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Microsoft Appoints Virtual Earth Manager Microsoft Australia has announced the appointment of Peter Ulm as business development manager for Microsoft’s Virtual Earth business across Australia and New Zealand.

PC Market Grows 71.9M Units In Last QTR Falling prices in mobile computing and the proliferation of faster and cheaper communications infrastructure has seen the rate of PC shipments worldwide increase by 16 percent to top 71.9 million units in the latest quarter, research group Gartner reports.

Microsoft Profit A Bit Light Thanks To Credit Slump Microsoft, the world's biggest software maker, posted a fourth-quarter profit that gave a disappointing forecast after the U.S. credit crunch crimped sales, sending its shares down 5.7 per cent.

MPA The New Cyberoam Distributor Cyberoam, a seller of identity-based Unified Threat Management (UTM) appliances, which is present in more than 55 countries, has announced the appointment of MPA Systems as its national distributor for Australia.

Optus Facing Millions In Claims Due To Dumb Contractor A contractor who cut through an Optus fibre optic cable on the Gold Coast could end up being sued for millions by Optus who are facing major payouts to business customers affected by this week's loss of mobile, landline and Internet services in Queensland.

Intel Gives WiMax A Miss Australia will trail much of the world in seeing notebook PCs equipped with the new WiMax technology, Intel GM Philip Cronin confirmed at yesterday's Down Under launch of its new Centrino 2 platform.

Mitho Offers All-In-One Automation Solution BPT has released two Mitho colour touchscreen multipurpose terminals, designed for the management and control of electric home automation, security and video entry system.

Telstra Free Laptop Deal To Continue According to reports, Telstra has extended its free laptop offer following what the telco says was a 'huge response from customers'.

Pioneer To Finally Launch Blu-ray Recorders According to Reuters, Pioneer plans to launch Blu-ray DVD recorders by the end of the year, taking aim at a rapidly growing market after the end of a bitter format battle.

GFK Forcasts Big CE Growth Despite Downturn Leading research group GFK has forecast overall consumer electronic growth of 9.4% in 2008 over 2007, however Australia and the Oceanic region is set to grow by 16.5%. They also warn that more consumers than ever before are moving online to buy CE products and that big growth categories are memory and 3G modems.

LEDs Lights Giving Homebuilders A Brighter Future With all the talk about green alternatives, LED lighting is set to become a multi-billion industry in Australia, with the state and federal governments set to pass legislation dictating to both electricians and installers as to what they can install in terms of new and retrofitted lighting.

Google To Rudd: Split Broadband And Network In its submission to the Federal governments review telecommunications review, Google has warned the Rudd government that by not splitting the network and retail broadband into two separate entities, competition and thus consumers will suffer the price consequences.

Toshiba Rolls Out 3 More Notebooks In its mega roll out of some 32 new notebooks since April, Toshiba has unveiled a new range of consumer notebooks, to include the latest innovative design and mobile computing technologies and are available at retail outlets now.

Nikon Releases Compact Professional DSLR Camera Nikon has released the D700 SLR camera, a lightweight, small-frame camera targeted to the high-end amateur and professional wedding photography market.

Internode Boss Slams Telstra Over NBN Tender Internode managing director Simon Hackett has reiterated his call for the Federal Government’s planned National Broadband Network to use competitive tension to deliver affordable broadband for consumers.

HP Says Too Many Changes Cause IT Risks HP has released the results of a global survey of 1,125 IT professionals from 20 countries, revealing their views about IT risk and how it relates to business risk.

RIM Profits Surge But Shares Fall Blackberry maker Research In Motion shares fell by 8 per cent, even as the company posted quarterly earnings that have more than doubled.

Installed Base For PCs Set To Jump To 2 Billion he installed base for PC's will reach 2 billion by 2014 claims research group Gartner. The estimate is based on an average growth of 12%. Currently the base is 1 billion.

Is It Time To Say Goodbye To The CAT 5 Cable? According to channelinsider.com, the advent of the 802.11n wireless protocol will give rise to the fully wireless infrastructure, opening new and exciting opportunities for moving data.

Sanyo Claims World-First 4-LCD Projector According to digitimes.com, Sanyo Electric has announced a new projector, the LP-XP200L, featuring true colour reproduction thanks to what it calls the world's first 4LCD optical engine, with the brightest luminance of its class at 7,000 lumens, and a built-in Active Maintenance Filter (AMF) system.

Adobe Growing In All Directions At Once Following Adobes recent huge profit posting in the US, the local arm of one of the world's best known software companies says that its growth is showing no signs of abating - regardless of the dire predictions on the economy.

Adobe Profits Edge Towards $1 Billion In the second quarter of 2008, Adobe has achieved sales revenue of $AUD 943.6 million, compared to $AUD793.1 million reported for the second quarter of fiscal 2007 which represents 19 per cent year-over-year revenue growth.

Dell Hits No. 2 Globally For Notebooks According to DisplaySearch, Dell has recaptured the number two spot from Acer in notebook shipments worldwide, with HP still holding the top spot for the last six quarters with over 20 per cent of the notebook market.

New Apple OS Designed For Business Users As channelnews reported last week, Apple will be releasing new version of its Mac OS X dubbed "Snow Leopard”, which will be aimed at not just home users, but the enterprise market as well.

