IBM, Microsoft, Google, Verizon

Google to Purge UK Personal Data Gotten from Wi-Fi

November 22, 2010

AP – Google Inc. will delete the personal data collected by the company's Street View cars in Britain after regulators there wrapped up their inquiry into the intrusion.

Britain's Information Commissioner said Friday that the Mountain View, Calif.-based company would improve data protection training for its employees around the world and create a privacy document for every new project it launches.

Google drew outrage from regulators on both sides of the Atlantic in May when the company acknowledged it had scooped up passwords and Web addresses being transmitted over unsecured wireless networks as part of its program to create three-dimensional maps of cities across the world. Last month, the company said some of the information included entire e-mails.

While apologizing for its conduct, Google has steadfastly insisted it didn't break any laws. It says it wants to purge all the personal data that its Street View cars gathered after it gains clearance from regulators in the more than 30 affected countries.

Google already has gotten rid of the information that it picked up in Ireland, Denmark, Austria and Hong Kong.

Salesforce Shares Soaring on Cloud Computing Craze

November 19, 2010

AP – A hot high-tech concept known as "cloud computing" is lifting Salesforce.com Inc.'s stock to lofty heights.

The shares rocketed more than 18 percent Friday after Salesforce issued a strong third-quarter earnings report and an optimistic management forecast that persuaded several analysts that the stock is bound to climb even higher. As it is, Salesforce in nearly 6 1/2 year as a public company is proving to be more fruitful than high-tech darling Google Inc.

The fervor surrounding Salesforce has been swelling during the past year because the company appears to be sitting in a sweet spot as more businesses and government agencies change the way they buy and use software.

After years of paying huge upfront fees to install and maintain applications on individual computers in their offices, more companies are embracing the idea of subscribing to software that can be accessed from any machine with an Internet connection. The trend is becoming so popular that it has been tagged with the catchphrase "cloud computing" to replace its more geeky shorthand of "SaaS, an abbreviation of "software as a service."

The transition has enriched and vindicated Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who faced widespread ridicule when he started the company 11 years ago on the presumption that the old way of installing software made by the likes of Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and SAP was doomed. Skeptics abounded at the time, contending that businesses would never be willing to trust a vendor to run their critical programs and applications on computers far away from their own premises.

But now Salesforce is seen as being ahead of the curve, as Microsoft, Oracle and SAP all scramble to build their own online subscription services. At the end of its latest quarter, Salesforce boasted 87,200 customers, including personal computer manufacturer Dell Inc. and health insurer Kaiser Permanente.

Wall Street has become so enamored with Salesforce that its stock is outshining Internet search leader Google, a much more renowned company that went public just two months after Salesforce did in 2004.

A $10,000 investment in Salesforce's June 2004 initial public offering would now be worth $124,000 after Friday's surge left shares with a gain of 85 percent so far this year. A $10,000 investment in Google's August 2004 IPO would be worth about $70,000.

Even Google has latched on to some of Salesforce's ideas as it tries to expand its own cloud computing service. Google now offers a suite of word processing, spreadsheet and calendar programs in hopes of luring people away from Microsoft's Office bundle of applications. Salesforce and Google have also teamed up on some cloud computing projects.

Google remains the far larger company with more than 23,000 employees and revenue expected to approach $30 billion this year. Salesforce employs about 5,000 people and is on track for about $1.7 billion in revenue in its fiscal year, which ends in January. Salesforce stirred excitement late Thursday when it topped off the release of better-than-expected third-quarter earnings with a prediction that its revenue for the year ending in January 2012 would reach $2 billion for the first time ...