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Strong Microsoft results, but Vista sales lackluster

2007-07-20T13:00:00.000-07:00

Microsoft's $3.04 billion in net profit on $13.37 billion in revenue last quarter met Wall Street's expectations, and the company had full-year revenue of more than $50 billion for the first time in its history.

Beyond the big numbers, however, some analysts were underwhelmed by the financial performance of the company's most important product: the new Windows Vista operating system.

"Vista appears to be disappointing," said Israel Hernandez, analyst with Lehman Brothers, noting that revenue growth for the Windows Client division was below his expectations and at the low end of Microsoft's previous guidance.

"I think it missed most Street expectations. ... One quarter after the biggest product cycle in the company's history, you'd think you'd see a little more upside," Hernandez said.

Sarah Friar, analyst with Goldman Sachs — which does investment-banking business with Microsoft, as does Lehman Brothers — repeated those sentiments in a note to investors after Microsoft reported its fiscal fourth-quarter results Thursday: "Client revenue of $3.8 billion (up 14 percent year-over-year) was slightly shy of our $3.9 billion estimate — somewhat surprising given recent data on PC growth."

Worldwide PC shipments in the three months ended June 30 grew at a faster-than-expected pace of 12.5 percent, according to market researcher IDC.

Microsoft's fourth-quarter profit was up 7.3 percent from the same period a year ago, but the results could have been better. The company took a one-time $749 million charge against its net profit — 8 cents a share — related to hardware problems and an associated warranty extension, announced July 5, on the company's Xbox 360 video-game console.

Earnings per share, accounting for the charge, were 31 cents, up from 28 cents last year. Not including the charge, earnings per share came in at 39 cents, matching the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Financial.

After-hours drop

Ahead of the earnings announcement, Microsoft stock gained 59 cents, or 1.9 percent, to close at a 52-week high of $31.51 in regular trading. Investors bid shares back down to $30.90 in the after-hours market.

Microsoft's core businesses performed well in the fourth quarter:

Server and Tools grew revenue 14.5 percent and had $1.05 billion in operating profit. The Microsoft Business Division, which produces its other major product, Office 2007, turned in revenue growth in the quarter of 18.6 percent and operating profit of nearly $3 billion.

The Online Services business, where Microsoft competes most directly with Google, saw advertising revenue in the quarter increase 33 percent to $544 million.

The business still lost $239 million, and Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said that will continue to be the case.

"Realistically, next year is going to continue to be a year of investment, and that means losses," he said in an interview. "But directionally, getting the revenue momentum ... is obviously good news."

While Vista so far didn't dazzle, analysts saw reasons for optimism in other parts of Microsoft's report. Company management did, too, prompting them to increase guidance for the 2008 fiscal year, which began July 1.

"In '08, we are looking to deliver another year of double-digit revenue, operating income and earnings-per-share growth," Liddell said in a conference call Thursday.

The company said the money-losing Entertainment and Devices Division, responsible for the Xbox 360, could see revenue grow between 10 and 19 percent in fiscal 2008, the first year it is expected to show a profit.

Asked why the division may have such a wide variance, Liddell said it was, in part, a strategic move, given the highly competitive game-console business.

Speculation has swirled around whether Microsoft would lower the price of the Xbox 360.

"We have a pricing strategy for the next 12 to 24 months," Liddell said. "... At this stage, we're keeping relatively quiet about that because from a competitive point of view we really don't want to signal anything."

In the longer term, businesses look to be preparing for broader adoption of Vista and the other major new products. The company said the renewal rate for multiyear corporate software-licensing agreements was above its historical high of 75 percent.

Companies essentially pay an annual fee to gain upgrade rights to any new software Microsoft produces, covered under a given enterprise agreement.

"It gives [Microsoft] plenty of visibility in terms of the demand for their products," said Sid Parakh, technology analyst at McAdams Wright Ragen in Seattle.

"It also reinforces their confidence in whatever new products are being built."

New products due in the coming year include an update to Windows Server and to the SQL Server business-database software.

The company is also at work on a service pack for Vista, though it has been mum on the precise timing of its release.

Liddell said that while overall business spending on IT appears relatively stable from Microsoft's perspective, the company is winning a "higher share of the wallet from some of our customers."

"We're seeing a really healthy and encouraging trend from just being a desktop-software provider to being much more of an infrastructure provider to enterprises," he said.

He credited Microsoft's internal sales force and its third-party partners — the system builders and business consultants that generate much of the company's sales — for the trend and for the high enterprise-agreement renewal rate.

Their efforts came at a cost. Operating expenses, excluding cost of revenues, increased 13 percent, driven by employment costs and sales support for partners.

Hiring slowdown

Liddell suggested Microsoft's employment growth will slow down in the coming year. The company had 76,539 employees globally as of February; about 46 percent work in the Puget Sound region.

Liddell said employment growth in the fiscal fourth quarter was about 10 percent, down from the "mid-teens" six to 12 months ago.

Bob Toomey, chief equity strategist at EK Riley Investments, said he doesn't expect that to have much impact on a Seattle-area economy that is "starting to simmer down."

"I still think 10 percent is healthy growth and I still see Microsoft as a growth engine for our economy, even though they're slowing their growth rate down a little bit," said Toomey, who owns Microsoft shares.

Facebook's First Acquisition: a 'Web Operating System' Parakey

2007-07-20T12:58:00.000-07:00

Straight from TechCrunch, Facebook has made its first acquisition with Parakey, the "web operating system" created by Mozilla co-founders Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt.

Its CEO having recently cooled speculation of an IPO or potential sale, this move suggests Facebook has indeed set sights on becoming more than just a pretty web property.

Parakey is a big step for web-based apps. Yet to launch, it can manipulate just about everything on a computer's hard drive and automatically synchronize any work done offline.

There are rumors that Google was a bidder, but it could not compete with Facebook's pre-IPO stock.

IBM Launches First Open Beta Program for Industry-Leading UNIX Operating System

2007-07-12T11:22:00.000-07:00

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the first-ever open beta program for AIX, the company's open standards-based UNIX operating system. This latest edition, AIX 6, exploits the technology of the recently announced POWER6 microprocessor, the world's fastest chip, leveraging advances in energy conservation and virtualization technology.

AIX runs on IBM's System p UNIX servers, based on POWER technology. This latest release of the AIX operating system is being designed to deliver new capabilities for virtualization, security, near continuous availability, and manageability, Some of the key features IBM is planning for AIX 6 include:

-- Workload Partitions, a software-based virtualization technology that
reduces the number of operating system images that have be managed when
consolidating workloads to increase energy efficiency and reduce costs;
-- Live Application Mobility, a way to relocate running Workload
Partitions between servers without restarting the application, causing
minimal disruption for the end user;
-- Role Based Access Control, a security enhancement that enables
administrators to grant authorization for management of specific AIX
resources to users;
-- A variety of features designed to improve the manageability and
continuous availability of the operating system and applications.

AIX leadership

AIX leads in customer server and application investment protection in three ways. First, AIX 6 will run on IBM systems based on POWER4, PowerPC 970, POWER5, and IBM's latest POWER6 processors, allowing customers to protect their investment in existing hardware and yet take advantage of new features and technology in AIX 6 like Workload Partitions for enhanced application virtualization. And AIX 6 will fully exploit the capabilities of IBM's newest benchmark-leading UNIX midrange server, the IBM System p 570 -- based on POWER6 technology -- which was just announced in May and began shipping last month.

Secondly, AIX 6 is being designed to be fully binary compatible with previous releases of AIX 5L providing investment protection for customer and ISV applications written for previous releases of AIX two levels back, including AIX 5.2 and 5.3. Full information on the binary compatibility of AIX 6 can be found at ibm.com/servers/aix/os/compatibility/.

And lastly, using IBM Advanced POWER Virtualization (APV), customers can run Linux applications natively in one or more logical partitions running SUSE Linux Enterprise or Red Hat Enterprise Linux integrated with AIX applications on the same physical System p server.

"AIX 6 is a significant technical achievement in the evolution of this world-class UNIX operating system, providing both investment protection by allowing existing AIX apps to run unmodified as well as allowing those apps to take advantage of new virtualization technologies that will provide business value to our clients." said Scott Handy, IBM vice president of worldwide marketing and strategy for System p.

"Many of our current AIX clients are excited about and will use the open beta to gain early experience with the new features provided by AIX 6, speeding their time to value after general availability in November. Combined with our try-and-buy program for System p servers, the open beta will help accelerate the adoption of AIX 6 with new clients."

The beta program is open to all users, and is designed to provide clients and independent software vendors (ISVs) with early access to the AIX 6 operating system. Current AIX clients can participate in the beta by visiting ibm.com/aix and following the links to the open beta web page at http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/aix/6/beta.html. The beta code is packaged as multiple CD-ROM or DVD ISO images that may be burned by the beta participants.

