Opinion

MySQL Co. not big enough for some customers?

Jonathan has a nice post with additional explanations on the MySQL deal, seeing as one or two folks have questioned it. (Note that the second link is for your amusement via Sun's Simon Phipps blog). Jonathan writes: "Where are the revenue s

PlateSpin now shipping its disaster recovery solution

Business continuance and disaster recovery always sound great, that is, until management takes a look at the dollars involved. While it can be somewhat easy to justify the costs involved in providing complete duplication of a few key mission critical

Citrix adding patch management in future XenServer Edition

Many people have often had the misconception that a virtualized environment must be safe from security problems and vulnerabilities. After all, its virtual, right? Well, no. This just isn't the case, and there have been plenty of discussions aro

Virtual Iron joins IBM PartnerWorld program

Virtualization software vendors are continuing to work with hardware vendors in the effort of gaining virtualization market share and additional marketing traction within the industry. With approximately 94% of servers still without server virtualiza

SWsoft snags Microsoft legend for senior technical adviser role

Virtualization software company SWsoft announced on Wednesday that a former Microsoft architect and pioneer software developer Mark Zbikowski has joined the company as a senior technical adviser. In this role, he will assist SWsoft as a resource to t

BUGbase: A Small Change in Plans

The BUG system, which I discussed last Tuesday, will go on sale Monday at the BUG Labs store. It won't be exactly what was previously announced, however. In an email, a company spokesman explained the change of plans: This (the picture at the to

Defining government’s customers

Dear Bob …A long time ago people were calling everyone including the dog their customer. A lot of that is still going around and it gets in the way of clear thinking sometimes.I liked your (now ancient) article [probably "Who defines value,&qu

Geek Week in Review

Big Brother can you spare a dime? According to The Times of London, an American company has applied for a patent on technology that will measure employees' "productivity, physical well being, and competence" — essentially attaching a

More on Defending SOA

Just when I thought this topic was dead, I ran into this article by Rich Seeley that does a great job in highlighting the issues, and the defense of SOA as some budgets become tight. "SearchSOA.com did its own survey of thought leaders who follo

Internet security: What will work

Here's a radical plan for making the Internet safe for every legitimate user

EMC’s solid-state play begs for benchmarks

Putting SSDs in Symmetrix looks good on paper, but proof of performance-to-cost ratios are in the testing

Dell, HP join effort to measure supply chains’ carbon output

The Carbon Disclosure Project, a collaboration of over 315 institutional investors managing more than $41 trillion in assets, is working with eleven corporate giants — including IT heavyweights HP and Dell — to develop a standard method to gather

Digital Realty to host free datacenter-cooling seminars

Cooling is a piping-hot topic among datacenter operators who are struggling to control costs and reduce energy waste. Plenty of vendors are, which certainly have their place in the big chill picture. However, in addition to some of there's an a

From Macworld to CeBIT, trade shows get greener

The wasteful excesses of the trade shows from the dot-com days are blissfully behind us, good news both for the planet and company coffers. (Yes, I have actually worn those ridiculous logo-emblazoned t-shirts handed out at every table back in the day

Microsoft contributing spec for disabled access

Microsoft announced plans Thursday to contribute its UI Automation specification royalty-free to the Accessibility Interoperability Alliance (AIA), an engineering working group looking to make it easier for developers to make computer products access

Oracle buys BEA for $8.5 billion: will that be cash, check or charge?

As enterprise application consolidation continues and the big fish continue to gobble up the slightly smaller fish I’m wondering whether or not these companies are playing with monopoly money? Or is it real to them? Oracle is about to spend $8

Windows 7 goes “RTM”

It's true. Windows 7 was just released … to manufacturers. Of course, this differs from that other "RTM" — released to manufacturing — but hey, it sounds good! Seriously, it appears that Microsoft has just released what is

Merger Madness or Shrewd Acquisitions?

