Cerberus capital reviewing ACS purchase (AP)

The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported late Tuesday that Cerberus had sent a letter to a special ACS board committee. “We regret that we must withdraw our offer to acquire the company due to the continuation of poor conditions in the debt markets,” the letter stated. Cerberus spokesman Peter Duda told The Associated Press late Tuesday that he couldn’t confirm the letter or the decision to pull out of the bid. A telephone message left with an ACS spokesman wasn’t immediately returned. Dallas-based ACS competes against larger rivals such as Electronic Data Systems Corp. to handle technology services for other companies. In March, ACS founder and Chairman Darwin Deason and Cerberus announced an offer to buy the company for $59.25 per share, which they raised in April to $62 per share, or about $6.2 billion. In June, ACS agreed to pay Cerberus $7.5 million for two months to solicit other bids. ACS would also pay Cerberus a $15 million breakup fee if it accepted another offer. Deason controls 41.6 percent of ACS voting stock through ownership of preferred shares.

Is U.S. stuck in Internet’s slow lane? (AP)

What’s less clear is how badly the country that gave birth to the Internet is doing, and whether the government needs to step in and do something about it. The Bush administration has tried to foster broadband adoption with a hands-off approach. If that’s seen as a failure by the next administration, the policy may change. In a move to get a clearer picture of where the U.S. stands, the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday approved legislation that would develop an annual inventory of existing broadband services — including the types, advertised speeds and actual number of subscribers — available to households and businesses across the nation. The bill, introduced by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., is intended to provide policy makers with improved data so they can better use grants and subsidies to target areas lacking high-speed Internet access. He said in a statement last week that promoting broadband would help spur job growth, access to health care and education and promote innovation among other benefits. The inventory wouldn’t cover other countries, but a cursory look shows the U.S. lagging behind at least some of them. In South Korea, for instance, the average apartment can get an Internet connection that’s 15 times faster than a typical U.S. connection. In Paris, a “triple play” of TV, phone and broadband service costs less than half of what it does in the U.S. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development — a 30-member club of nations — compiles the most often cited international comparison. It puts the U.S. at 15th place for broadband lines per person in 2006, down from No. 4 in 2001. The OECD numbers have been vigorously attacked by anti-regulation think tanks for making the U.S. look exceedingly bad. They point out that the OECD is not very open about how it compiles the data. It doesn’t count people who have access to the Internet at work, or students who have access in their dorms. “We would never base other kinds of policy on that kind of data,” said Scott Wallsten, director of communications policy studies at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a think tank that favors deregulation over government intervention. But the OECD numbers are in line with other international measures. Figures from the British research firm Point-Topic Ltd. put the U.S., with 55 percent of its households connected, in 17th place for adoption rates at the end of June (excluding some very small countries and territories like Macau and Hong Kong). “We’re now in the middle of the pack of developed countries,” said Dave Burstein, telecom gadfly and the editor of the DSL Prime newsletter, during a sometimes tense debate at the Columbia Business School’s Institute for Tele-Information. Burstein says the U.S. is lagging because of low levels of investment by the big telecom companies and regulatory failure. Several of the European countries that are doing well have forced telephone companies to rent their lines to Internet service providers for low fees. The ISPs use them to run broadband Digital Subscriber Lines, or DSL, often at speeds much higher than those available in the U.S. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission went down this regulatory road a few years ago, but legal challenges from the phone companies forced it to back away. In 2004, President Bush called for nationwide broadband access by 2007, to be nurtured by an absence of taxation and little regulation. The U.S. is very close to Bush’s goal, thanks to the availability of satellite broadband across the lower 48 states. But the Internet by satellite is expensive and slow. Nearly everyone may have access to the Internet, but that doesn’t mean they’re plugging in. Part of the problem may be that people don’t see fast Internet access as an essential part of modern life, and may need more of a push to get on. The U.S. does have wider income disparities than many of the countries that are outdoing it in broadband, and people in poverty may have other priorities for their money. Dan Correa, research analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, believes the U.S. needs a more “proactive” broadband policy, and compares the lack of government involvement in the field with the situation in other utilities, which are mostly heavily regulated. “In the 1930s, we recognized that electricity was essential. We’re not quite at that level in broadband,” Correa said. An FCC chairman appointed by a Democratic president in 2009 may agree. Current Democratic Commissioner Michael J. Copps has said broadband availability could be encouraged with tax incentives and loans to rural utilities. The United States doesn’t look set to catch up to South Korea or even Canada (with 65 percent of households connected to broadband, according to Point-Topic) by then, because broadband adoption is slowing down after an initial growth spurt. In the last few weeks, the U.S.’s three largest Internet service providers reported adding 1.2 million subscribers in the third quarter, down from 1.54 million in the same quarter last year, according to a tally by UBS analyst John Hodulik. But the U.S. does have a few aces up its sleeve. Apart from satellite broadband it has widespread cable networks, which provide an alternative to DSL. Cable has some technical advantages over phone lines, and a new cable modem technology called Docsis 3.0 could allow U.S. Internet speeds to leapfrog those in countries dominated by DSL in a few years. On the phone side, the country’s second largest telecommunications company, Verizon Communications Inc., is spending $23 billion to connect homes directly with super-fast fiber optics. “Twenty percent of the U.S. is getting a decent network,” Burstein acknowledges. The new network can match or outdo the 100 megabits per second Internet service widely available in Japan and Korea, but Verizon isn’t yet selling service at that speed. ___ AP Business Writer Dibya Sarkar contributed to this report from Washington, D.C. ___ On the Net: Columbia Institute for Tele-Information:

