Sun Microsystems, a company that has been making noise lately in the Linux desktop market with StarOffice 7 and Java Desktop System, is currently working on an experimental 3D successor to Java Desktop that they believe will change the way we interact with computers, and in the end elevate the popularity of Linux in general.

VMWare 4.5.1 includes updates and fixes include changes to the EULA, a more reliable SCSI implementation, better support for Linux guest operating systems using kernels in the 2.6 series, and support for Windows 95 guest operating systems on high-speed processors. Some of the new features are an increased memory range up to 3.6GB per virtual machine (4GB to all vms), experimental support for Longhorn, support for PXE on virtual network hardware, and support for Novell NetWare 5.1, 6, and 6.5 and SUSE LINUX 9.0.

Sun Microsystems Inc., Research In Motion Ltd. and Sybase Inc. are each readying products and services that could expedite the development of mobile enterprise applications. Sun and RIM will join forces at the CTIA Wireless conference in Atlanta this week to announce plans to bring Java Web services to RIM's corporate customers. In the meantime, Microsoft aims to score with sports fans with the launch Monday of its first add-on service for so-called "smart" watches.

This long-term Red Hat Linux user has given an honest look at Gentoo, and has concluded that the stereotypes surrounding this distribution are false. After all these years, he has finally found his new distribution: Gentoo Linux.

Most Java programmers use some kind of tracing system to keep track of potential errors and problems in code that is under development. However, multithreaded and multiplatform systems can generate a large and baffling amount of tracing data.

A recent bug report on the lkml complained of significant performance degradation from enabling CONFIG_PREEMPT, kernel preemption. 2.6 kernel maintainer Andrew Morton pointed out that such degradation from enabling kernel preemption is not normal, instead likely from it triggering a bug. Also, it was recently asked on the lkml what value there is in upgrading the microcode on an Intel processor. Tigran Aivazian, author of the IA32 microcode driver and Microcode Update Utility for Linux explained.

Genericity? One of the most anticipated and debated enhancements to the Java language in Sun's new 1.5 release is generics. John Anthony and Scott Chalfant provide an introduction to this new feature and help you explore some of its more-advanced features and avoid potential difficulties.

Reengineering left a bad taste in many managers' mouths, and Business Process Virtualization looks very similar on the surface. However, as Martha Young and Michael Jude explain, BPV can deliver the benefits that reengineering promised, but never delivere. They also illustrate the differences and similarities of BPV to two earlier approaches: process reengineering and outsourcing.

While the European Commission this week goes through the final steps to conclude its five-year case against Microsoft, the company's legal problems in Europe are far from over and appear to be accelerating, antitrust lawyers and officials said.

Marc Andreessen, co-founder of trailblazer Netscape Communications, can spot a long-term trend. So when Opsware Inc.--another company Andreessen co-founded and chairs--introduced its Opsware System 4 software on Linux in December, some of his faithful fans doubtless took the move as a sign of things to come.

"Mr Shrap" has written an interesting write-up on a (still) touchy topic: the button order adopted in Gnome 2 and why he doesn't like it.

The open discussion about how the future of desktop development for Linux should look like is continued between Novell's Miguel de Icaza and Red Hat's Havoc Pennington with multiple posts in their blogs.

Two new videos showing some of the new features and programs on SkyOS are now availiable on SkyOSnet. The new beta4 video shows off the crystal icons, OpenGL, SkyKruzer, the fileselector, popup dialogs, and the terminal. Keep in mind its a beta, and it was recorded in Vitual PC, so the speed does not accurately reflect the real running speed.

Programming must change -- but how? At a reunion of coding pioneers, answers abound.