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Today’s topics include a European Union complaint against Google, details of the deal between Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent, a new iOS from Apple and the end of product support for Microsoft SQL Server 2005.
the Competition Office at the European Commission, which oversees industry trade practices, announced April 15 that it had sent Google a formal Statement of Objections outlining the EU’s concerns over the company’s favorable treatment of its Google Shopping comparison-shopping site.
One of the main complaints in the Statement of Objections is that Google gives preferential treatment to products in its own comparison-shopping site when people use its general search engine to look for particular products.
Google executives strongly denied the EU complaint with statements in two blogs that insisted the company has done no harm to others and has actually fostered more choice and innovation in some of the areas in which it competes.
Nokia will buy Alcatel-Lucent in a $16.6 billion deal that has been years in the making. This deal promises to create a significant player in a rapidly evolving networking market dealing with such fast-moving trends as mobile computing, the cloud, the Internet of things and software-defined networking.
The announcement of the deal comes fewer than 24 hours after officials with both vendors said they were in advanced negotiations, though they had cautioned that an agreement wasn’t certain.
Apple has unveiled its newest iOS 8.4 developer’s beta version on its developer Website, as it distributes what will eventually become the next version of the mobile operating system.
The iOS 8.4 beta version was announced by Apple on April 13 and comes just a few weeks after the release of the iOS 8.3 beta version back on March 24.
One of the key changes in the latest iOS 8.4 developer’s beta is an early preview of the all-new appearance and design for Apple’s Music app, according to Apple’s release notes for the new application.
Time is running out for organizations that are relying on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 to keep their business applications up and running.
Support for the company’s SQL Server 2005 database software platform ends about a year from now, on April 12, 2016. As with other software that is put out to pasture, Microsoft will no longer “release security and hotfixes for that version of the product” once it pulls support.