Opening Day for Sun OpenSolaris Project includes blogger onslaught

Sun Microsystems unveiled a grouping of technologies as part of OpenSolaris, the open source version of the Solaris 10 operating system, and along with it, scores of blogs from developers involved in the project.

Technologies including the kernel and networking software will be available for free usage under Sun's Common Development and Distribution License, said Tom Goguen, vice president for platform software at Sun.

The kernel includes features such as predictive self-healing and Solaris containers for isolating an application within the operating system. Also part of the release are system libraries and commands.

Users can download source code, combine it with their own source code and make commercial products out of it. "It's a completely royalty-free open source product," Goguen said.

"Our goal is to increase and really drive up the ecosystem around Solaris,” said Goguen.

"It's going to be a full, buildable environment. That's perhaps the key thing," Goguen said.

At the Sun Website, viewers can read scores blogs from developers such as Alan Coopersmith, who offer unique insight into the project.

"Since Solaris is huge, instead of waiting until everything was ready for release, a staged plan was developed for OpenSolaris, starting with the consolidation at the core of the OS and then working out to the higher layers," Coopersmith wrote. "Now that ON is out and the infrastructure used is set up, we're starting to work out how to release code from other consolidations. Once everything is in place for additional consolidations to be added to OpenSolaris, the next phase will probably be the source trees that come from open source releases and are thus not needing as much work to separate out the bits that can be released from those that can't, and that is expected to include our Xorg server source tree."

OpenSolaris will run on Intel x86 and 64-bit AMD Opteron systems as well as on Sun’s Sparc hardware. Sun hopes to leverage the operating system by offering support packages. The company also is hopeful that seeding the market with Open-Solaris will boost demand for its portfolio of other products, Goguen said.

Asked if Sun was releasing Solaris to open source because of competitive pressure from the open source Linux platform, Goguen responded that Sun itself was started more than 20 years ago through open source technology -- BSD Unix.

"[BSD Unix developer] Bill Joy, who was one of the founders of the company, arguably could be considered one of the founders of open source software," Goguen said.

"We’re the second largest contributor of open source software to the community [behind the University of California] and [on Tuesday] we’ll step up and be the largest contributor of open source software," Goguen stated.

There are markets underserved by Linux, which lacks the functionalities of Solaris such self-healing and dynamic tracing, Goguen said. Solaris also offers functionality such as high-end symmetric multiprocessing, and that is lacking in Linux, he said. Additionally, Solaris offers advantages in addressing multicore chips, he said.

"Red Hat's [Linux] offering is incapable of scaling as well as Solaris today,” Goguen said.

Sun with open source Solaris hopes to stem defections to Linux, said analyst Gordon Haff, senior analyst at Illuminata.

"In terms of being sort of the mass-market alternative to Linux, that doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon. But I think Sun’s real focus here is more on its customer base and developer community that are still in the Solaris camp," Haff said.

The move is not likely to attract Windows users because Windows is quite a different system from Solaris, Haff said.

Sun still will offer the commercial version of Solaris, but future commercial releases will be based on the development going on as part of OpenSolaris, Goguen said.

Sun made the dynamic tracing feature of Solaris, known as DTrace, available through open source in January. Some administrative and install technologies will be kept out of the OpenSolaris release on Tuesday. Sun still must perform due diligence to ascertain that there are no third-party encumbrances pertaining to any of the code, according to Goguen.

OpenSolaris will be available at www.opensolaris.org.

The OpenSolaris Project plan also calls for future releases of test suites, a tool to manage bug and patch submissions, a code management solution, and design documents.

- By Paul Krill

Intel unveils compilers for multi-core platforms

Intel on Tuesday announced compilers intended to help developers build threaded applications and optimize performance on multi-core hardware platforms.

The Intel Compilers version 9.0 for C++ and Fortran feature an auto-parallelization option that seeks out opportunities in applications to create multiple execution threads, according to Intel. The OpenMP 2.5 standard, for creating and managing multi-threaded software, is supported by the compilers.

The compilers allow developers to debug optimized code generated within the compilers themselves. Also featured is application-level security for Linux, to reduce buffer overflow vulnerabilities.

Version 9.0 of the Intel C++ Compiler is available now starting at $399 for Windows or Linux. The Version 9.0 Intel Fortran Compiler is shipping now starting at $499 for Windows or Linux.

Industry heavyweights form software quality council

Software quality and cost issues will be the focus of a newly formed industry council featuring heavyweights such as IBM and SAP.

The BPM Forum, which promotes business performance management techniques and technologies, on Tuesday announced formation of the Software Economics Council, to address issues impacting the effectiveness and value of software.

