Client Server News articles from May 2004

Client Server News archives from May 2004

Google Begs Microsoft To Make It Road Kill.
May 3, 2004... Google waved a $2.7 billion red flag under Microsoft's nose yesterday. Anybody in a market that Microsoft wants to enter that files for a $2.7 billion IPO is asking to be treated the way Hitler treated Poland. Google's S-1 filing...

Rambus Stands To Collect $3b in Royalties, Appeal Claims.(Brief Article)
May 3, 2004... FTC lawyers put a number on the royalties Rambus stands to collect if the decision made in February by the FTC's own chief administrative law judge Stephen McGuire absolving Rambus of gaming the standards process isn't shot down - a tidy $3...

CA's Internal Investigation Pulled its Punches.
May 3, 2004... The internal investigation of its books that Computer Associates' board spent $30 million on has wrapped up without clarifying the state of things prior to 1999, when the company's top three executives, ex-CEOs Charles Wang and Sanjay Kumar and...

HP Chases Start-up into Newfangled Blade PCs.(Hewlett-Packard Co.)
May 3, 2004... HP has finally delivered its promised interpretative of a ClearCube Blade PC, dubbing the Transmeta-based widget the HP Blade PC bc1000, a part of its Consolidated Client Infrastructure (CCI). Like ClearCube, which uses mightier Xeon DP-based...

Dell Says Proprietary Systems Might As Well Lay Down & Die.(Brief Article)
May 3, 2004... Dell CEO Michael Dell, who says tech spending is improving, climbed on a stage in New York Wednesday claiming that his proprietary RISC rivals might as well roll over because the industry is at another one of those world famous inflection...

Unisys Ready To Hammer Down the Last Nail in RISC's Coffin.
May 3, 2004... Unisys says it's got the last nail to hammer shut RISC's coffin. For two years Unisys has been electronically monitoring the uptime of 68 of its North American customers' ES7000 Windows mainframes and now has enough data to show that -...

Suit Gives New Meaning to the Term 'Gang Bang'.(Compression Labs Inc. suing 31 companies, except Microsoft)(Brief Article)
May 3, 2004... In a case reminiscent of the Rambus-JEDEC patent fracas, Compression Labs Inc, the wholly owned subsidiary of Forgent Networks Inc, which used to call itself VTEL Corporation, is suing 31 companies including some of the industry's most...

Microsoft To Buy ActiveViews.(Brief Article)
May 3, 2004... Microsoft is acquiring ActiveViews Inc to extend its business intelligence platform. Financial terms were not disclosed. Provo, Utah-based ActiveViews does an ad hoc reporting system that takes advantage of .NET and SQL Server Reporting...

Sometimes Things Really are Real, Too Real.(problems at RealNetworks Inc.)
May 3, 2004... It's not exactly like things are going swimmingly for RealNetworks, the company that has handed Microsoft its worse nightmare - the EC's challenge to its business model. Real's first-quarter losses widened year-over-year to $10.4 million,...

SPEC Ready with New J2EE App Server Benchmark.(Brief Article)
May 3, 2004... SPEC, the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation, has released SpecjAppServer2004, a completely new benchmark that measures the performance of J2EE application servers. It's not comparable to the SPEC J2EE benchmarks released in late...

Microsoft Rises to Europe's Call for Help Becoming Competitive.(opened the European Microsoft Innovation Center )
May 3, 2004... Not that it's sucking up or anything, but after getting branded a recidivist monopoly by the European regulators and fined a king's ransom in a case it's going to appeal, Microsoft officially opened the European Microsoft Innovation Center in...

Microsoft Releases New Audio Driver.(Brief Article)
May 3, 2004... Microsoft has put out the first version of its High Definition Audio Class Driver as part of its Universal Audio Architecture initiative to provide better audio experience and audio device driver support for Windows users. Based on the...

