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.