Pc News

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Microsoft Evolves its Enterprise Plans

As Kermit the TV frog puppet was wont to lament, "It's not easy being green," something Microsoft Corp. continues to find out in relation to its Project Green program to bring its four acquired Dynamics ERP (enterprise resource planning) and its homegrown CRM (customer relationship management) application product families closer together.

Priorities Evolve
When the vendor first started talking about Project Green in 2003, the initiative focused on bringing the disparate products then known as Axapta, Great Plains, Navision, Solomon and CRM together into a single code base. Then in May 2005, Microsoft began to talk more about having two distinct waves of the projects. Wave one committed Microsoft to bringing out major new releases of each of its business offerings, while wave two, due to start occurring in 2008, was when the company would begin releasing elements of the converged code base.

By September 2005, Microsoft brought its back-end applications together under a single brand name "Dynamics" resulting in the rechristening of its business applications as Dynamics AX, GP, NAV, SL and CRM. At that point, the vendor announced "Dynamics" would also refer to the ongoing Project Green research and development road map, but the old name has refused to die and still persists among the company's executives, partners and customers.

Fast forward to this week's Convergence show in San Diego and the natural question is what's happening with Project Green? Is a converged product or platform still on Microsoft's agenda?

"We don't have the goal of just convergence for convergence's sake," said Satya Nadella, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Business Solutions group. "We've delivered on Wave 1 and, with each sharing of technology, we're increasing the level of convergence, but it's not a front and central goal. We now have a common portal, a common UI (user interface) and common Web services infrastructure. Perhaps the news here is that Green's done," he added.

Building a Family
As Microsoft has come out with new versions of its business applications, it's been gradually replacing technologies proprietary to individual offerings with its own software so all the Dynamics families share more and more infrastructure. For instance, Microsoft's SQL Server is their common database, SharePoint is becoming their common portal and the vendor's working on having all the products tightly integrate with its PerformancePoint business intelligence software which is due out later this year.

At Convergence, Microsoft also showed off its new RoleTailored UI, which gives a Windows Vista and Office 2007 look-and-feel to Dynamics. The company intends RoleTailored to become the common user interface for Dynamics.

One way of thinking about what the Project Green concept will represent is a converged product which has four different flavors, according to Nadella.

Looking ahead, financial services-based Dynamics GP and project-based Dynamics SL will retain their focus and will remain predominantly North American products although Microsoft is making both of them available in Spanish for use in South America. For now, the global product focus is with Dynamics NAV, which can be rapidly configured, and Dynamics AX, which allows partners and customers to more deeply customize the software using Microsoft's Visual Studio development tools suite, he said. Each product family will also continue to have its own ecosystem of Microsoft partners who have built specific functionality on top of a particular Dynamics flavor.

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iPod Shuffle Gets Speakers

Altec Lansing has introduced the iM600 , a new portable speaker system designed to work with the iPod. It's coming this month for US$149.95.

The iM600 comes with a built-in FM receiver, remote control and rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery. It outputs 16 watts of power, and includes the "SFX Sound Field Expander" which widens the sound field. The speakers are powered by custom-built, two-inch neodymium drivers. The iM600 also features auxiliary input, sub out, composite video out and mini USB connections.

A wireless remote control provides iPod song navigation and speaker controls, and lets you scan FM stations and four FM presets. The iPod rests in an iPod docking station that flips open or closed for storage in your backpack or travel bag. The iM600 also comes with an AC power supply.

Altec Lansing has also announced two other inMotion iPod products launching this spring: the $399.95 M812, a wireless home audio system that comes equipped with two four-inch woofers and 1-inch tweeters, FM tuner and support for three additional speakers; and the iMV712, a $349.95 interface for the video iPod that features an 8.5-inch LCD panel, neodymium speakers and built-in subwoofer.

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Asustek SmartPhones Run Windows Mobile 6

Taiwanese electronics maker Asustek Computer Inc. plans to release in the months ahead two smartphones based on Microsoft Corp.'s upcoming Windows Mobile 6 software.

