Microsoft changes 'ballot screen' to close antitrust case

Microsoft has changed its proposed browser "ballot screen" to wrap up a nine-month antitrust case in the European Union, but rivals remained noncommittal today about whether the modifications are enough. Today, the commission said Microsoft had altered some provisions of the ballot screen, and that it would take comments on those changes from consumers, software makers and computer manufacturers until Nov. 9. The comment period is required by EU law. "We agreed to make a significant number of changes to improve our proposals, and we believe that we've been able to do that," said Brad Smith, Microsoft's chief counsel, in a telephone press conference today. Three months ago, Microsoft told Brussels-based antitrust officials that it would give users a chance to download rivals' browsers with a "ballot screen," just one of the moves Microsoft has made since January in an effort to ward off fines or even more drastic measures by the European Commission.

Opera Software and Google said they were studying the changes. "Opera Software supports the concept of a ballot screen to give users easy access to better browsers," said Hakon Wium Lie, Opera's chief technology officer in an e-mail today. "The important question is how this ballot screen is implemented. Opera, Google and Mozilla, the maker of Firefox, have been allowed to see the charges against Microsoft, study the July ballot screen proposal, and suggest changes. We are still studying the announcement ... and will have further comments at a later stage." Opera's December 2007 complaint sparked the antitrust action, which the EC filed last January, accusing Microsoft of illegally bundling Internet Explorer (IE) with Windows and therefore shielding it from real competition . "The proposal to increase consumer choice in browsers has just been made public and we, like many others, will be reviewing it with interest," a Google spokesman added from Brussels today. "The test will be whether people can easily choose the browser they want to use." Google's interest comes from its Chrome browser, one of the 12 that will be offered users. Mozilla criticized Microsoft's July idea, with top executives claiming that it favored IE and failed to install other browsers. Microsoft's revised ballot screen proposal addresses several concerns of those rivals. Opera, meanwhile, called on Microsoft to offer the ballot screen to all customers, even though Microsoft is legally obligated to offer it only to EU Windows users.

According to the documentation ( download PDF ) released by the commission today, the "Install" link offered for the choices will not only download the selected browser - which is what Microsoft had proposed before - but will also install the application on the user's machine. "An 'install' link will connect to a vendor-managed distribution server, which, upon the user's confirmation, can directly download the installation package of the selected web browser for local execution & the resulting situation will therefore equal a scenario in which the user himself had downloaded and executed the installation package without being aided by the Ballot Screen," said Microsoft's new proposal. Other changes include a new screen that will provide some basic information about browsers, and remind users that they should be connected to the Internet before they proceed. The ballot screen will also display the choices - Apple's Safari, Chrome, IE, Firefox and Opera on the first screen, an additional seven on a second - in alphabetical order by the name of the browser maker - a change from before, when Microsoft had placed IE in the first spot on the far left based on its market share. Microsoft also modified the timing of the ballot screen, which will be delivered to Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 users via Windows Update. Instead, Microsoft has agreed to start offering the ballot screen to all Windows users eight weeks after EU antitrust officials sign off on the proposal. Previously, Microsoft said it would push the ballot screen to Windows 7 owners on Oct. 22, or within two weeks of approval of the deal, then follow that three to six months later for Windows XP and Vista users.

For its part, the EU seems satisfied with the revised ballot screen. "We believe this is an answer," said commission chief Neelie Kroes in a press conference today in Brussels. Even so, Kroes acknowledged that the revamped proposal may not make everyone happy. "A number of people are never 100 percent satisfied," she said. She also indicated that it was likely the commission would accept Microsoft's ballot screen revisions. "At the end of the day that's what we are looking for," she added. Microsoft was "very pleased" with the EU's decision to move into the last month of the case, Smith said in his press conference. "We welcome the announcement by the European Commission to move forward with formal market testing of Microsoft's proposal relating to Web browser choice," he said.

Obama bars fed workers from texting and driving

A two-day Distracted Driving Summit in Washington concluded Thursday after experts raised multiple thorny questions on how to reduce cell phone and texting while driving, with a big emphasis placed on driver and employer responsibility. LaHood also announced that his department would ban text messaging altogether and restrict cell phone use by truck and interstate bus drivers, and disqualify school bus drivers from receiving commercial driver's licenses if they have been convicted of texting while driving. After mentioning that President Obama had just signed an executive order that tells all federal employees not to engage in texting while driving government vehicles, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood urged private sector employers to avoid calling workers on their cell phones as they drive home from work.

