Finance

Stanford University Network Workstation, more commonly known as Sun Microsystems, has decided to change its ticker symbol to something a little more meaningful and symbolic.

The SUNW symbol will be changed to the new trading symbol of JAVA as of next week. This marks a new step in the company’s growth strategy, focusing on the power and brand strength of Java as a technology for the web.

Sun is not changing the company name, they will still remain a systems company, however they are simply not just a workstation company and they feel that Java does a better job of capturing what they do on the trading room floor.

Going through a messy marital break-up? A new piece of software called Family Winner could help you iron out the kinks and settle disputes over common property.

MSNBC reports, “The program, which is based on the game theory concepts developed by mathematician John Nash, separately asks the husband and wife to “rate” every disputed item by assigning points to each in a way that reflects each item’s relative importance to him or her.”

So, instead of running to the lawyer and holding up in your respective corners, you could potentially save thousands and make both parties uh, less unhappy.

Everyone knows that Microsoft makes a lot of money off of MS Office, and you know, that operating system that’s installed on the vast majority of computers in the US and many other countries. But ever wonder just how much?

Turns out Microsoft made $51.12 billion in revenue during the fiscal year that ended June 30th. That’s up 15% from the previous year. During the second quarter of 2007. Microsoft brought in $13.37 billion in revenue, up 13% from the same period last year.

But lest you think Bill Gates is swimming in a pool of $100 bills, Microsoft’s profit for the quarter was just $3.07 billion. Umm, yeah, that’d still pay for a lot of swimming pools.

Google, on the other hand, reported $3.87 billion in earnings for the quarter, with a net profit of $925 million. While that exceeded sales expectations, the earnings figure was a bit lower than shareholders had expected, which sent stock prices down.

While this isn’t a software-related story, it should be relevant to anyone that is considering buying a Dell computer. The Consumerist has a post with what they are calling 22 confessions of a former Dell sales manager, which are mostly simply good advice as to how to go about ensuring you get the best deal when you purchase. A few of the items on the list are suspect, like the recommendation to “drop your laptop” if you have an extended warranty to get a new one, but as long as you take the advice with a grain of salt, there is definitely some good stuff in there. Examples include sale dates, sales closing tools like coupons, and price matching.

Unsurprisingly, Dell didn’t like this post and asked The Consumerist to take it down. A debate ensued, with that trying to suppress this information had actually been worse for them than simply joining in the conversation and correcting any factual errors.

The fourth annual Global Piracy Study, conducted by tech market research company IDC on behalf of the Business Software Alliance, was released this morning. The researchers estimate that again this year, 35% of all software on PCs worldwide is pirated. This is despite claimed advances in legitimate sales in traditional problem areas like China, where the government’s decision to license operating systems and other software is uses on state-owned PCs has resulted in a 10% drop in three years (a drop from 92% to 82%, but still). Other developing markets, though, seem to be taking up the slack. Nearly one third of countries surveyed has piracy rates topping 75%, and while developing markets account for fully 30% of global PC sales, they only account for 10% of software revenue.

Perhaps the most surprising finding was that, despite the world’s lowest piracy rate–21%–the estimated value of pirated software in the US is the highest on the list. IDC estimates that the US accounts for US$7.3bn in piracy losses. That raises a red flag in my mind: are we really buying (or not) that much more software than other countries, or are we getting ripped off paying for software that sells for less elsewhere?

Even taken with the XXL grain of salt BSA funding requires, these are big numbers.

As anyone who’s ever hid in the bushes outside a party watching people have a good time can tell you, not being invited stinks. Missing out on something important or exciting is never fun, but it has come to be expected with the annual TED conference in Monterey, California. The conference, run by the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) organization is an invitation-only, $6000 ticket that isn’t exactly easy to obtain. The 2008 conference is already sold out. The cast of characters at these get-togethers is pretty impressive, with this year’s edition culminating in a presentation by former president Bill Clinton. But despite the conference’s history of catering to the upper crust, TED is taking steps to do something for the rest of us.

