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If WhenU.com is unhappy about Utah law, I can only imagine how they will respond if either the proposed Software Principles Yielding Better Levels of Consumer Knowledge (SPYBLOCK) Act or the Controlling Invasive and Unauthorized Software Act is passed and signed into law.

These bills have been covered by:

PC World

InfoWorld

ComputerWorld, and

TechNewsWorld

If WhenU.com is unhappy about Utah law, I can only imagine how they will respond if either the proposed Software Principles Yielding Better Levels of Consumer Knowledge (SPYBLOCK) Act or the Controlling Invasive and Unauthorized Software Act is passed and signed into law.

These bills have been covered by:

PC World

InfoWorld

ComputerWorld, and

TechNewsWorld

You're right. We should laugh.

Like we laughed at the idea that Microsoft pays people to post in forums -- until it was proven to be true.

Like we laughed at the idea that Microsoft was funding Washington think tanks -- until it was proven to be true.

Like we laughed at the idea that Microsoft was spreading FUD about DR-DOS -- until it was proven to be true.

Like we laughed at the idea that Microsoft would submit doctored evidence in a federal court -- until it was proven to be true.

Like we laughed at the idea that Microsoft was trying to undermine Netscape and sabotage their business relationships -- until it was proven to be true.

Like we laughed at the idea that Microsoft was trying to sabotage Java, and lock in Java users -- until it was proven to be true.

Like we laughed at the idea that Microsoft would try to undermine Linux with extended protocols -- until it was proven to be true.

But the idea that Microsoft would try to lock in Linux developers and users, through a secret deal with Trolltech?

You're right. That's laughable.

For your info, the rumors about Trusted Solaris' end of life are just that, rumors. Apparently Sun's plans regarding Trusted Solaris are to skip from Trusted Solaris 9 directly to Trusted Solaris 10. Some of the features of Trusted Solaris will be integrated into plain Solaris 10. They're also looking to cut the release time between a regular Solaris version and the Trusted verions from 1 year to about 6-9 months. Don't the tests to get a certification take about a year anyway? So people looking to use Trusted Solaris 10 will probably still have a long wait after Solaris 10 comes out.

I'm really surprised that without Trusted NT getting a decent rating that it would have been chosen as the only platform for deploying applications in IT-21. BSOD has a whole new meaning when you're dead in the water like the Yorkshire was a few times. That was pretty odd. Though how IT-21 started out as a switch to more Sun equipment until that guy retired (sorry bad with names) and then they switched to NT 4.0 which wasn't even C2 certified. At the time microsoft was pushing hard to get their servers into the military and we all paid the price for the money that was wasted on projects that had so many problems.

On a side note, I hear that the WMD detector is Run on NT which might be why we haven't found any :)

IBM still makes a ton of money of their mainframes and their sales are still rising

I am not disagreeing about IBM's hardware sales, but IBM has become a services company, and they leverage services to sell the hardware.

According to this report of IBM revenues, services were $10.4B of total $21.5B for 2003Q3. Almost half the revenues are from services, and the profit margin on services is much higher than the margin on hardware.

This year-end report states that all hardware sales increased, including the mainframes (z-series). But it points out that services revenue grew 17%, while total revenue grew 10%. Do the math. That means the non-services business only grew around 3%. If that trend continues, then in 3 years, service will account for 3/4 of IBM's revenues. Aren't statistics wonderful? While the growth of services may not be maintained, selling hardware keeps becoming more difficult, so these numbers are possible. The first report states that hardware revenues declined 1%, so you guess if IBM's hardware business is actually growing.

---
Software is included on the non-services half. The report states that IBM's software sales have flat-lined. If hardware revenues declined, then software must have grown some to offset the hardware decline to reach the 3% non-services growth. Most of the increase is because IBM keeps (successfully) pushing WebSphere, which competes against free software.

New business model:
1. See Free Software succeeding.
2. Develop proprietary version.
3. Use marketing and support organization of very large company to sell it.
4. Profit.

(I dislike business plans that include "and then a miracle happens". My current startup is depending on several of them, and they will give me ulcers, especially since I am expected to provide the miracles.)

The one real advantage of pushing WebSphere is that development is so complicated that IBM sells more services. IBM stopped pushing Lotus Notes because development is so easy that your receptionist can do it, so it generates much less money from services.

