May 15, 2008

SOA vendors and value, part 2

Continuing his discussion about SOA vendors' misguided focus, David Linthicum asserts that integration is indeed important. "You bet it is. But it's not architecture, it's a part of architecture ... the more holistic concept is architecture and you can't do integration without understanding the architectural context," he writes in Part 2: SOA Vendors focus too much on integration and not enough on architecture. Linthicum suspects that, based on past reactions, this notion won’t be welcomed by most SOA vendors. Follow this link to Part 1.... more

TAGS: None

May 15, 2008

Daily news beat for May 15, 2008

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn charges Yahoo with acting irrationally and losing the faith of both its shareholders and Microsoft. For that, Icahn says he is taking on Yahoo and plans to nominate 10 candidates to replace all incumbent member of Yahoo's board. Related: Icahn's letter to Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock and Special report: Microsoft's bid for Yahoo. In what some analysts are calling a "completive response" to Microsoft's Silverlight and Sun's JavaFX rich Internet application (RIA) platforms, Adobe refreshes Flash Player 10, replete with new 3D capabilities that set it apart from the rivals. An open source project issues its... more

TAGS: Business

May 15, 2008

The many, many stats behind green IT

If you or someone at your company is not yet considering green IT solutions, then Ted Samson shares some numbers that just might make you reconsider. $11.5 billion, for instance. That's McKinsey and Company's total estimated energy bill for datacenters in 2010. Here's another: $1,870. That might appear to be mere peanuts when compared to the first number, but it's actually McKinsey's estimated annual operating expense for powering and cooling a single midtier server in a tier III datacenter. And those two are just the beginning of a rather long list. As Samson explains in Green IT numbers don't lie,... more

TAGS: Green IT

May 15, 2008

InfoWorld Daily Podcast

Adobe updates Flash Player, investor Carl Icahn to launch proxy fight against Yahoo, U.S. SEC charges two Broadcom officers, and more  LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

May 15, 2008

A language for the new computing era

Sun's Fortress, if it succeeds, could become the programming language for the new computing era, in which low-cost commodity processors clustered together over high-speed networks have made HPC accessible for nearly anyone. "If work on the project continues apace, Fortress could very easily become one of the most important developments in computer science since parallel processing itself," Neil McAllister finds in this installment of our new Fatal Exception blog. But don't plan on writing your next major business application on Fortress just yet.... more

TAGS: Application Development

May 14, 2008

Yager: How I became spam kingpin, went legit, turned detective

Picking up his earlier first-person account of a Leopard Server root exploit, Tom Yager begins by stating that, "I did slam the door on the ClamAV exploiter, and close observation for a couple of weeks allayed my concerns that any lasting hole had been blown in my OS X Leopard Server's security." Yager was happy with himself. But then came May, thus far an unkind month. Indeed, one night he walked by his server rack and noticed the CPU activity lights were pegged when they should have been idle. "It was at this point that I knew I was under... more

TAGS: Security

May 14, 2008

Daily news beat for May 14, 2008

Is the browser doomed? As highly interactive, visually rich experiences replace the limited graphics and static Web pages of yesteryear, and the Web becomes the preferred platform for enterprise application delivery, Neil McAllister wonders just that. He predicts that a new kind of browser, one that combines the existing Web with fresh capabilities based on new tools, is likely to emerge. Unfortunately, Red Hat's Fedora 9 looks to be too much of a blast from the past. In short: the distribution may be robust, but the installer needs to learn to play better with others, particularly for anyone who wants... more

TAGS: Application Development

May 14, 2008

The quiet and green rack o' dreams

What with rack servers getting louder with each generation, Tom Yager considers noise to be the primary governor of his workflow. "There are things that I set out to save: My ears and my power draw," Yager explains in It's quiet, it's green, it's the rack o' my dreams. That brought him to GizMac and its XRackPro2 which is not a sound-isolating cabinet but, rather, a sealed rack enclosure that reduces noise, as Yager found, with varying effectiveness depending on what’s generated inside. "I packed an 8-core Xserve and two 16-core machines in a 6U XRackPro2. When I powered them... more

TAGS: Green IT

May 14, 2008

Making the case for business social software

Jive Software's Clearspace 2.0, in the words of reviewer Mike Heck, extends collaboration outside the firewall, gives users more customization options, and adds project management. "Even with all these admirable changes, Jive still faced a problem: how to convince users to purchase an arguably better social product when they may already have document-oriented Microsoft SharePoint Server with its own blogs and wikis," Heck writes. "The answer: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em -- by offering SharePoint integration." Jive Software made a number of changes to differentiate Clearspace 2.0 from rival enterprise blog and wiki offerings, Heck explains, adding that... more

TAGS: Social networking

May 14, 2008

InfoWorld Daily Podcast

EarthLink to close Philadelphia Wi-Fi network, Sun releases eight servers based on AMD's Quad-core chip, investor Carl Icahn mulls proxy fight against Yahoo, and more  LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

