Articles by Maureen O'Gara

Cloud Envelops Exchange & SharePoint

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:00:00 EST

Microsoft on Monday pushed multi-tenant SaaS versions of Exchange and SharePoint out of the beta nest. Some 7,000 concerns participated in the beta. Now the stuff’s available to all comers. Exchange Online will cost $10 per user a month; SharePoint Online will cost $7.25. Eventually a browser-only Exchange/SharePoint combo will go for $3 and a Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) with e-mail, instant messaging, web conferencing and SharePoint for $15. The IM component is still missing.

Intel’s New Chip is Here

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:00:00 EST

Intel’s most complex x86 desktop chip ever, a tiny part loaded with an incredible 731 million transistors that’s been five years in the making, has been released to the most dubious demand environment ever, especially for desktops – dubious enough for Intel to have cut its guidance last week. We’re talking here about the first of the company’s long-expected new-microarchitecture Nehalem chips, officially called Core i7, its first AMD-like “true” quad with all four cores on a single sliver of silicon and – also AMD-like – no front-side bus.

Transmeta, Sun, Mozilla and Salesforce

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:40:00 EST

Transmeta, the uppity microprocessor wannabe that pushed Intel to create low-power chips before Intel crushed it, is getting bought by Novafora Inc for $255.6 million in cash, roughly what Transmeta has in the bank thanks largely to an IP licensing deal with Intel. Novafora is a fab-less semiconductor house that makes digital video processors and wants Transmeta’s power management widgetry to give its parts broader range. Separately, Transmeta cut a patent license with AMD, which is paying for it with 700,000 Transmeta Series B preferred shares.

MySQL Add-on Could Make Sun Money

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:35:00 EST

Sun, which desperately needs to monetize its software, has put out a new release of MySQL with a gold-level subscriber-only Query Analyzer tool that it’s praying users will pay for. The tool monitors query performance and quickly pinpoints and corrects problem SQL code. It promises to “turbo-boost” the speed and uptime of MySQL database applications. One user reported it tripled his performance; 30% appears more normal. It’s integrated into the MySQL Enterprise Monitor, a key part of Sun’s MySQL Enterprise subscription offering. Subscriptions, as usual, go for $599 to $4,999 per server per year. The gold level costs $2,999 a year. An unlimited site-wide subscription starts at $40,000 a year.

Taking Yahoo Apart Brick by Brick?

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:25:00 EST

Seems Microsoft, which doesn’t want to buy Yahoo anymore, has rustled Yahoo’s VP of search technology Sean Suchter, the Inktomi legacy who ran Yahoo’s search engine, responsible for engineering and P&L. He’s due to leave Yahoo right before Christmas. Microsoft said at press time that he would be general manager of its Silicon Valley Search Technology Center working on Live Search. Meanwhile, Kara Swisher of BoomTown, who’s had the inside track on all things Yahoo from the beginning, thinks that Microsoft is trying to hire the former EVP of engineering of Yahoo’s Search and Advertising Technology Group Qi Lu, who quit in disgust in June.

Microsoft Sues WebXchange over IDE

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:15:00 EST

Microsoft has filed one of its rare lawsuits against online transaction service provider WebXchange because WebXchange sued FedEx, Allstate and Dell, three of Microsoft’s big customers, back in March. WebXchange claims FedEx, Allstate and Dell’s online services trample on its patents because they use Visual Studio, SOAP and Web Services. Like when FedEx’ online system lets people send their print job to FedEx’ Kinko shops. WebXchange apparently has an e-commerce routing patent. Microsoft wants the court to tell WebXchange to take a hike, invalidate its patents based on prior art and declared Visual Studio free of taint.

Antitrust Claim Against Apple Fails

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:45:00 EST

Paystar, the unauthorized Florida "cloner" with dreams of breaking Apple's lock on its hardware, has had its horns broken by a California federal court, which threw out its antitrust counterclaim against Apple's EULA. Back in the summer, Apple charged Paystar with copyright and trademark infringement for selling a hacked Mac OS X on so-called OpenComputer white box gear aiming to stop it dead in its tracks.

ARM to Get Flash

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:15:00 EST

Adobe and ARM are gonna put Flash Player 10 and AIR, the stuff of web video and rich Internet apps, on ARM widgets by the second half of next year. They mean phones, set-tops, MIDs, TVs, car mojo and personal media devices, which have so far only had access to Flash Lite, not the best in browsing. iPhone happens to be based on ARM though whether that'll be true a year from now is unclear since Apple bought Power chipmaker PA Semi.

