March 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Tactics for boosting site traffic
Columnist's corner: David Margulius breaks down the basics of SEO. That's search engine optimization for those who don't yet know. "SEO represents hundreds of billions of revenue dollars, and high profit dollars," Margulius explains. Google, for one, rakes in some $14 billion in revenue each year from paid text ads plunked down right next to its search results. He offers a pair of techniques for putting site traffic in the fast lane. "As with all IT, the devil's in the details."
Notes from the field: The downright heroic Robert X. Cringely, along with the rest of our writers, is getting a new Zip code online, as I'm certain, you've read or heard by now. Cringe, for his part, will become a blogger and suggests for readers to "look for the same bad puns and snarky commentary in tasty snack-sized pieces starting next week on InfoWorld.com." That doesn't mean he's too busy packing up shop to hit the vendors hard this week, no. Larry Ellison. Henning Kagermann. Sneezing panda bears. And Office 2007 going medieval on Outlook Express are all in Cringe's line of fire. Oracle's SAP attack, old media fights back.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 30, 2007 11:56 AM
March 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Security vendors are bringing software traditionally found on PCs to mobile devices, an internal investigation at Dell discovers evidence of misconduct, and more.
LISTEN!
Posted by Caroline Craig on March 30, 2007 07:44 AM
March 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: Intel claims to have waved its magic wand and summoned a Wi-Fi setup that reaches for 60 miles, as Stephanie Bruzzese reports in this short-and-sweet Tech Treks post. Only thing, "it won't be available for the likes of you and me."
The news beat: The TJX data heist has been confirmed as the largest single loss of consumer information to date with 45.7 million records involved, surpassing CardSystems Solutions exposure of some 40 million. The European Union reports that there are now more mobile phones than citizens on the continent. And here in the U.S. mobile vendors still face the backhaul issue.
New to our site: We launched the InfoWorld IT Exchange Classified Marketplace. The name pretty much says it all. Find it here. (Free registration is required if you've not done so already.)
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 30, 2007 04:42 AM
March 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: Non-U.S. nations, such as Asia, have been "traditionally very conservative when it comes to the adoption of new technology," points out David Linthicum. Increased IT spends will drive SOA adoption in Asia. "Clearly, they see SOA as something that can add longer term value to their company, and that's something they are always looking for in IT."
Open source: Draft 3 of the GPL v3 is out and the reviews are mixed. Linus likes it, but the ACT hates it. Matt Asay, meanwhile, examines the implications it could have on the Microsoft/Novell pact.
From the Test Center: Potential. That's what Adobe's Apollo has at this point. Of course, it's an alpha version released just last week that James Borck writes is "showing good promise at influencing the opportunity for future desktop-to-Web application development in coming years." Read the full review.
The news beat: Silicon Valley venture capitalists convene to discuss which technologies will soar, and those that will tank; Web 2.0 steals the show. Dell vows to offer PCs and notebooks pre-loaded with Linux. And Cingular's Video Share service demonstrates its business side.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 29, 2007 10:53 AM
March 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
VCs debate future of Web 2.0, Intel says Penryn due by year's end, Dell to start selling Linux PCs and notebooks, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 29, 2007 08:05 AM
March 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
What's a Linux guy doing at Sun?
Interview: That is the question Ian Murdock gets from folks when they learn he took a chief platform officer gig at Sun Microsystems. To answer such skeptics, the 'ian' half of Debian Linux, which Murdock created alongside wife Deb, details what he aims to accomplish in his newly-formed post. Making Solaris looks as appealing as Linux, and closing the usability gap, are among those.
Columnist's corner: On a recent visit to AMD Tom Yager had a revelation of sorts concerning video, audio and software. In summary: new chips will mean that "an unauthorized party can't save the contents of the display to a file on disk unless the content owner approves it," Yager explains in this week's installment of Ahead of the Curve. So what? Well, "there is a short list of parties who will be unauthorized to access your frame buffer: You." The longer list, on the other hand, includes "all content owners that want your machine to themselves." There is an upside for IT, though.
Best of the blogs: Self-proclaimed "ardent critic" of the GPL v3 Matt Asay points to Novell's take on the draft license. "Not earth shattering, but it does make me want to take a closer look at the draft's implications for the Novell/Microsoft pact," he writes in Open Sources. "The pact is a primary reason for the draft's delay (as the FSF was looking for ways to close the patent loophole Microsoft exploited)."
Video: Adobe created 6 versions of Creative Suite 3, rolling a number of Macromedia tools in a long-awaited product shakeup, reports Martyn Williams of the IDG News Service. The company also eliminated some overlap, namely the GoLive tool, and made the software compatible with Intel-based Macs and Windows Vista. Watch it here.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 29, 2007 04:55 AM
March 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Download crimes and misdemeanors
Best of the blogs: Some headlines are just too juicy to resist. Take, for instance, this one: The open source download heist . In this particular case the charge is inflating download numbers with intent to flaunt. "I'd actually suggest that a useful metric would be dollars-per-download," Matt Asay espouses. "It's not a good way of measuring community, but it is a very good way of measuring how much the buying community values one's software."
Columnist's corner: It wasn't simple, no, but Oliver Rist isn't easily daunted either. This time he wound his way, via persistence, to the confusing truth about Microsoft's VoIP plans. The "longer answers stated that Response Point is entirely its own product, not related either by marketing or technology to OCS ... yet." So what exactly is it? "A full-featured VoIP PBX for which Microsoft produces the software and various hardware partners offer as an appliance."
Security: Cyber criminals are getting more specific by making malware outlets that uncover people's computing posture in the effort to personalize attacks, according to IBM's ISS group. Web attacks get personal. Such attacks frequently wait until a user opens a specific site or application before springing to life and beginning to intercept users' details, ISS explains. Related: Hackers dodge the law via private IM.
The news beat: LG Electronics reveals plans for some 10 cell phones boasting pre-installed Google software and services, namely Gmail, Maps and Blogger Mobile. Microsoft and Nortel extend their existing partnership on unified communications to focus on service providers and carriers. And IBM, Oracle and a raft of other vendors form the Service Research and Innovation (SRI) group to elevate service science to the level of computer science.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 28, 2007 10:57 AM
March 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Dell creates division to design hyper-scale datacenters, HP sues Acer over patents, FSF to issue third draft of GPL v3, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 28, 2007 06:44 AM
March 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Is Vista secure enough? Longhorn?