May 14, 2008

Office 2007's hopes for the future

The latest crop of Office servers has brought several new computing capabilities and opened a wealth of opportunities. "There are, however, missing pieces and unfinished parts to these servers, though it's possible that the next releases will include more of what we need," J. Peter Bruzzese writes in Hopes for the future of Office 2007 collaboration. Bruzzese looks at three such servers: Forms, Groove, and Communications. "In harmony with the spirit of collaboration, wherein people work toward a common goal, I hope the folks at Microsoft consider some of my ideas before releasing the next version."... more

TAGS: Platforms

May 13, 2008

SOA vendors don't understand the value

David Linthicum boils it down to this: SOA vendors focus too much on integration and not enough on architecture. "Most SOA vendors out there don't understand the value of SOA, nor how to approach SOA," Linthicum explains. Dozens of vendors, for instance, built integration tools back when integration was hot. Recently they've re-labeled those tools for SOA and done so without tailoring them accordingly. "When selling into the SOA market, they are driving integration and not architecture, focusing more on the tactical, and not the strategic," Linthicum adds in this Real World SOA poststrong>. "Not as much value to the... more

TAGS: SOA

May 13, 2008

Daily news beat for May 13, 2008

What was rumor and speculation yesterday became truth today as Hewlett-Packard bought EDS for $13.9 billion in a move HP CEO Mark Hurd described as being "about us putting our outsourcing business into EDS." Analysts, meanwhile, are saying that HP and EDS make for a high-risk merger because even though the combined entity will be strong on infrastructure-related services it will be weak, relative to IBM, on business-level dialogue with customers. Related analysis: Why HP wants EDS. In a rather bold proclamation a company executive said Tuesday that Microsoft hopes to capture 40 percent of the smartphone market by 2012... more

TAGS: Platforms

May 13, 2008

SaaS to fill void left by app vendors

IT benefits from big vendor's slow on-demand plays. Indeed, in Ephraim Schwartz's words, "hesitations and nascent efforts from the big players open the floodgates for a deluge of even more vendors." By "big players" Schwartz means the likes of SAP and Microsoft, while a host of startups is emerging to offer what the old guard cannot. Take PivotLink. This SaaS BI vendor makes it easier than, say, SAP because PivotLink customers can send a simple flat file which PivotLink then analyzes and processes in memory for a real-time response. "What might be bad news for SAP is good news for... more

TAGS: Applications

May 13, 2008

When bean counters don't know what IT does

It's a common story in IT, I'm afraid, though one fraught with many twists and turns. This time, the bare-bones IT department comprised folks who wore many hats, a reality that confused one VP of Finance enough to ask why some of the IT staff was still employed. What is it you do again? This week's Off the Record author faced that question on multiple occasions, despite several instances in which he saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars. "When I handed in my letter of resignation to the CIO on Thursday, I learned that the VP of Finance... more

TAGS: Careers

May 13, 2008

InfoWorld Daily Podcast

HP nabs EDS for $13.9 billion, Intel plant in China offline after earthquake, Apple says iPhone to be available via multiple operators in Australia, India, and more  LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

May 13, 2008

Hyper-V's whole new failure vector

Microsoft's Hyper-V has an Achilles heel. "In a nutshell, one of Hyper-V's advertised strengths -- the host partition's ability to work with generic Windows device drivers -- is also its greatest weakness," Kennedy explains in this Enterprise Desktop post. Kennedy, you see, found that out that the hard way while experimenting with the release candidate, in which he made the mistake of trying to install the latest ATI Catalyst (8.4) software for the system's X1300 display adapter, a move that yielded a Blue Screen of Death both alarming and puzzling. More troublesome is the fact that Microsoft advertises Hyper-V's ability... more

TAGS: Virtualization

May 12, 2008

Don't encourage hands-free use of cell phones

San Francisco just passed a law requiring hands-free use of mobile devices for drivers and InfoWorld's Ephraim Schwartz is ready to take shelter in a hummer as a result. "Watching a driver blithely drive down the wrong way on a one-way street while said driver was also talking on the phone, leads me to believe people aren’t as multifunctional as they would like to believe," Schwartz writes in today's blog. "The question is, I suppose, does this law make it safer to use a cell phone while driving, or will it encourage those who may have been reluctant to use... more

TAGS: Hardware

May 12, 2008

Daily News beat for May 12, 2008

A Microsoft document claims the fault for endless reboots lies in the Windows XP image originally installed on the PC by the computer manufacturers. The FBI is worried that by tampering with Cisco networking equipment, spies could open up a back door to sensitive military systems using counterfeit gear. Sun Microsystems is trying to rejuvenate Java, using the JavaOne conference to position the platform as a foundation for next-generation technologies in such spaces as rich Internet applications and cloud-based services. Research in Motion introduced the well-connected BlackBerry Bold, which beats Apple's iPhone to the 3G punch. Database maker Vertica is... more

