The partnerships are important because it makes rolling out PayPal’s in-store payments technology to retailers much easier.

PayPal is hosting an event at its San Jose headquarters later this morning to announce the next batch of retailers that are adopting the company’s in-store payments solution. AllThingsD’s Liz Gannes will be there to cover the announcements live, starting at 10 am PT.

To date, PayPal has deployed its service to all 2,000 Home Depots, but it has a long way to go in meeting its goal of having 20 major retailers by the end of the year.

One reason why PayPal is able to deploy its services to retailers so quickly is because it only requires sending out a software update to the retailers’ terminals — in other words, retailers won’t have to purchase all new hardware. This morning, PayPal confirmed it has signed up VeriFone and Equinox Payments, the largest and third-largest providers, respectively, which will handle those software updates. PayPal already had a relationship with Ingenico, the second-largest provider.

The relationships inked today are focused on solving back-end integration problems for merchants. But the front-end experience is all about the consumer.

At participating stores, consumers will be able to pay with PayPal by either using a PayPal-issued credit card or by entering a mobile phone number and PIN code into the terminal. Down the road, PayPal could also support near field communication technology.

All told, the three terminal providers manage about roughly 40 million terminals worldwide, representing a large majority of the terminals in existence.

The consensus among Wall Street analysts calls for HP to report sales of $29.92 billion and a per-share profit of 91 cents. And, for the most part, analysts are expecting HP’s results to be in line with expectations, if maybe a little light on sales.

One possible curveball, however, is Europe. Given HP’s exposure to the faltering markets on that continent, about which Dell complained in its earnings report yesterday, HP could conceivably see its results hurt more by Europe than by Dell.

Europe accounts for 37 percent of HP’s revenue, making it the most heavily exposed there among the large IT vendors. “The increasing uncertainty and resulting macro weakness in Europe will likely act as an ongoing headwind to growth,” wrote analyst Chris Whitmore of Deutsche Bank Securities in a note to clients Tuesday.

But the big item on the agenda will be HP’s plans for restructuring, and how many jobs may be lost. As AllThingsD reported last week, HP is contemplating a restructuring that could see as many as 30,000 jobs eliminated, including 5,000 through voluntary retirements. What’s unclear is over what length of time these jobs will go — I’ve been told by sources that this is a key detail, and it is likely to be a fairly long period of time.

The reductions would be the latest in a long, painful sequence of cuts for HP that began years ago. Whitmore notes that HP chopped 50,000 jobs over the course of five years under the tenure of former CEO Mark Hurd. “We suspect HP will position this cost cutting as ‘cut to reinvest’ — an interesting strategy considering HP has been restructuring for the past decade,” Whitmore writes.

Whatever restructuring Whitman puts on the table, Whitmore expects it will help HP maintain its prior guidance — it expects to finish the year with a per-share profit north of $4.00 — but it’s still not going to be easy. Summer PC demand is expected to be soft, and the lack of a tablet strategy isn’t helping. Demand for corporate PCs will likely be a rare bright spot, but just barely.

In printers, the relatively weak results of printer concerns Canon and Lexmark don’t exactly imbue the market with confidence that the trend of sliding profits and sales in HP’s printer operation, recently combined with the Personal Systems Group in a sweeping reorganization announced last month, is anywhere close to being reversed.

One thing to watch for — and something about which Whitman has hinted in the past — is SKU reduction. An SKU is industry lingo for “stock-keeping unit,” and it refers to specific models and makes and packages of a given product. Consumer printers — and, in fact, printers in general — would be an obvious place to cut back on the number of models offered to the market, and it would be perfectly in line with Whitman’s prior messages emphasizing simplicity and streamlining HP’s approach to the market. While I don’t expect Whitman to go on at length about this subject, it’s the sort of thing she may touch on as she hones the “simplicity” message.

What not to expect: One big bomb dropped all at once, outlining the sum total of Whitman’s long-term strategy for HP — one she has already admitted will take a long time to implement. The fact is, it’s a big job, probably one of the biggest in all of the corporate world, and so it’s necessarily coming out in pieces. Today’s piece will be a big one.

Ariba operates something called a buyer-seller network that’s aimed at helping companies manage their supply chains more efficiently. The price amounts to a 20 percent premium on Ariba shares, which closed yesterday at $37.64 a share. Ariba reported sales in the year ended September 2011 of $444 million and a profit of $33.3 million.

It’s the second big cloud deal for SAP in recent memory. In December it spent $3.4 billion to acquire SuccessFactors, a player in the cloud-based human resources software business. That deal flipped the switch on a wave of acquisitions by Oracle, which soon acquired Taleo, and Salesforce.com, which bought the start-up Rypple in response.

Here’s the announcement below.

SAP to Expand Cloud Presence with Acquisition of Ariba
Combination Creates the Business Network of the Future;
Provides Open Business Commerce Community and Procurement Solutions in the Cloud;
Network to Benefit from SAP’s Flagship In-Memory Platform, SAP HANA

WALLDORF, Germany and SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — SAP AG (SAP) and Ariba, Inc. (ARBA) today announced that SAP’s subsidiary, SAP America, Inc., has entered into an agreement to acquire Ariba, the leading cloud-based business commerce network, for $45.00 per share, representing an enterprise value of approximately $4.3 billion. The acquisition will combine Ariba’s successful buyer-seller collaboration network with SAP’s broad customer base and deep business process expertise to create new models for business-to-business collaboration in the cloud.

The Ariba board of directors has unanimously approved the transaction. The per share purchase price represents a 20% premium over the May 21 closing price and a 19% premium over the one month volume weighted average price per share. The transaction will be funded from SAP’s free cash and a €2.4 billion term loan facility. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of calendar year 2012, subject to Ariba stockholder approval, clearances by relevant regulatory authorities and other customary closing conditions. The transaction is expected to be accretive to SAP’s non-IFRS earnings per share in 2013.

