Version 8 of IBM DB2 became generally available on Thursday. The version sports a new pricing structure and enhanced management features that make the database more attractive for smaller companies that have traditionally leaned toward SQL Server.
- By Scott Bekker
- 11/21/2002
Microsoft warned users late Wednesday of a critical new vulnerability involving the Microsoft Data Access Components, a ubiquitous technology present on most Windows systems. Especially vulnerable are Web servers in the middle of three-tier architectures with a SQL Server database at the back end and most Internet Explorer users. Microsoft also issued an unrelated cumulative patch for Internet Explorer.
- By Scott Bekker
- 11/21/2002
NEC Solutions America will introduce three new Itanium 2 servers in the United States by the end of the year. All based on a unified chipset and architecture, the systems are a 32-processor capable server, a 16-way capable server and an 8-way capable server. The systems will be available immediately with Linux, but they will support Windows in April as soon as Windows .NET Server 2003 ships.
- By Scott Bekker
- 11/21/2002
Bill Gates introduced a new Office application for taking notes and organizing them during his Comdex keynote this week. The application, called Microsoft OneNote, is scheduled for a mid-2003 release.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 11/20/2002
AMD is demonstrating systems at Comdex and Supercomputing 2002 this week running prototypes of its 64-bit AMD Opteron processors on 64-bit Windows servers.
- By Scott Bekker
- 11/20/2002
Microsoft on Wednesday introduced two beta programs for SQL Server 2000 customers, one for Service Pack 3 and the other for 64-bit SQL Server. Company officials also discussed for the first time a Hotfix Installer tool for SQL Server to be available near the end of this year.
- By Scott Bekker
- 11/20/2002
IBM this week unveiled two new Intel-based workstations that feature reliability and availability technologies borrowed from its xSeries server line. Analysts say better price-performing Intel-based workstations, such as the new IBM Intellistations, are elbowing out RISC-based systems in a workstation market that is collapsing in terms of overall revenues.
- By Stephen Swoyer
- 11/19/2002
Microsoft's chief ambassador Craig Mundie gave a major speech on Trustworthy Computing last week. He detailed Microsoft's moves relating to the initiative so far and outlined the future of Microsoft's security, privacy and integrity efforts moving forward. "We didn't fall off the turnip truck just a year ago and decide we should think about these things," Mundie quipped.
- By Scott Bekker
- 11/18/2002
Bill Gates told a Comdex keynote crowd Sunday night that Windows .NET Server 2003 will ship in April 2003. Release Candidate 2 for the server will be available in a few weeks, Gates said. The feature differences between the four versions of Windows .NET Server 2003 are also final now, with the biggest surprises in the Datacenter Edition.
- By Scott Bekker
- 11/18/2002
The final beta of Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET 2003 is available, and the development toolset, formerly code-named "Everett," will ship in April along with Windows .NET Server 2003.
- By Scott Bekker
- 11/18/2002
Hewlett-Packard is running Windows .NET Server 2003 64-bit Datacenter Edition on a massive Superdome server with 64 processors and 512 GB of RAM, HP and Microsoft announced on Monday.
- By Scott Bekker
- 11/18/2002
Intel launched four Intel Xeon processors and three chipsets on Monday in what the company called its "largest enterprise processor product launch" since first delivering multiprocessor-capable chips in 1995.
- By Scott Bekker
- 11/18/2002
Intel on Thursday introduced a faster Pentium 4 processor that is the first desktop chip to include Hyper-Threading technology. The 3.06 GHz Pentium 4 is available immediately at a cost of $637 in 1,000-unit quantities.
- By Scott Bekker
- 11/14/2002
Oracle used its conference this week in San Francisco to promote its Oracle Collaboration Suite as an alternative to established collaboration offerings from Microsoft Corp. and IBM Corp.
- By Stephen Swoyer
- 11/14/2002
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent an e-mail to customers Wednesday night describing how Microsoft has matured during the antitrust case and how lessons from the legal quagmire are making Microsoft into a more responsible industry leader moving forward.
- By Scott Bekker
- 11/14/2002
Systems Management Server 2003, in beta now, to be integrated into .NET. universe.
Security researcher David Litchfield found a high risk problem in the form of a buffer overflow vulnerability occurring in a software component that ships with the Oracle 9i database on all platforms.
- By Scott Bekker
- 11/13/2002
Configuresoft released the second generation of a product for one of the biggest problems facing Windows administrators right now -- security patch management.
- By Scott Bekker
- 11/13/2002
Citrix Systems recently previewed a real-time collaboration product -- code-named Project Pearl -- that will allow MetaFrame end users to share any published application, file or document. The product is scheduled to ship in the first half of 2003 as an add-on to the next feature release of MetaFrame XP.
- By Joe McKendrick
- 11/13/2002
It looks like the IT hiring slowdown will last into the near future—and maybe beyond, according to a study by the Information Technology Association of America.