TAGS: Platforms

May 12, 2008

InfoWorld Daily Podcast

The FBI worries about counterfeit Cisco gear, Microsoft appeals the EU's $1.3 billion fine, Micro-Star International's Wind laptop is priced from $560, Toshiba plans mass production of DMFCs by next year, and more   LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

May 12, 2008

Google's high-flying cloud for Python code

Attention all you readers dreaming of building the next brilliant Web application: Google App Engine is designed to simplify the problem of deploying and scaling Web applications. Contributing editor Peter Wayner provides insight into Google's game-changing app dev platform in the cloud in his first look at the Google App Engine, currently in beta. Wayner's bottom line: "Google App Engine hides the grime of deploying a scalable application to a number of servers. The limitations on the sandbox make this 'cloud' best for dynamic Web sites that act as a relatively thin layer of business logic sitting on top of... more

TAGS: Application Development

May 12, 2008

Are browers living on borrowed time?

Are today's ultra-rich Internet apps outgrowing the timeworn browser window? Take a stroll with Contributing Editor Neil McAllister through tomorrow's Web, in Do new Web tools spell doom for the browser? McAllister tours the companies working to push the Web beyond today's browser and calls into question the browser's ability to fulfill the needs of today's rich Internet apps. Don't pen the browser eulogies just yet, though: Not everyone agrees that moving Web apps outside the browser is the right approach. McAllister concludes that "despite differences in approach between AIR and Gears, Adobe and Google actually share a common vision.... more

TAGS: Browsers

May 09, 2008

The sweetest wireless LAN system

If you work at a smaller business, you'll know it hasn't been easy to find a small, secure, managed wireless network that's also easy to deploy and administer. Look no further. The Test Center's Curtis Franklin Jr. reviews Ruckus Wireless' ZoneFlex Smart WLAN System and says flat out: "The product is aimed squarely at SMB wireless LANs, and it's the best I've seen for the small-business market." Franklin found the ZoneFlex Smart WLAN System to be powerful, easy, and yes, smart, making managed wireless networks a no-brainer for small deployments. "If you're an SMB that wants to provide wireless access... more

TAGS: Networking

May 09, 2008

Daily News beat for May 9, 2008

Installing Windows XP SP3 sends some PCs into an endless series of reboots. A Windows blogger has tentatively identified XP SP3's problem as involving only machines using processors from AMD. Apple is once again being pilloried for its green credentials, taking last place among computer firms rated within a recent ClimateCounts survey on climate friendliness. Windows Vista has experienced 639 unique vulnerabilities over the last six months, slightly more vulnerabilities than Windows 2000. AT&T has offered no explanation for why it scrubbed from its Web site all references to iPhone users receiving free access to AT&T's public wireless hotspots. In... more

TAGS: Platforms

May 09, 2008

InfoWorld Daily Podcast

Microsoft will release four security patches next week, Japan may add a copyright fee to the iPod, Microsoft to increase its focus on mobile phones, MySpace launches a data portability initiative, and more   LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

May 09, 2008

InfoWorld News Quiz: You don't know tech

This week Microsoft called off the Yahoo deal (or maybe not). Grand Theft Auto stole the spotlight (again) with its record-breaking sales. Political candidates are on a mission to save us from the evils of Second Life. Along the way, we dazzle you with numbers involving big settlements for movie piracy, game sales, and Apple's rank in Consumer Reports' recent evaluation of tech support. Think you know tech? Prove it and take the InfoWorld News Quiz.... more

TAGS: News quiz

May 09, 2008

One man's quest to fix the Internet

InfoWorld's Roger Grimes is a man on a mission: He thinks of nothing else but how to secure the Internet. Think that's an exaggeration? How may people do you know who "spent [their] honeymoon thinking and writing about a possible solution"? In today's Security Adviser blog, Grimes gives a summation of two of his biggest ideas that have independently ended up in other group's proposals and standards. He has also released a formal whitepaper entitled Fixing the Internet: A Security Solution that encompasses all his main ideas.... more

TAGS: Security

May 08, 2008

Apple leaves Hawaiian investor in the cold

If anyone could figure out a system to let its investors cast their proxy votes online, you'd think it'd be Apple, right? Not so. Ed Foster tells the tale of a reader who gripes that Apple, who "brought us such breakthroughs as the Macintosh, OS X, the iPod and now the iPhone, seems to be the only company in the U.S. which uses a proxy voting service which can't deliver materials in a timely fashion. ... Even Microsoft, using the Swiss cheese of operating systems, is able to deliver their investor materials on time!" Before you write this off as... more

TAGS: Business

May 08, 2008

Daily News beat for May 8, 2008

Six months after its release, Mac OS X Leopard has gained ground and maturity and grown into a solid computing platform with enough new features to tempt Mac users to upgrade. Reports of the death of the Microsoft-Yahoo deal could be greatly exaggerated as there is still a possibility that both sides will return to the bargaining table. Despite a multitude of scripting languages, Sun officials defend the need for the company's new JavaFX Script platform. Mozilla warns that a language pack for Firefox 2 has been infected with an adware code, affecting everybody who has downloaded the pack since... more