Xenon Could Give Microsoft the Edge.(Brief Article)
May 3, 2004... BusinessWeek says that Microsoft is planning to launch the next version of Xbox, the thing code named Xenon, in time for the holiday rush in 2005, knocking a year off a console's typical five-year lifecycle. Apparently Sony's got the same date...

Hiring Inching Back.(number of jobs start to rise in software industry)(Brief Article)
May 3, 2004... After losing some 900,000 jobs since April of 2001, the industry created 2,600 jobs in February and added 11,600 more in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Gateway Cuts Another 1,500 People.(Brief Article)
May 3, 2004... Having posted its 13th losing quarter out of 14, Gateway is going to cut another 1,500 people on top of the 3,500 it terminated a month ago when it closed its stores. Gateway, which is now being run by eMachines people, says the new cuts will...

WordPerfect Makes Another Charge on Office.(by Corel Corp. )(Brief Article)
May 3, 2004... In search of some traction against Office, Corel new management says the latest version of WordPerfect, WordPerfect Office 12, has hit stores in North American, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa and that it can run up to 63%...

WS-CDL Makes First Draft.(of its Web Services Choreography Description Language (WS-CDL) 1.0)(Brief Article)
May 3, 2004... W3C's Choreography Work Group, the group Microsoft stomped out of to do its own thing after delivering a cease-and-desist message, a serious setback for the W3C contingent, has published the first draft of its Web Services Choreography...

EC Regulators Take On Intel.(Brief Article)
May 3, 2004... Besides having further investigations of Microsoft on its plate, the European Commission is also investigating whether the governments of seven countries including France, Germany and Italy are illegally favoring Intel by specifying Intel chips...

Name's McAfee Again.(Network Associates changed name to McAfee Inc)(Brief Article)
May 3, 2004... Network Associates has changed its name to McAfee Inc, aligning itself with its core security product line after selling its Sniffer business to Silver Lake Partners and Texas Pacific Group for $275 million.

J2EE 1.4 Pick Up Chinese Friend.(signed licensing deal with Shenzhen Kingdee Middleware Company Ltd.)(Brief Article)
May 3, 2004... As part of a J2EE 1.4 celebration Monday, Sun said it has cut a licensing deal for the stuff with a Chinese outfit called Shenzhen Kingdee Middleware Company Ltd, which Sun describes as a leading middleware provider, Windows supporter and Java...

BMC To Buy Marimba.(Brief Article)
May 3, 2004... BMC Software is buying Marimba, the JavaSoft spin-off that was supposed to be hot stuff when it set up in '97 in push, for $239 million, or $8.25 per share, in cash. Including the cash Marimba has on hand, the purchase price works out to about...

Microsoft Unit Gets New Name.(Brief Article)
May 3, 2004... Microsoft has reportedly renamed its E-Business Servers group the Business Process Integration Division to reflect the idea of delivering process management integration technology. The name change follows Microsoft's decision to scrap...

EMC's Hold Slipping.
May 3, 2004... "Some 60% of EMC customers indicate they would consider switching to new IBM or Hitachi products, this finding is worse than in our previous survey and does suggest that EMC's stock could have a limited upside later in the year." - Merrill...

Onaro Promises To Ease SAN Management Woes.
May 3, 2004... Storage start-up Onaro came out of its cocoon the other day to disclose a new funding round and talk up its SAN change management software. The two-year-old Boston start-up said it raised $7.75 million in Series B financing led by Newbury...

Brocade Debuts New High-End Switch.
May 3, 2004... Storage switch vendor Brocade Communications has launched SilkWorm 24000 Director, its new top of the line for the enterprise SAN market. The 24000 comes in a 14U enclosure and is designed to support up to 128, non-blocking 2 Gbit/s...

Start-up Develops Linux Chip.
May 3, 2004... A start-up chip company called Stretch has been quietly running through $52 million in first-round capital since February 2003 developing a compute-intensive embedded RISC chip that's supposed to be the first widget to embed programmable logic...

