktop Mice
The new mice give users a choice--optical or laser. The company also upgraded its wireless optical mouse for notebooks.

Disney To Launch Parent-Controlled Phone For The Kids
The Mouse plans to offer in June a nationwide wireless phone service that will enable parents to manage their children's cell phone use.

6. Voice Of Authority

Enterprise Software Wakes Up From Nap Time, Wants Juice And A Cookie
Mitch Wagner reports: It's very satisfying to hear an observation that's both completely new and--once you hear it--blindingly obvious. Jason Maynard, a software analyst for Credit Suisse, did that for me at the information Spring Conference this week when he observed that there's been almost no innovation in enterprise software for the past five years or so.

7. White Papers

NTR's InQueiro Remote Support
When Retalix comparison-shopped for various remote control solutions, NTR's InQueiro remote control solution stood apart from the competition. Read more about how NTR's InQueiro solved Retalix's remote control challenges.

8. Get More Out Of information

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