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Little by little, Microsoft is opening the door to the room that holds its free and open source software (FOSS) strategy. The latest sliver of light, as noted in a Fortune magazine report, reveals the claim that FOSS violates 235 of Microsoft's patents As characterized by the Fortune article, Microsoft is looking to take on the FOSS world by requir...

The Defense Department (DoD) is blocking access to 13 Web sites, including MySpace and YouTube. Personnel use of popular social networking and entertainment sites is siphoning too much of its network bandwidth and creating too many security holes, the department said The Defense Department has seen too much of its vast network's resources being dra...

The breadth of problems e-commerce has solved is staggering. We can shop 24/7 at most national retailers and many of our local favorites. We are assured of getting one of the first copies of the latest Harry Potter novel long before it hits bookstores. We order tickets for the latest blockbuster movie weeks before opening weekend. We customize the captions on our M&M's as well as the components in our computers...

Salesforce.com continues to carve its user base -- and prospective user base -- into finer and finer niches, which it then targets with new products. The rollout of the Cisco Unified CallConnector for Salesforce.com exemplifies that strategy Salesforce.com introduced a contact center application with the rollout of its Winter 07 release, made avai...

RightNow Technologies has introduced its third industry vertical and appears to be poised to introduce a fourth -- in Consumer Goods Products (CGPs) -- in the near future Thus far, the company has focused on industry groups in which it has a strong expertise and a large number of clients, such as higher education, federal government and, with the m...

There may still be another 18 months or so before the next presidential election, but it's already become very clear that Web 2.0 technologies have changed the terrain of the political campaign process MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and "Second Life" have all become a standard part of this new campaign world, as candidates reach out to voters in the pl...

Microsoft has decided to slash several key features from its Windows Server virtualization software, code-named "Viridian," in an effort to meet quality goals and a release deadline The new hypervisor-based virtualization technology, available as part of Windows Server "Longhorn," will ship without live migration, and it will not offer the ability ...

Sun Microsystems is considering the possibility of releasing OpenSolaris, the open source version of its Solaris operating system, under the latest version of the GNU GPL (general public license), the primary free software license Up to now, OpenSolaris has been offered only under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), which is als...

Google has become increasingly comfortable with the process of acquiring and integrating large merger-and-acquisitions targets, but intends to focus more on targeted buying of smaller firms, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said during a briefing with reporters ahead of the company's annual shareholders meeting Schmidt seemed to suggest that Google is embar...

Global warming may hit the eastern United States harder than scientists thought, resulting in extremely hot summers. Average summer high temperatures could reach almost 10 degrees higher in 2080 than they do today Eastern U.S. summer daily highs currently average in the low to mid-80s Fahrenheit. They will likely soar into the low to mid-90s during...

Apple, Microsoft, Adobe Systems and Real Networks are the targets of a Santa Cruz, Calif., maker of copyright protection technologies that has sent letters demanding that the tech heavyweights cease and desist "actively avoiding" the use of its products Media Rights Technologies (MRT) and its digital radio subsidiary BlueBeat.com issued a press rel...

Tightening controls over distribution of commercial satellite photos may not be in the best interest of the nation, according to academic and industry experts on the subject "It is sometimes more advantageous for our military to have satellite imaging broadly available, especially if you're in a situation with allies, like Iraq," Christopher Simpso...

Red Hat announced at the Red Hat Summit this week its new operating system for the enterprise. Red Hat Global Desktop is a client product for the Linux operating system that delivers an enterprise-class suite of productivity applications The Global Desktop is part of Red Hat's strategy of building innovative solutions that change thetraditional not...

The executive summary is rarely given the importance that it deserves. Too often, companies seeking to raise capital focus all of their attention on their business plan. The fact is, investment bankers and venture capitalists view literally thousands of executive summaries. For this reason, one must get the immediate attention of the investor in order to assure that he or she will definitely read the business plan...

Joost, an Internet television service that promises high-quality streaming of licensed TV content, got a big hand Thursday from industry heavyweights CBS and Viacom. The two companies, along with three other venture capital firms, have invested a collective US$45 million, Joost reported Joost, which is still in its beta phase, says the funds are ea...

Talisma has introduced a new version of CIM 8.0, its self-service suite. While this release includes numerous enhancements to the existing product lineup, it also offers something completely new for the suite: a proactive sales feature set that leverages reactive service capabilities introduced in earlier versions "We saw how well companies were us...

Observers of recent legislative action in Sacramento should be forgiven for thinking they have been transported back to 2002, when policy makers were pushing government mandated software standards and micromanagement of cell phone companies. Five years later, in 2007, the same bad policies are being recycled -- with one saving grace Back in 2002, ...

IBM will begin investing US$1 billion per year across its businesses to dramatically increase the energy efficiency of information technology, the company announced Thursday As part of its "Project Big Green" plan that includes new products and services, Big Blue aims to sharply reduce data center energy consumption and to transform the world's bus...

Game maker Electronic Arts (EA) revealed details on its forthcoming title, "The Simpsons Game," Wednesday during an event announcing the new video game as well as 12 other new titles. Set for release this fall, the game turns the tables on the characters of the well-known TV family: The whole Simpsons clan is perfectly aware that they inhabit a video game...

Microsoft officially staked a claim in the burgeoning business intelligence market at its first-ever conference devoted to the niche, Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference 2007, taking place in Seattle this week Conference keynoter Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft's business division, ticked off the strides Redmond has taken thus far in pre...