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NEWS&ANALYSIS Acer, MPC set server sights on enterprise OFFERINGS TO INCLUDE RACK-MOUNTED SYSTEMS By Jeffrey Burt Acer america corp. is looking to expand beyond PCs and laptops and reestablish itself in the more lucrative server and storage space with new rack-mounted systems and storage devices. The Altos R300, a rackmounted 1U (1.75-inch) server, is a one-way system powered by Intel Corp.’s Pentium 4 chip running at speeds up to 3.06GHz, said officials Acer’s Altos R300 rack-mounted server runs on Pentium 4 chips. at the San Jose, Calif., company. The unit, due this week, is priced starting at $1,600 and is targeted at midsize companies, although officials said several servers can be tied together into a Linux cluster to deliver high-performance capabilities. The company this summer will add to that line the 2U (3.5-inch-high), two-way R700, based on Intel Xeon chips. Later this year or early next year, Acer will ship the Altos S300 and S700 storage devices, officials said. Acer’s parent company sells the systems in Europe and Asia, but this will be the first time the company’s rackmounted and storage devices are introduced to North America. The moves represent a growing trend among PC 12 eWEEK n MAY 26, 2003 makers, including Gateway Inc. and MPC Computers LLC, to branch out beyond the desktop. According to some IT administrators and industry observers, it is not yet clear whether the companies can grow beyond their installed base of PC customers. “We’re running all of our mission-critical stuff on our [Dell Computer Corp. and Compaq] servers,” said Roy Cashman, CIO for RUAN Transportation Management Systems Inc., in Des Moines, Iowa. “We would not take a chance on a niche player ... who didn’t have a market presence.” But that installed base could be the place to establish a presence. The State Journal- Register, a Springfield, Ill., newspaper, has been an MPC PC customer for almost four years. Based on that history, the paper this year began buying servers from the Nampa, Idaho, company and will consider its storage equipment when the need arises. MPC last week rolled out its first two storage offerings, the DataFrame 310fc Fibre Channel product and a SCSI counterpart, the 310s. “From this point on, it’s virtually 100 percent MPC in this building,” said Terry Claypool, IS operations manager. “They work very hard to keep our business, both with price and service.” ´ Microsoft covers back with SCO Unix license By Peter Galli The crusade by the sco Group to protect its Unix intellectual property took an unexpected turn last week when Microsoft Corp. said it was licensing the Unix source code and patent from the company. “SCO approached us a couple of months ago, and they had a valid IP claim, and, as we do quite regularly, we agreed to a broad IP license with SCO and as such have stepped out of the fray,” said Alex Mercer, a Microsoft spokeswoman, in Redmond, Wash. In the last month, SCO, of Lindon, Utah, has made a number of moves, charging that IBM, Linux and many of SCO’s own customers are violating SCO’s Unix IP. Mercer said it was not Microsoft’s intent to exploit the IP license as a way to fund SCO’s campaign against IBM and Linux—which SCO is suing for $1 billion—and against Linux. “There is absolutely no correlation between the IBM suit and our IP license with SCO,” she said. Furthermore, Microsoft’s agreement is not an admission that the company and its Services for Unix product violated SCO’s IP but rather is a pre-emptive move to avoid possible complications, said Mercer. Details about the financial value and conditions of the Microsoft-SCO deal are confidential, and Mercer declined to say whether Microsoft is contemplating other deals with SCO. As for SCO, its legal moves are not sitting well with some customers. “More and more, it looks like SCO is just scratching the sides of the well as they plummet to their death,” said one SCO user, who requested anonymity. A Unix/Linux programmer in Boston also questioned whether Microsoft really needed another Unix license given that it held one of the original ATT Unix licenses, the same one Sun Microsystems Inc. has. Microsoft’s Mercer declined to comment. But Chris Sontag, senior vice president and general manager for SCO’s intellectualproperty division, said the licensing deal ensured Microsoft’s intellectual-property compliance across all Microsoft solutions and will better enable Microsoft to ensure compatibility with Unix and Unix services. “There are many companies in the IT industry who acknowledge and respect the intellectual property of software,” said Sontag. “Microsoft is showing the importance of maintaining compatibility with Unix and Microsoft’s software solutions.” The Open Source Initiative last week hit back, updating its attack against SCO. OSI, a nonprofit educational association with offices in Palo Alto, Calif., is one of the principal advocacy groups for the opensource community. In a position paper, OSI argues that an SCO victory could do serious damage to the open-source community. “SCO’s implication of wider claims could turn Linux into an intellectualproperty minefield, with potential users and allies perpetually wary of being mugged by previously unasserted IP claims,” it said. ´
