It's the US vs. the EU over Oracle+Sun and the meaning of 'open source'
Late yesterday, Sun Microsystems gave the first public notice to the US Securities and Exchange Commission that Oracle Corp., its prospective suitor, had received a Statement of Objections from the European Commission with regard to Oracle's plan to acquire Sun. Not only had 62% of Sun shareholders already cleared the deal last May, but the US Justice Dept. cleared the deal last August.
At issue was the fate of MySQL, the open source database product that Sun acquired in January 2008. In Sun's one-paragraph 8-K filing, it mentioned the EC's sole focus: "The Statement of Objections sets out the Commission's preliminary assessment regarding, and is limited to, the combination of Sun's open source MySQL database product with Oracle's enterprise database products and its potential negative effects on competition in the market for database products."
Microsoft's Top 3 advances in Exchange Server 2010
The biggest change to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 was supposed to have been the introduction of something called Unified Communications -- the introduction of a singular console for the handling of all forms of digital communication, wrapping voice mail, instant messaging, and e-mail into a single delivery system. History may yet vindicate UC as the product's singular achievement.
But in the near term, administrators credit Exchange more for what it gives them than the world at large. In that light, the inclusion of PowerShell as not only the underlying language of the system but as its engine as well, changed everything for the admin. It may very well be why the product has surged to a two-thirds market share, by some estimates, over once formidable competition such as Lotus Notes.
Supreme Court considers patentability of abstract methods today
The US Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments this afternoon in the case of a pair of inventors who produced a formula for enabling energy commodity companies to manage the costs of energy that is often both bought and sold at fixed prices as "hedges" against future fluctuations. If you're thinking, what in the world has that to do with information technology, the outcome of this case -- whatever it is -- will have a tremendous impact on the IT industry, particularly with respect to companies that hold intellectual property portfolios.
The argument deals with whether a methodology that boils down to a mathematical formula for determining the safest hedge for a commodity that both buys and sells energy -- basically a business method -- is worthy of a patent. The decision the Supreme Court will render will determine whether simple formulaic concepts or principles that are case-specific deserve patents, and if they are not, whether existing patents granted in such situations may be canceled.
Exchange Server 2010 goes live, will extend rights-managed e-mail to browsers
One of the more important features of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 (or Exchange 2010, depending upon whom you're talking to), officially launched for sale this morning during a TechEd conference in Berlin, is a system for mail administrators to implement policy-driven rights management that's ensured not just for Outlook 2010 (Office) users, but also users of the Outlook Web App running through Web browsers, including Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari.
These rights management features, called Transport Protection Rules, will enable admins to generate extensive rules that restrict, where necessary, an e-mail recipient's ability to make alternate uses of the content of e-mail, including simply copying and pasting its text elsewhere, if messages are deemed confidential. Corporate Vice President Stephen Elop and Exchange product manager Julie White demonstrated TPR to a TechEd crowd that appeared, at least from the live feed from Berlin, to be less-than-capacity, though which Microsoft described as a sellout crowd of 7,000.
Google Chrome 4: Yes, it's fast, but is it usable?
If, as Google says, a Web browser is not so much an application but a platform upon which a new class of applications may be built, then that platform must provide support. It needs to give its users the ability to accomplish tasks, and to devise new and better ways to accomplish them better. For as we all know now, "browser" is an inappropriate word for the thing we use to communicate with the Web using HTTP, because the Web is becoming a space for everyday applications deployment. Especially in the content industry, active work takes place within the browser, much more so than passive amusement.
To that end, a browser may serve either as a springboard or a plank.
Despite Google Chrome's achievements, the crucial element of support remains missing. For all the spotlight we've given Chrome for being the fastest Web browser on Windows, it does not yet serve the purpose of supporting users and helping them to make their online tasks more efficient. This is why Google's expert tuning of its V8 JavaScript engine for Chrome is so important, because the browser has truly evolved into a JavaScript platform rather than an HTML platform.