TAGS: Platforms

May 08, 2008

InfoWorld Daily Podcast

Microsoft and Yahoo could end up back at the bargaining table, Sprint and Clearwire team up on mobile WiMax, AMD plans to release processors with 12 cores, a Firefox plugin has been infected with adware code, and more   LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

May 08, 2008

Small businesses' ERP deficit

Small businesses have been left out in the cold when it comes to ERP. SAP has labored for 48 months to get Business ByDesign, its SaaS product for the SMB market, off the ground -- and it's still not ready for prime time; Oracle doesn't even pretend to care about smaller businesses; and Microsoft has a sort of SaaS offering -- but just for CRM. Bill Snyder, writing in Tech's Bottom Line blog, finds that "small businesses' on-demand ERP options are limited to offerings from small providers such as Intacct and RightNow Technologies." Snyder provides a clear-headed look at the... more

TAGS: Applications

May 08, 2008

Who wears the pants in your organization?

When it comes to the thorny problem of Web designer vs developer, it turns out that your choice of platform often reveals where the power lies. In "Developers vs. designers: Who wins?" Neil McAllister writes: "Particularly for RIAs (rich Internet applications), where form and function share equal billing, team dynamics can make or break a project. Little wonder, then, that Adobe, Microsoft, and Sun are all racing to market with new tools and platforms aimed at helping developers and designers meet each other halfway." Unfortunately, what McAllister finds upon examining those solutions is that "though well intentioned, these wonder products... more

TAGS: Applications

May 07, 2008

Microsoft EPM: Not just for the enterprise?

Does choosing the right software to keep track of a project sometimes seem like an overwhelming task in itself? Microsoft last year ripped Project Server in two, creating Project Server 2007 and Project Portfolio Server 2007, which are part of what Redmond calls the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) solution. J. Peter Bruzzese takes readers through the capabilities of each in today's Enterprise Windows blog, and then asks "How can Microsoft respond in the mini-market of project management when its offerings ... all seem so gi-normous to the average user?" In Microsoft's favor, "the high-end features of an EPM... more

TAGS: Applications

May 07, 2008

Daily News beat for May 7, 2008

Bill Gates says Microsoft is focused on its independent strategy and won't be pursuing tie-ups or takeovers to replace its failed Yahoo bid. A beta of OpenOffice 3.0 is released that supports the forthcoming ODF 1.2 standard and can open files created with Microsoft Office 2007 or Office 2008 for Mac. At its JavaOne conference, Sun details upcoming versions of Java, that emphasize flexibility, modularity, and OSGi support. Sprint Nextel and Clearwire will form a joint venture worth $14.5 billion to deploy the first nationwide mobile WiMax network. Adware pushers have found a new way to trick you into downloading... more

TAGS: Business

May 07, 2008

InfoWorld Daily Podcast

Sprint and Clearwire sign a $14.5 billion WiMax deal, Panasonic will offer in-flight Internet service, Google reinstates its open-source project, Microsoft revamps its Download Center using Silverlight, and more   LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

May 07, 2008

A timely proposal for IT energy conservation

InfoWorld's Tom Yager has long been outspoken on matters of green computing, and in today's blog proposes an idea for energy conservation that he calls "green delay." "When a Web site takes more than 7 seconds to be ready for interaction, it's said that a great many users will go elsewhere rather than wait the few additional seconds it might take to put up clickable buttons. Sure, time is money, but when did we start calculating the value of our time in increments of seconds or even milliseconds? "I think it's time to consider the flip side of the time/money... more

TAGS: Green IT

May 07, 2008

'Fat' Vista has beefy client hardware needs

Cross-tabular analysis -- "one of those 'nerdy' sounding terms that statisticians like to use when expounding upon their latest data-mining gems" -- is the lifeblood of InfoWorld's Windows Sentinel project. Using tidbit pulled from Windows Sentinel's cross-tabular analysis, Randall C. Kennedy exposes in his blog, how "not only is Vista 'fatter' than XP, it's also more demanding at a very fundamental level. Hence the need for beefier client hardware with lots of cores." Kennedy also outlines how "Vista-based PCs are experiencing roughly 30% higher memory pressure, across the board, than their XP brethren. "But you don't need lots of fancy... more

TAGS: Platforms

May 06, 2008

Riding the autorenewal express

With credit card companies coming under increased scrutiny for unfair and deceptive practices, it seems a good time for Ed Foster to turn the Gripe Line's eye on the role they play in autorenewal situations. In his blog Foster writes: "As autorenewals by security software vendors and others become increasingly common, we need to know whose side our financial institutions are on. "Do credit card companies protect their customers from online services that automatically renew annual subscriptions without clear notice, or do they collude with vendors to keep the transaction fees flowing?" One reader was told by an American Express... more

