Modern PC News for the Week Ending Oct 10, 2003
ZDNet.com | McNealy Debates Carr: Is there Competitive Advantage in IT?
Very interesting debate that has was started in Spring 2003 when Carr (I think) wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review which argued that IT was irrelevant. Length: 7 minutes 26 seconds BetaNews.com | Microsoft to Open Windows Media Video In a surprise move, Microsoft will submit the video compression technology in Windows Media 9 to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers for review. The society will mull over the standard when its meet next week, initiating a month-long appraisal of the format's drawbacks and merits. If accepted, the WMV 9 codec will become an international standard. Commodore.ca | How to Make Your W2000/3 Active Directory a Global Address Book in Outlook When Microsoft introduced Windows 2000 Server and Active Directory, they wanted it to be extensible to other MS products. In particular they wanted Exchange 2000 to tie directly into it. As a result, Exchange 2000 largely dumped the user management interface that it had developed in version 5 because it already existed in Windows Active Directory. If you have ever installed Exchange 2000 (or newer) you will see the vast number of new tabs it adds to your Active Directory Users and Computers. Click the link at the top for step by step instructions. BetaNews.com |
VeriSign Redirects All Unused Domains Without Warning ed: try this click here www.this_domain_does_not_exist.net and see what happens. In a surprise move that has left
network administrators fuming, VeriSign has added a wildcard DNS record to all
.com and .net domains - redirecting all nonexistent Web addresses, as well as
those without valid DNS entries, to a VeriSign search page. ...VeriSign has partnered with Overture to handle Site Finder search results, although the company has not said how much it expects to make from the deal. Without providing specific numbers, Microsoft says error traffic accounted for only a small segment of MSN revenue. ed: some sites have stated that Overture is paying Verisign between US$.08 and $2.00 per click ! VeriSign recently acknowledged it was testing such a system internally, but made no announcements regarding its implementation plans. However, the company flicked the switch without warning on Monday, later posting a notice to the NANOG mailing list. ...Although VeriSign's Network Solutions arm no longer solely handles domain registrations, the company still controls all DNS records -- contained in "zone" files -- for .com and .net domains. Over eight billion DNS lookups go through VeriSign each day, 900 million of which are for nonexistent domains... ...VeriSign's move has raised the
ire of security experts such as
Steven Bellovin, Research Fellow at AT&T Labs. IDG News |
Microsoft Ordered to Pay State's Legal Fees Massachusetts would receive nearly $1 million in attorneys' fees in its ongoing antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, under a federal judge's order; but that's less than half of what the state had asked for. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled Monday that Microsoft must pay Massachusetts, the lone remaining state appealing the judge's November 2002 antitrust ruling, attorneys' fees in the amount of $967,014.52 for the costs associated with the state's antitrust lawsuit against the software giant. Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly noted in a press release that the state had spent six years on the Microsoft antitrust trial, and the judge's award ends nine months of legal wrangling over the attorneys' fees. The Massachusetts Attorney General's Office had asked for $1,992,075 in attorneys' fees and another $20,302.72 in other expenses and costs. Kollar-Kotelly rejected all of Massachusetts' request for expenses and costs. Microsoft argued that Massachusetts shouldn't be entitled to the attorney's fees for the parts of the antitrust lawsuit it didn't win. The software vendor also said Massachusetts didn't keep detailed enough records on some of its claims for court costs. Kollar-Kotelly agreed in part, writing in her 63-page ruling that the state's "haphazard and incomplete invocation of Massachusetts law" required her to "decipher the legal and factual basis" for the attorneys' fees request... CBC.ca | Purolator to Buy Up to 2,000 Hybrid Electric Vehicles Purolator Courier has signed an order with Vancouver-based Azure Dynamics to buy up to 2,000 of its hybrid electric vehicles to make courier deliveries. The deal is worth as much as $90 million.The first part of the order is for 30 vehicles, which will be deployed in Toronto next year. If those vehicles perform as expected, then Purolator said it will buy up to 400 vehicles a year for 5 years as it replenishes its 3,700-strong fleet. Purolator said after months of field testing the Azure-made vehicles in Calgary and Vancouver, it found that green house gas emissions were cut in half and fuel efficiency increased up to 50 per cent... CBC.ca | Techies Get Even Richer: Forbes