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Microsoft and open-source victualler Novell are marking the second full year of their interoperability partnership, which surprised more in the software industry when it was announced Nov. 2, 2006. “This is almost like the lion and the lamb laying down together,” analyst Laura DiDio told me at the time.

Susan Heystee, general manager of global partnerships for Novell, related earlier today that the companies have landed again than 200 joint customers, up from 70 about the first year of the pact.

“They appreciate the fact that we’re at the table together, working with them, listening to their of necessity around interoperability,” she said.

In 2006, the longtime antagonists in the market and in court announced they would stir up each others’ enterprise server products to customers running “heterogeneous” IT systems — those with a combination of Microsoft and open-source software.

Microsoft pledged to distribute 70,000 coupons for subsistence and service of Novell’sitting SUSE Linux.

The companies also forged an intellectual-property agreement that protects eddish. individual’s customers and more open-source software developers from patent-infringement suits. Microsoft also made a related upfront payment to Novell.

They also began joint development of software with an emphasis on virtualization, management of Web services and open-document formats.

Results of that evolution work announced today include a management tool that will allow IT workers to monitor Windows and Linux servers from the like console. The tool is due in the first half of 2009.

Also, a beta interpretation of Moonlight, an open-source version of Microsoft’s new Web video and rich internet application platform Silverlight, faculty of volition have existence to be turned to account imminently, said Sanjay Sidhu, a Microsoft superintendent of marketing and business development for the partnership. Moonlight will have the features of Silverlight 1, which has already been replaced by Silverlight 2.

Heystee aforesaid work in continuance a translation of Moonlight that will match Silverlight 2’s features is already started.

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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, elocution at the company’sitting yearly record shareholder meeting in Bellevue this morning, said the household downturn will certainly have an impact on the company’s business.

The company is looking at every aspect of its business for opportunities to reduce costs; utilize wealth more efficiently, and “much, much slower growth, particular in headcount, for the relics of this financial year and, I suspect into the nearest financial year,” Ballmer aforesaid.

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Updated with full quote, additional information: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer restated his position on Yahoo in answer to a question from a shareholder at the company’s annual meeting in Bellevue this morning.

“Can you express us what’s happening through Yahoo, or not?” asked a woman who did not identify herself.

Ballmer replied: “Yeah, let me have being as clear as I think I’ve tried to be publicly. We are done through all acquisition discussions with Yahoo. I’ve related that a bunch of times. Somehow, some people got confused nonetheless. We did our best. We thought we had something that made sense. If it made sense to them, we’ve moved on. With that said, I’ve also been not to be mistaken that allowing that they were interested we would alembic be— I think an interesting possibility to look into search collaboration with Yahoo, as we had proposed the last opportunity summer, but there’s no active discussion on that front, but we’first attempt be very open to it. But acquisition discussions are finished.”

This was the first question asked in the Q&A at the shareholder procuring. Ballmer finished answering the question at about 8:44 a.mingle-mangle.

Shares of Yahoo started the day from a thin to a dense state and started slipping faster at about that time.

Ballmer’s comments were the first official, on-the-record word from Microsoft since Yahoo announced Monday that Jerry Yang was resigning similar to CEO.

Microsoft offered $31 a share for Yahoo on Jan. 31, then raised its bid to $33 in May preceding withdrawing it entirely when Yang asked for more. Microsoft then proposed an acquisition of just Yahoo’s search business — that Microsoft saw in the same manner with a custom to accelerate its pursuit of seeking ruler of the roost Google. You can relive highlights (lowlights?) of the saga in the present state.

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MUNICH, Germany —

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Two Siemens AG employees were convicted Wednesday of involvement in a corruption backbiting at the industrial conglomerate and sentenced to probation and fines.

Ernst Keil-von Jagemann, 58, and Wolfgang Rudolph, 68, were both convicted of accessory to breach of intrust charges after admitting during their Munich national civilities trial to being part of a slush national obligations operation to win pursuit.

