Amazon blames catalog error for removing gay and lesbian listings

In today's podcast: Amazon blames catalog error for removing gay and lesbian listings; Oracle not cutting maintenance costs; and Dell in handset talks with China Mobile.

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Web retailer Amazon.com blamed a glitch that knocked gay-and-lesbian-themed books out of its main product search engine on a "ham-fisted cataloging error," and disputed one man's claim that he had hacked the site to make this happen. The problem was first reported on Sunday by author Mark Probst, who noticed that his own book, "The Filly," and other gay-themed books had had their search rankings dropped. His report set off a firestorm in the blogosphere, where some accused the company of anti-gay censorship. On Monday, Amazon said that the glitch didn't have to do with only gay and lesbian titles. It affected 57,310 books worldwide "in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica." The company is still in the process of fixing the problem.

It has become a regular ritual during Oracle's quarterly earnings conference calls. Company executives point to the vendor's lucrative revenue stream from maintenance -- paid annually by customers as a percentage of their license fees -- and bask in the approving glow of the financial analysts on the line. Maintenance revenue is particularly crucial to software vendors during a recession, when many customers are holding back on buying new licenses. Oracle reported US$2.9 billion in revenue for "software license update and product support" in its third quarter and incurred just $256 million in expenses against that total, for a roughly 90 percent profit margin. In contrast, the vendor logged about $1.5 billion in new license sales in the quarter, which it reported last month. It's no surprise, then, that Oracle isn't budging an inch on maintenance fees as it works to finalize new contracts by the end of its fiscal year on May 31, according to consultants and analysts.

Dell is in talks with China Mobile to offer a smartphone based on the carrier's mobile operating system, a move that would take Dell into a huge but competitive market in China, an analyst said Monday. The world's number two PC vendor has strongly hinted it plans to offer a smartphone or mobile Internet device, but it has not given any details or said if it will offer such a product in China. Dell is waiting for China Mobile to pick one or two models from smartphones it has offered and the two firms could reach a deal around August, Zhang Jun, an analyst at research firm Wedge MKI, said in a phone interview. A Dell smartphone could then hit the Chinese market by the end of the year, Zhang said.
A Dell representative in Beijing declined to comment.

The founders of Web recommendation site StumbleUpon have bought it back from eBay, making the company independent again after nearly two years. StumbleUpon, founded in 2001, is designed to send its users to Web sites based on recommendations by other users. The recommendations are available on the Web and through a free toolbar. EBay acquired the company in 2007 for US$75 million. However, like Skype, StumbleUpon hasn't been significantly integrated into eBay's services. Cofounders Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith have acquired the company along with Sherpalo Ventures, Accel Partners and August Capital. The price was not disclosed.

...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.