New York files federal antitrust suit against Intel

In today's podcast: New York files federal antitrust suit against Intel; Oracle ready to play hardball with EC over Sun deal; and Microsoft cuts another 800 employees.

Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes!
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against microprocessor maker Intel, alleging that the company engaged in a "systematic campaign" of illegal conduct to protect a monopoly. Cuomo's lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware Wednesday, alleges that Intel extracted exclusive agreements from large computer makers and threatened to punish those perceived to be working too closely with Intel competitors. Cuomo's lawsuit comes less than two weeks after news reports that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is considering filing a formal complaint against Intel.

Oracle is planning an aggressive fight with European regulators if its attempt to take over Sun is slapped with a statement of objections in the coming week, said people close to the company Wednesday. Unsourced news reports that a statement of objections is imminent surfaced earlier Wednesday. The European Commission declined to comment on the reports, but confirmed that if such a step was to be taken it would have to be taken soon, in order to allow enough time for procedures leading up to the Jan. 19 deadline for a ruling. "The ball game would change dramatically if the Commission issues a statement of objections," said one person familiar with Oracle's thinking who insisted on anonymity. When the Commission opened an in-depth probe of the Oracle-Sun deal at the beginning of September, it said it was concerned about the deal's impact on the market for software that runs corporate databases.

Microsoft is laying off another 800 people, adding to the 5,000 the company has already let go this year. The affected people are based around the world and work in various groups and will be notified on Wednesday, Microsoft said. The layoffs are part of the plan that Microsoft announced in January to let go of 5,000 people, although Wednesday's action adds to that original number. While Microsoft initially said that it would complete the layoff program by June 2010, this round of layoffs finishes the plan.

An announcement earlier this week that seemed to indicate that China's Baidu would start linking to licensed music downloads may not have been the major step it first appeared to be for the search company. Qtrax, an ad-supported music download service, said on Monday that Baidu would direct some users performing music searches to Qtrax. The statement appeared to mark a big shift for Baidu, which has been criticized for years for allowing its music search results to link to pirated copies of songs on third-party Web sites. But comments from a Baidu representative on Wednesday did not seem to confirm that it would direct any users to Qtrax. No links to Qtrax appear to be showing up yet in Baidu's music search section or on its entertainment portal.

...And those are the top stories from the IDG Global IT News Update, brought to you by the IDG News Service. I'm Sumner Lemon in Singapore. Join us again later for more news from the world of technology.