http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Health-Sciences-Group-Quest-pz-36854910...
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Health-Sciences-to-Retire-15-pz-1909310...
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Health-Sciences-Quest-Medical-pz-198939...

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By David Richards of Smarthouse.com.

Shortly after Windows Vista was launched Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
said that sales of the Vista operating system was doing "fantastic".
Now he is saying the same again for Windows 7.

Microsoft said in early 2007 that Windows Vista sold 20 million copies
in its first month, which would mean the company has sold about 40
million copies of Windows 7 since the Oct. 22 retail release.

It's "a fantastic start," Ballmer told shareholders at the company's
annual meeting on Friday. Microsoft floated the same claim about
Windows Vista when it was released -- saying it "made a splash" with
more than twice the sales of Windows XP in its first month.
Ultimately, of course, Windows Vista didn't exactly set the market on
fire.

Windows Vista was released in January 2007, coming off a year when
worldwide PC shipments were about 230 million -- making the market 70
percent bigger than when Windows XP was released. (There were 133.5
million PC shipments in 2001 according to IDC). In contrast, between
Windows Vista's release and Windows 7's debut, the PC market has grown
by only 30 percent, with current projections for 2009 somewhere in the
realm of 300 million shipments.

With Windows 7 and Mac’s Snow Leopard operating systems both
available, it’s time for Walter S. Mossberg to drop some science on
the arduous task of picking a computer. Things aren’t too different
this time around: Macs are still more expensive, though “prices on
Windows PCs are creeping upward.” And Apple’s OS X is still better
than Windows, though with the exit of dreaded Vista “Microsoft has
closed most of the gap.”

If you have the money, Mossberg writes in the Wall Street Journal, go
Mac. The “built-in software still has the edge,” the machines “usually
boot faster” and are free of “the vast majority of viruses,” and
Apple’s stores offer “a better buying experience and strong post-
purchase support.” Sure, PCs offer more variety, but bargain Windows
netbooks are scarce, and Microsoft has pulled many of its bundled
applications. Cough up the extra dough for a Mac now, and thank
yourself later.

In several years of mostly gloomy news coming out of Microsoft
headquarters in Redmond, Wash., there has been one bright spot for the
company: The enterprise portal and collaboration tool SharePoint.
While Windows sales have lagged, and the company's Internet business
is still heavily in the red, SharePoint is thriving and showing the
kind of market growth that even a start-up would envy. But the good
times may not stay around forever, particularly if Google ever makes
serious inroads into the enterprise.

Let's start off with the good news for Microsoft. In late October, the
company held its annual SharePoint conference, and it drew 8,000
attendees, up from 1,300 for the inaugural conference in 2006. Back
then, Microsoft said it had 75 million licensed SharePoint users. Last
year, Microsoft reported more than 100 million users, and total
SharePoint sales of more than $1 billion. This year, according to Jeff
Teper, Microsoft's corporate vice president for SharePoint, sales will
be over $1.3 billion, for a growth rate of more than 20%.

Given that SharePoint was first launched in 2000, when it was called
Office Server Extensions, those are pretty impressive figures -- from
zero to more than $1.3 billion in less than a decade. Steve Ballmer
has even called SharePoint "Microsoft's next big operating system."

In addition, an IDC report issued in October found that 53.4% of IT
professionals in its survey said their companies have already deployed
SharePoint, 62.2% have already deployed it or plan to deploy it, and
70.6% have already deployed it, are committed to deploying it or will
consider deploying it.

Given all that, what could be wrong? To begin with, the IDC report
found that only 22% of employees in the companies surveyed were
actually using SharePoint. That might mean that it might be
"shelfware" -- software purchased but not used. If that's the case,
growth might be a thing of the past.

The IDC report also found that companies that use SharePoint team
sites for collaboration have a difficult time managing content on the
sites -- 54.2% say that doing so is a tremendous challenge. That means
that if simpler alternatives were available, SharePoint could be at
risk.