His department also plans to make permanent some restrictions placed on the use of cell phones in rail operations, he added without offering further details. "Employers need to change their mindset, too, and if you know your staff has left for the day, do not expect them to instantly return a phone call or IM when they'e driving home," LaHood said in a concluding address. The executive order "shows the federal government is leading by example" and "sends a signal that distracted driving dangerous," he added. Obama's executive order, signed Wednesday night, also bars federal workers from texting with any government-owned electronic equipment while they are driving, and bars any texting while driving their own privately owned vehicles while on official government business, LaHood said. But LaHood was noncommittal about proposed laws, including a U.S. Senate bill that would require states to ban texting while driving or face partial loss of federal highway funding. But LaHood seemed to focus on drivers' personal responsibility as his key message. "Driving while distracted should feel wrong, just like driving without a seat belt or drinking," LaHood said. "We are not going to break all bad habits, but will raise awareness." LaHood said driving while distracted from using a cell phone or texting is "personally irresponsible and socially unacceptable behavior, but in the end we won't make the problem go away by just passing laws ... We cannot legislate behavior to get results to improve road safety." "People need to use common sense and show common decency to other drivers," he said.

LaHood showed a willingness to work on legislation, saying, "We will worth with Congress and state and local governments to ensure than the issue of distracted driving is appropriately addressed." He also said "high visibility enforcement" of drunk driving and seat belt laws had been effective and could work with distracted driving and related laws. He concluded with unprepared remarks, calling distracted driving "an epidemic" and referring to the summit as a "tremendous start ... that will lead all of us to save lives and save injuries." At the start of the conference, LaHood released new information that said nearly 6,000 people died in the U.S. in 2008 in crashes involving a distracted or inattentive driver, about one-sixth of the total number of deaths, or about 37,000. LaHood and several of the panelists who spoke urged parents to restrict their teenage children from using cell phones while driving. Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, cast a blunt criticism of such efforts, citing years of research. "It would be wonderful to have training programs for teens to recognize the risks they take [by texting while driving], and change their driving dramatically.," he said. "But our experience with education programs for teens or even ticketed drivers who take remedial training ... is that essentially the programs have no effect," Lund said. "What they learn is to avoid tickets, but not typically to avoid crashes." Lund mimicked calls by several experts at the summit to find new methods that can reduce crashes from distracted driving. "We need to find out what works ... All this education doesn't do much good," he said. But the value of specialized training programs to teach the dangers of distracted driving came under question by some of the assembled experts.

Indian ban on spurious mobile phones found inadequate

The Indian government has asked mobile service providers not to allow calls on their networks from mobile phones without proper International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers from Dec. 1, citing security reasons. The IMEI number is used by GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks to identify mobile devices. The order, however, has a glaring loophole as it does not provide for the blocking of calls from phones that use "clone" IMEIs, said Pankaj Mohindroo, national president of the Indian Cellular Association (ICA), a trade body that represents mobile handset makers and other mobile technology vendors. It is used by operators to block a stolen phone from using the network.

The Sept. 3 order from India's Ministry of Communications & IT only refers to phones that have no IMEI numbers or have a sequence of 0s in place of the IMEI number, or "non-genuine" numbers that are not, in fact, IMEI numbers. Clone IMEIs are those that have been issued to registered handset vendors but have been copied on to phones of dubious origins, Mohindroo said. ICA has told the government that handsets that have clone IMEI numbers should also be banned in the interest of security, Mohindroo said. A large number of mobile phones that are sold in India are either spurious or unbranded, often sold at low prices without bills or warranty. The use of mobile phones without proper IMEI numbers is seen by the government as a threat to the country's security, as terrorists have been found to use mobile phones extensively. A large number of consumers have bought these phones because of their low prices.

In a letter to service providers in April, the Ministry of Communications & IT recognized that some of the users of phones without proper IMEIs were "genuine innocent subscribers." Using software would be a far more attractive option than to have to throw out the phones, said Sridhar T. Pai, CEO of Tonse Telecom, a firm that researches the telecom market in India. The government approved earlier this year a Genuine IMEI Implant (GII) proposal from service providers that programs genuine IMEI on mobile handsets. Pai added that he had not evaluated the software yet. Operators have delayed implementing the ban because customers are their key assets and they will not do anything that will upset these customers, Pai said. Banning of the use of phones without adequate IMEI numbers has been delayed because of lack of clarity from the government and also because of a slow response from service providers that had earlier been ordered to block calls from phones without proper IMEIs from July 1, according to analysts.

