BRUSSELS -- The European Commission has accused most of the European Union's 25 member nations of failing to live up to promises they made a year ago to upgrade their information and communications technology market sectors.
In the EC's first annual report on i2010, the digital economy portion of its so-called Lisbon strategy to spur growth in the region, the commission called on European countries to step up their efforts to improve access to broadband Internet connections.
The report, issued last week, also said that most EU members haven't sufficiently improved the circulation of digital content or freed up radio spectrum to support new wireless applications.
"Europe's policies for the digital economy have made some progress, but I do not think that this is good enough," said Viviane Reding, the EU's commissioner for information society and media. The report showed that IT is contributing less to productivity improvements in Europe today than it did 10 years ago, she said.
Microsoft, China sign deal for R&D centers
BEIJING -- Microsoft Corp. has agreed to help China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII) build several research and development centers in an effort to boost economic development in China's rural areas.
Under the terms of a memorandum of understanding that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer signed at a press conference in Beijing last week, the software vendor will spend 250 million renminbi (US$31.2 million) over the next five years to fund the construction of the facilities. The research centers, to be run jointly by Microsoft and the MII, will develop new .Net technology and applications, the company said.
In addition, Microsoft agreed to train more than 70,000 new software engineers through a combination of classroom instruction and distance learning. The new deal follows Microsoft's announcement last month that it would spend $900 million over the next five years on purchases from and investments in Chinese IT vendors.
Defense agency plans to sell used IT gear
SYDNEY -- Australia's Department of Defense is conducting a winner-take-all auction to sell off aging computer and network devices that are filling one of its warehouses.
Up to 200 pallets of desktop and notebook PCs, monitors, printers, servers and networking equipment are being offered on an "as is, where is" basis, the agency said. The equipment has been classified as "sanitized," meaning that all disk drives and other data storage devices have been removed from devices such as PCs and servers.
Bids will be accepted only for all of the pallets. A spokesman for the Department of Defense wouldn't predict how much money will be raised through the sale, saying that "no bottom line" has been set.
Briefly noted
-- Skype Ltd., a Luxembourg-based unit of eBay Inc., is advising users to upgrade to the latest version of its VoIP software to fix a security flaw reported this month by a researcher in New Zealand. The bug affects several versions of the Skype client for Windows and could enable an attacker to download files from an affected PC.
-- The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. said it double-charged 200,000 MasterCard customers who used its ATMs to get cash advances, after a computer glitch duplicated their transactions. A spokesman said the glitch was caused by human error during a routine maintenance check earlier this month. The bank refunded the overcharges, which totaled 45 million Australian dollars (US$34.1 million).
SAP AG last week opened a software services center in Sao Leopoldo, Brazil, and said it plans to hire up to 80 employees there by year's end. The facility will do custom development and localization work for customers in Latin and North America, SAP said. It will be located at the University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos.
Global fact: '28.1M
-- Amount of venture capital (US$36.2 million) that was invested in Irish technology vendors during the first quarter. The overall VC investment in Ireland during the quarter was '29.1 million.
Source: Ernst & Young/Dow Jones European VC Report