Special Report: Windows Vista is looking like the most secure OS to come out of Microsoft yet. What follows, quite naturally, are the questions of whether that's good enough for the enterprise, and Has Microsoft kept it's Vista security promise? Not everyone thinks so. Some go so far as to insist that Vista's security model is merely "a big joke." Looking ahead to Longhorn, though, "Microsoft seems to finally have made a real effort," Oliver Rist writes in A bullish outlook for Longhorn security. Of course, it's still too early to tell if Microsoft will deliver on its claims.
Columnist's corner: Even melodrama has its lessons, such as the ones our Off the Record author learned: make sure there are witnesses when helping a co-worker do his job, and keep your mouth shut at big meetings. "Since he seemed like a decent guy, Jesse and I were perfectly happy sharing our expertise." That's how it began. It ends with sour grapes. Shortcuts to career suicide.
Careers: One reader writes in that after 24 years with the company he was terminated last week sans so much as an explanation. "If you were fired for cause, shame on your managers for not giving you the opportunity to improve your performance. And if you were fired because of some intangible factor, shame on your managers again," Lewis writes in Advice Line. Of course, not everyone who gets fired deserves to blame management, even though Lewis contends that in this particular situation "it will probably turn out to be a blessing." This, by the by, is the first tech article I've seen in a while to quote The Who; and twice, at that.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 28, 2007 04:54 AM
March 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Video: A first glimpse at Apple TV. While a lot of companies have tried such media streaming devices, the existing ones are "kind of unreliable. They're hard to use and nobody really likes them much," explains PC World's Ed Albro. "It'll be interesting to see whether Apple, with its design smarts, can make something that really just works." Watch it here.
Best of the blogs: At least according to Dell, mobile workers want data protection, chassis protection and an LCD they can see outside. "These claims seem reasonable, but I'm always curious to know the parameters vendors use to draw their conclusions," Stephanie Bruzzese explains in this Tech Treks post. "Just like vendors never want the press to stress-test their portables, they're always hesitant to give exact answers to survey-type questions."
Columnist's corner: Unified communications, particularly given the litigious world as it is today, brings several issues of which IT ought to be aware. Think legal pitfalls. "If you digitize and archive your voice mails, especially on your e-mail server, you are obligated to save them as you would any other relevant electronic document," Ephraim Schwartz points out in Unified under law. So, be careful how you deploy.
The news beat: The much-anticipated third draft of GPLv3 will debut tomorrow, months after it was originally expected. Adobe creates six versions of Creative Suite 3 with specific customer segments in mind. And security vendors are turning their focus toward smartphones.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 27, 2007 10:50 AM
March 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft details two pending versions of Visual Studio, buys Web interface company. Also, Vista sales surpass XP in first month, Samsung touts 64GB solid state drive, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 27, 2007 07:24 AM
March 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Betting against Oracle's good intentions
Best of the blogs: Matt Asay is not just a blogger; he also has a law degree. (No jokes, please.) He joins the conversation about Oracle's case against SAP and TomorrowNow by chiming in with Josh Greenbaum and Nick Carr, who both suggest that there's no there there. "Nick and Josh may be wrong," Asay writes in this Open Sources post. "But I'd bet on them over Oracle's good intentions any day."
From the Test Center: The Java IDE landscape is changing, to be certain. As such, Andrew Binstock looks at Borland JBuilder, IBM Rational and Sun NetBeans. "I was impressed by how much these products have matured during the past two years but surprised that they haven't advanced further in some respects," he writes. So which is the best one? Well now, that all depends on your needs, but each fits a specific area. Read the full review. Also, there are more Java IDE tools to try, including three from Eclipse, JetBrains and Oracle.
Q&A: McAfee's new CEO, David DeWalt, says the company is proud to be a pure-play security vendor, and discusses his road map for the future, in this interview with Matt Hines.
Security: Researchers speaking at the ShmooCon show expressed concern about the security of $100 notebooks being built by MIT's One Laptop Per Child program. At issue is whether the computers will fall prey to malware and hackers once they land in children's hands.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 27, 2007 04:50 AM
March 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Gripe Line: Not every month has 30 days in the Gregorian calendar. You know that. I do, too, for the record. But that doesn't mean eMusic does, as one reader discovered. "eMusic has a 30-day billing cycle, not monthly. Because of it, I thought I had cancelled at the end of the month, but in fact rolled into the next so was on the hook for another fee." That, of course, was just the beginning of the end. "Have you run afoul of a nasty term in a vendor's sneakwrap?" Ed Foster asks. If so, tell us about it here.
Columnist's corner: The battle between Microsoft and open source trudges on with scare tactics and intimidation serving as the primary weapons. "The problem is, when you bring fear and uncertainty to bear on the open source market, you also stifle creativity and innovation," Neil McAllister writes in Mr. Gates, tear down these walls. "The ongoing conflict, like the Cold War, is a wasteful exercise that diverts untold resources away from worthwhile goals, such as fighting disease, bridging the digital divide, and improving quality of life." Related: Novell steering Microsoft defectors back to Microsoft?
The news beat: Iona adds a repository for SOAs, dubbed the Artix Registry/Repository 1.0. The SANS Institute details four exams that test programmers' security sense and training. And Symbian builds support for Wi-Fi roaming, location-based services, database applications and more into its OS v9.5 for mobile phones.
Best of the blogs: We've folded the print edition of InfoWorld to hone our focus on online and events. Editor-in-chief Steve Fox explains why we did it in this post. "Frankly, the editorial staff foresaw the demise of print from a long way off and began making preparations for that inevitable day. Now that it is here, InfoWorld is well positioned to serve our readers," Fox writes. "I expect other trade publications will be following InfoWorld's lead soon enough."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 26, 2007 10:54 AM
March 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)
AMD pushes automation, Intel to build plant in China, Microsoft limits Soapbox. Plus, a note on why we folded the print publication LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 26, 2007 07:48 AM
March 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Outsourcing compliance efforts
Storage: The regulatory burden just might be making U.S. companies less competitive, depending on your viewpoint, reports Mario Apicella in Getting compliance out of the datacenter. A new pact inked by AXS-One and EDS, in fact, enables customers to do just that via outsourcing. "Staying compliant is not optional and has a big cost for all but the smallest companies."
