Microsoft recently posted documents outlining the need for Microsoft Mail users to download and install service packages to keep the latest releases of that widely used messaging system free of bugs into the next century.
Microsoft has bought visualisation software and network diagramming tools vendor Visio in a stock swap worth $1.3 billion.
Compaq Computer yesterday tapped Novell Directory Services (NDS) as its high-end directory server of choice in an alliance between the two companies that also has Novell working to bring its first 64-bit port of NDS to Compaq's Tru64 Unix on AlphaServer platforms.
The final version of the Netscape Application Server (NAS) will arrive in mid-August, months before the product line morphs into the newly named iPlanet Application Server next year.
Sun Microsystems announced on Monday the shocking resignation of Alan Baratz, president of the Software Products and Platforms division, who will become an executive at a venture capital firm.
IBM last week posted a free Java virtual machine for Windows 32-bit platforms that the company says is the fastest in the business. The new Java virtual machine, or JVM, can be used in conjunction with Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT to deploy and run Java applications and applets on those platforms, and have them run about 30 per cent faster than with currently available JVMs, according to the SPECjvm98 and VolanoMark benchmarks, IBM officials said.
Microsoft appears to be in a Java jam. The company's Java strategy has been on hold to the outside world throughout the quarter, with few if any public indications from Microsoft's rainy Redmond campus about the future of Java within its influential products. This holding pattern - and quiet steps that seem to reverse the company's previous Java plans - has hobbled those trying to use Microsoft's Java products to develop on its operating system platforms.
Inprise and its borland.com division have hired a San Francisco investment banking firm to help steady the ship's rudder and perhaps split the company in the wake of drastically lower quarterly financial results and the naming of a new chief executive after the recent firing of Del Yocam.
Like an onion being peeled, the layers of Java APIs and specifications that Sun Microsystems has put forth during the past few years seems like an unending process that never reaches the core. But by the end of this year - after dozens of development kits, virtual machine iterations, and enterprise server specifications - the Java definition process should be all but concluded with the delivery of Java2, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), in December, officials said.
More than 18 months in the making, the newest Linux kernel, Version 2.2, will arrive in December with a slew of technical enhancements that may push the operating system further into the enterprise. By offering significant Web server performance boosts on Intel multiprocessor boxes, serving many more concurrent database users, and providing better multiple-disk RAID support, Linux 2.2 - and subsequently, Red Hat 5.2 and Caldera Linux - directly target ISPs and enterprises.
Sun Microsystems is set to announce a new process that allows non-Java licensees to help define new Java APIs across the spectrum of Java classes. The move to open Java comes amid several budding initiatives designed to hold the Java movement together, placate fractious partners, and prevent segmentation of Java, while easing the ability to deliver write-once, run-anywhere functionality.
Symantec has announced Version 3.0 of its popular Java development tools, Visual Cafe Database Edition, Visual Cafe Professional Edition, and Visual Cafe Standard Edition. Now in beta release and shipping in mid-November, the latest Visual Cafe Java tools allow developers to plug in any version of the Java Development Kit (JDK) features from Sun Microsystems, from Version 1.1 through Version 1.2, due in late November, officials said.
Oracle will deliver the newest upgrade of its jDeveloper tool, Version 2.0, at the November 9 Oracle OpenWorld conference, according to Oracle officials. JDeveloper 2.0, on Windows NT only, will feature support for building Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) beyond the technology offered in the current release of the EJB specification, said Jeremy Burton, application server and tools marketing manager at Oracle.
Oracle will deliver the newest upgrade of its jDeveloper tool, Version 2.0, at its OpenWorld conference in November, officials revealed this week. JDeveloper 2.0, for Windows NT only, will feature support for building Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) beyond the technology offered in the current release of the EJB specification, said Jeremy Burton, application server and tools marketing manager at Oracle.
Iona Technologies will leverage technology newly acquired from Electronic Data Systems (EDS) to make it easier for developers to build distributed applications and components with forthcoming Orbix object request broker (ORB) products.
