Hewlett-Packard agreed in principle on Monday to resolve the stock-options backdating suit facing Mercury Interactive, a company it acquired in 2006, for $117.5 million.

The settlement is pending and needs to be approved by the judge presiding over the case at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, HP said in a statement. The case was filed by the Mercury Pension Fund Group, a group of pension funds that hold Mercury stock, which alleged former Mercury Interactive executives improperly backdated stock options.

The settlement was six times higher than any previous backdating settlement, according to a statement from Labaton Sucharow LLP, the law firm representing Mercury Pension Fund Group.

IBM announced new software, industry solution frameworks, and partner programs to help customers use trusted information in real-time to optimize their businesses, better compete, and take advantage of emerging business opportunities.

IBM introduced the new offerings to extend its global Information on Demand initiative, which is making it possible for customers to gain a competitive advantage in their industries through new and innovative uses of trusted business information.

The offerings help customers solve some of the biggest information-related challenges affecting businesses. These include real-time delivery of information for data warehousing, data integration, and master data management. Through these products and its global business consulting expertise, IBM is providing customers with tools and techniques that significantly reduce the expense and time required to use information technologies to address industry-specific requirements. For example, IBM’s software and solutions will enable retailers to make real-time, personalized offers to customers at the point-of-sale, maximizing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and increasing sales and revenue generated per customer.

In the United States, it seems that the decades-long Lotus-versus-Microsoft battle is long over. Certainly, it is no longer news. Microsoft Excel has all but replaced Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft Office dominates corporate desktops compared with Lotus SmartSuite, and for a variety of reasons, more IT customers in the US use Microsoft Exchange and Outlook rather than Lotus Notes and Domino. But is Domino a technology belonging to the past? With 130 million licenses sold, it’s hard to make that argument. In fact, Domino is the most important alternative to Microsoft Exchange today. Messaging expert Ron Herardian makes an important case for IBM to up its marketing effort and refine its strategy.

Read this DominoPower article.

Global System Services announced its latest email migration tool, NSF2PST. The NSF2PST tool enables large-scale conversion of Lotus Notes email files ("NSF" files) to the popular Microsoft Outlook Personal Store ("PST") format. NSF2PST can be used for email migrations as well as for data recovery and computer forensics.

Existing email migration tools are complex to configure and operate, depend on access to running email servers, and involve complex "co-existence" models. Unlike most existing tools, NSF2PST works without a Notes or Domino server and can operate unattended in batch mode for fast conversion of large amounts of data. NSF2PST can also be run automatically on user workstations or by individual users to convert their own email from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook.

NSF2PST is ideal for Lotus customers using Microsoft Outlook on the desktop with Domino Servers as well as for customers migrating from Lotus Notes and Domino to Microsoft Exchange and Outlook.

The last of the 2007 Lotus Notes and Domino 8 Upgrade Seminars is being held next month in Chicago, November 14-16. If you’re evaluating or planning an upgrade to Notes Domino 8 in the next 6 months, you may want to attend this seminar. Renowned experts Rob Axelrod, Andy Pedisich, and Chris Miller identify the opportunities, risks, pitfalls, and gotchas so you can streamline and accelerate your company’s upgrade with confidence.

To address the increasing role that Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are playing in developing and executing business strategies, IBM announced the creation of the Center for CIO Leadership. The Center will bring together executive leaders, academics and other experts from around the world to build practical research and executive development initiatives focused on advancing the CIO profession.

The Center for CIO Leadership will serve as a global community for CIOs through which they can collaborate and learn in order to uncover opportunities where Information Technology will drive business value. The Center–led by Executive Director, Harvey Koeppel–will be governed by an advisory council comprised of leading CIOs as well as professors from some of the world’s most prestigious universities, including Harvard Business School, MIT and INSEAD.

IBM announced that it can help mainframe users determine exactly how much processing bang they’re getting for their power buck–and that it’s a lot higher than running those workloads on x86 servers.

The program is part of IBM’s Project Big Green, announced in May, which aims to redirect $1 billion a year to make data centers more energy efficient. IBM also announced energy consumption data it collected in August and September for roughly 1,000 mainframe customers.

Overwhelmed by email? Some professionals are fighting back by declaring email-free Fridays–or by deleting their entire in-box. About 150 engineers at chipmaker Intel will kick off "Zero Email Fridays." Email isn’t forbidden, but everyone is encouraged to phone or meet face-to-face. The goal is more direct, free-flowing communication and better exchange of ideas, Intel principal engineer Nathan Zeldes says in a company blog post.

Email-free Fridays already are the norm at cell carrier U.S. Cellular and at order-processing Relevant Products/Services company PBD Worldwide Fulfillment Services in Alpharetta, Ga. Prominent techies are tackling the problem individually by declaring "email bankruptcy"–deleting or archiving an entire in-box and starting over.

The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday to extend a moratorium on state and local taxes on Internet access. The committee approved an amendment to the Internet Tax Freedom Act, offered by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), to extend the ban four years, until November 1, 2011.

Under the ban, originally passed in 1998 and extended in 2004, the law prevents local governments from taxing "a service that enables users to access content, information, electronic mail, or other services offered over the Internet."

While the White House, Republicans, and tech-state Democrats pushed for making the ban permanent, the committee struck a compromise position, accommodating the concerns of local governments that fear that once they are permanently banned from collecting taxes, cable and telecom operators will try to add telephony Relevant Products/Services, TV, and other currently taxable services.

The reported assassination of an alleged Russian spammer is a hoax, according to security researchers. On Thursday, a blog post on the Web site Loonov.com claimed a spammer named Alexey Tolstokozhev was found murdered in a villa outside Moscow. "He has been shot several times with one bullet stuck in his head. According to authorities, this last head shot is a clear mark of Russian hit men," the post said.

The reported assassination of Tolstokozhev echoed the 2005 murder of an actual Russian spammer, Vardan Kushnir. Kushnir was found beaten to death in a Moscow apartment, prompting speculation his murder was related to his activities as a spammer. However, a police investigation later said Kushnir was killed by robbers and his death was not connected with his spam activities.