Business Network to Drive Growth

With the addition of Ariba, SAP will acquire the leader in cloud-based collaborative business commerce. The acquisition establishes SAP as the leading business network, adding business-to-business collaboration to its existing solutions. The move positions SAP in a fast-growing segment as buyers and sellers across the globe connect in new ways through the cloud.

SAP’s entry into the inter-enterprise business network space significantly expands its growth opportunities and accelerates its momentum in the cloud. Last week, SAP announced the roadmap for its cloud applications business (Software-as-a-Service), focusing on managing customers, suppliers, employees, and financials, in addition to its cloud suite offerings SAP Business ByDesign and SAP Business One. The acquisition will also significantly boost SAP’s cloud applications portfolio with the addition of Ariba’s leading cloud-based procurement solutions.

Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Ariba has approximately 2,600 employees. The company is the leader in cloud-based collaborative commerce applications and the second-largest cloud vendor by revenue. Ariba combines industry-leading technology with a web-based trading community to help companies discover, connect and collaborate with a global network of partners – all in a cloud-based environment. With $444 million in total revenue, Ariba experienced 38.5 percent annual growth in 2011. Its business network recorded 62 percent organic growth in the same period.

“The cloud has profoundly changed the way people interact. The impact will be even greater as enterprises connect and collaborate in new ways with their global networks of customers and partners,” said SAP Co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe. “Cloud-based collaboration is redefining business network innovation, and we are catching this wave in the early stage of its evolution. The addition of Ariba will create the business network of the future, deliver immediate value to our customers and provide another solid engine for driving SAP’s growth in the cloud.”

Businesses to Benefit from Combination

Industry experts estimate the cloud-based enterprise network and procurement segment at a current size of $5 billion in revenue. The Ariba network is the largest and most global trading network, connecting and automating more than $319 billion in commerce transactions, collaborations, and intelligence among more than 730,000 companies. SAP’s global customer base of more than 190,000 companies includes the largest buyers and sellers in the world, offering great potential to increase the number of participants, as well as the volume and types of transactions conducted through this network. Already today 63% of the world’s transaction revenue touches an SAP system. SAP and Ariba will facilitate collaborative commerce within and between companies of all sizes.

The combination of SAP’s innovations and core applications with the Ariba cloud-based network will create new business value for customers:

Together, SAP and Ariba can deliver a truly end-to-end solution that enables companies to achieve a closed-loop from source-to-pay, regardless of whether they deploy in the cloud, on-premise or through a combination of both.

Ariba’s open network and SAP’s integration expertise will facilitate participation and extend the benefits of business collaboration to all companies, on any system, from any provider.

The Ariba network will benefit from the performance delivered by using SAP’s flagship in-memory platform SAP HANA.

Relationship and transaction information from commerce activity in the Ariba network together with SAP’s leading analytics will provide real-time insights to enable trading partners to discover, connect and collaborate more effectively.

All SAP customers will be able to easily connect to the business network through pre-built integration points.

Through the combination of the business network procurement solutions from Ariba and SAP, organizations can gain 360-degree business intelligence and effectively demonstrate that spending activities, contracts, and supplier interactions adhere to corporate compliance guidelines.

“In our personal lives, networks are playing an increasingly important role in how we connect, share, and shop – bringing more insight and efficiency into everything we do,” said Bob Calderoni, CEO, Ariba. “Businesses are looking for the same connectedness, insight, and efficiencies in the processes and collaboration with customers, suppliers, and partners beyond the walls of their companies. By combining Ariba’s open global trading network and SAP’s solutions and analytics, we are ushering in a new era of business-to-business collaboration and driving new levels of productivity.”

Upon completion of the transaction, it is planned to consolidate all cloud-related supplier assets of SAP under Ariba. The existing management team will continue to lead Ariba, which will operate as an independent business under the name “Ariba, an SAP company.” The SAP Executive Board intends to nominate Ariba CEO Bob Calderoni to the SAP Global Managing Board after closing of the transaction and subject to the approval of the SAP Supervisory Board.

Barely two weeks after hiring former Jive exec Lynda Smith as its chief marketing officer, today it will announce that it has a new CFO. It’s Lee Kirkpatrick, and he’s leaving Say Media, where he had the same title. He started his new job on May 7.

Twilio is growing so fast that it’s a little hard to keep track of all the news coming out of it. In his new role, Kirkpatrick will be responsible for Twilio’s finances and worldwide strategy. The company recently added Belgium, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden to the steadily growing stable of countries where it is operating. It also recently struck a deal with Microsoft to add telephony features to its Azure cloud computing platform, so, yeah, maybe now might be the time to add a CFO.

What’s Job One? Well, here’s a funny tradition at Twilio: Every employee, no matter their level or level of technical ability, is required to build a Twilio application in order to become familiar with how the service works. So, part of this week will be devoted to that. Companies like eBay unit StubHub, Salesforce.com and Airbnb have used it to create some custom apps that include the use of a phone.

It’s a very Twilio sort of thing to do. When the company was in the process of raising its most recent funding round — a $17 million series C led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Union Square Ventures — Bessemer partner Byron Deeter created a Twilio-connected number and asked CEO Jeff Lawson to call it. As VentureBeat reported at the time, when Lawson called, he heard an automated voice message asking him to press 1 for $5 million, press 2 for $10 million and press 3 for $15 million.

It turned out that C round topped out at $17 million late last year, bringing its total capital raised to about $34 million, so there’s a decent-sized pile of money to look after. Before Say Media, Kirkpatrick held executive jobs at Ofoto, the Kodak Gallery and Reuters.

It has been relatively quiet there in the Utah desert ever since, which is odd, because it had been such a chatty company, throwing parties to kill old outdated identities, holding complicated math contests to guess its new name, things like that.

