WinInsider

Notebooks passed the 3GHz mark on Wednesday. The increase in speed comes courtesy of a new 3.06GHz mobile Pentium 4 chip, introduced as part of a volley of new processors fired off by Intel. As previously reported, the latest mobile Pentium 4, part of a new family of four chips, marks a change in focus for the notebook version of the P4. The 3.06GHz chip and its siblings, which run at 2.4GHz, 2.66GHz and 2.8GHz, were created for larger, weightier, more performance-oriented notebooks. The chips offer higher clock speeds and lower prices than their predecessors in the Pentium 4-M line.

Microsoft later this month will unveil the next version of its handheld operating system, as hardware partners new and old line up with devices using the OS. The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant will debut Pocket PC 2003--code-named Ozone--on June 23, according to sources close to the company. The operating system is not expected to be a major revision of Pocket PC 2002, but it will include new features such as built-in support for wireless technologies Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The OS overhaul will occur in the next version of the operating system, code-named Magneto, due out next year.

Hewlett-Packard and Gateway are both expected to announce new products using Pocket PC 2003. Gateway, a newcomer to the handheld market, confirmed that it will release a midrange device using the OS on June 23.

Microsoft, IBM and Unisys unite to back Unisys' plan to bring .Net, J2EE and legacy code together to build a new breed of composite applications. Unisys wants to streamline how business applications will be built in the future, and is bringing together IBM and Microsoft to help achieve that goal. On Tuesday in New York City, Unisys' consulting division will unveil its so-called Business Blueprinting service, which the company claims will help companies develop apps more cheaply and quickly.

"Applications in the future probably won't be pure .Net, pure J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) or pure legacy code," explains Fred Dillman, vice president of technology architecture with Unisys' enterprise and transformation services unit.

Microsoft this week announced efforts to support development of XML-based Web sites in Office FrontPage 2003 and to extend SQL Server database capabilities to more than 50 proprietary databases and files. Part of the Microsoft Office System, FrontPage 2003, will serve as a WYSIWIG Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation Editor (XSLT) editor in which users can work with live data to develop interactive, dynamic Web sites, according to Microsoft. This streamlines the process of sharing information on the Web, according to the company.

With the WYSIWIG editor, users can build XML data-driven Web sites connecting to XML files, Web services, and OLE DB data sources, according to Microsoft. It is no longer necessary to program with server-side scripting tools such as the Visual Basic development system, Visual C#, or Visual Basic Scripting Edition or Java to develop data-driven Web sites, according to Microsoft.

Microsoft will launch its Pocket PC 2003 operating system on June 23, and Gateway and Hewlett-Packard will announce new PDAs (personal digital assistants) on the same date, according to sources familiar with the companies' plans Tuesday. The new version of Pocket PC will come with improved capabilities for detecting and maintaining wireless network connections, and better performance. It will also be optimized for Intel's XScale processors, according to an industry analyst.

Gateway will make its debut into the handheld market alongside the Pocket PC 2003 launch, another source said. The company has embarked upon a strategy to turn its fortunes around by emphasizing consumer electronics products in addition to its flagship PCs.

After years of playing with amateurs, Microsoft has decided to push its FrontPage Web-authoring software into the big leagues. The company on Tuesday announced details of FrontPage 2003, the next version of the package, slated to come out this summer. Other Office System products with which it works are also due later this year.

Previous versions of FrontPage have offered a light-duty Web editing tool useful for consumers and small businesses with a modest Web presence. The new version, however, is aimed squarely at the business world, with enhancements intended to appeal to professional Web designers and IT administrators. As with other portions of the upcoming Office 2003 family of software, the biggest changes in FrontPage revolve around Extensible Markup Language (XML), the rapidly gaining standard for sharing data among disparate computer systems.

The biggest threat facing open-source sensation Linux today isn't Windows and the voracious company that makes it, but an increasingly dangerous legal battle with the SCO Group, the owner of various copyrights, patents, and intellectual property for UNIX, the OS on which Linux is based. According to SCO, IBM and numerous other Linux makers and users are violating the law by using Linux because the OS includes code stolen from UNIX, and SCO is now suing IBM for $1 billion. The response from the Linux community thus far has been childish at best--one group responded by repeatedly attempting to hack into the SCO Web site, for example--but now that a handful of analysts have taken the opportunity to validate SCO's claims, the once-laughable lawsuit isn't causing chuckles anymore.

Microsoft on Tuesday announced plans to buy a little-known Romanian company's antivirus software technology for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition signals Microsoft's desire to move deeper into the security market and may mean trouble for the handful of big players in the AV arena.

The main product of GeCAD Software Srl., based in Bucharest, is RAV AntiVirus, which Microsoft plans to use in several different ways. The most interesting possibility is that Microsoft may integrate AV protection directly into Windows, obviating the need for third-party software.

Thanks to Ditto, our beta insider, I have been given the following beta info about Office System 2003 Beta 2 Technical Refresh...

Hello all,

Q. When can you expect to see the Office System 2003 Beta 2 Technical Refresh?
A. We haven't sent a specific date, but are targeting the last half of June for most languages. The languages are the same as Beta 2; English, French, German, and Japanese. Note The English-language version includes a multilingual user interface (MUI) pack for Chinese (simplified or traditional), Korean, Arabic, Japanese, and German.

Q. Will it be available via download or CD?
A. Downloads of update (patch) files will be available as the primary means of distribution. A limited number of CD kits will be available for IEP or OEP technical beta participants who cannot use the download option. However there can be issues with delivery to some worldwide locations and the CD's could take 2 or more weeks to arrive.

Q. How will the CDs be shipped?
A. Via express carrier (as was done in previous beta) Note: there are sometimes issues with rapid delivery in some worldwide locations.

Q. Should you continue testing with Beta 2?
A. Yes, we are still utilizing the data and feedback you are providing.

Q. When will you ship the final product?
A. We have not announced a ship date yet, but are still on track to finish the product in the late summer.

Q. How will the non Office products and be handled (ie, Windows Server 2003, Exchange 2003)?
A. The Office System 2003 Beta 2 Technical Refresh will provide updates to Office files. Updates to other products may be obtained through beta or trial evaluation programs specific to that product.

The Microsoft Office Team

When Jason Hunter joined Sun Microsystems' CEO Scott McNealy onstage at last year's JavaOne conference in San Francisco, it appeared that Java and the open source community were on the verge of a new era of cooperation. Hunter, an open source developer who had been leading an effort to standardize the Java XML (Extensible Markup Language) modeling libraries he had written, had discovered incompatibilities between the way Sun created Java standards and the open source Apache license that he used for his libraries. Because these incompatibilities existed between Java and all open source software licenses, they threatened to make it impossible for the Apache Foundation to continue to implement Java standards.

Over a year after his appearance at JavaOne, Hunter says he has abandoned his own Java standardization work, and critics are saying that the Java Community Process (JCP) that Sun uses to create Java standards is losing momentum as vendors finding success in defining their own de facto Java standards.