Then, of course, there's Google, which continues to target the
enterprise. Although Google Docs doesn't do nearly what SharePoint
does, it still allows for basic collaboration. And Google has released
a very early version of a more sophisticated tool, Google Wave, which
is clearly aimed at workgroup, departmental and long-distance
collaboration.

There is some evidence that Google is making some headway. Google
claims that Google Apps is being used at 2 million companies, with 20
million active users. Recently, Google signed a five-year $7.25
million deal with the city of Los Angeles for Google Docs.

This isn't to say that SharePoint faces an imminent threat. Google
Docs is still a crude collaboration tool compared to SharePoint.
Google Wave may be innovative, but it doesn't offer nearly all of the
kinds of collaboration that SharePoint does. And Google, despite some
headway, still hasn't seriously cracked the enterprise market. As for
a simpler collaboration tool, no serious competitor has yet
materialized.

So for now it's full speed ahead for SharePoint. Microsoft is
expanding its use, pushing the company's Business Productivity Online
Suite by lowering its price and introducing it into 15 more countries
-- and SharePoint is included in that suite.

But Microsoft knows better than any company that market dominance can
quickly fade. There was a time, after all, when WordPerfect was the
dominant word processor, and Netscape the most popular browser. So
Microsoft would do well to hold off on the champagne. If Google Docs
and Google Wave ever take off, SharePoint could eventually be at risk.

I used to see Mac users as a kind of religious cult. The first thing
that made me start doubting my position was the Apple iPod. I bought
my first one when it first came out. I loved it. Simple, elegant, and
very cool. I thought, Maybe this is why the Macophiles are so zealous
about their machines. Since that time, I have bought a few more iPods
for my daughters. I even upgraded mine after the first one was lost.
(My wife still thinks I lost it on purpose. I’m sticking to my
original story.) I am still impressed by this device. It’s a joy to
use.

When my daughter, Mary, was preparing to leave for college this past
fall, to my own surprise, I recommended that she consider getting a
Mac laptop. Startled, she looked at me and exclaimed, “Dad, are you
kidding me? I thought you hated Macs!”

I was a little embarrassed, like a religious inquirer who was suddenly
accused of being an actual convert. Yikes. Not so fast. I’m not one of
them! Regardless, I bought a Mac PowerBook G4 for Mary and spent a few
delicious hours getting her e-mail and printer set-up. Just like the
iPod, it was a delight to use.

I thought, This is fine for Mary, but there’s no way I can even
consider switching. For starters, I have too big of an investment in
PC software. But I could tell my defenses were breaking down.
Nevertheless, I honestly didn’t think about it again. Until today.

This morning after church, I went to a Board Meeting for a new startup
company called The Orthodox Project. Joel Smith, my good friend and
the entrepreneur who started the company, made a presentation on a
Mac, using a package from Apple called Keynote. Oh my gosh! Have you
seen this?

I am not easily impressed, especially by anything that resembles
PowerPoint. Even though I use the software extensively, I sometimes
wonder if we would be better off if PowerPoint was banned from
corporate meetings. The bullets and transitions are so predictable.
They often end up as a substitute for genuine thinking. Like someone
said to me in a meeting last week, “Start-up a PowerPoint presentation
and the average IQ of the room drops by 10 points.” I’m afraid he
might be right.

But Keynote is different. First starters, the slides are beautiful.
The rendering of the type is extraordinary, like a high-quality
printed piece. (I since learned that this is a function of Mac OS X.)
The transitions were especially cool, graceful, and seamless. The
closest thing I have seen to this is PowerPlug Transitions, but it has
always seemed a little too self-conscious, like too much cologne or a
drum track that is too loud. Keynote’s transitions on the other hand
are elegant and understated.

I asked Joel if Apple made a version for Windows, like they did with
iTunes. He said he didn’t think so. Still, I left the meeting hoping
he was wrong. Unfortunately, he wasn’t. I went to Apple’s Web site as
soon as I got home. If you want to get a quick feel for how this
software leapfrogs PowerPoint, take a look at the winners of Keynote’s
recent design contest.

