europe

Ford of Europe will do whatever it takes to ensure the company continues to make cars, and a profit, said John Fleming, Ford of Europe Chairman and CEO.

Announcements the company made today primarily affect Ford's manufacturing operations in Germany, Spain, and its new manufacturing facility in Craiova, Romania.

The Valencia Plant in Spain will move to a two-shift pattern from May 1. Further talks will take place on how to manage the surplus labor in the short term. Longer term, two-shift versus three-shift working will depend on market demand.

Current Fiesta production will continue at Valencia, and Ford … Read more

CANNES, France--VMware will release future versions of vCenter, its flagship virtualization-management software, in Linux versions as well as for Windows, the company's chief technology officer said Wednesday.

Chief technology officer Stephen Herrod announced the move for vCenter, formerly called Virtual Center Server, in a keynote speech at the VMworld 2009 conference here.

"We have enabled vCenter Server to be installed directly on Linux," he said. VMware first said it would release a Linux versio of the management software at its last VMworld conference, in September.

"We have also released a (Linux) version of vCenter Server that … Read more

Novell and VMware have teamed up to work with software makers to develop virtual appliances based on Suse Linux Enterprise, the companies announced at the VMworld Europe 2009 conference in Cannes.

As part of the agreement, independent software vendors using VMware Studio to create virtual appliances for VMware's ESX hypervisor are being offered a "free evaluation redistribution of appliances" built on the Suse Linux Enterprise operating system, Novell and VMware said in a statement Tuesday.

In addition, the partners are helping third-party vendors to build Suse Linux Enterprise-based virtual appliances under the VMware Ready scheme, aimed at … Read more

Andy Grove wasn't in the mood to sugarcoat his words. So it was that Intel's then-CEO bluntly told Europe's elites that they were in danger of dooming the next generation to a second class future.

That was 1997. The venue was the World Economic Forum, the annual gathering of political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, where Grove was invited to share his views about the impact of technology on society. He didn't waste the moment: in a speech that bordered on turning into jeremiad, Grove warned that Europe was too slow to invest in computing … Read more

Europe is getting a cybercrime alert system as part of a European Union drive to fight online criminals.

According to plans, European law enforcement body Europol will receive 300,000 euros ($386,430) to build an alert system that pools reports of cybercrime, such as online identification and financial theft, from across the 27 member states.

Police will launch more remote searches of suspects' hard drives over the Internet, as well as cyberpatrols to spot and track illegal activity, under the strategy adopted by the European Union's council of ministers Thursday.

The strategy, a blueprint for fighting cybercrime in … Read more

Lycos Europe announced on Wednesday plans to shutter its portal and Web-hosting business and find a buyer for three other areas of its business.

The company, which last month announced a 20 percent drop in revenue to 46.9 million euros ($60.8 million) and a net loss of 17.1 million euros, said the decision was made after reviewing its strategic options for several months.

It also plans to seek a buyer for other parts of its operation: its domains, Danish portal, and shopping activities.

Investors will vote on the management proposal at the company's December 12 shareholders … Read more

According to some, "the world is a big place," while others espouse the theory that the world "gets smaller every day." While this may seem like a contradiction, it appears that now you can have your cake and eat it too. As long as you serve it on these Map Plates.

While only eight plates are available, the deliciousness of food pays no attention to borders. The pierogi you eat will be just as delicious served on Poland or plated on Spain, and if you want to have bangers and mash in France, feel free to … Read more

After many years struggling for recognition, electric cars suddenly are big news in Europe.

At the Paris auto show last month, Chevrolet, Nissan, Renault, Mitsubishi, Subaru and Smart displayed electric passenger cars. Other companies presented hybrids, battery-powered sports cars, light commercial vehicles and tiny electric city cars.

No model captured the change in attitude more dramatically than the B0 (pronounced "B zero"). The B0, a collaboration between French industrialist Vincent Bollore and the Italian design house Pininfarina, was unveiled on the Pininfarina stand alongside a Pininfarina-styled Ferrari California. The stylish, battery-powered B0 stole the attention from the Ferrari.

Adding zero

None of this would have seemed possible two years ago. But recent fuel price spikes and the threat of mandatory carbon dioxide emissions standards in Europe have led automakers to add zero-emission vehicles into their product plans.

In London, the city-center congestion charge has led to a number of tax-exempt, battery-powered commuter vehicles from start-up companies. Stockholm and Milan, Italy, also levy a congestion charge. With other cities likely to follow, automakers now are taking electric-car development much more seriously.

… Read more

People in English-speaking countries are targeted for identity fraud at twice the rate of many Europeans, according to a new study released by PayPal on Wednesday.

Ten percent of online shoppers in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada--not-surprisingly, places with high percentages of e-commerce transactions--reported being victims of identity fraud, compared with only 5 percent in France, Germany and Spain, the study conducted by Ipsos found.

The Germans had the lowest rate of identity fraud of the countries, with 3 percent reporting problems.

Meanwhile, the Germans were also found to be more cautious with their passwords. Only about … Read more