Latest News from Maureen O'Gara

Chinese Government Backs Off For Now

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:15:00 EDT

The Chinese government has “delayed” enforcing the edict that would have compelled vendors to install its confounded Green Dam Internet-filtering software on all the Windows PCs sold in the country starting July 1. It said Tuesday through one of its house organs that it hadn’t give vendors enough time to respond.

Sun’s VirtualBox Grows Up

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:15:00 EDT

VirtualBox, the German-made, cross-platform, x86 desktop virtualization software that Sun bought last year, graduates to the server with the 3.0 release that’s supposed to be announced today.

Oracle Reportedly Kills Virtual Iron Product Line

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:00:00 EDT

Virtual Iron reportedly had 2,000-3,000 customers worldwide, according to what the Register's heard - including the FBI and Lackland Air Force Base in Texas and of course it's promising continued support from the support staff it's retained with the acquisition. It's legally obligated to but it's oddly hazy on migration and seemingly abrupt in canceling the product line without having a replacement handy, making it seem like it doesn't care whether VI's customers drift away.

Novell Denies It’s for Sale

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:00:00 EDT

Novell Friday told the SEC it wasn’t thinking of shopping itself after JP Morgan analyst John DiFucci said that Novell’s CFO Dana Russell “entertained the possibility of breaking out some parts or of selling the entire company to maximize shareholder value given the current depressed valuation levels.”

Red Hat Numbers Up in Crummy Economy

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:00:00 EDT

Red Hat’s revenues were up 11.4% to $174.4 million in its first fiscal quarter ended May 31. Subscription revenue was $148.8 million, up 14% year-over-year. It earned $18.5 million, or 10 cents a share, up 7%. Its non-GAAP income for the quarter was $28.7 million, or 15 cents a share, a penny better than expected.

Flash Comes to Android

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:45:00 EDT

HTC has showed off its third Android phone, a little anti-fingerprint touch screen gismo called Hero that will surely be a hero to Adobe since it’s the first Android phone to support Adobe Flash. Flash Lite 3.1 to be precise, which should give users a more complete web browsing experience, the ability to interact, and access to Flash-based web content.

IBM’s Injunction Bid Foiled

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:45:00 EDT

IBM Friday lost its bid for a preliminary injunction that would stop its ex-M&A chief David Johnson from going to work for Dell. Flummoxed, IBM’s now going to try rushing to the Court of Appeals for the injunction.

EMC to Collaborate with MIT Media Lab

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:00:00 EDT

EMC has set up EMC Research Cambridge, a new research presence in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and joined the MIT Media Lab as a consortium sponsor. The company says EMC Research Cambridge leverages and brings into close collaboration RSA Laboratories, EMC Research China and its Santa Clara Incubation Lab.

PTO Complains of Revenue Shortfall

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:45:00 EDT

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which has complained for years about being “patently” overburdened, now complains that its patent revenues are coming up short because of the recession. Collections that came to $6.9 million a day in January and February, according to Reuters, fell to $6.4 million a day in April and May and $5.9 million a day last week.

Zander Named to NetSuite Board

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:30:00 EDT

Former Sun president Ed Zander has suddenly resurfaced on the NetSuite board. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison owns most of the on-demand Salesforce.com rival and Oracle is buying Sun. NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson also used to work for Zander at Sun. Zander, who was ousted as CEO of Motorola after leaving Sun, will serve on the board’s compensation committee and its nominating and governance committee.

Talend Moves to Near Real-Time

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:30:00 EDT

Talend, the open source data integration ISV, has got a new near real-time data integration platform called Integration Suite RTX that offers seamless information synchronization across information systems and is supposed to bolster productivity, reduce costs, and improve customer service.

HP Expands Telco Line

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:00:00 EDT

HP has added to the telecom versions of ProLiant, BladeSystem, and Integrity server families as well as its StorageWorks portfolio. It says the customer has become “king” and that telecom operators are racing to streamline their networks. Proprietary technologies are giving way to open, modular IP solutions. HP figures to cash in.

‘Great Firewall of China’ Lands on Google

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:45:00 EDT

The Chinese government has come down like a ton of bricks on that American icon Google, basically branding it a smut merchant, ordering it to block links to foreign sites and apparently disabling – at least sporadically – Google Search, Google Apps, and Gmail if not all Google services.

SpringSource Teams with RightScale

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:30:00 EDT

SpringSource has made its Hyperic HQ web application and infrastructure management software available through RightScale’s Cloud Management Platform. It can be used directly from RightScale’s automated platform to monitor the availability and manage the performance of cloud applications.

