News

Steve Ballmer can’t hear you, so let’s turn up the volume

Microsoft was finally listening to the outcry over the unnecessarily disruptive effects of customers being pushed to upgrade to Vista. Victory was at hand. Our joy lasted only a couple of hours.

Bell Labs spin-off to launch management appliance

At Interop, nSolutions will unveil its Network Ontology and Virtualization Appliance (NOVA) line, which manages device and software configurations across networks

Vista ‘inevitable’ for enterprises, says Forrester analyst

Forrester's Ben Gray says that with XP set to expire and Windows 7 years away, businesses will have no choice but to switch to Vista

Microsoft System Center gets cross-platform support

A new beta technology for System Center lets it natively manage Linux and Unix environments as well as systems virtualized by VMware's ESX

Tax software tax users’ patience

Daily News beat for April 29, 2008

Ribbit launches phone service for Salesforce

Startup Ribbit's service merges telephony with Salesforce's on-demand CRM software

Update: AOL and Yahoo make IM VoIP moves

Both Internet giants will provide fee-based VoIP features in their AIM and Yahoo Messenger IM services

Oracle acquisition of BEA closes

European Commission approves Oracle's $8.5 billion deal to buy BEA Systems

MySpace user ad targeting will be optional

Users will be able to choose whether to participate in MySpace's HyperTargeting system, which mines their profile's information to help advertisers better target their campaigns

Communicating with your boss: Tips for Generation Y

Survey reveals real differences in the communication styles of different generations

Networking industry showcases new products

Interop conference kicks off under the pall of lowered IT spending

World’s largest laptop PC maker raises shipment target

Quanta's shipment target of over 40 million laptop PCs does not include the emerging ultra-low cost laptop PC segment of the market

Xerox showcases erasable paper, smart documents

Scientists from PARC demonstrate paper that can be reused up to 100 times because text printed on it automatically deletes itself within 24 hours

Windows XP isn’t dead yet

VoIP phone systems walk the talk

HP enhancing SOA products in mainstream effort

Testing, diagnostics, policy enforcement bolstered as HP extends its Business Technology Optimization for SOA portfolio

Battery shortage could hurt small PC vendors, says Quanta

Top 10 laptop vendors are unlikely to be unaffected by the shortage of batteries and other components, but smaller PC vendors could feel the pinch

AMD: 100 laptop designs being readied for Puma

Many of the upcoming laptops based on AMD's Puma chips are expected to be on display at the Computex trade show in June

Microsoft botnet-hunting tool helps bust hackers

Microsoft is giving law enforcers access to a special tool that keeps tabs on botnets

Product review: Microsoft Response Point 1.0

Microsoft's small-office VoIP system, buoyed by speech recognition, combines extraordinary ease and a restricted feature set

Frankly Speaking: Agile programming is no hooey

Superficially, agile programming may not seem pragmatic enough, but many developers are finding that agile methods help them deliver better products

Microsoft finally stays on message about services

Microsoft continues to promote its software-plus-services strategy as a way of moving away from the boxed-software model and embracing market trends

Guerrilla IT sounds a lot like open source

Gadget tracks a good nights’ shut-eye

Getting up in the morning just got easier: Alarm clocks can be set to go off when new Sleeptracker device detects a person is in a lighter stage of sleep

Daily news beat for April 28, 2008

AMD Business Class plan to help SMBs shave costs

Business Class initiative calls for AMD to support longer life cycles for its Phenom X3 triple-core, Phenom X4 quad-core, and Athlon X2 dual-core processors

Microsoft: Massive site attacks not our fault

Microsoft denies that vulnerabilities in its Web and SQL Server software have been exploited to hack hundreds of thousands of Internet pages

Steve Ballmer can’t hear your ‘Save XP’ pleas

Microsoft CEO indicates that customers aren't really seeking to keep Windows XP past June 30, despite 170,000-plus signatures. It's time to turn up the volume and make it personal with video pleas.

Top 3 gotchas of server virtualization

Interop to offer datacenter products, 802.11n tools

Citrix Systems will unveil an application delivery appliance for the datacenter and AirMagnet will announce tools to help deploy and manage 802.11n WLAN networks

Contract chip manufacturing growth slows in 2007

TSMC retained its lead as the world's biggest contract chip maker, but its market share fell

Two months to go, so save XP today

Black Duck buys Koders for code search

Black Duck Software expands its reach into the open-source developer community

Interop show stakes new claims

Networking fest adds a software show and a security conference

Researcher finds new flaw in QuickTime for Windows

Apple's QuickTime multimedia player can be exploited remotely to compromise PCs running Windows Vista SP1 and XP SP2

Security vendors slam Defcon virus contest

Contest will invite Defcon hackers to find new ways of beating anti-virus software

Microsoft/Yahoo deadline passes with no deal

Microsoft must decide whether to pursue a hostile takeover via a proxy fight or drop its bid to acquire Yahoo

An interview with the real McCoy

Report sheds light on failure to sell safety spectrum

The FCC's report on the recent 700MHz spectrum auction says that many factors, including threatened lease fees, hurt the sale of the public safety spectrum block

Is Vista to blame for Windows revenue drop?

Windows revenue is down 24 percent for the quarter, and analysts believe part of the decline is due to Microsoft's difficulty in convincing users to switch to Vista

Internet economy looks strong, some experts say

Group of commentators and businesspeople at Google-sponsored event contend that Internet is 'not a bubble' and continued growth is expected in online sector

Looking for the worst EULA

Microsoft completes FAST purchase

The acquisition will bolster Microsoft's enterprise search portfolio, and Microsoft has promised to leave the company essentially unchanged

Two more indicted on E-Rate fraud charges

Six people and 12 companies have now pleaded or been found guilty in the DOJ's ongoing investigation into fraud at the E-Rate program

Top 10: Hacks, more hacks, Ballmer on Yahoo, OLPC woes

The week's top headlines include hackers galore, Microsoft mulling life without Yahoo, enterprise mashups, a possible IM client for the iPhone, and an Earth Day frenzy

Daily news beat for April 25, 2008

Developers press Google on its App Engine

Developers at Web 2.0 Expo asked Google when App Engine would include support for languages like PHP and Ruby

InfoWorld News Quiz: You don’t know tech

Update: Spammers ramp up siege on Google’s Blogger via bots

Rapid rise in accounts used for spam on free e-mail services from Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google, indicate current CAPTCHA technology has reached the end of its usefulness