Formed in response to the growing dependency of organizations on software to run their operations and drive business performance, the council will communicate virtually and in-person.

Noting that software quality remains a sore point, the council will discuss issues such as the gaps between softward design and delivery, software lifecycle management, open source technologies and strategies to elevate the value of software with licensed, open source and on-demand models.

The leadership committee for the council consists of executives from a wide range of software companies. Included are: Adobe Systems, Aztec Software, Azul Systems, BEA Systems, Borland Software, BroadvVision, Cognizant, Deloitte, Dendrite International, EDS, IBM, Informatica, Leverage Software, Mercury, Novell, Oracle, Salesforce.com, Santeon, SAP, Siebel Systems and Sybase.

Absent from the list are Microsoft and Sun Microsystems. But these two vendors will be invited to participate, said Shirish Netke, chief strategy officer for Aztec Software and chairman of the council's leadership committee.

"They have not been intentionally excluded from this," Netke said. Current participants, however, have demonstrated more of an active role in dealing with the issues pertinent to the council, he said. Both Sun and Microsoft are members of the BPM Forum.

The council is being referred to by the acronym, SECO.

Sony Ericsson launches souped up mobile phones

Sony Ericsson unveiled five mobile phones Monday, including a 3G high-data speed phone that offers enhanced features such as video conferencing, music and games.

The announcement as rival Nokia launched seven new phones, including its own 3G phone.

Sony Ericsson, a partnership of the two companies, announced the W600, a version of its Walkman music phone for at North American users; the S600, targeted for the youth market; a clamshell-shaped phone named the Z520; and the J210, for mainstream functions such as calling and writing messages.

IT also unveiled a 3G phone called the K608. "This latest in the K600 family of 3G phones supports all the major operators' 3G services, including video confer-encing and fast downloads of music, games, videos and other multimedia content," Sony Ericsson said in a statement.

Wireless analyst Gerry Purdy said many more 3G mobile phones are expected to hit the market in the next two years as carriers are able to handle the technology. "You will see 3G handsets coming out that feature high-speed data and video and other features," said Purdy, principal analyst for MobileTrax.

In addition to Sony Ericsson and Nokia, Samsung is also expecting a launch of new phones, he said.

Sony Ericsson said global 3G network subscriptions are growing rapidly. "We are building our 3G portfolio to support this growth, producing handsets that effortlessly handle the diversity of services on offer," said Jan Wareby, Corporate Executive, Vice President and Head of Sales and Marketing of Sony Ericsson. "The K608 is a classic addition to the family that consumers will immediately find appealing and intuitive."

The K608 is featured with a suite of business applications that handle personal information management and PC-synchronization via USB or Bluetooth, Sony Ericsson said.

Money can't buy me love: The 2005 InfoWorld Compensation Survey shows surprising results

Corporate heath is improving and, along with it, salaries and bonuses. But IT discontent over years of budget cuts, pay freezes and layoffs continues, the 2005 InfoWorld's Compensation Survey shows.

"Going by salary alone, the warming trend hinted at in last year's survey has proved true, as the overall average reported salary increased for the first time in three years, up 2.7 percent," Senior Copy Editor Jason Synder reports.

But IT managers are thinking about more than money. "If anything, a closer look at survey responses reveals that years of tackling mounting workloads with less money and depleted staffs have taken their toll on IT morale," Synder writes.

The survey covers a broad range of pay categories and related subjects, including salary comparisons by job title, executive bonuses and employee feedback on job security.

If you want to evaluate your status in relation to the rest of the industry, this is a must read.

Nokia reaching out and touching Apple, other partners

Nokia reached out and touched several partners this week to offer some additional options to its enterprise telephony customers.

With Apple, Nokia is collaborating on developing a mobile browser using similar components to Apple's Safari browser.

Nokia is also teaming up with Cisco, OnRelay, IBM and others on a strategy to offer a suite of advanced enterprise voice mobility options, such as intelligent and VoIP connectivity between mobile devices and company IP PBXs

Avaya and Nokia also announced they are moving to the next phase of their strategic collaboration to develop products to address the emerging market for enterprise Fixed to Mobile Convergence (FMC) voice solutions based on open industry standards.

Speaking at the annual Nokia Connection media event in Helsinki, Jaakko Olkkonen, Nokia's general manager for Enterprise Voice Solutions, described the strategy as a "fundamentally new way to marry the best of fixed and mobile telephony to provide cost savings and productivity to businesses and employees, new business opportunities for service providers, and simplicity and freedom for people in or out of the office."