Let me see if I have this straight. Oracle is buying BEA for $8.5 billion, and Sun is buying MySQL for $1 billion. How does this make any sense at all? Have we learned nothing from the dot-com boom and bust of the late 1990s? Is either acquisition go

Xen development team announces release of Xen 3.2.0

The Xen Development Team recently announced that the latest version, Xen 3.2.0, has now been officially released. A range of new user-visible features have been provided that include: Xen Security Modules (XSM) ACPI S3 suspend-to-RAM support for the

IT may get hit as consumer spending slows

The American consumer has ridden to the rescue of corporate revenues for years. Buoyed by highly valued homes that served as virtual ATM machines, consumers indulged their appetite for goods and services, particularly consumer electronics and compute

Earth Class Mail delivers efficiency and waste reduction

Every day at organizations large and small, countless pieces of mail get pushed and pulled hither and yon, transported on fuel-guzzling vehicles — only to end up in the recycling bin, or worse yet, the trash. Important mail, meanwhile, can linger in

Review: Onaro VM Insight 1.0

Onaro VM Insight 1.0 While most vendors have concentrated their development efforts on SRM (storage resource management) and SM (storage management) applications, Onaro took a completely different approach. Since the beginning, Onaro focused the deve

More thoughts on Sun and MySQL

First off, kudos to Sun for valuing MySQL at this price. The deal represents ~36% of Sun's Cash & Cash Equivalents (of $2.7B) on hand at the end of their last quarter (Sept. 2007). But considering how cheap debt is these days, Sun could

VMware continues down the desktop path with application virtualization purchase

VMware announced that it is once again opening up its IPO purse strings to acquire yet another company. This time, the virtualization giant is extending its reach across the virtualization market by acquiring application virtualization technology wit

Notes from OMG’s Maximizing BPM Investments with SOA Workshop Presentation…With Audio

I did my presentation at OMG's Maximizing BPM Investments with SOA Workshop held in Orlando FL this morning. It was very nice of OMG to invite me, and very good questions from those attending. Here is the complete recording of my presentation. I

AMD yields more efficiency, Intel more throughput in quad-core CPU showdown

In a recent gauntlet of tests comparing AMD's quad-core Opteron processor (i.e. Barcelona) to Intel's quad-core Xeon (i.e. Tigerton), the Xeon delivered up to 14 percent more throughput, but the Opteron used up to 41 percent less energy.

Not too late to make small profit on BEA sale

Yeah, you (and I) missed the big money on Oracle’s takeover of BEA Systems. BUT, if you have some spare cash handy and low trading costs you can make a guaranteed 4% to 5% on the deal if you move fast. That’s because the stock is trading

MySQL and BEA acquisitions

As Zack reported, Sun is buying MySQL for ~$800M plus $200M in options. Interestingly, the MySQL acquisition represents 8% of Sun's current market cap (~$13 Bil). While I'm happy for the MySQL team, my views on Sun's OSS "strategy

Continuing the Greater Good discussion

[More on "A greater good," Advice Line, 12/29/2007):Normally, I am very impressed by Bob's insights and thinking outside or beyond the box views.This one seems a little off the mark.I think Bob missed the (perhaps unspoken) theme here

Test Center Tracker: SUN mulls the ultimate consolidation

Let's face it, if someone would give us a dime every time we hear, read (or write) the word "virtualization", we would get rich quickly. iPhone is another word that seems to pop-up everywhere. Actually, although much more recent, iPhon

When customer service goes bad

What do a major PC maker, a security software vendor, a charitable organization bent on bridging the world's digital divide, and the "biggest store on the planet" have in common? They all seem to believe the phrase "customer suppo

Sun shines on LAMP

This morning we announced that Sun Microsystems has signed a definitive agreement to acquire MySQL. Having spent the last four plus years working on making MySQL into a strong independent company, this is a bit of a change of strategy, but from my pe

Apple shocks boneheaded bloggers

A new ultra-slim MacBook, a Wi-Fi router with automatic backup, location-aware navigation on iPhone, and iTunes without a computer put the score at Apple 1, rumormongers 0 At this time of year, bloggers come out of the woodwork with claims that they

OpenSpaces framework gets community site

GigaSpaces Technologies announced Tuesday OpenSpaces.org, a Web site for developers who want to use and contribute to the open source OpenSpaces development framework. Tools provided on the site offer the ability to upload, review and download code.