This is the first software that has made me seriously consider buying
a Mac for myself. No, I’m not ready to switch computers. I do have too
big an investment—both in software and know-how—to consider switching.
But I just might be able to justify buying a Mac for presentations. In
my job, I make lots of them, so it might just be worth it. As you can
tell, the process of rationalizing the purchase has already begun.

See more at: www.apple.com/iwork/keynote/

By Asavin Wattanajantra of IT Pro.

The release of Windows 7 doesn’t herald an improvement in computer
security, simply because criminals are targeting other programs that
the operating system has to run, according to security experts.

In an interview with IT PRO, Panda Security technical director Luis
Corrons said that the new operating system will not make the slightest
bit of difference in the never-ending battle against malware.

Corrons said that a few years ago the security of Windows itself might
have been the problem, and that’s what hackers would target. Now
criminals were looking less at Windows and more at applications it
will run, such as Adobe Reader and Flash, as well as browsers.

“At first going after the operating system made sense, such as with
Windows 95/98... They had security holes and had no automatic updates
that you have now," he said.

“Since Windows XP, automatic updates have been turned on by default.
Everyone gets an update as soon as Microsoft releases it," he added.
"So [criminals] have started to focus on different products that you
have running on your computer.”

Corrons said that Microsoft had a very difficult job because it had to
balance security with usability, but he did say that the Redmond
company had improved a lot in the last five or six years.

“Microsoft is listening to us. We give it some advice, it takes it
into account and makes the required changes,” said Corrons.

Commercial success for Windows 7 would keep or even grow Microsoft's
market share, but that this would mean it remains the main target for
cyber criminals.

“If there is one main platform, the more resources criminals will use
on it to find new holes,” he added.

Panda Security’s managing director for UK and Ireland Petter Laudin
said that no operating system could be 100 per cent secure, unless a
user decided not to access the internet at all.

Windows 7 doesn’t "wipe the slate clean"

He said that Microsoft was well aware that its older operating system
had vulnerabilities and did try to put in security features for
Windows 7. But he claimed this wasn’t what was needed to combat cyber
criminals.

“It’s not so much about technology any more. It’s just as much about
social engineering that can trick you into giving them money,
regardless of what kind of operating system you’re on,” Laudin said.

Ian Aitchison, technology director at network security company
Avocent, said that general feedback from his company’s customers
showed that Windows 7 was a “slight” improvement in terms of security,
but “wasn’t going to change the world”.

“It’s not going to make security risks go away," he said. "The jobs
and the solutions that organisations are using to manage security are
still needed."

He added: “Windows 7 doesn’t wipe the slate clean in any way at all."

Let's take a moment to outline the key components of a good
investment. Here is what I look for:

1. Economic Timing: As far as I am concerned, economic timing is the
only way to find conviction in the stock market. The basic philosophy
of economic timing is built upon the premise that you should invest in
stocks when the economy is improving and you shouldn't invest in
stocks when the economy is worsening.

I apologize to all you brilliant investors out there who utilize your
sophisticated strategies, but backtesting shows that investing really
is that simple. Those who seek to employ any other strategy are
swimming upstream.

When the economy is improving, as it is now, I am on the lookout for
the perfect growth vehicle to maximize returns. When the economy is
worsening, it is no time to expect high returns and a book like this
that suggests a stock may be on the verge of running should be put on
the shelf. (If you want a complete explanation of the economic-timing
strategy, read my book, The Alpha Hunter, set to be released by McGraw
Hill in December 2009 or sign up for my investment newsletter service
at www.economictiming.com.)

2. Market-Share Growth: Is the company gaining market share or not? If
not, my research on that particular stock won't continue and it's time
to find something else. How rigid are the barriers to entry in your
industry? Are you vulnerable to getting knocked out by competition?
These are vital questions to ask when analyzing a stock. A company
that can affirmatively answer each of these questions is a prime
candidate to be in the portfolio.

