eWeek articles from December 2007

eWeek archives from December 2007

New Smart-Phone Considerations.
December 1, 2007... Smart phones are becoming a key communications, collaboration and customer-relationship tool for many organizations. The choices abound, and IT managers must carefully consider business requirements when evaluating smart-phone platforms. There...

Tech on the Cutting Edge.
December 2, 2007... While most of the emerging technologies discussed in this special report found their way into products and business implementations this year, many cutting-edge technologies were just getting their start in universities and research labs around...

Emerging Tech That Will Make a Difference.(Brief article)
December 2, 2007... In most industries, change comes at a slow, plodding and predictable pace. Many workers today have new tools and processes, but the job they do isn't much different from what a similar worker was doing 20 years ago. But, for those of us...

BI Helps Fight Poverty.(Opportunity International)(business intelligence)
December 3, 2007... In 1998, Dorothy Njobvu Kanjautso, a 35-year-old mother of three from the village of Lilongwe in Malawi, Africa, found herself widowed when her husband died of AIDS. She had no job and few prospects. But she had a dream. That dream came...

Firefox 3 Beta Boosts Security.(Mozilla)(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... When you first install and launch the beta of Firefox 3, the initial impression (especially for those who remember some of the earlier promises of a revamped user interface and increased Web 2.0 integration) can be a little disappointing, since...

MagicJack Doesn't Cast a VOIP Spell.(voice over internet protocol)(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... Cheap and easy phone calls sent over the Internet. That has long been the promise of VOIP services, especially on the consumer side. For some this has meant ditching their traditional telephone company and replacing it with VOIP services...

Intel, AMD Ride PC Revenue Wave.(Advanced Micro Devices Inc.)(personal computers)
December 3, 2007... If these are good times for the PC market, then Intel and Advanced Micro Devices might be among the biggest beneficiaries. A Dec. 3 report from market research company iSuppli that looked at microprocessor revenue for the third quarter...

Avnet: Partners Need to Go Cutting Edge.(Hewlett-Packard Co.)(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... Avnet is encouraging channel partners to take chances on cutting-edge technologies and emerging markets before these markets become overrun by direct-business models. At Avnet's Hewlett-Packard partner summit Nov. 28, the company's...

Third Parties Support Mac in the Enterprise.(Apple Inc.)
December 3, 2007... Apple has made strong surges in the personal computer space in the last decade, but the company has shown little direct interest in one large market where Windows still has a stronghold: the enterprise. Instead, Apple leaves the space open...

Browser Insecurity Wars Still Rage.(Microsoft Corp.)
December 3, 2007... I can sympathize with Microsoft's Jeff Jones. We both like to throw gasoline on a fire now and then. It's fun to see the flames that ensue. The flames last week came from Mozilla, responding to Jones' Browser Vulnerability Analysis report....

Retailers Dreaming of an E-Christmas.
December 3, 2007... Untitled PODCASTembedSWF(); Retailers Dreaming of an E-Christmas AMR Research president and CEO, Tony Friscia, and research director Rob Garf discuss the impact e-commerce is having on holiday sales, real estate selection, and order...

Business Objects Inks Deal with SPSS.(Business Objects S.A. (San Jose, California))
December 3, 2007... Business Objects may be in the process of being bought by enterprise software giant SAP, but that's not keeping the company from pushing forward. The company is moving ahead with plans to make business intelligence capabilities ubiquitous...

Cable Giants Pass on Spectrum Auction.(United States. Federal Communications Commission)
December 3, 2007... Comcast and Time Warner said Dec. 3 they would not participate in January's 700 MHz spectrum auction, eliminating two potential powerhouse bidders for the prime airwaves considered ideal for wireless broadband. Google declared Nov. 30 it...

Some Facebook Partners Bail on Beacon.
December 3, 2007... Facebook's Beacon advertising system angered thousands of people because it coughed up information that some users didn't want their friends to see. But how are the Beacon partners, which joined the program when it was unveiled Nov. 6 to...

Serena Delivers Mashup Solution.(Serena Software (Bloomington, Indiana))
December 3, 2007... Serena Software is shipping its business mashup solution--Serena Mashup Composer and the Mashup Server for on-premise deployment--enabling users to build and deploy simple software applications aimed at business problems. Serena has...

