IDC says tech spend will grow

Despite gloomy forecasts from some quarters, market analyst firm IDC says tech spending will increase, IBM will indemnify customers in the SCO suit, and IT services provided to US customers through offshore labour will double in 2004.

IDC says in its annual predictions that the market will be fairly upbeat next year, with IT spending expected to grow by up to eight percent. However, IDC senior VP of research adds that confidence is shaky and a spate of bad news could halt any growth.

The report notes that the server market will see commoditisation, IT companies will start tailoring their offerings for niche markets, and the data storage market and WiFi will continue to grow.

CNET News.com reports that a US government survey has found that recordable DVDs are often incompatible with DVD drives. However, the situation appears to be improving with new models.

The US National Institute of Standards and Technology said its tests found that DVDs and DVD drives were compatible only 85 percent of the time. The problems ranged from DVDs that did not work at all, suddenly froze, or had video or audio `drop out`.

The Institute said that wile no one disc or drive was universally compatible, newer models of DVD drives did "significantly better" than the older ones.

Epson South Africa has launched a new programme called the PROfocus club designed exclusively for resellers targeting the professional graphics, CAD, photography and GIS markets.

The Epson PROfocus club is an extension of Epson`s existing general Team Epson reseller programme and will be limited to between five to ten members in South Africa.

CNET News.com reports that Internet search company Google has asked a US District Court to rule on whether its keyword-advertising policy is legal. This follows a dispute with American Blind & Wallpaper Factory over the sale of keyword-advertising within search results that appear on Google and across the Web. American Blind has insisted that Google stop selling certain keyword phrases to third parties, which the company claims violate its trademarks.

While Google had said it could block advertisers from buying keywords that directly infringe on its trademarks, including "American Blind Factory" and "DecorateToday," the company said it could not block other descriptive phrases that American Blind wished to protect, including "American wallpaper" and "American blind," according to the filing.

Computerworld reports that software vendor Symantec has issued a patch to correct problems some users had with an anti-piracy activation feature encountered when trying to install Norton AntiVirus 2004 and other Norton products.

Symantec has posted a patch that fixes the product activation problem experienced by some users of the 2004 versions of Norton AntiVirus as well as Norton SystemWorks, Internet Security, AntiSpam, Password Manager, and Personal Firewall.

Yahoo has issued a security update for Yahoo Messenger after a report of a buffer overflow vulnerability in the instant messaging client.

Yahoo said it learned of the security issue late Tuesday and issued the patch by Wednesday afternoon.

Security researcher Tri Huynh discovered the vulnerability, which could allow a malicious Web site to run code on a user`s computer.