HP to buy 3Com for $2.7B

In today's podcast: HP to buy 3Com for $2.7B; Microsoft to add Wolfram Alpha results to Bing; and iPhone attack code steals data.

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Hewlett-Packard has agreed to buy 3Com for about US$2.7 billion, pushing forward the giant IT vendor's strategy for combining computing, storage, services and networking under one roof. The deal has been approved by both companies' boards of directors and is expected to close in the first half of next year. HP is offering $7.90 per share for 3Com, about $2 per share above the stock's price of $5.69 at the close of trading on Wednesday. U.S. and foreign regulatory approvals will be required. 3Com will add to HP's Ethernet switching portfolio, which is already a growing competitor to Cisco Systems, and add routing products to its lineup.

Microsoft is rolling out some enhancements to its Bing search engine, including some that rely on computational information delivered by Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram Alpha has developed a technology platform designed to offer "computable knowledge" to applications. Through the relationship with Bing, that means that people will be able to search for some complicated information, and the search engine will be able to compute the answers. On perhaps the more complex end, users can type in complicated math equations or even ask Bing to display a graph plotting an equation and get results. More practical applications for a wider audience include answers to questions like which fruit, an orange or a kiwi, has more vitamins. Searching for a food item on Bing will return a nutrition facts label, much like the one attached to most food products, that summarizes the information.

Another piece of dangerous code that attacks iPhones has been found, although it puts at risk only a very small subset of the smartphone's users. Mac security vendor Intego calls the code "iPhone/Privacy.A." It is a malicious tool hackers install on Windows, Mac, Unix or Linux systems, and even on iPhones, using those devices to scan for "jailbroken" iPhones, some of which are vulnerable to the malware. If it finds a vulnerable iPhone within its range, the malware copies e-mail, contacts, SMS (Short Message Service) messages, calendar entries, photos, music, videos and any data recorded by an iPhone application

Global online advertising spending fell slightly in the third quarter, but there are signs that the market may be recovering and could start growing again soon, according to IDC. Marketers spent US$14.6 billion, down 1 percent compared with last year's third quarter, as all world regions saw online ad revenue contract except for Asia-Pacific and Japan. In the U.S., online ad spending fell 4 percent year-on-year to $6.4 billion. Still, the silver lining is that spending decreases are getting smaller. For example, global ad spending fell 5.6 percent in the second quarter of this year, while the drop in the third quarter was only 1 percent, IDC said Wednesday.

...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.