Jeff Burt

Worldwide IT spending will continue to grow through the end of the year, but not at the pace initially expected, according to analysts at market research firm Gartner. Overall, IT spending will hit more than $2.4 trillion in 2010, up from the $2.3 trillion in 2009, when the global recession was in full swing, Gartner […]

A startup called eZuce is offering an open-source, software-only unified communications solution that company officials say is an alternative to Microsoft’s UC offerings. eZuce, which launched Aug. 12, is rolling out OpenUC, which officials say is aimed at midsize to large enterprises of 200 to 10,000 users and can be offered as an on-premises solution […]

Cisco Systems reported record numbers in its fiscal 2010 fourth-quarter earnings call Aug. 11, including $10.8 billion in revenue and $1.9 billion in income. However, despite the lofty financial numbers, CEO John Chambers talked about the “mixed signals” he was getting from customers and the economy in general, comments that some analysts wondered whether they […]

Oracle officials’ discussion Aug. 10 of their plans for Sun Microsystems’ enterprise hardware offerings was an important step in getting the company seen as a player in the competitive high-end server space, according to analysts. Six months after closing the $7.4 billion purchase of Sun, Oracle executives began to give the industry a glimpse of […]

Oracle is rolling out the latest version of is desktop virtualization software, creating what company officials say is a complete offering, from the hardware devices through the software stack. The company unveiled Oracle VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) 3.2 Aug. 11, with improvements in scalability, multimedia and administration. “We are very serious about the desktop virtualization […]

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison slammed the Hewlett-Packard Board of Directors for firing Chairman and CEO Mark Hurd, accusing the group of “cowardly corporate political correctness.” In an e-mail sent to The New York Times Aug. 9, Ellison called the HP board’s move “the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve […]

Oracle will release the next version of the Solaris operating system in 2011, and will double the performance of its SPARC processors every other year. Those were some of the highlights of an Aug. 10 Webcast presentation by John Fowler, executive vice president of systems for Oracle, outlining an aggressive road map designed to raise […]

Polycom, which already has partnerships with the likes of Hewlett-Packard and Avaya as it ramps up its competition with Cisco Systems in the unified communications space, is now hooking up with Microsoft. The two companies announced a partnership Aug. 9 in which they will jointly develop and market integrated UC solutions that will include endpoints […]

Mark Hurd’s abrupt resignation as chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard may have put a short-term spotlight on the company for its personal and sordid reasons, but thanks to Hurd’s leadership over the past five years, HP is in a position to continue to thrive, according to analysts. HP’s Board of Directors announced late Aug. 6 […]

Dell CEO Michael Dell may face some opposition when the company’s shareholders meeting Aug. 12. Labor unions, upset about the company’s $100 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission July 22 over accounting irregularities and Michael Dell’s pay over the past decade, sent an electronic letter to shareholders asking them to vote against keeping […]

Officials with the Federal Trade Commission say the agreement the FTC reached with Intel to settle antitrust allegations will create a more competitive playing field that will benefit vendors, OEMs and customers alike. The settlement, announced Aug. 4, heated up the simmering debate about the degree to which the government should intervene in the IT […]

Hewlett-Packard reportedly will pay about $50 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice over alleged kickbacks in connection with government IT contracts. HP announced a settlement in principle Aug. 2 that would reduce the company’s third-quarter profits by 2 cents share. The agreement still needs to be approved by the DOJ, […]