Zoho Piggybacks on SharePoint

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:15:00 EDT

Google’s coming at Microsoft through Exchange; now Zoho’s coming at it through SharePoint. It’s rigged it so SharePoint users can use its online office suite, create and collaborate on documents, spreadsheets and presentations, then save the results directly to SharePoint in Microsoft Office-supported formats.

BT to Offer International Infrastructure-as-a-Service Cloud

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:30:00 EDT

Not to be left out or anything, BT is going into the cloud business sometime in the next month or so with a Virtual Data Centre (VDC) service aimed at multinationals and the public sector to start. Initially it will be a virtualized on-demand IT and networking infrastructure platform. The telco intends to roll out data centers in multiple countries in EMEA over time to qualify as an enterprise-class service and offer virtualized servers, storage, networks and security that’s orchestrated and automatically provisioned through its online portal.

Start-up a First Mover in Memory Virtualization

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:15:00 EDT

RNA networks, which virtualizes memory, has moved into cache, claiming it can remove the data center bottlenecks caused by contention for application memory, the data center’s scarcest resource. When processor speed outstrips memory capacity, bottlenecks are created that slow application performance and utilization rates.

Coda & Corefino Pair on Cloud Accounting

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:30:00 EDT

Coda and Corefino, two accounting ISVs, say they have joined forces to give mid-market CFOs a low-cost alternative to the traditional on-premise software offered by the “Big 3” ERP giants. The new three-part accounting service, called Corefino 2go, combines Coda’s 2go SaaS accounting package, built on Saleforce.com’s Force.com cloud computing platform, with Corefino’s Triple-C best practices/workflow framework.

Sugar on a Stick

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:00:00 EDT

Sugar, the novel Linux-based interface developed by One Laptop Per Child (OLTP), has been freed from the cute little “$100” green-and-white XO Ur-netbook invented to run it. It can now be downloaded to a $5 1GB USB drive and run on any PC, netbook, or Mac, even some “antiques.” It runs on x86 Macs with a helper CD and in Windows using virtualization.

Hey, Mister, Wanna Remade Windows Cheap?

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:18:00 EDT

Microsoft has priced Windows 7. At retail the Home Premium version will list for $200, Professional $300, and Ultimate $320. That’s the full kit and Windows rarely sells for list. The upgrade prices are supposed to run $120 for Home Premium, $200 for Professional, and $220 for Ultimate.

MokaFive Claims to Crack the Code on Desktop Virtualization

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:30:00 EDT

MokaFive, the four-year-old Stanford University spin-out backed by Khosla Ventures and Highland Capital Partners to wrestle with making the desktop into a service, claims to have reached a turning point and overcome the major barrier to widespread enterprise adoption of virtual desktops.

Consumers Don’t Know a Netbook from a Notebook

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:00:00 EDT

Sixty percent of the people who bought a netbook thought it was just a cute little notebook, which is why 42% of them were disappointed with the widget’s performance according research done by the NPD Group. The researcher found only 58% of the people who bought a netbook instead of a notebook were very satisfied with their purchase, compared to 70% of the folks who planned on buying a netbook from the start.

Oracle Reports Last Quarter Before Sun

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:00:00 EDT

Oracle earnings were down 7% to $1.9 billion, or 38 cents a share, but still above expectations, on revenues down 5% to $6.9 billion in the quarter ended in May. The company blamed the stronger dollar for the dips and reassuringly says its pipeline has been growing faster than reported revenues, particularly in the last 90 days.

Jobs Reportedly Spotted

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:15:00 EDT

Steve Jobs was on Apple’s Infinite Loop campus Monday according to both CNBC and Reuters. He has reportedly been spotted at Apple before but Monday was the first workday after the Wall Street Journal said that Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago.

Intel & Nokia To Engineer Wholly New Mobile Gismos

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:45:00 EDT

Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, and Nokia, the world's largest cell phone maker, have banded together to engineer a new class of x86 mobile device - widgets beyond smartphones, notebooks and netbooks - that apparently shrinks the power of a desktop into something that fits in your pocket. Details are scarce. The pair won't discuss either specific products or timing only that the widgets be Linux-based with high-bandwidth mobile broadband communications and ubiquitous Internet connectivity.

Sun Updates Studio 12

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:00:00 EDT

Sun Tuesday released its Studio 12 Update 1 advanced compilers and tools for Solaris, OpenSolaris and Linux. An optimized environment for the latest multi-core x86 and Sparc-based systems, it’s supposed to simplify parallel development and heighten application performance. Geared to C, C++ and FORTRAN developers, it consists of parallelizing compilers, powerful debuggers, advanced thread and performance analysis tools and highly tuned libraries.

