Rumors Archive

In the few short years of its existence, Google has come a long way, simultaneously striking fear in the hearts of major players in the computer industry and also arousing their curiosity. While the company is keeping all competitors on their toes, it poses a special threat to one particular company -- Microsoft. Why? Because Google's existing and potential products -- as well as those of other firms -- raise the specter that Microsoft may witness an erosion of its control over the platform for the next generation of software application development, according to Wharton faculty members who follow the technology sector. Just how serious is this threat and what is Microsoft doing to combat it?

Although open source software comes with lofty (and sometime altruistic) ambitions, some developers worry that the model just doesn't present a practical plan for the future of the software industry. Shawn Shell argues that proprietary software is here to stay — for a lot of good reasons. Why should you bother with looking at open source software though? Isn't it safer to stick with Microsoft and the other big corporate software designers? David Chisnall helps us to distinguish between proprietary (sometimes referred to as "predatory") software and its open source counterparts.

"With release, Apple was tested - and they failed miserably. Not only did I warn Apple to take 95 more seriously, I also accurately forecast the massive decline that would happen to them if they didn't do just that. The MS platform has changed dramatically and it is much greater than just the operating system these days. Apple, on the other hand, hasn't advanced nearly as much but they are predominantly consumer-based today and less vulnerable to this comparative weakness as a result. Just like the last time, they will largely leverage hardware this time, and, as before, they will be up against companies with resources that eclipse their own."

"We will shed more light on the whole Apple versus x86 PC, IBM G5 versus Intel CPU discussion by showing you what the G5 is capable of when running Linux. This gives us insight on the strength and weakness of Mac OS X, as we compare Linux and Mac OS X on the same machine."

Recently the eccentric security researcher Michal Zalewski published his first book, entitled Silence on the Wire: A Field Guide to Passive Reconnaissance and Indirect Attacks. Because the book is everything except a security manual, ONLamp's Federico Biancuzzi chose to interview Michal and learn more about his curious approach to information security. Among other things, they discussed the need for randomness, how a hacker mind works, unconventional uses for search engines such as Google, and applying AI to security tools.

Bill Weinberg, OSDL Linux evangelist and speaker at next week's LinuxWorld conference, discusses the state of Linux adoption and its ongoing rivalry with Windows.

Using formal economic modelling, professors Pankaj Ghemawat and Ramon Casadesus-Masanell consider the competitive dynamics of the software wars between Microsoft and open source.

EMC's vitual machine software edges out Microsoft's in overall features, says Microsoft Magazine.

Havoc of Red Hat and Miguel of Novell continue their debate over Java and Mono as the language of the future for Gnome.

The chief executives of Microsoft and Red Hat held a private meeting in New York, CNET News.com has learned, an indication that relations between the rivals might be warming.

As a followup on the earlier news reports on Ian's comments that Ubuntu "is a net negative for Debian", more friction between Debian and Ubuntu developers have burst out over Ubuntu package maintainers modifying Debian packages without changing the contact information results in inconsistent bug reports in the Debian bug tracker.

"Over the past few years, Linux has been hitting Windows hard in different places and, blow by blow, won points against the OS behemoth. Good application software is an important selling point for any operating system, and good development tools are crucial to those writing application software. The leading desktop operating system, Microsoft Windows, has a strong integrated development environment (IDE) in Visual Studio .Net, while the upstart Linux platform's KDE environment has KDevelop. Let's pitch them against each other and see which ends up the last IDE standing." Read more here.

After years of relative quiet, both Microsoft and Apple are frenetically working on major new upgrades to the base software that run the personal computers of tens of millions of business and consumer users. Microsoft is using the code name Longhorn to refer to its next upgrade to the Windows operating system. Apple, keeping the theme of naming its operating system software after big and fast cats, calls its next release Tiger.

The next instalment of Windows will act as the cornerstone in MS’ ongoing battle with IBM & Linux.