Microsoft Says No to Yahoo Acquisition – Again

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:15:00 EST

Microsoft is open to a collaborative search deal with Yahoo, “very open” apparently, but CEO Steve Ballmer again nixed the thought of revisiting an acquisition, according to both the AP and Reuters. The AP quotes him as saying, “Let me be clear. We are done with all acquisition discussions with Yahoo.”

Virtualization Expo: Cute Trick Saves Dell’s Bad News from Being Worse

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:00:00 EST

At the end of one of the worst days in the history of Wall Street, when every metric ultimately reacted like acid eating through a thin plate of copper, Dell posted its third-quarter results, returning a surprise 9% increase in EPS on deflated revenues and net earnings apparently because of stock buybacks. The company made no quantitative forecast. It only said that it believes global end-user demand “will continue to be challenging” and that it would focus on optimizing “liquidity, profitability and growth,” particularly profitability.

Mind Mapping in the Cloud

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:57:00 EST

Apple’s not the only one telling people to "Think Different." So is an outfit called Mindjet. It's into mind mapping, which isn't as chilling as it sounds. It's merely a way of brainstorming and diagramming non-linear thinking that actually goes back to Porphyry of Tyros in the third century. He used the technique to visualize the concept categories of Aristotle, which of course makes it alright then. But we digress.

Microsoft To Kill Windows Live OneCare for Morro

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:45:00 EST

In a move that looks tailor-made for an antitrust suit, Microsoft says it’s going to give away a consumer security kit that it’s building code named Morro. It should be available in the second half of next year – probably more like mid-year. The freebie widgetry is supposed to defend even smaller PC form factors against malware like viruses, spyware, rootkits and Trojans and means that Microsoft will dump the retail sales of its Windows Live OneCare subscription service on June 30. The company said direct sales of OneCare will be phased out when Morro becomes available.

Amazon Launches CloudFront

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:00:00 EST

Amazon has launched an HTTP content delivery service (CDN) called CloudFront that works with its S3 cloud storage widgetry and EC2. It's now a public beta, having been privately tested the last couple few months. It's the stuff Amazon promised in September and may someday give the likes of Akamai and Limelight some bad nights if and when it gets more sophisticated and appeals to bigger accounts.

Cloud Has Shrinking Effect on StarOffice Price Tag

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:45:00 EST

Last Friday Sun Microsystems, its fortunes about as low as a snake’s belly, moved its StarOffice franchise into a new Cloud Computing unit with clear instructions to “grow revenues.” StarOffice 9, the latest rev of the Microsoft wannabe, was sent to market Monday priced at $34.95 for a one-off download, half the price of its predecessor.

IBM Buys Transitive

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:45:00 EST

IBM is going to buy Transitive, the British cross-platform virtualization firm that salvaged legacy Macintosh programs and made Apple's move from IBM to Intel chips as graceful as a prima ballerina’s pirouette. Transitive is clever at running applications written for one kind of microprocessor and operating system on multiple platforms with little or no modification and could probably be made to run all legacy apps in virtualized form on a single hardware platform.

CA & VMware to Integrate Management Solutions

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:00:00 EST

CA and VMware are going to jointly develop a management solution and, to start, have signed a deal to make CA Data Center Automation Manager interoperate with VMware Stage Manager. The joint solution is designed so enterprises and cloud service providers can seamlessly provision applications and resources from both corporate datacenter and service provider clouds.

HP: Economic Contrarian

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:15:00 EST

HP jumped the gun Tuesday and told the worried multitudes a week ahead of when it’s supposed to release its latest numbers that it more than just survived the volatile quarter it just ended in October when the bottom fell out of the economy. Not only that but, unlike the panicky Cisco and Intel, it forecast a relatively unscathed future.

Meet Cloud Investors at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, November 19-21, San Jose, CA

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:45:00 EST

Atlanta-based TechOperators, a new early stage VC targeting cloud computing and SaaS as well as Internet services, security, infrastructure and mobile, is launching its first venture fund and claims it didn’t have too many problems raising the $20 million-$30 million. The four managing partners, all ex-CEOs who sold their companies mostly to big boys, include Tom Noonan who sold Internet Security Systems to IBM, David Gould who sold Witness Systems to Verint Systems, Said Mohammadioun, who sold Samna to Lotus and Glenn McGonnigle, who sold VistaScape Security Systems to Siemens. They’re reportedly looking for firms already doing $1 million in revenue that need $2 million-$3 million to leverage their recurring-revenue business.

