Promising to reduce the time and hassle involved in setting up large databases, Unisys on Monday will announce a line of servers that come pre-configured with software and hardware from Microsoft, EMC, Veritas and others.
The ES7000 servers are based on Intel processors and will run Microsoft's Windows Datacenter Server and its SQL Server database. The idea is to make it easier for organizations to deploy a large database as a "ready to run" package rather than by assembling the systems piece by piece, Unisys said in a statement.
The configurations on offer will be for workloads ranging from 7,000 to 27,000 concurrent users, with a storage capacity ranging from 1 terabyte to 9 terabytes, according to the statement. Information about pricing and when the systems would be available was not immediately available, and Unisys could not be reached late Friday.
U.S. District Judge Frederick Motz has signaled that antitrust plaintiffs who filed recent private lawsuits against the software giant might be able to use findings from the government's earlier case, according to published reports.
Microsoft, however, said that many of the facts determined by Jackson were voided by the appeals court ruling when it narrowed the company's antitrust liability. "The question is how and to what extent it is proper to extend the findings of the DOJ case to cases brought by other parties, covering different markets, different claims, different time periods," said Jim Desler, a Microsoft spokesman.
Motz did not set a date for when he would rule on the motion. While the trial for the class-action suits is set for sometime in April, no dates have been set for the software makers' lawsuits.
Microsoft on Thursday launched a new version of its instant chat software MSN Messenger, which offers parental controls and other features only for paid subscribers of MSN 8. The Redmond, Wash.-based company made the upgrade of MSN Messenger 5 widely available on Friday. The free version includes such features as a new member directory, customizable news, and spam-blocking controls. As previously reported, for MSN 8 subscribers, the tool lets parents monitor and regulate children's IM use and enables people using different computers to surf the Web together.
The new IM software coincides with Microsoft's marketing push for MSN 8, an upgrade to its proprietary Web software that was introduced publicly Thursday. The company is spending $300 million to advertise the revamped technology in heated competition with AOL Time Warner's America Online unit, which debuted its newest software, AOL 8.0, last week.
Microsoft watchers and industry analysts have noted, something doesn't add up with Longhorn. Microsoft's top brass have taken to referring to Longhorn as a 2005 technology (despite the fact that the leaked screen shots still label the product as "Windows 2004"). But remember: Software Assurance licensees of Microsoft products are expecting some kind of Windows upgrade by 2004, given Microsoft's commitment to upgrade its products within a three-year window.
Developers inside Microsoft have told some developers outside the company that an interim upgrade of Windows--at least for client systems--is one option that Redmond is considering, regardless of what the guys at the top are promising.
The antitrust investigation into Microsoft is ongoing, but a preliminary ruling should be made before the end of the year, a top European Commission official said on Friday. "The investigation team is still examining concerns on issues such as tying in of related products," said Director General of Competition Philip Lowe.
The Commission, the executive body of the European Union, had accused Microsoft of tying products such as its Media Player into the sale of its Windows operating systems. By tying, or bundling, Media Player and other software with its market-dominating operating system, Microsoft could essentially force users to buy non-Windows software, and potentially thwart competitors in, for example, the applications market, the Commission suggested.
Freedom Scientific announced Thursday a compact version of its screen reader technology in a battery-powered, lightweight, 10-inch form factor. The PAC Mate mobile device will give the blind access to Microsoft Outlook and all Pocket PC applications. The unit also comes with a carrying case that will allow a user to wear the device while accessing applications. There are two versions, one using a QWERTY keyboard and the other a standard Braille keyboard. In either form, the front cover opens to allow access to the keyboard while a user is wearing it.
A federal judge in Baltimore said yesterday that he will apply some earlier antitrust findings against Microsoft Corp. to newer lawsuits by AOL Time Warner, Sun Microsystems and two other corporate rivals, easing but not eliminating their burden of proof. Baltimore judge, who is also hearing antitrust cases brought by more than 60 private plaintiffs against Microsoft, approved only the principle that the prior rulings can be applied to the current cases, Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said.
Motz didn't rule on which of the prior findings, which are actually 412 facts about the case determined by U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in June 2000, could be applied to new cases. The number of those facts that remain relevant was cut back, Desler maintains, when a federal appeals court in June 2001 partially reversed Jackson, upholding Microsoft's antitrust liability but on narrower grounds than Jackson's.
Customer relationship management software maker Pivotal Corp. saw software license revenues nearly cut in half in the most recent quarter. And like sometime rival Siebel Systems Inc., which is also plagued by falling license revenues, Pivotal is turning to Microsoft Corp. to help boost sales. To help spur revenue growth, Pivotal announced Thursday an extension of its relationship with Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash.,, including new demand generation initiatives for the healthcare and contact center markets. The companies will go to market together with combined solutions targeting mid-enterprise CRM (customer relationship management) in those verticals.
Microsoft may not be a media company, but the company pulled out all the entertainment stops to launch its MSN 8 Internet-access software and service here on Thursday. Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates announced at the Central Park roll-out that Walt Disney and Microsoft are launching a co-branded "Disney on MSN" Internet service. Disney Chairman and CEO Michael Eisner appeared briefly on stage at the MSN 8 launch event to announce the deal. Eisner emphasized the "family-safe" appeal of MSN 8 as one of the main elements that helped convince Disney to throw its lot in with MSN. Disney signed its first deal with MSN a year ago for ESPN content for MSN.
Two titans of their industries, The Walt Disney and Microsoft, on Thursday banded together to launch a family friendly Web service in a challenge to AOL's leading role as an Internet service provider. By pairing up with Disney in the new service called Disney on MSN, Microsoft's new MSN 8 service gains access to the Walt Disney's movie properties like hit film "Monsters Inc.," ABC broadcast TV network, ABC News, ESPN cable TV sports channel, and Radio Disney. The new service will offer items such as parental controls and new start-up pages for kids that are filled with Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, as well as a separate start page for adults, the companies said.