Six Apart Sells LiveJournal to Russia's SUP.
December 3, 2007... Blogging software maker Six Apart Dec. 3 said it has sold social networking software maker LiveJournal to Russian online media company SUP for an undisclosed sum. SUP said in a statement it has launched the namesake LiveJournal service in...

IT's Hiring Crisis.(Brief article)
December 3, 2007... IT has a lot of hiring to do, thanks to the significant turnover expected in the field over the next decade brought on by Baby Boomer retirements, professionals who have left the field and declining enrollments in computer science degree...

Icahn: Break Up Motorola.
December 3, 2007... In the end, billionaire investor Carl Icahn got what he wanted: Ed Zander's ouster as Motorola's CEO. Now, Ichan, who holds about 3 percent of Motorola, wants to break up the world's third largest cell phone maker. After Motorola announced...

Former ODF Leaders Turn Hopes to Compound Document Format.(OpenDocument Foundation)(Interview)
December 3, 2007... Editor's Note: This is the third in a series of articles that examine why the ODF Foundation closed down. The leaders of the recently shuttered OpenDocument Foundation have moved their attention and efforts away from the Open Document...

Combating Malware with Collective Intelligence.(Panda Security)
December 3, 2007... Panda Security is arming customers with new software--Panda Security for Business Version 4.02SP1--that takes advantage of its "Collective Intelligence" strategy. The Madrid-based company is bringing the Collective Intelligence approach to...

Is Google 'Wiki' Getting Whacked for Google 'Sites?'.
December 3, 2007... While Google's spokespeople have been doggedly tight-lipped about the absorption of the JotSpot assets into the Google Apps product line, one Google watcher scored a breakthrough. Google Sites, an expansion of Google's Page Creator...

Getting Agile in the Workplace.(Microsoft Corp.)
December 3, 2007... When I think about agile development, rightly or wrongly, I tend to think about athleticism and cat-like responsiveness. Also listening to some practitioners of agile methodologies brings to mind one of the chants my son's Pop Warner...

Mashups, SAAS Present Security Risks.(software as a service)(data security)
December 4, 2007... BOSTON--The rise of mashups and similar technologies has given developers a way to build simple applications, but they're also opening up a new world of security issues. The risks involved with mashups and SAAS (software as a service) come...

SAP, Microsoft Rumored to Be in Acquisition Talks.(Microsoft Corp. and SAP America Inc.)(Brief article)
December 4, 2007... LONDON (Reuters)--Shares in software maker SAP extended gains and hit the day's high on Monday as traders cited market talk of bid interest from Microsoft. SAP declined comment. By 8:30 a.m. EST, shares in SAP were up 1.8 percent at...

Was Facebook's Privacy Move a Blunder or Just Premature?
December 4, 2007... Now that Facebook is having to face its about-face (readers, please forgive me), the privacy-versus-marketing debate is just revving up. This RetailWire story nicely sums up the action, but the essence is that Facebook tried...

New XBRL Taxonomy a 'Boon to Investors'.(eXtensible Business Reporting Language)
December 4, 2007... The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is releasing a new taxonomy for Extensible Business Reporting Language on Dec. 4 in the hopes of improving financial reporting and analysis. An XBRL taxonomy, which is akin to an XML schema,...

Kicking XP SP3's Tires.(Windows XP SP3 of Microsoft Corp.)
December 4, 2007... Microsoft released a release candidate of the long delayed Windows XP SP3 to Microsoft MSDN (Microsoft Software Development Network) and TechNet subscribers on Dec. 3. The release comes about a month after a beta release of SP3 was made...

Apple Hit with iPhone Patent Lawsuit.(Apple Inc.,AT&T Inc. suied by Klausner Technologies for the patent infringement)
December 4, 2007... Seeking damages and future royalties estimated at $360 million, Klausner Technologies is suing Apple and AT&T for patent infringement related to the iPhone. The lawsuit, filed Dec. 3, also names Comcast, Cablevision Systems and eBay's...

One Laptop Per Child Doesn't Change the World.(Hands Across America's initivative for the live aid)(Brief article)
December 4, 2007... Hands Across America, Live AID, the Concert for Bangladesh, and so on. The American (and world) public has witnessed one feel-good event (and the ensuing scandals) after another. Each one manages to assuage our guilt about the world's...