Security: Call it criminal adaptability; Roger Grimes does as he explains car thieves' workarounds to beat tracking systems. Grimes encourages users to investigate related offerings for notebook PCs. "With nearly half of all data theft incidents now involving stolen mobile computer devices, expect services like these to become the norm in the next few years," he explains in Lojack for laptops. "It's great piece of mind."
Best of the blogs: SOA, it seems, might be falling into the 80/20 rule, with 20 percent of the services handling 80 percent of the processing. "Many SOAs that I'm seeing deployed have a tendency to be out-of-balance or a disproportionate portion of the processing is taking place within a small group of services, and the others are not pulling their load," suggests David Linthicum. Thus the increasing need for services balancing.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 26, 2007 04:57 AM
March 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Plugging holes in your IT resume
Careers: Resume chasms. They're hardly uncommon in the IT fray, though one reader's sprung from an unusual source: a disastrous personal relationship. Bob Lewis nonetheless addresses the tricky issue. "I'm honestly not certain as to the best way to handle the resume gap," Lewis writes in Advice Line. "I'm not sure it's the right question to ask." Personal networking of the ilk that does not demand one is a good place to start, though.
Platforms: In a new report Microsoft researchers claim that during its first 3 months Vista has tested as more secure than Apple's Mac OS X as well as open source offerings from Novell, Red Hat and Ubuntu. "Industry pundits are sure to ... take the position that Microsoft tilted the tables in its favor to come up with attractive results, but the fact of the matter remains there have not been many vulnerabilities discovered in Vista," writes Matt Hines in this Zero Day post. The U.S. government might be interested in Microsoft's report, given that the White House demands 'secure' Windows. Dave Rosenberg explains that, "in typical government fashion this is both totally logical and illogical."
Notes from the field: Microsoft and Robert X. Cringely just might have something in common, after all. Seems they've both reached the day when arm-twisting and trash talking no longer work as secrets to success. Okay, okay, perhaps only Microsoft really fits the description; Cringely still practices such tactics with devotion. Anyway, Vista, itself playing the bully, killed the Intel RAID arrays of one reader's Dell Dimension 9200 and has garnered reports of frozen systems and BIOS incompatibilities. MS bribes, Vista nixes drives.
The news beat: Oracle snaps up Tangosol for its in-memory data grid technology which will round out the Fusion middleware roster. FCC chairman Kevin Martin asks the commission to keep the ban on cell phone use during airplane flights in place. Another Trojan horse gallops through Skype's VoIP network, this one dubbed Warezov or Stration. And Belgian company ServersCheck loses its lawsuit against Google, in which the former alleged that the search engine points to pirated copies of its software.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 23, 2007 10:41 AM
March 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Oracle slaps rival SAP with a lawsuit. Also, NBC and News Corp. team up to challenge YouTube, Bill Gates to receive Harvard degree, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 23, 2007 06:50 AM
March 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Hey Novell, stand up to Microsoft!
Platforms: Advancing an argument that perhaps Google actually planned to get sued over YouTube, Matt Asay suggests that Novell could learn a thing or two from the search engine's bold tactics. "Novell has slandered its reputation with its dubious Microsoft pact. However Novell may want to color it, the agreement implies that Linux is "Unclean!'" he writes in this Open Sources post. The alternative? Don't lie down and grovel.
Careers: If you can't write well, stay home. Harsh words indeed, but Leading from the trenches author John West explains that "it is more important to be able to write well than to speak well." Why? "Because of the central role it has in the success of an organization and the execution of the mission of that organization, the ability to express yourself only adequately is simply not, well, adequate." West also offers these tips on getting better.
SOA: Budgeting for SOA projects does not necessarily have to be difficult, even if it is complex, and there are logical formulas you can leverage, David Linthicum asserts in Real World SOA. Within he dissects an article about best practices for an enterprise SOA. "No need to approach these projects blindly."
Video: Australian company Torian shows off a portable player for Internet radio broadcasts in this clip live from the CeBit conference floor with Martyn Williams of the IDG News Service. Watch it here.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 23, 2007 04:48 AM
March 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)
A new tech title: Chief sustainability officer
Best of the blogs: The motivation to think green is increasing. Money, yes. Global warming. And environmental regulation compliance. "It makes sense to select a point person at your company to lead that charge, lest your company be left scrambling to catch up down the road," Ted Samson writes. And the position some are chanting for is that of chief sustainability officer. "Companies are waking up to realize that they're wasting a lot of money, energy, and valuable real estate keeping, for example, datacenters up and running."
Columnist's corner: E-mail slips can be dangerous indeed. Take the one Dave Margulius got from a 'well-placed tech-industry figure' asking whether he thought HP would buy Symantec. "I'm pretty sure the message wasn't meant for me, but for some other Dave in this guy's address book," Margulius explains in this week's installment of Enterprise Insight. The question sparked a thought, just the same. "HP could make handy use of both halves of Symantec." Related: Hewlett-Packard scoops up Tabblo, a provider of Web-based software for arranging and printing text, graphics and photos.
The news beat: Nokia ships the N95 phone replete with GPS but at a hefty ticket price. Microsoft and Fuji Xerox ink a patent cross-licensing pact regarding document management systems. NBC teams up with News Corp. to create a YouTube rival that will debut later this year. And live from the show floor Paul Krill asks is the ServerSide Java Symposium de-emphasizing Java?
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 22, 2007 10:56 AM
March 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)
IT vendors turn SOA specs over to standards bodies, Motorola issues warnings amid management shakeup, SugarCRM preps version 5.0, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 22, 2007 08:06 AM
March 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)
SOA: Is Ajax really the face of SOA? David Linthicum asks, and stabs at an answer to, that very question. At issue is that SOA needs a common user interface, and whether or not we are oversimplifying things. "While it's easy to draw a lot of services and place a user interface on them, that's really not SOA," Linthicum maintains. Related: Microsoft joins the OpenAjax Alliance.