Turbolinux To Pay Microsoft Royalties.
May 3, 2004... Tokyo-based Turbolinux, which is in the throes of changing owners and going more retail, says it's got what it calls a new desktop Linux operating system designed for home users that includes a media player capable of streaming pure Windows...

MontaVista Financing Pushes Past $72m.
May 3, 2004... MontaVista Software Inc, the embedded Linux house, has banked a $7 million check that it got from Siemens Venture Capital, Samsung Venture Capital, Infineon Ventures and China Development Industrial Bank in exchange for a piece of the action....

Lindows Mimics Mentor, Rips Off Apple.
May 3, 2004... Lindows, the Windows wannabe, has shown that it's cut from the same cloth as its Microsoft role model. It's ripped off Apple's iTunes widgetry, down to the look-and-feel, and turned it into Lsongs, an open source digital music management and...

Concurrent Fields Opteron Systems.
May 3, 2004... Concurrent Computer Corporation, the high-end RTOS house, is buying Opteron boxes off of Celestica and bundling them with its RedHawk real-time Linux system to create a new iHawk Series 870 system family. It figures the things for...

Autozone Wants SCO's Suit Delayed; DaimlerChryser Wants.
May 3, 2004... its SCO Suit Quashed Autozone Inc, one of the two Fortune 500 Linux users that the SCO Group has sued, has asked the district court in Utah to put SCO's suit against it on a peg until after the litigation between SCO and IBM, SCO and Red...

Xandros Betas Deployment Software.
May 3, 2004... Xandros, the desktop Linux start-up that Lindows is suing to get back a $750,000 loan, is beta testing a GUI-based xDMS Desktop Management System that deploys, configures and upgrades extensive networks of Linux desktops. It's due to GA in...

Ballmer Warns Troops About Linux.
May 3, 2004... Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent a around a company-wide strategy memo the other day making these points: * "IBM's endorsement of Linux has added credibility and an illusion of support and accountability, although the reality is there is...

Distinctive Order.
May 3, 2004... Distinctive Devices Inc says it's gotten a $3.2 million contract that it's supposedly landed to provide embedded Linux-based digital set-top boxes to Italian digital TV maker Goldtop. The set-tops are aimed at the terrestrial and...

Mozilla & Gnome Talk Defensive Alliance.
May 3, 2004... Mozilla and Gnome folks are talking about throwing in their lot together so as not to fall under Microsoft's hooves especially when Longhorn hits town. It's pretty much a survival issue. From the notes posted of their conference call,...

How Did Oracle Get into This SCO Business?
May 3, 2004... IBM has subpoenaed Oracle, whose name has yet to come up in the controversy, to appear in its defense at the SCO trial, if it should come to that. IBM has put a bid in for summary judgment. What Oracle has to add to the conversation remains...

EC Appeal Date Set.
May 3, 2004... Microsoft expects to appeal the European Commission's antitrust decision on or about June 7. If it's the 7th like they think, that's the same day the Justice Department v Oracle case over PeopleSoft kicks off.

Intel To Sponsor Linux Reference Platform.
May 3, 2004... If they ever stop postponing the announcement, Intel and a bunch of cronies are supposed to proclaim their support for a common Linux reference platform that incorporates Infiniband, a market Intel dropped out of because it wasn't going to be a...

IBM Says Economy is Coming Back On.
May 3, 2004... "An economic recovery is occurring around the world, including the United States." - IBM CEO Sam Palmisano at the company's stockholder meeting Tuesday.

Topspin To Play Utility Card.(Topspin Communications Inc. )
May 3, 2004... Topspin has a utility computing card it want to play. It's reportedly got software that can be used to program policies into TopSpin's server switches that let them provision virtual servers on-demand. It figures people will be able to pick...

Microsoft Reportedly Delays SP2.
May 3, 2004... CNET says Microsoft has pushed the planned release of the next XP update, Service Pack 2, back about a month to July after another release candidate makes the rounds. Microsoft said it was trying to digest the feedback it had gotten so far.

