IT Channel News Briefs, Oct. 9 |
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By Staff
09 Oct 2008 | SearchITChannel.com |
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Information technology (IT) channel news in brief for Thursday, Oct. 9, 2008.
IBM Q3 revenue misses expectations
IBM's net income grew 20% to $2.8 billion in the third quarter, according to preliminary results released yesterday. Revenue was up 5% to $25.3 billion, but that was 4.7% below what analysts had expected for the quarter, which ended Sept. 30.
Still, the company painted a rosy picture of the upcoming year, projecting 22% growth in earnings. That news came as a respite after gloomy warnings from SAP, Dell and other tech bellwethers. IBM shares closed down 5.3% to $90.55 on Wednesday but rose 3.5% in after-hours trading.
Entellium execs face fraud charges
The future of CRM vendor Entellium appears grim this week, after the federal government charged its CEO and CFO with wire fraud and the company laid off most of its staff. SearchCRM.com reports that CEO Paul Johnston and CFO Parrish Jones are accused of falsely inflating Entellium's revenues -- by about $400,000 a month, since 2004 -- to attract more investors. The charges came down Tuesday, and the Seattle-based company had laid off its entire sales and marketing team by last Friday.
Google adds long-term email archiving option
Bowing to compliance mandates, Google is adding a hosted email archiving option. The offering will cost $45 per user per year, for up to 10 years, according to the Google Enterprise Blog.
Google had offered the service, based on its Postini acquisition last year, at $25 per user per year for a year or less. The services include Postini's spam- and virus-filtering. The longer-term option lets businesses set their own retention policies and give their users access to more of their archived email.
"Regulations and guidelines like the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure put pressure on IT organizations to ensure that email is properly retained and can be reliably located and preserved in the event of legal discovery," wrote Google product marketer Bill Kee.
Huawei pulls mobile division off the block
Signs that troubled markets are squashing acquisition opportunities worldwide are beginning to show. Yesterday, Chinese technology firm Huawei took its mobile unit -- one of the top makers of wireless handsets -- off the auction block. The Wall Street Journal reported today that Huawei received interest from only two bidders, prompting the firm to cancel the auction.
The report said the acquisition of Huawei's mobile division had been valued at around $4 billion, and that it would have been one of the biggest private equity deals in China. That the auction fell apart is a sign of how the credit crisis is affecting private equity efforts in Asia. Huawei -- one of the buyers in last spring's failed acquisition of 3Com -- has left the door open for future bids.
Check out yesterday's IT channel news briefs.
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