Linux a greener alternative to a forced Vista move?

If you read my blog yesterday, you noticed my entry about Microsoft's move to retire XP and effectively force Windows shops into a wasteful migration to Vista. I spelled out a couple of scenarios.

Extended Debate Over Extended Warranties

<P>The discussion resulting from my <a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/gripeline/archives/2007/11/partbypart_exte.html">"Part-by-Part Extended Warranty Torture" story</A> hasn't gone quite like I expected.

Sun’s 0 datacenter plan

Test Center Tracker: Is Vista Not Green?

We're just getting used to the idea of subjecting new products and techniques to green scrutiny, and taking that very close look can produce some very interesting results. In today's Test Center Tracker, we have some very good corporate beh

Thinstall: the “hairball” that chokes VMware?

I guess it was just a matter of time. When I last reviewed Thinstall, I noted that, while the technology was useful for certain niche scenarios, what the company really needed was to be swallowed-up by a larger player. Now that VMware has stepped up

SOA and Budget Cuts

Download file…

What happens if Detroit becomes more like Silicon Valley?

Software has become a bigger part of just about every major industry, whether it's media, publishing, distribution and even the staid old auto industry. While I think that's generally a good thing, it does mean that some of the foibles of s

Toys for Techies: BUG

From http://www.buglabs.net/products: BUG is a collection of easy-to-use electronic modules that snap together to build any gadget you can imagine. Each BUGmodule represents a specific gadget function (ex: a camera, a keyboard, a video output, etc).

NetEx introduces HyperIP and IDC offers 10 storage predictions

With virtualization comes a higher tax on the I/O of a system. Storage and networking will have to work overtime to keep up, and storage demands are just going to continue to increase. A company called NetEx has become the first WAN optimization vend

A classic dot-com tale of woe

This is one of those cautionary tales from the dot-com boom. Do we really need another, you ask? Well, there's always room for a classic story of hubris, terrific marketing, and a total misunderstanding of the importance of infrastructure. In 19

Collaboration: Bandwidth killer

Heed the call to collaborate — but don't let bandwidth-hungry collaborative apps grind your network to a halt As creators of collaborative software spew out application after application, other ISVs are quickly following up with what you might

Fleury and Rodrigues: separated at birth?

Come on, you have to admit, the resemblance is uncanny. I'm obviously kidding. I'm much better looking. His sizable bank account and ability to keep a beat probably balances the score though 😉 Marc gave me a heads up on his recent post, i

SaaS could hit a wall in 2008

The tech team at Cowen & Co. on Monday published a note containing its picks for potential surprises in the technology business this year. One of the most interesting: “The Growth of On-Demand Software Vendors Hits a Wall.” Analyst Pe

IBM to deploy Banking Center of Excellence in Hanoi

For someone my age the news that IBM is building a Banking Center of Excellence in Hanoi is like a splash of cold water in the face. The largest, most powerful capitalist nation in the world fought a war to stop the threat of Communism and now IBM an

Test Center Tracker: BEA WebLogic VE proves half-baked

Bold yet unmanageable: Based on his hands-on testing of WebLogic VE (Virtual Edition), Test Center Contributor Andrew Binstock concludes that it's pretty darn innovative. The appliance leverages server virtualization by delivering an enterprise-

IBM, Nokia, and Sony back green-patent giveaway

As sustainability continues to percolate in minds of business and technology leaders worldwide, we're witnessing more and more companies stepping up and sharing their resources and brainpower for the greater green good.