US senators ask EC to speed Oracle-Sun review

In today's podcast: US senators ask EC to speed Oracle-Sun review; Microsoft's CFO steps down; and California man pleads guilty to selling counterfeit chips to US Navy.

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Fifty-nine U.S. senators have asked European antitrust regulators to speed up their investigation into Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Microsystems, due to Sun's "deteriorating financial condition." The senators, led by Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, called on the European Commission to "expedite" its investigation into the US$7.4 billion acquisition, in a letter sent Tuesday. Sun reported a net loss of $120 million for the first quarter of its 2010 fiscal year, with the quarter ending on Sept. 27. The company reported a net loss of $2.2 billion for its 2009 fiscal year, compared to a net loss of $403 million for its 2008 fiscal year.

Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell plans to leave the company at the end of the year after managing the software giant’s finances for nearly five years. Microsoft did not say what Liddell plans to do next. In a press release, Microsoft said he is looking at a number of opportunities that will allow him to expand his career beyond being a CFO. Liddell will be replaced by Peter Klein, who is currently CFO of Microsoft’s Business Division, where he manages the financial strategy of the US$18.9 billion business. Klein has worked at Microsoft since early 2002.

A 32-year-old California man has pleaded guilty to charges that he sold thousands of counterfeit chips to the U.S. Navy. In a plea agreement reached on Friday, Neil Felahy of Newport Coast, California, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and counterfeit-goods trafficking for his role in an alleged chip-counterfeiting scam that ran between 2007 and 2009. Felahy, his wife Marwah Felahy, and her brother Mustafa Abdul Aljaff operated several microchip brokerage companies that imported chips from Shenzhen, in China's Guangdong province. According to court filings, the accused imported more than 13,000 fake chips, worth more than US$140,000. They sold counterfeit Intel, Fujitsu, Via, National Semiconductor and Analog Devices chips.

Taiwanese 3G mobile operator Vibo Telecom launched a trial TD-SCDMA network on Tuesday, an event timed to coincide with a Chinese official's visit to Taiwan to discuss how Taiwan and China can work more closely on developing technology standards. TD-SCDMA (Time-Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) is a 3G technology developed in China as part of a bid to create home-developed standards and reduce the nation's reliance on foreign technologies. China Mobile, the world's largest mobile network operator, is to date the only company in the world using the technology. Vibo launched the trial network in Taipei's Neihu Technology Park, an area set aside by the government to house office buildings and research centers for high tech companies in Taiwan

...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.