Articles by Keith Regan

In a bid to bring two of the hottest technology trends together and put a potentially "disruptive" tool into the hands of consumers, Vonage said today it will roll out handsets later this year that will enable voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) phone calls using WiFi connections Vonage announced a partnership with UTStarcom, which will make a WiFi...

The much-hyped CAN-SPAM Act -- the first major stab at legislation in the U.S. aimed at cutting down the flood of unwanted commercial e-mail messages -- is seen largely failing to live up to its promise during its first year The Act, which took effect at the start of 2004, was meant to curtail spam by beefing up law enforcement's ability to investi...

A spate of mergers and good consumer demographics have the wireless industry poised for a strong 2005, with brokerage house Merrill Lynch the latest to weigh in with a more bullish outlook on the sector From improved outlooks for subscriber growth to next-generation broadband and emerging markets such as mobile commerce and streaming media, the wir...

In a crushing blow to Microsoft's bid to establish its Passport service as a standard for access across the Web, auction giant eBay has said it will drop support for the service, as well as a second Microsoft-built service that provides updates and alerts through the .NET platform EBay announced the change on its user message board yesterday and sa...

Entertainment and media giant Time Warner is reportedly in talks with Sprint on a deal that would allow it to add cell phone service to the growing menu of offerings it dangles before its cable customers The potential deal, word of which was first reported in the Wall Street Journal, would be significant because it would make Time Warner the first ...

Variants of the Santy worm have started to appear that use Google -- which is credited with moving quickly to thwart the original attack -- and other search engines to spread, and then infect and deface Web bulletin boards The original Santy appeared just before Christmas and was meant to use Google to spread itself. The search engine blocked the w...

Microsoft and its customers got no holiday break from security concerns as Symantec said it had confirmed three more yet-to-be-patched vulnerabilities in Windows, some of which can be used to launch denial-of-service attacks Symantec said all three of the flaws are considered serious, and Denmark-based Secunia labeled them "highly critical," even t...

Revisiting a well-worn trend of consolidation in the information technology analysis industry, Gartner has said it would acquire Meta Group in a deal worth US$162 million The all-cash deal, which Gartner said it would fund with money it has on hand and a line of credit, values Meta Group stock at $10 per share, at a premium of more than 50 percent ...

In a sign that mobile devices might be gaining favor as a target for virus creators, a new Trojan horse aimed at smart phones using the Symbian operating system has been discovered in the wild The Trojan, known as "MetalGear.a," was discovered earlier this week and attacks the smart phones, which are wildly popular among gamers....

Microsoft today lost its bid to put European antitrust regulators' sanctions against it on hold -- including requirements that it share its source code and make different versions of Windows available -- while it fights what is expected to be another epic courtroom battle over whether it used its market power to squelch competition Bo Versterdorf, ...

Taking a stab at being near the forefront of the mobile commerce and streaming music movements, Sprint today launched Music Choice, a mobile music service that gives users of its multimedia phones access to a catalog of digital music feeds The service, the first streaming music service available for mobile phones in the U.S., will give customers ac...

Cisco Systems today announced plans to buy privately held Protego Networks, part of a year-long acquisition spree aimed at rounding out Cisco's network security offerings Cisco said it would pay US$65 million in cash for Protego, which was founded in 2002 by two former Cisco executives and makes security appliances that monitor networks and detect ...

For Microsoft, Christmas might come early this week -- or the ghosts of market dominance past might come back to haunt the software giant -- as a key court ruling is expected Wednesday that will determine whether the penalties assessed by European regulators are set aside while a trial unfolds in coming months and years European Union (EU) official...

Hoping to expand its customer base while also enhancing the so-called front office services it already provides, Siebel Systems said it will buy e-billing service provider eDocs in a deal worth US$115 million Siebel will take control of Natick, Massachusetts-based eDoc's 180 employees and gain access to its 116 customers, most of which are mid- to ...

The recent wave of mergers crashed into the e-commerce space today when auction giant eBay said it would acquire Rent.com for US$415 million in cash and stock The purchase extends eBay's already sprawling reach into the rental real estate industry. Rent.com lists apartments and homes for rent, relying on a business model that allows free listings a...

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is slated to begin levying a new tax on domain name registrations starting early in 2005 and has already begun to make plans for how to spend what could be a sizeable windfall The fee, which amounts to 75 cents per year for each domain name registered, will apply only to ".Net" domains...

Merger mania found its way back into the software space today, with security firm Symantec saying it would pay US$13.5 billion to acquire Veritas Software The deal creates the fourth-largest software firm in the world and with Veritas' storage software and Symantec's strength in security, creates a company that can offer products that extend from t...

In a deal that further reduces the number of large wireless companies in the U.S. and leaves three heavyweight companies to duke it out, Sprint said today it would buy Nextel Communications for about US$35 billion in stock and cash The merger, rumors of which began to circulate last week, will instantly double Sprint's base of subscribers to some 3...

Undaunted by the failure of the recording industry to convince courts to hold peer-to-peer networks responsible for piracy, the movie industry is taking its own legal action against server operators they say have enabled "hundreds of millions" of copyrighted files to be shared illegally The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) said it was f...

The Internet's governing body has cleared the way for two new top-level domains, one of which is designed to make it easier for users to find information on mobile devices and a second that would be set aside for job postings The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) said it was negotiating the parameters for giving final appr...