Rebounding Internet and technology stocks helped the fortunes of America's super-rich rise after two years of declines, according to Forbes magazine's annual ranking of the 400 wealthiest people in the U.S.Forbes reported that the total net worth of America's 400 wealthiest rose 10 per cent to $955 billion US from 2002. Microsoft Corp.'s Bill Gates retained his top position on the list, adding $3 billion US to a fortune of $46 billion US. Paul Allen, a Microsoft co-founder, saw his wealth rise $1 billion US to $22 billion US, good enough for third place on the Forbes list. ...Amazon.com boss Jeff Bezos rode the rise in Internet stocks to a gain of $3 billion US, the biggest percentage increase on the list. Bezos' $5.1 billion US fortune was good enough for 32nd spot.. BetaNews.com | iTunes Music Store Could Reach Windows in October Newsweek is reporting that Apple's iTunes Music Store will become Windows friendly as soon as next month. Although Apple has remained mum, the grand opening of its Windows store may come ahead of schedule, bringing to the PC legal music downloads that Mac users have thus far enthusiastically adopted. The company boasts that the music service is averaging sales of over 500,000 paid downloads per week... BetaNews.com | Security Rollup Planned for Windows XP Microsoft is hurrying to produce a post Service Pack 1 security rollup package for Windows XP, reversing its August decision to rely solely on Windows Update to deliver individual patches. Since it came to light that Windows XP SP2 was delayed until at least mid-2004, pressure has mounted for Redmond to tend to customers without broadband connections. ZDNet.com | Microsoft to Announce Office Solution Accelerator Program Microsoft plans to announce new specialty software packages on Monday based on the upcoming update of its Office productivity software. The new packages, which will combine Microsoft software with third-party add-ons and services, will be sold by Microsoft partners under the Office Solution Accelerator Program. The program is part of a broad effort by Microsoft to court partners to help exploit new enterprise capabilities in the upcoming Office System. ...The first seven products from the Accelerator Program will focus on specific business segments and tasks: sales proposals, personnel recruiting, quality-management projects for Six Sigma (an efficiency theory made popular by General Electric), financial reports, compliance projects for new Sarbanes-Oxley Act accounting rules, business scorecards and financial scenarios... CTV.ca | Music Industry Drills Into Dentists for Royalties The group that collects royalties for songwriters is taking aim at an unusual source: dentists. And it's not just dentists, but chiropractors and opticians -- and, ultimately, any kind of office space that plays CDs. "This was a money grab, what is the legitimacy of this kind of request of a license for this purpose," said Dr. Jack Cotrell of the Canadian Dental Association. The idea that music is in the public domain is a longstanding one, but it's also completely wrong, according the a musicians' rep. "Not only is it the right thing to do, but it's also the lawful thing to do, to pick up a license for what amounts to a mere few pennies a day," said Andre LeBel, CEO of The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN). SOCAN is the Canadian copyright collective for the public performance of musical works. The group administers the performing rights of composers, lyricists, songwriters and their publishers. ...SOCAN doesn't want to press charges. It just hopes businesses will voluntarily come up with the cash -- so musicians can continue to make life a little more enjoyable. TomsHardware.com | AMD & Intel Begin Move to New CPU's - AMD64 and Pentium 5 ed. This is from June 2003 to give some context to the AMD64 release story below this one. This test has a historic quality; the eternal rivals meet again and for the last time, shortly to be replaced by new processors. If AMD had been able to step up the pressure in the last 12 months, then the Pentium 4 would have been history long ago. And if the Athlon 64 were already available on the market, then Intel would have long since launched the Pentium 5 (codenamed Prescott). In the meantime, however, Intel has been seemingly carefree in the last few months, although there could soon be an end to this. Because of its rival's difficulties, the P4 with the Northwood core has been guaranteed a longer life and is now celebrating its three-year anniversary. However, with the announcement of a new version, the end of the road has been reached: in its top version, the P4 runs with 3.2 GHz - and Intel doesn't want to demand a higher clock rate of its old veteran with the Northwood Core. After all, the processor is based on 130-nanometer structures that have remained identical ever since the core was introduced with 2.2 GHz. Clock speeds starting from 3.4 GHz are reserved for the Pentium 5, which should be celebrating its debut this year - but only if AMD has brought its Athlon 64 to the market already.
