IBM on Wednesday said it was establishing a consortium with the European Union and universities to research new cloud-computing models to reduce the cost of hosting and maintaining Internet-based services.

Mobile operator Orange is joining a growing list of European mobile operators offering cheap Android-based smartphones, in a bid to get more prepaid subscribers on data plans.

French server and services company Bull has just turned on a new supercomputer for the French Atomic Energy Authority (CEA) that it hopes will reach a peak performance of 1.25 petaflops later this year.

With Europe's debt crisis top-of-mind for many delegates to the World Congress on Information Technology opening in Amsterdam Tuesday, European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes painted the EC's Digital Agenda five-year plan as key to an economic recovery and the region's long-term fiscal health.

No change: That's the result of an 18-monthlong appeals process that the president of the European Patent Office hoped would clarify the rules on whether software may be patented.

Amazon Web Services has launched VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) in Europe, the company said on Tuesday. The service lets companies connect their existing data centers to isolated computing resources in Amazon's European cloud using an encrypted VPN (virtual private network) connection.

Sales of server hardware and software for virtualization in the fourth quarter of 2009 increased for the first time in a year in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to an IDC report issued Monday.

A European intergovernmental body that oversees the only international cybercrime treaty is advocating that the U.N. supports its efforts to get wider ratification of the treaty.