Now it’s about to get noisy again. Effective today, you’re going to start hearing a lot more from Domo and from its employees, and not because its new product is ready. Not quite. (James tells me the company will be talking about it this summer.)

No, starting today, all employees — everyone in the company — will be required as a condition of employment to get seriously engaged on social media in all its various forms in order to make Domo part of the wider conversations taking place on Twitter and Facebook and Foursquare and Pinterest and the rest. It’s called the #Domosocial experiment, and will last eight weeks. James puts it thusly in a post on the company blog:

“The program is designed to get everyone here engaged with and learning from consumer and social technologies. The goal is to help us develop a better product, understand the viral nature of web offerings more effectively, assist in getting the Domo brand out there, enable better customer conversations and see what impact it all has on our business.”

Part of the intent, James told me, is a matter of geography and culture. Being based in Utah, Domo employees are probably better than their equal numbers at other Utah start-ups when it comes to being facile with the ebb and flow of the daily global conversation that takes place on all the social spaces. But they’re probably not as familiar with it all as their rivals in Silicon Valley.

James has seen this sort of thing before. He started Omniture in Utah in 1996 and by 2009 sold it to Adobe for $1.8 billion. “With Domo, I wanted to ensure that we are every bit as adept at understanding and leveraging social as any other bleeding-edge startup,” he wrote.

But on top of that, he’s turning the effort into a live case study to see just how much of a difference it makes in Domo’s business prospects, if any. The company will track important metrics and share them with the world. “We’ll track how things change week after week. The good, the bad and the ugly, it’s all going to be public,” he told me.

Though not about everything. There’s a list of “don’ts.” Don’t tweet about deals in the pipeline, don’t debate with or quarrel with the boss on Facebook. Don’t post about meetings or leak financial information.

What do employees stand to benefit? The best among them will be getting cash rewards for their performance, extra days off, that sort of thing.

What does he expect? He’s been exploring social media pretty seriously for the last six months, and occasionally now gets stopped in the local mall by people who recognize him. “You start having influence in ways you didn’t before,” James told me. He learned with a 10-page article he shared on Twitter, where he has about 12,000 followers, that he experienced a 15 percent click-through rate. “The influence will increase dramatically,” he told me. Also, Domo’s development team will have their eyes opened to the finer points of what works and what doesn’t with social features that are under development at Domo. “We don’t want to re-invent what Facebook and Twitter did, but if you’re not intimately familiar with how those things work, then how can you learn from their mistakes?”

I tested an idea that aims to change that practice: Appy Couple. It functions as a couple’s official wedding app and guides guests through a wedding. They can use it to track information about the bachelorette party or other pre-wedding events, and on the wedding day to find their way to the venue and post photos that they take. While many existing wedding apps help brides and grooms plan things like seating arrangements, dress selections and registry creation, this app is a mobile aid for guests.

Appy Couple comes from a New York City-based start-up called AppeProPo Inc., and it has a couple of rough edges. For example, users can’t crop uploaded images and it is difficult to navigate the section where virtual Champagne toasts can be posted. The company plans to fix these issues soon.

Appy Couple has features tailored for guests, who can upload photos, get travel and weather information and vote in polls.

Last year, I spent weeks making my own wedding website, and very few of my tech-savvy guests used it or visited it more than once—if at all. I only wish Appy Couple had been available for my wedding, where most guests carried iPhones or Android phones.

This app-creating website is currently free to use, and it will always be free for guests to download; they follow an email link or use a provided code to access their couple’s wedding app. Readers of this column can create their own wedding apps on AppyCouple.com using their email addresses and “AppyPreview” as a code, since it is currently usable by invitation-only. In the fall, AppeProPo will start charging couples to make apps: Some designs will cost $49, while limited-edition and designer-series app templates will cost $99 to $200 each. One hundred designs are available now, and 50 more are coming by fall.

Appy Couple works on iPhones, Android phones, iPads, Web browsers and via email invitations.

Couples begin on AppyCouple.com, where a stylish, simple user interface walks them through seven steps for making their wedding app. Each app also comes with a wedding website that will display the same content for relatives or friends who don’t have smartphones.

One of my favorite parts about creating a wedding app was that I could change its design at any time. I started with a yellow-and-gray bubble design and later changed the design to a completely different black-and-gold pattern. With one click, the entire app was updated.

Another useful feature is the Events section. Only guests who are invited to certain events will see those events appear in their apps. So if only 15 friends are invited to the bachelorette party, only they—and not the rest of the guests—will see it. Couples can customize Events to add songs, guest polls, information on dress code, child care, weather, travel and hotels.

Appy Couple connects to Facebook, but only for the purpose of pulling images and names of friends into a section called Key People. It will never display any Appy Couple activity in your Facebook timeline. It also links to Yahoo, Google, Windows Live, AOL, Plaxo, Outlook and Apple’s Address Book for finding friends’ email addresses.

Judging from the many weddings I’ve attended, Appy Couple’s Gallery will be the most-used section on the app. In the test app I created, friends uploaded photos that can be viewed by the couple and other guests, and the app grew richer with their contributions. Images can be uploaded without pre-approval from the host couple, though any image can be deleted by the hosts on the AppyCouple.com website. A “moderation” option will be added to the app to give the couple more control over content.

A guest list can be uploaded to the app, but it must be saved as a CSV (comma separated values) file with columns for each guest’s first name, last name, email address and phone number. Couples who use traditional response cards will likely not also digitally invite guests to their wedding, but casual wedding events might merit a digital invitation.

Appy Couple’s CEO and co-founder, Sharmeen Mitha-Sehgal, wants couples to use personalized apps long after their wedding day. Next up is Appy Life, where people can create apps for events like births, birthdays, new homes and anniversaries.