The M530w, which offers a full QWERTY keyboard, and P526, with its built-in GPS (global positioning system), are on display this week at the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany. Both handsts are to be released in June, said an Asustek executive manning the company's booth.

Unveiled in February, Windows Mobile 6 is the next release of Microsoft's software for mobile phones. The software includes several improvements, including a revamped interface meant to more closely resemble Windows Vista, and tighter integration with Microsoft's corporate software products, such as Exchange Server 2007.

In addition to having the improved mobile OS, the M530w has a 2.4-inch screen above a QWERTY keypad, and is clearly meant for business users. The handset's 2-megapixel dues double-duty as a business card reader. The handset can recognize words on the card and import new contacts into the phone.

The P526 has a touchscreen LCD (liquid crystal display) instead of a keyboard, and packs a 2-megapixel camera. But the main feature is its SiRF Technology Inc.'s GPS chip, which works with the handset's navigation pack.

Pricing for the two handsets has not yet been decided.

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AMD Powers Typhoon Servers

Tyan Computer Corp. has expanded its line of powerful Tyan PSC workgroup servers, more commonly known by the name Typhoon, with the addition of a model based on processors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

The Typhoon 500 series is designed to run on AMD's Opteron 2200 server chips, instead of the Intel Corp. Xeon chips used in earlier versions of the system.

The new server, which is on display at the Cebit exhibition in Hanover, Germany, is actually a computing cluster, that comprises a dual-processor "head node" and four "compute nodes," each with room for two processors and up to 20G bytes of DDR2 (double data rate 2) memory.

In total, the Typhoon 500 can support up to 20 processor cores, Tyan said, noting the system is designed to run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003.

The Typhoon 500 will be available in April, with prices starting from US$20,000 per server, depending on the specifications.

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Apple, Microsoft Work to Add Vista Support to iTunes

Apple has published an updated technical support document regarding iTunes compatibility with Windows Vista.

The document confirms that the latest (7.1.1) version of iTunes does address a number of compatibility issues with Windows Vista, and is recommended for use with most editions of Microsoft's OS.

Apple is warning that iTunes is not supported on 64-bit editions of Vista. The company also warns of "a few remaining issues", stressing the company is "actively working with Microsoft" to resolve them.

The remaining bugs include:

- Ejecting iPod from Windows Explorer or by using the "Safely Remove Hardware" feature in Windows Vista may corrupt your iPod. Apple advises users to Eject their iPod from within iTunes' Control menu. Microsoft it working on a patch for this.

- iTunes may display graphics or text incorrectly on-screen, Apple recommends resizing your screen.

- Contact Groups from Windows Contacts will not sync with iPod.

The document also offers some advice for iTunes users looking to upgrade to Windows Vista or who have purchased a new computer with Windows Vista pre-installed.

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AIM Plug-in IDs Users' Locations

Users of AOL LLC's AIM instant messaging system now have access to a plug-in that identifies their geographic location in a more precise manner than a similar plug-in developed last year.

The new plug-in, created by AOL with technology licensed from Skyhook Wireless Inc., requires a Wi-Fi enabled PC, because it determines locations by identifying nearby hot spots. Skyhook calls this method its Wi-Fi Positioning System.

The first AIM location plug-in, which AOL developed and delivered in May of last year, gets its information automatically from the Internet service provider's network connection, which usually doesn't get more specific than a city. Users can also manually enter their locations, an AOL spokeswoman said Monday.

Internet companies like AOL see big benefits in knowing the geographic location of users of their online services and applications. For example, providers can tailor the advertising and information they serve up to users via those services and applications, showing someone in Boston, for example, ads for local businesses and the city's weather forecast.

In the case of AIM, the location information can be used to generate a map indicating where people in a user's buddy list are at the time. Users can also be alerted whenever a buddy is within a specific geographic range of them.