What? No Smell of Napalm in the Morning?(Microsoft Corp.)(Oracle Corp.)
May 3, 2004... Apparently we can expect some perestroika-style joint movement between those old belligerents Oracle and Microsoft. Seems Oracle wants to sell more of its software to Windows folk. In exchange, maybe it'll stop harping about Linux.

LinuxWorld Set.
May 3, 2004... The next LinuxWorld is scheduled for August 2-5 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

We Do To Develop Stuff: Dell.
May 3, 2004... According to Michael Dell, whose company would never be mistaken for an inventor, says that the companies with a high R&D-to-revenue ratio are "the companies that are failing." It's "not a strategy for success," he said in the same breath that...

AMD CEO Suggests Dell Is In.
May 3, 2004... AMD CEO Hector Ruiz is putting it out and about that Dell will go with the Opteron, breaking its sacred Intel-only policy.

Oracle Fills Marketing Vacancy.
May 3, 2004... Oracle has replaced marketing VP Mark Jarvis, who left last summer, with its Asia-Pacific VP of marketing Chris Hummell.

Microsoft Got What It Deserved.
May 3, 2004... "On average, users think the EU fine of Microsoft was appropriate." Which is what Merrill Lynch found when it asked 75 US and 25 European CIOs what they thought of the $613 million fine in its monthly TechStrat Survey. More interesting was the...

Unisys To Outsource Jobs.
May 3, 2004... Unisys is going to spend $180 million on a development center in Bangalore and employ 2,000 people there working on software development, maintenance, business process outsourcing and technology services. It should be up and running in a year....

What's Oracle After?(Association for Competitive Technology)
May 3, 2004... Oracle has joined ACT, the Association for Competitive Technology, the trade group that supported Microsoft during the antitrust trial while Oracle and its familiars stirred things up against Microsoft, the self-same trade group that Larry...

Intel Kills Tejas & Jayhawk.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... Intel has scrubbed Tejas, its next desktop chip, the follow-on to Prescott, its current desktop Pentium 4. The server version of Tejas code named Jayhawk, the follow-on to the anticipated Nocona chip, has also been canceled. The two were...

Ready for Another Commercial Linux Distro?(Ignalum Linux Project)
May 10, 2004... Linux has produced a new fledging commercial distribution called Ignalum from a little two-year-old Canadian company of the same name manned by four kids who are still going to school at the University of Western Ontario. A modern...

Creative Science Claims To Possess the Holy Grail of EAI.(Creative Science System NetZyme Enterprise Suite, enterprise application integration )
May 10, 2004... A young operation in Campbell, California by the name of Creative Science System (CSS) is pushing a piece of enterprise application integration (EAI) middleware called the NetZyme Enterprise Suite that sounds like it can do everything short of...

Gates Gets 64-Bit x86 Religion.(Bill Gates )(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... Bill Gates sounded assembly at WinHEC, seeking to gather third-party support for the 64-bit Microsoft operating systems that are supposed to run on AMD64 and Intel's copycat Yamhill chips. Microsoft wants 64-bit drivers written. It's got a...

Dell Buys into Topspin.(Topspin Communications Inc.)(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... Dell is making a strategic investment in Topspin Communication, which this week started claiming that it had the first open solution for utility computing. Topspin declined to say how much Dell put in or whether it's got any other strategic...

Microsoft Swears Longhorn Server Will Beta Next Year Too.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... The on-again off-again Longhorn server is supposed to beta next year, according to what Microsoft group VP Jim Allchin said at WinHEC this week. Apparently it's now being built in sync with the Longhorn client operating system. ...

HP Finishes Moving the Furniture Around.(reorganization)(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... HP has finished reorganizing its service and server units. They are now combined as one big Technology Solutions Group worth $29.6 in sales, roughly 40% of its whole business. Ex-service chief Ann Livermore, who didn't get to be CEO, is running...

