Intel and Ericsson are offering to protect lost or stolen laptops by sending an SMS (Short Message Service) to the laptop will render it useless to thieves.

The two companies said Thursday that they are making Ericsson's mobile broadband modules — which add built-in support for HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) to laptops — interoperable with Intel's Anti-Theft PC Protection Technology, which is a part of the Intel Centrino 2 with vPro package.

[ Related: Lenovo recently announced a similar service that disables laptops with text messages | Get the latest on mobile developments with InfoWorld's Mobile Report newsletter. ]

Adding support for mobile networks increases the usefulness of Intel's Anti-Theft PC Protection Technology, according to Johan Falk, Strategic Relationship Management at Intel.

For the collaboration to yield useful results the work has to be integrated into what Ericsson calls a theft management service, which will become available during the second half of next year.

The service will be able to send an SMS to the mobile broadband module inside the notebook, which then securely transfers the message to Intel's Anti-Theft function inside the processor, which takes appropriate actions.

The service will also be able to take advantage of built-in GPS (Global Positioning System) support in the Ericsson mobile broadband module. The location function can, for example, be used to lock the computer when it moves outside a predefined area.

Here the two companies are working with Phoenix Technologies and Absolute Software.

The existing version of Computrace for Intel Anti-Theft PC Protection from Absolute Software can remotely delete data, using customized commands that target specific files or wipes the device clean, before disabling the computer.

Currently, it works with select Lenovo ThinkPad T400 models.

In February, Lenovo became Ericsson's first mobile broadband module customer. Since then, Dell and Toshiba have also signed up.

DRAM makers are facing one of the worst downturns in their history, and governments around the world are lining up to help companies through the mess.

Taiwan, Germany, and South Korea all appear poised to offer some assistance to their DRAM chipmakers. The need could not be greater. Long before the global financial crisis hit, DRAM makers suffered steep sales declines due to a glut of their chips.

[ Learn more about how the financial crisis is affecting IT and the high-tech industry, plus what IT can do to help, in InfoWorld's special report. ]

DRAM prices are now at rock bottom and companies are cutting back production instead of making more chips at such steep losses. The next few weeks will be the best time in years to buy new DRAM.

But for DRAM companies and governments, problems have worsened. A few of these heavily indebted chipmakers are running out of cash, and whereas a company failure would help rivals by wiping out some excess production and boosting prices, it could also have broader economic repercussions for the banks and investors that supported them.

"This industry is going through a critical stage," said Ben Tseng, a vice president at Taiwanese DRAM maker ProMOS Technologies.

"DRAM is a very important part of the PC industry supply chain," he added. Every PC requires several of the chips to store programs and data as they're being used. More DRAM is made every year than any other kind of chip in the world, so much so that the chips are traded on global spot markets just like commodities such as oil and gold.

The chipmakers' problems are indicative of global woes. Easy lending terms and a bright view of the future prompted them to build too many new DRAM factories. Much of the new output was aimed at Microsoft's Windows Vista OS. The OS requires more memory per PC than older OSs, and DRAM companies hoped Vista would be a blockbuster, sending people scurrying to buy new laptops and PCs or to upgrade memory in existing machines.

But those hopes faded as Vista sales failed to meet expectations. A new reality set in. Without strong PC sales to soak up all the excess DRAM pouring out of new factories, chip prices plummeted and companies started losing money.

The financial crisis has added to DRAM misery by making loans harder to come by and prompting some creditors to ask for early debt repayment. Now the situation appears to be further worsening because economic woes in many countries are causing consumers to rein in spending, particularly on PCs, where most DRAM chips end up.

"The first quarter is likely to be the worst first quarter for the PC in its history," said Jenny Lai, analyst at CLSA Asia Pacific Markets in Taipei. She estimates that unit PC shipments will likely decline 20 to 25 percent in the first quarter.

Such a decline would spell disaster for some DRAM makers.

Taiwanese DRAM companies have been posting losses since around the middle of last year. Total losses this year for the five biggest memory chipmakers hit NT$94.8 billion ($2.85 billion) as of the end of the third quarter.

Germany's Qimonda AG made a net loss of €1.48 billion ($1.95 billion) in the nine months to June 30, and has delayed latest quarterly earnings report pending a hoped-for deal with the German state government of Saxony. The company will run out of cash in the first quarter of next year unless it finds new investors or a strategic partner, or the DRAM industry takes a turn for the better, it said.

