Opinion

Oracle’s Linux business – the jury is still out, but why not go Ubuntu?

Oracle reported its third-quarter earnings yesterday, with some good news on its Linux front (and good news overall). Clearly, Oracle's move to consolidate the known universe of software is paying off, and it's doing a good job of integrati

SugarCRM considering GPL

Computer Business Review is reporting that SugarCRM is considering moving to GPLv3 when it comes out. From the article:Despite that, Roberts said he was open to different approaches, suggesting that the company could offer different licenses dependin

Chief sustainability officer? I’ll second that.

The Internet Age spawned a new C-level title: CTO, or chief technology officer. The case for hiring a CTO was clear: The business-technology tides were turning quickly and dramatically, and traditional, old-school C-level execs really weren't e

GPL = Capitalist’s dream?

Charlie Babcock continues his analysis of the GPL and the benefits that accrue to its users. With 72% of Sourceforge projects powered by the GPL, you might be tempted to think that the GPL is a developer's dream. In this, you would not be wrong.

Infusion: World’s first portable Internet radio

Australian company Torian is now shipping its Infusion, which it claims is the world's first mobile Internet radio, or Wi-Fi radio. The radio, which also doubles as an MP3 player, debuted at the CeBIT conference in Germany this week. [Video: Int

InfoWorld LIVE! #8: Linux and SMB

Actually, it's episode #9, but last week's was a rerun seeing as how I had to attend the InfoWorld editorial retreat. This week, however, we delve into Linux and SMB. So we have a long talk with Xandros' Erich Forler. Xandros is one o

SMB Tech News Today; 3/21

* TrueCrypt 4.3 released. Okay, Vista has BitLocker, but that's not the be-all of encryption. TrueCrypt is a Windows-only encryption package that now handles 32- and 64-bit Windows, it's optimized for USB and other external devices and can

Is AJAX Really the Face of SOA?

I'm at AJAX World this week in New York. In attending the cocktail parties and vendor functions I've been hearing the same pitch over and over again…"AJAX is the face of SOA." So, is this true? Or, is this another "SOA 2.0

Test Center Tracker: Multitasking’s Achilles heel

When too much is too much: Computers may be renowned for their multitasking abilities (crunching numbers, formating files, playing video, and searching for extraterrestrial life nearly simultaneously ain't half bad), but Tom Yager says that virt

IT Watchdogs and the Dell mystery solved

In response to my recent APC NetBotz review, Robert Rosen hipped me to IT Watchdogs, a company that makes similar environmental sensors. They lack the heavy-duty server-side components, but offer a wide array of sensors for reasonable prices. Looks c

Freebase, the Semantic Web, and the Metaweb Query API

As I discussed in my article on the Semantic Web for our Crackpot Tech feature on February 19th, the standard Web was originally designed for document distribution, and has yet to realize its full potential for distributing data. The Semanti

Handling a difficult combinatorial – namely, growth

Dear Bob …Thanks for doing the math (in "The mathematics of organizational dysfunction," Keep the Joint Running," 1/22/2007).The combinatorials of a growing organization (n(n-1)/2) are negatively affecting my team of systems engineer

The World Is Text

Poets, priests and politicians Have words to thank for their positions. The Police, "De Do Do Do De Da Da Da"I always liked that line from The Police's classic song, but only recently has it hit me how true they are. It's becoming

Where x86 hits the wall

Virtualization and heavily multi-threaded software expose the limits of x86 parallelism

Protect mobile data from all sides

From implementing security tools to developing policies, guarding sensitive data is straightforward and essential

Evaluating new geographies for open source products

One of the more interesting things I get to do these days is determine what geographical markets make sense for us to target the Mule towards. Today I spent several hours with a Japanese partner that has been helping us evaluate the opportunity and t

Managing customer support (37 Signals Highrise)

37Signals today launched Highrise, a new take on contact management. My initial reaction was that I didn't quite understand the practical purpose until I started thinking about using Highrise in conjunction with something like Salesforce.com or

Vista Aero: What a CPU Hog!

Microsoft's new Aero Glass GUI – one of the cornerstones of the company's Windows Vista marketing message – is a joy to behold. Aero's sleek, semi-transparent facades serve to enhance the user experience by providng a stronger sense of

Independent Developer Creates Parallels for Mac Tool

It was only a matter of time before a third party tool was developed for the Parallels Desktop for Mac product. In this case, independent software developer, BriteMac, created a third party tool that allows you to better manage your Parallels virtual

Live chat about green-tech trends this Thursday

Update: Here's a recap of the live chat, and here's the transcript in its entirety. Not long ago, The Green Grid — a consortium of IT-industry biggies united toward tackling issues of developing energy-efficient practices, standard, and te

The problem with pretending (Novell claims support for FSF)

UPDATED: Justin Steinman has posted that his comments regarding Novell's financial commitment to the FSF were in error. Justin wasn't intending to deceive – he just made an honest mistake. Justin Steinman may be a nice guy, but he needs to

Motivators: taking care of your team

<p>As you go through the process of building your teams, which is really a process of creating strong leaders, you're going to be asking a lot of your folks: you'll be asking them to change and to take creative risks.</p> &lt

FreeConference vs. Evil Empire–Minor Spat or Net Neutrality Behemoth?