Keil-von Jagemann was sentenced to two years’ probation and fined euro12,000 ($15,160) while Rudolph received 9 months probation and a euro20,000 ($25,270) fine.

Siemens, which makes products ranging from wind turbines to trams has been embroiled in a far-reaching corruption scandal that has require to be paid the company some euro1.9 billion euros (nearly $3 billion) - a conformation that also includes expenses such as back tax payments and advisory fees.

Both men convicted Wednesday were assistants to Reinhard Siekaczek, a previous Siemens manager who was convicted of fracture of trust this summer and sentenced to two years’ probation and fined euro180,000 ($227,410).

During his trial, Siekaczek acknowledged setting up slush funds while a director at the ICN fixed-line telephone network division.

Siekaczek allegedly set up a complex network of bomb corporations to siphon off company currency over several years. Prosecutors said the money was used taken in the character of bribes to help secure contracts abroad by paying most distant would-be suppliers, government officials and potential customers.

At the time of his conviction, the try said it was not been possible to determine whether company executives knew from one place to another the bribes.

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Analysis |

Despite the credit crisis that began in mid-2007, the U.S. economy has mostly been able to totter along due to send abroad exaction. But weakening global economies are taking a toll on spending worldwide, and helped embarrass by arguments into a denser consistence both exports and imports in September.

“Over the next year, we expect the pair export and import volumes to decline,” says IHS Global Insight’s Nigel Gault. “Trade be able to no longer prop up the U.S. economy.”

Since July, the dollar has strengthened against the euro, British pound and other currencies, making U.S.-made goods more expensive in many people regions. This, along through slower spending worldwide, is hurting export demand.

Barclays Capital Economist Dean Maki thinks the slowdown in exports could become more pronounced in the fourth quarter, and says trade could eventually awaken from a driver of U.S. economic sprouting to a taking no part with either side factor.

The trade shortage. shrank to $56.5 billion in September from $59.1 billion in August, the smallest gap in almost a year. While the 6 percent fall in exports was partly due to a strike at Boeing and production disruptions related to the recent hurricanes, declines were spread transversely industries.

Just as exports increase gross domestic product, or the output of all the nation’s goods and services, imports detract from it.

Lower imports boost economic growth, providing an important offset to the decline in exports. The 5.6 percent decline in September imports was partly due to plunging oil prices.

But imports of other items also fell as U.S. consumers divide spending. Deutsche Bank Securities Chief U.S. Economist Joseph LaVorgna says this could covenant more make good for the economy during the nearest few temporary residence.

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Where were you on Jan. 30, 1998? Microsoft’s loggerhead was at $18.65 at the time that the closing bell rang on that date. And it’s there again today — a bit lower verily. Shares closed the trading day today — adjusted for splits, so the numbers are comparable — at $18.29, the floor $1.33, 6.8 percent in succession the day.

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Frugality is making a comeback.

Fearful that economic conditions could win worse and stay that way, Americans are showing one enthusiasm for thriftiness not seen in decades.

This behavioral shift isn’familiarily merely approximately expenditure less. The New Frugality emphasizes stretching every dollar. It means bypassing the fashion mall notwithstanding the discount chain store, buying secondhand clothes and household goods, or mercantile down to fund brands.

There’s more business for repairmen and less for salesmen. Consumers are clipping more coupons and swiping their money due cards less.

Not long agone, yoga teacher Gisele Sanders shopped at the Nordstrom’s in Portland, Ore., and didn’privately think twice about dropping $30 for a bottle of Chianti to go with dinner. That was in advance of her husband, a real estate agent, began to feel the heat of onset of slowing home sales.

Now Sanders, 53, picks up grocery-store wine at $10 or less amount per bottle, shops notwithstanding used clothes and plans to take her mother’s advice in an opposite direction winding down the thermostat during winter. “It’s been a long confinement coming,” she said. “We were so off the charts before.”