IBM has not been pushing Lotus Notes recently. That may change soon. Lotus Notes dominates because it allows business people to create business applications easily and quickly. Notes 7 will allow the use of DB2 as the internal database structure. Then it can scale to almost any application's needs. It could also mean easy use of DB2 for mobile applications. If they can maintain the ease of development, Notes could take a significant portion of the application market from MS and Java. The issue is whether IBM will market it well. They spent most of the last 7 years positioning Lotus Notes as a competitor to MSExchange. Notes is a much better email system than MSExchange (try administering/supporting both for a while), but Notes shines as an application platform, and IBM buried that message in the competition with MS for number of email users.

-- Back to SUN
My first thought was that the deal with MS included unwritten conditions that SUN would stop selling hardware that could not run MS software. Then I realized I was being completely paranoid, because even if Scott has absolutely no idea what to do next, he would not give up the Sparc for just $2B. Right?

Inflight broadband

So how can they do this when the navigation is so fragile?


You can always tell a pilot,
You just can't tell them much!


Putz!

- Paul

NOt the chief, but:

http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?9 80626.einamesuit.htm

Small sample:

1. Air New Zealand replaces 150 Compaq servers with a single mainframe running zLinux.
2. Telia Net replaces 70 UNIX servers with a single mainframe running zLinux.
3. Banco Mercantile Venezuela replaces Windows and UNIX servers with zLinux mainframe.
4. SAIC moves application to Linux on the mainframe, for the stock exchanges.

Gartner says IBM had over 100 new mainframe customers in 2002 (according to one report I saw). Haven't seen 2003 data yet.

Samsung is promising this one sometime this year - 10 hours on a single shot of methanol - if only i could do the same ;)

Hint: Go read Jon Udell's piece on "Replace and Defend".

That said, I've been talking to IBM about Linux on the mainframe recently and while I don't have an actual figure handy, I wouldn't be surprised if the number your source cited were true, and in fact there may be even more movement in the Linux-on-mainframe area than that figure suggests.

IBM is marketing Linux on the mainframe primarily to existing mainframe customers who want to further leverage their investments there. Remember that mainframes tend to be very modular and upgradeable ... you need not replace the thing to see performance gains or new functionality. You can just buy some new parts.

So IBM is selling a version of Linux that will run under zVM, its mainframe virtualization technology, as well as hardware modules that are basically PowerPC G5 units you can add to the base hardware for the explicit purpose of running Linux. (I don't think you necessarily need the add-on modules to run Linux, I just know that they're available.)

This doesn't really have any benefit at all if you're running a compute cluster or any other application where the Linux boxes are running at high utilization all the time. The main purpose for this is consolidation of lightweight servers. Let's say you have a farm of a hundred Linux Web servers that mostly sit around idle, and the heaviest lifting they need to do is to hand off transactions for processing in the database on the zSeries mainframe. IBM suggests that you instead roll all those servers into virtual machines on the mainframe itself.

Note that we're usually talking about a mainframe that's already in production use, here. You don't need to wipe your mainframe and start over with Linux. You can run Linux instances and z/OS instances at the same time. You gain the following advantages:

1. You can now use the same staff to maintain those Linux "boxes" that you were already using to maintain the mainframe
2. VM makes it pretty easy to provision new virtual servers as needed, and keep their configurations consistent
3. You get the benefit of increased I/O -- the Linux instances think they're communicating over TCP/IP to some remote database, but really all the I/O happens using the in-memory channels on the mainframe

From my understanding, IBM doesn't really have a whole horde of customers yet, but I bet a lot of mainframe customers are evaluating the option.

More information on this, as well as mainframe topics in general, in last week's InfoWorld: here, here, and the full PDF special report on mainframes here.

That said, I've been talking to IBM about Linux on the mainframe recently and while I don't have an actual figure handy, I wouldn't be surprised if the number your source cited were true, and in fact there may be even more movement in the Linux-on-mainframe area than that figure suggests.

IBM is marketing Linux on the mainframe primarily to existing mainframe customers who want to further leverage their investments there. Remember that mainframes tend to be very modular and upgradeable ... you need not replace the thing to see performance gains or new functionality. You can just buy some new parts.

So IBM is selling a version of Linux that will run under zVM, its mainframe virtualization technology, as well as hardware modules that are basically PowerPC G5 units you can add to the base hardware for the explicit purpose of running Linux. (I don't think you necessarily need the add-on modules to run Linux, I just know that they're available.)

This doesn't really have any benefit at all if you're running a compute cluster or any other application where the Linux boxes are running at high utilization all the time. The main purpose for this is consolidation of lightweight servers. Let's say you have a farm of a hundred Linux Web servers that mostly sit around idle, and the heaviest lifting they need to do is to hand off transactions for processing in the database on the zSeries mainframe. IBM suggests that you instead roll all those servers into virtual machines on the mainframe itself.

