Going thin and bling, HP tries to strike Envy with latest laptops

Hewlett-Packard Co. introduced a half-dozen new notebook PCs today, including a luxury line that bears a striking resemblance to Apple Inc.'s laptops. Overall, two things unify the new models introduced by the world's largest notebook vendor: a skinny, sub-inch profile, and an overt emphasis on design, including metallic shells and imprinted or etched designs on the cases. HP also introduced a thin-and-light Pavilion consumer notebook with an aluminum shell starting at $549, and a new Mini netbook powered by Nvidia Inc.'s ION graphics.

Take the two new high-end notebooks HP is calling its Envy line. The result, as the picture below and PC World's reviewer both confirm, is a machine very similar to Apple's unibody aluminum-encased MacBook Pros. The Envys come encased in sleek gunmetal gray aluminum-magnesium alloy shells, use a low-profile, chiclet-style, backlit keyboard, sport a long-running but nonremoveable lithium-polymer battery, and a bright (410 nits) widescreen. The Envy 13, with a 13-in. screen, is 0.8-inches thick and weighs 3.74 pounds. He likens the strategy to the car industry. "The Envy is like a Lexus, a luxury car that is still affordable to the upper-middle-classes," Kay said.

It starts at $1,699. The Envy 15 starts at $1,799. Fully loaded models of either will cost more than $2,000. Roger Kay, an analyst with EndPoint Technology Associates Inc., is not bothered by HP's strategy of aping Apple's design or its prices. "More than any other vendor, HP has narrowed that gap" with Apple, he said. Dell Inc.'s forthcoming ultra-thin (0.4-inches) Adamo, by contrast, is likely to be priced more "like a Ferrari - only a few people are going to be able to buy them." Besides the Envys, HP rolled out the Pavilion DM3 consumer notebook. It also rolled out a new business notebook, the ProBook 5310M, which starts at $649. HP also introduced a special edition of its HP Mini 110 netbook imprinted with a picture created by a noted European design firm. Tipping in at 1-in. thick and 4.2 pounds, the aluminum-clad Pavilion starts at $549 when equipped with an AMD processor. The HP Mini 110 by Studio Tord Boontje will start at $399. HP also introduced the new HP Mini 311. It comes with a larger-than-average 11.6-inch screen powered by Nvidia's ION multimedia platform. Shim hailed HP's ongoing prowess at taking high-end trends and translating them into products that work at different price points.

The Mini 311 also starts at $399. That pricing appears to be lower than other ION-equipped netbooks, notes Richard Shim, an analyst with IDC Corp. HP has been "pretty successful" going "after a wide audience, from entry-level to high end," he said. "Apple, I would argue, is still just high-end." Most of the notebooks will become available on Oct. 22 the day that Windows 7 launches, though buyers can reserve them immediately via HP's Web site.

Intel's Otellini says it's time to take the lid off IT budgets

Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini said the economy has already hit rock bottom and now that it's emerging from the recessionary mire, companies are about to take the lid off of IT budgets. We're likely to see PC unit volume this year above 2008, which you wouldn't have thought even three months ago." And the head of Intel said since companies have been making due with aging laptops the last few years, it's time for CIOs to do a little high-tech shopping. "Corporate budgets were just clamped down. Otellini talked about the economy , PC sales, the advance of silicon and the metamorphosis of netbooks at a morning session of the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco today. "We found bottom," he said. "Actually, I think we found bottom much earlier than everyone thought we would. CIOs and CFOs kept the lid on budgets last year and I expect that to change.

They have to be replaced. We expect that to open up in 2010," he added. "The average desktop is five years old, a laptop is four years old. They're out of warranty. And CIOs are buying that argument." Otellini has good reason to be optimistic. It's more expensive to keep the old ones than to buy new ones.

Just last week, Intel reported strong third-quarter earnings that beat analyst expectations. Revenue was even up by $1.4 billion compared to this fiscal year's second quarter. The chip maker reported third-quarter revenue of $9.39 billion for the quarter that ended Sept. 26, beating the $9.04 billion estimations. Over the next few years, Otellini said, much of what will drive Intel's business is the increasing focus on mobile computing. We've been able to shrink the micro processor down to a very tiny part of the chip, so we can use the other transistors available to put more function on the chip.... And engineers at the chip maker are focusing on how to feed that growing market. "Moore's Law gives you a template to build things at much higher performance, much lower cost, much lower power," he said. "We're aiming at a whole family of products of a system on a chip.