3. Price Momentum: Some stocks are stuck in a rut with no escape. You
do not want to own one of these. I know of many stocks that have
traded within a narrow range for 10 years or more. With such a small
chance for upside potential, the threat is always looming of being
blindsided to the downside.

For this reason, I don't like having these "tapped out" stocks in my
portfolio. What causes a stock to get stuck in a rut?

Obviously, companies with no growth belong in this category, but what
about a market-share leader?

Unfortunately, most market-share leaders are not great stocks to own
because they have already reached the top. A company with nowhere to
go but down represents a bad stock pick.

4. Expectations: Wall Street has turned into a game of analysts trying
to estimate quarterly earnings data and companies striving to meet or
beat those estimates. When a company can beat expectations, the stock
benefits to the upside. The analyst community has become so
sophisticated in its methods of projecting future earnings, that it
has become more and more difficult for companies to deliver. Find a
company that consistently exceeds expectations.

5. Uncertainty: The future by definition is uncertain. Investors hate
uncertainty, and yet it is inherent in the system. So the key is to
find stocks with positive uncertainty rather than negative
uncertainty. What is positive uncertainty? Positive uncertainty arises
when a company shows a trend of innovation that leads Wall Street to
believe that more success might be around the corner.

Positive uncertainty arises when investors have a reasonable hope that
the company might surpass earnings expectations. A company that can
instill a sense of hope in its shareholders based on future catalysts
to boost current output is the kind of uncertainty I look for. The
opposite of hope is fear. If I fear a coming quarter, that is not a
stock worth owning.

Now let's discuss Apple's stock-price potential for decade 2010.
Evident by the chapter title, I'm forecasting Apple to reach $500 a
share. My time frame is late 2011/early 2012 as Apple stock runs up to
its typical January earnings release.

With most forecasts, the exact number isn't nearly as important as the
direction of the call, but with Apple, I do have a specific breakdown.
Certainly, the financial crisis of 2008 derailed much of the
excitement over individual stocks, as it brought down all ships with
the broad market. But now that the economic environment is improving,
speculative capital will return to high-growth companies that are
gaining market share. Apple is one of the few companies on Wall Street
to have actually grown revenue during the recession. If it was able to
grow during the recession, what will it do now?

Here is one of my six catalysts for Apple to reach $500:

iPhone Global Market Share

More than 50% of the world's 6.7 billion people own a cell phone, yet
only 19% of the planet has access to an Internet link. This is the
digital divide that I mentioned previously. Companies such as Apple
are working to eliminate that gap by offering inexpensive mobile
devices that can surf the Web to its full capacity. Going forward, the
most important statistic for investors to track will be mobile
Internet market share. Whoever wins this battle will be king of the
new world.

It appears that Apple is winning the battle. On Sept. 30, 2009, AdMob
released data that showed the iPhone's global Web market share reached
40%. That doesn't mean that the iPhone represents 40% of all
smartphone units that are actually in the market, it means 40% of the
mobile Web traffic coming to AdMob's huge global ad network is coming
from Apple. Apple is gaining while everyone else -- Nokia(NOK Quote),
Research In Motion and Symbian -- are losing market share. In the last
six months, the iPhone has increased its mobile Web share from 33% to
40%. In North America, its share of the market is 52%. This trend is a
winner.

iSupply estimates that the smartphone market will increase from 184.2
million units in 2009 to 235.6 million units in 2010 (28% growth) to
334.1 million units in 2011 (42% growth). Smartphones still make up
only roughly 15% of the overall mobile-handset market. Within the
smartphone market, Apple's market share increased from 7.3% to 13.3%
according to data from Gartner in second quarter 2008 to 2009. Apple
sold 78% more iPhones in fiscal year 2009 over 2008. iPhone units are
tracking a path similar to the early years of the iPod.

