Antivirus vendor caught 'gaming' tests; Cisco CEO steps down; Motorola to pay US$10m damages

Antivirus vendor Tencent has been caught 'gaming' independent performance tests, according to three antivirus testing organisations.

An investigation undertaken by testing labs Virus Bulletin, AV-TEST and AV-Comparatives revealed the manipulation, according to Virus Bulletin.

Virus Bulletin last week released a statement on its Facebook page regarding “Tencent products in recent Windows tests”.

“After in-depth investigations, certain optimizations have been identified in Tencent products which are clearly designed to improve their ratings in AV-TEST's performance testing. These optimizations, which have been found in all recent public versions of the products, provide minimal benefit to normal users and could even degrade the level of protection offered by the products,” the statement said.

According to The Register, Virus Bulletin’s chief of operations John Hawes said that Tencent had whitelisted the applications and files used in AV-TEST’s testing procedure. As such, Tencent’s software could get through the tests much faster.

“All three testing labs involved in these investigations - AV-TEST, AV-Comparatives and Virus Bulletin - expect participants in their tests to behave in an open and ethical manner at all times, and consider this sort of “gaming” of tests to be unhelpful to both developers and users,” the statement from Virus Bulletin said.

According to the statement, AV-TEST, AV-Comparatives and Virus Bulletin will revoke all certifications and awards granted so far in 2015 that have been affected by Tencent’s gaming.

iTnews has a brief interview with AV-TEST’s CEO describing how the gaming was discovered.

Cisco CEO steps down

John Chambers will step down from the position of CEO at Cisco within two months, to be replaced by long-time Cisco staffer Chuck Robbins.

Robbins was elected CEO by the company’s board on 1 May and became a member of the board that day. He will assume the CEO role on 26 July.

Chambers won’t be leaving the company entirely, however, as he is set to become Cisco’s executive chairman, Bloomberg reported.

Bloomberg described Robbins as “one of Chambers’s closest confidantes”.

In a video posted to Cisco’s website featuring both men, Robbins reportedly said: “We’re going to drive a level of operational rigour that’s maybe even a bit tougher than what you did, John.”

Prior to being elected CEO, Robbins was senior VP of Worldwide Field Operations at Cisco. In that role he led the company’s Worldwide Sales Organization and Worldwide Partner Organization.

He joined Cisco in 1997 as an account manager and since then has held roles including senior VP of US Enterprise, Commercial and Canada, and senior VP of The Americas.

Reuters quoted Tim Long, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets, about Robbins’ appointment to the CEO position.

“We like that Cisco is appointing someone as CEO that has a strong sales background, and we expect the employee base to be very supportive of the appointment,” Long was quoted as saying.

Motorola to pay US$10.2m in patent case

Motorola Mobility has been ordered to pay US$10.2 million (about AU$12.9 million) in damages for infringing Fujifilm patents, Reuters reported.

Fujifilm sued Motorola in 2012, accusing the telecoms company of infringing four of its patents, according to ZDnet. But the court reportedly decided that Motorola infringed only one of the four patents.

“We are pleased with the verdict related to three out of the four patents and are evaluating our options on the one patent on which we did not prevail,” Reuters quoted a Motorola spokesperson as saying.

The figure of US$10.2 million is substantially less than the US$40 million Fujifilm is said to have sought in the case.

Image courtesy Jeff Kubina under CC