In the News Archive

Interview with David Lee, CEO of Cambridge (Mass.)-based Advent Consulting, "A recent Jupiter Research survey shows a growing number of small and midsize businesses (SMBs) using open-source alternatives to Microsoft (MSFT ) products. About 9% of SMBs are using Red Hat (RHAT ) Linux on the desktop, and 7% are using the OpenOffice productivity suite, which contains word processing and spreadsheet programs."

For a theoretically free operating system, Linux is -- and will continue to be -- a cash cow, a research firm said Wednesday as it predicted the OS will bring in more than $35 billion in revenues by 2008. Framingham, Mass.-based IDC said that overall revenue for servers, desktops, and packaged software running on Linux will reach $35.7 billion in the next four years. Currently, IDC pegs Linux's global total take at just under $15 billion.

Symantec Corp., the top global security software maker, on Thursday said it will buy Veritas Software Corp for $13.5 billion, expanding into the data storage and recovery business. More can be found just about everywhere.

The year is almost over, now it's time to tally up the best and most ground-breaking software innovations of 2004. Here is a Top 10 list to that effect.

Xen, an open-source project with growing ties to Red Hat, Novell and Hewlett-Packard, is emerging as the leading contender for providing open-source virtualization for the Linux environment.

Microsoft and Sun Microsystems on Wednesday plan to provide details about their six-month-old alliance for the first time.

Codeweavers has released v4 of its Wine implementation with the addition of support for iTunes.

A recent survey found that 3/4 of IT managers surveyed reported having morale problems among their staffs. Layoffs, uncertainty, high stress, and incompetent management all contribute to a feeling of malaise among tech workers today. Layoffs have left firms understaffed, and workers feel growing resentment towards their bosses, the survey suggests. How are you feeling about your job?

PalmSource today announced Jean-Louis Gassée has been appointed Chairman of the PalmSource Board of Directors. JLG was the CEO of Be in the '90s and an Apple executive in the '80s.

Another front in the on-going battle between Microsoft and Google is about to be opened. By the end of 2004 Microsoft aims to launch search software to find any kind of file on a PC hard drive. The move is in answer to Google's release of its own search tool that catalogues data on desktop PCs. The desktop search market is as Google, AOL, Yahoo and many smaller firms tout programs that help people find files.

Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit launched Virtual PC for Mac Version 7. Then, a Hawaiian company specializing in streaming video introduced CherryOS, a virtual PC that mimics the hardware of a G4 Mac. CherryOS inventor Arben Kryeziu, a software developer who got tired of carrying both a Mac and a PC all over Hawai, is confident the computing world will find value in his innovation. However, questions remain if his CherryOS is simply a modified PearPC. Update: An interesting conspiracy theory has been posted here.

The OpenPKG project released version 2.2 of their unique RPM-based cross-platform Unix software packaging facility. OpenPKG 2.2 consists of 528 selected (from a pool of 800) packages, all carefully packaged for easy deployment on 18 different Unix platforms. Focusing on portability and isolation, OpenPKG 2.2 places greater emphasis on reducing underlying Unix system requirements.

Google has released a beta version of their desktop search tool which runs on Windows XP and 2000 SP3+. Details can be found here and more in depth reviews here and here. Its release is amid more concerns of privacy, many of which began when Google's Gmail system was introduced. Update: AOL wishes the same.

With Microsoft Corp.'s recent announcements that it will separate WinFS from the next major release of Windows and the release of Visual Studio 2005, not due for another six months, developers are looking to third-party vendors for certain functionality support now.