The things we do that go in your pocket are focused on the lowest power and all-day battery life, which is the minimum you need on these things, and very high performance graphics and video with a minimal cost, while keeping the form factor very, very thin." Otellini also said that the time is running out on using silicon to build chips. Scientists and engineers have been working with the material and even adding other materials to try to change its properties so the chip can do more than before. Silicon is the basic building block of the microchip. Today, Otellini said he thinks chip makers will come out with three more generations of processors using silicon and then will be looking at a different base material. Trust me," he said. He wouldn't say what that material might be. "It's cool.

And responding to a question about the choice between smartphones and netbooks , Otellini said he sees big changes coming for the netbook. "I think the [netbook's] screen size and having a different keyboard is a different use model than smart phones," he said. "Not any better and not any worse. They'll have both. In places like San Francisco, people will have a laptop and a smart phone. In other places, most people will have to choose. They'll get smaller.

We'll put more capabilities into netbooks that will make them better. They'll have GPS. They'll just get better."

Google commands more than half of iPhone’s Web traffic

A new report from Chitika Research shows that Google has even more significant presence on the iPhone than you might have thought. Chitika's findings show that across the Internet as a whole-not just iPhone or mobile Internet-Google search accounts for about 31 percent of Web traffic. According to Chitika, Google searches alone account for more than 50 percent of all Internet traffic from mobile device running the iPhone OS.That means Google outstrips all other traffic, including other search sites and all visits to Websites in the phone's browser.

Google has doubtlessly attained an even more commanding position on the iPhone because it's the default search provider in the iPhone's Safari browser. There has been no shortage of ink spilled about the growing rivalry between Apple and Google. Some iPhone users tend to search for sites via Google rather than type in full URLs.  But what happens if Google loses its prime location on the iPhone and iPod touch, as a recent BusinessWeek report suggests? And the Mountain View search behemoth has just released its Google Voice Web app, entirely bypassing Apple's App Store. The mobile Web market is changing rapidly, though, and Google's own Android OS is capturing a bigger piece of the pie. If a tit-for-tat ensues, we could very well see Google search get demoted on the iPhone, and with that could come a sudden change in fortunes for Google's mobile advertising.

The iPhone now accounts for 54 percent of total smartphone traffic. All of this should make the coming year unpredictable and pretty interesting. Android has snagged 27 percent. One final word about the data: Chitika is a search-based online advertising network, and the company derived its numbers from a sample of traffic through that network. With 700 million impressions to analyze, one can assume that Chitika has used a fairly representative sample, but the report doesn't include a detailed methodology.

ITU Telecom World expo shifts in response to economic crisis

The ITU Telecom World exhibition has returned to Geneva after a visit to Hong Kong in 2006 - and has brought many Asian exhibitors back with it. The booths of China Mobile, ZTE and Datang Telecom Group loom over the entrance to the main hall, alongside those of NTT DoCoMo and Fujitsu, while upstairs Huawei Technologies and Samsung Electronics booths dwarf that of Cisco Systems, which has more meeting rooms than products on display. "Ten months ago, people were urging us to cancel the event," said Hamadoun Touré, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, which organizes the exhibition and the policy forum that runs alongside it. There are also signs that the way some companies are using the show is shifting. The pessimists feared that the show would attract neither exhibitors nor visitors, as companies slashed marketing budgets and cut back on business travel in the midst of the economic downturn.

The ITU still expects 40,000 visitors at this year's show; 82,000 turned up at the last Geneva event, in 2003. This year, around half the show is occupied by national pavilions: Saudi Arabia has the biggest, followed by those of Spain and Russia. While the show is noticeably smaller than previous editions - it only occupies Halls 2, 4 and 5 of the sprawling seven-hall Palexpo exhibition center, with some yawning gaps between stands, Touré is satisfied. "It's a good show, despite the crisis," he said. Other European nations, including Belgium, France and the U.K., also have pavilions, but by far the most numerous are those of the African nations: Burundi, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. The biggest company stands are those of the Asian network operators and equipment manufacturers, with the U.S. and Western European countries keeping a low profile. Microsoft and IBM have booths, but you'd barely notice. This domination of the show floor is not down to size alone: It's also about tactics.

