Liberty Alliance holdout IBM ends resistance, joins
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SAN FRANCISCO - IBM Corp. has become the latest company to join the Liberty Alliance, a global consortium aimed at developing standards for managing user identities. IBM joins Oracle Corp. and Intel Corp. as a backer of the effort, which Sun Microsystems Inc. leads.
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AMD and IBM have extended their CPU technology agreement through the end of 2008. Originally signed in December 2002, the alliance was originally slated to wind up at the end of 2005.
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Investor's Business Daily - IBM and Oracle -- two of Linux's biggest patrons -- have relished the effect the free software has had on Microsoft and other foes.
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The Liberty Alliance Project, a global consortium aimed at developing and promoting standards for managing user identities on networks, now has its first executive director: Silicon Valley IT consultant Donal O'Shea.
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Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), IBM (NYSE: IBM), Intel and Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW) have formed an industry group to promote open standards-based systems for enterprise-level grid computing.
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IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Sparkassen Informatik (SI) GmbH, Germany's largest provider of information technology (IT) solutions to savings banks, today announced that they have agreed to a five-year extension of their existing IT partnership.
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Microsoft has given up on trying to hawk its controversial Passport sign-on service to other companies. Microsoft&#39;s decision to shut down its Passport partner program comes after one of its largest allies
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NEW YORK, New York, United States of America -- International Business Machines (IBM) Corp has put its computer business up for sale, the New York Times said Friday, quoting people close to negotiations.
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IBM on Thursday said it has joined the Liberty Alliance, indicating that industry support is shifting toward the identity-management group&#39;s standard for using a single ID and password to access Web services across organizations.
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It has been a bad quarter for the SCO Group in more ways than one.  The company experienced legal setbacks in its suit against  IBM and Linux users. Then there was the matter of its one-time stalwart financial backer, BayStar, looking very much as though it might bolt from the relationship at one point, due to differing opinions on SCO's overall strategy.
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After agreeing to sell its PC division to China's Lenovo Group, IBM now faces the task of keeping its corporate and government customers from abandoning its standard-setting brand.
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A number of software makers and well-known IT vendors have agreed to endorse the Free Standards Group&#39;s latest Linux standard to help create common ground for companies building open-source technologies, the organization said Monday.
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Its plan? Attack Red Hat, use control over the operating system and the platform to disrupt competitors&#39; pricing and business models, out-engineer everybody in the x86 space and use an alliance with Microsoft to fight a common enemy: IBM.
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(InfoWorld) - Opponents of legislation that wouldÂ overhaul the U.S. patent system have enlisted new allies who may cause majority Democrats in Congress to rethink their support of the proposals. Since late July, three labor unions -- the AFL-CIO, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), and the United Steelworkers -- have sent letters to lawmakers saying they oppose two current patent reform bills. Patent reform opponents say they hope their alliance with organized labor, which has a long history of supporting Democrats, will stall the legislation. But representatives ofÂ large tech vendors that are pushing for patent reform say they're confident there will be support for the legislation when Congress returns from summer recess in early September. The committees in both the Senate and the House of Representatives approved versions of a sweeping patent reform bill in July, and House leaders have targeted the patent reform bill for passage by the end of the year. "I think the momentum exists for this thing to move forward," said Joshua Ackil, vice president of government relations for tech trade group the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI). "As folks [in Congress] dive in a little deeper on this issue, they will come around and understand how important patent reform is to the tech sector." In recent sessions of Congress, then-majority Republicans were tugged in two directions when they focused on patent reform bills similar to ones introduced in the current session of Congress. Several high-profile Republicans pushed for patent reform, and won praise from many large tech vendors, but the Republican friendly pharmaceutical industry was staunchly opposed to the bills. By enlisting labor unions, patent reform opponents are trying to put Democrats "in the same situation the Republicans were in," said Ronald Riley, president of the Professional Inventors Alliance, which represents small inventors. Riley's group, along with the American Ingenuity Alliance and other groups, have focused getting unions to back their cause in recent months. Riley portrays patent reform as enabling large tech vendors to steal the ideas of small inventors. "We're tired of these transnationals ripping off our people's work," he said. "We're just warming up." Tech vendors including Microsoft Corp., IBM Corp., and Cisco Systems Inc. have argued that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) too often approves questionable patents, and that it's too easy for patent holders to sue, collect huge damages and shut down product lines that have a small infringing piece. In many cases, patent lawsuits are brought by companies that make all their money by owning patents, critics have said. Cisco spends US$45 million a year defending itself against patent lawsuits, Matt Tanielian, director of government relations for the company, said during a forum in June. "There's a lot of bad patents out there," he said. "When you get sued, you ought to get a fair shake." The letters to Congress from the AFL-CIO and the United Steelworkers focused on two controversial sections of the patent reform legislation in both the House and the Senate. The two groups objected to the way the legislation would change how courts apportion damages when a company is found to infringe a patent. Currently, courts generally consider the value of the entire product when a small piece of the product infringes a patent, but supporters of the bills want Congress to base damages only on the value of the infringing piece. The groups