What hath Mac wrought? A remembrance after a quarter-century
[ME's NOTE: This article was originally published on January 30, 2009, here in Betanews. I'm reprinting it today in honor of the memory of a man I refer to in this article, who was one of my early mentors in computing and in business, and who passed away last October 26: Elmer Zen "E.Z." Million, the proprietor of the original Southwest Computer Conference, later the CEO of private aircraft services company Million Air, and occasional candidate for some lofty, high Oklahoma office. He was a brilliant businessman, a true fiscal conservative who really did teach me how to run a business, through long hours in his office poring over accurately written ledgers. And he was the absolute antithesis of everything people assumed a "computer pioneer" was, but he was all of that and more. I dedicate this to E.Z.'s enduring memory.]
The reason there's a Macintosh today is not because of some brilliant flash of engineering genius, as many revisionists like to believe. It's because Apple had the audacity to make a few big mistakes first, and learn from them.
Early sales figures for Windows 7 nicely high, but do we know why?
The initial sales figures for Microsoft Windows 7 after its worldwide launch on October 22 are still being tabulated, but the early estimates sound very promising: According to industry analysis firm NPD, unit sales for Windows 7 software SKUs in the US were 234% higher -- better than triple -- the unit sales for Vista's launch, and US revenue from Win7 software sales was up 82% over Vista's launch.
But as Vista veterans will recall, that launch was botched somewhat, first by a costly delay, then by a decision to launch the product twice (first to businesses in October 2006, then to consumers in January 2007), and then by a lack of participation from partners. And there were still more reasons the Vista launch fizzled, one of which, believe it or not, included the scheduling of the launch on a Tuesday.
New European counterpart to FCC will ensure 'a more neutral net'
During one of the more noteworthy weeks in Europe's modern history, as the 27 member nations of the European Union prepare for a newer and more centralized executive authority, the EU will also be making way for a powerful regulatory authority for telecommunications: the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC). This is the name for the new European Telecoms Authority; and whereas in the US, there remains considerable debate over whether the Federal Communications Commission can and should have regulatory authority over Internet transactions, in Europe, the debate has officially been settled: BEREC will have authority to propose regulations for telecommunications in all forms, including the Internet.
But the power for approving, exercising, and then administering those regulations has been delegated to the European Commission. So although the new telecoms authority will be comprised of the national telecom regulatory heads from each member nation, the EC will have the authority to overrule them. Negotiations over this single provision extended for hours and eventually days, according to the EC, with the central point of contention being this and only this provision.
Sophos study suggests Windows 7 UAC's default setting is self-defeating
A blog post Tuesday by Sophos senior security engineer Chester Wisniewski stated that recent Sophos tests revealed that User Account Control -- the part of Windows that prompts the user for permission before granting elevated privileges -- was ineffective in stopping common samples of malware from running, in a Windows 7-based system without virus protection.
Whereas two of the ten chosen malware samples for the test would not run in Win7 without UAC turned on at all, only one more sample (a low-prevalence worm code-named W32/Autorun-ATK) was thwarted by UAC. The other seven ran as though they were being blocked only by a stack of dominoes.
Indiscreet tweet trips awareness of Web SSL vulnerability
Internet security engineers who had been meeting secretly to discuss a possible extension to Transport Layer Security (TLS) to thwart a possible low-level exploit, were compelled yesterday to reveal the existence of their meetings after another security engineer unconnected to their project went public with a conceptual framework of the very type of exploit they were working to pre-emptively patch.
The problem is essentially a repeat of what developers of TLS and its parent protocol, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), have dealt with a handful of times in the past: the potential of man-in-the-middle attacks by malicious servers that can pass themselves off as security authenticators. As the team from wireless security service provider PhoneFactor discovered last August, it was possible using both Microsoft IIS 7.0 and Apache httpd Web servers to demonstrate a situation where a false TLS server authenticates itself to a genuine Web client, then authenticates itself to a genuine TLS server, effectively setting itself up as a go-between that's privy to the complete contents of what appears to the innocent client to be a fully encrypted SSL session.