Cloud Computing Expo: VMLogix Mounts a Virtual Lab on EC2

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:30:00 EDT

VMLogix, which manages VMs, is beta testing LabManager- Cloud Edition, a new hypervisor-agnostic, policy-based product that lets software teams run virtual labs in the cloud, a low-risk environment that will let companies experiment with the platform. The start-up says it’s got the only widgetry to support a public cloud like Amazon EC2.

Google Backs UK Attempt to Tickle International Trade

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:00:00 EDT

Search Laboratory, a British outfit, is managing the multi-lingual pay-per-click side of a pre-packaged service designed to help UK SMEs boost their international trade. With partners Google, Royal Mail, HSBC and the Institute of Export, it’s providing a service called Export Box meant to drive traffic to businesses’ web sites and find new customers worldwide.

Steve Jobs Had a Liver Transplant: WSJ

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:15:00 EDT

Apple CEO Steve Jobs had a liver transplant in Tennessee about two months ago, according to an unconfirmed story in the Wall Street Journal. He has been on medical leave from the company since January to treat the fact that he appeared to be starving to death. Jobs is expected to return to Apple on schedule at the end of the month, the story says, but may work part-time for a while, and Apple COO Tim Cook, who has been standing in for Jobs, may take on a bigger role.

VMware to Integrate HP Software

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:45:00 EDT

VMware has cut an OEM deal to integrate HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping software into its vCenter software as a virtual appliance next year when vCenter’s ConfigControl is available. Users will be able to manage both physical and virtual machines off the same console. Meanwhile, HP has integrated VMware’s ThinApp into its Client Automation policy-based management platform.

Jitterbit 3.0 Betas

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:30:00 EDT

Jitterbit, the open source house that has taken on large-scale enterprise-grade data and application integration – problems like connecting on-premise and cloud applications and data – is pushing on to Jitterbit 3.0, a major release of its solution. The new version, when it gets here – it’s in beta right now – although some beta sites are reportedly already in production – will support high-volume transactions, expand connectivity options, and add new management tools and features for multi-user environments.

Citrix Updates XenServer

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:00:00 EDT

Citrix’ free XenServer 5.5 is available for unlimited production deployment. Since Citrix set XenServer free two-and-a-half months ago, it says there have been 100,000 downloads. The update includes centralized multi-node management, built-in storage, full live motion, consolidated backup, enhanced conversion and search tools.

ParaScale & Alfresco Partner on Content-as-a-Service

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:45:00 EDT

ParaScale, the startup developing cloud storage solutions, and Alfresco Software, the open source ECM house, announced a cloud-based integrated ECM solution co-locating Alfresco Content Management and ParaScale Cloud Storage software on the same hardware. It’s supposed to save management overhead or cost; offer simple configuration and setup; and ensure high-performance and easy scale-out.

Centrify Secures Virtual Servers

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:30:00 EDT

Centrify, the place where Linux meets Active Directory, is pushing into – what else? – virtualization with the release Tuesday of Centrify Suite update 3. It supports heterogeneous virtualized data centers. And Centrify ain’t kidding when it says heterogeneous. The widgetry reportedly supports a dozen or more hypervisor platforms and upwards of 180 Unix and Linux operating systems running as guests on hypervisors or physical servers.

LG Uses NComputing to Catapult into Computing

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:45:00 EDT

Days after tying up with Haier Computer Group, the second-largest PC maker in China, so they can chase big government and educational contracts worldwide together, LG, the big Korean electronics chaebol, said it will put NComputing’s virtual desktop technology directly into its new network SmartVine N-series LCD monitors starting this month.

An Itty-Bitty Chip Could Slash a Data Center’s Energy Bill

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:15:00 EDT

Imagine a data center chock full of heterogeneous equipment and running hot. That should be an easy exercise since they all are. But now it’s important to stop the waste and reduce energy consumption. Where do you start? Well, it might be nice to whittle the problem down to size and figure out what in that sea of servers and whatnot are the biggest offenders.

Citrix Teams with Andy Bechtolsheim

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:15:00 EDT

Well, look who Citrix has tied up with. Arista Networks where Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim retreated after he left Sun for the second time. Bechtolsheim started Arista with his buddy, Stanford professor David Cheriton; the two of them were the first investors in Google. Anyway, Citrix and Arista, which does 10 gigabit Ethernet switches and has started to chase the cloud, say they are working on cloud networking solutions for large datacenter and cloud service provider environments.

No, No, A Thousand Times No!

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:45:00 EDT

Data Domain rejected EMC’s hostile acquisition bid again. It told its shareholders Monday not to succumb to the siren song of EMC’s $30-a-share cash tender offer because EMC could walk away at any time. It prefers to go with NetApp even if it means taking $30 in cash and stock, mostly stock, and stock is so…so uncertain.