Companies Tap RSS to Tame Info Overload (PC World)

With RSS servers and readers designed for workplaces, IT departments set up internal information feeds that employees can subscribe to, a delivery mechanism that, for some information, can be more precise and effective than e-mail. "The first problem we see addressed regularly with enterprise RSS systems is e-mail overload. Most knowledge workers these days are just about completely fed up with e-mail," said Oliver Young, a Forrester Research analyst. An enterprise RSS system is ideal for delivering the type of information employees need to know about, but not necessarily act on right away, Young said. RSS keeps need-to-know information out of the e-mail channel, which for most people is "a need-to-do task list sort of thing," Young said. Often those need-to-know e-mails– such as a corporate benefits update or a newsletter– end up getting deleted or ignored, even though employees recognize that they may contain potentially important information. For example, a company could post human resource messages and documents on the intranet's human resources section and send RSS alerts with the appropriate links, instead of blasting out the information via mass e-mails. RSS feeds became popular initially as a convenient way for Web publishers to alert their readers about new articles and changed information on their sites. Using consumer grade RSS readers like those from Google and Bloglines, people quickly check what's new on their favorite sites without having to visit them. Inevitably, people started using RSS readers at work, creating potential problems for IT departments in areas like security and user support. Seeing an opportunity, vendors like Attensa, NewsGator and KnowNow developed on-premise, behind-the-firewall RSS software for workplaces. Unlike consumer RSS readers, these vendors' systems can be integrated with existing corporate directories and security frameworks, giving IT departments control over employees' RSS use. IBM's Lotus and Microsoft have started to add RSS capabilities to their respective collaboration and communication platforms, but their feature sets don't match the functionality of enterprise RSS vendors' systems, Young said. The Union Bank of California hopes that enterprise RSS can help it tame an internal communications overload. About 80 bank groups, from areas like public relations, marketing, sales, product management and operations, hit employees with a steady stream of mass e-mails, all-hands voice mails, printed literature and intranet additions. "We discovered that about half of the messages being delivered via these methods weren't appropriate to the people [receiving them] so we definitely needed to do something," said James Penn, the bank's vice president of interactive marketing and communications. For example, the bank realized that salespeople, deluged with often irrelevant information, often fall behind learning about the bank's latest offers and promotions, affecting their ability to pitch them at customers. Union Bank is now in the pilot phase of an implementation of an enterprise RSS system from KnowNow which it expects to eventually roll out to its about 10,000 employees. The bank is creating very specific RSS feeds and defining the target audience for each one, so that employees will receive fewer but more relevant messages. While the project will initially focus on improving internal communications, Union Bank may later link up the RSS system with its CRM (customer relationship management) system, as well as allow employees to subscribe to external data feeds, Penn said. At the U.K. National Health Service (NHS) division in Orkney, Scotland, the IT department has significantly cut down on e-mail overload with a NewsGator enterprise RSS system, said David Rendall, a computer programmer involved in the project. At NHS Orkney, few of the 600 or so users– mostly doctors, nurses, physical therapists and business administrators– are technically savvy. So, Rendall has reached out to departments and held frequent training sessions to promote the RSS system's use. "The biggest challenge is helping people make the switch and get their heads around the new RSS paradigm," Rendall said. This user indifference and ignorance, coupled with e-mail familiarity, is a common barrier to RSS adoption in workplaces, according to Forrester's Young. "While most people have a love-hate relationship with e-mail, it's easy to use and very convenient to [copy] your entire office to make sure you get everyone involved," Young said. This is why Young recommends starting RSS deployments within specific groups in an organization and with the purpose of improving a specific communication issue. "Where I see most enterprise RSS solutions starting to fall down is when you're trying to encourage or bring a whole host of workers along all at once," Young said. In addition to reducing e-mail, enterprise RSS systems often boost organizations' use of intranets, blogs and wikis by alerting employees to changes and additions, Young said. At NHS Orkney, the NewsGator system lets employees subscribe to feeds from the organization's blogs and wikis, thus increasing their readership and boosting collaboration and communication, Rendall said. Meanwhile, Union Bank trusts RSS will improve its intranet, currently being redesigned. "There are many applications for which we could use the intranet as a repository, and leverage RSS for distribution and change alerts," Penn said. Specifically, RSS could help with notifying Union Bank employees about modifications to policies and procedures. This is key for banks, which are highly regulated by the government. "Often a little nuance of a policy will change, and while not applicable to 90 percent of the employees, it's crucial for the 10 percent who need to know," he said. Not to be overlooked is the ability of enterprise RSS systems to give managers a clear view into how popular blogs, wikis, external sites and intranet sections are with employees, Young said. "Because it's all coming into one central location, you can do very advanced analytics on who is reading what," Young said. For example, if half of the sales team subscribes to one specific journal's feed, it might make sense to suggest the feed to the other half. "It really helps information spread more quickly and best practices to proliferate across the enterprise," he said. Likewise, it makes it easy to spot skunks. "If your CEO's blog has no one reading it, you know pretty quickly there's a problem there," Young said.

