Jason Yow

Akamai Tuesday began pitching its new HD Network as the perfect solution for entertainment companies that want to deliver high-definition video streams over the Internet. During a live videoconference Tuesday, Akamai executives pitched the network to entertainment companies as a compliment for live TV and DVDs that would let content providers stream higher quality videos without the traditional problems of jitter and long buffer times that users regularly encounter. The CDN provider's new HD Network utilizes its HD EdgePlatform and combines it with digital video recorder technology and an adaptive bitrate streaming technology that adjusts users' delivery bitrates based on their network capacity.

Separated at Birth: Tech Honchos and Their Famous Lookalikes "Our HD Network has been designed for large-scale broadcasters and studios," said Akamai CEO Paul Sagan. "Our goal is to meet and surpass the needs of the film and television industries… TV is now possible online at HD bitrates." Akamai cofounder and chief scientist Tom Leighton said that Akamai's HD Network had a unique advantage in delivering HD streams because it had roughly 1,000 servers located on networks' last miles in 750 cities around the world. Users streaming content over the Akamai HD Network will be able to watch video using Flash, Silverlight and iPhone protocols. Leighton said that this access to the last mile has enabled Akamai to deliver content at a rate of 2Mbps or greater to two-thirds of users in the United States and at a rate of 5Mbps or greater to around a quarter of users in the United States. The network also features an HD content analytics that allow providers to monitor and understand who is accessing their content and an HD player based on the open source standard provider through the Open Video Player Framework.

There are a lot of reasons why Dell Inc. agreed to buy Perot Systems Corp. for $3.9 billion, but Congress' vote earlier this year to appropriate billions of dollars to spread the use of electronic medical records may be a key one. Even before today's announcment that Dell plans to buy Perot, the PC maker and IT services firm had agreements in place develop platforms dedicated to electronic health care applications. Perot, which says that about half of its $2.8 billion in annual revenue is derived from health care projects, is in a good position to gain a significant chunk of the $36 billion the federal government is poised to spend on IT related health care projects.

During a conference call with reporters today, Michael Dell, CEO and chairman of Dell, called the move "the right acquisition" for his company, and that the two Texas-based firms share several similar characteristics. "Our products, services and structures are overwhelmingly complementary," Dell said. EDS was spun off in 1996 as an independent firm and remained that way until it was acquired last year by Hewlett-Packard Co. for $13,9 billion . Ross Perot founded Perot Systems in 1988. Harry Greenspun, chief medical officer for Perot Systems' health care group, told investors garthered at an industry conference this month that there's tremendous opportunity for companies like Perot in the health care market. "Most hospitals, most physicians' offices are very immature in their adoption in their technology," he said, according to an archived recording on Perot's web site. Ross Perot, the chairman emeritus of Perot, added, "We saw this as a cultural match, and we saw what we could do together, and I think that made it a lot easier to jump on Michael's vision to build Dell," Perot founded Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in 1962 and sold it to General Motors Corp. in 1984 for $2.5 billion. Dell hopes to complete the deal by year's end, just after the federal fiscal year starts on Oct. 1, which is when federal spending on electronic records is set to begin in earnest. Dell and Perot are already jointly offering what Greenspan called a "dumb box" without ports of disk drives. The demand for help in implementing new health care IT projects should come quickly - Under the law, health care providers have to start upgrading e-health systems by 2015 or face federal penalties.

The Software-as-a-Service system delivers electronic records to virtual desktops that charge customers on a subscription basis. "This is a different way of delivering this service," said Greenspun. Bendor-Samuel said improved revenue from health care projects should be a strong side effect of the merger, but contended that Dell's primary interest is gaining access to a broader base of enterprise customers. "It's great to be a dominant player in the fastest growing segment of the economy, but I view that as a nice thing to have," he said. The purchase of Perot Systems will also give Dell some credibility among large users as a service provider, said Peter Bendor-Samuel, CEO of Everest Group, an Dallas-based outsourcing consultancy. "It both significantly improves their delivery capability and tremendously improves their credibility," he said. Dane Anderson, an analyst at Gartner Inc., believes that the deal shows only that Dell is finally embarking on a services strategy. It has not offered the broader consulting and integration services provided by IT services firms like Perot Systems, he added.. "Really, where the opportunity is in the nearest term is to bring more capabilities to the table for that Dell installed based of clients, he said. Dell's support operation has traditionally focused on providing services to meet the needs of existing users.

Anderson said that he doesn't expect Dell to quickly gain new services contracts due to the acquisition of Perot. Enterprise aren't likely to exit existing contracts with other services providers.

Today Google released Picasa 3.5, an updated version of its free photo editing software. The most notable addition in this release is an enhanced version of Picasa's people-tagging feature, previously only available in Picasa Web Albums. With Picasa you can edit and organize your images, and sync and share them with Picasa Web Albums, Google's online photo-sharing site. Other improvements include Google Maps integration for faster and easier geotagging, a smarter keyword-tagging interface, and more importing options.