There were actually only three of them, but their effect was magnified by loud music and the multiple video walls on the booth. Russia deployed what looked like an army of violinists dressed mostly in sequins on its stand on Monday. China Mobile has taken a similar route, with the logo of its 3G mobile brand, Wo, swirling and pulsing hypnotically across the walls and even the ceiling of its booth. Similar exhibits fill the stands at NTT DoCoMo and Samsung. ZTE has taken a more traditional route, with glass cases full of mobile phones, modems and cellular base stations.

On the Cisco booth, there are almost no products to be seen - unless you count the looming bulk of one of its TelePresence systems, linking the booth in high resolution to similar systems around the world. This shows images of the products that can be rotated on screen to examine them from different angles - and even measured or dismantled so that prospective buyers can figure out whether they would fit in their data center. Other elements of the Cisco product range are present virtually thanks to another screen, supplied by Massachusetts-based Kaon Interactive. Like Secretary-General Touré, Cisco faced a crucial decision last year about whether to maintain a show presence in Geneva. "One year ago, it wasn't clear how many customers were going to make this trip," said Suraj Shetty, the company's vice president of worldwide service provider marketing. That's why the rest of the stand is given over to meeting rooms. "Our focus is on customer intimacy," Shetty said.

However, the company realized that "this could be used as an opportunity to shift how we get contact with customers," he said. Carrier Ethernet specialist Ciena has taken a similar approach. Like Cisco, it prefers to show products virtually, rather than physically. "Computer graphics and touch screens are more effective in these cases. Its stand, close to Cisco's and even more discreet, consists entirely of meeting rooms. That's the trend," said Ciena CTO Stephen Alexander.

If you're buying bulky network or data center infrastructure, then don't expect to kick the tires at a trade show next year - although you might be able to click on them, on the booth's screen or your own.

Former Seagate engineer says company destroyed evidence

A former employee of Seagate Technology claims that the company destroyed evidence that could have affected a long-standing patent infringement lawsuit filed against it by engineering company Convolve Inc. and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In a court document obtained by the New York Times that was filed late last month, the former employee, Paul A. Galloway, claimed in an affidavit that Seagate deliberately destroyed the source code pertaining to a disk driving using Convolve's intellectual property and "failed to preserve" Galloway's PC containing all of his work during development of the drive. Seagate officials were not immediately available for comment. Galloway, who worked for Seagate until July as an engineer, also claimed that Seagate "withheld, if not destroyed, minutes of a server engineering group meetings used as a forum for disseminating Convolve's technology.

Convolve spokesman Mark Tanquary said his company had no official comment on Galloway's affidavit, but said, "I think a lot of people were happy to see that." The nine-year-old patent infringement case alleges that Seagate misappropriated Convolve's Quick and Quiet technology, incorporating it as its own Sound Barrier Technology . Sound Barrier was originally used in Cheetah X15 hard drives in Compaq computers to make them run more smoothly and quietly. In July 2000, Convolve and MIT sued Seagate and Compaq Computer seeking $800 million in damages over its Quick and Quiet technology. The software was developed using patented intellectual property under license by Convolve from MIT. The Quick and Quiet motion-dampening technology was originally created in 1989 by three MIT professors, one of whom founded Convolve. The lawsuit also sought a permanent injunction barring Seagate or Compaq from selling products using the Sound Barrier technology. Galloway claims in his affidavit that Convolve's technology was disseminated freely throughout his servo engineering group, but that those working on the drive technology were never told it was covered by a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Additionally, Galloway said in his affidavit that he would not have used the intellectual property had he known it was protected under an NDA. A court conference is scheduled to take place regarding the case on Jan. 20. Lucas Mearian covers storage; disaster recovery and business continuity; financial services infrastructure; health care IT for Computerworld . Follow Lucas on Twitter @lucasmearian , send e-mail at lmearian@computerworld.com or subscribe to Lucas's RSS feed .

In January 2008, the court ordered Seagate to provide all documents relevant to the case by February of that year.

Study: 54% of companies ban Facebook, Twitter at work

Planning on firing off a short missive on Twitter or posting an update to your friends on Facebook from the office? According to a study commissioned by Robert Half Technology, an IT staffing company, 54% of U.S. companies say they've banned workers from using social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace, while on the job. Better check the rules of your workplace first. The study, released today, also found that 19% of companies allow social networking use only for business purposes, while 16% allow limited personal use.