Asus Gets New Accessories Distributor Global technology vendor ASUS has appointed EMPR Australia as an official distributor of ASUS notebooks and Eee PC accessories.

Intel Cops Massive Fine For Market Abuse According to reports, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) has fined Intel $AUD26 million for abusing its dominant position in the local microprocessor market.

Trend Micro Delivers No Worries SMB Security Trend Micro has enhanced its flagship Worry-Free Security Solutions with two new modules giving SMBs smarter and better-performing technology in order to conquer a more sophisticated web threat landscape that has mutated beyond just conventional viruses and spam.

Microsoft Offers XP Stay Of Execution According to reports, Microsoft has further extended the life of Windows XP so that computer makers can include the operating system on low-cost PCs, flowing from the increasing popularity of these devices.

Cheap Small PCs Big At Computex Cheaper and smaller PCs are dominating the world's second largest computer fair, Computex, in Taipei this week.

Epson Releases Green A4 SMB Scanner With its large 40 page ADF input the GT-1500 can scan up to 18 pages per minute for an efficient and productive workflow. In addition, the GT-1500 supports a variety of paper sizes including A6, A5, B5, Letter, A4 and Legal size.

Acer & Synnex Form Alliance Acer and Synnex have announced a partnership agreement that will see Synnex as the national distributor of Acer PC, server and display products, underlining Acer’s goal to reach the number one position in Australia.

Microsoft Wants To Double Its Mobile Sales Now here is breaking news - a software company expects to double its sales by 2010.

Google Appoints Apps Distributors Devnet has announced it has partnered with Netregistry, to bring Google Apps to Australia.

CeBIT Numbers Best Ever Say Organsiers According to the organisers, the CeBIT 2008 expo was the best in the events seven year history, with a surge of interest from business technology users and small business owners swelling official attendance figures to an all time high.

Cashed Up HP Wants To Sack Staff Talk about doing it tough. Strong international demand and a weak U.S. dollar, resulted in an 11 per cent increase in HP's second-quarter revenue, which totaled some $AUD30 billion.

IPL To Push Addcom Products Nationally IPL Communications has signed an agreement for the distribution of Addcom products in Australia.

G9 Goes To The Dogs As NBN Bid Expands Optus-led broadband consortium G9 has rebranded itself as Terria as its new chairman, former NSW treasurer Michael Egan came out swinging against Telstra.

HP Scores Telstra Notebook Gig HP may as well stand for High Profits as we can exclusively report that the free fast broadband notebook Telstra deal will involve new business Next G customers receiving a free HP 6720, which has a street value of just under $1000.

NEC Rolls Out Mobile Projector Range NEC Commercial Display Solutions has released its NP Value Series, which consists of two new mobile projectors, the NP100G and NP200G.

Telstra To Offer Free Fast Broadband Notebooks Talk about wanting to blow your competition out of the water- Telstra is now offering a $0 upfront laptop promotion to meet growing customer demand for mobile broadband on the Next G network.

Analysts See Uncertain Times In LCD Space According to a report in WitsView, in May, panel prices trended as expected, although due to the uncertain market and demand in the TV segment, the panel prices were only up slightly.

BenQ On A Roll As Revenues Climb BenQ it appears is the quiet achiever. After rolling out a new 24" LCD monitor and a new range of notebooks as well as a new range of projectors the Company has report a 10% increase in sales. TheCompany that was last year restructured following the collapse of its Siemens handset operations, claims that it can double its revenues by 2010. last year the Company turned over US$1.97 billion according to company president Conway Lee.

LG Display Takes A Dive Slow Sales Tipped Shares in LG Display who make the new Scarlet LCD TV fell more than 8 percent after Lehman Brothers downgraded the Company, their biggest fear is slow sales, oversupply and slowing profits of the LG operation.

BlackBerry May Be Sexy But iPhone Will Be Hot According to Vodafone, Australia’s love affair with BlackBerry smartphones grew 74 per cent last year and the company predicts the Australian mobile email market will more than double over the next 12 months.

SMB Backup Server From Acronis Acronis True Image for Microsoft Small Business Server is an application that enables small to mid-size businesses running Microsoft SBS to backup and restore both physical and virtual servers.

iPhone Set To Turn Broadband Into Rivers Of Gold When the iPhone is finally released in this country, it will not just be tech addicts that will be the winners; third party OEMS’, app makers and other providers will also be getting some hot action from the Apple gravy train.

Microsoft Goes After Bits Of Yahoo But Not The Full Monty Microsoft has admitted that it is still interested in parts of the Yahoo operation only days after walking away from a full bid for the Company.

Samsung To Exit Notebook Market Samsung who spent last week bragging how they were set to become #1 in the printer market have now said that they are set to quit the notebook market within three years unless it can triple sales. In Australia the Company has already quit the notebook after failing to get shelf space in mass retailers.

Canon Aims At Conquering Brand Land Simple advanced solutions freeing people to live their dreams and lead enriched lives at home and at work- that’s Canons vision statement- concise, to the point and clear. But just how this affects their marketing strategy only becomes apparent when looking at their relaunched Pixma printer.

NEC Rolls Out Ultralight Japanese Notebook NEC has released its new Japanese designed and manufactured ultra lightweight notebook, the 12.1” VERSA S9100.