In the final stage of development, Intel launches the 3.2-GHz version of the P4, which competes with the AMD Athlon XP 3200+ in its product name only. In our benchmark tests, however, the P4 is always in the lead. CNet.com | AMD's Athlon Steps Up to 64 Bits The chipmaker will unveil its Athlon 64 processor on Tuesday. Along with added performance, the chip offers PC buyers the option of upgrading to 64-bit software--a feature Intel's Pentium doesn't offer. Such software, which offers improved graphics capabilities, will start hitting shelves later this year. ...Intel's current Pentium chips and those expected in the near future offer higher clock speeds but stick with 32-bits. In contrast, the Athlon 64 can run both 32-bit and 64-bit software. And it's that ability to run both types of software at the same time that AMD is counting on to tempt buyers... ...To aid AMD's 64-bit argument, three or four major game makers are working on 64-bit titles. One company, Epic, has already demonstrated a 64-bit version of its Unreal Tournament game. Several other companies are working on or evaluating versions of their editing software for Athlon 64, Heye said. Meanwhile, Microsoft has promised a 64-bit version of Windows XP for Athlon 64 by the end of the year. Several versions of the Linux operating system will also be available. "We want to get away from blocky and chunky to cinematic (graphics), to get that realism on your desktop," Heye said. "You might not get there in 2004, but you'll never get there unless someone puts down the baseline technology."... ...The Athlon 64 FX, a new superpremium brand, will be positioned for absolute top-of-the-line PCs--not unlike Intel's Pentium 4 Extreme Edition. The first Athlon 64 FX, the FX-51, will run at 2.2GHz. The Athlon 64 Model 3200+, a more mainstream chip, will run at 2GHz, the sources said... ...Costco on Tuesday advertised a desktop from manufacturer Northgate containing an Athlon 64 3200+ chip, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive and a DVD burner for US$1,399... Associated Press | Verizon to Allow Land Numbers for Cells Verizon Communications announced an agreement Monday that will enable its customers to turn the telephone number on a home or office line into the wireless number for a cell phone. ...Aside from Verizon Wireless, which only recently broke ranks with the industry, major cell phone companies continue to oppose the new rules, which will free millions of mobile phone users who didn't want to give up an established wireless number to change services. The change is expected to produce the biggest impact among business users who have disseminated their current cell phone numbers to customers, associates and other crucial contacts. By contrast, while the new freedom to convert a wireline number to wireless is not expected to spark the same rush of activity, the new rules represent yet another threat to the traditional telephone business... ...With 59 million telephone lines and 30 million US customers, Verizon is the nation's biggest local phone company. Verizon Wireless, with 34.6 million subscribers, is a joint venture with Vodafone of Britain, which owns a 40 percent stake. TechTarget |
Sun CEO: Linux is for 'Hobbyists,' Not Enterprise Sun Microsystems Inc. listened to its customers' demands and offered Linux support on its products, said Sun CEO Scott McNealy during the opening keynote at last week's SunNetwork conference. But now that Solaris for Intel Corp.'s x86 platform is available, he added two days later, there's no good reason to buy Linux for the enterprise. Indeed, he said, Linux is a "great environment for the hobbyist" but not for corporate IT shops. ...The problems with both Linux and open-source software, however, is that they offer a component approach to building the data center, McNealy said in a press conference Thursday. To reduce cost and complexity, IT shops need to stop "building their own jalopies," he said. Instead, they need to outsource data centers or buy them ready-made with pre-assembled, preconfigured, standard systems. Sun introduced such systems, including the Java Enterprise System, on Tuesday. Linux's initial popularity in business settings came from a lack of alternatives for the Intel platform, McNealy said Thursday. Linux offered a low-cost operating system that could handle Internet computing's demands, and it didn't pose the integration, security, pricing and licensing problems of Microsoft Windows. Now, businesses have a better alternative because Solaris is available on Intel x86, Opteron, Pentium, Xeon and other hardware, McNealy said. Solaris' advantage over Linux is that it has better scalability, thousands of enterprise applications, Sun's worldwide service and support organization, and new, competitive prices. "And Solaris is already in the data center," he added. Best of all, Solaris is "indemnified" and runs no risk of being slammed with copyright suits like the SCO Group's against IBM Corp., McNealy said. That's got to mean something, he said, to "large enterprises and media companies who can't afford to scoff at copyrights." Linux doesn't fare well in the cost and complexity arena, either, in McNealy's assessment. Open-source and Linux are for hobbyists and IT companies, not corporate IT shops, he said at the press conference. Referring back to his car analogy, McNealy called Linux hobbyists "jalopy-ists" who build systems piece by piece. That's not the cost-effective, complexity-reducing approach that businesses' IT shops should take. To illustrate the wastefulness of the jalopy-ist approach, McNealy referred to a North American enterprise that has a "director of Linux kernel release engineering." He likened that to a bank having a director of fuel-injection engineering because its employees' use cars. "It just doesn't make sense," he concluded. |
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