IBM plans to make AIX 6 generally available during the fourth quarter of 2007.

About AIX

AIX is IBM's premier open standards-based UNIX operating system. Available for more than 20 years, AIX has become the leading UNIX operating system in the world.

AIX, in combination with IBM's Virtualization offerings, provides customers with new levels of flexibility and performance. AIX delivers high levels of security, integration, flexibility and reliability -- essential for meeting the demands of today's information technology environments. AIX operates on the IBM System p(TM), BladeCenter®, IntelliStation® POWER(TM), and System i5(TM) platforms, as well as predecessor IBM UNIX products, including the IBM RS/6000® server and workstation product lines.

About IBM

For more information, please visit ibm.com.

IBM is a trademark of IBM Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other company/product names and service marks may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries licensed exclusively through The Open Group. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Beta programs contain pre-release code that is still under test and development. These programs may be modified substantially before IBM makes them generally available. All statements regarding IBM's future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only.

Contact information:
Rick Bause
IBM Media Relations
845-892-5463
rbause@us.ibm.com

Microsoft Will Alter Vista Operating System

2007-06-22T12:23:00.000-07:00

The changes are in response to a complaint by Google that a feature of the operating system is anticompetitive.

WASHINGTON, June 19 — Microsoft has agreed to make changes to its Windows Vista operating system in response to a complaint by Google that a feature of Vista is anticompetitive, lawyers involved in the case said on Tuesday.

The settlement, reached in recent days by state prosecutors, the Justice Department and Microsoft, averted the prospect of litigation over a complaint by Google that Vista had been designed to frustrate computer users who want to use software other than Microsoft’s to search through files on their hard drives.

Google had made its complaint confidentially as part of the consent decree proceedings set up to monitor Microsoft for any anticompetitive conduct after it settled a landmark antitrust lawsuit five years ago that had been brought by the states and the Clinton administration.

The federal government and the states were planning to file a joint status report by midnight on Tuesday in the consent decree proceedings that outlined the changes Microsoft would be making to Vista. State and federal lawyers were exchanging drafts of the report Tuesday evening. They said they had reached agreement on a remedy, although there was still some disagreement over the report’s language. The disagreement reflected tensions between the Justice Department, which initially sided with Microsoft in the dispute, and some of the states, which have supported Google and advocated a more aggressive stance.

Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut attorney general, said Tuesday evening that he had not decided whether Connecticut would sign on to the settlement, although most of the other states were comfortable with the agreement. He said that he was continuing to press the Justice Department to permit Google and other competitors of Microsoft to participate in a hearing on the matter next week. He added that as a result of pressure from the states, the Bush administration had taken a position closer to that of the states that found merit in Google’s complaint.

“The Justice Department has moved and so has Microsoft,” Mr. Blumenthal said.

Executives at Microsoft and Google declined to comment before the report was filed with the court. Google has sought to keep a low profile in the dispute, in part because the Federal Trade Commission has recently opened a preliminary antitrust investigation into Google’s proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick, an online advertising company.

Lawyers involved in the proceeding said the changes to Vista would allow consumers to decide which desktop search program they want to use, and that selecting software from Google or some other company would no longer slow down the computer as it does now. They said that as part of the settlement, Microsoft would let Vista users know how to change their desktop search program. But the settlement would not require Microsoft to make all the changes that Google had sought.

The settlement closes another contentious chapter in the long-running antitrust proceedings involving Microsoft, which have been marked by tension between federal and state prosecutors.

In a letter sent to state prosecutors early last month, Thomas O. Barnett, the Justice Department’s top antitrust lawyer, had urged the rejection of Google’s complaint, state officials said. Google had circulated a white paper outlining its complaint to federal and state prosecutors a few weeks earlier.

But the Justice Department reversed course after state attorneys general reacted angrily to Mr. Barnett’s letter and said they would proceed against Microsoft without the Justice Department. The change in position was a rare recent instance in which the Justice Department’s antitrust division toughened its position in response to pressure from the states.

State officials said they were angered by Mr. Barnett’s letter in large part because before he joined the Justice Department, he had been the vice chairman of the antitrust department at Covington & Burling, a law firm that represented Microsoft and played a central role in settling the antitrust case. While at Covington, Mr. Barnett did not work on the antitrust case, although he did represent Microsoft in other matters.

During his first year at the Justice Department, and for several months as the head of the antitrust division, Mr. Barnett avoided working on any Microsoft matters. Officials said he has worked on the case since he received permission from government ethics officials. But state officials said his letter supporting Microsoft was the first time they knew of his involvement in the case.

Desktop search programs have become popular as the volume of information stored on personal computers has multiplied. The big money in the fight between Google, Microsoft and Yahoo is over advertising revenue from Web search engines. But desktop search programs help to build loyalty toward a particular search company.

Google maintained that its desktop search program, available as a free download, was slowed by an equivalent feature that is built into Vista. When the Google and Microsoft search programs run simultaneously, their indexing programs slow the operating system considerably, Google contends. As a result, Google has said that Vista violated Microsoft’s 2002 antitrust settlement, which prohibits Microsoft from designing operating systems that limit the choices of consumers.

Microsoft has replied that Vista was in compliance with the consent decree and that the company had already made many modifications to the operating system, including some that had been sought by Google. In a recent interview, Bradford L. Smith, the general counsel at Microsoft, said that the new operating system was carefully designed to work well with software products made by other companies, and that an independent technical committee had spent years examining Vista for possible anticompetitive problems before it went on sale.

Operating Systems - Linux or Windows? Long Live UBUNTU!

2007-06-03T06:42:00.000-07:00

As I'm writing these words, DELL has decided to ship some of its new models with Linux Operating System. They have selected UBUNTU's 7.04 "Feisty Fawn" distribution of Linux. (Windows has OS releases or versions like XP or Vista; Linux has "distributions" like Fedora, Redhat, Ubuntu and many others.)

Go DELL!

A perfect choice because I've been using UBUNTU on one of my machines for over a year now and I have nothing but qualified praise for it.

Qualified? Yes. Because I cannot run any of my Windows application (like Photoshop, Illustrator, FrameMaker, GoLive) on Ubuntu.

GIMP comes close to doing what Photoshop can do (at least at my level of graphic competence) but other Windows applications do not have their fully-developed Linux-counterparts yet. There is nothing over the horizon, for example, to match the reliability and power of FrameMaker in a Linux environment.

So why do I still like my Ubuntu? Let me count the ways:

1) It's FREE.

2) OpenOffice that comes with it is also FREE and it can match MS Office in every category, except in mail management. (NOTE: You can download and use OpenOffice on Windows and Mac machines as well.)

3) No viruses. Period. I have not used any anti-virus programs or firewalls with my Ubuntu system yet. Knock on wood.

4) No system crashes. And when I crash my system (a rare event) while trying to open 10 different applications or files at the same time, Ubuntu recovers beautifully, restoring each crashed file one by one when you restart the system.

5) Auto updates... when you click this great little "you have updates" orange star on your icon bar, UBUNTU automatically downloads (after your approval of each item) whatever updates are developed by hard-working Linux volunteers around the globe.

6) An ever-growing collection of free, new and interesting software available for instant downloads through Synaptic Package Manager. (For example, it's free CHESS program - one of the hundreds of Linux games available online for free - is one of the best I've ever played against.)

I do all my writing, for example, on my Linux machine. Since OpenOffice also has a free PDF conversion utility built right into its word processor, I'm writing my new book (Copyright-Free Content for Your Web Site and Newsletters) also on my Linux machine. (YES - you don't need to buy Adobe Acrobat Pro to generate PDFs!)

One shortcoming of Feisty Fawn distribution - it's energy-saving screen- and machine-sleep modes are not perfect and don't work well. When the machine goes to sleep after a certain configurable duration of time, it shuts itself off as it revives itself. If you get Ubuntu 7.04, do not use that energy-saving option. I hope they'll fix that pesky problem as well in a future release. Other than that, UBUNTU is a solution that makes sense and works very well for me.

Free Operating System Fedora 7 Released!

2007-06-03T06:40:00.000-07:00

Friday, June 01, 2007: Tired of the 'old' Windows operating system which ends up making a hole in your pocket, every time they release a new version? Or worried about the viruses that plague your PC compelling you to stay updated with your anti-virus tools? Here is a breath of relief.

The Fedora Project, a Red Hat, Inc. sponsored and community-supported open source collaboration, has made available the latest version of its distribution, Fedora 7. The Fedora Project provides the best of next-generation open source technologies and, in its latest version, features a new build capacity that allows for the creation of custom distributions. Fedora 7 now offers a completely open source build process that greatly simplifies the creation of appliances that can be targeted to meet individual needs.

