Microsoft Corp is doing a U-turn on its Longhorn roadmap, with plans for a server operating system version alongside the long-expected client due in 2006. A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed Friday that there will be a Longhorn server sometime after the company delivers the Longhorn client OS.

Symbian is expected to retain the top honors in mobile phone software through the decade, despite an emerging threat from Microsoft, according to a study from ABI Research.

"I thought I had a pretty good handle on the differences between the open-source community and the traditional proprietary approach to software development. But watching a Microsoft spokesperson defend his company and its whole approach to business in front of a room full of Linux zealots last week helped crystallize the gulf between the two camps--not just in business strategy but in fundamental philosophy and political bent." Read the editorial at ZDNet.

The GNOME Foundation had a meeting with some representatives of the Mozilla Foundation about how they could collaborate a little closer in future. More info here about what was discussed.

Am I the only one amazed at the progress being made on SkyOS? Kelly writes in to tell us that SkyOS has just gotten sticky note support (screenshot). Read on for more.

The NetBSD Foundation announced that it has registered the 'NetBSD' trademark...An official policy on the use of the NetBSD trademark is currently being drafted and will be made public soon.

The purpose of this tutorial is to introduce a better solution to upgrading KDE, one that will allow a user to get his/her hands on a release the night it hits the mirrors, without having to overwrite the base OS install. Konstruct compiles KDE into a new desktop rather than using RPM or DEB.

In a small seminar room of the De La Salle University (DLSU)in the Philippines, Caslon Chua, chief software architect of SpecOps made a demonstration of the "bridge" software "David". More at inq7.net.

ISS (Integrated sound system) has been implemented into SkyOS. The ISS is a very well integrated sound system which makes it very easy to access the audio multimedia services of SkyOS, though providing a very powerful interface.

Majorgeeks.com has posted a link to an unofficial independent release of a Service Pack for Windows 98SE. While it does introduce some fixes and additional support, it is important to note that this is not official software.

This article introduces some of the basic data-access performance issues to consider while developing database applications using ADO.NET. It shows you how to analyze network load, load on the database server, un-optimized SQL, opening and closing a connection, fetching a result set, blob access, and metadata retrieval. It then provides suggestions for improving database application performance.

"The battle to create and own a proprietary industry standard generates rapid improvements in price and performance, at least until somebody emerges totally dominant. If fact, even after a monopolist emerges, there is still considerable pressure to innovate, because unless you can induce your installed base to upgrade frequently, you have a hard time continuing to grow." More at streamingmedia.com.

TiVo finally launched its High Definition-capable unit. Designed by TiVo for DirecTV, it sports a 250 GB Hard drive and four tuners for $999. But neat new products aside, TiVo faces some daunting challenges. It has not made inroads with cable companies, many of whom have commissioned cheap TiVo knock-offs from companies like Scientific Atlanta. Many owner of these off-brand DVRs don't even know that they aren't TiVos, and, having never used the real thing, don't know the difference.

Continuing yesterday's Gnome story where we mentioned the webcam/voice project for Gaim, Tim Ringenbach wrote us in with more info and a preliminary screenshot from their project, gaim-vv.