Nucleus Research, an IT research company, reported in July that companies that allow employee productivity drops 1.5% in companies that allow full access Facebook in the workplace. Only 10% of the 1,400 CIOs interviewed said that their companies allow employees full access to social networks during work hours. "Using social networking sites may divert employees' attention away from more pressing priorities, so it's understandable that some companies limit access," said Dave Willmer, executive director of Robert Half Technology, in a statement. "For some professions, however, these sites can be leveraged as effective business tools, which may be why about one in five companies allows their use for work-related purposes." A study released last summer concluded that social networking use can hurt the bottom line. That survey of 237 corporate employees also showed that 77% of workers who have a Facebook account use it during work hours. It did not say how many workers fit into that category, but did note that one in 33 workers surveyed use Facebook only while at work. Nucleus said the survey found that "some" employees use the social networking site as much as two hours a day at work.

And of those using Facebook at work, 87% said they had no clear business reason for accessing the network. And in August, the U.S. Marine Corps reaffirmed its ban on the use of social networks by its soldiers.

iTunes gains Automatically Add to iTunes feature

One of the often requested features for iTunes has been the ability to set a folder for it to watch, automatically adding any items you drop in that folder to its library. In typical Apple fashion, it's not exactly what people were asking for, but Apple's interpretation of what they want. In iTunes 9, Apple has quietly added this feature, although I wouldn't blame you for not having noticed its existence. When you install iTunes 9, it automatically creates an Automatically Add to iTunes folder in your ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music folder (or under ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media if you created a new library after installing iTunes 9). When you put an iTunes-compatible media file in this folder, it will, as the name suggests, be added to iTunes automatically.

Whenever you drop any file into that folder, it's instantly added to iTunes if the application is running. In my limited testing, I've found that it pretty much works as advertised. If not, it gets added the next time iTunes is launched. And if you ever delete or rename the Automatically Add to iTunes folder, iTunes simply creates a new one for you the next time it is launched. It even looks for files in subfolders you create and adds them to the library as well.

However, it does have a lot of caveats. You can be pretty assured that if the video was downloaded from the Internet, it will not be supported by iTunes. For one thing, iTunes's list of supported formats, especially in the video department, is comically short. In such a case, iTunes will move it to a Not Added subfolder within the Automatically Add to iTunes folder. Still, there are other problems. But that's to be expected because iTunes has never exactly supported a host of media formats.

When users asked for an option to direct iTunes to a folder, they really wanted an option to direct iTunes to any folder. So if you have a huge collection of media in your Movies folder or on an external hard disk drive containing files that you'd like to automatically add to iTunes, you'll still have to move them to that particular folder. What Apple has done, on the other hand, is created a pre-designated folder for the task and not given an option to change it to any other location. What's the point, then? Well, you say, we can just use the Automatically Add to iTunes folder as our primary movies folder, then-maybe even move it to a location of our choosing, and leave behind an alias to take its place.

You can just drag and drop them onto the iTunes icon in the Dock and be done with it. Wouldn't that work? Not only does iTunes not accept anything added to that folder if you move it, but the presence of the alias prevents iTunes from creating a new version of the folder either. Not so much. And when iTunes does add media files from the Automatically Add to iTunes folder, it moves them into its media folder and organizes them as it normally would, even if you have the option to do so disabled under iTunes's advanced preferences.

The only possible use I can see if for you to set it as the default download location for media files you purchase/download off the Internet, so that they can automatically be added to iTunes without your having to do so (and even there, Apple has recommended you don't use it for incomplete files). I hope Apple rethinks this and gives users the freedom to use any folder they want and makes iTunes stop moving the media files around if the user doesn't want it to. It also deletes any subfolders you create within that folder (although that's a logical conclusion, given that they're useless if the media files you put in them never stay there). In short, I don't think the feature is very useful in the form Apple chose to implement it. It's still a (very small) step in the right direction though.

Oracle/Sun: Why European Union jurisdiction matters

A mild war of words is breaking out between American and European regulators on the proposed merger between Oracle and Sun. But American officials are not contesting Europe's jurisdiction over the matter and previous cases show that European regulators have broad powers over American companies that do business in Europe. Slideshow: Hottest Tech M&A deals U.S. government officials have expressed displeasure with the European Commission's objection to Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun.

