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| | | April 20, 2003
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Sunday, April 20, 2003 |
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As the earnings season got under way, IT companies reported mostly pleasing results, but other economic factors, some skepticism over the economic policies pursued by the current U.S. administration, and continuing uncertainty over Iraq, kept Wall Street investors largely on the sidelines. The growing number of unemployed skillful professionals and another drop in consumer confidence also contributed to the subdued reaction towards emerging technologies and increasingly better enterprise solutions.
Selling computers means fierce competition
Dell Computer toppled Hewlett-Packard from the number one computer maker spot in the first quarter of 2003, after posting a growth of more than 24 percent, compared to the same period a year ago. According to research company Gartner, Dell managed to sell 450,000 more computer systems than its biggest rival.
First quarter results indicated the PC industry is growing and notebook computers are taking a more than ever prominent role. Boosted by laptop sales, Toshiba, for example, surprisingly became the world's number five computer maker. Notebooks also helped Apple top analysts' expectations, shipping over 711,000 Macintosh computers, 40 percent of which laptops, in the first three months of the year.
Defying the trend, for the same period, California-based Gateway lost $200 million, selling just over 500,000 PCs, or 22 percent less than Q1 of 2002.
In a fiercely competitive environment, Gateway continues to restrain its market to the U.S., while top-notch computer makers like Dell and HP are more and more dependent on international sales, primarily in Europe and Asia. The head-to-head fight for the first spot, however, will likely not be over for the next few years, most analysts predict. Yet all computer equipment makers seem to agree that mobile technology is the future of the IT industry and it will ultimately decide corporations' market shares.
More from: CNET News.com 1 2 3 | IDG.net 1 2 | Reuters | The Register
Targeting spammers with 'shock and awe'?
As the IT industry struggles to recover from a multiyear slump, both the sector and the U.S. government seem increasingly aware of the detriments of unchallenged spam proliferation.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) responded this week to more than 50,000 consumer complaints by filing a lawsuit against a Missouri resident who allegedly ran a massive pornographic spam operation. According to FTC's case, Brian Westby collected $1 million in commissions by using deceptive methods to attract users to a web site with adult content. The commission charges that the millions of sent e-mails had false return addresses, misleading subject lines and sexually explicit materials, which might have been viewed by minors or employees at companies with policies proscribing such messages.
In the meantime, America Online, the largest Internet Service Provider (ISP), demonstrated its willingness to use all-out measures against unsolicited commercial e-mail. The company filed multiple suits against at least a dozen of companies and individuals. AOL charged they sent more than a billion unwanted e-mails, which resulted in eight million customer complaints. The ISP is seeking $10 million in damages and total cessation of the spammers' operations. AOL's move comes as the company and its competitors, including MSN and EarthLink, have declared a full-blown war on the dramatically growing problem, which according to some estimates costs U.S. business up to $10 billion a year.
More from: CNET News.com 1 2 | IDG.net | InternetNews.com 1 2 | VNUNET.com | The Washington Post
In Other News...
 Microsoft reported a sound earnings growth of 2 percent to $2.79 billion and revenues of more than $7.8 billion. John Connors, the company's CFO, however, noted no significant recovery is being seen "on the horizon."
MCI is the new name of the largest corporation to go bankrupt in world's history. WorldCom, which filed for Chapter 11 reorganization last year, will aim to create a new, unblemished brand and will also move its headquarters from Mississippi to Ashburn, Virginia.
A human error at CNN.com, the most popular Internet news site, resulted in an embarrassing blunder for the media giant. A password-protected web site for internal use got publicly exposed, offering access to prepared beforehand obituaries of international figures, including U.S. vice president Dick Cheney, former U.S. president Ronald Reagan, Cuban Communist leader Fidel Castro, Pope John Paul II and others. Within minutes, CNN removed the inadvertently published content, but the gaffe made news across the wires. Media organizations frequently prepare obituaries of prominent individuals in advance, in an attempt to provide swift reporting when the event actually occurs.
A newly unveiled tool by California-based company SurfControl, targets corporate employees using popular instant messaging services and file-sharing networks. The application bars users from running IM software from MSN, Yahoo!, AOL and others and thwarts access to song-swapping peer-to-peer tools.
Mozilla.org, the group developing the Mozilla and the technological core of Netscape's browser, renamed its Phoenix browser project to FireBird over legal concerns. The Phoenix project recently received increased interest after the Mozilla community decided to turn its efforts into working on a standalone, completely rewritten browsing application. The move coincides with the tenth birthday of the Internet browser on April 22.
Apple Computer denied rumors that the company will acquire Vivendi Universal's music division. Reports surfaced last week of a potential deal, but Apple's CEO Steve Jobs refuted the claims.
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