Security: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the mishaps of unauthorized software, or to take arms against a sea of security troubles by controlling the desktop, that is the question Roger Grimes pursues in Continued debate on desktop lockdowns. "My advice would doom any company following it to utter failure and miserable employees, my critics continue to complain," Grimes writes. "If your current defenses can't stop a user from installing my Trojan program and compromising your network at will, shouldn't you be doing something different to offset the risk?"

Hardware: Speaking of the desktop, price cuts by Intel and AMD, as well as oversupply of LCD panels will lead to the best PC bargains in years, according to Gartner. The buyers market should remain for the next few months.

Notes from the field: Microsoft still has yet to get its Windows Genuine Advantage tool for hunting pirates straight. This week, it says WGA uncovered 60 million XP pirates and maintains that it received only a handful of false positives out of 300 million machines tested. The company also confirmed Zune, its purported iPod killer. And Tom Cruise makes a guest appearance in Windows Pirates abound, iPod killer is found.

The news beat: Microsoft is now saying that it won't ship Vista until the OS is ready, thereby giving some industry watchers reason to believe it is creating wiggle room in terms of an exact availability date. Linux creator Linus Torvalds is still not impressed with the second draft of the GPL 3.0 that FSF issued yesterday and, in fact, has no plans to adopt it for the Linux kernel. And Nokia tests dual cellular Wi-Fi phones.

Posted by Tom Sullivan on July 28, 2006 10:44 AM