Sony and NEC join up for control of CD and DVD drives

Sony and NEC have set up a joint venture to produce CD and DVD drives in an attempt to maintain market share in the face of strong price competition. The combined operation will take the best technologies and expertise from both parties with the aim of increasing their aggregated 20 per cent of the global market and overtaking the 28 per cent share held by HLDS, itself a joint venture between Hitachi and LG. Sony will hold a 55 per cent stake in the new company against NEC's 45 per cent and both companies are preparing to transfer their respective optical disc drive operations to the joint venture before 1 April 2006. ...more

BT offers restaurants a taste of e-commerce

Finding somewhere decent to eat at short notice might be a bit easier in future. Restaurants with empty tables can now advertise them in real time via Lastminute.com or through special kiosks built in city centres. ...more

One in three software installs are pirate copies

Over one third of software packages installed in 2005 were pirate copies. The trade amounted to more that $34 billion according to research carried out by analysts IDC for the Business Software Alliance. On the positive side, the worldwide drive against piracy appears to have stemmed the tide in some of the world's emerging markets such as China, Russia, India and in Central/Eastern Europe and the Middle East & Africa. ...more

First preconfigured MySQL server to debut

MySQL, the world's most popular open source database developer, and US hardware supplier PogoLinux Inc are to launch the first integrated server database platform. The server, to be called the DataWare 2600 Server, will be a turnkey solution and the partners say that the hardware and software components will be tuned for maximum performance. Although, at the time of writing, no pricing for the unit had been set. ...more

Average laptop worth $1m

New research by a computer security firm has estimated the value of the average laptop to be worth close to $1mn. Symantec discovered that that is the value of intellectual property and commercially sensitive data stored in emails and while the average is high enough, some laptops were carrying around information potentially worth ?5mn. However only 42 per cent of the companies automatically backup emails, with 45 per cent leaving it up to the employee, which leaves 13 per cent that just do not bother. ...more