Symantec’s CEO To Step Down

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:00:00 EST

Symantec CEO John Thompson, 59, the ex-IBMer who bit off more than he could chew when Symantec acquired Veritas for $13.5 billion three years ago, is going to retire at the end of the company’s fiscal year in March. He will however remain chairman.

Cloud Computing Journal: Yang To Step Down

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:00:00 EST

Yahoo has confirmed that Jerry Yang will be stepping down as soon as the board can find a new CEO. Yahoo said the executive search has started. Yang, who botched a sale to Microsoft, saw his backup ad deal with Google trumped by the Justice Department and couldn’t put anything resembling a viable strategy together, is supposed to return to his role as so-called Chief Yahoo once his replacement is found. He will also stay on the board.

HP Says It's Got Cheaper Virtualization

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:00:00 EST

HP says it can cut the pricey-but-neglected costs of networking virtualized environments by 55%. Your average VMware ESX server busily hosting virtual machines requires six network connections, which means network expansion cards, switches and cables - all of which add up.

EMC’s New Cloud Concern is, Well, Very Cloudy

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 08:00:00 EST

EMC has taken its Mozy and Pi holdings – Pi being the stealth-mode mystery start-up it bought to acquire ex-Microsoft kingpin Paul Maritz before it fired Diane Greene and put him in charge of VMware – and Mozy being its year-old $76 million online consumer backup acquisition – and put them in a new cloud concern called Decho Corporation. Decho is supposed to stand for a people’s “digital echo.”

Sun Lays Off 5,000-6,000; Head of Software Quits

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:00:00 EST

In an effort to head off its disappearance below the horizon, Sun is going to lay off 5,000-6,000 people, 15%-18% of its workforce, and restructure its software business, never a great money maker. Among the first to go is the head of software Rich Green. Sun said he has chosen to leave the company.

IBM Sued by the Exec It Barred from Joining Apple

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:47:00 EST

Mark Papermaster, the ex-VP of blade development at IBM and the guy that IBM stopped from going to Apple to run its iPod and IPhone development on the strength of the non-compete he signed, has sued his former master looking for a declaratory judgment in his favor.

Mark Cuban Charged with Insider Trading

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:49:00 EST

Dot.com billionaire and owner of the Dallas Maverick basketball team Mark Cuban, 50, who sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.9 billion during the great bubble and trash-talked his meal ticket earlier this year when it wouldn’t sell out to Microsoft, has been charged with insider trading by the SEC. He is supposed to have sold his position of 600,000 shares in the search company Mamma.com, now Copernic.com, in June of 2004 based on confidential information.

Scared but Still Got Amazon- or Google-Envy? See Cassatt

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 23:30:00 EST

Cassatt, the company started by BEA founder Bill Coleman, is redirecting its data center widgetry into creating internal clouds comparable to Amazon or Google out of infrastructure customers already have in-house. Coleman observed that most IT professionals aren’t comfortable outsourcing the mission-critical parts of their sensitive internal applications to an external cloud provider.

VMware Buys Blue Lane in Hush-Hush Deal

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 23:00:00 EST

It appears that VMware quietly bought a little California number last month called Blue Lane Technologies, which, according to its web site, is no longer selling its wares on VMware’s instructions. Blue Lane’s stock in trade was securing physical and virtual data centers with “zero footprint, zero downtime and zero tuning” - it had a virtual appliance called VirtualShield – developed with VMware – that removed nasty content before it got to the virtual server via a technique called inline patching.

Citrix Claims to Cut Cost of Delivering Enterprise Web Apps

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 23:00:00 EST

Citrix has upgraded its NetScaler web application delivery appliance with a welter of 350 new features whose biggest trick is configuring each web application automatically and optimally. This new NetScaler 9 facility is supposed to cut the cost of delivering enterprise web applications by up to 50% – stuff like Microsoft’s SharePoint Server 2007, Oracle’s E-Business Suite and SAP’s widgetry.

Intel Says Business Stinks

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:00:00 EST

Intel didn’t wait for its scheduled mid-quarter update on December 4. It came out after the market closed this evening and said business stinks. It took down its fourth-quarter projections. The company now expects Q4 revenue to be $9 billion, plus or minus $300 million, over 10% lower than its previous guidance of somewhere between $10.1 billion and $10.9 billion.

AMD’s Shanghai Chip a Go

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:00:00 EST

The day after Intel slashed its guidance and told the press that “orders just died,” AMD, a company laboring under a really bad karma, said it’s started selling Shanghai, its first 45nm quad-core Opteron chip, a few months earlier than expected and plunk in the middle of an economic apocalypse. AMD, which is also trying to split itself into two parts, one manufacturing, one design, expects OEMs including IBM, Sun, HP and Dell to field 25 Shanghai-bearing server systems between now and the end of the year. The question is will anybody be left to buy them?

