BOSTON, Sept. 30 -- Some of the greatest technology minds gathered this week in Boston to discuss innovation, yet the talk continually turned to something much more mundane: standards.

Noted luminaries ranging from a senior R&D executive at IBM to the man credited with creating the Worldwide Web agreed that standards and innovation go hand-in-hand, and that more attention needs to be paid to ensuring standards for new technologies are open.

Speaking to an audience of about 500 at the Emerging Technologies conference at MIT, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, said it's "very important" that stakeholders protect the Web from being "tripped up by software patents." And Paul Horn, senior VP of IBM Research, called open standards "critical for speedy innovation at a company, in an ecosystem, in the country."

Horn decried those who seek IP protection, at the cost of slowing innovation. "Success in R&D requires rapid flow of innovation into the marketplace. Time to market is critical." Universities that elbow aside businesses seeking to partner on R&D because of worries over IP rights strain new products, too, he said.

Berners-Lee noted that patent licensing royalties form a barrier for companies that develop new technology. "You could never find out what patent could possibly apply to what technology," he said.

Berners-Lee now directs the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an open forum of companies and organizations that develop Web standards. W3C advocates a royalty-free standards policy for patent licensing.

Most of the technology discussion over the two-day event centered on software advancements - and, as in the case of standards, potential hurdles. While there was talk of nanotechnology and outsourcing - with speakers brushing aside concerns over regional job loss as a natural result of bringing lower cost product to market, what the conference didn't cover in depth was potential new manufacturing techniques.

Solectron's Q4 Loss Narrows
10-01-2004

by Mike Buetow

MILPITAS, CA, Sept. 28 -- Solectron Corp. saw its fiscal fourth-quarter loss narrow on a strong increase in sales. The company reported a loss of $2.4 million on sales of $3 billion for the quarter ended Aug. 31.

Last year, the EMS maker reported a loss of $179 million on revenue of $2.44 billion. Excluding items, earnings from continuing operations were 4 cents a share in the latest period, reversing a loss of 6 cents a share, and in line with analysts' expectations and company guidance.

Solectron guided for November quarter earnings, before items, of 4 to 6 cents a share on sales of $2.9 billion to $3.1 billion.

Solectron chief executive Michael Cannon said company strength in the markets for networking equipment and set-top boxes, offset by weakness in computing, storage, wireline infrastructure and third-generation cellphones.

For the year, the company reported a loss of $168.9 million on revenue of $11.6 billion. In the same period last year, it reported a loss of $3.45 million on revenue of $9.83 billion.