This app brings useful wedding website content on the go with guests as they attend weddings. If nothing else, they’ll know how to get to the church and when the ceremony starts—even if they forget to bring the paper invitation.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com

This creates curious opportunities for fun. When Twilio was in the process of raising its most recent funding round — a $17 million series C led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Union Square Ventures — Bessemer partner Byron Deeter created a Twilio-connected number and asked CEO Jeff Lawson to call it. As recounted by VentureBeat, when Lawson called, he heard automated voice messages asking him to press 1 for $5 million, 2 for $10 million and 3 for $15 million.

Hijinks like this say a lot about the culture that surrounds Twilio, but it’s not well known outside the developer community. Addressing that will be job one for Lynda Smith, its new chief marketing officer, who joined the company on April 23.

Smith is joining Twilio from Jive, the social enterprise software concern, where she was senior vice president of marketing until last fall. As CMO, she’ll be responsible for Twilio’s marketing strategy around the world.

“I think the Twilio brand is huge among developers because it gives that community a chance to play with something they haven’t had before,” Smith told me. “But it’s also getting a lot of traction within the telephony industry. … Voice and messaging are still a big part of the worlds that we live in, but they’ve been difficult to bring into new-world software applications because it’s still tied to some old-world things like hardware and protocols.” First priority, she says, is making sure that people outside the developer world know what Twilio is and what they can do with it.

Before Jive, Smith held a number executive slots at Genpact, Nuance, Genesys and Lockheed Martin. She’s a graduate of Simpson College, and has an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School. She’s also on the faculty at Stanford University, where she lectures on global entrepreneurial marketing.

Twilio is definitely on the move: It landed $17 million in that C round late last year, bringing its total capital raised to about $34 million. It also just announced its second conference in San Francisco, in October. Time to get serious about marketing.

Of the two, Jonathan Schwartz, Sun’s last CEO, spent the most time on the witness stand. Called by lawyers for Google, he bolstered Google’s argument that it was free to use parts of Java as it assembled its Android mobile operating system.

Scott McNealy, called by Oracle, said it was Sun’s practice to let other companies use Java, but only with a commercial license, the primary requirement of which was that the licensee ensure that Java remain compatible.

While numerous other phones from the likes of Nokia, Research In Motion and Motorola were compatible with Java applications, those on Android weren’t. Compatibility is one of the main points over which Oracle has been arguing with Google. Oracle contends that not only did Google violate its patents and copyrights, but it then went on to build its own incompatible version of Java, fracturing one of the oldest premises of Java’s existence: Write once, run anywhere.

Schwartz said he had hoped that Google would take out a commercial license, but in the end, he said, according to a report on CNet News, Sun opted “to grit our teeth” and support it as part of the Java community. He said that he opted not to sue Google over the issue.

Oracle also presented as evidence an email from Schwartz, describing Google as having taken Java “without attribution or contribution,” and then went on: “This is why I love scroogle,” referring to a now-defunct Web-search service that served up Google-like search results anonymously. See it below.

“We see strong momentum for our flagship in-memory platform SAP HANA, our cloud and mobile solutions, and our core applications and analytics products,” SAP Co-Chief Executives Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe said.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

On the heels of our recent hiring of Mike Isaac to cover social tech for this site, Bonnie Cha will be joining the staff of All Things Digital as a senior reviewer.

She joins Walt Mossberg and Katie Boehret, as well as recent hire Lauren Goode, as part of our expanded All Things Reviewed site.

Cha has been covering technology since 2002, most recently spending eight years at CNET reviewing various consumer electronics, including printers, software and smartphones, as well as reporting on the wireless industry.

She also wrote for the Crave blog there, covering such topics as robotics and science, and served as a technical editor on several how-to books for McGraw-Hill.

When not tinkering with the latest gadgets, Cha enjoys spending her free time surfing or checking out live music. She is a graduate of Emory University with a degree in English and of the University of Southern California, where she got her masters in journalism.

Most of all, we think she’s a perfect fit for our ever-growing staff, so get ready for some insightful reviews and more when she starts in May.

Splunk is not your traditional big-data company, in that it is not running some variant of Hadoop, like so many upstart companies in that space. Its specialty, as CEO Godfrey Sullivan told me last year, is harvesting data from machines; they can be Web servers or they can be air-conditioning units. Its cloud-based database grabs all the data generated by the machine in the course of its operation and generates alerts. Those alerts can tell a human operator things like “everything’s cool” or “ouch, things are not so cool. I need help.”

If a machine does something that repeats many times a day, hour or minute, then it is generating data that can be measured. And if it can be measured, there’s a pretty good chance that you can make that data useful, using Splunk.

Big customers include cloud concerns like Salesforce.com and the Web gaming outfit Zynga. Wireless companies like MetroPCS and T-Mobile use it to monitor their wireless networks. Several government agencies use it to help watch for attacks on their networks. In all, it has about 3,700 customers in 75 countries.

So, who stands to get rich today?

The two biggest shareholders are the Sevin Rosen Funds and August Capital, which each own 20.4 percent of the shares, worth just a whisker less than $280 million at the offering price. Behind them is JK&B Capital, which owns a 17.6 percent stake worth $240 million. Ignition Partners has a 12.1 percent stake worth $165 million. Sullivan, the CEO, has an 8.2 percent share worth $118 million. Another name that jumped out at me: Patrick McGovern, head of the tech research and publishing house IDG, has 240,666 shares worth more than $4 million. (Update: I’ve since learned it’s a different Patrick McGovern. Sorry about that.)

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison will take the witness stand today in his company’s lawsuit against the search giant Google. In what has been described as the World Series of intellectual property lawsuits, Ellison will be examined by Oracle lawyers in the case, in which Oracle has accused Google of infringing both patents and copyrights on Java while it was working to create the Android mobile operating system.

