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Report: Google hires Apple exec to work on 'secret project'
Google appears to have scored another coup in its ongoing rivalry with Apple, having reportedly lured one of the company's senior directors to its Mountain View headquarters. Simon Prakash, pictured above, has worked at Apple for more than eight years, most recently serving as the firm's senior director of product integrity. According to VentureBeat, however, that tenure has come to a close, now that Google has hired Prakesh to work on a "secret project." The report speculates that this project could be helmed by co-founder Sergey Brin, and that it may be mobile-related, though declarative statements were few and far between. Prior to arriving at Apple, Prakash served as director of engineering design validation at Cielo Communications, and held managerial positions at 3Com. VentureBeat claims he'll be starting work at Google today, though the company has yet to issue any statement on the matter. Once finalized, though, the hiring could help dispel some of those "no poach" accusations flying around federal courts.
Huawei bids high, loses hard on two major US assets
Huawei has been kicking for well over two decades, and while a great deal of its business revolves around the enterprise, the company still has a presence in the consumer arena (most recently with its S7 tablet). But for whatever reason, it's having one bear of a time breaking into the US acquisition game. According to a pair of people sourced by Bloomberg, Huawei wasn't selected as the winning bidder of two large US assets in recent months despite having offers of "at least $100 million more in each case." Ouch. As the story goes, the sellers (2Wire and Motorola) "doubted Huawei's ability to win US government approval," possibly because of the founder's prior role as an official of the People Liberation's Army. It's also not the first time that Hauwei has been deterred in the US; the outfit dropped a bid in 2008 for 3Com after America began "investigating whether a deal would give China access to anti-hacking technology used by the Defense Department." 'Course, given the existing legal trouble between Huawei and Motorola right now, we're not sure a +$200 million bid would've sealed the deal on its recently hawked wireless equipment unit. Hit the source link if you're down for a serious read. Mystery, drama, deceit -- it's all there.
HP to acquire 3Com in $2.7 billion deal
It's been a little while since we've seen a good multi-billion dollar acquisition, but HP's sure come through in a big way today, announcing that it plans to acquire networking giant 3Com in an all-cash deal valued at $2.7 billion, or $7.90 a share. The deal will, of course, still have to clear a few regulatory hurdles and receive the approval of 3Com's stockholders, but it has already been given the go-ahead by both company's boards of directors, and HP expects the transaction to close in the first half of 2010. Not surprisingly, HP sees nothing but pluses with the acquisition, saying that it will do nothing short of "transform the networking industry," and "enable customers to build a next-generation network infrastructure that supports customer needs from the edge of the network to the heart of the data center." Equally optimistic but slightly cooler on the world-changing language is 3Com CEO Bob Mao, who says that its company's "extensive product line and innovative technology together with HP's breadth and scale will expand our global opportunity."
CSIRO's patent lawsuits conclude with the final 13 companies settling
Looks like CSIRO's legal days are over -- for the moment, at least. Having already reached an agreement with HP, the Australian government-funded research firm announced this week that it's settled with the remaining 13 companies it sued for patent infringement, claiming it owned the rights to 802.11a/g. For those who haven't been keeping track at home, that includes Dell, Intel, Microsoft, Nintendo, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Netgear, Buffalo, D-Link, Belkin, SMC, Accton, and 3Com. The details of any of the settlements are undisclosed, but as iTnews reports, it's expected CSIRO ended up with some substantial monies now that the dust has settled. Chief Executive Dr. Megan Clark noted that it'll continue to "defend its intellectual property," so if you're a high profile tech company who creates WiFi-equipped gadgets and hasn't been served a lawsuit yet, we don't blame you for being a little nervous right now.
3Com's 3108 WiFi VoIP phone gets FCC nod
Looks like 3Com is dipping its toes in the ever-growing VoIP phone pool, with its 3108 wireless phone recently snagging that much-needed FCC approval. This one is SIP-based which means it'll work with just about anything as long as it's not Skype, unless it has some dual-mode action 3Com's not telling us (or the FCC) about -- so we're guessing not. Still, if it suits your needs, the phone looks to be decent enough, with a 1.8-inch color LCD, 2.4GHz external antenna, firmware that can be updated over WiFi, and a range of about 65-165 feet indoors and a purported 820 foot range outdoors in line-of-sight. The fact that it also looks like a regular phone doesn't hurt either, given the sorry state of some VoIP phone designs. With all the info we've got coming from the FCC filings though, that of course means we don't know how much it'll cost or when it'll be available.[Via Mobilewhack]
Palm and Xerox finally settle Graffiti dispute
So we weren't even aware that this was an issue anymore, but apparently Xerox and Palm have still been battling over that "Unistrokes" handwriting recognition patent which caused us to waste several minutes of our lives learning a handful of new Graffiti 2 characters oh so long ago. Battling up until today, that is, because after nine years the two companies have finally come to a mutually-acceptable agreement, wherein Palm caves and pays Xerox $22.5 million. The deal does net Palm paid-up licenses on a total of three Xerox patents -- licenses that also apply to Access PalmSource and 3Com -- as well as a so-called seven-year "patent peace," in which the two sides agree to stop fussing and fighting about infringements pertaining to certain technologies. Does this agreement mean that we can expect to see the triumphant return of Graffiti 1 on future Palm PDAs? We're not sure, but frankly, now that we've moved on to packing QWERTY-equipped Treos, we don't really care.
