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News in brief

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CIOL Bureau
New Update

HP settles announces settlement of patent suit.



PALO ALTO: Hewlett-Packard Co. announced on Wednesday that it had settled inkjet
patent infringement lawsuit in Germany and France against International United

Technology Ltd. HP said the firm would make an undisclosed payment to it and

quit making inkjet cartridges that it had marketed as replacements for HP. It

gave no further details. HP launched the lawsuits in June 2000, and said it has

settled those and others started at the time. - Reuters Limited 2001.

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EU approves IBM acquisition of Informix



BRUSSELS: The European Commission said on Wednesday that it approved plans

by US computer giant IBM to buy Informix Corp's database business for $1

billion. The Commission said in a statement that its investigation "has

shown that IBM's share of the (distributed database management systems) market

in Europe as well as worldwide does not cause any competition concerns".

Distributed database management systems are software packages designed to

operate databases for storage and handling of large banks of data, the

Commission said. - Reuters Limited 2001.

MeetVirtual to be adopted by six varsities



CHENNAI: The Chennai-based IT training and consulting firm, Kaashyap Radiant
Systems Ltd (KRSL) hopes to enable E-learning in six other universities using

MeetVirtual, a technology product developed by KRSL for the North Western

Oklahama University (NWOU). It is on the final stages of talks with the

University of Paisley, Scotland, University of East London, universities in the

US and Australia. MeetVirtual was developed to digitize, distribute and maintain

the university's course content for the fast track degree program it has with

NWOU. Built around XML and JAVA technology, it offers E-Learning Enterprise

Product that can support 250-500 users, E-Learning Professional Product that can

support 5-10 users, Learning Management Systems that manages and delivers

content, Course creator, Content Conversion, Hosting and Maintenance. — CNS

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Softbank takes over ADSL venture



TOKYO: Japan's Softbank Corp said on Thursday that it had taken over a
struggling high-speed Internet access venture, a key stepping stone in its

ambition to become the nation's dominant broadband access provider. Internet

investor Softbank said that it had acquired over two-thirds of the shares of

Tokyo Metallic Communications Corp, a pioneer in Japan's fledgling ADSL

(asymmetric digital subscriber line) services which has been suffering a cash

squeeze and seeking a buyer. The deal would allow the Softbank group to quickly

gain Tokyo Metallic's ADSL networks, which can reach up to 500,000 subscribers

in Tokyo and other regional cities. The latest tie-up comes on the heels of

Softbank's announcement on Tuesday that it and subsidiary Yahoo Japan, Japan's

dominant Internet portal, will launch cut rate ADSL services in Japan in August

and aims to acquire one million subscribers by December. - Reuters

Omni defends handling of Celestica deal



SINGAPORE: Electronics contract manufacturer Omni Industries, responding to

a query from Singapore Exchange officials, said on Thursday it took extensive

measures to minimize leaks of its merger with Canada's Celestica Inc. In

response to the query on events surrounding the suspension of its shares on June

14 and the merger unveiled on June 15, Omni said it held meetings outside

Singapore, used code names and restricted merger information to top management.

The company also obtained confidentiality undertakings from the relevant

parties, it said in a statement. Under the S$1.6 billion ($884 million) deal,

Celestica is offering Omni shareholders a cash option valuing the stock at

S$4.25. The cash option is limited to S$860 million. Shareholders can also elect

to take 0.045 subordinate voting shares of Celestica for each Omni share. -

Reuters

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Two Indian schools join BT’s global network program



BANGALORE: Two schools in India have joined the BT Global Schools Network
(BT GSN) program launched by British Telecommunications, as part of the company’s

‘Better World’ campaign. BT GSN aims to enable and encourage schools around

the world to benefit from new technologies to enhance teaching and learning and

to help develop communications skills among students and teachers. The schools

are St Thomas' School, Mandir Marg, New Delhi and Bluebells School

International, Kailash Colony, New Delhi. The initiative will help pupils in 12

schools across Europe and Asia to communicate with one another using facilities

provided by BT. These include a special Global Schools Network website, plus

e-mail services and ‘virtual `chatrooms’, as well as skills training. Pupils

involved in the program will then co-operate with one another to research and

produce project work on themes that could focus on a global issue or the future

of technology. Each BT GSN school will receive £4,000 over two stages of the

program to help finance technical needs, such as enhancing connectivity in

schools. — CIOL Bureau

Kshema signs MoU with for Bioinformatics curriculum



BANGALORE: Kshema Technologies has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with
BVB College of Engineering and Technology, Hubli to design the curriculum course

for bio-informatics department. The firm in association with BVBCET is planing

to develop quality human resources to cater to the needs of Bio Informatics and

in turn add value to the students passing out from the institution. Kshema along

with BVBCET will prepare the curriculum that will be offered to under-graduate

students in BVBCET. While the college provides necessary infrastructure for

conducting the course at their college premises, Kshema extends its expertise in

bioinformatics in constructing the IT-related course material whenever required

by the institute. The college will depute a section of its staff to Kshema for

specific training and take responsibility of monitoring the progress of students

periodically. — CIOL Bureau

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