Could the iPhone one day grow to 70% of the smartphone market? If it
did, then we would need to raise our price target to $5,000 instead of
$500. The point is, there is much upside to the current 13% global
market share among smartphones and the current 2.5% market share among
mobile phones in general.

A report by OTR Global claims that Apple has contracted to product a
UMTS/CDMA hybrid iPhone due in the third quarter of 2010 that will
operate on all carriers. That means the end of iPhone/AT&T exclusivity
domestically and it infers the end of international exclusive
distribution deals as well. The research note also identifies the new
phone as having a smaller screen than the current 3.5-inch display.

AT&T has struggled to keep up with the networking data demands of
iPhone users and as a result has kept many potential customers away
from the product. The potential of Apple releasing the iPhone through
Verizon in 2010 is a big catalyst for this stock.

My forecast is for Apple to sell an average of 14.8 million iPhones
per quarter in 2011. This equates to a total of 59.2 million iPhone
unit sales for the year or a 17.7% share of the expected 334 million
unit/year smartphone market.

See you at Apple $500.

Some people are already convinced that Google will fail with its
Chrome operating system. Others think that Chrome can't possibly be a
threat to Windows. Both groups are so, so wrong.

First, for those who think that Chrome is simply a failure from the
word go, their reasoning is pathetically flawed. Chrome will fail
because it's based on Linux they argue. What century are these people
from?

The specific complaints, such as "From power management to display
support, Linux has long been a minefield of buggy code and half-baked
device driver implementations." reveal that they're coming from people
who know nothing what-so-ever about Linux. Linux is tried and proven.

You don't have to believe me though. Just look at the world around
you. Linux rules on devices from your TiVo DVR to your Droid
smartphone to you name it. Linux kicks rump and takes names on
supercomputers, where nothing else is even competitive. And, Linux
rules stock markets where failure is never an option.

The only place where Linux hasn't been a strong competitor has been on
the desktop. There are many reasons why desktop Linux hasn't done
well; number one with a bullet has been Microsoft's desktop monopoly.
With Google's backing, however, Chrome avoids the Linux desktop's real
problems.

The other compliant that somehow the Web interface isn't sufficient
also flies in the face of reality. Google has been showing us for
years now that almost everything you can do on a computer you can do
with a Web interface. So what if the interface itself isn't ground-
breaking?

What is revolutionary here is that Google isn't trying to fight with
Microsoft in a mano-a-mano battle for the desktop. No one, especially
not Google, is claiming that Chrome OS is a direct competitor to
Windows 7. At the high-end, where power users use applications like
Autodesk or Photoshop, Chrome simply won't play.

Instead, what Google is saying that, for most users, most of the time,
Windows is obsolete. And, it's not just Windows, Google is telling us
that we don't need Office, Outlook, and all the other day-in, day-out
Windows applications either.

Google suggests that inexpensive Chrome OS devices, not Windows PCs,
are all that most people need for most of their home and office
computing. With Chrome OS devices and Web-based services, you won't
need to pay the Windows tax or buy Microsoft Office.

It's a radical approach. Google is saying sure, go-ahead and use
Windows where you have to, but, keep in mind that for your second
computer, or if you don't need high-end PC-specific applications,
Chrome OS is all you'll need.

I can see this working. Chrome OS is faster, safer, and cheaper. In
addition, unlike Windows PCs, Chrome laptops won't require monthly
maintenance to keep them running well. In short, Google is trying to
make Windows, and all the software that goes with it, obsolete for
most users, most of the time.

I like this plan. I like this plan a lot. Rather than trying to take
Windows head on, Google is using 21st century technology to re-invent
the desktop operating system and question just how important the 1980s
style desktop is today. You'll know it's working even before the first
Chrome OS netbooks appear if Microsoft revamps Windows 7 Starter
Edition to make it more fully functional and cheaper. Keep your eyes
on Chrome OS and Microsoft's reactions against it. I'll be very
interested to see how this plays out.