Microsoft promotes Bob Muglia to president

In today's podcast: Microsoft promotes Bob Muglia to president; rumors spreading of impending layoffs at IBM; researchers crack Intel vPro security technology.

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Microsoft has promoted Bob Muglia, the head of the company's server and tools division, to president, making him one of a handful of senior executives who carry this title. Muglia's promotion to president of the Server and Tools Business group was confirmed by Microsoft on Monday. Previously, Muglia was a senior vice president. The promotion makes Muglia, who joined Microsoft in 1988, the fourth president at the company. Microsoft's Server and Tools Business group, which competes against Oracle and IBM, among many others, is an increasingly important part of the company's overall business, accounting for about one-fifth of its revenue.

An independent Web site for IBM employees has been buzzing with rumors that the company will make significant layoffs this month. One message states that IBM will announce 16,000 layoffs on Jan. 23, affecting workers worldwide. Similar predictions are made in other recent posts on the site, which is run by the Alliance@IBM/Communications Workers of America Local 1701, a union that is trying to organize IBM workers. A number of messages state that IBM's semiconductor plant in Burlington, Vermont, may be particularly hard hit. IBM has more than 386,000 employees worldwide, according to its Web site. If the rumored 16,000 figure proves accurate, then, it would equal roughly a 4 percent reduction in headcount.

Security researchers said they've found a way to circumvent an Intel vPro security feature used to protect PCs and the programs that they run from tampering. Invisible Things Labs researchers they've created software that can "compromise the integrity" of software loaded using the Trusted Execution Technology, or TXT, that is part of Intel's vPro processor platform. That's bad news, because TXT is supposed to help protect software -- a program running within a virtual machine, for example -- from being seen or tampered with by other programs on the machine. Although almost no software uses the TXT technology today, the research could matter a lot to computer companies and government agencies that are thinking of using it to secure their future products.

China's government launched a month-long campaign to stamp out Internet pornography on Monday, with Google's search engine topping the list of Web sites it wants to see crack down on pornographic content. The campaign involves seven government agencies, including the State Council Information Office, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Public Security. Google topped the list of Web sites that the Chinese government wants to see reign in access to Internet pornography. Other sites targeted by the campaign include Baidu.com, the country's most popular search engine and Google rival, as well as Internet portals like Sina.com, Sohu.com, Netease.com and QQ.com.

...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.