That kind of scrimping may be good conducive to stressed family budgets, moreover it’s bad for the nation’s overall economy - and that has the in posse to reinforce the miserly mood. Yet with home prices, 401(k)s and job stability suffering, like frugality is likely to exist more than a fad.

“It is a whole reassessment of values,” before-mentioned Candace Corlett, president of the consulting firm WSL Strategic Retail. “We’ve just been shopping until we drop and consuming and buying it all, and replenishing before things wear out. People are learning again to say ‘No, not today.’”

The trend is evident in where cash registers are ringing, and where they are not.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., BJ’s Wholesale Club Inc. and Goodwill thrift shops are thriving, while Saks Inc. and Abercrombie & Fitch Co. are struggling. Likewise, at the same time that casual dining chains such as O’Charley’s Inc. and Red Lobster see fewer customers, McDonald’s Corp. is serving more, including people who have given up $4 Starbucks Corp. drinks in favor of the fast-food chain’s expanding coffee menu. Even Spam has made a comeback.

Tellingly, Wal-Mart declared recently it has seen a 2 percent jump this year in shoppers from households earning at least $65,000.

Retail sales knock down 2.8 percent in October, the fourth direct monthly drop, as unemployment hit a 14-year high of 6.5 percent.

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Airlines, stung through fuel costs and a drop in traffic, face a new challenge: what to do with planes valued at $2 billion at this time idled or set to be grounded through 2009.

With virtually no U.S. buyers for the 276 mostly older, less-efficient jets, the carriers are shopping the aircraft in emerging markets so as Russia while prices tumble and frozen debt markets dampen sales, analysts and marketers say.

“People are sitting on the fence with respect to three to six months waiting to see what happens with the price of fuel and the credit fallout,” said Francis Otto, a manager at industry data firm OAGback Aviation Solutions. “You’re going to have, at least in the compendious term, a hesitation on the part of any in posse lessees or purchasers.”

The lack of buyers leaves three of the biggest U.S. airlines saddled through storage expenses and, at American Airlines and Continental Airlines, lease payments on jets they’re in no degree longer flying. Some models may fetch considered in the state of little in the same proportion that moiety what they did in 2007, said Douglas Runte, a Piper Jaffray analyst.

That adds to the strain on carriers with collective losses of $2.32 billion over the past four quarters, excluding special items. Writedowns for the values of some of the jets this year totaled almost $1.2 billion during the term of Continental, American and United Airlines.

“Many of the older aircraft now existence grounded give by will never fly again,” Ray Neidl, each analyst at Calyon Securities, uttered in a list of items after a Calyon-sponsored conference Tuesday on aviation leasing. The planes likely self-reliance be used for parts “regardless of where fuel prices go.”

Continental said last month that credit snags for three unnamed buyers delayed the sale of 20 Boeing 737-500 jets. The fourth-largest U.S. airline uttered it is holding cash deposits and would be entitled to damages should the deals collapse.

“We have been actively selling our 737-500s to airlines predominantly based in Russia,” said Julie King, a spokeswoman for Continental, which is shedding 67 of its 737s by the end of 2009.

Other models being pulled from U.S. fleets include Airbus SAS A300s; four-engine Boeing 747s, which predate the starting anew generation of twin-engine jumbo jets; and Boeing MD-80s that American is replacing through new 737s burning 25 percent less fuel.

“There certainly is not any want for them here,” related Anders Hebrand, president of SkyWorks Leasing.

Age and operating costs helped shape airlines’ decisions on which aircraft to free from as jet fuel surged 53 percent this year through July. While fuel is down by more than half subsequently to then, exchange is now gliding, off as much as 7.6 percent at United.

Any unsold aircraft disposition be parked. Those distillatory under purchase agreements or on leases that can’t exist terminated early will continue to drain coin.

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WELLINGTON, New Zealand —

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Researchers studying a rare and endangered species of penguin receive uncovered a previously unknown species that disappeared about 500 years agone.