Michael Jackson suicide e-mail hoax is a Trojan attack

E-mails saying pop star Michael Jackson has attempted suicide are in fact a Trojan virus, according to Sophos, a British anti-virus company.

Sophos said it has identified hundreds of the spam messages that exploit public attention focused on Jackson, currently on trial on child molestation charges.

The spam e-mails, under the heading, "Re: Suicide aattempt," read, "Last night, while in his Neverland Ranch, Michael Jackson has made a suicidal attempt."

The e-mails offer a link to more information. However, when users click on the link they are taken to a Website that installs malicious code onto their PCs.

"If you click on the link the Website displays a message saying it is too busy, which may not surprise people who think it might contain genuine breaking news about Michael Jackson," said Carole Theriault, security consultant at Sophos. "However, this is a diversionary tactic - because behind the scenes the website is downloading malware onto the user's computer without their knowledge."

Sophos security experts analysed the code downloaded by clicking on the link, and determined that it itself attempts to download another Trojan horse which Sophos detects as Troj/Borobt-Gen.

Jackson's notoriety has attracted hackers in the past. In October 2004, Internet messages claiming that incriminating home videos belonging to Jackson had been discovered, actually linked to infected Web surfers with the Hackarmy Trojan horse, Sophos said. Janet Jackson's Superbowl wardrobe malfunction also inspired virus attack.

"The sick minds behind viruses and other malware often exploit celebrity names and news stories in an attempt to infect as many people as possible," Theriault said. "All computer users should be very careful about clicking on weblinks in unsolicited email or launching unknown attachments."

Sophos said it recommends companies automatically update their corporate virus protec-tion, and filter attachments which may contain malicious code at the email gateway with a consolidated solution to defend against viruses and spam.

BEA says "Think liquid"

BEA Systems on Thursday is rolling out several products as part of its service infrastructure strategy, which had been codenamed Project Free Flow.

The company also is launching the tagline, "Think liquid," as part of its goal to help users free up IT assets to become enterprise liquid assets.

New products include BEA AquaLogic Service Bus, which is an enterprise service bus formerly known as QuickSilver. Due this summer, the product will carry a list price not to exceed $45,000 per CPU.

The BEA AquaLogic Service Registry provides UDDI directory services for SOA governance and lifecycle management. The product is being made by Systinet but will carry the BEA name. Pricing is yet to be determined.

The Liquid Data product for offering a single view of data sources has been renamed the BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform. It features read and write data capabilities as opposed its previous read-only capability. Availability is planned for this month, with list pricing starting at $10,000 per CPU.

The fourth product is BEA AquaLogic Enterprise Security, a security infrastructure formerly known as WebLogic Enterprise Security. Shipping now, it costs $75,000 for the administrative application and $10,000 per CPU for for security modules.

Future AquaLogic products may include Process, for services management; Portal, for information worker productivity; and Composer, a tool environment for AquaLogic products.

Apple risks user disaffection in switch to Intel

There seem to be something the Apple hopeful are forgetting as they try to rationalize why Apple is making the switch to Intel.

Yes, every developer I spoke to explained that the transition is no big deal and should be relatively painless.

Yes, users should be able to switch even their current applications over to Intel thanks to Rosetta and I'm sure other utilities that will come down the pike.

If you want all of your questions answered about the transition I suggest you go to the MacWorld site and read their FAQs on the subject.

If you want the lastest news go to the InfoWorld story or you might even try Apple's own site.

And yes, Apple had no choice but to make the switch. Apple was just not a big enough customer for Big Blue to devote the kinds of R&D Apple needed to keep up with the Intel platform. For Intel, chips are all they have. For IBM, it's a small piece of their revenue stream.

However, what the Apple hopeful are forgetting is that even if the transition is seamless and even if we can all agree Steve Jobs had no choice and that he made the right move, it doesn't mean it is going to work.

Unfortunately it may be too late.

Apple will now find itself competing in terms of applications and pricing with the rest of the world.

It will lose that certain cache it always had. Yes, the industrial design will still be there but in a sense it will be a hollow design when at the end of the day it's just Intel inside, nothing special.

Of course, we also have the uncertainty over the transition period. As buyers get closer to the date when Apple moves 100 percent to Intel who's going to buy a Mac? And once a buyer leaves the fold, will they come back?

Even the good news for software developers who can write programs for the Mac and easily have a PC version as well, takes away from the uniqueness of the Mac.

Could we be witnessing the beginning of the end for Apple? Only time will tell but from where I sit it doesn't look good.