The Newspaper Shop -- Monday edition

[walktalker]

Read it while it lasts

Windows XP: The big squeeze?
When Windows XP is released in a few months, will smaller software companies benefit from jumping aboard the bandwagon or be run over by it? That's a question Microsoft critics, consumers and some software companies are asking as the software giant prepares to dump more features into Windows XP than into any version of its ubiquitous operating system since Windows 95.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...083184,00.html

Decoding Microsoft's open source argument
On May 17, Microsoft Senior Vice-President Craig Mundie submitted a column to ZDNN decribing why the "commercial software model alone" can sustain the industry's growth. The following is a point-by-point counter-argument from Michael Tiemann, the chief technology officer at Red Hat, a supplier of Linux and open source solutions for Internet infrastructure.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/co...763276,00.html

Linus Torvalds: The accidental revolutionary
Linus Torvalds is, in some ways, the Chauncey Gardiner of the computer industry. He was catapulted from being a lowly gardener into an international celebrity -- even a prophet -- more though other people's doing than his own, so Torvalds has become the leader, quite by accident, of a major world religion (and one named after himself): Linux.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/co...763133,00.html

Is there a method to Mundie's madness?
What the heck was he doing? that's what everyone wanted to know when Craig Mundie, Microsoft's vice president of advanced technologies, challenged the open-source license earlier this month. Not much good can possibly come from such a presentation. Then again, nothing good can come of Linus Torvalds' ripping into Mundie, proving that Torvalds is really no different from the people he's criticizing.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/co...761039,00.html

Intel ups the ante with new low-power chips
The chipmaker on Monday launched five new mobile Pentium III and Celeron processors, ranging from 600MHz to 800MHz. Four of the five new chips operate at lower voltage than the company's standard mobile processors. By cutting back on the processors' power consumption and heat production, the new chips will allow PC makers to build thinner, lighter notebooks.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...083232,00.html

IBM breaks the limits on hard drives: 400GB
IBM will unveil a new innovation in hard drive technology Monday that breaks what many in the industry saw as a glass ceiling. In each of the past five years, hard drive capacities have doubled, keeping storage costs low and allowing technophiles and PC users to sock away more data. However, storage buffs believed the rate of growth could continue for only so long, and many asserted that the storage industry was about to hit the physical limit for higher capacities. But according to IBM, a new innovation will push back that limit.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...083199,00.html

Linux takes a leap and a stumble
The Linux revolution is turning into an evolution, with its prospects on the server and client splitting into two distinct paths of unequal fortune. The disparity in the successes of Linux came to the fore last week when new TPC-H benchmarks showed that IBM's upcoming DB2 7.2 database running on Linux 2.4.3 outperformed Microsoft's SQL Server 2000 running on Windows 2000 in the 100GB database category.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...762140,00.html

Vivendi to buy MP3.com for $372 million
Vivendi Universal SA agreed to acquire the music Web portal MP3.com Inc. for $372 million (423 million euros) in cash and stock in the latest example of the music majors' attempt to harness the Internet as a profitable distribution medium. The move is likely to sharpen the battle lines between the two main online-music-distribution camps, as Vivendi, owner of Universal Music, plans on using MP3.com's technology to power Duet, its Internet-music-distribution alliance with Sony Corp.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...762822,00.html

Software piracy increases
Software piracy grew in 2000 -- the first increase in more than half a decade -- and 37 percent of the programs used by businesses worldwide are illegal copies, a trade group of software makers reported Monday. The worldwide dollar losses to software makers because of piracy dropped slightly to $11.75 billion, however, because of a growing market for software and lower prices, the group said.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=mn_hd

More news later on, a juicy steak and crispy french fries are waiting for me hmmm