Later on, the plug-in will allow AIM users to conduct joint searches to find, say, a movie theather that is at a convenient location for both of them, said Ted Morgan, founder and CEO of Boston-based Skyhook. The plug-in will also later allow AIM users to search for business listings in their area and obtain driving directions, among other local search features, Morgan said.

AOL believes the plug-in will add another layer of relevant information and context about users' buddies to the IM interaction. The plug-in is optional to download, and once installed can be turned on and off.

Right now, the plug-in doesn't work on mobile devices, although there are plans to support them later, AOL's spokeswoman said. It runs on Windows PCs only.

The plug-in identifies Wi-Fi hotspots detected by the computer and reports them back to Skyhook, which has a database of about 16 million hotspots in the U.S. Skyhook analyzes the data and estimates where the user is.

Skyhook has compiled its database by having a fleet of trucks drive around U.S. metro areas identifying hotspots of all types, including public ones, commercial ones at places like Starbucks and private ones from individuals and businesses, Morgan said.

In aggregate, Skyhook's trucks have covered 10 percent to 15 percent of the U.S.' total area but where about 70 percent of the country's population lives, he said. Most of Canada's population is covered, and Skyhook is already building a hotspot database of Asia and Europe, he said.

Skyhook's license agreement with AOL isn't exclusive. Within the next three to six weeks, another major IM provider will announce its use of Skyhook technology, Morgan said.

The AIM Location plug-in can be downloaded for free from the AIM Plugin site. Users must be running AIM's 6.0 version, which requires Windows XP or Windows 2000.

In February 2007, AIM led the consumer IM market in the U.S. with 44.5 million unique users, followed by Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Live Messenger with 26 million and Yahoo Inc.'s Yahoo Messenger with 22.6 million users, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

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AMD Shows Motherboard Design for Small, Quiet PCs

AMD is pushing a new motherboard format called DTX, which it says will allow system assemblers to build smaller PCs that are quieter and less wasteful of energy.

The DTX spec is intended to bolster the fast-growing market for small form factor (SFF) PCs, said Jochen Polster, AMD's sales & marketing VP. He added that around 20 companies have already signed up to make DTX boards and cases, including Asus, Asetek, MSI, Gigabit, Elitegroup and Shuttle.

Polster said that PCs based on ATX motherboards are too big, noisy and energy-hungry. "The best argument for ATX towers is that the components are standard, and therefore cheaper than proprietary SFF boxes," he added, in a dig at the mini-ITX format championed by VIA.

With their built-in video, sound and other ports, VIA's mini-ITX boards have been popular with builders of embedded PCs - and with case-modders, who build PCs into all sorts of outlandish casings - but less so in the wider PC market.

Polster claimed that's because compact designs such as mini-ITX, which is 170mm square, are simply too small for the average technician to work with. By comparison, at 200x244mm, DTX is still big enough to see where the cables go - and to allow for expansion.

"DTX is designed to be easy to assemble and upgrade," he said. "That's very important for small system builders, who cannot deal with very small boxes."

The DTX specification is deliberately limited. It calls for the board to be manufacturable as a four-layer PCB, which Polster claimed would make it cheaper than the likes of mini-ITX, and it defines two expansion slots and an internal power supply for the PC, but nothing else apart from mounting points.

"We do define two PCI or PCI-Express expansion slots," he said. "Almost no-one uses expansion slots any more except for graphics - there are exceptions, and they will continue to use towers."

He added, "We're not interested in defining I/O or graphics on the motherboard. The builder can include PS2 ports if he wants - we think he shouldn't, but he can. We are trying to be neutral here - we want to repeat the success of ATX."

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Firefox Hit by Fewer Flaws Than IE in 2006

Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox suffered from 26 percent fewer vulnerabilities in the second half of 2006 than Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer, a security company's research said Monday.