Staffing Firm Reports 'Good' 2008 Job Prospects.(information technology professional's recruiting)
December 4, 2007... p>Despite ongoing worries that an economic slowdown is looming, a new report suggests that the IT professional job market will be immune--at least for the time being. Thirteen percent of CIOs said they plan to add IT staff in the first...

Motorola CTO Resigns.(Padmasree Warrior-Chief Technology Officer of Motorola Inc.)
December 4, 2007... The executive turmoil at struggling Motorola continued Dec. 3 with the resignation of Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Padmasree Warrior. Warrior's resignation came three days after Motorola announced that CEO Ed...

IBM Offers Scaled-Down Enterprise IM.(enterprise instant messaging software by International Business Machines Corp.)
December 4, 2007... For companies on the path toward true unified communications, IBM's Lotus division has come up with a way to dip a toe in the water. By introducing a scaled-down version of longtime unified communications product Sametime, IBM is aiming to...

What Are We Talking About When We Talk About Business Intelligence?
December 4, 2007... PODCASTembedSWF(); What Are We Talking About When We Talk About Business Intelligence? In this IT Link: Everybody is doing business intelligence, but with few standards and practices, sharing such intelligence is difficult. However,...

Altius IT Debuts Targeted Risk Assessment Package.(Altius Information Technologies )
December 4, 2007... Altius Information Technologies is aiming upstream and has retooled its existing risk assessment offerings to target midmarket firms with between 100 to 1,000 employees. The vendor has previously focused its AssessIT Risk Assessment...

A Sign of IT Avoidance.(Information technology)(Viewpoint essay)
December 4, 2007... Peer just a year or two down the retail road, and the most exciting source of technological potential comes from the all-but-ignored pillar of digital signage. This is not merely a multimedia ad displayer. It has the potential to interact...

Alfresco Mashes Up Content Management, Social Computing.(Enterprise Content Management Software)(Alfresco Software)
December 4, 2007... Alfresco Software turned its Web-based enterprise content management platform into a haven for social computing tools on Dec. 4. The company is blending its open-source ECM software with tools that many employees use to collaborate with...

IT's Hiring Crisis: Solutions.(Information technology services industry)
December 4, 2007... If the IT industry is going to attract the talented people it needs in the future, it needs to change the way it recruits, according to analysts. Right now, the industry is in a squeeze. There is a looming talent gap brought on by...

Red Hat Ready for Top End of Enterprise Servers.(Red Hat Enterprise Messaging, Real-time, Grid)
December 4, 2007... On Dec. 4, Red Hat announced the first public beta of Red Hat Enterprise Messaging, Real-time, Grid. The company claims that MRG will offer new capabilities for financial services and government agencies that need exceptional performance...

No Searching for the Swicki: It's Here.
December 4, 2007... The swicki is out of beta. The swicki, formally launched Dec. 4 by search software specialist Eurekster, is a custom search portal and social search widget. The software, free for consumers, also boasts new automation features to make...

SAP Denies Microsoft Acquisition Rumors.(Microsoft Corp. and SAP America Inc.)
December 4, 2007... SAP CEO Henning Kagermann said today that the company has had no current or recent discussions with Microsoft about SAP being acquired by Microsoft. At at press conference held at the SAP Influencer Summit held Dec. 4 in Boston, Kagermann...

Nokia Looks to Internet Services for Growth.
December 4, 2007... Nokia is looking to mobile Internet services as the engine that will drive the expected 16- to 17-percent growth in operating margins over the next two years. Speaking at the company's annual investor event in Amsterdam, Netherlands, CEO...

Dell to Buy Back $10 Billion in Stock.(Brief article)
December 4, 2007... NEW YORK--Dell said on Dec. 4 its board authorized a $10 billion stock buyback and its repurchase program would resume this week, sending shares of the computer maker up 2 percent. The authorized repurchase represents about 18 percent of...

Adobe Debuts New Flash Products.(Adobe Systems Inc.)
December 4, 2007... Adobe Systems is rolling out the Adobe Flash Media Server 3 family of products, which offers streaming media and real-time communication capabilities. The new products, announced Dec. 4, offer industry standard H.264 video capabilities and...

