Mostly for Windows users.
Mozilla is considering “silent” updates for its Firefox browser in a bid to prevent update fatigue among users.

With a six-week upgrade cycle in its browser, Mozilla said it wanted to take the annoyance out of updating the software by preventing Windows from always asking for permission for new versions...

Banks, telcos battle over shrinking margins.
The lack of rumoured near-field communications (NFC) capabilities in Apple’s iPhone 4S this week could delay banks’ plans for “end-game” contactless mobile payment applications.

Australian banks, mobile operators and analysts had speculated that an iPhone 5 with embedded NFC capabilities would spark the development and uptake of mobile wallets...

Keeping it close.
SharePoint users have indicated their intention to stick with on-premise deployment, with only 15 percent planning to shift the application into the public cloud by 2015.

A poll of 2350 firms by Osterman Research [pdf] found public cloud deployments would rise from three percent today to 15 percent in 2015...

Divides IT environment in drive for zero downtime.
Australian oil and gas firm Santos has begun migrating core technical applications away from a consolidated environment in an effort to improve front-end performance and minimise downtime.

The company had previously worked from a single, Adelaide-based server farm made up largely of Sun SPARC M5000 clusters that served applications to Santos staff...

Multi-tenancy, industry standards up for redefinition.
The chief executives of Oracle and Salesforce.com traded more blows on Thursday, this time arguing over the core tenets of cloud computing.

It came as the latest scrap in a battle that had led to the cancellation of a keynote by Salesforce...

Big customers sign on.
Oracle has revealed plans to deploy further instances of its CRM On Demand software-as-a-service product in Asia from next year, after customer success in its trial Sydney deployment.

The database giant had deployed its hosted CRM product from HarborMSP's Sydney data centre as a year-long "test bed" for an Asian cloud offering...

Asserts 3G patents against Apple's latest device.
Samsung has indicated its intention to file for preliminary injunctions against the launch of the iPhone 4S in Italy and France in hopes of derailing Apple's new product.

In a salvo launched against Apple barely 24 hours after the new product launch, the South Korean manufacturer said it would file the claims in the respective courts today...

Asserts 3G patents against Apple's latest device.
Samsung has indicated its intention to file for preliminary injunctions against the launch of the iPhone 4S in Italy and France in hopes of derailing Apple's new product.

In a salvo launched against Apple barely 24 hours after the new product launch, the South Korean manufacturer said it would file the claims in the respective courts today...

Gives rugged tablets to field workers.
Leighton Contractors has kicked off a business intelligence platform upgrade and trials of ruggedised tablets to keep field workers out of the office and closer to work sites.

The company planned to boost its Oracle BI suite with a real-time capability that Oracle had bought from a company called Golden Gate in 2009...

Reason for Metro revamp.
Microsoft has pointed to the decline in the number of Windows 7 users accessing the Start menu as a reason to radically overhaul the feature in Windows 8.

Core experience evolved team program manager Chaitanya Sareen said in a blog post that the number of users who even opened the Start menu to access programs fell 11 percent between Vista and Windows 7...

Salesforce.com founder makes alternative arrangements.
Oracle has cancelled a keynote presentation by former executive and Salesforce.com founder Marc Benioff scheduled for the fourth day of its OpenWorld conference this week.

Benioff tweeted on Tuesday afternoon that his keynote had been cancelled by Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison...

Slow progress.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer failed to clinch his maximum bonus for the second year running due to the company's slow progress in mobile phones and adapting to the tablet computer revolution.

Ballmer, 55, got a bonus of $US682,500 for the latest fiscal year, matching his annual salary, according to a filing with securities regulators on Monday...

'Tiger teams' look to November deadline
The Federal Government's lead e-health transition body has proposed a new standards strategy that would speed up development of specifications underpinning the personally controlled electronic health record (PCEHR)...

Last-minute negotiations for early final hearing fall through.
Samsung will all but abandon plans to bring its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet to Australia should its launch be delayed a further two weeks, the Federal Court heard on Tuesday.

The South Korean manufacturer had initially planned to launch the 10...

Deal to make life easier for Flash developers.
Adobe has agreed to buy Nitobi Software, a maker of programming tools that convert HTML5 web applications into native iOS, Android and BlackBerry apps.

The buy would give Adobe another option to tout Flash developers besides its own AIR platform...

Council highlights overseas restrictions.
The Federal Government may consider excluding software from its second-tier patent system to better align Australian patents with those of trading partners like Japan and Korea.

In February, Innovation Minister Kim Carr asked the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property (ACIP) to review the innovation patent system, which replaced the petty patent system almost eleven years ago...

Patient records available to law enforcement and courts.
The Federal Government will penalise health practitioners to the tune of $66,000 for any personally controlled electronic health record compromised, leaked or “inappropriately accessed” under draft e-health legislation released today...

Chat that went well beyond databases.
Oracle has published a slide deck allegedly used by Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch in April to 'shop' the British vendor to Larry Ellison's firm before HP.

Lynch has denied ever having appealed to Oracle to acquire Autonomy ever since Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said HP had paid too much for the software firm...

Launch pushed back until at least next week.
Samsung has temporarily agreed to further delay the Australian launch of its Galaxy Tab 10.1 device until at least next week, as an interlocutory patent case continues to play out in the Federal Court.

Apple and Samsung presented affidavits and patent arguments one-by-one in the Federal Court in Sydney today...

LiMO plus Meego equals Tizen?
Two Linux software groups have joined forces, they said on Wednesday, to develop a new operating system for mobile phones and other devices in an effort led by Intel and Samsung Electronics.

Under the deal, the LiMo Foundation and Linux Foundation are effectively merging their LiMo and Meego mobile operating systems and hope to gain wider industry and consumer support, but analysts said the new Tizen platform is likely to struggle...