According to Symantec's tally, 40 Firefox vulnerabilities were disclosed between August and December 2006; Internet Explorer (IE), meanwhile, was hit with 54 bugs. Opera and Safari -- the browser Apple Inc. bundles with Mac OS X -- had four flaws each.

For all of 2006, however, the numbers were nearly neck and neck: Firefox was nailed by 87 flaws during the 12 months, IE by 92.

The trend line also put Firefox in the better light. The open-source browser had 15 percent fewer vulnerabilities in the second half of the year compared to the first, while IE's total increased 42 percent during the period.

"Internet Explorer was particularly affected by concerted efforts to 'fuzz' the browser for new vulnerabilities," said the Symantec report, which cited July's 'Month of Browser Bugs' project as a big contributor. "The majority reported affected Internet Explorer or Windows components accessible through the browser," Symantec said.

To add insult to injury to IE, Mozilla developers patched Firefox five times faster than did Microsoft's. On average, Firefox had an attack exposure window -- the amount of time between the disclosure of a bug and when it was patched -- of just two days based on a sample set of 26 flaws. By comparison, Microsoft took an average of 10 days to patch the sample 15 vulnerabilities. Both vendors' attack windows were a day longer in the second half of the year than in the first six months.

"Web browsers continue to be the big exploit area," said Vincent Weafer, senior director of Symantec's security response team "And they will increasingly be more important as more data reside on the back end, as Web applications become more popular."

The most recent data pegged IE's market share at 79.1 percent and Firefox's at 14.2 percent. Safari and Opera came in third and fourth, respectively, with 4.9 percent and 0.79 percent.

Symantec's twice-annual Internet security threat report can be found on the Cupertino, Calif., company's Web site.

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Oracle CEO: Linux Support Program Working

Oracle Corp. has gotten off to a "very strong start" with its support program for users of Red Hat Inc.'s Enterprise Linux, according to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.

Ellison announced the program back in October at Oracle's OpenWorld conference in San Francisco, but since then the company has declined to comment on the progress of the support offering aimed at both Oracle and non-Oracle users.

"This is just the beginning," he said Tuesday during a conference call with analysts to discuss Oracle's third-quarter fiscal 2007 results. "We're not going to build a Linux business overnight, but we will build it. We're determined to offer the best support in the world."

Ellison said that several third parties will be offering the Oracle Red Hat Linux support including Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. Executives from both companies warmly endorsed Oracle Linux in video clips during Ellison's OpenWorld keynote address back in October.

Yahoo Inc. was also onstage at OpenWorld. "We have replaced Red Hat at Yahoo as their Linux support supplier," Ellison said. Without naming other customers, he said some of the Linux support deals Oracle is signing are worth over US$500,000.

In keeping with tradition, Ellison took advantage of the conference call to trashtalk Oracle's competitors. He claimed that Oracle is growing much faster than BEA Systems Inc. on the middleware side and than SAP AG in the business applications market.

"It took us five years to pass BEA, but we did it," Ellison said, describing Oracle's middleware operation as larger than that of BEA. He also expects Oracle to eventually have a middleware business that's twice the size of the pureplay.

Part of Oracle's strategy to trump SAP, the current number-one seller of enterprise applications, is to focus on selling industry-specific applications to existing Oracle customers, according to Ellison.

While the enterprise resource planning (ERP) piece of the business applications market is relatively mature and slow-moving in growth terms, Oracle is seeing its industry-focused applications and its customer relationship management (CRM) software business expand quickly. "We have a good chance to overtake SAP," Ellison said. "We're gaining on them consistently and rapidly."

Oracle saw particularly strong sales of its industry-specific software in the retail sector, Ellison said, with deals also lining up for its applications focused on the telecommunications and utilities sectors.

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Is Web 2.0 a Security Risk?

British firms are at risk of data leakage through their employees' increasing use of Web 2.0 technologies and social networking websites, security experts have warned.

A survey of more than 1000 office workers found that 42 percent of those aged between 18 and 29 discussed work-related issues on social networking sites and blogs.