Note that we're usually talking about a mainframe that's already in production use, here. You don't need to wipe your mainframe and start over with Linux. You can run Linux instances and z/OS instances at the same time. You gain the following advantages:

1. You can now use the same staff to maintain those Linux "boxes" that you were already using to maintain the mainframe
2. VM makes it pretty easy to provision new virtual servers as needed, and keep their configurations consistent
3. You get the benefit of increased I/O -- the Linux instances think they're communicating over TCP/IP to some remote database, but really all the I/O happens using the in-memory channels on the mainframe

From my understanding, IBM doesn't really have a whole horde of customers yet, but I bet a lot of mainframe customers are evaluating the option.

More information on this, as well as mainframe topics in general, in last week's InfoWorld: here, here, and the full PDF special report on mainframes here.

That said, I've been talking to IBM about Linux on the mainframe recently and while I don't have an actual figure handy, I wouldn't be surprised if the number your source cited were true, and in fact there may be even more movement in the Linux-on-mainframe area than that figure suggests.

IBM is marketing Linux on the mainframe primarily to existing mainframe customers who want to further leverage their investments there. Remember that mainframes tend to be very modular and upgradeable ... you need not replace the thing to see performance gains or new functionality. You can just buy some new parts.

So IBM is selling a version of Linux that will run under zVM, its mainframe virtualization technology, as well as hardware modules that are basically PowerPC G5 units you can add to the base hardware for the explicit purpose of running Linux. (I don't think you necessarily need the add-on modules to run Linux, I just know that they're available.)

This doesn't really have any benefit at all if you're running a compute cluster or any other application where the Linux boxes are running at high utilization all the time. The main purpose for this is consolidation of lightweight servers. Let's say you have a farm of a hundred Linux Web servers that mostly sit around idle, and the heaviest lifting they need to do is to hand off transactions for processing in the database on the zSeries mainframe. IBM suggests that you instead roll all those servers into virtual machines on the mainframe itself.

Note that we're usually talking about a mainframe that's already in production use, here. You don't need to wipe your mainframe and start over with Linux. You can run Linux instances and z/OS instances at the same time. You gain the following advantages:

1. You can now use the same staff to maintain those Linux "boxes" that you were already using to maintain the mainframe
2. VM makes it pretty easy to provision new virtual servers as needed, and keep their configurations consistent
3. You get the benefit of increased I/O -- the Linux instances think they're communicating over TCP/IP to some remote database, but really all the I/O happens using the in-memory channels on the mainframe

From my understanding, IBM doesn't really have a whole horde of customers yet, but I bet a lot of mainframe customers are evaluating the option.

More information on this, as well as mainframe topics in general, in last week's InfoWorld: here, here, and the full PDF special report on mainframes here.

I recently noticed that Microsoft is going to license ClearType and the FAT filesystem. Apparently, MS is tired of everybody using FAT. Maybe it's been discussed on /. already, but this can either mean third-party software to bring ClearType to other platforms including Win2K and Linux, or it can mean no FAT support in Linux -- maybe it'll mean both

Microsoft Opens Up Licensing
Microsoft Plays Intellectual Property Licensing Catch-Up
ClearType Technology and Patent License
Microsoft unveils new intellectual property policy

I don't have the links, but I read several posts by Mac users in other forums who have argued that Quartz under MacOS X is better than ClearType since Quartz more accurately renders text on screen as it would appear in print. Of course, some of the posts were just the typical Mac elitism, but some even said the anti-aliasing unde r Linux was better. Maybe they were talking about GNOME???

I wasn't sure whether GNOME was using sub-pixel rendering or straight anti-aliasing. I do remember liking the way text was rendered under GNOME though. Is there a way to add GNOME's anti-aliasing to old applications like rxvt and xv or WindowMaker and fvwm, or is this an impossibility since none of these apps are built using GNOME in the first place?

I know RedHat contributes, but I prefer to use Debian nowadays.

Things are going from bad to worse - first the Redhat->Fedora transfer and now Sun is in bed with Mickeysoft.

I admit, the closed-source UIs are very pretty, but they're easily outweighed by things like NFS, greater stability, etc.

I really hate to break this to you, but Windows has been a pretty stable /desktop/ environment since, oh, Windows 2000. File sharing over NTFS works pretty damn well, and there's a great *free* set of tools for scp'ing, NFSing, and whatnot. Lots of great 3rd party tools too.