Fedora 7 development has focussed on improving the manner in which all Fedora releases will be made, said Max Spevack, Fedora Project leader, Red Hat. Beyond the usual set of upstream changes and improvements, our latest release is by far the most exciting and flexible to date. With our new open source build process, our community of contributors will enjoy much greater influence and authority in advancing Fedora. The ability to create appliances to suit very particular user needs is incredibly powerful.

Fedora 7 provides the first appliance development platform that is 100 per cent open source with an entirely free distribution build toolchain. The Fedora 7 source code is hosted in a public version control system, the RPMs are built on an external build system and the distributions are built with an external, open source compose tool that allows access by the entire Fedora community.

Through Fedora 7, the community is given an enhanced role that encourages greater openness and collaboration. As a result of its flexible, public build environment, Fedora 7 provides users with the ability to customise like never before. With these capabilities, combined with live CD, DVD and USB technology, the possibilities for appliance creation are endless. After customisation, Fedora can be loaded onto various forms of bootable media, allowing users to run their operating system without a hard disk installation.

Fedora 7 features Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) and Qemu virtualisation technologies in addition to Xen. All implementations can be managed using the Fedora graphical virtualisation manager.

The Fedora 7 release also marks a significant milestone in Fedora's emergence as a leading community-driven project. Formerly, the packages in Fedora Core were maintained only by Red Hat employees, while the packages in Fedora Extras were maintained by community members. Fedora 7 does away with this distinction; the new single Fedora repository is accessible to Red Hat employees and community members alike, giving the community more influence over Fedora than ever before.

For more information on Fedora, to download or to join this community effort, visit http://fedoraproject.org.

AMDs Operating System Research Center in Dresden Celebrates First Year Anniversary

2007-06-03T05:08:00.000-07:00

One year after opening, AMD’s Dresden-based Operating System Research Center (OSRC) has become a successful member of the worldwide AMD research and development (R&D) network, and currently employees more than 20 engineers and support staff.

By acting as the bridge between the operating system (OS) development community and the worldwide AMD processor design community, the OSRC plays an increasing role in ensuring next-generation AMD products and solutions enable the most advanced OS and application features.

The research center specializes in OS virtualization, memory management, multi-core scheduling and performance measuring to make better use of future multi-core architectures. One of the first opportunities for the Dresden team has been the optimization of operating systems for the upcoming quad-core AMD Opteron™ Processor ‘Barcelona’.

“Barcelona will enhance virtualization performance with a technology called Nested Paging,” said Chris Schlaeger, director of Operating System Research Center at AMD. “Nested Paging moves the process of virtual to physical address translation from software directly into the hardware. Virtualization software, which enables the simultaneous use of multiple operating systems on a single server or client, will get substantial performance acceleration as a result.”

Along with virtualization, software-enabled energy efficiency continues to be a top priority for AMD. Barcelona brings new, highly-advanced capabilities enabled by the latest generation of AMD PowerNow!™. Because AMD PowerNow! is a combination of both hardware and software technologies, key innovations are being co-developed by the OSRC.

With AMD PowerNow! and Barcelona, OSs will -- for the first time -- be able to throttle the performance of each core within the processor individually, allowing the system to use only the amount of energy necessary for the specific workload. This is expected to dramatically reduce the average power requirements of each Barcelona-powered system, allowing data center managers to reduce their facility’s total energy requirements and cooling costs, even as they increase rack server density.

While the OSRC is officially based in Dresden, it relies upon a distributed global staffing structure to achieve greater success. In addition to the core team based in Dresden, OSRC employees are located in various locations worldwide, including the USA. Further, AMD currently has plans to hire additional specialists in other key regions. This structure allows AMD to more effectively and rapidly serve the needs of customers and partners, by placing the right engineering resources within closer proximity.

“The OSRC has been located in Dresden due to the excellent universities, research centers, and world-class workforce in Saxony, but we are consistently looking for new talent all over Europe and worldwide,” said Earl Stahl, vice president of software development at AMD. “Our goal is to find the best software engineers with a great passion for hardware tuning, or the strongest electrical engineers with a love for software development. Our organization is where hardware and software comes together to form the ultimate end-solution.”

About AMD Dresden

AMD has been one of the largest international investors in Germany during the previous decade. Total investment in the Dresden site, including Fab 30, Fab 36, and the Dresden Design Center, was approximately $ 5 billion by the end of 2006.

In its semiconductor facilities Fab 30 and Fab 36, AMD manufactures its successful processor families for desktop and mobile applications, servers and workstations: AMD Opteron™, AMD Athlon™64, AMD Turion™64 and AMD Sempron™.

AMDs newest fabrication facility will come online through a major transformation of the company’s existing Fab 30, which will be named Fab 38. The transition from 200 mm to 300 mm wafers allows for more than twice as many processors on a wafer.

At present, AMD employs approximately 3,000 highly qualified engineers, technicians and specialists in Fab 30, Fab 36, Operating System Research Center, and the Dresden Design Center which is currently helping create AMD’s next-generation “Fusion” Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) and ultra-low power embedded processors. The Dresden Engineering Laboratory focuses on the design, testing and qualification of next-generation AMD platforms, as well as the support of key European customers.

About AMD

Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is a leading global provider of innovative processing solutions in the computing, graphics and consumer electronics markets. AMD is dedicated to driving open innovation, choice and industry growth by delivering superior customer-centric solutions that empower consumers and businesses worldwide. For more information, visit www.amd.com.

The Downsides of 64-bit Windows Vista - Driver and application support

2007-05-29T03:38:00.001-07:00

Microsoft delivers Windows Vista in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. While a system configuration with a x64 processor certainly recommends one of the 64-bit editions of Windows Vista, these versions of the operating system do come with downsides that customers need to be aware of. Being essentially identical to 32-bit Windows Vista, the 64-bit editions will deliver support for 32-bit applications without any problems.

This aspect is one of the pillars of the transition to 64-bit. Users are encouraged to adopt the next wave in computing technology while still being able to enjoy the same programs they used to on their 32-bit system. However, 64-bit Vista does not offer support for 16-bit applications or components. Old solutions designed for platforms that preceded 32-bit will not function on x64 Vista.

64-bit Windows Vista also features an additional line of defense against buffer overflow attacks. Vista's Data Execution Prevention (DEP) will work in conjunction with the 64-bit processor to prevent exploits, but one major shortcoming is the fact that legitimate applications and processes will be stopped if the operating system detects a buffer overflow condition.

Adaptec Launches New Release of Its Award-Winning Operating System for Snap Servers

2007-05-29T03:37:00.000-07:00

GuardianOS(TM) 4.4 Adds Data Migration Utility to Automate Relocation of Data to Snap Servers

MILPITAS, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- May 23, 2007 -- Adaptec, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADPT), a global leader in storage systems, today announced version 4.4 of its award-winning GuardianOS™ operating system, which powers its Snap Server network storage systems. Scaling from 160GB to 66TB, Snap Server by Adaptec enables distributed enterprises to deliver the right amount of storage for applications at headquarters, in branch offices, and in retail outlets. In addition to providing new file and print services, GuardianOS runs enterprise-class data protection software for PCs and servers, and replication software to distribute, protect and collect data between remote Snap Servers.

The enhanced version of GuardianOS features the Data Migration Utility, which allows businesses to easily transfer data from any system supporting the CIFS or NFS protocols to a Snap Server. By ensuring that all file and folder permissions remain intact, and verifying that the transfer was performed correctly, businesses get the assurance that their data has been completely and correctly transferred to the Snap Server.

"Adaptec has made it easy and safe to migrate information from expensive network attached storage (NAS) and dated file servers to new Snap Servers," said Steve Terlizzi, vice president and general manager of the Storage Solutions Group at Adaptec. "Copy utilities are not reliable enough to handle large data transfers and it can take weeks or months to get all the permissions right after data is moved. Our new Data Migration Utility takes all of that pain away."

Powered by GuardianOS v4.4, Snap Servers deliver a comprehensive range of storage systems that run value-added software applications, including distributed management, replication, and backup and restore for desktops, notebooks, and servers, in order to meet the needs of distributed enterprises. From remote locations with Snap Server 110, 210 or 410 systems to the central office with its Snap Server 520 and 650, the product family was designed to provide a flexible and cost-effective solution for a storage strategy that spans multiple sites. With the new Data Migration Utility, businesses can now easily move data to a Snap Server storage infrastructure.

GuardianOS v4.4 Highlights

The GuardianOS v. 4.4 provides several new features and enhancements including:

-- Data Migration Utility: GuardianOS can easily and reliably copy or
move large amounts of data, including security permissions, from any
computer supporting CIFS or NFS to a Snap Server. The GuardianOS Data
Migration Utility ensures that all data and security permissions remain
intact and accessible during transfer and then displays an easy-to-read
report of file and folder names to document that all data was successfully
moved.