Pentagon Pursues Mashups, Microformats for Battlefield Intel.(United States. Department of Defense)
December 4, 2007... BOSTON--The U.S. Department of Defense is looking to mashups and something called microformats to help bring the Web to the modern day soldier and battlefield operative. Microformats are lightweight, non-invasive metadata used to mark up...

Sun Makes New Move into Mainframe Storage.(Sun Microsystems Inc.)
December 4, 2007... SAN FRANCISCO--Sun Microsystems, known within the storage industry for its industrial-strength rack-mount servers and digital tape machines, is embarking on a major new initiative aimed at boosting the company's market share in the mainframe...

Google to Give Developers Access to Trends API.(application programming interface)
December 4, 2007... Google will eventually provide an open application programming interface for its Trends analysis tool, allowing users to embed the tool in their applications, or download data from the application for personal use, a company official said. ...

Cisco High-Performance IPS Takes on Data Center Threats.(Cisco Systems Inc.)(intrusion prevention system)
December 4, 2007... Cisco is targeting data centers and transaction-heavy networking environments with its new high-performance intrusion prevention system. Cisco IPS 4270 is designed to deal with high-density traffic loads, offering up to 4G-bps performance...

Nortel Delivers Conferencing for Microsoft's LCS 2007.(Nortel Networks Corp.)(Microsoft Corp.)(Live Communications Server 2005 )
December 5, 2007... Nortel Networks continued to build product momentum behind its VOIP alliance with Microsoft when it announced on Dec. 5 the general availability of its promised Multimedia Conferencing 5.0 software. The new MC 5.0 software, the latest...

Dumb Cyber-crook Leaves Behind ID Clues.
December 5, 2007... When Chris Boyd, senior director of malware research at FaceTime Security Labs, stumbled upon a collection of stolen credit cards in a Warez forum, he saw something he didn't expect--a photo. But not only that, the poster also listed his or...

Canada Passport Process Leaks Data.
December 5, 2007... Canada's government was in an uproar after a citizen found that when applying online for a passport he could easily access other people's passport applications. Jamie Laning, an IT worker at a Algonquin Automotive in Huntsville, Ontario,...

AT&T, Verizon Complete Spectrum Swap.(AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. completed merger)(Brief article)
December 5, 2007... AT&T and Verizon Wireless announced a spectrum swap Dec. 4 as part of the divestiture requirements of AT&T's $2.8 billion acquisition of Dobson Communications. Before the acquisition, Dobson was the largest independent rural wireless provider...

Forrester Loses Laptop Containing Personnel Data.(Forrester Research Inc.)(computer crimes)
December 5, 2007... Thieves stole a laptop from the home of a Forrester Research employee during the week of Nov. 26, potentially exposing the names, addresses and Social Security numbers of an undisclosed number of current and former employees and directors, the...

Salesforce.com Goes Web 2.0 in Partner Info-Sharing Service.(Partner Relationship Management software)
December 5, 2007... Salesforce.com became a full-fledged Web 2.0 enterprise with the introduction on Dec. 5 of its new Facebook-like information-sharing service. With the less than handy name of Salesforce to Salesforce, the service lets users "click, connect...

Is Salesforce the Facebook of the Enterprise?(Salesforce.com Inc. shares partnership with Facebook Inc.)
December 5, 2007... NEW YORK--Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff has not only drunk the Web 2.0 Kool-Aid, he's having it injected intravenously into his bloodstream. The on-demand applications vendor added a new service to its growing portfolio of SAAS 'software...

Microsoft Ships Volta Web Development Tool.(Microsoft Corp.)
December 5, 2007... Microsoft is releasing its experimental tool to help democratize Web development as an early preview for developers. Microsoft announced Dec. 5 a Community Technology Preview of Volta, an experimental developer toolkit that enables...

Orange Says Sold 30,000 iPhones So Far in France.
December 5, 2007... PARIS (Reuters)--France Telecom said on Wednesday that its Orange division had already sold close to 30,000 iPhones in France since its launch there last week. The French launch of Apple Inc's iPhone saw hundreds of buyers queue up outside...

iPhone Tops List of 2007 Google Searches.(Brief article)(Company rankings)
December 5, 2007... LOS ANGELES (Reuters)--Technology and entertainment topped Google Inc's searches in 2007, with the iPhone grabbing the No. 1 slot on a list of the fastest-rising search terms in the United States, the company said on Tuesday. "iPhone, of...