TAGS: Business

May 06, 2008

InfoWorld News beat for May 6, 2008

A general class-action lawsuit accuses Yahoo of failing to act in the best interest of shareholders in rejecting Microsoft's takeover bid. HTC announces the Touch Diamond Microsoft-based smartphone, which beats rival Apple's iPhone to the punch with 3G capabilities. Intel, Samsung, and TSMC will collaborate on 450mm silicon wafers. Once the chip companies have made the move, users should start to see higher-performing chips at lower prices NBC strikes deal to sell television programs on Microsoft's Zune online store after a pricing spat with Apple led it to pull its content from iTunes. Yahoo searches could turn up fewer hits... more

TAGS: Business

May 06, 2008

InfoWorld Daily Podcast

Yahoo faces a class-action lawsuit, NBC strikes a deal with Microsoft's Zune, Yahoo's stock takes a hit, Chipmakers team up on larger silicon wafers, and more   LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

May 06, 2008

Unix servers made simple and affordable

What could inspire Tom Yager to give up his day, (night, and weekend) job at InfoWorld to enter the PC server business? No, that isn't a question in this week's News Quiz, it's from a review of Apple's latest Xserve, the eight-core Harpertown. "While Apple's latest Xserve uses the Intel Harpertown quad-core, Core 2 Xeon CPU, it is in all other regards the glorious antithesis of a PC server.... Xserve is built and supported to run not for one or two years, but three years, five years, and beyond. If you think I'm having you on, try to find a... more

TAGS: Hardware

May 06, 2008

How to make a DBA blush

What happens when a DBA uncovers copious X-rated chat logs of overheated exchanges between employees? In this week's Off the Record we hear from someone who keeps a local IM gateway server running by working with DBAs to insure the database is backed up and regularly purged of old records. On the occasion in question, he was seeing data corruption and in a last ditch effort to restore it, the DBA looked through the export file to see if the data might be salvageable. What he found were "some very raunchy exchanges, despite the notification ... that the system popped... more

TAGS: IM

May 05, 2008

The Empire strikes back

After foreseeing that the acquisition of SoftGrid technology was a clear sign Microsoft was gearing up to deliver a subscriptions-based, hosted model for Office, Randall C. Kennedy is ready with another bold prediction: Microsoft's Streaming Office will clobber Google Apps. In fact, Kennedy's prepared to stick his neck out and say "Streaming Office will ... eventually drive the search giant out of the hosted applications business altogether. "Faced with a decision between a watered-down, limited, web-dependent pseudo-suite and the full power and richness of Microsoft Office, users will flock to the Microsoft camp." Remember where you read it first!... more

TAGS: Hosted applications

May 05, 2008

InfoWorld News beat for May 5, 2008

Microsoft has dropped its three-month-long pursuit of Yahoo after Yahoo refused its revised offer of $33 per share. The failed acquisition attempt takes Microsoft back to square one in its quest to boost its online business to better compete against Google. Related: Microsoft and Yahoo: What now? Tech-savvy delinquents are setting the Net aflame with boneheaded exploits that earn them the wrong kind of fame. Get the details on the latest generation of cyberschnooks in Stupid hacker tricks, part two: The folly of youth. Sun and the OpenSolaris community are launching the official first version of the open-source OpenSolaris operating... more

TAGS: Business

May 05, 2008

InfoWorld Daily Podcast

Microsoft drops its pursuit of Yahoo, One Laptop Per Child Project appoints a new president, Dell stops shipment of two laptop models, a former U.S. military contractor pleads guilty to aggravated identity theft, and more   LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

May 05, 2008

Zoho CRM aims big but hits small

AdventNet's Zoho CRM Enterprise Edition has garnered a lot of attention thanks to its $25 per user per month sticker price -– a rate well below any other hosted application vendor. Still, the folks at Salesforce.com needn't quake in their boots just yet. James R. Borck of the InfoWorld Test Center put Zoho CRM through its paces and found that it "falls short of enterprise requirements in a number of ways. It lacks basic audit logs essential for tracking changes to record. It's missing field format constraints that help ensure data integrity (for example, by ensuring that e-mail addresses are... more

TAGS: CRM

May 05, 2008

Stupid hacker tricks, part two

In this latest installment of "Stupid hacker tricks," Andrew Brandt takes a look at the follies of youth and finds the current generation of cyberschnooks have transformed themselves "from Those Neighborhood Kids Who Set Fires and Torture Small Animals into international menaces who destroy online communities, damage the reputation and utility of online services, and steal anything worth taking from the Net -- all while mangling the English language as thoroughly as possible." Fortunately for the rest of us, "most are as sloppy and egotistical as we've come to expect from the young and delinquent, leaving a bread-crumb trail a... more

