Scott Ferguson

Federated Department Stores, the parent company of the popular Macys and Bloomingdales department stores, announced Sept. 20 that it will cut 290 IT jobs and consolidated data centers in two Midwestern cities. Federated, which is based in Cincinnati, Ohio, will begin cutting staff and consolidating the two centers in January 2007, and finish by June, […]

Microsoft is clamping down on software piracy, announcing Sept. 19 that it is filing federal lawsuits against 20 resellers of Windows XP and Office versions that the company claims are illegal. In a statement, the Redmond, Wash., software giant called the lawsuits part of a “broader company initiative to combat counterfeiting and other forms of […]

Storage giant EMC announced Sept. 18 that it has agreed to purchase Network Intelligence for $175 million, and it has also completed its $2.1 billion acquisition of RSA Security. Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC, now the sixth largest software company in the world, has been on a buying spree lately. In addition to RSA and Network Intelligence, […]

Apple has released an updated beta version of its Boot Camp software, which gives an Intel-based Macintosh the ability to run either Mac OS X or Windows XP. The new version, called Boot Camp 1.1.1, can be found at the Cupertino, Calif., computer makers Web site. The new version, released on Sept. 15, has been […]

Microsoft and European Community regulators need to find common ground when it comes to Windows Vista, and do it soon, industry watchers are saying. The long-awaited operating systems European debut could be delayed by regulators for anti-competition reasons. But a later arrival of Vista is likely to do more harm than good, said Roger Kay, […]

WebEx Communications has released the final version of an on-demand, Web-based instant messaging service that is specifically aimed at the enterprise market and as a challenge to Microsofts Office Communicator and IBM Lotus Sametime. The service, called WebEx AIM Pro Business Edition, was introduced by the SAAS (software as a service) provider on Sept. 13. […]

About a month after its launch, macbookrandomshutdown.com is continuing its mission of bringing attention to what it claims are random shutdowns of Apple Computers MacBook notebooks. The site is now receiving about 5,000 visitors a day and has totaled 100,000 page views since it launched on Aug. 15, according to site creator Matthew Swanson, who […]

With back-to-back solid quarterly financial results in the bank, Sun Mi-crosystems President and CEO Jonathan Schwartz stepped on stage Sept. 13 and tried to convince Wall Street that the company has landed solidly on the comeback trail. Schwartz, who has been the companys top executive for just over 100 days, came to New York City […]

Hewlett-Packard board Chairman Patricia Dunn, who has been at the center of scandal surrounding an internal company investigation into media leaks, will step down from her position in January 2007, HP said on Sept. 12. Mark Hurd, CEO and president, will assume the chairmanship during the Jan. 17, 2007, board of directors meeting. Dunn will […]

As expected, Apple Computers will now begin offering its users a chance to buy movies through its popular iTunes software and will start marketing new versions of the iPod with more memory and better video capability. At a marketing event in San Francisco on Sept. 12, Apple CEO Steven Jobs announced what had been expected […]