Cloud Computing Expo: Did You See Cassatt?

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:15:00 EST

LCD Companies Plead Guilty to Price Fixing

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:15:00 EST

LG, Sharp and Chunghwa have pled guilty to charges of fixing the price of LCD panels in defiance of the Sherman Antitrust Act and have agreed to pay $585 million in fines, the Justice Department said Wednesday. LG will pay $400 million, the second-highest criminal fine ever imposed by the DOJ’s Antitrust Division. Sharp will pay $120 million and Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd, a Taiwanese manufacturer, will pay $65 million.

Ex-Oracle Heavyweight Lands SaaS Uppercut to Larry’s Jaw

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST

John Wookey, who until a non-compete-suggestive 13 months ago ran Oracle’s applications development – you know, its crucial next-generation “stitch-$20-billion-together” Fusion program – has gone to work for Oracle’s hereditary enemy SAP. He has been named EVP of large enterprise on-demand, a yet-to-surface revenue-protecting Microsoft-style software-plus-services entity.

Lotus Goes into the Hardware Business

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 07:15:00 EST

IBM has found something else to do with Linux. Its Lotus software operation is going into the hardware business – it’s concocted a Linux-based server appliance for e-mail, calendaring and its OpenOffice-based Symphony software for SMBs called IBM Lotus Foundations Start.

Google a Shadow of Its Former Self

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:00:00 EST

Google, whose stock was worth $741 a share a year ago – and was touted as inevitably seeing $1,000 – hasn't been able to hold its head above $300 because of widespread fears of advertising collapsing. The stock slipped to a multi-year low today below $290, down ~7% in the midst of another 350 point drop in the Dow Jones. Google hasn't been below $300 since October of 2005.

Elastra Does Tomcat

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:00:00 EST

Elastra’s Cloud Server widgetry is supposed to eliminate manual processes and the complexity of managing application infrastructure and middleware in the cloud – without recourse to any time-consuming and error-prone scripting – and deliver a complete, scalable, pay-for-use application infrastructure environment that can be tailored to individual needs. It says it can elastically scale sophisticated application systems up and down based on computing needs and handle failover and replication.

Court Tells Ex-IBM Exec to Stop Working for Apple

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:00:00 EST

Well it appears that non-compete agreements may carry a bit more weight in New York than they do in California – at least to a judge right down the block from IBM headquarters. Steve Jobs’ pick to run Apple’s iPod and iPhone development has been told by a New York federal court that he can’t work there. Mark Papermaster only started working for Apple last Tuesday and on Friday Judge Kenneth Karas told him to “immediately cease his employment with Apple Inc until further order of this court.”

Cycle Computing to Exhibit at SYS-CON's Virtualization & Cloud Computing Expo

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:00:00 EST

SYS-CON Events announced today that the leading global Cloud Computing technology provider Cycle Computing to exhibit at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Conference & Expo (www.cloudcomputingexpo.com) 4th International Virtualization Conference & Expo, (www.virtualizationconference.com), which will take place November 19-21, 2008, at the Fairmont Hotel in the heart of Silicon Valley, in San Jose, California. Cycle Computing is the leading provider of Condor Grid and Cloud Solutions. We help Fortune 500s, SMBs, universities, and government agencies alike execute computation flexibly on internal grids and external clouds. Our end-to-end offerings include CycleServer management tools, training, 24/7 support services, CloudFS grid storage, and our CycleCloud elastic compute solution.

HP Backs into the Cloud

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:00:00 EST

HP has said it doesn’t want to be in the cloud business itself – merely sell gear to cloud makers – but it’s lined up with little Salesforce.com rival NetSuite – owned mostly by Larry Ellison – to offer NetSuite’s SaaS CRM and ERP applications to SMBs through its 15,000 US resellers. HP now has a referral program for its channel, which can offer their own value-added management and implementation services alongside the NetSuite widgetry as part of HP’s Total Care portfolio.

Cloud & Friends Need Honking Big Routers: Cisco

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:00:00 EST

Cisco has got a new “close to the user” edge router that can push 250,000 songs or 200 feature films a second. (Figure 6.4 terabytes a second.) The widget, which starts at $80,000 and reportedly took $200 million to develop, is called the Aggregation Services Router (ASR) 9000 Series and is designed to deliver Internet-scale non-stop video and reduce the carbon footprint.