Apple fires back at French iTunes revolution

Apple has fired back at the decision of France's National Assembly to open up access to its iTunes catalogue to other players than the market dominant iPod. The draft law approved yesterday has yet to be approved by France's upper house, the Senate, but the decision by the French legislators has caused shock waves across the industry. 'The French implementation of the EU Copyright Directive will result in state-sponsored piracy,' said Apple in a statement. ...more

UPDATED: FileMaker 7 takes many guises

FileMaker has announced the release of FileMaker Pro 7, describing it as the most significant new version of FileMaker Pro ever, with breakthroughs in ease-of-use, customisability and developer productivity. The company also unveiled the new FileMaker Pro 7 product line: FileMaker Developer 7, availbale now and the following to ship in the summer, FileMaker Server 7, FileMaker Server 7 Advanced and FileMaker Mobile 7. FileMaker Pro 7 lets users import, store and export any file or document PDFs, Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint files, digital images, video, music and more within new, flexible Container fields. ...more

IBM applies itself to specialised servers

IBM has weighed into the server appliance market with five new offerings, including two for Web-hosting services. These products come branded under an "e-server appliances" tag. The two Web-hosting appliance servers are the xSeries 135 (for Linux) and the xSeries 130 (for Windows). ...more

iTunes Music Store customer sues Apple

Apple is being sued by a customer of its online music store. The plaintiff alleges that the fact that songs bought through iTunes music Store can only play on one type of portable player, Apple's iPod, is a breach of US anti-trust laws. Californian Thomas Slattery filed the suit on Monday in the US District Court, San Jose. ...more

IBM's patience runs out on SCO

IBM has filed a request to push through a Motion to Compel Discovery in order to get hold of the specific 'misappropriated' code it claims SCO is with-holding. The memorandum comes on the heels of a Hallowe'en conference between the two sides, where the administrative Judge handling the case ruled a final meeting would be held 21 November, to resolve the issue. After this, the discovery request would go to oral argument on 5 December if SCO still hadn't satisfied IBM's requests for SCO material that it needs to compile its defence. ...more