TAGS: Security

May 02, 2008

InfoWorld News Quiz: You don't know tech

This week a new U.K. band with an insufferably cute name is featured on the latest Apple iTunes commercial. Grand Theft Auto IV, breakthroughs in computer design, and imaginary iPhones have their moment in the spotlight. Quick, how much will the mythical iPhone 2.0 allegedly cost? Too easy? How about this one: What's the catchy acronym for Microsoft's new cop tool? Think you know tech? Prove it and take the InfoWorld News Quiz.... more

TAGS: News quiz

May 02, 2008

Daily News beat for May 2, 2008

Microsoft reportedly is gearing up for a hostile acquisition of Yahoo, with a formal announcement possible Friday. Yahoo could begin carrying Google ads within a week, making it more difficult for Microsoft to take over Yahoo. IBM outlined plans for an online applications marketplace that will let businesses browse and purchase apps from potentially thousands of ISVs. Researchers have discovered a complex spamming scheme that uses a backdoor called Edunet to hijack users' PCs in order to send junk mail via university and military systems. Sun blames its third-quarter revenue drop on a weak U.S. economy and costs of the... more

TAGS: Business

May 02, 2008

InfoWorld Daily Podcast

Microsoft close to hostile bid for Yahoo, IBM launches online applications marketplace, EMC extends Mozy online backup service, Sun to cut 2,500 jobs, and more   LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

May 02, 2008

BEA employees in mourning

What was loosely termed a "wake" to recognize that BEA no longer exists as an independent company featured a humorous, makeshift casket in the corner of the room. But InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill writes that the event nonetheless seemed to be a cheery gathering. One BEA employee conceded that the merger makes sense, saying "it's actually a very good, powerful synergy between the companies." Another employee observed "Oracle offered a fair price, and the board has a fiduciary responsibility to accept it." Still, the absorption of BEA into Oracle does represent a loss. "What's a shame is that... more

TAGS: Business

May 02, 2008

Small form factor drives mount viable challenge

The 3.5-inch drive has reigned for years in enterprise storage arrays, but a viable challenger has appeared on the scene. In an exclusive review of Infortrend's recently released EonStor B12S storage array, Mario Apicella finds a convincing case for 2.5-inch drives. The end result is "a system that delivers performance and reliability comparable with large arrays -- not to mention a variety of redundancy features -- and all within a smaller footprint and with lower energy consumption. "Notably, Infortrend was the first vendor to market with a storage enclosure based on [small form factor] drives, but Xyratex announced a 2U... more

TAGS: Storage

May 01, 2008

New iPhone spawns rampant rumors

Zack Urlocker isn't apologizing for being a bit iPhone obsessed of late. And as he writes in his blog, there is a lot to get excited about -- in the rumor department, anyway. "Looks like the new iPhone is slated for release in June and will include a new firmware upgrade 2.0 as well as some new capabilities ... including 3G support, the possibility of a 5 megapixel camera, video recording and playback, FM radio, and a capuccino maker. Ok, I'm kidding about the capuccino maker." There is also speculation that "there may be a new formfactor iPhone announced in... more

TAGS: Hardware

May 01, 2008

Daily News beat for May 1, 2008

Microsoft confirmed that it delayed the rollout of Windows XP SP3 because changes to the OS can corrupt data in the company's retail point-of-sale and store management software. Adobe announced a new initiative, called the Open Screen Project, which opens up access to its Flash technology. Researchers at Hewlett-Packard have developed a memory circuit that could ultimately replace RAM and make computers more intelligent by tracking data it has retained. Microsoft's board of directors met to decide how to proceed with the company's bid to acquire Yahoo, although no final decision was reached. Tibco will make a play in the... more

TAGS: Platforms

May 01, 2008

InfoWorld Daily Podcast

Adobe opens access to Flash, Microsoft's board meets over the Yahoo bid, Skype improves the voice quality of its VoIP software, HP is building intelligent memory, and more   LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

May 01, 2008

Does keeping XP hurt Microsoft's bottom line?

InfoWorld has been leading the charge to save Windows XP. And as Bill Snyder writes in today's Tech's Bottom Line blog, "I might well be inclined to tell InfoWorld to stuff it if I really thought there was a compelling business reason to toss XP overboard. ... But a legitimate business case for dropping XP doesn't exist. "Even factoring out the copies preinstalled on consumer PCs (where XP has not been an option for a year), there's real Vista demand out there that will continue to enrich Microsoft, whether XP is supported or not." Besides, Microsoft already has a way... more

TAGS: Platforms

May 01, 2008

Yahoo and the Facebook dilemma

Yahoo is mounting a major push for third-party developers. Yahoo CTO Ari Balogh says its goal is nothing less than to transform Yahoo from a portal into a bona fide social network. But Neil McAllister, writing in Yahoo and the Facebook dilemma, has a few reservations: "I'm all for opening up online services to third party developers. But in any group of third party developers, there will always be a certain number of bad actors. Often, they won't even realize who they are, because let's face it -- Web developers are hackers." Perhaps Yahoo should take a closer look at... more