MIT researchers improve `tractor beam’ (AP)

The work by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers could extend the possibilities for “optical tweezers” — super-focused beams of light that have been used for years to study and manipulate tiny biological structures or even individual atoms. Optical tweezers have been used on transparent media — like a microscope slide — that let the light shine through and hold objects in a tractor beam-like embrace. This is possible because light’s individual photons transfer minuscule amounts of force to particles they hit. What’s new in the optical tweezer from MIT’s Matt Lang and David Appleyard is that they used infrared light to move particles on silicon, the basis of microchips. (Unlike visible light, the infrared does not bounce off the silicon.) That means that MIT’s optical tweezer can be used not just for study but to build structures on the surface of chips. Lang and Appleyard proved their technique by getting 16 live E. coli cells to spell out “MIT” on a chip. The long-term potential is more practical: Lang envisions using the system to cram high-resolution sensors in very small spaces — for disease detectors, for example — and to connect silicon-based electronics to living tissues and other “biological interfaces.” “That’s sort of wide open,” said Lang, a professor of biological engineering and mechanical engineering. The research is being published in an academic journal, Lab on a Chip. Arthur Ashkin, a retired Bell Laboratories scientist who is considered the father of optical tweezers, cautioned that the MIT work could not be considered a breakthrough, since no devices using the technology have yet been built.

Restated Dell profits down $92 million (AP)

The restated earnings were first announced two months ago after a yearlong internal investigation found employees had misled auditors and manipulated results to meet performance goals for more than four years. The affected earnings reports covered fiscal years 2003 through 2006, as well as the first quarter of fiscal 2007. The profit cut is equal to 3 cents per share for the total period, when the Round Rock company’s net income was more than $12 billion. Dell spent $205 million on the investigation, spokesman David Frink said. “We feel as though we have completed this chapter in Dell’s business and we’re going to be squarely focused on customers and strategy to drive shareholder value,” Frink said. An SEC probe, however, remains unresolved. Frink said it was unclear when that might end. Dell also faces shareholder lawsuits. And federal prosecutors in New York have subpoenaed documents on the company’s financial reporting since 2002. Tuesday’s filings should bring Dell back into compliance with the Nasdaq’s listing requirements, Frink added. Dell continues to struggle against competitors like Hewlett-Packard Co. and others. Last fall, overtook Dell for the No. 1 spot in PC sales. Dell has countered by striking retail deals around the world, most recently with Staples Inc. Frink said Dell plans to resume its share repurchase program shortly after it announces third-quarter results Nov. 29. Dell shares briefly hit a 52-week high of $29.92 in trading Monday after a Goldman Sachs analyst said the company’s stock price is poised to rise on improved margins and a number of partnerships. Shares closed up 33 cents Tuesday at $29.80 and rose another 72 cents to $30.52 in after-hours trading. ___ On the Net:

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Internet tax moratorium goes to Bush (AP)

The House initially approved a four-year ban, but last week the Senate passed a seven-year prohibition, despite considerable support for a permanent ban. “Seven years is better than nothing, and that’s what we’re doing today,” said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich, during remarks on the House floor. A House bill that would make the moratorium permanent has 238 House co-sponsors, more than a majority. The tax ban, first approved in 1998 and twice renewed, is set to expire Nov. 1. Support for a permanent ban was strong in both the House and Senate, but concerns over the potential long-term impact on state and local governments forced a compromise. The provision amounts to a moratorium on state and local taxes, said David Quam, director of federal relations with the National Governors Association. And with the Internet changing rapidly, the issue should be revisited periodically, he said. “The implications could be pretty severe down the road if they got that wrong,” he said. “It’s actually a decent compromise that state and local governments and industry helped craft.” Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif. called the bill “bipartisan legislation at its best” and noted it was supported by businesses, state and local government organizations and labor unions. In addition to lengthening the ban from four years to seven years, the legislation also contains a provision aimed at preventing state and local governments from assessing taxes beyond those levied on simple Internet access. At the urging of Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the legislation specifically prohibits taxation on e-mail and instant messaging services “that are provided independently or not packaged with Internet access.” The extension also exempts some states that approved taxes prior to the original enactment. Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., supported a permanent ban, but helped craft the seven-year compromise. “Seven years is better than we’ve ever done before,” he told The Associated Press. “I think that’s an important place to start.” The bill now goes to the White House for President Bush’s signature.

U.S. Takes New Tack To Defend Power Grid

Woz raps on Apple for lower ideals, locked iPhone, less innovative UI

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