From the dWb website

News Snippets

June 2006 News

  • Has the SUN set on McNealy?
  • No more searching you find now with Google
  • Asset management comes to Microsoft  
  • Is Offshore becoming Nearshore?

Has the SUN set on McNealy?

After 22-years Scott McNealy will hand over the control of SUN to Jonathan Schwartz. Although SUN has introduced several new product lines especially targeting energy-efficient systems, software and storage the health signs are not good. McNealy will become chairman and will have a largely ambassadorial role - this will still allow him to expound upon technological trends many of which have shaped the IT industry. Mr Schwartz will have to focus on efficiencies, restructuring and other mundane but important survival activities. We may be going into a period of SUN without charisma.

No more searching you now find with Google

Google has changed the concept of searching. Not only has it become a verb - have you googled it?, I spent many an evening googling, .... but it has changed the idea from searching to finding. You now find things, places, holidays, etc. using Google, you read using Google ... In the future red eyes will probably be called google-eyed from too much time in front of a screen.

Asset Management comes to Microsoft

Microsoft have acquired Canadian-based IT asset tracking company AssetMetrix. The product can identify over 300,000 applications which will enable organisations to know how many copies of software that they have and use. It will become part of the Microsoft Dynamic Systems initiative and integrated into the systems management tools portfolio.

Is Offshore becoming Nearshore?

The success of offshore outsourcing into India has caused high staff turnover, increased salaries and inflexibility - all parameters that supported the business case. A secondary problem is the ability to continue to produce the required number of qualified engineers each year (currently 400,000). As in all supply/demand economic models as the demand increases the supply diversifies and that is happening. Nearshoring has become a viable alternative and Ireland, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Bratislava and even Russia are growing rapidly. The same parameters apply plus proximity and EU investments.

Snippets

  • IBM is to stop making servers based on Intel's 64-bit Itanium chip and will concentrate on x86 and its own X3 chipset. It will continue to promote AMD's Opteron chip.
  • Opera 9 will come with many new and interesting widgets as well as improved search, newsfeeds and rich text editing.
  • If you have an old PC rather than getting rid of it you can repurpose it using WTware Lite and it becomes a fully functioning Windows Terminal server client. (www.winterminal.com)
  • NetApp high-end offering challenges both EMC and Hitachi and will be more cost effective for entry-level but expandable configurations.
  • Free peer-to-peer secure sharing from Laplink. You can get a free version of ShareDirect which file protects using encryption from their web site and can pass through normal firewalls.
  • SAP and Microsoft will release their jointly-developed software DUET that links their enterprise and desktop worlds next month. This solution is an alternative way of accessing back-end applications than portals using a browser and IBM WebSphere.
  • A Warwick University developed device to protect from "shoulder-surfing" is being tested. It is based on magnifying lens that can only be seen by the person entering the number.

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