Exhausted Bookkeepers Delay CA's Quarter.(Computer Associates International Inc.)
May 10, 2004... Computer Associates says it'll be a week or two late with the final results of the fiscal year that ended on March 31 and, oh, yes, after thousands of hours checking it's still finding things wrong with its books so now it'll be amending its Q2...

HP's Dual-Core Itanium Boxes in the Blocks.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... HP is planning to ship Integrity servers with its so-called Hondo dual-core Madison processor modules in June, with Superdomes following in July. Intel isn't supposed to have dual-core Itaniums until next year when it delivers Montecito....

Microsoft's Capitalism Extends to Unix.(Microsoft evaluates Unix IronPort Systems )
May 10, 2004... Microsoft wants to staunch the flood of spam swamping the mailboxes of its MSN and Hotmail subscribers as much as the next guy, but card-carrying capitalist that it is, it doesn't want to restrict free enterprise either. Even if it means...

Stinger Beta Posted.(IBM Stinger)(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... IBM has posted the long-awaited Stinger open beta of its next DB2 rev, which, thinking of ISVs, is supposed to be wizard embedded technology. It's supposed to support Microsoft Visual Studio.NET - apps can be written in Microsoft's C Sharp...

France To Quit Specifying Intel.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... France, following Sweden's example, is telling local governments and ministries to cut AMD some slack and stop specifying Intel in their procurements. See, the European Commission antitrust watchdogs have started investigating Intel's, um,...

Tom Siebel Vacates Executive Suite; Exit Impacts IBM.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... Siebel founder and CEO Tom Siebel has stepped down and will be the company's non-executive chairman. He has brought in IBM senior VP and head of worldwide sales and distribution J Michael Lawrie, 50. Lawrie's departure from IBM, a partner...

Microsoft Gussies Up its DRM.(Microsoft Janus )
May 10, 2004... Microsoft upgraded its DRM software Monday to the strains of a Greek chorus of early adopters that included leading online music and movie services, consumer electronics makers and chip houses. The new software, code named Janus, will...

ManageSoft Tells Machines: 'Heal Thyself'.(ManageSoft 7.0)(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... ManageSoft Corporation has released its ManageSoft 7.0 suite for Windows, Linux and Unix, management software enhanced to deliver business intelligence to desktops, servers and mobile computers company-wide. It says it means devices worldwide...

Rambus Charges Rivals Colluded.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... Emboldened by an FTC administrative law judge's finding that it didn't game the standards process - a decision that's being appealed by the FTC's own lawyers - Rambus has sued four of the biggest memory makers in the world for antitrust...

StarNet Offers Free Linux Support as Come-on for its PC X Server.(StarNet Communications Corp.)(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... StarNet Communications Corporation, a Windows-to-Unix/Linux connectivity developer, says it's got the first PC X server for 64- bit Opteron boxes running Microsoft's still unreleased 64-bit operating systems for the chip. It says its...

Intel Claims To Make 10GbE Server Connectivity Viable.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... Intel has introduced a 10 Gbps Ethernet adapter for servers, saying that it's finally overcome the costs and technical barriers to 10GbE server connectivity and made it practical in the data center. It said it's made the adapter's form...

Microsoft Finds Wiggle Room in EC Court Decision.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... According to the European Court of Justice, the European Union's highest court, which was deciding a case that had nothing to do with Microsoft, three "exceptional circumstances" have to be met for a monopoly to be found guilty of antitrust...

Microsoft & Siemens in Cross-Licensing Deal.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... Microsoft and Siemens are going to trade patent portfolios under a broad new cross-licensing agreement cut on undisclosed terms. Each holds thousands of patents. Siemens says it has 45,000 patents worldwide, with another 40,000 filed and...

Gateway Launches New Small Biz Windows Servers.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... The incredibly shrinking Gateway has launched two entry-level Windows uniprocessors targeted at small businesses. They can have a Celeron or Pentium 4 chip with integrated RAID controllers and serial ATA drives that scale to 250GB. The...

