Final the anti-Microsoft lobbyist conspiracy came out.
A lobbyist representing rivals of Microsoft tried to intimidate the Justice Department last fall as the agency moved to settle the landmark antitrust case against the company, a Justice Department antitrust official said Wednesday. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Deborah Majoras said the incident was part of a disturbing trend--companies spending more and more time lobbying antitrust enforcers to take action against their competitors. The anti-Microsoft lobbyist "threatened that if we did not do as his clients wished we could count on the fact that we would never again get anymore help from Silicon Valley in any investigation we did in the future," Majoras said at a telecommunications industry conference.
Lawyers for Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O and the Justice Department recommended on Thursday that a federal judge hold a one-day hearing in early March to discuss their proposed settlement of the landmark antitrust case. In a status report to U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the two sides said the hearing should not include arguments by outside parties, some of whom would argue against the settlement.
In the report filed with U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the Justice Department said it had received 30,000 responses, 1,250 unrelated to the case. Roughly half the comments were against the settlement, 7,500 were in favor of the deal, and 7,000 expressed no sentiment either way.
Kollar-Kotelly must carefully deal with two different cases starting on parallel paths but winding toward different destinations. The settlement, which would span five years, calls for some restrictions on Microsoft's business practices under the review of a three-member oversight committee.
Both Gray and Stanton are convinced Kollar-Kotelly will hold off ruling on the settlement until after she concludes the remedy hearing in ongoing litigation. Microsoft and the non-settling states go back to court March 11 for a hearing, from which the judge will craft a remedy. But given the number of witnesses scheduled to appear, that proceeding could wind on for a month or more.
Intel has pulled in the launch of mobile processors using the Pentium 4 .13 micron core to April, we can reveal today. While it will launch the product at speeds of 1.70GHz, with clock rates rising to 2GHz for notebook based Pentium 4s by the end of this year, shortly after introduction it will release a 1.80GHz Pentium 4-M.
Roadmaps seen by the Inquirer show that the 1.80GHz Pentium 4-M will be the top performer in this category throughout the second and third quarters of this year, but in calender quarter four, Intel will release a 2GHz mobile chip.
Java creator Sun Microsystems has cancelled plans to join a Web Services alliance formed by Microsoft and IBM. The last minute revelation came just hours before Microsoft and IBM officially announced the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) Wednesday, which includes a diverse group of competitive companies, including Accenture, BEA, Fujitsu Business Systems, Hewlett-Packard (HP), IBM, Intel, Oracle Corporation, and SAP. The alliance aims to create interoperability standards for Web services.
So much for Oracle's Unbreakable Database!
A security researcher will detail a bevy of software flaws in Oracle's flagship database at the Black Hat Windows Security Briefings in New Orleans on Friday, busting up the company's promise that the program is "unbreakable". The security problems, found by U.K. security researcher David Litchfield in December, include a serious software slip-up that could let hackers take control of corporate servers loaded with the database program.
"This is a very serious problem for organizations that rely on Oracle," Litchfield said in a statement Wednesday. "Those that don't take steps to protect themselves will be left open to severe attacks such as data theft or modification."
Tomorrow, computing giants and sometime-competitors IBM and Microsoft will announce an alliance aimed at creating a Web-services standard. The alliance--called the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WSIO)--hopes to make it easier for businesses and consumers to do business over the Web using lightweight, XML-based Web services and several computing platforms.
Aside from competitive concerns, another issue that could affect the alliance is the debate about underlying technologies. Microsoft and its allies push Microsoft .NET as the foundation for Web services; Sun and other Microsoft rivals prefer Java. But Web services can operate outside of these technologies and allow for interoperability, which was probably a key factor in getting these companies to work together.
Intel's "hyper-threading" technology for boosting chip performance will debut soon with its first server versions of the Pentium 4 chip, the chipmaker said Wednesday. Hyper-threading makes a single CPU act in some ways like two chips, but because there's still only one patch of high-speed cache memory and one connection to the rest of the computer, performance isn't the same as with a true dual-processor server.
Hyper-threading will appear later this quarter on two models of Intel's Xeon chip, a close relative of the Pentium 4 that has various improvements geared for high-end networked server computers. The first Xeon, for lower-end systems, is code-named Prestonia and works in two-processor servers; the second, code-named Foster MP, is for more powerful multiprocessor models, said Shannon Poulin, marketing manager for Intel's enterprise systems.
Microsoft released Tuesday a beta version of a tool that converts Java applications into Microsoft Corp.'s new programming environment for building .Net applications.
The latest release in Microsoft's JUMP to .Net strategy aims to lure Java developers to Microsoft's Visual Studio.Net development tool, which will officially launch next Wednesday. JUMP stands for Java User Migration Path.
Microsoft Game Studios today announced the development of "Whacked!" the latest addition to the award-winning lineup of titles for the Microsoft Xbox video game system. Developed by Presto Studios Inc., "Whacked!" will feature fast and furious combat in which eight demented contestants are pitted against each other in the world's most irreverent and dangerous game show. When contestants take the stage, all hell breaks loose as free-for-all combat ensues. Contestants must use power-ups and zany weapons such as giant staplers and rubber ducky grenades to flatten their opponents and win a grand prize that's out of this world. "Whacked!" is slated for release in fall 2002.