also questioned how the legislation would allow a new way of challenging patents after they're issued, called post-grant review. The bills would allow companies sued for patent infringement a new way to file challenges with USPTO. Representatives of the of the AFL-CIO and United Steelworkers didn't return messages or declined to comment on their recent interest in patent reform. But the AFL-CIO letter alluded to recent efforts of the U.S. government and the U.S. tech industry to prod China to strengthen its intellectual property protections. These two changes "may have a negative impact on innovation and research," the AFL-CIO letter said. "At a time when the Chinese government is constantly being challenged to live up to its intellectual property obligations, we do not want to take actions that may weaken ours." The United Steelworkers letter said nearly 70 percent of patents filed in the U.S. come from manufacturing firms. "These bills would allow an endless loop of legal challenges after patents are awarded that will make it more difficult for U.S. patent holders to prevail against frivolous challenges," the letter said. ITI's Ackil and representatives of two other tech groups said they doubted the unions' opposition would kill patent reform, although Ackil acknowledged that "anyone should be concerned" with opposition from large labor groups. Ackil and a representative of another tech trade group, who spoke on background, questioned the depth of the opposition from the labor unions. "The AFL-CIO has been nowhere on this issue for three years," Ackil said. Democrats knew of the labor concerns before the House Judiciary Committee approved the patent reform bill, added a spokesman for Representative Howard Berman, a California Democrat and primary sponsor of the House patent bill. "Weâre working now to try to understand and deal with any concerns labor may have," said spokesman Gene Smith. "We think that labor will not be opposing the bill when it comes to the floor soon after the House returns from recess." But the labor opposition could lead to changes in the bills, said Bill Mashek, a spokesman for the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, a group that has opposed parts of the current patent bills. "Laborâs voice in the debate is significant and influential," Mashek said. "It shows, in our view, that the bill needs further work to ensure that U.S. manufacturing and innovators have the incentives to invest and develop new products. The concerns of ... organized labor resonate with members across the country and of all political stripes."
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Labor protests in the high-tech industry are rare, but IBM is in midst of one -- and it&#39;s unfolding entirely online. Instead of waving protest signs outside the company gates, affected workers are airing, in comments accompanying an online petition, disappointment, anger, and bitterness with the company over a salary cut&#160; IBM&#39;s U.S. workforce.Since its announcement last month, more than 1,200 people have signed a petition sponsored by the Alliance@IBM, protesting pay cuts to 7,600 technical support employees.. Whether all these signatures are from affected employees is not certain, but many of the comments seem authentic, and often heartfelt.Comments such as &quot;11 years on call ... Now less money than when in started in 97,&quot; &quot;Previous loyal employee ... No more,&quot; and &quot;This is not fair. I did not deserve this after all my hard work,&quot; are typical.This change in how technical support workers are paid stems from a federal class action lawsuit filed by some employees in early 2006. In it, the workers complained they were not getting paid overtime after a 40-hour work week and they sought back pay. IBM settled the case that same year for $65 million.Last month, IBM told workers that it was reclassifying technical services and IT specialist jobs to nonexempt positions, making them eligible for overtime. But the company said it was also making a 15% base salary adjustment -- down.Overtime pay, as a well as a transition payment to help where overtime doesn&#39;t meet the base pay adjustment, will offset this pay cut according to the company. The company characterized the change as a &quot;pay remix&quot; in a series of slides to managers that was subsequently leaked. But not all the employees will be able to offset the pay cut with overtime, according to information sent to managers; about one third of the affected employees are working on average less than 45 hours a week, the apparent salary parity threshold.IBM spokesman Fred McNeese said that were IBM to pay overtime on top of salaries that were already competitive with the industry, the company would be uncompetitive. McNeese&#39;s point is listed as a key one in the slides sent to managers. &quot;Adding overtime compensation to already competitive pay would quickly produce costs that exceed competitive levels -- an undesirable result for employees and our clients.&quot;McNeese believes that overall compensation for employees after the change &quot;should be the same.&quot;Two affected employees, who spoke on the condition that their names not be used, disagreed that their pay would be similar. They argued that overtime was far from certain, required managerial approval, and opportunities for it could vary depending on business. Moreover, the cut in base pay affected those aspects of compensation calculated on base salary alone, such as insurance and disability. They also argued that it could affect personal areas, such as ability to qualify at a certain mortgage amount. One employee said that it rolls back his salary to what he earned in 2001.The employees were also skeptical of the company&#39;s assertion that this change wasn&#39;t put in place to cut overall costs, and there are suspicions that wage pressure from offshore centers may be at work -- something IBM denies. &quot;As far as I am concerned, they are going to save money,&quot; said one employee.Lee Conrad, a former IBM employee who is now national coordinator of the Alliance@IBM in Endicott, NY, said he believes globalization may be a factor in the pay cut decision and suspects other companies will be looking at how IBM manages the pay cut. &quot;If IBM is an indication of what&#39;s ahead, it&#39;s going to be a rough ride for American workers,&quot; he said.The union, which is part of the Communications Workers of America, represents about 6,000 of IBM&#39;s total U.S. workforce of 125,000. It would need at least 60 percent membership to have bargaining power with the company, said Conrad.Conrad said he been impressed by the outspoken reaction of IBM employees. &quot;For IBMers to sign their name publicly to a petition -- that says a lot,&quot; he said.Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.&#160;
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IBM's (NYSE: IBM) deal to sell off its PC unit to China-based Lenovo may hit a snag, as U.S. federal agencies decide whether the arrangement endangers national security.
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IBM (NYSE: IBM) has established a new global organization to push the company's Power processor platform, with an emphasis on establishing a foothold in the potentially lucrative Chinese I.T. market.