Stories by David Orenstein

Acquisition starts Novell travelling on ASP track

Novell has joined the ever-expanding list of software vendors planning to become application service providers and will release specific details on its strategy later this year.

IBM Brings Mainframe Power to PC-Based Servers

IBM Corp. hopes to turn Windows 2000 servers into minimainframes, using a chip set that incorporates Intel Corp.'s upcoming 64-bit processor architecture. IBM claims its chip set, code-named Summit, will put mainframe capabilities on the Windows 2000 platform, helping IBM to differentiate its offerings from competitors' and elevate its products out of the low-end commodity market.

New Server Bus Effort Debuts

IBM Corp. isn't the only server vendor hoping that innovations in its I/O systems will help it grab market leadership and users' attention. The future of I/O architectures was the topic of Strategic Research Corp.'s Server I/O 2000 Conference in Monterey, Calif., last week.

Novell grabs for ASP ring

Novell last week said it wants to become an application service provider, but it won't provide detailed plans until later this year.

Acquisition Starts Novell Down ASP Track

Network software giant Novell Inc., which today said it would acquire application service provider (ASP) JustOn Inc., intends to become an ASP itself and will announce specific plans to do so sometime this year, a company spokesman said.

Billing Application Drains City Utility

City officials in Ann Arbor, Mich., estimate that trouble with utility billing software caused the city's water department to underbill customers by $2.8 million.

Powering Down Drives Is a Sticky Problem

Users who took the advice of Y2K doomsayers and powered down disk drives that usually run nonstop could regret doing so. The drives could fail on power-up due to a condition called "stiction," which has nothing to do with the Y2K rollover.

Retailers, Gov't Still Vigilant for Y2K Glitches

Cathy Hotka, vice president of information technology at the National Retail Federation in Washington, spent much of last week at the White House's Information Coordination Center. The center is still on the lookout for year 2000 problems. Hotka spoke with Computerworld reporter David Orenstein.

Y2K expert says security is the next big challenge

Retailers handle a majority of the dollars in the U.S. economy so their year 2000 efforts are a national concern.

Group warns of powering down hard disks for Y2K

For the love of data, don't power down that old disk.

NetWare update runs into Windows

Even with its Web emphasis, the new version of NetWare appears unlikely to stem the operating system's eroding market share that has resulted from its pounding from Windows, users and analysts said.

Sun apologises to developers of Java on Linux

Sun Microsystems apologised to members of Blackdown, the open-source development group that made the port of Java 2 to Linux possible.

Experts: Mediator boosts settlement prospects

Microsoft and government lawyers are more likely to settle the antitrust case against the software giant with Judge Richard A Posner as a mediator than they would be without such a well-respected guide, several legal experts said.

Linux creator credits users

Linux creator Linus Torvalds told a Comdex audience of thousands last week that user demands rather than purely technological interests have begun to drive the development of the free, open-source operating system.

COMDEX: Novell's Schmidt announces directory products, direction

In his Comdex Fall 99 keynote address, Novell CEO Eric Schmidt announced the availability of Novell Directory Services 8 for Solaris and Windows NT and previewed new interoperability features in the next version of NDS due the first half of next year.