TAGS: Social networking

April 30, 2008

Backbase delivers comprehensive suite of rich apps

Ajax vendor Backbase recently introduced a new product called Customer Engagement 2.0. As far as Martin Heller can tell, "the 2.0 in the name has nothing to do with the version, as this is a new product; it has everything to do with the product being about Web 2.0." Customer Engagement 2.0 is built on top of Backbase Enterprise Ajax, and according to the company ""delivers a comprehensive Suite of Rich Applications that brings customer facing web applications to the next level. Customer Engagement 2.0 helps companies create, manage, and deliver online applications more effectively, so they can truly interact... more

TAGS: Web 2.0

April 30, 2008

Daily News beat for April 30, 2008

Tibco is putting its support behind Microsoft's new Silverlight browser plug-in technology for rich Internet applications. SAP is putting the brakes on the roll-out of its Business ByDesign ERP offering for small businesses, as it reported first-quarter net income down 22 percent compared to a year earlier. Skype released an upgrade to its VoIP client for Windows PCs that cuts out more background noise and drops fewer calls. The Service Component Architecture, an SOA specification for transforming IT assets into reusable services, is being billed as a way to lower barriers to adoption and link SOA to Web 2.0. Microsoft... more

TAGS: Application Development

April 30, 2008

InfoWorld Daily Podcast

Tibco backs Microsoft's Silverlight, AOL and Yahoo make Voice over IP moves, LinkedIn expands its social-networking site, 3Com looks to China, and more  LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

April 30, 2008

Is the Microsoft Architecture credential worth the cost?

With the arrival of Windows Server 2008 comes a whole new lineup of exams from Microsoft and the end of the MCSE certification era. At the top of the heap in the new catalog of Microsoft certification options is the Microsoft Certified Architect (MCA) program, which comes in two flavors: one for technology-based architecture skills, which includes training and certification; and one for broad architecture skills (which entails certification only). The costs for the technology-specific MCA certification run $25,000, paid in full before you begin. While the costs for the MCA: Solutions or Infrastructure certifications are $10,000. As J. Peter... more

TAGS: Platforms

April 30, 2008

The view from Microsoft's Live Mesh and Apple's .Mac

As InfoWorld's Tom Yager writes in today's Ahead of the Curve, "While it makes IT break out in hives, professional users need ... secure shared data and remote desktop access without the hassle of VPN." Apple's $99 per year .Mac service (http://www.mac.com) "has the makings of an interesting solution to the desktops-as-servers conundrum." But the iDisk client, set up as a virtual volume, "shows both its age and its consumer-targeted nature. ...Without changes to iDisk, .Mac falls short of requirements for commercial use." Where Apple's .Mac comes close, Microsoft Live Mesh hopes to take it all the way. "What Live... more

TAGS: Microsoft Live Mesh

April 29, 2008

Tax software tax users' patience

Complaints about the 2007 tax-year software have been flooding in, making it necessary for Ed Foster to file this late return on the state of tax programs in Taxing software experiences. The largest number of gripes this year concerned Intuit's TurboTax, but less well-known tax software vendors came in for questions about their accuracy as well. And H&R Block's TaxCut was the subject of one short piece earlier this year. This Gripe Line account may not "help to weed out the bad apples, because it seemed like just about all of the programs came in for criticism on support, accuracy,... more

TAGS: Applications

April 29, 2008

Daily News beat for April 29, 2008

The world's largest contract laptop maker is warning that a shortage of batteries could hurt smaller PC vendors. AOL and Yahoo will provide fee-based VoIP features in their AIM and Yahoo Messenger IM services, and for the first time AOL has given external developers access to its Call Out feature via APIs. Internet telephony startup Ribbit launched a service today that merges telephony with Salesforce.com's on-demand CRM software. Around 100 laptop designs based on AMD's upcoming Puma platform are being readied ahead of the chips' scheduled launch in June. HP is enhancing SOA quality management capabilities in several products in... more

TAGS: Hardware

April 29, 2008

InfoWorld Daily Podcast

Quanta warns of a laptop battery shortage, a Microsoft tool hunts down botnets, 100 laptop designs are on tap for AMD's Puma chip, Xerox showcases erasable paper, and more   LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

April 29, 2008

Windows XP isn't dead yet

Microsoft has finally released the finished version of Windows XP Service Pack 3 to manufacturing. We've been writing about SP3 for nearly six months and speculating about its impact on Vista sales, but this is the real deal! As Randall C. Kennedy observes in today's Enterprise Desktop, "enterprise IT is fascinated with SP3. ... Microsoft has been putting on the full court press with Vista SP1, yet all they hear from their customers is, 'That’s nice. So when will we see Service Pack 3 for XP?'" The wait is over. SP3's list of features remains unchanged from the myriad pre-releases:... more