Hardware: Following up his post from earlier in the week on varying server prices, Paul Venezia confirms in IT Watchdogs and the Dell Mystery solved that Dell's pricing is accurate, for the time being anyway. The vendor is selling systems for 30-40 percent lower than competitors to grab attention. "At $29K, it might be worth buying the server just for the RAM and procs."
Columnist's corner: The lost laptop trend is not irreversible. "A dab of common sense will do you," insists Oliver Rist. "So dig out your mobile security policies and skim down past Anti-Virus, Personal Firewalls, and Backups, and tack on a section called Theft Protection." That ought to include the basics of data protection, hardware protection, and corporate exposure. The overarching goal here is to Protect mobile data from all sides. Speaking of, RIM's co-CEO Mike Lazaridis says that wireless security must be the top priority for providers.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 22, 2007 04:47 AM
March 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Vista Aero's dirty little secret
Operating systems: The Aero interface of Windows Vista is a step up from the XP GUI, true, but by no means it is flawless. "It's a CPU hog," Randall Kennedy explains in this Enterprise Desktop post. "Turn on the 'bling' and you toss nearly a quarter of your CPU bandwidth out the window." Mr. Kennedy arrived at this conclusion by using the recently updated DMS Clarity Tracker Agent.
Columnist's corner: The x86 has parallelism limits that virtualization and heavy multi-threaded software are exposing, Tom Yager points out in Where x86 hits the wall. "The weaknesses of the x86 approach to superscalar operation are starting to show," he writes. "Although I am impressed by multicore x86 efforts, I wish that Intel and AMD would put as much sweat into holistic platforms that take architecture up a notch." Related: x86 still rules server roost, but change is afoot.
The news beat: Analyst firm IDC says that Acer could potentially overtake Lenovo for the third ranking among PC vendors. The Liberty Alliance issues new specifications for protecting identity information that travels via mobile devices. Google expands its pay-per-action ads test to more advertisers and publishers. And Fortran's father John Backus dies at 82 years of age.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 21, 2007 10:53 AM
March 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft joins OpenAjax Alliance, Intel CEO Otellini heads to China, Yahoo extends its mobile oneSearch, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 21, 2007 07:42 AM
March 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Applications: Sure, the software-as-a-service model has its attractive points. But as is the case with many technologies, the upfront ticket is only the beginning of TCO. To gauge the real cost of SaaS, Ephraim Schwartz whips out his calculator and does the math for you, based on two major providers, NetSuite and Salesforce.com. Before I get ahead of myself here, though, it's important to note "that price isn't everything." In some cases, customers find themselves tailoring the business to fit what a provider offers, a situation Schwartz explains, that could lead SaaS into a dead end. "But something tells me big changes are ahead."
Columnist's corner: Lots of college kids go somewhere with bountiful sun and booze and very little clothing for spring break, but our Off the Record author found himself "driving east with a COBOL manual in the back seat of my car." So what if he didn't find bikers and bikinis but, instead, uncovered that a contract programmer was operating on finger math rather than normal division operators. Not as much fun? Perhaps, but it landed him a job offer before graduation. If you're wondering why I keep defending this guy, well, so am I. How I started my IT career.
Podcasts: The latest SOA Report topics include Semantics, ontologies, the Semantic Web and SOA. Taken together, those pretty much make this particular podcast about, well, pretty much everything related to a services-centric philosophy. Oh wait, I almost forgot one. "Formally known as the Semantic Web, Web 3.0 promises yet another Internet revolution. It would provide the foundation for systems that can reason in a human fashion." The Semantic Web, by the by, is not entirely new. Tim Berners-Lee, in fact, delivered a keynote about it in the '90's. "Now that we're starting to build service-oriented architectures ... people are understanding its value." Tune into SOA Report.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 21, 2007 05:01 AM
March 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Salesforce.com talks up MySpace for businesses, IBM and Cisco team on crisis response service, BenQ asks chairman to stick around and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 20, 2007 11:42 AM
March 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Take a chance to get IT job you want
Careers: To change your professional life -- and personal, I suppose, but that's another matter altogether and this is, after all, a technology site -- you've got to step out of line and take a chance, asserts Nick Corcodilos, in this Ask the headhunter post. "You don't have to be an 'uber-geek' to do it. But you can't remain 'normal' either, because (to quote Bruce Cockburn), the trouble with normal is it only gets worse." Yes, Mr. Corcodilos has an example to back it up, too. Something about Barbie Ferrari's when he was in college. "Offering to solve problems without being asked would pay off for me again and again throughout my life. It also earned me friends in higher places."
Best of the blogs: It's become clear in the last several months that myriad InfoWorld readers have a beef with what Symantec has done to the Norton product line. "Now one reader is wondering if the same won't someday be the case with Symantec's acquisition of Veritas, particularly after the licensing fiasco he's just experienced with Backup Exec," Ed Foster reports. Backup Exec, you see, came with eight pages of certificates, but none of the license or serial numbers corresponded with his software. Licensing logjam holds back Veritas customer.
The news beat: IBM and Cisco are in cahoots again, this time offering up a managed service for crisis response, that focuses on various functions including continuity, network operability and recovery, and IP communications. Secure64 creates a minimalist operating system capable of transforming an Itanium box into a DNS appliance. And thanks to plentiful rumors folks are whispering about a possible Google phone, but why would Google make a phone anyway? Related: Talkback and have your say about the Google phone. One writer envisions something of a post-apocalyptic all-Google-all-the-time world.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 20, 2007 11:20 AM
March 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
IT spending growth to slow in '07
The news beat: IT spending is expected to rise this year, but more slowly than it did in 2006, according to AnalystPerspectives. Hewlett-Packard keeps its PC momentum and continues pulling ahead of Dell. And Microsoft details a forthcoming phone and software package for SMBs, the Microsoft Response Point, which Ephraim Schwartz suggests could be a stalking horse for bigger things to come.