There are no signs of a DRAM price upturn on the horizon.

DRAM makers globally have already shut down older factories; reduced production; and asked employees to take unpaid leave, early retirement, or salary cuts to help stem losses.

The spot price of the most popular DRAM, 1Gb DDR2 (double date rate, second generation) chips that run at 667MHz, had fallen to $0.59 per chip on Friday, according to online clearinghouse DRAMeXchange Technology. The price is well below the estimated $1.30 to $1.50 it costs to make each chip.

"December is guaranteed to be even weaker as seasonal demand all but stops from the second week, and January 2009 will not be much of an improvement," said Gartner in its Semiconductor DQ Monday report this week.

In Taiwan, ProMOS faces the most severe cash crunch and on Wednesday said it had applied to the government for relief. The company is not alone. The government estimates that Taiwanese DRAM makers have borrowed NT$400 billion to NT$420 billion ($12.18 billion to $12.62 billion) from local banks to fund new factories.

The huge amount of loans has made DRAM an even bigger dilemma for Taipei. Allowing DRAM makers to fail could have serious consequences for banks on the island as well.

Taipei last month launched a task force headed by top government officials, including the vice president and premier, to figure out how best to deal with the problem. Direct cash injections have been ruled out in favor of low-interest loans and other forms of support.

"I would say there is more or less a near consensus," said ProMOS's Tseng, but he quickly added that his company is not asking for free money.

"We are asking for access to loans," he said. "This is not a handout. The government will get paid back."

Eric Tang, a vice president at Taiwan's largest DRAM maker, Powerchip Semiconductor, said a plan to defer payments on loan principal would be enough for his company, and added that "we welcome any financial assistance the government can provide."

South Korean memory chipmaker Hynix Semiconductor faces a situation less dire than its Taiwanese and German counterparts, but needs cash nevertheless.

The company asked creditors for and received a pledge for additional loans of up to 800 billion Korean won ($590.2 million). Failure to gain this injection may bring in direct government aid, South Korean Minister of Knowledge Economy Lee Youn-ho told reporters in Seoul.

The situation for Hynix is politically sensitive.

The company received a multi-billion-dollar bailout in the form of loans from South Korean government-backed banks in 2001-2002 that led to anti-competition tariffs from the U.S., E.U., and Japan. The tariffs had little real impact on Hynix and have mostly been lifted, but many companies at the time grumbled that, had Hynix failed, the DRAM industry overall would have returned to health because, minus Hynix's output, DRAM prices might have rebounded.

Trade sanctions are less likely this time around because governments around the world are talking about bailouts for a variety of industries, such as the U.S. with its automakers. But Hynix is proactively stating that the loans are coming from creditors, not the government. Creditors, though, include banks from the previous bailout.

The future of the DRAM industry, beyond bailouts, appears to be a sticking point, at least in Taiwan.

DRAM makers have already lost billions of dollars, yet with worsening global economic growth and slowing PC sales, it's not clear when the DRAM market will revive. Officials in Taipei say they're trying to determine how much money its companies will need and how long the funds will sustain them, assuming a bad economy. The government hopes to avoid putting money into a company that may end up failing anyway.

Analysts say that the failure of one or two DRAM makers could lift chip prices, but that prices may not make a sustainable recovery until PC demand revives. And a revival in PC demand in the current environment is seen as plain wishful thinking.

DRAM makers are facing one of the worst downturns in their history, and governments around the world are lining up to help companies through the mess.

Taiwan, Germany, and South Korea all appear poised to offer some assistance to their DRAM chipmakers. The need could not be greater. Long before the global financial crisis hit, DRAM makers suffered steep sales declines due to a glut of their chips.

[ Learn more about how the financial crisis is affecting IT and the high-tech industry, plus what IT can do to help, in InfoWorld's special report. ]

DRAM prices are now at rock bottom and companies are cutting back production instead of making more chips at such steep losses. The next few weeks will be the best time in years to buy new DRAM.

But for DRAM companies and governments, problems have worsened. A few of these heavily indebted chipmakers are running out of cash, and whereas a company failure would help rivals by wiping out some excess production and boosting prices, it could also have broader economic repercussions for the banks and investors that supported them.

