Microsoft abandon Encarta
March 31, 2009
Microsoft has decided to do away with its Encarta software, which has suffered from competing against Wikipedia.
Microsoft has entered into several different markets since company formation in the mid-Eighties and its attempts with its encyclopaedia were a major part of its focus. However, after 15 years of life, Encarta is being killed off as of October this year.
This is a sign that Microsoft simply could not compete with Wikipedia, the free, user-created online encyclopaedia which receives 97% of online encyclopaedia traffic in the US. Encarta was the second most popular, but with only 1.27% of encyclopaedia visits, it was a distant second.
The statement announcing the discontinuation of Encarta made no reference to Wikipedia, but it would be naive to think that site’s popularity was not greatly influential in the decision. Microsoft instead made reference to people’s changing ways of consuming information, which may refer to the constantly updated nature of Wikipedia versus Encarta’s static and quickly dated content.
Shortly after the company’s formation, Bill Gates approached Encyclopaedia Britannica regarding a project to translate the book into a new media format. They rejected his approach and this inspired him to start Encarta in partnership with Funk and Wagnalls reference books. Now that project is at an end.
Netbooks can be easier prey for hackers and viruses
March 15, 2009
Netbooks that gained popularity since their launch in 2007 due to lower costs may pose bigger security risk to businesses because of lax security that makes them vulnerable to hackers and viruses.
Since its introduction by Taiwan’s Asus, all major players in PC business including HP, Dell, Lenovo and Acer jumped into netbook manufacture. Read more
At CeBIT conference out-of-work developers urged to take up open source
March 10, 2009
Recession is a blessing in disguise for out-of-work developers to lay their hands on open source software, George Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe, suggested in a speech he was delivering at the CeBIT technology conference being held in Hanover, Germany. Read more
HP signs deal with Sun to sell ProLiant servers with Solaris
February 28, 2009
HP will be selling Sun’s Solaris 10 operating system with its blade systems and ProLiant servers.
It is the first time that the hardware maker, under a multi-year deal, endorsed Sun’s operating system which is rival to its own HP-UX Unix implementation. The terms of agreement, which exclude HP’s Integrity servers, make Sun a strategic partner in HP ProLiant OS distribution, as stated by both the companies. Read more
Red Hat to build KVM hypervisor
February 28, 2009
Red Hat will be building KVM hypervisor into its Enterprise Linux offering, the company announced yesterday.
Induction of virtual machine monitor in RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) 5.4 is the part of company’s virtualisation strategy. Despite framing strategy on KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine), company will continue with Xen-based deployments for full lifetime of RHEL. Customers will be given tools and services to migrate from Xen deployments to KVM. Read more
SaaS could cost more in longer term, cautions Gartner
February 26, 2009
Analyst firm Gartner warned that benefits of software-as-a-service (SaaS) are not very clear as they appear, since many issues which remained hidden due to focus on initial savings, could minimise benefits over software in the long run. Read more
Intel reveals tablet version of its Classmate PC
January 18, 2009
Intel has unveiled a design for low-powered netbook meant for use of primary school students.
The tablet-format Classmate, unveiled at Consumer Electronics Show held at Las Vegas will enable the manufacture of Classmate PCs which can be used both as standard clamshell laptop or a touchscreen tablet with 180° swivel display. It will function with Intel’s Atom processor. Read more
Skype 2.8 for Mac OS X ready for release
January 17, 2009
Skype 2.8 with addition of new features including integrated Wi-Fi hotspot connector and screen sharing Mac OS X is ready for release by January 13. Read more
HP’s Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop for small businesses
December 20, 2008
Small businesses and education institutions would be offered Novell’s Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop by HP in December 2008. The desktop would be initially available in the US and would be introduced in the UK at later date which is not yet planned by HP. Read more
A flaw detected in Windows Vista
December 4, 2008
A flaw has been detected in Windows Vista by an Austrian security company called Phion. The flaw could execute denial-of-service attacks or allow hiding of rootkits on computers using their operating system.
The vulnerability was detected by Phion’s Thomas Unterleitner. According to him Microsoft was informed in October and is likely to fix it only in the next Vista service pack.
Unterleitner disclosed that the flaw existed in Vista’s network input and output system. The Vista kernel memory could be corrupted by buffer overflow caused by requests sent to the iphlpapi.dll API. This could lead to a “blue screen of death” (BSOD) crash. Unterleitner added that overflow could also be used to inject code, thereby compromising user security. The computer could be turned off using the ‘denial-of-service’ attack.
Unterleitner felt that since exploits occur in Vista’s Netio.sys component, it could enable hiding of rootkits.
Unterleitner and his collegues used a sample program to ascertain that the flaw definitely affected Vista Ultimate as well as Vista Enterprise. They opined that the flaw could also affect Microsoft’s other versions of operating system. Though Windows XP is unaffected, both 64-bit and 32-bit versions were quite vulnerable.
Unterleitner has been working with Microsoft Security Response Centre since October to fix the bug.
