Fewer IT jobs were lost last year

A study released recently by the American Electronics Association (AeA) showed that in 2004 the U.S. high-tech industry lost 25,000 jobs, dropping to 5.6 million. This decline in 2004 represents a considerable slowdown in technology jobs lost, compared to the 333,000 jobs lost in 2003 and the 612,000 jobs lost in 2002.

Cyberstates 2005 found that all but four states lost high-tech jobs in 2003, the most recent year for which state data are available. California and Texas lost the greatest number of tech jobs, shedding some 67,800 and 32,900 jobs, respectively.

New York and Illinois were also among the five states that lost the most high-tech jobs. Despite these losses, California and Texas remained the leading cyberstates by employment, followed by New York and Florida. California (916,000), Texas (446,000), New York (305,000), Florida (259,000), and Virginia (244,000) led the nation in high-tech employment in 2003.

Ascender to license Japanese fonts

Chicago-based Ascender Corp. said it has licensed IBM's range of Heisei Japanese fonts. Ascender will make the Heisei fonts available for sublicensing by hardware and software developers immediately.

Under the agreement, Ascender can offer the Heisei fonts to software and hardware developers in various font formats including customized implementations and encodings. The Heisei font data ships with the standard Japanese characters sets which include Kanji and Kana (Katakana and Hiragana) characters.

There are three Japanese font styles available; Heisei Kaku, Heisei Maru Gothic and Heisei Mincho. These font styles were some of the first typefaces designated by a group of type foundries formed by the Japanese Standards Association (JSA). As a member of the JSA and as part of its commitment to support high quality typography, IBM commissioned the development of their own Heisei families to use in its products.

ITA knocks proposed software tax

In testimony before the Illinois General Assembly House Committee on Computer Technology, the Illinois Information Technology Association (ITA) urged lawmakers to vote against a new tax on software proposed by Governor Blagojevich.

A recent ITA survey of technology companies in Illinois found that leased software represents 42 percent of their revenue and that share is growing. Some companies lease software exclusively. In addition, a disproportionate share, over 50 percent, of their business is with in-state customers, meaning Illinois' technology companies will be hurt disproportionately by the new tax. As the industry moves further toward a leased software model, the impact will be heightened, according to the ITA.

Aggregate teams with Superwire

Richardson, Texas-based Superwire Inc. announced a partnership with Aggregate Networks a Chicago-based broadband finance and development firm.

The Aggregate Networks team will assist in planning and procuring financing for debt and equity to complete the infrastructure required to deliver voice, data and video to Leisure World Seal Beach (LWSB) and other communities in Southern California and Texas. LWSB is a retirement community of 8,500 residents. Services are expected to commence in summer 2005 with video services commencing no later than early 2007. This project has been valued by The Seaboard Group at between $21 million and $25 million.

ASAP works with Microsoft

Buffalo Grove-based ASAP Software, a software services provider and Microsoft reseller, is working with Microsoft Corp. to offer software asset management and deployment tools for organizations that purchase Microsoft volume licenses.

Organizations purchasing a new Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (EA) or renewing their existing EA through ASAP between now and June 30, 2005, will be eligible to receive six months free on their first year's subscription of ASAP's software and hardware asset management service, ASAP eSMART.

The eSMART program is designed to help customers more effectively understand their exact software inventory profile, make more informed decisions on what they need to buy, and then deploy the software throughout their user community. ASAP's patented eSMART solution allows any size organization to match dollars spent to actual installations of their software and hardware. Additionally ASAP's Deployment Readiness Toolkit allows customers to assess their readiness to deploy software.

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