Acer making moves on the enterprise

With IBM's PC business on its way to Lenovo, and HP in bother as its hot-swaps its CEO, Acer reckons this is a good time to make a play for the corporate market. Executives at a press conference yesterday said the company was recruiting a sales force to target larger enterprises and is refreshing its channel partnerships to provide better service. The company was quick to reassure its dealers that it remains committed to its channel-only policy and will not sell direct. ...more

Foxconn iPod factory 'one of the better ones'

Foxconn's iPod factory is 'one of the better ones' according to Ken Tidwell, who recently visited the plant in LongHau, China. Apple is currently investigating allegations of poor working and living conditions at the plant, but Tidwell told macintouch.com that 'the five hundred staffers I recently lectured to were all in good spirits and clearly satisfied with their jobs and working conditions'. ...more

Palm marks LifeDrive 'end of life'

Palm has called time on its LifeDrive PDA, the first, and so far only, of its handhelds with hard drive rather than flash memory storage. The device has been tagged 'end of line' on the company's US store. Also references to the Mobile Manager product category have been removed from several places on the Palm website, suggesting that there will be no replacement for the LifeDrive, the only Mobile Manager that the company has released in the less than two years since the new category of devices was introduced in May 2005. ...more

Intel buys Xircom

Intel has bought Xircom, manufacturer of mobile PC kit, for $748m (?500m). US firm Xircom is possibly best known in this country for its PC card modems and its existing catalogue of network and communications equipment will help Intel break into the market. Xircom will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intel. ...more

Warner chief threatens to scalp iTunes

A Warner Music executive has threatened to cut off Apple if Steve Jobs continues to refuse to give ground on iTunes Music Store pricing. Digital strategy chief Michael Nash said during a discussion at a wireless telecoms conference that the music industry has let Apple get too much power in the digital downloads market. 'What if Jobs says 39 cents or 29 cents per download - what then?,' he said. ...more