Microsoft Pre-Releases Jini-Like Protocol.(Windows Network Connect Device Technology)(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... Microsoft had a pre-release of a Windows Network Connect Device Technology CD at WinHEC this week that's supposed to build apps that, Jini-like, can easily find and interact with, well, network- connected widgets. The CD includes code...

MKS Betas x86-64 Toolkit.(MKS Instruments Toolkit for Enterprise Developers 64-bit Edition)(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... MKS is shipping a beta version of its Toolkit for Enterprise Developers 64-bit Edition, which supports AMD64 platforms running the promised 64-bit Windows for the things. It's meant to migrate 32- and 64-bit Unix and Linux application to...

Gates To Pay $800,000 Fine.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... Bill Gates is going to have to cough up an $800,000 fine for flouting the federal reporting rules memorialized in the Hart-Scott- Rodino Act because he didn't notify the government two years ago that he owned more than 10% of Icos, the...

Microsoft Launches LCS 2005 Beta.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... Microsoft is distributing the beta of its instant messaging Live Communications Server 2005 aka Vienna. LCS 2005 upgrades the existing LCS 2003, which provides presence capabilities for productivity and line-of-business applications,...

China Prime Spam Center.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... In news that is unlikely to come as a surprise to anybody, Commtouch, an anti-spam developer, said that in April 71% of the URLs that appear in spam e-mail were hosted in China. The US hosted 22%, but continues to be the point of origin for...

IBM's New Power5 Servers Debut.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... IBM launched the first servers, the eServer i5, one of its iSeries boxes, the old AS/400, powered by its new 64-bit Power5 processor, aka Squadron. It's supposed to knock the socks off HP and Sun. The i5 runs AIX 5L, Linux and Windows as...

New Thunder Roars Out at Hitachi.(Hitachi Data Systems Thunder 9585V)
May 10, 2004... Hitachi Data Systems has rolled out a new mid-range storage system called the Thunder 9585V that's aimed at rich media, data mining, HPC and heavily used databases that require high capacity and performance. Hitachi has enhanced the...

Veritas Beefs Up Services; Debuts New Apps.(VERITAS Software Corp.)(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... Veritas has beefed up its global services organization with four new consulting practices as part of its utility computing push. They include: * Disaster recovery - to advise on developing comprehensive disaster recovery programs that...

CNT Misses.(its revenue goals)(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... Storage networking vendor CNT said it wouldn't meet its earnings forecast for its fiscal first quarter ended April 30. The Minneapolis concern said pro forma losses per share would range from three cents-five cents. It previously forecast...

Ixos CEO Quits.(Robert Hoog, IXOS Software GmbH)(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... German ISV Ixos Software said its CEO Robert Hoog had stepped down by mutual agreement with the company's supervisory board. Ixos provides enterprise content management software including e- mail archiving and regulatory compliance...

Alacritech Samples New ASIC.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... Alacritech is sampling a new version of its TCP offload engine ASIC. STA2000, the fourth generation of the start-up's widgetry, is a dual-port, multi-gigabit Internet Protocol processor targeted at OEMs building servers, NAS or iSCSI...

LSI Storage is Now Engenio.(LSI Logic Storage Systems Inc.)(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... LSI Logic Storage Systems, in the process of spinning off from parent LSI Logic and shooting for an IPO, has got itself a new name - Engenio Information Technologies Inc. The spinoff expects to IPO by the end of June. It wants to trade on...

Red Hat Goes For the Desktop.
May 10, 2004... Red Hat management went to London Tuesday to say that, despite whatever reservations they might have, they're going into the desktop Linux business come mid-May when the new Red Hat Desktop becomes available. The company is pitching the...

Mono Goes to Beta.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2004... Novell has posted the first of two proposed public betas of Mono 1, the open source version of Microsoft's .NET development platform that it assumed sponsorship of when it bought Ximian, the desktop start-up. Mono is supposed to make it...