2007/09/18

SCO files for Chapter 11

After losing its long-running battle for ownership of Unix copyrights last month, SCO has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Though SCO say their business isn't affected, their long standing argument over ownership of UNIX code and whether various Linux compenents have UNIX code in them, has made them unpopular very unpopular.

Many people wont be sad if they go under, though it will be a shame as they were pioneers when UNIX was originally being developed.

Sprint announced FemtoCell Airwave service

Sprint has announced its long awaited Airwave service using FemtoCells from Samsung (CDMA).

These are used in the home and utilise broadband for backhaul to Sprints network. When a user's Sprint mobile is in the vicinity of the cell it will use that instead of Sprint's main cell sites. Calls will be heavily discounted or free when in range of the femto cell.

More networks will adopt femto cells as they allow cheaper calls to be offered and high data rate services. The main issue with femto cells is they need licensed spectrum which is scarce in lots of countries.

Zimbra purchased by Yahoo

Zimbra who make the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (or ZCS) have announced they've been purchased by Yahoo.

ZCS is an Email/calendaring/etc suite with support for standard mail protocols and also plug-ins for Outlook etc. It also supports Microsoft's ActiveSync for over the air push Email.

ZCS comes in various flavours including an open source edition and they've stated this will continue to be the case even after the Yahoo purchase.

ZCS is a reasonable UN*X based competitor to Microsoft's Exchange, maybe Yahoo will give it the market distribution it deserves.

UK Apple iPhone deal announced

Steve Jobs was in Apple's UK Regent Street store to announce the deal with O2 for the iPhone which is going to be available on November 9th.

Suprisingly it's not a 3G phone, it will still only support E.D.G.E. as does the US variant. This will mean O2 have a lot of work to do to upgrade all their basestations to support E.D.G.E, though customers have reported that some cells are already showing E.D.G.E capability.

Pricing plans start at £35 per month for 200 minutes and 200 texts with unlimited data, this also gives unlimited WiFi access (via the Cloud). Higher rates give more voice minutes and texts.

Maybe the 16GB version will support 3G, which must be due soon ... giving Apple the ability to sell to the next generation of iPhone users and getting everyone who'se going to buy one at launch the opportunity to upgrade.