Faster or more secure? Microsoft publishes IE patch to Automatic Updates
Given the choice between speed and security, Betanews readers this week have been siding with security, in a show of support that suggests that Windows Vista had the right idea after all. This morning, Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 users who have their Automatic Update notifications turned on manual will be making that choice, as Microsoft has published update 976749 -- released as a manual update on Monday -- to its Windows Update service, not as a "security update" or anything "critical" or even "important."
It's an "Update for Internet Explorer" whose purpose is to "resolve issues that may occur after installing the Internet Explorer cumulative security update issued as MS09-054" -- one of the major updates from the last Patch Tuesday round. The issue that update addressed is a very serious one, and Windows users who are concerned about their operating system possibly being vulnerable to a new class of attack, should apply that update and also apply the patch to that update, released this morning. Many users with Automatic Updates turned on full may wake up this morning with the update already having been applied.
New York: Intel's agreements to lower CPU prices led to overcharges
This morning, the State of New York filed an antitrust suit against Intel, joining its voices with those of the European Commission, Korea, and other countries in alleging that its ability to make exclusivity deals was illegal. The claims made this morning by the State Attorney General's office were not at all unprecedented. Essentially, A-G Andrew Cuomo focused on two of the issues already central to the EC's existing case against the company: its CPU purchasing deals with major PC makers Hewlett-Packard and Dell, the existence of which is no longer truly disputed.
But the theory of damages in the case may be difficult to prove, and the lawsuit complaint makes a calculated move in not really arguing damages at all, beyond the fact that they exist. While presenting more evidence than the general public has seen to date of negotiations between Intel and its leading OEMs, clearly suggesting they conspired to keep CPU maker AMD at a safe distance, that evidence also supports the notion that PC prices were rendered lower as a result of those deals, not higher.
Performance drain: The first public perception test of the Windows 7 era
The key selling point for Windows 7, as emphasized in a concerted advertising campaign that stretches across both TV and the Web, is that it's leaner, simpler, and faster. It doesn't have to complete the phrase "faster than..." because we all know how to complete that phrase. Microsoft's bet for Windows 7 is that users smart enough to complete that phrase, care.
So if some of the comments Betanews has been receiving about Internet Explorer's recent problems being a non-event, or a "YAWN," really did reflect reality, then Microsoft has already lost the bet.
On the eve of a new EU constitution, Poland suggests distance from 'open source'
5:45 pm EST November 3, 2009 · A press officer with the Delegation to the European Commission in Washington contacted Betanews this afternoon, stating that the press office could not attribute the document being circulated as "EIF 2.0" this week as an official European Commission document. It is therefore not a leaked version of EIF 2.0 as was suggested elsewhere; and it's extremely unlikely that the Commission is actively considering replacing its last draft of EIF 2.0, completed in July 2008, with the version that Betanews was able to trace to the Polish Ministry of the Interior.
Just hours ago, Czech President Vaclav Klaus was the last to add his signature to a list of 26 others, effectively ratifying sweeping amendments to the Treaty of Lisbon -- effectively, the constitution of the European Union. A new centralized executive authority will be created, dramatically expanding the roles of the EU's President and formalizing the role of its own, continent-wide Foreign Minister. A country upon countries is born.
Internet Explorer slows down again: Is Microsoft messing up IE's JavaScript?
Over the last several weeks, but especially with the last round of Patch Tuesday updates, we've been noticing a severely downward trend in Microsoft's Internet Explorer performance -- a trend we were able to confirm in our most recent tests. It seems that with each security update, IE8's performance was cut in half.
This morning, Microsoft issued what its engineers describe (though without using the term directly) as a bug fix for one of last Tuesday's updates: a patch that addresses two newly discovered issues. One of those issues is a type mismatch error that would appear to become a potential security threat. If it's not a threat yet, then it could at least partly explain some of the severe performance issues we'd been seeing in recent days -- or at least so we thought.
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