Btw, not seen this mentioned anywhere, but John Udell did a great job of digging into how good Macs really are at connecting to network printers. Ain't pretty. Have to say, Gruber is bang-on when he says this is something that Windows is much better at. On Windows, connecting to shared printer is as easy as:

- type the URN for the printer (say \\kathy\printer) into Explorer's address bar (or navigate to it via Network Places)
- If you've never used that printer before, you are prompted to click "yes" to install a driver (Windows caches common drivers, or fetches it via the web, or asks you to insert a driver CD/floppy)
- the printer's now usable

Btw, I'm a happy and satisfied Linux user, but my interface of choice is bash via PuTTY since I've not yet met a Linux GUI that actually allowed me to be productive.

Novell supports GNOME and KDE, Qt and Gtk. We have not decided that we are standardizing on Qt for the desktop. First of all, most software developed for the Linux desktop is developed by the broader community, and Novell could never impose a standard platform on the community at large. We support development with a variety of toolkits, and our internal development is done using the right tool for the right problem. This includes Qt, Gtk, VCL, XUL and others, depending on the application. We do not regard the variety of toolkits and platforms in the Linux world as a problem, as long as there are standards and shared code which allow applications to work together.

Well, that's a significant shift in your language from the past.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/11/24/46NNdesk top_1.html

We have not decided that we are standardizing on Qt for the desktop. First of all, most software developed for the Linux desktop is developed by the broader community, and Novell could never impose a standard platform on the community at large.

We're not talking about the community - we are talking about Novell's potential Linux Desktop, which was not described as being a Ximian one. Besides, I don't expect Novell to drop any toolkits, but they need a main focus for cross-platform, embedded development now. Qt is the only toolkit that cuts it.

Over time we hope to work with freedesktop.org to unify the key interfaces and functionality of these components, to improve integration for users and provide a common open source desktop platform.

Again, a massive shift in rhetoric.

Nat Friedman Novell/SUSE Linux Desktop Lead

Please don't describe yourself in that way, because you are anything not head of anything. Suse is the organisation that counts here. Your description of yourself to Bruce Perens confirmed that :). Amusingly, Miguel de Icaza calls your description the official statement from Novell.

Well it ain't Qt, so all the little zealots should calm down. This is a bullshit story which has been mis-reported on the German website and mistranslated.

Well I don't see why it shouldn't be Qt. The fact is, it is just damn good. I don't see how what was said could be mistranslated - the last I heard Chris Stone spoke English. There's certainly been plenty of crap flying against Qt, KDE and Suse:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/11/24/46NNdesk top_1.html

My guess is that Novell has just let it slip that they will *include* Qt in their distro by default,

If they were just going to include Qt then Chris Stone would probably never have mentioned it, especially considering that Qt is already in Suse distros.

And the little KDE zealots have gone apeshit, posting everywhere that "Novel iz n0w a KDE shop!!!"

Well I haven't seen that anywhere. Anyway, we've had plenty of GTK/Gnome is taking over, KDE is dead comments.

Hell, they'll probably include Motif in the desktop distro too, it doesn't mean *ANYTHING*.

They didn't mention Motif, even though it may be there.

• It's damn good, and it is the only option if you want to do cross-platform and embedded development today - not sometime tomorrow. Novell have expressed interest in the embedded systems market.
• Any Visual C++ developer looking at Linux development will want to see it. For many applications Mono and CLR environments just don't cut it, which is why Microsoft is doing some awful things to .NET, such as pseudo natively-compiled/CLR binaries.
• It has a workable business model behind it to ensure its future.

If it was announced by Chris Stone, and people heard him mind you, then it seems as if it will be Qt. Apparently, there will be a flamefest, I mean meeting, at Novell in May to decide. It seems as though it will be Qt though.

Suse seems to have insisted on Qt, and since they are the Enterprise Linux Division of Novell, and have 50 million dollars of investment because of that from IBM, I'd be swaying in this direction.

I'd be inclined to believe the Qt arguments simply because the Ximian people have come out with stuff like this: http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/11/24/46NNdesk top_1.html in the past.

This was before the ink was even dry on the Novell/Suse deal, and Nat Friedman was talking about the future of Suse products probably without them knowing. Ximian Desktop in Suse 9, or 9.1? Nope, must have missed that one Nat. Nice way to make friends with the Suse people!

Given Novell's talk of embedded systems, it probably will be Qt, but we are speculating here. It probably won't make a blind bit of difference to anyone anyway.

A couple of months ago, Linux Journal covered the Bass Station, a converted monster ghetto blaster that is used to stream audio and video to anyone within range of its WiFi antenna. The owners use it as a kind of a mobile Internet block party.

