Software

Boeing Co. said Thursday that Japan Airlines will expand its use of the aerospace company's Airplane Health Management software system to its future Boeing 787 fleet. Financial terms were not disclosed. The system monitors, collects and analyzes airplane data to give customers real-time, in-flight maintenance information that would allow them to immediately begin maintenance work upon landing, Boeing said. Japan Airlines has 35 of the 787 aircraft on order, and has licensed the system for those airplanes in addition to its existing fleet of 46 Boeing 777 aircraft, Boeing said.

Nuance Communications Inc., a Burlington company that makes speech-recognition software, has agreed to acquire Loquendo, a subsidiary of Telecom Italia, to accelerate the development of speech-recognition services in Europe and Latin America. Telecom Italia said the sale has an enterprise value of $75.5 million. Loquendo provides a range of speech technologies in 32 languages. The transaction is expected to close in September. In June, Nuance said it acquired SVOX, a privately held provider of voice services for in-car systems and consumer electronics.

Excerpts from the Innovation Economy blog. Objective Logistics is a New Bedford start-up trying to introduce an intriguing idea to the restaurant industry - and eventually, to other businesses. What if waiters could see their performance, relative to that of their coworkers, every day? And what if better performance meant they could nab the shifts they most wanted? Borrowing terminology from the world of sports, what if there were a leaderboard in the workplace? "Hourly staff at a restaurant can be hard to motivate, but they can also have great energy when they are motivated," said Objective's chief executive, Philip Beauregard, a former waiter and bartender.

Al Bunshaft, 52, is managing director of Dassault Systèmes North America, a subsidiary of France's largest software company, Dassault Systèmes. Founded in the 1980s to provide computer-aided design software to the aviation and automotive industries, the company today is known for a suite of 3-D software products - 3-D digital design, 3-D digital simulation, 3-D digital manufacturing, and 3-D digital collaboration. Later this year, the company will move its Americas headquarters to a new campus in Waltham.

Shares of Open Text Corp. slumped Wednesday after the company issued an earnings report that fell short of Wall Street expectations. The numbers showed that while business spending on technology has generally been strong after the Great Recession, not all areas have benefited as strongly as many investors would like. Open Text's software helps companies manage their documents, email and Internet and other digital content. Open Text said that its net income increased 38 percent and revenue rose 19 percent, but the results were short of Wall Street's targets.

Public spirited citizens plan to use facial recognition software to identify participants in the British riots. But what i f the software gets it wrong?

SuccessFactors Inc., a cloud-based software company, reported Tuesday second-quarter results that beat expectations and its shares soared in after-hours trading. The company, based in San Mateo, posted a loss of $7 million, or 9 cents per share, for the quarter versus a loss of $1.9 million, or 3 cents per share, in the prior year. But it said that after adjusting for several special items, it earned 3 cents per share. On that basis, analysts were expecting the company to break even, according to FactSet.

Business software company BMC Software Inc. said its first-quarter net income inched higher while revenue grew as it said it capitalized on customer demand for agile, flexible information technology infrastructures. But revenue fell short of expectations and shares fell. Net income in the three months through June 30 rose 3 percent to $95.7 million, or 53 cents per share, from $92.8 million, or 50 cents per share, a year earlier. Adjusted to exclude share-based compensation expenses, amortization of intangibles and other items, adjusted earnings per share came to 72 cents, beating the 68 cents expected by analysts polled by FactSet.

Business software maker SAP AG said Tuesday that its second-quarter earnings rose by 20 percent compared with a year earlier as healthy demand fueled a strong increase in revenue. SAP reported a net profit of euro588 million ($845 million) for the April-June period — up from euro491 million a year earlier. Total revenue was up 14 percent at euro3.3 billion from euro2.89 billion. Revenue from software and software-related services also rose 14 percent to euro2.58 billion; revenue from software alone rose 26 percent to euro802 million.

RE "CAUGHT in a dragnet: A fraud prevention system erroneously revoked his license, and now he's suing for his hardship" (Metro, July 17): I was amazed by the article about the similarity of photos between John H. Gass and another Massachusetts driver. With the help of facial recognition software that was provided by a grant from the US Department of Homeland Security, the state Registry of Motor Vehicles sends out 1,500 suspension letters a day. Last year, as a result of the software, State Police said there were 100 arrests for fraudulent identity and 1,860 licenses were revoked.