Advanced Micro Devices' "Hammer" processor will contain up to about 100 million transistors, according to sources. A chip with that many transistors is currently considered unusual. But when Hammer chips emerge in the first half of 2003, processors of that complexity will become increasingly common. That's because designers are increasing the size of caches, which are reservoirs of memory located on the processor for rapid data access, and adding other features.
Details of AMD's forthcoming chip have been leaking out. The largest version of Hammer, for instance, will have 1MB of secondary cache, as well as an integrated memory controller for connecting the processor to a PC's memory, according to the company. Currently, memory controllers mostly sit on their own piece of silicon.
Microsoft Corp. said Tuesday that it will launch a program early next year aimed at easing the financial burden for small- and medium-sized companies that sign multi-year contracts to license its software. Called Open Value, the licensing program will allow some customers to spread out software payments over a period of three years when purchasing products such as the Windows operating system and Microsoft Office. It is comparable to "zero-down" financing, a Microsoft spokeswoman said Tuesday in an e-mail.
Microsoft said Open Value will be available in North America in early 2003. Eligible customers are those with anywhere from five to 250 PCs, the spokeswoman said.
As was the case with 2G (digital) and 2.5G (high-speed) phones and with the Bluetooth standard, European consumers are once again the first at the high-tech buffet with the launch of Microsoft Smartphone software in conjunction with wireless carrier Orange. According to Microsoft, U.S. GSM/GPRS carriers (AT&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless, and T-Mobile USA) will have the chance to launch their own Smartphone devices next year; AT&T Wireless has announced plans for a mid-2003 launch. The Smartphone operating system, which is similar to the Microsoft Pocket PC operating system, runs versions of Microsoft Photo Messenger, Pocket Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, and Outlook-compatible PIM applications.
As software grows larger, ways to test that software need to keep pace. Microsoft's Programmer Productivity Research Center has developed a way to use binary comparisons between two versions of a compiled program to infer which software tests should be run on it.
"We built a test prioritization system," said Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Amitabh Srivastava. "The idea is very simple. You may have tens of millions of lines of source code, but you don't change them all," Srivastava said. "When every test is run, we put probes into the program and store [the test coverage map] into a repository. ... If you give me two versions of kernel32.dll, I can tell you what's changed. Now I know which parts of the program [the tests] are covering, and I prioritize the tests."
Despite the best efforts of Sun, Oracle and others to shift the strategic center of Internet computing to the heart of the network, it is becoming increasingly clear that the real battleground for control of the next generation of computing will take place at the periphery - which of course is the home turf of their arch-rival Microsoft.
Now that XML and related Web services standards such as SOAP are beginning to bring the vision closer to reality, we are beginning to discover the flaw in those early assumptions. It turns out that network computing is even less hierarchical than the previous client-server generation. Instead of being sucked into the center, computing is distributed more evenly throughout the network, and it makes much more sense for peripheral devices to connect to multiple resources on demand rather than tying them to a single controlling master resource.
Analysts at Aberdeen Group say the evidence of the last 10 months shows that the popular wisdom about Microsoft security -- that it's the worst -- may be outdated. Aberdeen concludes that "Microsoft overhauled its entire software development process to fix its security problems, and its effort appears to be working. Perhaps it is time for some of the suppliers of open source and Linux software to take similar measures.
- Out of 29 total Cert advisories in 2002, 16 affected Linux and 16 affected Unix. Only 7 affected Microsoft products.
- Virus and trojan horse advisories affecting Microsoft products plummeted from 6 last year to 0 in the first 10 months of this year.
Dell Computer Corp. this week delivered on an earlier promise to begin shipping blade servers. It is immediately offering a 3U enclosure that packs as many as 12 processors.
The Dell 1655MC starts at $3,298 for an enclosure and one server blade. The enclosure can fit up to six server blades, which share common power supplies, cooling fans, management cards and network switches.
Randy Groves, vice president of Dell's Enterprise Systems Group, says the "design will address issues our data center customers face, reducing cables by up to 80 percent and rack space by nearly 50 percent." Dell officials also contend the common components that the blades share throughout the enclosure saves nearly 30 percent in costs. Dell offers the new servers with Pentium III processors and Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows 2000 Server.
According to a new report by the Aberdeen Group, open source solution Linux has surpassed Windows as the most vulnerable operating system, contrary to the high-profile press Microsoft gets for its security woes. Furthermore, the Aberdeen Group reports that over 50 percent of all security advisories issued by the Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert) in the first ten months of 2002 were for Linux and other open source software solutions, which muddles the argument that proprietary software such as Windows is inherently less secure than open solutions. And here's another kicker to the status quo: Proprietary UNIX solutions were responsible for just as many security advisories as Linux in the same time period. Could Windows actually be the most secure mainstream OS available today?
The idea of the Tablet PC has been received with everything from mild enthusiasm to wild derision. The reality, of course, is somewhere in between-with more to like than would appear at first glance. eWeek Labs recently put six Tablet PC systems to the enterprise test and found that at least some Tablet PCs are worth considering as notebook replacements. We don't think the first systems in this current generation of pen-enabled notebooks are going to cause a procurement stampede, but we do believe they'll make up a significant chunk of sales in the near future, despite an economy that causes people to eschew anything viewed as a luxury.
There are two general kinds of Tablet PCs: the slate model, which has no built-in keyboard, and a clamshell design (also called a convertible), which is more of a notebook replacement. All the slate devices we looked at include USB (Universal Serial Bus) keyboards, and most feature a stand so that the Tablet can be viewed in traditional monitor form.
Hewlett-Packard has teamed up with Microsoft to improve the communications features for PCs, capitalizing on an emerging industry trend. The two companies are working on a device--code-named Agora--that improves the real-time communications features of PCs, such as video conferencing and voice telephony. A prototype of the device is in the early stages of development.
HP is focusing on the hardware, which includes a flat-panel monitor, speakers, and modular bay and expansion ports. It will also have wireless networking capabilities. HP demonstrated the device at Comdex last week, but the company does not plan on selling it until 2004. It has not announced pricing plans.