Share surge sparks Palm merger speculation

Sharp rises in the shares values of PDA makers Palm and Handspring on the NASDAQ yesterday has prompted talk of mergers and takeovers. With rises of 35 per cent for Handspring and 12 per cent for Palm, investors were hoping for a merger that would end the price war between the companies. This has come in the wake of the decreasing PDA market and Microsoft's PocketPC platform gaining market share. ...more

Microsoft and SanDisk prepare Windows takeaway

Microsoft has signed an agreement with SanDisk to deliver software for securely storing and moving customised computing environments, including applications, preferences and data, using USB flash drives and flash memory cards. The software will be developed in conjunction with new hardware from SanDisk expanding on its existing U3 Smart Technology. U3 USB drives already let users carry applications with their associated preferences and settings, as well as data. ...more

11-08-2001 Essential news of the week

Brought neatly together and presented on a plate, here is a roundup of some of the week's main news stories from the world of IT. Evesham.com outraged by Parliament's Compaq restrictions Exclusive: Pentium 4 2GHz UPDATE UK Gateway to close? The cost of ADSL is falling< Netscape launches 6. ...more

UPDATE: New Palms to be light on the pocket

Excitement grows as details of upcoming Palms leak - from geek.com - with one as low as ?75.95 including VAT. ...more

UK PTO workshop divides lawyers and engineers over patents

The extent of the division between attorneys and software engineers over software patents was crystallised at a series of workshops run by the UK Patent Office. Delegates comprised a mix of patent attorneys and software engineers and were tasked with testing a number of patent applications against different definitions of the 'technical contribution' criteria. It is this test that determines the approval of software patents in current law and within the formative CII directive on the issue at the EU. ...more