Special Report: Open source VoIP just might be enterprise-worthy. Plus, it brings considerable cost savings and flexibility. Summer Bay Resorts, for instance, found that "if the phone is the lifeblood of your business, Asterisk is more than up to the task," as Paul Venezia reports in this case study. Venezia also undertakes his own open source VoIP quest -- one that resulted in his whole lab and, ultimately, his whole house, running on a single Asterisk instance under VMware Server. Read the entire package. Or watch Venezia demonstrate Trixbox here.
Best of the blogs: Leading from the trenches author John West is looking for offices that we can all be jealous of. As in, the kind where one might say, "if I worked here, I might not go home." He's got examples from Google, Red Bull London and others, too.
Careers: A reader writes in to ask sage Bob Lewis to gauge whether a merger said reader is involved in will work, or not. Lewis offers up four cornerstones, beginning with cultural compatibility of course, that make for a good start. Another: personal opportunity for the employees.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 20, 2007 04:57 AM
March 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Something not quite right about server pricing
Best of the blogs: Paul Venezia came across some information that anyone in the market for Big Iron ought to know. Comparing prices for Opteron boxes from Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Sun, he found that Dell is charging $1.5k/DIMM, HP at $4k/DIMM, and Sun somewhere in the middle. "Either Dell's throwing one heck of a loss-leader in a bizarre way, or someone messed up the site pricing," he writes in Talk about a price difference.
The news beat: Microsoft teams with researchers at the University of California to investigate how 'search spammers' work and how they can be stopped. Anonymous hackers say they will release a month of MySpace bugs beginning in April to "highlight the monoculture-style danger of extremely popular Websites." And Fujitsu offers two models of flash-based notebooks for rugged applications.
Columnist's corner: Given a variety of market conditions "it's unclear whether Dell will really be able to offer Linux systems at a price point that is as attractive as customers might expect," Neil McAllister writes in Dell takes baby steps toward Linux. Dell, he adds, may be taking a wrong approach to the problem by going the way of one-off PC sales to hackers, enthusiasts and small businesses. "It should be clear by now that OS competition is in the long-term best interests of customers, but too much choice has a way of becoming no choice at all."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 19, 2007 11:23 AM
March 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Sun, Adobe tout tools for rich Internet apps, Salesforce.com unveils Spring '07 release, Google scoops up a pair of companies, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 19, 2007 08:29 AM
March 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Security: Doing away with user passwords? Excuse me? Sounds crazy at first blush, perhaps, but Roger Grimes was involved in one such project that he outlines in this installment of Security Adviser. "The company is trying to remove any instance where an employee would have to put in a password so that it can increase the password length to a far greater than normal maximum," he explains. In this case, that's 128 characters, or one more than Windows permits without tailoring.
The news beat: Adobe issues an alpha version of Apollo, its technology for creating rich Internet applications, which is a runtime in which applications built with HTML, Flash, AJAX can run offline. Sun Microsystems touts a beta release of its open source GlassFish app server and an iteration of its Sun Web Developer Pack. And a whole host of new gadgets debut at CeBit.
Video: Kevin Keating, marketing manager for Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), demonstrates a new Bluetooth spec. "We have three key pieces with the new specification. We've made it simpler ... enhanced security ... and we improved the battery life." Bluetooth gets a cleaning.
Storage: Since he's not 'a Blackberry person' Mario Apicella is In search of a laptop that plays it safe. "Why is it that my laptop and many others still carry data in clear?" he asks. Well, thus far encryption systems have not met his criteria. "I wouldn't lock any door if that meant having to carry around a 20-pound key. The deciding factor in the next battle on laptop encryption -- or more general data encryption -- will be easy management."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 19, 2007 05:07 AM
March 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The news beat: CEOs are busy this week, criticizing competitors mostly. Symantec CEO John Thompson said that one company providing both an OS and security for it is a conflict of interest, though he opted to not specifically mention the 'M' word. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, meanwhile, harped on Google for focusing too much on ad-supported search rather than reinventing itself as, he says, Microsoft has done many a time.
Notes from the field: Robert X. Cringely has a thought for Intel: hire convicted hacker Randal Lee Schwartz to manage your e-mail. Then again, Intel might be left with no excuse for losing e-mails involved in the AMD antitrust case, methinks. At least ASUS was up front when it initially told John M. there were no replacements for his bogus battery, though the company eventually rescinded. Luckily, those batteries did not explode, but "Office 2K7 nukes all of Outlook Express' spell check libraries," Cringe writes in Intel mislays its mail, ASUS batteries fail.
Video: The Commodore 64 is back. You read that right, and it's on display at the CeBit trade show. "These days the name is being attached to a new generation of gaming PCs," reports Martyn Williams of the IDG News Service. Commodore CEO Bala Keilman explains, "that's really where the essence of the brand is." Watch it here.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 16, 2007 11:09 AM
March 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Cisco and Microsoft make SaaS moves. Also, Microsoft offers credits for enterprise Web search, Livedoor's Horie found guilty, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 16, 2007 08:32 AM
March 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Mashware: The new thing for SOA?
SOA: Perhaps coining a new term -- mashware -- David Linthicum explains that "providing middleware between source systems and data allows the user to mashup the services and information in anyway that makes them more productive," he writes in this Real World SOA post. "While driving a dynamic client has its value, the real trick is mixing and matching views of information, application behavior, and composites of both, and that's best put between the interface and the sources."
Gripe Line: As if it's not bad enough that one reader landed a Gateway lemon, the company made it worse by not being able "to find [the PC] long enough to send it back to her." Adding insult to injury, "each tech would promise she'd have it back in 7 to 10 days, but none would say what was wrong or what was being done," Ed Foster reports in A stray Gateway Lemon. Happy ending here? Nope. But this piece does raise the question of whether we need a Lemon Law for computers.
Best of the blogs: The Hewlett-Packard spying scandal called to light just how ridiculous and unethical pretexting can be. Why, then, did California's Attorney General back off? Ephraim Schwartz asks. "As a layman my instinct tells me that no Attorney General wants to risk losing a case. If it wasn't a slam dunk maybe the AG decided to wipe it off his calendar and await legislation that clearly defines wrong doing in future cases like this."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 16, 2007 04:33 AM
March 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: The daylight savings time change did not create any major problems, but some folks are left with little headaches. "I thought updating my computers for this year's extended daylight savings time would be easy," Martin Heller explains. Not so. Heller's issue resides within his iPaq, which seemed to be working at first. "When I put it in its cradle on Monday, it changed the time back when it synched. I changed it forward again, and went through my day," Heller writes. "By Tuesday, I'd had enough." Calendar Hell: DST, Outlook and Windows Mobile.