This has been making the rounds since late last week. Seems that there's a service in the mid-west called FreeConference.com. These guys are a rural-ISP free-calling operation. Their main sale was letting folks (especially small businesses) con

Linus talks about GPLv3

Linus Torvalds has gone on the record (again) about his reasons for not supporting GPLv3. He answered a range of questions from InformationWeek's Charlie Babcock. Among some of the gems…. Asked why he doesn't support GPLv3:First off, I do

DebIan’s Sun (Executive Moves…)

Ian Murdock, founder of Debian, is moving to Sun MIcrosystems. I've known Ian since 2002, and have profound respect for him. He's the sort of person that is willing to "zig" when others "zag." Now is no different, as the

SMB Tech News Today; 3/20

* Microsoft gets into software PBX. The Microsoftees are holding their 2nd-annual Small Business Summit. And one of their announcements is the Microsoft Response Point phone system A software PBX (also available as a hardware appliance most likely) w

Test Center Tracker: Vista’s hunger for power

Aero's a CPU hog: Enterprise Desktop blogger Randall C. Kennedy digs a bit deeper into the Vista's slick yet ridiculously processing-power-hungry Aero interface. It "chews up more CPU cycles (an average of 22%) with desktop composition

JBoss improves Java persistence software

JBoss on Tuesday said it has added search and data clustering capabilities to its Hibernate Java persistence and object/relational mapping software. New features enable users to better abstract data sources from where they are consumed. Google contri

Managing SOA Semantics…Highlights and Comments

Download file…

Calculating the cost of SaaS

Pay-as-you-go pricing might just mean forgoing software as a service altogether

How I started my IT career

Choosing between school and career can be tricky, unless you find a way to do both

Licensing Logjam Holds Back Veritas Customer

As we've seen, many of my readers harbor some resentment for what Symantec has done with the Norton product line over the years. But now one reader is wondering if the same won't someday be the case with Symantec's acquisition of Verit

Virtual Bridges Announces Major Update of Win4Lin Pro

Virtual Bridges, Inc. announced today the release of a major upgrade to its desktop and enterprise virtualization product – Win4Lin Pro. Win4Lin Pro Desktop allows Linux users to run Windows applications from the security of the Linux desktop. Win4Li

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 with Symantec and OpenVZ

In addition to the announcement about Red Hat releasing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0, other announcements have been coming out around the same time such as the discussions around the Red Hat and Symantec collaboration agreement and the news that the

Real World AJAX…Secrets of the Masters

I was pleased to see that the book Real World AJAX…Secrets of the Masters hit the streets this week. I just received my two copies in the mail, and my name was on the cover…ah…with 20 other guys. At least my chapter is the sample chapter availa

Update: HP’s new Energy Star PCs come with XP, not Vista

Updated March 19 to clarify some of the Energy Star info. If you go to the business desktop PCs section of HP's Web site, you'll see this phrase prominently displayed at the top: "HP recommends Windows Vista Business." The company

InBoxer adds Notes support to Anti-Risk Appliance

Insider threat protection and data leak management are certainly making waves in light of government regulations and data-loss scandals. Tracking e-mail is one important part of ensuring not only that business communications are on the up-and-up, but

Microsoft phone is a stalking horse for bigger things to come

The news, "Microsoft unveils small-business phone system" that Microsoft allowed an independent product team within the company to develop a phone, Microsoft Response Point phone, without consultation from other product teams doesn't s

Microsoft offers Expression Design beta

Microsoft last week released a second beta of Microsoft Expression Design, which is the company's planned tool for graphic and illustration design. Beta 2, available here, supports the Microsoft Expression Blend Release Candidate and features en

Talk about a price difference

I've been perusing vendor websites comparing prices on their big iron Opteron boxes. I've found something that isn't quite right: 1) Sun x4600 M2, 64GB RAM, four Opteron 8218s, two SAS drives, RHEL3, rack kit: $47,999 2) HP DL585G2, 64

Can this merger succeed?

Dear Bob …My company recently merged with another company. By all accounts, it seems to be a good fit. There seems to be little overlap in products between the 2 companies.I've heard many people say that they've seen good and bad mergers.

Open source sprinting into the US federal government

It was bound to happen. Open source is rapidly advancing in government use worldwide. And now it's making a big play in the US federal government, as noted in this article from FCW. In part, the success of open source in the federal government h

SMB Tech News Today; 3/19

* Spyware to get a slap in the face. It's called the Internet Spyware (I-Spy) Prevention Act, and it was introed last week by Representatives Zoe Lofgren (Democrat, CA) and Bob Goodlatte (Republican, VA). It passed the House back in 2005, but t

GPLv3 dividing the community (InformationWeek)

Charlie Babcock's GPLv3 story hit this morning. It's an interesting and thoughtful read, and goes to the heart of one of the big disagreements in open source: how far can a license go in seeking to ensure freedom?There's a rift develop

Test Center Tracker: A handy guide to open-source VoIP

DIY VoIP: The days of complete rip-and-replace VoIP installations may be waning, as open-source VoIP options (like Asterisk) and more mingling between traditional PBX vendors and VoIP vendors make for a more even playing field. If you're conside

Black Duck accommodates GPL 3

Black Duck Software announced on Monday protexIP/development 4.3, an upgrade to the company's platform for software compliance management. Featured in version 4.3 is the ability to ensure software code complies with rules of the GNU General Publ

Catching up with IBM Rational

When I was the programming columnist and programming tools reviewer&nbsp;at Windows Magazine, I would hear from the PR people at Pure Atria on at least a weekly basis. It became a joke between me and the reviews editor: I would never be lonely, a

Your office sucks

Are you a !? Or a ??

Cisco Acquires Storage Virtualization Firm

Cisco Systems moved further into the file virtualization arena when it announced a definitive agreement to purchase privately held NeoPath Networks, a network storage and virtualization firm. NeoPath's patented SMART virtualization technology an