Business

The smartphone industry has caught the sue-me, sue-you flu. Microsoft on Friday filed a patent infringement suit against Motorola related to Android technology. Microsoft claims Motorola has infringed on nine Microsoft patents with its Android-based smartphones. The patents at issue relate to a wide...

The founders of Lustre software technology company Whamcloud opened for business in June with a lot of potential and years of experience working with high-performance computing. What they lacked from their first day was any signed contracts. Whamcloud Cofounder and CEO Brent Gorda still is waiting t...

Oracle on Thursday filed suit against Google for patent and copyright infringement in the latter's development of the Android operating system. Google "knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle's Java-related intellectual property," according to the suite, which "seeks appropriate remedies...

Open source software is poised for rapid growth in enterprises over the next 12 months, but cost is no longer the primary driver behind open source adoption. That's according to a new study from global consultancy Accenture, which based its findings on interviews with 300 executives at organizations...

A new group announced Tuesday aims to create a community-built and -maintained version of Oracle's OpenSolaris operating system in which all portions of the code are open and fully available for use by developers. Called "Illumos," the new project will replace the closed portions of Oracle's OpenSol...

Discussions, theses, theories and memes abound around Linux's inability to gain traction in the desktop marketplace. Some think the Linux Desktop is too hard to learn. Others say Linux Desktop is deficient. Linux elite say Linux wasn't really meant for the general users anyway. Microsoft says Lin...

When Samsung's Android-powered Galaxy S makes its U.S. debut in the coming months, it will do so as five different phones tailored for five different carriers. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and U.S. Cellular will all support a Galaxy S device, though the handset will be renamed and recast slig...

A growing recognition of the business benefits predictive analysis provides is positioning newcomer Revolution Analytics into a key role to help adopters of the R programing language migrate from legacy offerings. Until a recent funding infusion and a refocus of marketing goals, the startup did busi...

Less than a month after Sony dropped Linux support from its PlayStation 3 gaming console, a disgruntled customer has filed a lawsuit, charging that the move was a deceptive business practice. He's seeking class-action status. Sony Computer Entertainment America's disablement of the "Install Other OS...

Microsoft on Tuesday announced that it has signed a patent agreement with HTC covering the phone maker's Android-based devices, and it's talking with other phone vendors as well about its "concerns" regarding Google's mobile operating platform. The deal with HTC provides broad coverage under Microso...

Advocates of free and open source software were on the warpath Wednesday following the eruption of a bitter legal battle between IBM and a tiny French firm. IBM has asserted that Hercules -- an open source mainframe emulator from Paris-based TurboHercules -- infringes on numerous IBM patents, and it...

A new tool developed at the University of Washington has the potential to make all software effectively open source -- in a way. Rather than manipulating the software's code, however, the application -- dubbed "Prefab" -- hijacks what it displays and makes it customizable. "Microsoft and Apple aren'...

After six years of battle, a federal jury has ruled that Novell owns the rights to the Unix operating system. In 2003, the SCO Group began campaigning to get Linux users to pay it license fees, arguing that unspecified SCO intellectual property had been improperly included in Linux. SCO filed suit ...

Samsung has given the audience at the International CTIA Wireless trade show a sneak preview of its forthcoming Galaxy S smartphone. At less than 10 millimeters, it is expected to be the thinnest Android phone on the market. It also has a 1-Ghz processor and sports a 4-inch, 800 by 480-pixel AMOLED ...

New York hedge fund Elliott Associates is in hot pursuit of Novell, and developments have left some worrying that an acquisition, if successful, would mean the end of Suse Linux. On Monday, Novell's board of directors turned down a March 2 offer of $2 billion for the company from Elliott Associates....