You can then go through and add name tags one at a time or in bulk. When you first launch Picasa 3.5, it scans all of the images on your computer and groups similar faces. If you already use name tags in your Picasa Web Albums, you can log into your Google account and download that information to the Picasa application (Tools-> Download Name Tags from Picasa Web Albums). Logging in also means you can use your Google contacts list when tagging people. Geotagging is much easier in 3.5. In the Places panel, a Google map displays the locations of your geotagged photos. Picasa will automatically create an album for each person you tag. To add location information to a photos, you can search directly in the panel and add a pin, or drag and drop an image or images onto the map from your library.

It's now possible to upload images directly to Picasa Web Albums from your camera, iPhone, or memory card. Picasa's import features have also been greatly improved. Before importing you can choose which images to include or exclude. This update is for both Mac and PCs, and is the first Mac version of Picasa to drop the beta label. For example, you could opt to upload all of the images to your hard drive, but only starred images to the Web.

Nortel enterprise customers will be able to buy the company's current line of products for 12 to 18 months after Avaya officially takes ownership of Nortel's enterprise division that it won at auction for $900 million. Support for Nortel gear will continue throughout that transition, an Avaya spokesperson says. Slideshow: The rise and fall of Nortel    After that period, Avaya says it will have a migration path laid out that customers can follow to bring themselves into Avaya's official product line.

Because the two companies' products overlap, some analysts think the deal was more about customers than it was technology. Regardless of the migration path, Avaya says it will honor three- to five-year product support for all customers. Task forces from both companies will be tapped to figure out what products make the most sense to keep and which ones need to be merged. The company says the product road map for the expanded Avaya will be ready 30 days after the deal is officially closed. The contracts in question extended to Verizon customers through its services business.

Avaya says it will honor all Nortel's service contracts including those that Verizon claimed in a legal filing would be canceled. Verizon sought last week to get Avaya removed from the auction for Nortel's enterprise division. The customers will receive service," an Avaya spokesperson says. The last-minute appeal claimed Avaya intended to toss out the contracts and that would result in national security issues because some of the gear was supplied to critical governmental agencies. "We intend to fulfill the contract that is the subject of their filing. Long term Avaya says it will rely on its Aura Session Manager platform to unify customers' Session Initiation Protocol-based communications gear into a single system. Because Avaya Aura is compatible with Nortel's open architecture, customers will be able to build multi-vendor environments without requiring a swap-out to all-Avaya equipment.

Aura already supports Nortel gear as well as products from major VoIP vendors Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Mitel, NEC, Nortel, ShoreTel and Siemens. As for R&D, Avaya says the Nortel and Avaya resources are complementary enough to help the combined company bring new products to market more quickly.

Bharti Airtel, India's largest mobile services company, said Wednesday that it had called off talks for an alliance with MTN Group of South Africa. The South African government, which views MTN as a national champion, has insisted on keeping MTN's separate identity, according to reports. The South African government did not approve the proposed alliance's structure, Bharti Airtel said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Perhaps to avoid government objections, the talks between the companies were described as leading to a partnership, though a merger at a later date was not ruled out. The broad structure discussed had taken into account the sensibilities and sensitivities of both companies and their countries, including ensuring continuity of business in areas such as management, brand and stock listing, Bharti said. The period for exclusive talks between the companies was scheduled to end Wednesday, after two earlier extensions. The companies said in May that a full merger between them was a broad strategic objective, as soon as it was practicable, indicating that the immediate focus of the talks was on a loose partnership and cross-investments between the two companies. Together the two companies would have US$20 billion in revenue and 200 million customers, Bharti Airtel said in May. Under the terms for an arrangement announced in May, Bharti Airtel was to acquire 49 percent shareholding in MTN, while MTN and shareholders would acquire a 36 percent economic interest in Bharti Airtel through a stock and cash deal.

Under the arrangement, Bharti Airtel would have substantial and governance rights in MTN, enabling it to fully consolidate the accounts of MTN. Bharti Airtel would be the primary vehicle for the expansion of both Bharti Airtel and MTN in Asia, while MTN would focus on expansion in Africa and the Middle East. Dual listing of companies in India and another country is not allowed by Indian rules, which only allow depository receipts of Indian companies to be listed abroad under specific conditions. The South African government is said to have insisted on a dual listing of the combined entity after a merger, in order to protect the identity of MTN as a South African entity, according to informed sources. This is the second time that alliance talks between Bharti Airtel and MTN fell through over the structure of the combined entity. Bharti will continue to explore international expansion opportunities, the company said in its statement on Wednesday.

Bharti Airtel, which has Singapore Telecommunications as a key shareholder, said last year that earlier talks fell through after disagreement on the structuring of the deal, particularly MTN's insistence that Bharti Airtel should be a subsidiary company of MTN after the deal. It hoped that the South African government would review its position on the proposed structure and allow the two companies an opportunity to re-engage.