I found it inspiring. They used the Mini-ITX motherboards, and with the upcoming Nano-ITX boards, even smaller and more portable mobile access points can be constructed.

It makes you wonder how Microsoft continues to get away with these things. And then, yesterday the U.S. government says that it thinks it did enough to Microsoft and that the EU should not be levying such a high fine! Who the heck are they kidding?

Tried submitting this a couple of times since yesterday but the submission system seems to have picked up a few bugs of its own where it says "Thanks for the submission" but nothing shows up in the queue. Here are the details...

Yahoo, Hotmail Users Vulnerable to XSS PC Attack

Both Yahoo Web e-mail and Microsoft Hotmail are vulnerable to an Internet Explorer cross-site scripting (XSS) attack that lets malicious users run local code, according to Israel's GreyMagic security consultants (proof of concept). Possible consequences range from theft of login and password to a remote takeover of the compromised machine. Reports indicate that Microsoft has patched the hole but Yahoo has yet to solve the problem. The vulnerability presumably affects Windows PC-based versions of Internet Explorer only. Some people might want to read this developerWorks article on how to prevent cross-site scripting and protect oneself, mentioned last month on Slashdot. More coverage at InternetNews and The Register.

So, from where I am viewing the market from the perspective of an end user, Apple's market position is looking pretty good to me.

Yeah, real good.

And what about all those announcements?

Microsoft asks Mac users, "How can we get your business?'

Merrill Lynch, whose technology group recently began coverage of Apple, noted in a research note last week that "open source and Mac adoption is still in infancy in the enterprise market." However, "we should see explosive growth in the years to come as corporations look to achieve cost savings within their IT departments."

Using IDC's own estimate for G5/OSX server shipments through 2007, as well as its internal data on OSX operating system attach rates and server pricing, Merrill reckons that the enterprise G5 market could be worth $529 million by 2007. "This represents a [compound annual growth rate] of 61 percent over the 5-year period from 2002-2007," the note said.

Japanese telco to aid Mac phone development

Mac, G5 systems move out enterprise's mainframe

New G5 chips, but no 64-bit OS X
for at least two years (too late).

"We're saying that OSX/G5s will eat Unix," Gantz said

Is Computer Associates contemplating dumping Windows?

If you have been following Microsoft attempts to hold onto counties, cities, states, governmental bodies, governments, corporations and people, you know the headlines have gone from talk to action.

The governments that are starting to move over tend to be mostly poorer countries, or ones with large, largely computer-free populaces. Brazil and China are good examples of this trend. In those places, OSX/G5 adoption has been picking up steam to the point that if a second world country told MS to take a hike, it would hardly rate a Slashdot story on a slow day.

THE NATIONAL HEALTH Service is considering using the OSX operating system; G5s in a 2.3 billion deal that could affect as many as 800,000 PCs if a pilot is successful.

Nine German cities poised to adopt OSX/G5

Official: China to invest in OSX/G5-based software industry

The US Army has abandoned Windows and chosen OSX for a key component of its "Land Warrior" programme, according to a report in National Defense Magazine. The move, initially covering a personal computing and communications device termed the Commander's Digital Assistant (CDA), follows the failure of the previous attempt at such a device in trials in February of this year, and is part of a move to make the device simpler and less breakable.

According to program manager Lt Col Dave Gallop this is part of a broader move towards OSX/G5 by the US Army: "Evidence shows that OSX is more stable. We are moving in general to where the Army is going, to OSX/G5-based OS."

Sun Microsystems is the odd man out. It has an impressive array of powerful enemies: IBM, Microsoft, Intel, HP, Red Hat, Apple, Novell, and more. It has only a weakened Oracle as a friend, and Oracle too has made a "bet the company" move to OSX/G5. OSX/G5 threatens many of Sun's traditional products as sharply as it threatens

It's not a problem I have with Microsoft, rather it's a problem I have with giving all of my personal information to a single organization to put into a central respository.

Welcome to George Bush's America: it's not your choice anymore.

So, from where I am viewing the market from the perspective of an end user, Apple's market position is looking pretty good to me.

Yeah, real good.

And what about all those announcements?

Microsoft asks Mac users, "How can we get your business?'

Merrill Lynch, whose technology group recently began coverage of Apple, noted in a research note last week that "open source and Mac adoption is still in infancy in the enterprise market." However, "we should see explosive growth in the years to come as corporations look to achieve cost savings within their IT departments."

Using IDC's own estimate for G5/OSX server shipments through 2007, as well as its internal data on OSX operating system attach rates and server pricing, Merrill reckons that the enterprise G5 market could be worth $529 million by 2007. "This represents a [compound annual growth rate] of 61 percent over the 5-year period from 2002-2007," the note said.