-- USB print server and tape drive support: GuardianOS enables Windows,
Linux, UNIX, and Macintosh computers to use shared USB printers connected
to a Snap Server. Businesses can easily perform disk-to-disk-to-tape
(D2D2T) or other archiving strategies with new USB tape drive support and
integrated BakBone NetVault data protection software.

-- Enhanced iSCSI support: GuardianOS takes advantage of extended iSCSI
support, including support for up to 255 LUNs, and spec-compliant IQN
names.

-- Enhanced disaster recovery: GuardianOS now backs up and restores Snap
Enterprise Data Replicator (Snap EDR) Management Console settings, enabling
quicker data recovery in case of disaster.

-- Command-line Interface. Administer Snap Servers with pre-written
scripts, or manually through a command-line interface.

Pricing and Availability

GuardianOS v4.4 is currently available for upgrade on all GuardianOS Snap Server models. Existing Snap Server customers with a previous release of GuardianOS and an Extended Care Plus, Bronze, Silver, or Gold service plan may upgrade to the 4.4 version for free from the Snap Server website at www.snapserver.com/services. Other Snap Server owners may purchase a service contract starting at $199 MSRP per Snap Server by calling 1-888-343-7627 and then upgrade to the new version for free. For more information, go to www.snapserver.com.

About Adaptec

Adaptec, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADPT) provides trusted storage solutions that reliably move, manage, and protect critical data and digital content. Adaptec's software and hardware-based solutions are delivered through leading Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and channel partners to provide storage connectivity, data protection, and networked storage to enterprises, government organizations, medium and small businesses worldwide. More information is available at www.adaptec.com.

Dell Sells Systems with Pre-Installed Linux Operating System

2007-05-29T03:34:00.000-07:00

In another move to recapture the top position on the market of personal computers (PCs), Dell Inc. started to sell systems with pre-installed Linux operating system. The move not only emphasizes growing popularity of Linux, but also Dell’s intention to appeal even to minor groups of computer users to regain the No. 1 spot from HP.

Dell will initially sell three systems with pre-installed Ubuntu 7.04 operating system: XPS 410, Dimension E520n desktops and the Inspiron E1505n notebook. The systems feature dual-core Intel Core 2 Duo or Intel Pentium Dual-Core processors that can be configured according to end-users’ needs. The laptop will cost starting from $599, whereas desktops’ prices will start at $599 and $849.

The new systems target the Linux enthusiast community and are a direct result of extensive customer feedback received since February via the company’s Web site for fielding customers’ suggestions to improve products, services and operations. About 30 000 community members advocated that Dell offer systems with Linux pre-installed, and more than 100 000 participated in a follow-up survey to help determine customer preferences, including which Linux distribution to offer initially.

“The interest and enthusiasm from customers who challenged us to deliver a consumer Linux solution have been matched within Dell and Canonical, the sponsor of Ubuntu, by a team of dedicated professionals who made this happen in a phenomenally short period of time,” said Neil Hand, vice president, Dell consumer product group. “It’s fantastic to be able to offer what many Linux enthusiasts want, great Dell products with popular open-source software for work and play.”

Consumer Electronics: Closing In on Linux

2007-05-29T03:33:00.000-07:00

Linux has the remarkable ability to be adapted and scaled to specific purposes. It can run corporate servers, personal computers and even small consumer electronics devices. Open source isn't a CE manufacturer's only choice for a micro OS -- among other options are WinCE and Wind River. Unlike other applications, however, a Linux system demands no royalties.

Chances are that one or more of your consumer products uses the Linux Linux hosting solutions with 24x7x365 support – Visit HostMySite.com operating system. In order to find out, you'll have to look at the fine print. Manufacturers do not openly advertise with labels announcing "Linux Inside."

Linux has steadily become the operating system Manage remotely with one interface -- the HP ProLiant DL360 G5 server. of choice by manufacturers of toys, video and telephone equipment, along with many things that involve hand-held devices and remote controls. The trend for using Linux began around 2002 and is gathering momentum, according to several companies that develop Linux adaptations for product uses.

"Today, we see Linux in products from watches to supercomputers," Oren Teich, product manager for open source Latest News about open source platform developer Monta Vista Technology, told LinuxInsider. "Linux is a great operating system feature-wise. It has a better technical implementation than other operating systems. That's why manufacturers are going to Linux more than any other OS solution."

Linux used to mean the entire set of software and add-ons needed to get a computer up and running, according to Teich. That is what most people still think when they hear that a product is Linux powered.

However, the Linux OS can be used in a scaled-down version in order to run a user interface designed to better accommodate consumer products, he said. The user navigates by pressing buttons on a control panel. Monta Vista offers its own Embedded Linux version for commercial deployment in consumer products.
Unique Offerings

"Linux is a very amorphous OS. It can be a different OS on a different product," Teich claimed. "We spend a lot of time modifying the code for scalability."

Linux has a remarkable ability to be adapted and scaled to specific purposes, he said. Some vendors have their own software developers to do this. Other vendors use Linux specialty companies to develop whatever is needed.

"The ability to do this is extremely unique to Linux," noted Teich. "We can use all custom trappings available in Linux to do anything we want in one product since there is no need for compatibility with other hardware."

Vendors now start with the Linux kernel and, depending on the intended use in the particular product, they modify the kernel to run what they need, he added.
Not the Only Choice

Product developers are quick to point out that Linux is often the best choice available, but not the only choice. Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft touts its Windows Mobile and WinCE versions as viable portable operating systems for consumer products. The Wind River appliance platform is also available.

Of course, cost factors heavily into consumer product development. Unlike other options, the Linux OS is free. The inherent costs in using it involve fees for user support of a particular distribution or the costs of scaling the Linux kernel to a particular consumer product.

"You can tailor the Linux kernel to do anything that is needed with no royalties payments," said Philip Pokorny, director of field engineering at open source software and hardware firm Penguin Computing.

Most times consumers cannot tell a product is running Linux.

"Other vendors are attracted to the open source software. It levels the playing field," offered Dr. James Bottomley, CTO for SteelEye Technology, a company that develops clustering, data replication and disaster recovery software.

Wind River is both a good example of operating system alternatives for consumer products as well as a good example of Linux's flexibility Get the facts on wireless solutions suited to your industry., according to Bottomley. Wind River specializes in device software optimization (DSO) by enabling companies to develop, run and manage device software. The software developer markets its own Wind River platform and also develops services around Linux.

Bottomley cited TiVo and Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) Latest News about Cisco Systems as other examples of the trend toward Emedded Linux operating systems.

"TiVo built its own software system around Linux. Cisco built onto Linux as well," he said.
The Movement

Embedded Linux is an adapted Linux OS using the Linux kernel that requires as little as 2MB of memory to run in a consumer product. Within the computing industry, the Embedded Linux Consortium (ELC) is working to foster the use of Embedded Linux. Consortium membership includes IBM (NYSE: IBM) Latest News about IBM, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) Latest News about Intel, LynuxWorks, Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Latest News about Motorola, Panasonic Latest News about Panasonic, Samsung Latest News about Samsung, Sharp, Siemens (NYSE: SI) Latest News about Siemens and Sony (NYSE: SNE) Latest News about Sony.

To demonstrate the scalability of the Embedded Linux OS, Bottomley compared the Linux movement in consumer products to the different ways of measuring a piece of string. Each consumer electronics product has its own set of kernel patches, he emphasized.

"What is starting to accelerate is the amount of people working in the embedded market. This trend will continue," said Bottomley.

Monta Vista, like other Linux product makers, contributes to the development of Linux ad-ons that become standard in the industry, noted Teich.

"We try to get everybody in a particular product industry to use the same set of changes. Then these modifications become standard," he explained.
Inside Appliances

When Pokorny recently moved into his new home, he discovered that controls for the house's centralized appliance system ran on Linux. He found that reference in the fine print of the instructional manual to the control panel that the system runs on an ARM (Nasdaq: ARMHY) Latest News about ARM processor with the Linux kernel.

Most wireless gateways have Linux kernels in them as well, he said, adding that they are an easy and low-cost solution.

Pokorny noted that Linux meets the usability standards regardless of the application. For instance, when using Linux in business, it is better to run a standard version like Red Hat (Nasdaq: RHAT) Latest News about Red Hat so everything is working. All of the hardware support is already provided.

In the embedded space, manufacturers need an operating system to control everything in the box. Embedded Linux does just that. In consumer devices, products need a replacement for a real-time operating system. Linux adapts well to real-time environments.

"We find Linux to be very customizable," concluded Pokorny.
Spotting the Products

According to Teich, WiFi Latest News about WiFi access points all use Linux. For instance, Linksys has a Linux model -- WRT54GL. You can usually spot the Linux product because the model number will have an L as part of its designation, he said.

