BEIJING

CeBIT Asia rescheduled

CeBIT, the world-famous international trade fair for information technology (IT), telecommunications, software and services, will hold its Asian event, CeBIT Asia, this year in Shanghai from April 26-29.

The event will be held five months earlier than planned.

According to Michael Hoppe, head of the CeBIT Events Worldwide of the Germany-based Hannover, said the decision was in response to the requests by many IT and telecoms companies.

The firm also wants to compete with another IT trade fair, COMDEX China, which is held annually in early April by a US-based company, Hoppe said.

CeBIT Asia 2003 was called off due to the outbreak of the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome.

It is expected more than 550 exhibitors from about 25 countries and regions will participate in the fair. The event is expected to attract 60,000.

Linux gets a boost

China's major Linux software developer, Red Flag Software Co Ltd, and Japan's Miracle Linux Corp last week announced the establishment of a strategic partnership to jointly develop low-cost enterprise Linux solutions - to be called Asianux - for the Asian market.

The partnership will focus on three major areas: The server operating environment, joint support and desktop operating system, all at Oracle's China Development Centre in Beijing.

"Our solutions will enable customers to use a server operating environment that shares one common kernel, and they can select either Red Flag or Miracle Linux product without validating each time, " said Takeshi Sato, president of Miracle Linux.

Polycom to buy Voyant

US-based Polycom Inc, the world's leader in video and voice conferencing, conference bridges and integrated web collaboration solutions, last week announced it will acquire US-based Voyant Technologies.

Voyant is the leading provider of voice conferencing and collaboration network solutions.

Polycom will acquire all of the outstanding shares and options of Voyant in exchange for approximately US$110.7 million in cash, or US$95.7 million net of the expected amount of Voyant cash to be available at the closing.

An additional US$35 million may be payable in cash or Polycom stock, at Polycom's discretion, to certain stockholders of Voyant, over a two-year period based on the successful completion of certain financial milestones relating to the sale of Voyant products.

Polycom anticipates closing the transaction during the first quarter of 2004, subject to customary closing conditions, including required regulatory approvals.

Seagate powers TCL

Seagate, the world's leading hard disc drive maker, last week announced its Momentus notebook disc drive has been selected by China's TCL to meet the storage requirements.

The tie-up with TCL will help Seagate enter the booming notebook PC market, Seagate said in a statement.

Citing industry statistics, Seagate said notebook PC shipments in China last year reached 805,000 units, up 230,000 units from the previous year.

New version of Palm OS

PalmSource Inc, the provider of the Palm operating system (OS), a leading operating system that powers next-generation mobile devices and smartphones, last week said it has shipped Palm OS 6, the next major release of its operating system, to its licensees.

Palm OS 6, shipped on December 29 is designed to meet the demands anticipated for next-generation smart mobile devices - including modularity, multitasking, memory protection, robust security and state-of-the-art multimedia capabilities, the company said in a statement.

(Business Weekly 01/13/2004 page1)