Microsoft, Nortel enter into biz communications agreement
New York: Microsoft Corp has entered into a four-year agreement with Canadian company Nortel Networks Corp, to promote software as a way to simplify how workers communicate with each other.

Under the agreement, the companies will develop traditional business phone systems into software, with Microsoft unified communications software platform and Nortel software products to provide further advanced telephony functionality.

The four-year agreement can be extended, under which the companies will license some of each other's intellectual property and deploy the other's technologies in their corporate networks.
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NY Times to shut down plant, slash 1,050 jobs
New York: In a major cost cutting operation the New York Times will reduce the size of its pages making them one and half inches narrower in 2008 according to a report in the paper.

The newspaper will also cut 1,050 jobs, including 800 positions at a New Jersey printing plant whose workload will shift to another in New York City. The moves are estimated to save $42 million per year.

The executive editor of the newspaper Bill Keller said the size reduction would lead to a loss of 11 per cent of the space devoted to news, but the newspaper would add pages to make up for about half of that loss.

The report cited rising newsprint costs and shifting of readers and advertising revenue to the Internet as reasons for the move.

The change in size is slated to go into effect in April 2008, accompanied by a phased-in redesign of the paper. The consolidation of printing operations will enable the company to avoid about $50 million in capital improvements at the New Jersey facility, but it will cost about $150 million to expand the other operation.
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Boeing wins order for two 787 Dreamliners
Farnborough: US plane maker Boeing has won two orders worth $306 million, for its long-haul 787 Dreamliner from Pegasus Aviation Finance Company. The latter company, which leases planes to airlines, has also agreed to buy four mid-sized 787s from Blue Panorama of Italy. It will lease the aircrafts back to Panorama. The 787 Dreamliner is set to go head-to-head with the Airbus A350 XWB unveiled yesterday as an extra-wide and fuel efficient long-haul passenger jet. Pegasus will take hold of its six 787s from 2009.
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