Other examples of Linux inside consumer products, Teich said, are in every Sony, Hitachi (NYSE: HIT) Latest News about Hitachi and Panasonic HD television and their remote controls. Samsung Electronics uses Linux and a DivX-accelerated MIPS-based SoC (system-on-chip) in its portable digital TVs.

"Linux use in these types of products is widely deployed," stressed Teich.

Linux is also used by video projector companies, especially in those products that have the WiFi computer features. Similarly, desktop speaker phones use Linux, he noted.

Unix like

2007-05-29T03:32:00.001-07:00

Conforming to the basic architecture and principles of the Unix operating system. Unix-like operating systems, such as Linux, may be POSIX compliant, which means that applications communicate with the OS via a standard programming interface (API).

The phrase "Unix-like operating system" is meant to exclude Unix operating systems such as Sun's Solaris and HP's HP-UX because they, as well as others, are compliant with one of the UNIX specifications governed by The Open Group. Any Unix operating system that does not comply is a Unix-like operating system. See Unix, Open Group and Single UNIX Specification.

Apple Lisa

2007-05-29T03:30:00.000-07:00

The first personal computer to include integrated software and use a graphical interface.

Modeled after the Xerox Star and introduced in 1983 by Apple, it was ahead of its time, but never caught on due to its $10,000 price and slow speed. It gave way to the Macintosh, which was developed by a separate group within Apple. In fact, the final production units of the Lisa were modified into a somewhat-compatible version of the Macintosh.

Apple III

2007-05-29T03:28:00.000-07:00

An enhanced version of the Apple II that never caught on.

Type rest of the post here

Apple II series

2007-05-29T03:24:00.000-07:00

The Apple II (sometimes written as Apple ][ or Apple //) was the first popular microcomputer manufactured by Apple. Its direct ancestor was the Apple I, a limited production circuit board computer for electronics hobbyists which pioneered many features that made the Apple II a commercial success. Introduced at the West Coast Computer Faire in 1977, the Apple II was one of the very first and most successful personal computers. A number of different models were sold, and the most popular model was manufactured with relatively minor changes into the 1990s. By the end of its production in 1993, somewhere between five and six million Apple II series computers (including approximately 1.25 million Apple IIgs models) had been produced.

Throughout the 1980s and much of the 1990s, the Apple II was the de facto standard computer in American education; some of them are still operational in classrooms today. The Apple II was popular with business users as well as with families and schools, particularly after the release of the first-ever computer spreadsheet, VisiCalc, which initially ran only on the Apple II.

The Apple II was originally running only the built-in BASIC interpreter contained in ROM. Apple DOS was added to support the diskette drive; the last version was "Apple DOS 3.3". Apple DOS was superseded by ProDOS to support a hierarchical filesystem and larger storage devices. Using a diskette or hard-disk, the Apple II could also load the UCSD Pascal operating system. UCSD binaries are compatible with a large number of other computers, including the IBM-PC. Using a Z80 interface the Apple II could run the popular Wordstar and dBase software under the CP/M operating system.

Apple's Macintosh product line finally eclipsed the Apple II series in the early 1990s. Even after the introduction of the Macintosh, the Apple II had remained Apple's primary source of revenue for years: the Apple II and its associated community of third-party developers and retailers were once a billion-dollar-a-year industry. The IIGS model was sold through to the end of 1992. The IIe model was removed from the product line on October 15, 1993, ending an era.

Design

Unlike any other microcomputer before it, the Apple II looked more like an appliance than a piece of electronic equipment. This was a computer that would not seem out of place in the home, on a manager's desk or in a classroom. The lid popped easily off the beige plastic case, allowing access to the entire internals of the computer, including the motherboard with eight expansion slots and RAM sockets, which could hold up to 48 KiB of memory.

The Apple II had color and high-resolution graphics modes, sound capabilities and two built-in BASIC programming languages, Applesoft and Integer. Compared with earlier microcomputers, these features were well-documented and easy to learn. The Apple II sparked the beginning of the personal computer revolution, as it was targeted for the masses rather than just hobbyists and engineers; its introduction and subsequent popularity also greatly influenced most of the microcomputers that followed it. "VanLOVEs Apple Handbook" and "The Apple Educators Guide" by Gerald VanDiver and Rolland Love reviewed more than 1500 software programs that the Apple II series could use.. The Apple dealer network used this book to emphasize the growing software developer base in education and personal use.The books became part of the Apple program and became the first book on database.

Models

See also the Timeline of computing article.

Apple II

The first Apple II computers went on sale on June 5, 1977 with a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor running at 1 MHz, 4 KiB of RAM, an audio cassette interface for loading programs and storing data, and the Integer BASIC programming language built into the ROMs. The video controller displayed 24 lines by 40 columns of upper-case-only text on the screen, with NTSC composite video output suitable for display on a monitor, or on a TV set by way of an RF modulator. The original retail price of the computer was US$1298 (with 4 KiB of RAM) and US$2638 (with the maximum 48 KiB of RAM). To reflect the computer's color graphics capability, the Apple logo on the casing was represented using rainbow stripes,[1] which remained a part of Apple's corporate logo until early 1998. The earliest Apple IIs were assembled in Silicon Valley, and later in Texas [2]; printed circuit boards were manufactured in Ireland and Singapore.

In 1978, an external 5¼-inch floppy disk drive, the Disk II, attached via a controller card that plugged into one of the computer's expansion slots (usually slot 6), was used for data storage and retrieval to replace cassettes. The Disk II interface, created by Steve Wozniak, was regarded as an engineering masterpiece at the time for its economy of components. [3] [4] While other controllers had dozens of chips for synchronizing data I/O with disk rotation, seeking the head to the appropriate track, and encoding the data into magnetic pulses, Wozniak's controller card had few chips; instead, the Apple DOS used software to perform these functions. The Group Code Recording used by the controller was simpler and easier to implement in software than the more common MFM. In the end, the low chip count of the controller contributed to making Apple's Disk II the first affordable floppy drive system for personal computers. As a side effect, Woz's scheme made it easy for proprietary software developers to copy-protect the media on which their software shipped by changing the low-level sector format or stepping the drive's head between the tracks; inevitably, other companies eventually sold software to foil this protection. Another Wozniak optimization allowed him to omit Shugart's Track-0 sensor. When the Operating System wants to go to track 0, the controller simply moves toward the next-lower-numbered track, and keeps doing it until it can't go any further: this is presumed to be track 0. This process, called "recallibration", made a loud buzzing (rapid mechanical chattering) sound that often frightened Apple novices.

The approach taken in the Disk II controller was typical of Wozniak's design sensibility. The Apple II was full of clever engineering tricks to save hardware and reduce costs. For example, taking advantage of the way that 6502 instructions only access memory every other clock cycle, the video generation circuitry's memory access on the otherwise unused cycles avoided memory contention issues and also eliminated the need for a separate refresh circuit for the DRAM chips.

Rather than using a complex analog-to-digital circuit to read the outputs of the game controller, Wozniak used a simple timer circuit whose period was proportional to the resistance of the game controller, and used a software loop to measure the timer.

The text and graphics screens had a somewhat outdated arrangement (the scanlines were not stored in sequential areas of memory) which was reputedly due to Woz's realization that doing it that way would save a chip; it was less expensive to have software calculate or look up the address of the required scanline than to include the extra hardware. Similarly, in the high-resolution graphics mode, color was determined by pixel position and could thus be implemented in software, saving Woz the chips needed to convert bit patterns to colors.

The epitome of the Apple II design philosophy was the Apple II sound circuitry. Rather than having a dedicated sound-synthesis chip, the Apple II had a toggle circuit that could only emit a click through a built-in speaker; all other sounds (including two, three and, eventually, four-voice music and playback of audio samples and speech synthesis) were generated entirely by clever software that clicked the speaker at just the right times. Not for nearly a decade would an Apple II be released with a dedicated sound chip. Similar techniques were used for cassette storage: the cassette output worked the same as the speaker, and the input was a simple zero-crossing detector that served as a relatively crude (1-bit) audio digitizer. Routines in the ROM were used to encode and decode data in frequency shift keying for the cassette.

Wozniak's open design and the Apple II's multiple expansion slots permitted a wide variety of third-party devices to expand the capabilities of the machine. Apple II peripheral cards such as Serial controllers, improved display controllers, memory boards, hard disks, and networking components were available for this system in its day. There were emulator cards, such as the Z80 card that permitted the Apple to switch to the Z80 processor and run a multitude of programs developed under the CP/M operating system, including the dBase II database and the WordStar word processor. (At one point in the mid-1980's, more than half the machines running CP/M were Apple II's with Z80 cards.)There was also a third-party 6809 card that would allow OS-9 Level One to be run. The Mockingboard sound card greatly improved the audio capabilities of the Apple, with simple music synthesis and text-to-speech functions. Eventually, Apple II accelerator cards were created to double or quadruple the computer's speed.