Ellison’s testimony will come after Oracle lawyers make their opening arguments. You can get a pretty good idea of what they’re going to say from this 91-page PDF posted overnight to the Oracle Web site.

Oracle sued Google in 2010, alleging that the Android mobile operating system violated seven different Java patents. Five of those patents have since been tossed out since they were reexamined, leaving two. That reduces the potential amount of damages Oracle might be entitled to should it prevail. Google offered Oracle a share of Android revenue and $2.8 million in damages in the event that it prevails; Oracle declined. Oracle has also accused Google of infringing copyrights on Java APIs.

Google has denied the infringement claims, and is expected to argue that Java APIs can’t be protected by copyright because they’re more akin to programming languages. Software developers everywhere are paying close attention to this part of the trial.

The parties are the software giant Oracle and the Internet concern Google. At issue is Java, the software platform Oracle became owner of when it acquired Sun Microsystems in 2010. And the witness list will be interesting: Both Google CEO Larry Page and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison are expected to take the witness stand during the trial; as will former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz and Andy Rubin, the Google senior vice president who runs its Android and mobile operations.

The allegations are fairly simple, but the case could have some significant impact if Oracle prevails in some of its arguments. Oracle sued Google in the summer of 2010, alleging that the Android mobile operating system violated seven different Java patents.

Five of those patents have since been tossed out since they were reexamined, leaving two. That reduces the potential amount of damages that Oracle might be entitled to, should it prevail. Google even went so far as to offer to cut Oracle in on Android and $2.8 million in damages, in the event that it prevails. Oracle declined.

The other issue, and the one that has the potential for more lasting impact, is over copyright. Oracle will argue in court that Google violated copyrights on Java. Specifically, Oracle alleges that when Google was creating Android, it copied a lot of material — more than 37 Java application programming interfaces (APIs), and 11 lines of Java source code — and that these are subject to copyright protection like other intellectual property.

This is a new and controversial legal argument that has software developers watching the trial closely. Google has argued that APIs shouldn’t be subject to copyright protection, because they’re more akin to tools and techniques that programmers use to build software. I may be simplifying it a little too much here, but one way of thinking might be to ask if it’s possible to copyright the technique and instructions for hammering a nail or fitting a door.

Google has argued that APIs and programming languages aren’t entitled to copyright protection, for exactly that reason: You can copyright a given program because it’s unique, but you can’t copyright the language it’s written in. Perhaps I’m straining my skills at analogy here, but the way I understand Google’s argument, as put forth in an April 12 brief, is that you can copyright “So What?” but you can’t copyright “jazz.”

As Google puts it in that brief, which is the first two of two legal filings I’ve embedded below:

“That is a classic attempt to improperly assert copyright over an idea rather than expression.” And earlier in the brief, it argues: “Without a computer programming language, the set of statements or instructions cannot be understood by the computer. As such, a computer language is inherently a utilitarian, nonprotectable means by which computers operate. … The protectable material is the computer program (the set of statements or instructions); the unprotectable material is the method or system (the language). So understood, original computer programs may be protected, but the medium for expression in which they are created is not.”

For its part, Oracle outlined its position on the issue in a trial brief filed on April 5, which is the second of the two documents embedded below. Here’s a meaty paragraph summing it up:

“Allowing copyright protection for computer interfaces makes sense because original expressions in software are innovations of an incremental sort that Congress meant to encourage. Trade secrecy law cannot achieve this goal because interfaces can be reverse-engineered. Patent law, because of its novelty and non-obviousness requirements and examination process, protects those substantial innovations, claimed as broadly and generically as possible, and in return gives strong protection against even those who independently develop the same technology. Copyright law protects innovations at a much finer level of detail (where original expression can be found) than patents ever could, but only offers protection against the copyist.”

Obviously, it’s going to be an interesting trial, provided the parties don’t find some way to settle before it’s all over. They tried settlement talks once. It didn’t work.

Google Brief

Oracle Brief

Varicent makes software that’s intended to automatically collect and analyze sales data not only from a company’s finance and sales operations, but also from its human resources and IT departments. The point — and if this doesn’t describe an IBM-like view of the world I don’t know what does — is to gain efficiencies, discover unknown trends and, as always, boost sales.

In more practical terms, it means, according to a note from Brian Marshall at ISI out this morning, that Varicent’s software makes it easier for companies to “optimize compensation, streamline territory assignments, manage quotas, analyze sales activities and prepare for audits.”

Founded in 2003, it had raised $35 million in venture capital from FTV Capital, RBC Venture Partners and Edgestone Capital. It has 180 customers including Hertz, Manpower, Office Depot and Starwood.

Marshall goes on to argue that IBM is the company best positioned to capitalize on the expected $10 billion business in analytics. Varicent would be its sixth recent deal in the space: Others include Algorithmics, Clarity Systems, OpenPages, Cognos and SPSS.

And while terms haven’t been disclosed, IBM, Marshall says, has indicated that the return on its software acquisitions has been better than it has been in several years. It also looks like Big Blue’s dealmaking it on a serious upswing: After spending about $6 billion on acquisitions in 2010 it cut back to only $2 billion in 2011. Marshall argues that IBM is going to be busy buying companies: “We expect continued activity this year and see IBM as among the best in large-cap technology at building high-value capabilities through acquisition.”

IBM shares fell by $1.09, or about a half percentage point, to $204.23 by 10 am ET. The shares are up almost 12 percent this year, and earlier this month hit a lifetime high of $210.69.

Nokia U.S. chief Chris Weber told AllThingsD that the problem is a memory-management issue with the phone’s software, and is not tied to any hardware issues or to a flaw with AT&T’s network. The connection problem affects only a limited number of customers, Weber said.

Nokia has created a software fix, and all customers can swap their device at an AT&T store for an updated one or download a software update starting around April 16.

“We’re already manufacturing devices with the new software,” Weber said. “Those are being shipped to AT&T stores.”

