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Michael Wyman certainly doesn't want to knock his college education. But the 20-year-old senior at the University of Minnesota says the theory taught in classrooms can't touch the practical experience he gained earlier this year as an entrant in Microsoft's first Pocket PC Programming Competition for university students and again as an intern this summer for the Redmond-based software maker.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave an impassioned and upbeat assessment of the technology industry at The Industry Standard Summit here Monday, but said tech is still a long way from fulfilling its promise of transforming business and the lives of ordinary people. While technology has made important advances since the era of dumb terminals in the 1970s, computing today also is far more complex and doesn't allow people to perform simple daily functions, Ballmer said during the opening keynote address.

Oracle faced another competitive threat from one of its former executives Monday with the disclosure that Veritas Software and Microsoft are strengthening their ties in the e-business software market. Under the arrangement, Mountain View-based Veritas and Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft said they will work together to make Microsoft's database software and other e-business applications more attractive to potential customers. Veritas, which specializes in data management software, is run by Gary Bloom, Oracle's No. 3 executive until defecting late last year.

A flaw in widely used Unix software could allow attackers to gain control over computers running Solaris, HP-UX and several versions of Linux, security analysts and the company selling the software warned Monday. SSH Communications Security, a Finnish company, reported Monday that the latest edition of its SSH Secure Shell software, version 3.0.0, released June 21, can let an attacker gain control over some Unix or Linux computers. SSH is software designed to secure the text-based user interface--or "shell"--people use to remotely log in to computers and send them commands. SSH checks people's passwords and lets authorized individuals open and use the shell by way of an encrypted communications channel. The encryption prevents outsiders from intercepting the commands sent from computer to computer.

AOL Time Warner on Monday must give federal regulators a progress report detailing efforts to open its instant messaging networks to rivals, the first such filing required as a condition of the company's January merger. In advance of the report, the company on Friday said it is close to announcing a partner for testing links between its leading AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) service and other IM networks. As part of the test, AOL will use one of the proposed technologies submitted as a standard to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), an AOL spokesman added.

Commentary: AOL IM Plays hard to get

AOL - Barry Schuler Video

Barry Schuler are you ok, you look kind- of red.  Excuse me, Barry, but it seems that you never heard of Trillian and Odigo. Shows how much you know, and you are in instant messaging business, I think that you are a pencil-pusher.  And who's security are you worrying about, I think yours.  AOL IM goes down, they you are out of work. Barry, admit it, you are using MSN IM, it is ok, we all know it, MS IM is so much better. It is just a manner of time when MS takes over. Federal Communications Commission seems to be on AOL. So enjoy as it lasts, days are numbered.

Dell Computer, the world's biggest PC maker, joined with others in providing $30 million to Sanctum, the Internet security software maker said on Monday, stressing growing investor interest in products for stopping "application-level" hackers. A growing threat to corporate and government Web sites, application-level hackers exploit flaws in site software to use sites as vehicles for getting into back-office operations to steal data, change prices and disrupt transactions. Application-level hackers also exploit Web site software to disable sites.

Excite@Home reported on Monday a wider second-quarter loss that met analyst expectations even as revenue fell 7 percent from last year. Net operating loss for the quarter was $65.1 million, or 16 cents per share, on revenue of $138.6 million. That compares with a quarterly operating loss of $38.6 million, or 10 cents per share, on revenue of $148.7 million in the same period in 2000. Wall Street expected Excite@Home to lose 16 cents per share for the three-month period ended June 30, according to a survey of analysts by First Call.

Veritas Software has expanded a partnership with software giant Microsoft in a move expected to augment Veritas' customer base and be "incremental" to revenue, Veritas said Monday.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Veritas was built on storage-management products for Unix, an open-source operating system that runs computers and servers and competes with Microsoft's proprietary Windows system.

Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system now embeds technology from three Veritas storage-management products.

Yet another company has laid off its employees, about 10 percent of its staff. Soon there will no one left who will know what is linux, perhaps not.

German Linux seller SuSE has laid off about 10 percent of its staff--approximately 50 people in several German locations. Times are tough in the Linux market. Red Hat, the leading Linux company, achieved profitability--but with lowered revenue and $27.6 million in one-time charges. French Linux seller MandrakeSoft is trying its own initial public offering--but on an unregulated market. And VA Linux Systems is exiting the computer business to focus on software.