Attackers Exploiting QuickTime RTSP Flaw in the Wild.(real time streaming protocol)
December 5, 2007... The unsavory types have done exactly as security researchers warned they would, releasing into the wild exploit code for a vulnerability in how Apple's QuickTime Player 7.3 handles RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol) responses from a...

Keeping an Eye on Database Performance.(Database-Brothers, Inc.)
December 5, 2007... Measure and manage are the two words database administrators and their teams key in on when it comes to performance. Those words also are the focus of Database-Brothers, a 2-year-old company trying to make headway in the database performance...

Working Locally, Expanding Globally.
December 5, 2007... PODCASTembedSWF(); Working Locally, Expanding Globally In this Changing Channels: How did Workflow.com expand globally with the help of its partners? Workflow vice president Garett Fortune and Chris Wong, vice president of marketing...

SAP Drops 'Hybrid' Term from CRM Offering.(customer relationship management )
December 5, 2007... BOSTON--Gone is the term "hybrid" to describe SAP's deployment model for its CRM on-demand software unveiled in February 2006. In its place is an upgraded version, CRM 2007, which has had any signs of the h-word carefully stricken from the...

SAP Unveils iPhone Program for Business.
December 5, 2007... BOSTON (Reuters)--SAP unveiled on Tuesday the first in a new generation of business software products that focus on ease of use, borrowing tools that have drawn hundreds of millions of users to Google. The German company is the world's...

BT to Buy Frontline to Boost Asia Growth.(BT Group PLC)(Frontline Technologies Inc.)
December 5, 2007... SINGAPORE--British telecoms giant BT Group said on Wednesday it agreed to buy Singapore IT firm Frontline Technologies for S$202 million ($139.8 million), as it seeks to boost its presence in Asia. BT has sizeable operations in Japan, South...

VARs Give Cautious Welcome to Dell.(value added resellers)
December 5, 2007... VARs have given a cautious welcome to Dell's channel announcements Dec. 5, with most saying it will be a wait-and-see scenario. The vendor, which has been drip-feeding news about its channel plans to solution providers since it made its...

TomTom Gets New Directions From Google.
December 5, 2007... TomTom, the Dutch-based navigation device maker, said Dec. 5 it is teaming with Google to allow users to send business addresses directly from the Google Maps Web site to TomTom devices. To accommodate TomTom customers, Google Maps' local...

Cisco Snags Ex-Motorola CTO.(appointment of Padmasree Warrior in Cisco Systems Inc. as chief technology officer)
December 5, 2007... Padmasree Warrior, the former Motorola chief technology officer who left the company Dec. 3 in the wake of CEO Ed Zander's ouster, reappeared the next day as Cisco Systems' new CTO. Warrior will report to John Chambers, Cisco's chairman and...

Trintech Becomes a Microsoft Certified Partner.(Trintech Group)(Brief article)
December 5, 2007... Trintech Group on Dec. 4 announced it has attained Certified Partner status in the Microsoft Partner Program and added a competency in ISV/Software Solutions. Trintech is a financial and compliance solution provider for commercial, financial...

Novell, Microsoft Readying Moonlight.
December 5, 2007... BOSTON--Novell will be delivering a Linux-based version of Microsoft's Silverlight cross-browser, rich Internet application technology within six months. Miguel de Icaza, vice president of developer platforms at Novell, said at the XML...

Spreading the Holiday Cheer.(One Laptop Per Child)(Brief article)
December 5, 2007... The holiday season is finally here (though based on some of my neighbors' decorations its actually been here for several weeks now) and for most of us this means it is now time to think about giving and receiving gifts. Maybe you have some...

Analysts: Dell Channel Program a 'Marathon, Not a Sprint'.
December 5, 2007... Analysts are taking much the same wait-and-see attitude toward Dell's new channel program as the VARs Dell is trying to attract. "The measure of Dell's success in the channel is going to depend on the success of the channel selling Dell's...

Exalead APIs Enable Customized Enterprise Search.(application programming interfaces)
December 5, 2007... Exalead is releasing a new version of its search engine that enterprises can customize to gather information tailored to their business interests. Launched Dec. 5, Exalead One:Enterprise 4.6 includes APIs (application programming...