Amiga Unix

2007-05-29T03:19:00.000-07:00

Commodore-Amiga, Inc., in 1990, did a full port of AT&T Unix System V Release 4 for the Amiga computer family (in addition to the proprietary AmigaOS shipping with these systems by default), informally known as Amix. Bundled with the Amiga 3000UX, Commodore's UNIX was one of the first ports of SVR4 to the 68k architecture.

Contrary to the popular belief that Amigas were primarily gaming machines, this port was considered one of the finest Unices of its time by Amiga enthusiasts. The Amiga A3000UX model even got the attention of Sun Microsystems, though ultimately nothing came of it.

Unlike Apple's A/UX, Amiga UNIX contained no compatibility layer to allow AmigaOS applications to run under Unix. With few native applications available to take advantage of the Amiga's significant multimedia capabilities, it failed to find a niche in the quite-competitive Unix workstation market of the early 1990s. The A3000UX's price tag of approximately $7000 was also not very attractive compared to other low-end UNIX systems at the time, such as the NeXTstation ($5000 for a base system, with many times the number of applications available), the SGI Indigo (starting at $8000), or the DECstation 5000/25 (starting at $5000). Sun, HP, and IBM had similarly priced systems. The A3000UX's 68030 was noticibly underpowered compared to most of its RISC-based competitors.

Like many other Unix variants with small market shares, Amiga Unix vanished into the mists of computer history when its vendor, Commodore, went out of business. Today, Unix-like operating systems such as Minix, NetBSD, and Linux are available for the Amiga platform, but the commercial and AT&T-licensed Amiga Unix has not been revived.

Is Vista helping boost PC sales?

2007-05-25T00:15:00.000-07:00

Speaking to a crowd of hardware engineers last week, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates trumpeted the fact that the company has sold 40 million copies of Vista since the operating system hit the market.

But does that milestone mean the operating system is causing more PCs to be sold?

It's a natural question to ask, but a difficult one to answer. One reason it's hard to suss out Vista's impact on PC sales is that consumers don't really decide whether they prefer a new operating system. When Microsoft releases a new operating system, it becomes the default on nearly all machines sold at retail stores. So if consumers want a new PC, they basically get Vista.

That makes it tough to gauge whether Microsoft's latest creation is actually spurring people to buy new PCs. Market researcher In-Stat issued a report on Wednesday saying Vista is not having a major impact on the PC market. The firm said some people delayed purchases last year to wait for the new operating system, a move that added some sales to this year, but that the software is not leading others to speed up their new PC purchases.

"My view is that, as a motivating factor to go buy a PC, Vista is not enough," said Ian Lao, the In-Stat analyst who wrote the new report.

But there hasn't been a groundswell of grumbling over the new operating system either. "It's not the scenario like (new) Coke and Coke Classic," Lao said. "There isn't a big revolt going on."

Dell did see enough demand for XP that it has brought back the older operating system as an option on some consumer machines. Dell, HP and others still offer XP for small- and medium-business customers as well.

As for the PC market as a whole, Lao said it's shaping up largely as expected, something he said he foresees continuing.

"I see the rest of the year panning out, for the most part as it would have originally," he said. Consumers "will purchase a PC if they were already planning to."

NPD analyst Stephen Baker said that the market has shifted somewhat during the early part of this year. While the trend toward notebook computers has continued, desktop sales and pricing have finally stabilised some, although Baker said he doesn't attribute either those changes or overall consumer sales patterns to Vista's release.

"That would require you to believe that on the consumer side, people actually buy their PC based on what operating system is inside, and I really don't believe that is the case," Baker said.

Microsoft, for its part, says Vista has helped the overall PC market as well as the company's own business, noting that the operating system was a key part of its strong quarterly earnings report and contributed to a PC market that grew 10.9 percent worldwide in the first quarter, according to IDC.

"Though it's very early in the product lifecycle, we're pleased with the market response to date for Windows Vista," Microsoft said in an e-mailed statement. "We're looking forward to continued growth and broad adoption of Windows Vista around the world."

The corporate factor
An influential factor in the PC market is businesses upgrading their machines, and there has been little indication that corporations are buying large numbers of PCs as part of a rush to Vista. Microsoft has maintained that the corporate move to Vista will outpace prior transitions, most notably when it claimed in September that business adoption of Vista in its first 12 months would be twice that of Windows XP

An HP representative said on Wednesday that the company is starting to see increased interest from some corporate customers in Vista, perhaps a sign that some businesses have completed the testing needed to qualify the new operating system. "There is now growing evidence that transitions are under way in large corporate accounts," the HP representative said.

But others are predicting a far slower pace of Vista adoption, looking to next year as the time when most businesses will start to consider buying Vista. Even in the PC business, some of Microsoft's closest partners, notably chipmaker Intel, have yet to push Vista out to their own employees.

Lao said many businesses upgraded large numbers of PCs in 2005 and 2006, making them unlikely to move to Vista this year or even next year.

"I'm seeing this more like a 2009, 2010 thing, where corporations will start to make wholesale conversions," Lao said.

Another reason Vista may not be having much of an impact on PC sales is a lack of software and hardware targeted specifically for the new system.

While Microsoft has put a lot of effort into ensuring compatibility with existing software, it will take time before there are any killer apps specific to Vista. While some of Vista's benefits, such as built-in desktop search, are available out of the box, many of its advances, such its new presentation engine or its peer-to-peer sharing technology really only come alive once developers write programs that take advantage of those features.

On the hardware side, there have been a few showcase Vista-optimised PCs, most notably HP's TouchSmart all-in-one and a sleek white Toshiba Portege with a secondary "SideShow" display. But many of the computers on the market largely resemble their XP predecessors both inside and out.

"There are certainly things you can do with Vista," Baker said. "The computer makers certainly have not pushed the envelope on any of those things quite yet."

Some additional PCs that harness Vista features are expected in the second half of this year, as computer makers gear up for the back-to-school and holiday buying seasons.

"We're going to see new industrial designs from almost all the major computer makers," said Samir Bhavnani, research director at Current Analysis West. "I think you are going to see Vista spur growth in the back half of this year."

Operating System For Free On Dell PCs

2007-05-25T00:07:00.000-07:00

Now, enjoy the experience of free and open source software. Something that will change the way you used to look at life!

It's official. Dell has launched three PCs -- the XPS 410n, Dimension E520n desktops and the Inspiron E1505n notebook -- with the Ubuntu 7.04 Linux distribution factory installed. And since the PCs are preloaded with free and open source software, these PCs are comparatively less expensive.

''The interest and enthusiasm from customers who challenged us to deliver a consumer Linux solution have been matched within Dell and Canonical, the sponsor of Ubuntu, by a team of dedicated professionals who made this happen in a phenomenally short period of time,'' said Neil Hand, vice president, consumer product group, Dell. ''It's fantastic to be able to offer what many Linux enthusiasts want, great Dell products with popular open-source software for work and play.''

Full Story is here

AmigaOS

2003-04-30T06:20:00.000-07:00

AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. On top of a basic kernel called Exec, it includes an abstraction of the Amiga's unique hardware, a disk operating system called AmigaDOS, a windowing system called Intuition and a graphical user interface called Workbench.

Components of AmigaOS
AmigaOS can be divided into two parts: the Kickstart (ROM) and Workbench disks. It used to be the case that versions of Kickstart and Workbench were released together, for use with each other. From Workbench 3.5 onwards, the first release after Commodore International stopped development, AmigaOS has become software-only, standardising on Kickstart version 3.1 in ROM.

Kickstart

The image shown by Amiga OS 1.x on start-up, asking the user to insert the kickstart disk.Kickstart is the name given to the bootstrap ROM. On the first Amiga model, the A1000, this was loaded from disk into a special section of memory called the writable control store (WCS), although eventually the Kickstart was embedded in a ROM chip inside the computer. The Amiga 1000 could be modified to take these chips, and subsequent Amiga models all used ROM chips.

Kickstart contained the code needed to boot the standard Amiga hardware and any Autoconfig expansion hardware. The Kickstart also contained many stock parts of the Amiga's operating system, such as Exec, Intuition and the core of AmigaDOS. This meant that a powered-on Amiga already had a lot of the essential parts of the operating system available. Later versions of the Kickstart contained drivers for IDE and SCSI controllers, PCMCIA ports and various other hardware that came built into Amigas. It can be compared to the BIOS plus the main Windows kernel in IBM PCs, however it has far more functionality available at boot time - the full windowing environment, for example.