The Cellular Operators Association of India, an association of GSM mobile operators, was not available for comment, but an official said in private that its members would be able to meet the Dec. 1 deadline. Phones with fake IMEI numbers are to be detected by reference to the IMEI database of the GSM Association (GSMA). The database of the GSMA will be able to detect fake IMEIs, but will not detect phones that have clone IMEIs, unless there is also a device management program that reveals the specification of the device, Mohindroo said. The Sept. 3 government order has expanded the ban to include mobile phones that have fake IMEIs, besides phones that have no IMEIs or a string of zeros in place of the IMEI. It has ordered service providers to make provisions in their Equipment Identity Register (EIR) so that calls from phones from all three types of defaulting phones are rejected from Dec. 1 by the networks. The EIR will then have to check whether the IMEI matches with the original device to which the number was issued, he added.

Can mainframe use really grow?

Some industry observers still like to kick dents in the mainframe saying it's not the corporate platform of the future but the Big Iron seemingly takes the licks and keeps on ticking. Only IBM mainframe users were included in the survey population, IDC noted. Case in point: According to a study out today of 300 end users by researchers at IDC nearly one-half of said they plan to increase annual spending on mainframe hardware and software over the next five years.

Network World Extra: How to really bury a mainframe Many mainframe users reported that they can plan another wave of investments in the System z platform over the next 2–5 years, citing the system's high availability, reliability, and security for mission-critical applications as major drivers, IDC stated. "Customers continue to collect dividends on their System z investments, which makes future investments much more palatable, even in difficult economic times," said Tim Grieser, program vice president, Enterprise System Management Software in a release. IBM has engaged in some price cutting to make some of these processors more palatable though. The study says IBM's strategy of building specialty processors for the mainframe, such as the Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) System z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) for ERP and CRM transactions and z Application Assist Processor (zAAP) processors for Java and XML transactions are key to ongoing success of the platform. According to a Network World article IBM has cut in half prices for some specialty Linux processors. Another source said the price changed from $90,000 to $47,500 for IFLs running on the System z Business Class mainframe. IBM acknowledged "new pricing" for the IFL processors, but did not offer specific numbers.

And IBM's mainframes haven't been immune to the economic downturn. Still all is by no means rosy in mainframeland. This summer IBM reported that System z mainframe server revenue decreased 39% year-over-year in the second quarter, while overall company revenue declined 13%. IDC however says the mainframe will benefit down the road from these new processors which will require additional mainframe-related database and storage facilities to handle new workloads. Another recent study raised an ever-increasing issue – retiring mainframers. However, while today individuals still train to become commercial pilots, the number of IT professionals going into the mainframe arena is fast disappearing. One study by system vendor Shoden found that 96% of respondents working for financial businesses said that they are concerned to some degree that with cloud computing and SaaS they will not be able to retain the necessary skills to operate and maintain legacy environments such as IBM mainframe or AS/400. The study said in the manufacturing sector, 88% of IT decision makers admitting to being concerned, while across all the markets polled, the average comes in at a staggering 83%. The retail, distribution and transport sectors come in just a little lower at 80%. The study went on to state that mainframe technology is as old as the Boeing 747 and, like the iconic aircraft, it is still the default workhorse for many of its original adopters.

A similar study funded by CA found that Financial Services organizations are leading the drive to tackle the shortage of mainframe skills in Europe where 60% of financial service firms use the mainframe for administering their critical data. In the CA study it found 57% of financial services organizations said an easy-to-use Web-enabled GUI would help close the skills gap.

Skype Founders Sue eBay: What's Going On?

The founders of Skype are suing eBay for copyright infringement, a move that could block eBay's deal to sell a majority stake in Skype to a group of private investors for $1.9 billion. The sale was seen as a big failure because the company was not able to further monetize the potential of the VoIP service in the years to come. eBay purchased Skype back in 2005 for $2.6 billion, but failed to acquire Joltid, the company supplying the core technology behind Skype, also owned by the founders of the VoIP software. So eBay sold a 65 percent stake in Skype two weeks ago to an investment group for $1.9 billion, managing to get back some of the money it invested initially.

At the core of the suit is a peer-to-peer technology called "global index", which is used by Skype's software to route calls over the Internet instead of traditional phones lines. But it's not all good for Skype, as Skype's original founders are now suing eBay, seeking damages for copyright infringement. This technology is owned by Joltid, which is still owned by the founders of Skype. Now moving to the U.S. courts, Joltid is seeking an injunction against Skype, which could affect Skype's operation. As if it wasn't complicated enough, eBay licensed "global index" from Joltid for continued use in Skype, but Joltid terminated the license in March and have been battling eBay in U.K. courts ever since.

The trial could jeopardise the closing of the Skype sale to the private investors, who are also named as defendants by Joltid. What's even more ironic is that that the money Joltid is using to sue eBay is probably the money they got from eBay when they sold Skype. While eBay is working on its own technology to replace Joltid's, Skype could be forced to close down its operation if Joltid wins the trial.