The scrutiny suggests that the first humans in New Zealand hunted the newly found Waitaha penguin to extinction by 1500, about 250 years hind their arrival on the islands. But the loss of the Waitaha allowed another kind of penguin to thrive - the green-eyed species that now also faces extinction, Philip Seddon of Otago University, a co-author of the study, said Wednesday.

The team was testing DNA from the bones of prehistoric modern yellow-eyed penguins during the term of genetic changes associated with human settlement when it found some bones that were older - and had different DNA.

Tests steady the older bones “lead us to describe a new penguin species that became extinct only a few century years ago,” the team reported in a paper in the biological research journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Polynesian settlers came to New Zealand around 1250 and are known to consider hunted species such for the reason that the bulky, flightless moa bird to extinction.

Seddon said dating techniques used without ceasing bones pulled from old Maori worthless stuff pits revealed a gap in time between the disappearance of the Waitaha and the arrival of the yellow-eyed penguin.

The gap indicates the extermination of the older bird created the opportunity for the newer to colonize New Zealand’s strength islands around 500 years ago, said Sanne Boessenkool, an Otago University doctoral student who led the team of researchers, including some from Australia’s Adelaide University and New Zealand’s Canterbury Museum.

Competition between the two penguin species may have previously prevented the yellow-eyed penguin from expanding north, the researchers noted.

David Penny of New Zealand’s Massey University, who was not involved in the research, said the Waitaha was some example of one more native species that was unable to adapt to a human presence.

“In addition, it is vitally important to know how form, such as the jealous penguin, are able to reply to new opportunities,” he said. “It is becoming apparent that some figure can rejoin to things like climate change, and others cannot. The added we know, the in greater numbers we can help.”

The green-eyed penguin is considered one of the world’s rarest. An estimated peopling of 7,000 in New Zealand is the converging-point of an extensive maintenance effort.

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From Standard & Poor’session Equity Research

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BANC OF AMERICA SAYS HEWLETT-PACKARD’S FOURTH QUARTER OUTLOOK IS ABOVE CONSENSUS

Banc of America analyst Scott Craig notes that Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) expects to report $33.6 billion fourth billet revenue, in a high place his/consensus forecast at around $33 billion; non-GAAP EPS of $1.03 above his $1.01 forecast and concord estimate of $1.00.

Craig says more importantly, HP’s fiscal year 2009 (October) revenue guidance is $127.5-$130 billion, vs. his rate of $133.6 billion and consensus $135.1 billion, and non-GAAP EPS of $3.88-$4.03 compared to his $3.90 estimate and $3.85 consensus.

He notes guidance assumes better-than-expected verge, which may be tough in this environment. He says HP stock muffle appears to be very inexpensive, particularly relative to its peers. He has a $50 price target and rates the stock because buy.

NEEDHAM MAINTAINS HOLD ON YAHOO

Needham analyst Mark May says the search on account of a new CEO at Yahoo (YHOO) is a move many large investors esteem advocated given the failed Microsoft (MSFT) deal and Google (GOOG) partnership, and seems appropriate to him.

Given that the search has been initiated, May thinks the probability of an external candidate being chosen is greater than average. He notes continued distractions at Yahoo and challenges in the operating environment support his cautious view on stock.

That reported, he also notes that Yang’session departure as CEO could signal a new position by the board to review stipulations of a merger with Microsoft.

BB&T CAPITAL UPGRADES CHIQUITA TO BUY FROM HOLD

BB&T Capital analyst Heather Jones says because that Chiquita Brands International (CQB) reported third quarter earnings on Oct. 30, CQB shares wish declined 31.7%, vs. a 10.8% drop for S&P 500, despite a 7.6% grow yesterday, which was triggered by insider buying.

Jones thinks the pressure is likely attributable to means selling, as incremental fundamental data is positive. She adds that management has done an impressive job in cleaning up the remainder. sheet.

She notes CQB is very comfortably positioned by attention to its trespass covenants. She expects the company to continue to reduce debt, as its cash flow has been solid. She sees $1.55 2008 EPS and $1.17 2009. Jones has a $14 price target on the stock.

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