Japanese telco to aid Mac phone development

Mac, G5 systems move out enterprise's mainframe

New G5 chips, but no 64-bit OS X for at least two years (too late).

"We're saying that OSX/G5s will eat Unix," Gantz said

Is Computer Associates contemplating dumping Windows?

If you have been following Microsoft attempts to hold onto counties, cities, states, governmental bodies, governments, corporations and people, you know the headlines have gone from talk to action.

The governments that are starting to move over tend to be mostly poorer countries, or ones with large, largely computer-free populaces. Brazil and China are good examples of this trend. In those places, OSX/G5 adoption has been picking up steam to the point that if a second world country told MS to take a hike, it would hardly rate a Slashdot story on a slow day.

THE NATIONAL HEALTH Service is considering using the OSX operating system; G5s in a 2.3 billion deal that could affect as many as 800,000 PCs if a pilot is successful.

Nine German cities poised to adopt OSX/G5

Official: China to invest in OSX/G5-based software industry

The US Army has abandoned Windows and chosen OSX for a key component of its "Land Warrior" programme, according to a report in National Defense Magazine. The move, initially covering a personal computing and communications device termed the Commander's Digital Assistant (CDA), follows the failure of the previous attempt at such a device in trials in February of this year, and is part of a move to make the device simpler and less breakable.

According to program manager Lt Col Dave Gallop this is part of a broader move towards OSX/G5 by the US Army: "Evidence shows that OSX is more stable. We are moving in general to where the Army is going, to OSX/G5-based OS."

Sun Microsystems is the odd man out. It has an impressive array of powerful enemies: IBM, Microsoft, Intel, HP, Red Hat, Apple, Novell, and more. It has only a weakened Oracle as a friend, and Oracle too has made a "bet the company" move to OSX/G5. OSX/G5 threatens many of Sun's traditional products as sharply as it threatens Micr

IBM's middleware strategy is based on the WebSphere products, which are based on Tomcat, Apache, and Eclipse. That middleware business alone is worth over $11 billion a year, and it is profitable.

Of course, Websphere itself is NOT open source. And, it's really based on Java, which again is NOT open source (though IBM would like it to be). It's HTTP server is based on Apache, but what makes it unique is in Java. And, as IBM has said, Websphere is a commercial product and it would be unrealistic to open source it. And Sun has stated that IBM's idea to open source Java is "bonky".

As we've seen recently in Intel vs. China regarding China's own wireless standard (labelled GB15629.11-2003 for those interested), we can probably at least count on China to get hissy about this.

Simply put, whether the threat they perceive is real or not, there is no way they are going to allow American proprietary rubbish (with evil spyware code to boot) to penetrate the Peoples' Republic. So if we have to start importing all our parts from the commies, then so be it, but even if dumbass consumers in the West buy this kinda rubbish (and, as others have said, they undoubtedly will), it simply will not fly politically elsewhere.

The push for Linux in Asia is clear - HP are going to ship Linux boxen, China has variously shown its keenness towards the open OS, NTT DoCoMo are putting Linux in phones and so on - this kind of stuff really does matter. At the very least, American hardware manufacturers are going to consider the bigger picture before alienating large numbers of potential consumers.

Microsoft is not invincible. It has failed in the mobile phone market, failed to crush Java (now, of course, flourishing on mobiles) and has a long time to examine consumers' reactions before Longhorn comes out. I really don't think it will try to push this too hard...

iqu :?

Where have I seen this before... a groupware platform built on required client software that costs money, and proprietary protocols? Ah yes, it was Mr. Ozzie's last invention, Lotus Notes. But this time, we also get to share our identities with the rest of the Groove network.

Notes is a case study in how proprietary groupware is doomed to lose out to standards. The same will happen with Groove.

As a recent piece opined, "the only thing harder than using Notes is getting rid of it"

And it seems to be true. InfoWorld's own CEO gave up his attmpt to get rid of Notes. Won't that make it difficult to migrate to Groove?

Here's a glimmer of hope for anyone still roped to Notes. At my company we have 200 of 450 desktops converted from Notes mail to Thunderbird/Sendmail/OpenLDAP and most of the rest will be done this week. Mainly, all it took was perseverance.

It's too bad Ozzie couldn't find a way to make Groove open and still make money.