HP adds Snow Leopard printer drivers after customer complaints

Hewlett-Packard has added support for an additional 38 printer models or printer series to Snow Leopard, delivering on a promise made shortly after the release of Apple 's new operating system when angry users complained that older devices didn't work after upgrading. According to HP, 38 DeskJet, OfficeJet, and LaserJet drivers were added to those made available on Aug. 28, when Apple launched Snow Leopard . Although a list showing only the new drivers has not been published on either Apple's or HP's Web site, the complete list available on the former has been updated to include the new drivers, said Rick Spillers, a member of HP's Mac Connect team. On Thursday, Apple posted a printer driver update for Mac OS X 10.6 , aka Snow Leopard, but did not call out the specific drivers added to the 51MB driver download. Among the newly-supported printers are the HP 910 inkjet printer, the DeskJet D1300 series, the OfficeJet 5500 series and the LaserJet M1120. Almost immediately after Apple started selling Snow Leopard, users who upgraded began griping on the company's support forum that their long-reliable printers were not being recognized by the new OS. Others became angry when an HP representative told them they should buy a new printer if a driver wasn't available for Snow Leopard.

HP 1280 working!!!" crowed another user, "omarz," in a message Thursday. "I just update[d] to Snow Leopard 10.6.1 and now suddenly it was detected and it's working!" A driver for HP's PSC 1200 series was one of the 38 included in yesterday's update. After Thursday's update by Apple, several users reported on the same support forum that they were now able to use their formerly-bricked printers. "Today, I downloaded all the update software for printers and Mac [Snow Leopard], and everything now works fine," said someone identified as "AndyGump" on the same thread where users complained two weeks ago. "Incredible! HP's Spillers recommended that users update to Mac OS X 10.6.1 before applying the separate driver update. "Make sure that the printer is turned on and connected via [a] USB cable before launching Apple Software Update," said Spillers in an e-mail reply to questions. Apple built support into Snow Leopard for some printer makers' all-in-one devices, adding the functionality to the Image Capture application. Spillers also said that there has been confusion about how owners of HP all-in-one devices - which both print and scan, and in some cases also fax, documents - get their hardware to work with Snow Leopard. "The other interesting thing I've found is trying to educate customers on the new scan interface for HP inkjet All-in-Ones that we've integrated with Snow Leopard," he said. HP has posted instructions on how to use its all-in-one printer/scanner hardware with Snow Leopard on its customer support site.

Looking at the [support] forums, it seems that HP is the only print vendor really participating ... not sure I see much input from other print vendors." Snow Leopard users can manually download the HP driver update from Apple's site, or install it using the Mac's integrated update service. Spillers also took a shot at HP's rivals. "In general," he said, "HP did a great job providing full updated 10.6 drivers for almost all of our products, including LaserJets going back 10+ years.

Palm Pre readies app store e-commerce beta test

Palm is about to launch a beta test of an online system for selling and buying webOS applications. That means the "end of free" for Palm Pre users.

So far, the limited number of webOS applications on the Palm App Catalog (which is still in beta) are free downloads. The planned e-commerce capability for the catalog is essential for creating an incentive for developers to write software for the webOS platform. Users will be able to use credit cards for application purchases, according to Palm.

Slideshow: From Palm Pilot to Palm Pre: a brief history 

The handset maker Tuesday invited developers to apply for the beta test via e-mail, submitting a description of the application, price tag and other details along with the application itself in a .ipk file attachment.

Palm will consider whether to include them in the e-commerce beta test, due to start in mid-September. Later this year, the payment capability will be opened to all developers, according to Palm's blog.  

The blog post gives details about how to submit applications via e-mail for consideration.

The dearth of official webOS applications, and the spark of user innovation, has led to a rising tide of "homebrew" or unauthorized applications, which can be loaded on the Pre by a couple of techniques. Initially, hackers found a way to load an application via an e-mail attachment without needing root access to the operating system. But Palm closed that option with the webOS 1.04 release.

Many of the homebrew applicationss are utilities and simple games. PreCentral.net has both homebrew forums for the Pre and a new homebrew application gallery.  

During the upcoming App Catalog e-commerce beta test, software writers initially will be able to charge a one-time fee for their application to Palm users in the United States., who can pay by credit card and then download the application. No mention was made whether the beta or final versions will support online micropayments via such services as PayPal. The developers will keep 70% of all revenues, less any applicable sales tax.

The blog post lists some of the evaluation criteria Palm will apply to software submitted for the beta release: the application should be "useful and engaging to users;" the UI must have an "appealing design" and conform to Palm's guidelines; the applications must be native webOS programs, not browser-based, and leverage key features of the platform, such as multitasking and background operation, location services and so on. Finally, Palm will give preference this time for applications with good performance and minimal drain on the smartphone's battery.

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