Facebook Lets Users Turn Off Beacon.(Beacon advertising system of Facebook Inc.)
December 5, 2007... Bowing to pressure from users, partners and privacy advocates, Facebook has agreed to let its users turn off its controversial Beacon advertising system. The back-pedal is the latest move from a company that infringed on peoples' privacy...

SAP Outlines Costly Partner Plans for On-Demand Suite.(SAP America Inc partnering with the Microsoft Corp.for the Enterprise resource planning software)
December 5, 2007... Boston--To sell its new Business ByDesign on-demand ERP suite to the midmarket, SAP envisions building what it considers the first working on-demand model for partners--a rare commodity in a world where many traditional software partners are...

Likewise Open-Sources Active Directory Authentication for Linux.(Likewise Software joins with Linux International)
December 5, 2007... Like it or lump it, Microsoft's Active Directory is a very popular network directory, and thus, management system. It's been possible to use AD for Linux, but it was never easy. Now, Likewise Software, formerly Centeris, a leader in mixing...

New Telco Immunity Bill Draws Fire.(Electronic Frontier Foundation)(telecommunication regulations)
December 5, 2007... U.S. Senator Arlen Specter introduced legislation Dec. 3 that would shift the responsibility for telephone companies' role in President Bush's warrantless domestic spying program to the government. Under Specter's bill, those suing AT&T,...

Your PC Is Vulnerable Without Browser Protection.(Host Intrusion Protection Software)(computer security)
December 5, 2007... Look back at the security news three or four years ago and you'll see a "worm of the week" phenomenon in action. Malware was spread, and botnets created, through e-mail messages. These e-mail messages had attachments and social engineering that...

Microsoft to Make Windows Vista SP1 RC Widely Available.(Microsoft Corp plans for its Microsoft Windows Vista)
December 5, 2007... Microsoft made the release candidate for Windows Vista Service Pack 1 available through Microsoft Connect Dec. 5 for testing by the 15,000 people who already are kicking the tires on earlier beta releases. However, the release candidate...

Dell Takes Wraps Off Channel Partner Program.(Dell Inc. signs with Salesforce.com Inc.)
December 5, 2007... Dell's new channel partner program will operate through a Salesforce.com portal, will launch with a deal registration minimum of $75,000 and will offer neutral compensation to internal sales staff to reduce channel conflict. The PC maker...

Politician Files Wikipedia Charge over Nazi Symbols.(Katina Schubert)
December 6, 2007... BERLIN (Reuters)--A left-wing German politician has filed charges against online encyclopedia Wikipedia for promoting the use of banned Nazi symbols in Germany. Katina Schubert, a deputy leader of the Left party, said she had filed the...

JetBlue, Yahoo, Rim Plan Free In-flight Wi-Fi.(JetBlue Airways Corp.)(Research in Motion Ltd.)(Brief article)
December 6, 2007... NEW YORK (Reuters)--JetBlue, Yahoo Inc. and Research in Motion plan to offer free, in-flight, Wi-Fi web connections for laptop computers and advanced cell phones, Rim said on Thursday. The service will allow passengers to access customized...

IBM Chips Look into the 'Light'.(International Business Machines Corp.)
December 6, 2007... IBM researchers are detailing a new microprocessor technology that will use light beams instead of wires to transmit data between processor cores, which could allow the company to place hundreds of cores on a single piece of silicon. In a...

Yahoo, Google Get Chatty About IM.(instant messaging)
December 6, 2007... Yahoo and Google are making significant enhancements regarding instant messaging, reminding the industry that chat is not losing its luster as a popular mode of communication and collaboration. Yahoo on Dec. 6 unveiled a pre-beta test of...

House Passes SAFE Act.(Securing Adolescents From Exploitation Online)
December 6, 2007... Legislation passed by the House Dec. 5 would triple the penalties for ISPs that knowingly fail to report child pornography on their service and expand the reporting requirements to cover all communications providers, including Wi-Fi operators...

An Ailing AMD Faces Scrutiny.(Advanced Micro Devices)(Editorial)(Financial report)
December 6, 2007... These are tough times for Advanced Micro Devices. A year ago, AMD executives spoke confidently about the company's future with the anticipation it had created around the release of its new Opteron processor--"Barcelona"--and the company's...