"This industry is going through a critical stage," said Ben Tseng, a vice president at Taiwanese DRAM maker ProMOS Technologies.

"DRAM is a very important part of the PC industry supply chain," he added. Every PC requires several of the chips to store programs and data as they're being used. More DRAM is made every year than any other kind of chip in the world, so much so that the chips are traded on global spot markets just like commodities such as oil and gold.

The chipmakers' problems are indicative of global woes. Easy lending terms and a bright view of the future prompted them to build too many new DRAM factories. Much of the new output was aimed at Microsoft's Windows Vista OS. The OS requires more memory per PC than older OSs, and DRAM companies hoped Vista would be a blockbuster, sending people scurrying to buy new laptops and PCs or to upgrade memory in existing machines.

But those hopes faded as Vista sales failed to meet expectations. A new reality set in. Without strong PC sales to soak up all the excess DRAM pouring out of new factories, chip prices plummeted and companies started losing money.

The financial crisis has added to DRAM misery by making loans harder to come by and prompting some creditors to ask for early debt repayment. Now the situation appears to be further worsening because economic woes in many countries are causing consumers to rein in spending, particularly on PCs, where most DRAM chips end up.

"The first quarter is likely to be the worst first quarter for the PC in its history," said Jenny Lai, analyst at CLSA Asia Pacific Markets in Taipei. She estimates that unit PC shipments will likely decline 20 to 25 percent in the first quarter.

Such a decline would spell disaster for some DRAM makers.

Taiwanese DRAM companies have been posting losses since around the middle of last year. Total losses this year for the five biggest memory chipmakers hit NT$94.8 billion ($2.85 billion) as of the end of the third quarter.

Germany's Qimonda AG made a net loss of €1.48 billion ($1.95 billion) in the nine months to June 30, and has delayed latest quarterly earnings report pending a hoped-for deal with the German state government of Saxony. The company will run out of cash in the first quarter of next year unless it finds new investors or a strategic partner, or the DRAM industry takes a turn for the better, it said.

There are no signs of a DRAM price upturn on the horizon.

DRAM makers globally have already shut down older factories; reduced production; and asked employees to take unpaid leave, early retirement, or salary cuts to help stem losses.

The spot price of the most popular DRAM, 1Gb DDR2 (double date rate, second generation) chips that run at 667MHz, had fallen to $0.59 per chip on Friday, according to online clearinghouse DRAMeXchange Technology. The price is well below the estimated $1.30 to $1.50 it costs to make each chip.

"December is guaranteed to be even weaker as seasonal demand all but stops from the second week, and January 2009 will not be much of an improvement," said Gartner in its Semiconductor DQ Monday report this week.

In Taiwan, ProMOS faces the most severe cash crunch and on Wednesday said it had applied to the government for relief. The company is not alone. The government estimates that Taiwanese DRAM makers have borrowed NT$400 billion to NT$420 billion ($12.18 billion to $12.62 billion) from local banks to fund new factories.

The huge amount of loans has made DRAM an even bigger dilemma for Taipei. Allowing DRAM makers to fail could have serious consequences for banks on the island as well.

Taipei last month launched a task force headed by top government officials, including the vice president and premier, to figure out how best to deal with the problem. Direct cash injections have been ruled out in favor of low-interest loans and other forms of support.

"I would say there is more or less a near consensus," said ProMOS's Tseng, but he quickly added that his company is not asking for free money.

"We are asking for access to loans," he said. "This is not a handout. The government will get paid back."

Eric Tang, a vice president at Taiwan's largest DRAM maker, Powerchip Semiconductor, said a plan to defer payments on loan principal would be enough for his company, and added that "we welcome any financial assistance the government can provide."

South Korean memory chipmaker Hynix Semiconductor faces a situation less dire than its Taiwanese and German counterparts, but needs cash nevertheless.

The company asked creditors for and received a pledge for additional loans of up to 800 billion Korean won ($590.2 million). Failure to gain this injection may bring in direct government aid, South Korean Minister of Knowledge Economy Lee Youn-ho told reporters in Seoul.

The situation for Hynix is politically sensitive.