The company is offering a $100 credit to all customers, regardless of whether they are encountering the problem. The $100 credit is also being offered to any customer who purchases a Lumia 900 before midnight PT April 21, effectively making the device free.

“The customer always comes first, and I think we’re showing it here,” Weber said in an interview.

Weber said the cost of the program depends on how many people purchase Lumia devices through April 21, and said that the expense was not the issue.

Nokia, he said, was focused on “how do we do something unprecedented for any inconvenience, (and) pleasantly surprise the customers.”

Nonetheless, the issue is clearly not the way the company hoped to launch what is designed to be a flagship product aimed at reestablishing the company as a major smartphone presence in the U.S.

“Obviously you don’t want these things to happen,” Weber said.

AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg noted in his review that he experienced some other issues with the 900, including problems loading Internet Explorer pages over Wi-Fi.

Weber hopes the company will be remembered more for how it handled the problem than for the issues themselves. And, he said, visits to six Chicago-area stores on Monday affirmed for him that enthusiasm for the Lumia 900 is strong.

“We’re seeing incredible customer excitement and buzz,” Weber said. “I think we have a very compelling device that customers are excited about.”

Nokia, Microsoft and AT&T are all counting on big sales for the device and have said they are putting unprecedented marketing behind its launch.

Oddly, though, the product went on sale on Easter Sunday, a day when most of the Microsoft and AT&T stores that carry the device were closed.

As for how such a significant issue could have made it through the company’s testing processes, Weber said, “That’s something we are doing a current investigation on.”

It’s particularly unfortunate given that one of Nokia’s marketing pitches for the Lumia 900 was an online and TV ad campaign saying that the Smartphone Beta Test was over, and encouraging existing smartphone owners to trade in their “beta” Androids and iPhones for a real smartphone.

Naturally, Windows apologists, sick of being the target of a decade of malware-based ridicule, were quick to jump up and down and scream that the Mac’s newfound market success has made it the next natural target for malware creators.

One thing that has been lacking of yet is a course of action for the 1 percent of Macs in use that have been hit with the malware. Kaspersky Labs, which did a thorough analysis of the malware today launched a Web-based tool to determine if your Mac is among those known to have contracted it.

The tool checks the Mac’s UUID number against a database of machines known to be affected and tells you if you have it, and if you don’t know what a UUID number is, it shows you how to find it.

If your machine turns out to be among the anointed 1 percent who some say are the harbingers of a new apocalyptic phase for Mac security, there is a removal tool.

So now that we’re nearing the end of this kerfuffle, what can we glean from this incident on the state of Mac security? First off, it’s necessary, as always, to include a hedging statement. In the investing world we often hear the phrase “Past performance is not an indication of future results.” It means that unknown, unforseen circumstances can always bring about a substantial variation in a known and established pattern.

On the subject of security the pattern has been this: Occasionally, a vulnerability, sometimes nothing more than a proof of concept, sometimes something a little more threatening, such as this Flashback malware or the MacDefender one that occurred last year, appears and re-opens the discussion. After years of marginal market share, the Mac now represents a juicy new target for malware creators, and Mac users are in for a rude awakening.

Indeed, various pundits have been saying that some onset of significant serious trouble for Mac owners is just over the horizon. This indeed could happen. A new supervirus could emerge tomorrow that causes all kinds of unforseen troubles. But it hasn’t yet.

Windows still remains a target. As recently as 11 months ago, Microsoft’s own data showed that of the 420,000 Windows users who downloaded a then-new malware removal tool, those who had infections averaged 3.5 threats per machine. And of the top 10 threats seen at that time, seven were the result of vulnerabilities in Java, something you should probably consider turning off, whether your computer runs Windows or Mac OS.

As of today, for those 600,000 people whose Macs are infected, they’re averaging only one threat per machine.

One is still too many, especially if it’s a bad one. And clearly Apple can’t act like it’s impervious to security concerns, yet there’s no evidence that it is. Just slow. Some critics have said Apple didn’t respond quickly enough to this latest outbreak, especially in light of the fact that Flashback/Flashfake took advantage of a Java vulnerability that has been known for about a month. Apple clearly could have and should have responded faster.

Apple last year hired David Rice, a former U.S. Navy Information warrior, so it has at the top of its security team a well-respected executive with a history of thought leadership on the subject.

The current state and future of Mac security will be a topic I hope AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg ask Apple CEO Tim Cook about on the stage at D:10 next month. One hopes he’ll give us some visibility into the urgency or lack thereof with which Apple views the evolving threat landscape.

But if this is the worst that the malware creators can dish out, I still like my chances on the Mac. The apocalypse isn’t here yet.

It’s not so much about any shifts in sentiment or intention for spending among large companies, it’s just that the dollar is currently strong against other currencies, so U.S.-domiciled companies are in a weaker position when selling to customers in other countries. When accounting for that discrepancy, Gartner says it expects overall growth in spending of 2.5 percent, but on a constant currency basis, the digits would be transposed for a healthier 5.2 percent.

Spending by governments will likely contract, thanks in no small part to the austerity measures being put in place in the euro zone.

The highest rate of growth will be in the telecommunications equipment sector, which will grow by nearly 7 percent, Gartner says. A lot of that is thanks to mobile going to mobile, but also to speeding up networks. See the rest of the segments and their expected rates of growth in the table I screengrabbed from the press release, below:

Earlier this week, Gartner singled out IT spending in emerging economies, which it said will amount to an impressive trillion and change by itself. And last week we got a glance at the sentiment from 100 CIOs at large enterprises, courtesy of J.P. Morgan, indicating that growth is likely to tick upward this year. Up is good.