With third party software, it is possible to have a different Kickstart loaded in RAM and to use it instead of the ROM one - for example Kickstart 1.3 may be loaded in order to run old games incompatible with Kickstart 2.0 and higher. These programs are called softkickers. There are also hardware Kickstart switchers which allow you to have more than one set of Kickstart chips inside the computer, which are selectable either by a switch or a keyboard shortcut when you first turn the machine on.

MMU-enabled Amigas typically loaded a copy of kickstart from a file on disk and passed control to it at cold-boot time. Subsequent warm-boots would reuse the already-loaded copy of kickstart, reducing boot time. An Amiga 3000 could fully warm-boot in 7 seconds; cold-boot in 11 seconds.

Workbench
Main article: Workbench (AmigaOS)
Workbench is the name given to both the core operating system software that is not stored in the Kickstart ROM (the "Workbench disk"), and also the native graphical shell for the Amiga computer. The Workbench environment does not have to be loaded for software to run. In fact, to take over the Amiga hardware and keep all memory and resources to themselves, many games boot directly from Kickstart (using a custom bootblock on the floppy disk).

As the name suggests, the metaphor of a workbench is used, rather than a desktop; directories are depicted as drawers, executable files are tools, data files are projects and GUI widgets are gadgets. In many other aspects the interface resembles Mac OS, with the main desktop showing icons of inserted disks and hard drive partitions, and a single menu bar at the top of every screen. Unlike the Macintosh, the standard Amiga mouse has two buttons – the right mouse button operates the pull-down menus, with a Macintosh-style "release to select" mechanism.

A unique feature of Workbench is multiple screens. These are conceptually similar to X Window System virtual desktops or workspaces, but are generated dynamically by application programs as necessary. Each screen can have a different resolution and colour depth. A gadget in the top-right corner of the screen allows screens to be cycled - as the OS stores all screens in memory simultaneously, redrawing is instantaneous. Screens can also be dragged up and down by their title bars. On older Amigas this functionality was provided by the custom chipsets specially designed for the platform, but since AmigaOS4 a new technique is adopted and the screens are draggable in any direction. Drag and drop between different screens is possible too.

Underlying the Workbench is the Intuition windowing system. This controls and draws screens, windows and gadgets, and handles input from the keyboard and mouse, passing messages to programs.

Workbench 2.0 user interface improvements
Until Workbench 2.0, there was no unified look and feel design standard - application developers had to write their own widgets (both buttons and menus), with Intuition providing minimal support. With Workbench 2.0 came gadtools.library, which provided standard widget sets, and the Amiga User Interface Style Guide, which explained how applications should be laid out for consistency.

Workbench 2.0 also added support for public screens. Instead of the Workbench screen being the only shareable screen, applications could create their own named screens to share with other applications.

Workbench 2.0 introduced AmigaGuide, a simple text-only hypertext markup scheme and browser, for providing online help inside applications. It also introduced Installer, a standard software installation program, driven by a LISP-like scripting language.

Finally, Workbench 2.0 rectified the problem of developers hooking directly into the input-events stream to capture keyboard and mouse movements, often locking up the whole system. Workbench 2.0 provided Commodities, a standard interface for modifying or scanning input events. This included a standard method for specifying global "hotkey" key-sequences, and a Commodities Exchange registry for the user to see what commodities were running.

Workbench icons
The icons that Workbench uses to represent the files in a volume or a drawer are stored in special .info files, with the name of the .info file matching the name of the file it represents. For example, the icon for NotePad, a text editor, is found in the file NotePad.info.

The .info file includes the graphical representation of the icon and its position in the volume or drawer window. The icon also specifies the type of the file, as used by Workbench. Workbench recognises five different file types:

Tool: An executable program.
Project: A data file of an executable program. The program which created the file is named in the icon file, double-clicking on the icon loads the program that created it.
Drawer: A directory containing files, and other drawers.
Volume: A physical disk or a RAM disk.
Garbage: The Trashcan - a deleted file backup, which works in a similar way to the 'Recycle bin' in Microsoft Windows.
An additional three file types are available and are intended for future expansion:

Device: designed for displaying information about attached devices
Kick: The icon of a bootable disk
App Icon: An icon which will be used as (part of) the GUI for an application
Of these three only App Icons currently are used by any part of Workbench/AmigaOS.

Tool files can include "tool types" in the .info file. These are used as configuration options for the program. Each tool type is a single line of text, which can optionally include parameters, written after an = sign. Tool types can be commented out by writing them in parentheses. For example, the tooltype "CX_POPKEY=ctrl alt f1" says that the application (a Commodity) will pop up the user interface in response to the key sequence Ctrl-Alt-F1.

The colours used in the icon are normally only stored as indices to the Amiga Workbench screen's current palette. Because of this, the icons' colour scheme is inherently tied to the chosen hues in the screen's palette, and choosing non-standard colours can give the icons an ugly appearance. This problem was party solved by a third-party system called NewIcons, which adds additional features to the standard .info files. Unlike normal Workbench icons, NewIcons include actual RGB colour information, and the system tries its best to match the icons' colour hues to those in the screen palette.

Since AmigaOS 3.5, Workbench supports icons with up to 256 colors, still based on the screen palette. This release of AmigaOS features the Glowicons icon set by Matt Chaput. With AmigaOS 4.0, a screen-palette-independent system is used. The 4.0 icons, designed by Martin Merz, can use a palette of 256 colors each.

AmigaDOS
Main article: AmigaDOS
AmigaDOS provides the disk operating system portion of the AmigaOS. This includes file systems, file and directory manipulation, the command line interface, file redirection, console windows, and so on.

In AmigaOS 1.x, the AmigaDOS portion was based on a TRIPOS port by MetaComCo, written in BCPL. Considerable amounts of functionality was only available to programs written in BCPL and not to developers using other languages. The third-party AmigaDOS Resource Project (arp.library) [1], formerly known as AmigaDOS Replacement Program, provided equivalent functionality to C programmers. ARP also provided one of the first standardized file requesters for the Amiga.

From AmigaOS 2.x onwards, AmigaDOS was rewritten in C and Assembler, retaining full 1.x BCPL program compatibility, and incorporated most of ARP into the OS.

Partitions and physical drives are typically referred to as DF0: (floppy drive 0), DH0: (hard drive 0), etc. However, unlike many operating systems, outside of built-in devices like DF0: these names are totally arbitrary; for example a hard disk partition could be named HARDDISK: or A: or HD0: when it was partitioned. Volume names have the same format as device names, so a disk partition on device DH0: might have the volume name Boot:. In addition, virtual volume names could be set with the "assign" command to any directory or device; for example programs often assigned a virtual volume name to their installation directory; an example might be FooBarWriter assigning FooBar: to DH0:Productivity/FooBarWriter. This allows for easy relocation of installed programs.

Graphics
Up to version 3, AmigaOS only supported the native Amiga graphics chipset, via graphics.library. This led developers to avoid OS functionality for drawing, and go straight for the underlying hardware. Third-party graphics cards were only supported via unofficial solutions. The ideal situation, where the AmigaOS could directly support any graphics system, was termed retargetable graphics (RTG) [2]. Release 3.1 included some support for third party graphics cards, such as the Picasso. With AmigaOS 3.5, some RTG systems were bundled with the OS, allowing the use of common hardware cards other than the native Amiga chipsets. The main RTG systems are CyberGraphX, Picasso 96 and EGS.

The Amiga did not have any official 3D graphics capability, so it had no standard 3D graphics interface. Graphics card manufacturers provided their own standards, which include MiniGL, Warp3D, StormMesa (agl.library) and CyberGL. VideoScape 3D was one of the earliest 3D rendering & animation systems, as well as TrueSpace 3D.

Likewise, while the Amiga is well known for its ability to easily genlock with video, it had no built in video capture interface. Third party interfaces included Digiview, VHI (Video Hardware Interface) by IOSPIRIT GmbH, tv.library by Elbox Computer and tvcard.library by Guido Mersmann.

Audio
Up to version 3.1, AmigaOS only supported the original Amiga chipset's sound capabilities, via audio.device. Support for third-party audio cards was vendor-dependent, until the creation and adoption of AHI [3] as a de facto standard. AmigaOS itself did not support MIDI until 3.1 when Roger Dannenberg's camd.library was adapted as the standard MIDI API. Commodore's version of camd.library also included a built in driver for the serial port. The later open source version of camd.library by Kjetil Matheussen did not provide a built in driver for the serial port, but provided an external driver instead.

Speech synthesis
The original Amiga was launched with speech synthesis software, developed by Softvoice, Inc. [4] This could be broken into three main components: narrator.device, which could play and modulate all phonemes used in American English, translator.library, which could translate English text to American English phonemes, and the SPEAK: handler, which command-line users could redirect output to, to have it spoken.

In the original 1.x releases, a Say program in Utilities and a basic demo was also included with AmigaBASIC programming examples.