Recently, a website was launched by TED that features many of the presentations given at the conference, allowing everyday users a glimpse inside. The presentations — TED Talks, as they refer to them — are highly polished, 20 minute long presentations that are often regarded as the high points of the conference. The organization has pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into the site so that we can all pretend that we’re important enough to be at the actual conference, only to have the illusion shattered when the presentation ends. Of course, TED isn’t just doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. The organization has uploaded a small number of videos from past conferences in the past, and recorded millions of hits. Therefore, by adding a large number of more recent videos they can vastly upgrade their advertising revenue. Everybody wins, it seems.

The site also allows you to rank videos in a somewhat fun — at least for a tech conference — kind of way. You can choose from a list that includes terms such as “long winded” or “courageous.” With the Bill Clinton presentation readily available, one has to wonder if they’ve got “makes me wish it was 1996 again” on that list.

Oh, how I love free things. Especially free pretty things. And I’m the kind of person who things Flash charts and graphs are pretty, so I present amCharts and PHP/SWF Charts. amCharts is a relative newcomer that creates attractive Flash pie and donut charts based on data you put in a text file in either XML or CSV formats (which makes exporting from Excel easy). It’s very configurable, allowing you to specify colors, border, tilt (for a 3D effect), labels, fonts, backgrounds, and so on. amCharts’ creators promise bar, column, and line charts this spring.

PHP/SWF Charts is sort of amCharts’ big brother. It’s been around awhile longer and features more than a dozen different chart types and nearly unlimited configurability. As the name implies, PHP/SWF Charts uses PHP to load data from dynamic sources, but it’s not required–there’s XML/SWF Charts that will load data from a regular XML file. With its advanced features comes more complexity, of course, and the learning curve is probably greater, but if you need, say, a stacked 3D column chart, it’s the way to go.

As I mentioned, both charting tools are free, but not totally free. The free version of amCharts will put a small link to amCharts.com in the corner of your charts, and PHP/SWF Charts will direct users to its web site if they click on it. For a single-site license amCharts will cost you 45 Euros (about US$60) and PHP/SWF charts will cost you US$45. “Enterprise” licenses for unlimited sites cost 245 Euros (~US$322) or $550 respectively.

Microsoft is on the hunt for the best small business idea, and has $100,000 on the table. If your idea is the best out of the bunch that are submitted, you get the cash, plus a free retail location in New York City for one year. How awesome would that be for a startup company?

The new Microsoft Office Accounting 2007 is sponsoring this contest. Microsoft released the free Office Accounting software that used to retail for $179US back in the end of October. To be entered into the contest, visit the website, and fill out the online submission form with all of your details. The free Office Accounting software can also be downloaded from the IdeaWins.com website.

Cha-Ching is a Mac OS X (universal binary) app for managing your personal finances. It uses a tag-based approach to categorizing incoming and outgoing transactions. Thanks to iSight integration, you can include photographs of your purchases (for tax or general pack-rat purposes). And of course, like any other personal finance application, you can schedule pending transactions and manage bill payment.

Cha-Ching’s web site is sleek and polished and, like many Web 2.0 sites, appears to be perpetually in beta. Or rather, in this case, the app itself is in beta. But that’s good news for you, because you can currently purchase a license for $14.95 - ten dollars off the price it’ll be once it hits 1.0 status.

Why pay $19.99 for TaxCut Deluxe from H&R Block
when you could spend $49.95 for the software on a
256MB USB drive? I guess because the software is preloaded, and after rebate the package is under forty bucks… Or
not. I’ve seen apps on a usb drive, OS’es on a drive, even diagnostic tools on a pocketable FireWire drive, but this
seems a little silly. But if you’re into that sort of thing I guess it’s great. Just for laughs, here’s a bunch of ideas on making any USB flash drive bootable, for
what it’s worth.

[Via Engadget]