Itanium's image problem

Columnists' corner: Call it a case of mistaken identity. The Itanium chip is not gaining the traction Intel might have hoped it would, largely because it is perceived to be an expensive, incompatible platform, writes Neil McAllister in Itanuim stakes its future on openness. "Say what you will about the so-called Wintel alliance, but traditional RISC-based Unix shops aren't all that accustomed choices, either," he notes.

The news beat: Network General swallows Fidelia, the maker of network analysis software NetVigil, for an undisclosed sum. IBM develops a wireless chipset for content sharing that it claims will enable devices to operate 10 times faster than today's Wi-Fi networks. And Funambol offers open source software for pushing out e-mail from Domino, Exchange and other programs to mobile devices.

Virtualization: Novell says it will certify and support Virtual Iron's data center virtualization and management software within a preconfigured version of Novell's Suse Linux, while Softricity and Microsoft renew a partnership that enables users to virtualize applications and stream them to desktop PCs.

Best of the blogs: Greg Nawrocki presents a virtualization pro's take on grid challenges. Among those: handling relational data and management of applications on a grid, versus management of virtual machines on the grid.

Posted by Tom Sullivan on February 6, 2006 10:52 AM