HP on Wednesday began shipping a new two-way ProLiant server that shows how far the Windows/Intel/industry-standard hardware bloc has come. The new ProLiant ML350 G3 posted benchmark results on the Transaction Processing Performance Council's OLTP measure, the TPC-C, of 39,0006.54 tpmC. That two-way performance is nearly equivalent to the capability of eight-way servers running Windows NT in the early days of Intel's Profusion chipset in 1999.
The HP system used Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition and 2.8-GHz Intel Xeon processors. Previously, the HP ProLiant ML350 G3 shipped with 2.4-GHz Xeons.
AMD bumped up the performance of its Athlon XP line this week with the release of its 3200+ model. The company's top-of-the-line 32-bit desktop processor includes a new 400-MHz front-side bus (FSB). AMD continues to hammer home its long-running theme that clockspeed cycles, the measure Intel uses to differentiate the performance of its latest chips, are meaningless.
"Many PC purchasers today are realizing that what they ultimately want is quicker software application response, and that often isn't provided by simply increasing processor speed," Toni Duboise, desktop PC industry analyst at ARS, said in a statement provided for AMD's announcement. "With improved architectural enhancements such as faster bus speeds, customers can get better performance from their software applications and that means a more enjoyable computer experience."
The U.S. Department of Justice and state attorneys general that are plaintiffs in the government's antitrust case against Microsoft must file reports every six months detailing what the software maker is doing to comply with a final judgment in the case, District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled Wednesday. The first report is due July 3.
The report is also to include a description of complaints received in the prior six months by Microsoft, plaintiffs or the technical committee set up to oversee implementation of the final judgment provisions. Information on complaints about compliance must include the number and types of complaints, how many have been resolved, how many that are unresolved are not yet being investigated, how many are still under investigation and the number of complaints that had no merit.
In a surprise move, Microsoft on Wednesday reduced the price of its Xbox video game console by 10 percent. The software giant said it is aiming for a broader audience with the machine, which now costs $179.99 in the United States, down from $199. "Our commitment to the consumer is to offer the best system at the best price," Robbie Bach, chief Xbox officer at Microsoft's home and entertainment division, said in a statement.
Some analysts didn't expect price cuts until the fall, when companies traditionally try to rev up sales as the holiday season approaches. Microsoft didn't mention the price cuts during a press conference Monday night, when it unveiled the first non-game application for the console. At the event, held in advance of this week's Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show in Los Angeles, the company introduced the Xbox Music Mixer, a $40 package of PC and Xbox software that will allow owners to transfer digital music and photos from their computers to the console's hard drive.
After years of bitter battles with the Object Management Group, Microsoft may be poised to rejoin the consortium to make use of the OMG's architecture expertise. Unisys Corp. has been brokering a thaw in the relationship between Microsoft and the Needham, Mass., standards body that had become strained while Microsoft was still a member of the group, said sources. The two sides effectively parted ways in the late 1990s over the OMG's support for Common Object Request Broker Architecture, which competed with Microsoft's Component Object Model for a standard distributed computing model.
Where has one of the world's biggest software vendors been - and where is it going - on the hardware front. When you think of hardware, you seldom think of Microsoft. But there is a fairly 200-person hardware team operating inside the company. May 2 marked the 20th anniversary of this hardware division. We asked Matt Barlow, Microsoft hardware director for worldwide marketing/business development a few questions about where the division's been and where it's going.
The most powerful synergy in Microsoft's technology portfolio is between its powerful platform services and its reasonably priced, highly capable tools. Wooing developers with seductive ease of use, Microsoft's tools then pave a path of least resistance toward the adoption of each new wave of Windows features. Visual Studio .Net 2003, slated for release the same week as Microsoft Server 2003, walks hand-in-hand with that platform to help buyers discover its benefits for distributed service deployment.
The SCO Group, arguably, isn't making many friends in the Linux camp these days. Last month it filed a $1 billion lawsuit against IBM for allegedly misusing Unix code to bolster Linux efforts. SCO owns Unix System V code, which IBM had licensed to build AIX. SCO now acknowledges it may extend its legal activities to Linux distributors SuSE Linux and Red Hat, and doesn't rule out action against users of the open source operating system.
Chris Sontag, senior vice president and general manager of SCOsource, the SCO division in charge of managing and protecting the company's Unix intellectual property, spoke with IDGNS about SuSE, UnitedLinux, IBM and Linux users. His overall message is that Linux developers, distributors and customers are using code that doesn't belong to them and if they don't settle up with the Lindon, Utah-based software company, they can expect to see their day in court.
Two days before the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) kicks off in Los Angeles, Microsoft announced a bevy of upcoming game titles and its Digital Entertainment Lifestyle initiative for the Xbox, the number two video game console. During a media briefing, the software giant said Monday that these new games--which include 50 titles being published this holiday season alone--and its successful Xbox Live online game service, with over 500,000 subscribers, demonstrate that the oft-maligned Xbox is not only alive and well but thriving.
SQL Server 2000 is a complicated and expensive product to test. An economical alternative is to build a clustered testing environment using VMware. SQL Server 2000 is a robust and complicated product, especially when you are using it in a clustered setup. Properly deploying and managing it requires a reliable testing environment, but that can be costly. An economical alternative is to build a clustered SQL 2000 testing environment using VMware.
I'm going to walk you through the process of installing SQL Server in a VMware configuration. I'll begin by explaining how SQL Server works with clustering. Then, I'll give you a tutorial on the installation process.