Collaboration: Cisco Systems says it will buy WebEx and with the acquired technology build out its communications and collaboration platforms. The deal makes sense on a lot of levels, argues Matt Asay in Open Sources. "I'm hoping that maybe WebEx will actually work now," he writes. "Cisco: please fix WebEx. It lacks a feature that I need: stability."
Columnist's corner: Bringing back his friend and lifelong Windows user who is testing a Mac, Tom Yager reminds us up front that, "to switch or not to switch is entirely her decision; I'm just watching." But she's getting "mired in aspects of Mac-ness." Just don't take that as any sort of foreshadowing, Yager insists in Mac sense and nonsense. "She's discovering that there are things Windows does that the Mac cannot. This story is far from finished."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 15, 2007 11:01 AM
March 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Judge dismisses case against former HP chairman Patricia Dunn, Microsoft unveils Dynamics Live, Google embraces anonymous search, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 15, 2007 07:49 AM
March 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
SharePoint, or the future of Microsoft
Best of the blogs: Documentum, Interwoven, Filenet, Vignette don't have one, "but there is a future for SharePoint, and for the open source competition," Matt Asay explains in SharePoint: Microsoft's next operating system. For one, it's exploding into the enterprise. Just think $1 billion in four years. The product will be "how Microsoft locks customers into its software (benevolently or malevolently -- you choose)."
Video: Samsung unwraps the Q1 Ultramobile PC, lighter and more powerful than its predecessor. In addition to hardware upgrades, the system now packs Windows Vista. Watch the report from Cebit here.
The news beat: Also at Cebit, CEOs are grappling with Web 2.0 tools, while analysts encourage business leaders to embrace them. Google backs anonymous search, no longer retaining its log of every query. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, meanwhile, demonstrates Dynamics Live CRM at the Convergence show.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 15, 2007 05:51 AM
March 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Careers: The future of job hunting will involve companies creating the candidate they need and job hunters sculpting the job they need, Nick Corcodilos argues in Perfection: Lost in the database? "The implication is interesting, if there were a truly efficient job board out there." Perhaps we're so far from that because such employees and prospective employers aren't always able to find each other.
Columnist's corner: The classic dotcom 'victim-of-their-own-success' struck our Off the Record author's company way back in the '90's, when it turned the company over to a new COO. "Within a couple of months, the suits had fired almost 20 percent of the staff. The worst part was that the firings seemed to be almost random." The cuts kept on coming until revenues declined nearly 50 percent. The owners, quite naturally, were left asking what happened?
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 14, 2007 11:17 AM
March 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The conclusion of our three part series on managing data. Also, Microsoft sues cybersquatters, Samsung to unveil ultramobile PC, and more
LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 14, 2007 08:42 AM
March 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
A business case for open source
Best of the blogs: There's a distinction between 'free' open source software and the 'freedom' benefits it brings, explains Josh Kuo in this Geeks in Paradise post. "My favorite benefit of Open Source Software is one that most people don't even think about. What happens if something happens to the software vendor?" he asks. "How about the vendors who just abandon a not-very-successful software product? It's not good business, but it happens."
Columnist's corner: Inspired by spinach, onions and Peter Pan, Ephraim Schwartz investigates the role IT can play in preventing food contamination outbreaks. "The truth is, IT may actually be part of the problem rather than the solution, but it doesn't have to be that way," he writes in Recipe for disaster. The good news, though, is that there are already solutions out there. "IT can either take a proactive approach...or take a back seat at its own peril."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 14, 2007 04:01 AM
March 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Prowling for more stupid user tricks
Best of the blogs: Oliver Rist is opening the door for you to share tales of dumb users. "The call is the same: send me your anecdotes with as much personal information about yourself as you'd like," Rist writes. Eligible candidates include anything that "a user did that just ruined a system administrator's day." Flashback: here's the story on eleven IT horror stories caused by users, from last year.
Open source: With Will Hurley stepping on board to head up its open source group, BMC gets open source religion. "If BMC understood open source, it would be actively engaged in open source, and it's not," Matt Asay writes. "Still, hiring Will is a good move in the right direction."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 13, 2007 11:02 AM
March 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Part 2 in our three-part series on managing data. Also, Microsoft and IBM talk up community support, former Nortel executives charged, and more Download file
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 13, 2007 08:32 AM
March 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)
A desktop virtualization alternative
Platforms: If you're looking for desktop virtualization and don't want to leave the Microsoft world -- but know that Virtual PC 2007's "lackluster performance and limited feature set" won't work for you -- there is still an option. "Though not marketed as a desktop virtualization solution, Virtual Server 2005 R2 (SP1) works quite well under Windows XP and Windows Vista," Randall Kennedy in this Enterprise Desktop post. "It's also blazingly fast."
Slideshow: Cell phones, while indispensable tools, are enough to drive most of us crazy. Particularly when other people are using them. There are, however, 10 commandments of cell phone etiquette. Thou shalt not dial while driving is the first. Don't get too attached to it, either. And never bring it into the bathroom. Related: Readers weigh in on commandments of their own.
Best of the blogs: The GirdWorks Metascheduler within Globus has moved from incubation into the full Globus project stage. "Given that similar processes are used in the enterprise space this is an indicator that dev.globus considers itself a contender in more than the research and academic spaces of which it is commonly associated," Greg Nawrocki states in Six new Globus incubator projects.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 13, 2007 04:06 AM
March 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: Big, small, nascent, niche, and stack players, SOA has them all, David Linthcium points out in this Real World SOA post. Some are good, others are not. "The funny thing is that all of the vendors that read this blog, and there are about 100 at last count, will think that they are in the 'good' column. Unfortunately, a good number are not."