By acquiring the UnixWare licenses ( ed: as part of a settlement of an unrelated lawsuit brought by Canopy, not SCO), CA indemnified itself against a possible Linux lawsuit from SCO, said Sam Greenblatt, the senior vice president and chief architect of CA's Linux Technology Group. "We did an agreement with the Canopy Group and in the agreement with the Canopy Group, we acquired UinxWare(sic) licenses," he said. "For every UnixWare license you acquired, you got indemnified for that number of Linux licenses."

Isn't that what upgrades are supposed to do? I mean look at Windows XP SP2. It's supposedly going to break all kinds of apps.

This Info World article explains that "The patent office's decision, issued Feb. 25, may be good news for Microsoft, but it is common for claims to be rejected at this stage of patent review" ... so in other words we shouldn't count our chickens before they hatch.

I emailed you about this but you need to fix that link right there on the front page.

You know, this one
Also, SCO has A HREF="http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/03/04/HN cascolicensee_1.html">announced a few new licensees including Computer Associates.

Maybe like this: Also, SCO has announced a few new licensees including Computer Associates.

This link's for you.

A HREF="http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/03/04/HN cascolicensee_1.html"
Should be announced/A. (with instead of .)

There's been a whole host of developments in the ongoing SCO saga over the past couple of days. SCO have now filed law suits against Autozone and DaimlerChrysler on the same day as announcing growing operating losses. Despite securing a deal to license their IP with ev1servers, SCOsource only generated an income of $20,000 for the quarter. Today it has been revealed that Computer Associates, Questar Corp. and manufacturer Leggett & Platt Inc have all joined the ranks of SCO source licensees. Over at the Nasdaq the publicity stunts are beginning to wane thin with investors who sent SCO shares plummeting by almost 14% yesterday. In the courtroom, SCO was yesterday given 45 days to identify all specific lines of code they allege IBM put into Linux from AIX or Dynix; identify and provide with specificity all lines of code in Linux that it claims rights to.

They're obviously not spending it too wisely.

Security experts are characterizing the incident as a rare example of a "0-day" exploit, referring to an exploit that takes advantage of a vulnerability nobody is aware of and for which there is no available patch. However, Microsoft issued a fix yesterday for the vulnerability (see story). Security vendors are also advising users that there are work-arounds that can be implemented immediately to reduce vulnerability.

As for real security experts, they routinely find vulnerabilities in Windows beforesending a description to MS which would then, a few months later, issue a patch. Maybe.

There is a fine line between marketing and outrageous lying. I'm glad to see that MS gleefully steps over it every single time. Any other conduct would actually be unsettling. You see, we geeks revel in a binary vision of the world, and we cannot thank MS enough for consistently being a caricature of evil villain. It makes working against them so much more rewarding.

I think he might be wrong.

This Inforworld Article is much better then the one posted and mentions how this new Microsoft Idea is very similar to the existing SPF, except that with Microsft's version, the whole message is sent and downloaded before it's rejected.

Like the PIII Coppermine CPUs that wouldn't even boot sometimes.

Or the randomly rebooting PII Xeons.

Or the voltage problems with certain PIII Xeons.

Or the memory request system hang bug in the PIII/Xeon.

Or the PIII's SSE bug whose 'fix' killed i810 compatability.

Or the MTH bug in the PIII CPUs that forced Intel customers to replace boards and RAM.

Or the recalled, that's right, recalled PIII chips at 1.13GHz.

Or the recalled (there's that word again) Xeon SERVER chips at 800 and 900MHz.

Or the recalled (that word, AGAIN?!) cc820 "cape cod" Intel motherboards.

Or the data overwriting bug in the P4 CPUs.

Or the P4 chipset bug that killed video performance.

Or the Sun/Oracle P4 bug.

Or the Itanium bug that was severe enough to make Compaq halt Itanium shipments.

Or the Itanium 2 bug that "can cause systems to behave unpredictably or shut down".

Or the numerous other P4/Xeon/XeonMP bugs that have been hanging around.

Yes, I did consider the possibility that there might just be some basis for the belief that Intel's products are superior. Having considered that, in light of the mountains of evidence to the contrary, I shall now proceed to laugh at you.

Ha ha ha.

Now go away, or I shall mock you again.

Now if only someone will make a Bluetooth CDMA phone so I can switch to Sprint because my overpriced cell provider was just bought by the evil Cingular overlords.

Intel's model for profitabilty is simple. They make their profit on Xeons, where until recently they have had no competition.

Xeon may be one of Intel's big cash-cows, but it's not their only one. The Pentium-M processor (part of the "Centrino" marketing package) is another good source of revenue, as are the high-end P4 chips. Intel sells a LOT of processors (10M+ every month), and a lot of their higher-end chips make over $100 in profit. That adds up REAL fast.