TAGS: Platforms

April 29, 2008

VoIP phone systems walk the talk

Smaller businesses no longer have to settle for a second-class phone system when trying to compete with larger enterprises. InfoWorld's Test Center reviews five IP PBX appliances from Allworx, Critical Links, Fonality, Microsoft, and Sutus that all have slick telephony features and affordable price tags, but differ significantly in breadth, depth, and complexity. Contributing editor Mike Heck finds them "reasonably priced and easy to administer and use. Some can be installed without the need for expert help. And their telephony features – typically configured and accessed from a browser or lightweight desktop application – are all remarkably sophisticated."... more

TAGS: VoIP

April 28, 2008

Guerrilla IT sounds a lot like open source

A recent InfoWorld feature set Zack Urlocker to thinking about "how so many good innovations have snuck into IT through the back door, the side door and under the radar of what management officially approved." Indeed, Urlocker is discussing open source but he also points to prior instances -- think PCs in the mid-80's -- in which departments and employees took it upon themselves to bring in the technologies they needed. "I suspect this phenomena is wide spread," Urlocker writes in Guerilla IT? Sounds like open source. "So one good step to encourage Guerrilla IT to be effective is to... more

TAGS: Platforms

April 28, 2008

Daily news beat for April 28, 2008

Yahoo did not accept Microsoft's bid by the Saturday deadline so now it's up to the software giant to decide whether to pursue a hostile takeover or walk away from Yahoo altogether. A security think tank uncovers a vulnerability in Apple's multimedia player that could allow a hacker to take complete control of Windows Vista or XP machines. Security vendors slam the Defcon virus contest that will award hackers for finding ways to beat antivirus software; the vendors claim it will only help the bad guys learn new tricks. Black Duck buys Koders for its code search engine and, in... more

TAGS: Platforms

April 28, 2008

Top 3 gotchas of server virtualization

Despite the well-known benefits, server virtualization has its share of potential missteps and shocking realizations. "Many pitfalls await server virtualization adopters, and a stumble can ruin all your virtual dreams," site editor Tom Kaneshige writes. To that end, Kaneshige shares the Top 3 gotcha's of server virtualization that IT ought to steer clear of. "Knowing how to identify and avoid those can make the journey more pleasant and the reward that much sweeter."... more

TAGS: Virtualization

April 28, 2008

InfoWorld Daily Podcast

Yahoo does not accepts Microsoft's bid, China calls itself world's largest Internet market, spammers create bogus Google Blogger pages, and more  LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

April 28, 2008

Two months to go, so save XP today

Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer late last week said the company might consider keeping Windows XP available beyond June 30 if customers call for it. "With just two months to go before XP goes off the market, it's time to turn up the volume and get everyone you know to sign the petition," editor in chief Eric Knorr writes in Steve Ballmer wants your feedback -- let's give it to him. "Experience dictates that it's going to take everything we've got to get the message to Microsoft." Save Windows XP.... more

TAGS: Platforms

April 25, 2008

Looking for the worst EULA

Nonsensical EULAs sometimes show up in the unlikeliest of places. This time it's on Dilbert.com, as one Gripe Line reader reports, and the Terms of Service state that one must be 13 to use the site and anyone under 18 needs their parents to complete the registration and supervise. "Well, maybe it makes sense if you're 13 and living where the age of majority is 12. Otherwise your parents would have to help you, and they would need to be 13 as well, I guess, which seems a little improbable," Ed Foster writes in Terms of ridicule. And that's just... more

TAGS: Platforms

April 25, 2008

Daily news beat for April 25, 2008

This weekend marks the deadline Microsoft set for its proposed acquisition of Yahoo, after which the company plans to take its fight directly to Yahoo shareholders. But only late this week did Microsoft begin hinting that, even without Yahoo, it might move forward in the online ad market. Microsoft considers life without Yahoo. Sun Microsystems buys processor startup Montalvo, which is believed to be working on a chip that uses asynchronous cores of varying power degrees to improve performance while keeping power consumption low. Researcher David Litchfield finds a new way to hack the Oracle database. Known as a SQL... more

TAGS: Platforms

April 25, 2008

InfoWorld News Quiz: You don't know tech

This week Microsoft gets applauded for promising not to do something. Yahoo, OLPC, iPhone and the Ramomes all cameo. Quick: How much profit did Yahoo rake in last quarter? Ah, that was an easy one. Here's another: Apple just bought P.A. Semi for $278 million. What, pray tell, is P.A. Semi? Think you know tech? Prove it and take the InfoWorld News Quiz.... more

TAGS: Platforms

April 25, 2008

InfoWorld Daily Podcast

Dell to keep XP alive via 'downgrade' licensing option, Apple will detail 3G iPhone on June 9, Sun buys chip startup Montalvo, and more  LISTEN!... more

TAGS: Podcast

April 25, 2008

Be careful of transitive trust

Nowadays, even well-known, seemingly legitimate Web sites are prone to inadvertently hosting code that redirects visitors to a malicio