The speech synthesiser was occasionally used in third-party programs, often educational software. The word processors Prowrite and Excellence! could read out documents using the synthesiser.

Despite the limitation on the narrator.device's phonemes, Francesco Devitt wrote a new version of translator.library which could translate any language to phonemes, given it had a set of rules for that language, and thus provided multilingual speech synthesis. [5]

ARexx
Main article: ARexx
The Amiga OS had support for the Rexx language. It was called ARexx (short for "Amiga Rexx") and was a script language which allowed for full OS scripting, similar to AppleScript, intra-application scripting, similar to VBA in Microsoft Office, as well as inter-program communication. Having a single scripting language for any application on the operating system was beneficial to users, instead of having to learn a new language for each application.

Programs could listen on an "ARexx port" for string messages. These messages could then be interpreted by the program in a similar fashion to a user pushing buttons. For example, an ARexx script when run in an e-mail program, could save the currently displayed email and invoke an external program which could extract and process information and then invoke a viewer program. This allowed applications to control other applications by sending data back and forth directly with memory handles instead of saving files to disk then reloading.

RAM disk
The Amiga OS has a dynamically-sized RAM disk, which resizes itself automatically to its contents. Starting with AmigaOS 2.x, operating System configuration files were loaded into the RAM disk on boot, greatly speeding operating system usage. Other files could be copied to the RAM disk like any standard device for quick modification and retrieval. Also beginning in AmigaOS 2.x, the RAM disk supported file-change notification, which was mostly used to monitor prefs files for changes.

The Amiga OS also has support for a fixed-capacity recoverable RAM disk, which functions as a standard RAM disk, but can maintain its contents on restart. It was commonly called RAD disk and it can function as a boot disk (with boot sector).

Technical overview
The main modularisation technique in AmigaOS is based on dynamically-loaded shared libraries, either stored as a file on disk with a ".library" filename extension, or stored in the Kickstart ROM. All libraries are accessed via an indirect jump table, which is always stored in RAM. That way, every library function can be patched or hooked at run-time, even if the library is stored in ROM.

The most important library in AmigaOS is exec.library, which can be considered a microkernel, as well as a library. As well as pre-emptive multitasking and access to other libraries, it provides high-level inter-process communication via message passing. (Other microkernels have had performance problems because of the need to copy messages between address spaces. Since the Amiga has only one address space, Exec message passing is quite efficient.) The only fixed memory address in the Amiga software (address 4) is a pointer to exec.library, which programs must use to find other libraries. Exec was designed and implemented by Carl Sassenrath.

Unlike traditional operating systems, the exec kernel does not run "privileged". Contemporary operating systems for the 68000 such as Atari TOS and SunOS used trap instructions for invoking kernel functions. This made the kernel functions run in the 68000's supervisor mode, while user software ran in the unprivileged user mode. By contrast, exec function calls are made with the library jump table, and the kernel code normally executes in user mode. Whenever supervisor mode is needed, either by the kernel or user programs, the library function Supervisor() or SuperState() is used.

Device drivers are also libraries, but they implement a standardised interface. Applications do not usually call devices directly as libraries, but use the exec.library I/O functions to indirectly access them. Like libraries, devices are either files on disk (with the ".device" extension), or stored in the Kickstart ROM.

The higher-level part of device and resource management is controlled by handlers, which are not libraries, but tasks, and communicate by passing messages.

One important type of handler is a filesystem handler. The AmigaOS can make use of any filesystem for which a handler has been written, a possibility that has been exploited by programs like CrossDOS and by a few "alternative" file systems to the standard OFS and FFS. These file systems allow one to add new features like journaling or file privileges, which aren't found in the standard operating system.

Handlers typically expose a device name to the DOS, which can be used to access the peripheral (if any) associated with the handler.

As an example of these concepts, the SPEAK: handler can have text sent to it. The handler makes use of translator.library, which converts text into phonemes, then it writes the phonemes to narrator.device, which translates the phonemes into intoned speech samples and itself uses audio.device to play them through the Amiga's audio hardware.

Device names are case insensitive (uppercase by convention) strings followed by a colon. After the colon a specifier can be added, which gives the handler additional information about what is being accessed and how. In the case of filesystem, the specifier usually consists of a path to a file in the filesystem; for other handlers, specifiers usually set characteristics of the desired input/output channel (for the SER: serial port driver, for example, the specifier will contain bit rate, start and stop bits, etc).

Filesystems expose drive names as their device names. For example, DF0: by default refers to the first floppy drive in the system, while DH0: is the first hard drive.

Filesystems also expose volume names, following the same syntax as device names: these identify the specific medium in the file system-managed drive. If DF0: contains a disk named "Workbench", then Workbench: will be a volume name that can be used to access files in DF0:.

If one wanted to access a file named "Amp" located in directory "Win" of the disk with name "Work" in drive DF0:, one could write

DF0:Win/Amp
or

Work:Win/Amp
However, these are not completely equivalent, since when the latter form is used, the system knows that the wanted volume is "Work" and not just any volume in DF0:. Therefore, whenever a requested file on "Work" is being accessed without volume "Work" being present in any drive, it will say something to the effect of:

Please insert volume Work in any drive
Programs often need to access files without knowing their physical location (either the drive or the volume): they only know the "logical path" of the file, i.e. whether the file is a library, a documentation file, a translation of the program's messages, etc.

This is solved in AmigaOS by the use of assigns. An assign follows, again, the same syntax as a device name; however, it already points to a directory inside the filesystem. The place an assign points to can be changed at any time by the user. Standard assigns that are generally present in an AmigaOS system include

SYS:, which points to the boot drive's root directory; this is the only assign created automatically by the kickstart
LIBS:, pointing to a directory containing the system's libraries, usually SYS:Libs/
DEVS:, pointing to a directory containing the system's devices, usually SYS:Devs/
C:, pointing to a directory containing shell commands, usually SYS:C/

RISC iX

2003-04-30T06:17:00.000-07:00

RISC iX was a Unix-like operating system designed to run on the Acorn Archimedes. Heavily based on 4.3BSD, it was initially completed in 1988 — a year after Arthur but prior to RISC OS. Its relationship to ARX is unknown

Other features included:

X11 (initially Release 2) with Ardent Window Manager, Tom's Window Manager and Ultrix Window Manager available by default
System V virtual memory extensions, compatible with the System V Interface Definition
C Compiler with ANSI C and pcc (Berkeley) compatibility
Sun Network File System version 3.2
ARM Assembler
Later versions upgraded the X11 server to release 4, and was certified to conform to the X/Open Portability Guide 3 Base profile.

The native file system implemented a transparent file compression mechanism and the console featured a two-cursor text copying mechanism inspired by Acorn's own earlier 8-bit range including the BBC Micro.

Distribution
RISC iX was either supplied preinstalled on new computer hardware or was installed onsite from a portable tape drive by Granada Microcare, who would take the installation tape away with them. The cost of purchase was £1,000.

Once installed a backup of the core operating system to three floppy disks was possible, allowing future reinstallation.

Supported Hardare

Machines

M4
An unreleased machine, built internally by Acorn for the development of RISC iX. Reputedly only two were built and at least one of them has subsequently been destroyed.

A680 Technical Publishing System
Unreleased but widely prototyped, the A680 contained an ARM2 processor, 8 MB RAM (dual MEMCs) and a 67 MB hard drive running from an onboard SCSI controller (no other machine from Acorn Computers included integrated SCSI). It is rumoured that overheating from the SCSI controller was one reason for the machine to never be released.

R140
Based on the A440, the R140 contained an 8 MHz ARM2 processor, 4 MB RAM and a 47 MB, later upgraded to 56 MB, ST506 hard drive. Supplied with RISC OS 2 in ROM, the machine would boot that OS then could either automatically boot RISC iX totally removing RISC OS from memory or continue running RISC OS — optionally being rebooted into RISC iX at any time.

At the time of initial release in 1989, the cost of the R140 was £3,500.

An ordinary A440 with at least 4 MB RAM and a suitable hard drive could run RISC iX. The R140 and A440 were hampered by the memory management system, using 32 KB pages.

R260
Based on the A540, the R260 originally contained a 26 MHz, (later 33 MHz) ARM3 processor, 4 MB RAM (upgradable to 16 MB) SCSI adapter and a 100 MB SCSI hard drive (typically a Conner CP30100). It booted in the same style as the earlier R140. The machine was supplied with an ethernet adapter.

The system was released in 1990 priced £3,500 just as its predecessor had.

A similarly configured A540 could run RISC iX.

R225
The R225 was a discless version of the R260. It required a network file server or an R260 to boot.

Later Machines
RISC iX is not compatible with later Archimedes machines.

Peripherals
As well as industry-standard ethernet, Acorn's own Econet was supported, including an IP over Econet transmission system.