The company received a multi-billion-dollar bailout in the form of loans from South Korean government-backed banks in 2001-2002 that led to anti-competition tariffs from the U.S., E.U., and Japan. The tariffs had little real impact on Hynix and have mostly been lifted, but many companies at the time grumbled that, had Hynix failed, the DRAM industry overall would have returned to health because, minus Hynix's output, DRAM prices might have rebounded.

Trade sanctions are less likely this time around because governments around the world are talking about bailouts for a variety of industries, such as the U.S. with its automakers. But Hynix is proactively stating that the loans are coming from creditors, not the government. Creditors, though, include banks from the previous bailout.

The future of the DRAM industry, beyond bailouts, appears to be a sticking point, at least in Taiwan.

DRAM makers have already lost billions of dollars, yet with worsening global economic growth and slowing PC sales, it's not clear when the DRAM market will revive. Officials in Taipei say they're trying to determine how much money its companies will need and how long the funds will sustain them, assuming a bad economy. The government hopes to avoid putting money into a company that may end up failing anyway.

Analysts say that the failure of one or two DRAM makers could lift chip prices, but that prices may not make a sustainable recovery until PC demand revives. And a revival in PC demand in the current environment is seen as plain wishful thinking.

Intel and Ericsson are offering to protect lost or stolen laptops by sending an SMS (Short Message Service) to the laptop will render it useless to thieves.

The two companies said Thursday that they are making Ericsson's mobile broadband modules — which add built-in support for HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) to laptops — interoperable with Intel's Anti-Theft PC Protection Technology, which is a part of the Intel Centrino 2 with vPro package.

[ Related: Lenovo recently announced a similar service that disables laptops with text messages | Get the latest on mobile developments with InfoWorld's Mobile Report newsletter. ]

Adding support for mobile networks increases the usefulness of Intel's Anti-Theft PC Protection Technology, according to Johan Falk, Strategic Relationship Management at Intel.

For the collaboration to yield useful results the work has to be integrated into what Ericsson calls a theft management service, which will become available during the second half of next year.

The service will be able to send an SMS to the mobile broadband module inside the notebook, which then securely transfers the message to Intel's Anti-Theft function inside the processor, which takes appropriate actions.

The service will also be able to take advantage of built-in GPS (Global Positioning System) support in the Ericsson mobile broadband module. The location function can, for example, be used to lock the computer when it moves outside a predefined area.

Here the two companies are working with Phoenix Technologies and Absolute Software.

The existing version of Computrace for Intel Anti-Theft PC Protection from Absolute Software can remotely delete data, using customized commands that target specific files or wipes the device clean, before disabling the computer.

Currently, it works with select Lenovo ThinkPad T400 models.

In February, Lenovo became Ericsson's first mobile broadband module customer. Since then, Dell and Toshiba have also signed up.

Sun Microsystems and the OpenSolaris community on Wednesday will unveil an upgrade to the open source version of the Solaris Unix OS, OpenSolaris 2008.11. They will also reveal plans to have OpenSolaris running on a line of laptops in 2009.

Version 2008.11 of OpenSolaris follows up the first release of the product, OpenSolaris 2008.05, which came out in May. 

[ Related: A Sun executive  recently discussed the state of Solaris with InfoWorld's Paul Krill. ]

"This release adds some new functionality for our users that are deploying in production or in the datacenter," said Charlie Boyle, Sun's director of OpenSolaris marketing.

The upgrade features Distro Constructor for customizing Solaris deployments. For example, an OpenSolaris deployment intended for use with a Web server would not need storage-consuming desktop components of the OS; these could be left out of the user's customized distribution.

"This allows people to take their own custom set of packages for OpenSolaris and basically build the stack that they want. Distro Constructor takes that stack with all their software and settings and builds a new bootable [image]," Boyle said. The tool saves users from unnecessary overhead and is beneficial for update management. 

Also included is an automated "lights out" install for the OS and a tool called Time Slider, which provides a graphical interface to ZFS file system updates as well as the ability to scroll backward to get older files. Time Slider makes ZFS accessible to all users, Boyle said.

Sun is partnering with Toshiba to build OpenSolaris-based laptops. Laptops will be preconfigured with OpenSolaris. Information about model numbers and pricing for the laptops will be made available in January. 

The OpenSolaris upgrade also supports Intel's Nahalem and Xeon processors.