Open source: Taking the debate about what makes an open source company one step forward, Neil McAllister poses another question: Are you an open source user or joiner? "Joiners are the companies that offer financial backing, customer support, and indemnification for open-source projects. They contribute code," McAllister explains. Take Red Hat, for instance. Joiners, on the other hand, neither hire open source developers, nor contribute much in the way of code or expertise. "That's hardly the ideal model of community participation. But that's OK, too, because users often have something else: money."
Storage: With the new StorStac, Intransa is aiming to differentiate itself in an already crowded IP storage fray. To do so, the company is taking a particular focus on bandwidth-intensive environments, such as video-on-demand and video surveillance, reports Mario Apicella in Betting on top storage speed. It's too early to make predictions about Intransa's future, "but it will be a good fight to watch and an interesting technology to follow."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 12, 2007 11:26 AM
March 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)
First in a three part series on managing data. Also, the DST shift goes smoothly, Intel touts low-power quad-core Xeons, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 12, 2007 07:00 AM
March 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Columnist's corner: Fresh from some what-if exercises in which IT honchos were stimulated to consider how best to prepare and respond in the event of various catastrophes, David Margulius is reeling from "the degree to which even a sophisticated group of senior managers can be thrown off guard by the unknown or the unexpected." The problem: too many folks are "anchored in 'what we know to be true.'" Crisis management 101. The real danger, indeed, is that whatever the next disruption -- be it natural disaster, terrorism, or nearly anything else -- it won't be obvious and easily understood while it's happening.
Videos: Dorf. That's not a typo, but it is something not everyone in IT knows about -- yet, that is. Mark Harris, director of Sophos Labs, discusses why it matters with senior editor Paul Roberts. "The real motivation [of malware authors] is now money, whether it be installing spyware, or some form of banking Trojan, or recruiting you into a botnet of comprised machines." What Harris is not seeing very often, however, is a host of new viruses. Harris also makes a prediction for the biggest security concern of 2007. Watch the interview here.
Security: Rarely are particular technologies singled out in general regulations, but that doesn't stop even some vendors from suggesting that, say, Winzip is not covered under HIPAA guidelines. "Although many people, including myself, could argue that this lack of specificity means security problems will keep occurring, the reality is that there are so many ways to protect computer data that no single recommendation would ever be complete enough," Roger Grimes explains in Have you read your regulations? So instead of taking a vendor's word for it, do what a lot of them don't. "It can never hurt to read the source documents that regulate your industry, even if they are boring and dry."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 12, 2007 04:09 AM
March 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: Even if you think you're ready for the time change this weekend, here is a compilation of seven tasks to ensure that nothing slips through even the best laid plans. For starters, revisit your datacenter inventory to know what applications and systems need patching. Another taste: schedule some IT staff to work that day, just in case. Related: Daylight savings time survival guide.
Notes from the field: If his personal relationships are any indication the mysterious Mr. Cringely will not miss a moment's sleep over the new DST -- even as the rest of us lose that hour. Microsoft's tangled web of DST patches, though, serves as "more proof that if you ask Microsoft the time, it will tell you how to break a watch." Conservapedia claims Wikipedia has a liberal bias to match Joseph Stalin and gravity. I don't know, perhaps Cringe is just distracted because Anna Nicole Smith cameos with her own version of Subterranean Homesick Blues. Microsoft can't do the time, Apple store aids in crime.
The news beat: Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales says the online encyclopedia is discussing a new policy that would require contributors to verify their credentials and, in a separate story, that his company is aiming to launch an open source search engine later this year. Symantec finds that while image spam is on the rise, unwanted messages carrying adult content are at their lowest rate ever. And SAP's chief software architect discusses the company's first on-demand offering, SaaS, and Web services standards, among other topics, in this interview with the IDG News service.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 9, 2007 11:24 AM
March 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
7 ways to prepare for the DST change, Microsoft will not be issuing security fixes next week, California attorney uncovers men behind Winfixer, Gateway execs found guilty, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 9, 2007 07:11 AM
March 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Cursing Vista's lead developer
Best of the blogs: Confessing that he loves Vista's search mechanism, Randall Kennedy shares with readers a fondness for the 'Stack By' feature that eases finding and sorting data files. Sounds great, right? It is, so long as it works. "When it breaks -- as it did recently while researching this blog post -- I find myself cursing the day its lead developer was born." Ouch. A handful of failed desperate measures, as executed in Vista Search: slick but buggy, and the good Mr. Kennedy is already hoping for Service Pack 1.
Test Center review: "Welcome to the Virtual Database zone," Rick Grehan extends in seeMore makes order out of chaos. The seeMore Virtual Server accepts popular databases, including Oracle, DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Sybase, SleepyCat's Berkeley DB, and others on a long, distinguished list. "This is a tool for large enterprises whose squads of dissimilar databases beg for the imposition of a unifying order." It does have a steep ticket, though.
Tech Watch: The Eclipse IDE ranks last in a user satisfaction survey because, by definition, "open source software is always the crappiest software you can get." So says Robert Lefkowitz, 30-year software architect and systems designer, speaking at the EclipseCon. Of course, he also pointed at Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, of the latter sarcastically quipping that the software industry has "noble, good-hearted people." Gates does not get off easy either in Lefkowitz cites open source oddities.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 9, 2007 04:29 AM
March 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
First-time VoIP buyers' most common mistakes
Podcasts: Episode 7 of InfoWorld Live is now featuring not just Oliver Rist but also a character he calls Sasquatch Venezia, otherwise known as Paul over at his Deep End blog. If you're anywhere cold, forgive the host for boasting of Florida weather and golf before he cuts to the tech chase. Once they get there, though, the topic is VoIP and related business services. So it only follows that this installment includes guests from Linksys and Packet 8. Oh yes, and they do get to those newbie blunders. Tune in right here.
Best of the blogs: Sometimes, I suppose, the best way to teach folks how to do something they're unaccustomed to is to make it the only way they can work. That's one Machiavellian means to settle a dispute about the virtues of keyboard shortcuts, as Sean McCown learned after thieving all the mouse balls from hundreds of co-workers. "The next day, I sat back and watched as an entire floor of tech support people were rendered completely helpless because they never bothered learning the simplest of keyboard shortcuts," he writes in My confession. "Oddly enough, that's the first time I've ever told anyone that story."