A friend once told me that the Celeron is priced, "one penny above variable cost,"

The Celeron doesn't make nearly the profit of the P4 and Xeons, but it does still make money. Variable cost for most processors is down in the $25-$50 range for commodity type chips. The bottom-end Celerons sell for not much more than that, but the top-end ones sell for over $100 (though they are definitely NOT worth that much, current Celerons are dog-slow, but that's another story).

In that respect, Intel is a lot like Microsoft. Microsoft makes so much money on Windows and Office that they can afford to lose it everywhere else

That much is definitely true, just have a look at Intel's balance sheet some time. The ONLY sector of the company that makes money is their PC processor division. They make roughly 75% of the companies revenue and about 150% of the profits.

But the IA-64 market is a hard nut to crack, and for a newcomer there's no money to be made there

Yeah, just ask Intel, they still haven't managed to crack that nut! The Itanium line is not making any money and hasn't really cracked into the high-end server market in a big way (Sun and IBM still own it). I haven't seen the numbers for Q4, but in Q3 of last year Intel managed to sell a grand total of 5000 Itanium servers. For comparison, AMD sold 10,000 Opteron servers while the Xeon found it's way into around a 1,000,000 servers (source here).

So your original statement was misleading. Its locking up because you are doing non-standard things, not because you are doing a plain vanilla Exchange 2003 server.

Oh, and get a clue. How in the world can you say that Microsoft Collaboration Data Objects is non-standard? It is made by MS to WORK WITH MS EXCHANGE. Did you also forget the part of my post where I said that Microsofts OWN people checked the code? The code is as simple as can be. I guess you also missed the part of how it has been workign in MS Exhcange 2000 for some time now? Statements like that show you to be just a blind MS Weeine. Talk about zealotry.

Come on, now you are making stuff up. And, even were that the case, they still arent forcing you to do anything. Thats like saying Jewel is forcing me to buy oranges because they are on sale this week.

You are talking about servers, not desktops. There is a difference between running a Linux server farm and a 1000 desktop linux network. So point out some companies which have converted all their users to Linux, and come back and talk. M'kay?

A lot more honest that the Slashdot zealotry, thats for sure.

2) if this is bullshit, then it is nothing but a pr stunt.

Interesting logic, care to explain? This isn't your usual local ordinance proclaiming some random date to be [insert local sports team] day.

As to how it will be implemented, many companies ask up front where you're from. They then structure their conversation with you appropriately (or say they don't deal with Canadians).

This article from last year goes into a few of these issues:

It's now all over online news..

http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/02/12/HNmicrol eak_1.html
http://www.ebcvg.com/news.php?id=1903
http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1076628412.html
http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3 312451
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/business/79 41292.htm
http://www.wvec.com/sharedcontent/nationworld/nati onprint/021204cccanatmicrosoft.149f2b31.html
http://www.komotv.com/stories/29778.htm
http://www.cryptonomicon.net/modules.php?name=News &file=article&sid=671
http://www.dvhardware.net/article2423.html
http://searchwin2000.techtarget.com/originalConten t/0,289142,sid1_gci950346,00.html

Microsoft probes possible Windows source code leak

Why target Mac users?

"We've got...this loyal, passionate following, and one of our strongest weapons as a company is that passionate customer base," says Phil Schiller.(30) Many software developers agree,(31) recognizing the Mac market as both more loyal and more influential than most people realize. Targeting the Mac audience means reaching a group whose members have been online longer, are more educated, more creative, and purchase more than the average web surfer.

Almost 11 million of the users logging onto the Web are using a Macintosh to do it (8.2% of the total U.S. online population) according to a Nielson//Net Ratings report.(32) And those users stand out for other reasons: 70.2% of Mac users online have a college or postgraduate degree (compared to 54.2% of the general online population). This higher level of education correlates to higher household income levels. In addition, Mac users have the highest level of broadband access of all major computer brands.

These Mac consumers are also more sophisticated computer users: they are 58% more likely to build web pages and 53% more likely to read product reviews, according to the same report. More Mac users access the Internet daily, and Mac users have a higher chance of making an online purchase--and these purchases are more likely to be computer hardware, software, or music.

...

(30) Steve Gillmor, Apple On the Move, http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/10/18/ 021018hnapple.xml, October 2002
(31) More Than 5,000 Products Available for Mac OS X, http://www.apple.com/macosx/applications/
(32) Jarvis Mak, Profiling the Mac User Online, Nielsen/NetRatings, 1 July 2002.

(But as you can see, Mac users are also more likely to post as AC.)