Blogging on the Job
More than a quarter of young workers spent three or more hours a week--during their office hours--surfing blogs and websites such as YouTube and MySpace, the research, carried out by polling firm YouGov for content security specialists Clearswift found. Nearly four in 10 admitted accessing such sites "several times a day."

Younger employees are more likely to take access to such sites for granted, with 59 percent of office workers aged 18 to 29 believing that staff should be able to visit these sites for personal reasons, using their work computer, compared with 38 percent of staff aged over 30.

"It's clear from the research that organizations need to take a closer look at the social media sites that their employees are using at work to ensure sensitive business issues or information is not being discussed," said Clearswift CEO Ian Bowles.

"However, finding the balance between harnessing so-called 'Web 2.0' technologies for business benefit and maintaining strong security is key," Bowles added. "It isn't difficult to envisage an employee posting unauthorized comments about their organization's product or service quality issues on a blog--causing major brand damage--but at the same time, banning all blog access is not the answer as it cuts the organization off from conversations with partners and customers."

New Threats
Commenting on the findings, Clive Longbottom, service director at analyst Quocirca, said that inadvertent rather than malicious disclosure could prove the greatest threat to an organization's intellectual property.

Web 2.0 technology presents a new kind of risk, noted Katie Gotzen, an analyst with Frost & Sullivan.

"Whilst organizations have woken up to the security risks with email traffic, this awareness is not always extended to the bidirectional communications which are common in Web 2.0," Gotzen said. "Yet social networking sites and blogs carry an even greater risk for data leakage and brand damage than email, because anyone can potentially access them."

The survey found that most office workers were aware of their company's policy on employee use of the Internet, with just 14 percent saying they did not know if one existed or not. More than a quarter of those surveyed said their organization did not allow access to social media sites. But 14 percent said their company had no policy at all.

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High-End Digicams Shown

TOKYO -- Makers of single lens reflex (SLR) digital camera are focusing on new models for professional and semi-professional users, and displaying prototypes at the Photo Imaging Expo 2007 being held in Tokyo.

Sony, Pentax, and Olympus are among those highlighting new SLR models; Canon showed a new model ready for release.

Sony Revamps Alpha
Sony unveiled its plans for releasing two high-end versions of its popular Alpha 100 digital camera. Released last year, the Alpha 100 is the first camera to be developed jointly with Konica Minolta's former camera division, which Sony bought in 2005. Sony is displaying a mock-up and the new models don't have product names yet. For now, one is being called the "high amateur user" model and the other, the "flagship model" for professionals. Both models are scheduled to have the image stabilization feature already in the Alpha 100. The new models will include a new image sensor called the "BIONZ."

"We aren't releasing details on the price or features for these two new models," said Toshio Nagai, communication planning manager of the digital imaging business group at Sony.

Nagai would not say what resolution image sensors the high-end models would have. Some recent digital SLR cameras have sensors with resolutions as high as 30 megapixels.

The Alpha 100 has a 10-megapixel sensor, and the newer models will surely have more megapixels, be larger in size and heavier in weight, Nagai said. They are also showing eight new lenses for the Alpha series at the show.

"One of the two cameras will be released within the year, but we're not saying which," Nagai said. "We will be releasing five new lenses for the Alpha 100 within the year as well."

Pentax 645 Debuts
Meanwhile, Pentax is displaying a digital SLR prototype, provisionally known as the 645 Digital. It plans to use a CCD (charge-coupled device) sensor with a resolution of more than 30 megapixels.

"This is the third mock-up we have shown since the fall of 2006. We've been changing our specs--we were originally going to offer 18 megapixels for this model--based on user feedback," said Pentax spokesperson Hiraku Kawauchi. He had no information about pricing or release date for the camera. It was previously shown at the PMA show earlier this month.

The lenses for the Pentax 645 will be compatible with the 645 Digital, he said. It will have two memory slots, one for Secure Digital (SD) memory cards and the other for CompactFlash.