The European Commission issued a fine of more than $1 billion to Intel this year after finding the company guilty of antitrust violations. In 2001, for example, Europe prevented a merger between General Electric and Honeywell even after American regulators had given the deal a green light. "If the annual turnover of the combined businesses exceeds specified thresholds in terms of global and European sales, the proposed merger must be notified to the European Commission, which must examine it," European officials explain on their official competition Web site. "These rules apply to all mergers no matter where in the world the merging companies have their registered office, headquarters, activities or production facilities. In rare cases, Europe has also blocked mergers between American companies. This is so because even mergers between companies based outside the European Union may affect markets in the EU if the companies do business in the EU." In its merger regulation, the EU stipulates that it has control over mergers in which the combined worldwide revenue of the companies involved exceeds $7.5 billion, and more than $374 million within Europe. Sun earned $11.4 billion in worldwide revenue in fiscal 2009, and $3.8 billion in Europe. In fiscal 2009, Oracle alone pulled in more than $23 billion in worldwide revenue and nearly $8 billion in the Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) region.

When Oracle first announced its deal to purchase Sun in April, the merger was valued at $7.4 billion. European officials objected to "the combination of Sun's open source MySQL database product with Oracle's enterprise database products and its potential negative effects on competition in the market for database products," Sun said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Although U.S. officials gave Oracle and Sun the green light, the European Commission issued a formal statement of objections this week, a decision that could scuttle the acquisition. U.S. officials issued a mild criticism of their European counterparts. "Several factors led the [U.S. Antitrust] Division to conclude that the proposed transaction is unlikely to be anticompetitive," Deputy Assistant Attorney General Molly Boast of the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division said in a written statement. "There are many open-source and proprietary database competitors. The Department also concluded that there is a large community of developers and users of Sun's open source database with significant expertise in maintaining and improving the software, and who could support a derivative version of it." The U.S. comments were described as "unusual" by a European official. The Division concluded, based on the specific facts at issue in the transaction, that consumer harm is unlikely because customers would continue to have choices from a variety of well established and widely accepted database products.

According to the Reuters wire service, a European Commission spokesman named Jonathan Todd said "That's unusual. We apply European merger control rules, they apply U.S. merger control rules," Todd said. I cannot recall any instance where the European Commission has ever issued a statement concerning ongoing investigations in another jurisdiction." Todd further noted that the United States and Europe have different methods of judging whether a deal is anticompetitive."We have our methods, they have theirs. The GE/Honeywell failure was the last time U.S. and European authorities have issued different decisions on a merger, according to the Reuters article. The Antitrust Division will continue to work constructively with the EC and competition authorities in other jurisdictions to preserve sound antitrust enforcement policies that benefit consumers around the world." Follow Jon Brodkin on Twitter. In her statement, Boast said the United States will continue to work with Europe on competition policy. "The Department and the European Commission have a strong and positive relationship on competition policy matters," Boast said. "The two competition authorities have enjoyed close and cooperative relations.

Apple Changes App Store Review Process

Apple may be feeling the Android heat. Many see the move as yet another step by Apple to keep app store developers from defecting to competing mobile platforms - namely Android. The company has changed the way it deals with iPhone app developers letting them now keep closer tabs on how their software is proceeding through Apple's strict App Store review process.

As first reported in Wired this week, a software developer can now see precisely when an app is "Ready for Review," "In Review," and "Ready for Sale." Before that, developers only got vague status bulletins from Apple giving the "average wait time" around finding out whether or not Apple has okayed an app. Meanwhile, many mobile developers have started to expand their mobile platform horizons by creating apps not just for iPhones but myriad other phone environments, including Android, RIM, Palm's Pre, and Microsoft's Windows Mobile. Software developers began complaining loudly about Apple's review policies late last year, after Apple offered a hodgepodge of reasons for banning apps ranging from the Murderdrome comic book to the "Pull My Finger" fart joke app and Alex Sokirynsky's "Podcaster" app. To help pacify developers, Apple recently added a new in-app feature that lets users of free iPhone apps upgrade to expanded capabilities from directly inside the apps, so that a visit to the App Store is no longer needed At the same time, fewer complaints have been emerging lately about applications getting arbitrarily rejected from the App Store. The iPhone still has a lot more applications for its users than any other mobile platform, with more than 100,000 applications available in Apple's App Store in comparison to "10,000-plus" on Google's Android Market, for instance.

But Apple's tops-down App Store policies again spurred confusion in late October, when Apple suddenly restored a 3G TV app formerly banned from its online store. Apple's move to improve communications should go a long way toward keeping developers in the iPhone fold, even though developers really still have no way of knowing in advance whether or not their software will make it into the App Store.