Microsoft Bleeding from the YouTube Wars

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:45:00 EDT

According to CNET, the new economical Microsoft is scaling back its YouTube-competitive Soapbox web video service, meaning to limit content to categories covered by its online properties like finance and entertainment. It could just as easily give the venture up as a complete loss and shut it down. Microsoft VP Erik Jorgensen indicated that continuing with the YouTube approach is too costly in this economy.

Oracle Buys SAP Investment

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:15:00 EDT

Oracle has taken over the IP assets of Conformia Software, a lifecycle management ISV geared toward the life sciences where Oracle’s bitter rival, SAP, invested some money from its NetWeaver Fund a couple of years ago. NetWeaver was meant to invest in firms “committed to the SAP ecosystem.”

Disney Brands a Netbook

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:15:00 EDT

It had to happen. Only the timing seems a bit off because of the recession. But there’s gonna be a Disney netbook, a “Netpal” for 6–12 year-olds, made by netbook pioneer Asustek and selling for $350 at Toys “R” Us starting in late July. A version with more storage and a longer battery will go through Amazon.com and other retailers. The widget should go international by the end of the year.

SAP Borrows Microsoft’s Software-Plus-Services Approach

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:00:00 EDT

SAP has a new on-demand plan. First of all it’s for the large enterprise, its existing customers, not the mid-market it’s been lackadaisically offering its never-completely-released isolated-tenancy on-demand ERP widgetry, ByDesign.

Red Hat’s KVM Widgetry Goes to Beta

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:00:00 EDT

Red Hat sent its newfangled Xen-replacing KVM-based virtualization portfolio to beta Tuesday, with an eye to delivering it later this year. It says the beta program is oversubscribed. It includes a new standalone hypervisor (turning the Linux kernel into a bare-metal hypervisor, something that could have a lot of implications for devices), a server, virtual infrastructure management and desktop virtualization management across both Windows and Linux.

Can Bing Hold That Note?

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:30:00 EDT

Bing hasn’t exactly broken Google’s stranglehold on search but Microsoft’s scores are inching up thanks to it. According to comScore, Microsoft captured all of 9.1% of U.S. Internet searches the week before Bing was released, 9.1% Bing’s first week out and 12.1% last week and its share of search penetration went to 16.7% last week up from 13.7% two weeks before.

Microsoft Calls Google’s Apps Sync ‘FUBAR’

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:15:00 EDT

It seems an age ago but remember back to last week when Google started a guerilla attack on Microsoft with a plug-in called Apps Sync for Outlook, which was supposed to let Google replace Exchange at the back end without it being the least bit obvious to Outlook users. Well, Microsoft’s complaining about it being FUBAR – the way Tom Hanks and his boys used the expression in “Finding Private Ryan” – and disabling Outlook’s search capabilities.

Salesforce Offers Free Cloud Starter Kit

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:00:00 EDT

Salesforce.com has created Force.com Free Edition, described as everything a company needs to build and run its first cloud app, good for up to 100 users. It includes a web site with up to 250,000 page views a month, up to 10 custom objects (custom database tables) per user, a sandbox development environment, free online training, and a library of sample applications.

IBM Earmarks $100m for Cell Phone Research

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:15:00 EDT

IBM said Wednesday that it’s going to pour $100 million into cell phone research over the next five years. It’s thinking of services for the so-called “Next Billion,” largely the folks who have bypassed the PC for mobile devices to connect to the Internet. The money is earmarked for what it calls mobile enterprise enablement, emerging market mobility, and enterprise end-user mobile experiences. It’s thinking security, analytics, privacy and the user interface.

Opera Turns its Browser into a Server

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:45:00 EDT

Opera Software, the nettlesome little Norwegian browser company responsible for Microsoft's current antitrust miseries with the European Commission, says it's "reinvented the web." Actually it's more a stab at reinventing the browser to make it more of the platform Netscape threatened it would be and hence heighten Opera's lowly 0.7% market share on computers.

Government IT Expo: CIA Buys into Lucene Start-up

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:15:00 EDT

The CIA and its black ops buddies have bought into Lucid Imagination, the start-up commercializing the Apache Lucene and Solr search technologies. Lucid says search is big right now in spy circles, particularly a full-text search engine they can tinker with like Lucene. Nobody’s saying how much In-Q-Tel (IQT), the unique, independent and publicly funded, not-for-profit investment arm of the U.S. intelligence community, tucked into Lucid but there’s a support contract that goes along with the investment, an arrangement IQT apparently calls a “work program.”

SCO Rises Phoenix-Like

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:30:00 EDT

Like a phoenix SCO has survived IBM and Novell’s attempts to force it into liquidation and then grind it into dust ahead of any decision on its summary judgment appeal.