Benchmarks Last Week

November 19, 2007 (Computerworld) --

Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates led his last annual shareholders’ meeting as a full-time employee. Gates plans to give up his day-to-day role next July but will continue as chairman. Adobe Systems Inc. said that CEO Bruce Chizen will step down when its 2007 fiscal year ends Nov. 30. Shantanu Narayen, who is currently Adobe’s president, will replace Chizen. 40 YEARS AGO: Teletype Corp. announced a page printer that could print as many as 1,200 words per minute using electronically controlled jets of ink.

Q&A: Eyeing IT spin-offs through an R&D lens

David Tennenhouse, a former research and development director at Intel and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, talks in an interview about his new job as a venture capitalist.

Short Takes

Brief IT news items.

Oracle Claims Early Wins in Battle With Red Hat

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison told an audience at the OpenWorld user conference that the company now provides Linux support to 1,500 users, a significant boost to its effort to challenge Red Hat.

Paglo unveils free IT infrastructure search engine

An IT search engine start-up said it will soon launch beta software that will allow businesses to scour and search all of the IT data from their networks, computers and security systems from a free, Web-based application.

Opinion: Preparing for XBRL Reporting and Beyond

XBRL technology has an advantage over XML in financial reporting.