Next-Gen Olympus E-1
Olympus had a mock-up digital camera called the "successor to the E-1" on display.

"We are planning on unveiling and releasing this model by the end of the year," Olympus spokesperson Atsushi Hatakeyama said.

The company would give no further details other than that the new camera will have a dust reduction system. That was also a feature of the original E-1, which came out in late 2003 with a resolution of 5 megapixels.

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IBM Keeps Chips Cooler

Scientists at IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory have developed a glue-application technique used to assemble chips that will keep them running cooler, the company has announced.

Sticky Technique
Glues are used to bind the semiconductor packages, such as microprocessors and chipsets, with cooling elements that disperse the heat generated by today's powerful chips. However, current glues, which are embedded with microscopic particles of metal or ceramics to help transfer heat, continue to be an obstacle to efficient heat dissipation, according to IBM.

Scientists at IBM's Zurich lab discovered that the problem lies in how the glue is applied. They observed that when a chip is attached to the cooling element of a semiconductor package, a cross formed in the glue as the microscopic particles it contains piled up. This prevents the glue from spreading evenly. They overcame this problem by creating tiny channels in the base of the heatsink that help the glue to flow properly.

The result: a thinner layer of glue that helps to disperse heat three times more efficiently, according to IBM.

IBM is working to incorporate these channels into the packaging used with its chips, but did not say when it expects to start using the new glue-application technique.

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Free Security Tool Attracts 38 Million Downloads

An Internet scorecard application which rates potential risks on Web sites has been downloaded more than 38 million times since it was launched 12 months ago.

The application, SiteAdvisor, which was introduced by McAfee Inc., integrates with Firefox and Internet Explorer.

It applies 320 million daily potential risk ratings to Web sites for search results, browsing and e-transactions, and is based on scanning results for spyware, adware, exploits, excessive pop-ups and spam.

SiteAdvisor staff analyze and collate data retrieved from Web site scans and from user volunteered feedback to produce a scorecard indicative of the potential dangers of a given site.

McAfee Australia sales director, Monica Kelly, said the high adoption rate reflects the increasing need for online security.

"SiteAdvisor has enjoyed very strong adoption since its launch last year and has demonstrated the urgent market need for this technology," Kelly said.

SiteAdvisor is available to users free of charge.

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Windows Home Server Tests Find Nearly 2400 Bugs

Microsoft's Windows Home Server developers have been inundated with bug reports on the under-construction consumer server software, which--when it was announced in January--was expected to ship this summer.

There was no word last week from Microsoft whether the necessary fixes would delay that planned release.

Bugs Tallied
In an entry on Microsoft's Home Server blog, program manager Chris Sullivan said that the group has received nearly 2400 bug reports so far from beta testers, and still had 495, or about 21 percent of the total, classified as "active."

In Microsoft nomenclature, an active bug is one still under investigation, pending a response or waiting to be investigated.

"As you can see, we have our work cut out for us," said Sullivan.

Of the bugs that have been addressed, Sullivan said that only 15 percent have actually been fixed. The remainder are issues that are in the server by design (13 percent), not reproducible (21 percent), will be postponed to later versions (11 percent) or likely won't be fixed (7 percent).

Slow Start Draws Rivals
Windows Home Server, which debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), will be Microsoft's first home-specific server software. In January, company executives said the software would ship before the back-to-school selling season starts in July and August, with a release to manufacturing deadline set for late June. The software, based primarily on Windows Server 2003 code, will connect to systems running Windows Vista and Windows XP for file sharing, media playing and backup; and to Mac OS X and Linux machines for file sharing.

Microsoft did not respond to a call asking for a status update on development, and whether the summer release schedule still holds.

Home Server won't be sold separately, as are other server-based operating systems from the company. Instead, computer makers will package the software as part of ready-to-go appliances. Hewlett-Packard, for example, will sell something it calls MediaSmart Server that runs Home Server on an AMD-powered system.