The news beat: Speaking at the CDC's annual gala dinner Microsoft chairman Bill Gates called on U.S. Congress to pass a privacy law that would enable consumers to control their personal data, provide transparency about how that data is used, and ensure that they're notified in the event of a breach. 3M slaps Lenovo, Sony, and others with a lawsuit alleging that they violated patents related to lithium-ion batteries. And Avaya unwraps new software, phones and a gateway for IP telephony systems.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 8, 2007 10:48 AM
March 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
IT execs say DST is no Y2K, but some concerns remain. Also, Gates calls on Congress to raise foreign worker caps, Samsung ships hybrid hard drive, Microsoft to beta VoIP software by month's end, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 8, 2007 07:55 AM
March 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Why IT ought to grasp power and cooling
Columnist's corner: Sure, IT vendors and customers alike are becoming more environmentally-aware, in the area of power consumption specifically. Even still, in most companies, "IT doesn't pay the electric bill, so it doesn't have the tools to determine how much power it's using and how much of that is wasted," Tom Yager points out in The Green Grid gets going. As in the recently-formed consortium dedicated to address power inefficiency. "Everyone should learn enough about facilities, cooling, and power management to know what they shouldn't mess with and to know when they've messed up."
Platforms: It has not even reached puberty yet but already Windows Live needs a makeover. At least according to Oliver Rist it does. "We've been using Office Live as an experiment for our small software company," he explains in this week's installment of Enterprise Windows. "I'm not as impressed with it after a couple of months of use as I was when I saw the demo." Pray tell? E-mail. Usability of the site. Screen design. Those, among others capabilities, are problematic. "If you look at how Google or Yahoo are using eye-candy technology to better organize their Web 2.0 interfaces, you can see that Microsoft is seriously lacking."
Careers: An Advice Line reader asks why cubicles tend to be one-size-fits-all. Bob Lewis suggests in response that it's a corporate mindset about how treating everyone the same equates to treating them fairly. Regardless, as Lewis has seen, it's something many companies deal.
The news beat: The U.S. DOJ and state attorneys general express concern over deadlines in Microsoft's antitrust settlement that relate to protocols the groups say should have been in the original documentation. VMware's president says that part of the value of virtualization is lost when integrated into an OS, including Windows and Red Hat. And credit-card company Visa today is holding a set of briefings in Washington to discuss issues related to consumer data and identity theft.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 8, 2007 04:33 AM
March 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)
GripeLine: Ed Foster is aiming to balance his Worst Vendor of 2006 reader poll with a Best Vendor of the Year. I'll not reveal the pair of winners but, suffice it to say, there are surprises in this one -- including the presence of a fistful of companies that also peppered the Worst Vendor list, including Apple, Dell, HP, Microsoft, and Verizon.
Columnist's corner: This week's Off the Record begins with a riddle about rewriting applications and ringing cash registers. Before solving it, our author notes in hindsight that he should have picked up on some of the hints that disaster was pending -- such as when company owners sent for pizza, and his boss's decision to write the specs for a new application herself, rather than tracking down feedback from users. "The first boulder hit us when users explained that the product was useless unless it could talk to multiple back-ends." Next thing he knew, our author was in an endless loop of coding and recoding. "Okay, so every programming shop has issues," but there's hope that other have markedly different problems.
The news beat: Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, testifying before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, says U.S. Congress should raise the cap on skilled-worker visas. IBM and Cisco join hands to create an industry wide unified communications and collaboration platform, which the companies say aims to attract a large of number of developers more effectively than a smattering of options from several vendors. Google refreshes its enterprise search tool with new security capabilities, a preview feature, alterations to the interface. And the Liberty Alliance publishes guidelines enterprises should consider when networking identity systems and Web applications.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 7, 2007 10:53 AM
March 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)
EclipseCon heats up with harsh words for Microsoft; Oracle proposes project. Also, Microsoft slams Google over copyrights, HP keeps pulling ahead of Dell in PC sales, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 7, 2007 07:08 AM
March 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: IT shops are not buying into VM as a desktop replacement, Randall Kennedy explains in ACE, VDI and other dumb ideas. "Customers were burned once already by the server-based computing fiasco, so they're understandably skittish about any solution that purports to replace the desktop with 'something better.' The 'something,' as they've discovered, is rarely 'better,' and ACE/VDI is no exception."
Sustainable IT: At first glance (and perhaps second and third...) those bland power strips in your datacenter might not resemble the sleek Italian roadster of your dreams, but Ted Samson conjures the similarities in ColdWatt powers energy-efficient servers. Think I'm bluffing? "For a power supply (or a fuel injector) to elicit that level of excitement, it has to be especially interesting. (They even look boring. Maybe a racing stripe would help.)," Samson writes. "These days, anything that can significantly cut the costs of keeping your server room cool and humming is quite interesting indeed." I'll second that.
The news beat: Mozilla fixes flaws in Firefox and SeaMonkey that allowed uniform resource identifiers in image tags to be executed even if JavaScript was disabled. The Eclipse Foundations' executive director scolded Microsoft for not working toward interoperability with Eclipse's open source technologies. Oracle, meanwhile, boosted its role in the Eclipse community by making its entire TopLink Java framework freely available and proposing the EclipseLink project. And HP continues to run by Dell in PC sales.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 7, 2007 04:57 AM
March 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Podcasts: SOA is more than just an architecture model. It's also a professional career choice, and that will only increase. "As people move from 'I think we need it' to 'let's execute and make it happen,' they're going to need a lot of talented people around who are knowledgeable about architecture development, governance, security and the other things to make SOA a reality," David Linthicum explains. True, we saw that same thing in the early days of integration, component-based development and numerous other trends, but SOA is different. "The people who are going to drive SOA forward are going to have an eclectic array of talent. This is not something you can throw a developer, a network guy, a security guy at." Tune into Real World SOA.
Columnist's corner: A new class of entrepreneur is emerging: the sort that understands technology first, business second, and can tap applications to help fledgling companies grow. In Tech 101 for startups Ephraim Schwartz discusses one such executive, Ryan Fernandez, who runs bathtub toy storage unit provider Boon which, through the use of technology, expanded from one to more than 10 products in just three years. Guess which chipmaker gave Fernandez his start.