The thermostat, which works with an app on the iPhone, Android phone or desktop PC, now comes with an updated 10-day view of users’ energy consumption, called Energy History. On the thermostat itself, Nest users get a quick glimpse of their energy usage, but Energy History on mobile and the Web shows the exact times at which an HVAC system turned on and off, and how that compares to usage from previous weeks.

Nest also says it could save users money on air-conditioning bills this summer with something called Airwave, which shuts off a home’s air-conditioning system before the house hits its target temperature, then uses the remaining cool air in the system to finish cooling down the place. Nest says this will conserve up to 30 percent of air-conditioning energy.

The company shared some how-great-is-Nest stats: Nest thermostats are now installed in all 50 U.S. states; 99 percent of Nest users are running the thermostat on a setback schedule; and 75 percent of Nest buyers say they installed their thermostats themselves, in less than 30 minutes — pretty much all of those say they would do it themselves again.

Nest has also made minor adjustments to the backplate of the thermostat, after some customers complained the wall anchors weren’t working well. The connectors on the plate have been redesigned, and in the interest of even easier installation, the company has manufactured its own screws, which will be shipped with the thermostat.

Maxime Veron, Nest’s head of product marketing, said neither the hardware nor the software updates are related to a recent patent-infringement lawsuit filed against the start-up.

Nest, of course, is currently the target of a lawsuit filed by Honeywell, maker of aerospace systems, consumer products and technology solutions — and the creator of the now-iconic round thermostat. Honeywell has alleged that Nest’s digital thermostat, which came to market last fall for $249 (for a full review of how it works, check out my colleague Katie Boehret’s review here), infringes on seven patents Honeywell holds in home-thermostat technology.

Nest issued a quick statement to the suit a few days after the complaint was originally filed back in February, but got an extension to file a more detailed response, which is now due April 13.

All this over a thermostat? While some of Honeywell’s suit is focused on the design of the Nest thermostat, other parts of the complaint target the “smart” thermostat’s functionality. Part of Nest’s appeal is its promise to save users up to 30 percent off their utility bills, and many other Internet-connected, data-delivering home appliances are making similar claims.

For example, Honeywell’s complaint says that controlling a thermostat remotely through the Internet is not a Nest Labs innovation. The Nest thermometer comes with a patented “question system” — “What are the lowest and highest temperatures you’d like when you are away?” — but Honeywell says its Prestige thermostat, introduced in late 2008, also incorporates an “interview-based interface.” However, General Electric also markets a home-energy management system that includes the ability to remotely control a GE “smart” thermostat from a smartphone or home computer.

As more consumers warm to the idea of the connected home, it’s hard to imagine claims being made about the ability to control an appliance through the smartphone as a patented, innovative technology. But for now, we’ll have to wait until next week to see what Nest has to say about that.

It comes in the form of a survey of 100 CIOs by the investment bank J.P. Morgan. The firm finds that, on average, CIOs say they’re going to boost their IT spending by 2.7 percent this year, up from 2.4 percent in 2011. That may not seem like a big change, but here’s why its important: It’s the first time in a few years that the same survey has detected a directional change in sentiment. CIOs are at long last saying they intend to boost their spending on IT, rather than trimming it back and back and back as they have for the last several years. “In our prior CIO survey in September 2011, the directional movement indicated a reduction in planned spending growth, as at that time CIOs were starting to pare back on spending during more uncertain macroeconomic conditions,” the firm says in its report, which was shared exclusively with AllThingsD.

The optimism is a bit more pronounced when you see it expressed in the graphic below, which I grabbed from raw survey results. More than two-thirds of the CIOs surveyed said they planned to boost their overall IT spend this year, most of them by a modest 1-5 percent, but some by more than 10 percent. Last year, the figure was 58 percent, but it usually swings up by only 3 or 4 percentage points, analyst Mark Moskowitz told me.

“The overall tone we got in our conversations with these CIOs was more optimistic than it has been in a while,” Moskowitz said. “They have the green light to start projects that are going to take several quarters to get done. Most aren’t willing to do that when they’re worried their overall business is going to roll over.” A lot of that has to do with more confidence in the overall macroeconomic environment.

And where will that growth be? And, perhaps more importantly, where won’t it be? Software, storage and security are looking like big spending priorities among the CIOs surveyed. Business intelligence tools and getting mobile devices integrated are also high on the list — there’s that ongoing trend toward “bring your own device” (BYOD), rearing its persistent head once again.

Employee-purchased iPhones, iPads and Android devices are supplanting company-assigned BlackBerrys. “BYOD is real,” Moskowitz says. “And you have to assume that Apple is going to be the one that benefits the most from it.”

Other winners include EMC and NetApp, as they play strongly in networked storage. Server virtualization — making one physical server act like dozens of servers, using software to subdivide its resources — also has a lot of room to grow, the survey finds. That’s good news for VMware.

Losers? There are few. Intel’s new Romley chip isn’t going to be as big a deal in spurring spending on new servers: In fact,91 percent of CIOs surveyed said they don’t expect Intel’s new chip to drive new spending in the data center. Intel’s last big upgrade, Nehalem, did change the game, Moskowitz says. The trouble is, most of the companies using Nehalem-generation chips in their servers are happy with them, and are unlikely to bother with the expense of an upgrade, for now.

Nor is Windows 8 going to cause a new round of PC buying, as both Hewlett-Packard and Dell are hoping. “A new version of Windows hasn’t caused a PC upgrade cycle since 1995,” Moskowitz told me. Asked directly if Windows 8 was expected to drive a major PC upgrade cycle, 78 percent of the CIOs in the survey said no. In fact, at least 30 of the CIOs in the survey said they were still working on deploying Windows 7. Ouch. Perhaps it’s too much to ask for things to be looking up for everyone all at once.

