Cisco gets social
Cisco Systems Inc. is continuing to buy its way into social networking, acquiring some assets of the company that operates Tribe.net while letting the site remain independent. Cisco announced this month that it bought selected assets of Utah Street Networks Inc., a seven-person San Francisco company founded in 2003. It did not acquire Tribe.net, a social-networking site that has been overshadowed by the success of big names such as Friendster, Facebook and News Corp.’s MySpace. With the purchase, Cisco gets a proprietary software infrastructure that Utah Street has used to create and maintain online communities on Tribe.net.
ex-emc exec is new mcafee ceo
McAfee Inc.’s board of directors this month named former EMC Corp. executive Dave DeWalt as the security software company’s chief executive officer and president. DeWalt, 42, takes the helm of a company tainted by allegations surrounding backdating of stock options by former executives. DeWalt is a 20-year veteran of the technology industry. David Fuller, McAfee’s interim president and CEO, will leave that job April 1, a day before DeWalt takes over. Fuller will stay as an advisor to help with the transition and will remain on the board. Fuller stepped in as interim chief in October 2006 following the resignation of George Samenuk as chairman and CEO and Kevin Weiss as president. They left following allegations that they were involved in improperly backdating stock options to McAfee executives.
Sc turns down ebbers appeal
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Bernard Ebbers, former CEO at WorldCom, will remain in prison to serve out his 25-year sentence. The court turned down an appeal by Ebbers on March 5 without comment. The appeal was based on Ebbers’ belief he did not receive a fair trial because potential defense witnesses were not offered immunity as were prosecution witnesses. In July, he had to report to prison after a U.S. Court of Appeals upheld his original conviction, handed down in September 2005.