(Image is a movie poster for the 1935 British film starring Cicely Courtneidge, but the title song in this case is, well, awful. What I really wanted was an image of Fred Astaire dancing with Joan Fontaine to the underappreciated George and Ira Gershwin tune of the same name, from the 1937 film “A Damsel in Distress,” but I could find nothing suitable. So — loving Gershwin tunes as I do — just for fun, I’ve embedded both Astaire and Billie Holiday singing the tune, below, courtesy of Grooveshark. Yes, I’ll admit, sometimes I have a little too much fun in this job.)

Shares rose 7.6 percent after hours to $55.30 as earnings and revenue beat estimates and the company unveiled a $300 million buyback program. The stock reached its 10-year high on Tuesday at $54.01, and as of Wednesday’s close was up 24 percent so far in 2012.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Lawyers for both HP and Oracle filed arguments seeking summary judgement in their fight over whether or not Oracle has the right to stop making software that has been ported to run on computers using Intel’s obscure Itanium chip. Oracle said last March that it would no longer support the chip, which is, for all intents and purposes, only used in certain exotic high-end systems sold by HP. For its part, HP has argued that Oracle is bound by a contract to continue to support the chip for several more years. I’ve embedded the competing filing documents below.

The legal moves naturally touched off a renewed salvo of public statements between them that added some interesting details to the proceedings, and which provide some fair insight into how the two players are going to argue at trial. Basically, it’s going to come down to whether or not the two companies have an enforceable agreement that was struck as part of a wider settlement they reached when they settled another lawsuit that followed former HP CEO Mark Hurd’s hiring by Oracle.

Meanwhile, Oracle insists that HP and Intel are lying to the marketplace about the future prospects of the Itanium chip, and has characterized their efforts to keep the chip alive in the marketplace as “a remake of ‘Weekend at Bernie’s.’”

HP scored first:

“The information brought to light during the discovery period further underscores the key facts of this case. In fact, it has led HP to seek a pretrial ruling that Oracle is contractually obligated to offer future versions of Oracle’s software on Itanium. It is time for Oracle to quit pursuing baseless accusations and honor its commitments to HP and to our shared customers.”

HP’s statement then went on to use several historic statements by Oracle, emphasizing the partnership and commitment to Itanium. It even quoted Oracle CEO Larry Ellison:

“Ellison testified that in making his decision to issue Oracle’s March 22 announcement that Itanium was “nearing the end of its life,” he relied on a conversation with Intel’s chief executive officer, Paul Otellini. But Ellison admitted under oath that Otellini did not say that Itanium was nearing the end of its life. And the Intel executive responsible for the Itanium business has now testified unequivocally that Oracle’s claim was not true.”

Oracle attorney Dan Wall issued a pair of statements, and one was more or less the standard summary of that company’s position: So important an agreement as the one that would obligate Oracle to extend a strategic partnership wouldn’t be contained in a settlement over what was essentially a dispute over a noncompete agreement.

“We don’t believe, nor do we think HP really believes, that a settlement agreement relating to Mark Hurd’s employment could possibly obligate Oracle to write new software for a platform that is clearly end of life. We are pleased the Court now has the evidence needed to see HP’s purported contract claims for what they are.”

Then, apparently after seeing HP’s extensive statement , Wall shot back with more extensive — and interesting comments. He cites testimony fromformer HP chief communications officer Bill Wohl as admitting that the lawsuit was more or less a public relations stunt that was part of a wider campaign intended to raise outrage among their shared customers and force Oracle to reconsider.

“Rather than filing a legal motion, HP has yet again filed a press release that continues its campaign of lies about the Itanium roadmap. HP’s PR Director admitted the lawsuit was conceived as part of a campaign designed to ’foment customer outrage.’  HP’s documents and executive deposition testimony make indisputable the fact that Itanium is nearing the end of life as Oracle said. Intel documents confirm that as well–which is why despite repeated efforts by HP to get Intel to refute Oracle’s March 22 press release, Intel has refused to say more than that it intends to deliver the two announced versions of Itanium.

“The status of Itanium, meaning its impending end of life, has been maintained as one of HP’s most ’closely guarded secrets’ from customers, partners and HP employees alike in order to avoid giving its sales organization ’another reason not to sell’ Itanium and to continue to ’milk’ maintenance profits from its customers. HP documents reference HP-UX on Itanium as on a ’death march’ and confess that Intel would be doing ’high fives’ to no longer have to develop the chip given its poor performance and market traction and the huge opportunity cost associated with it. HP’s documents also contemplate various options to deal with the inevitability of Itanium’s end of life, including paying Intel to ’elongate’ its life. HP’s documents make clear that HP was intent on ’creating a market perception of long term viability’ and introducing versions of the chip that are ’more of an illusion than of technical significance.’ In other words, HP’s strategy was to mislead the market and its customers as to the real status of Itanium. Oracle will not participate in this fraud.”

The history and context of this lawsuit is long and complicated, and fraught with the fact that for a time, HP was run by former SAP co-CEO Léo Apotheker at a time when Oracle and SAP were locked in their own nearly-nuclear multiyear legal battle. The fact that former Oracle president and Ellison enemy Ray Lane is HP’s executive chairman only adds to the enmity.

However, there’s evidence to show that HP is the one being hurt the most by the ongoing fight. Without the support and maintenance fees that HP collects from companies who buy its Itanium-based servers, the company is, in the words of one of its own executives, “strategically screwed.” Amid the doubts brought on by the fight with Oracle, sales of HP’s highly profitable business-critical servers have suffered. And with the printer business suffering and PC sales flattening, that is the last thing HP needs.

Oracle, by all appearances, can afford to let its Itanium business die, and has argued that Intel would like nothing better than to get out of the business of making Itanium chips that are only profitable with subsidies from HP; and that it has quietly planned to let the chip reach the end of its life and transition customers over to its more mainstream Xeon chip, which it now says is “suitable for any workload.”

Anyway, the dueling filings are below, HP’s first:

HP Summary Motion

Oracle Summary Motion