NEWS&ANALYSIS FRONT OFFICE Oracle enhances Sales application ORACLE LAST WEEK RELEASED Version 11.5.9 of its Oracle Sales application, with several new enhancements designed to help salespeople. The enhancements include a new application called Oracle Proposals, which generates personalized sales proposals from templates. These proposals can then be tracked and monitored for effectiveness. This release also supports tighter integration with Oracle’s Order Management applications, allowing sales representatives to check customers’ credit histories during the quoting process. The software is available now with suite and component pricing models. The next version of the software, 11.5.10, expected in nine months to a year, will add new capabilities for collaborative selling and partner relationship management, officials said. —Dennis Callaghan STANDARDS OASIS ratifies UDDI specification THE ORGANIZATION FOR THE Advancement of Structured Information Standards last week announced the ratification of Universal Description, Discovery and Integration Version 2 as an OASIS open standard. UDDI, the most broadly supported Web services standard, allows users to publish, find and use Web services. OASIS officials said members of the OASIS UDDI Specification Technical Committee include Computer Associates International, Fujitsu, IBM, Iona Technologies, Microsoft, Novell, OpenNetwork Technologies, Oracle, SAP, SeeBeyond Technology, Sun Microsystems, Tata Consultancy Services and others. —Darryl K. Taft 14 eWEEK n MAY 26, 2003 Handheld applications redux DEVICE IQ SHUNS MIDDLEWARE FOR APPS By Carmen Nobel Ateam of engineers and developers from Palm Inc.’s ill-fated enterprise software group this fall will launch a company that will aim to create more enterprise applications for more devices than their previous employer. To do it, Device IQ Inc. is avoiding a generic middleware platform in favor of customizing applications for companies. “There is an enormous lack of good device-side software,” said Bob Pascazio, president of Device IQ, in New York. “So there is some work we Palm are doing on mobile embedded systems— that are not Palms or phones—that do not have an OS but communicate to a PC periodically through USB [Universal Serial Bus] or Bluetooth.” Pascazio declined to name the devices for which Device IQ will be designing software because many of them have yet to be released, but he said the company is working on applications for existing hardware, too. “We are also writing some sophisticated client-side applications on phones, Palms and Pocket PCs,” he said. “Also for PDAs we have a Web site deal, similar to Vindigo [Inc.’s] offering.” Vindigo creates Web-based, location-based applications for several handheld platforms. Pascazio was a lead devel- oper at ThinAirApps Inc., a company that Palm bought in December 2001 to create a wireless middleware platform for its Tungsten handheld line, which is aimed at corporate users. At the time, Todd Bradley, then chief operating officer of Palm, called the acquisition “a linchpin of our longterm enterprise and wireless strategies.” But Palm nixed the plans for the middleware, Wavering on wireless Microsoft Corp. � 1998 Co-founds Wireless Knowledge Inc. � 2000 Announces initial plans for Microsoft Mobile Information Server, which will compete with Wireless Knowledge � 2001 Sells off Wireless Knowledge stake � 2002 Announces phaseout of MMIS � Early 2001 Announces plans to buy Extended Systems Inc.; nixes the plans a few months later � Late 2001 Announces acquisition of ThinAirApps � 2002 Announces Tungsten line of handhelds and accompanying middleware based on ThinAirApps technology � 2003 Reveals that it will not release middleware for Tungsten dubbed Tungsten MIMS (Mobile Information Management Server), a couple of months ago, saying it no longer fits its focus. Life at Palm after the Thin- AirApps acquisition was frustrating up until Palm shut down the New York office in March, Pascazio said. “We had Tungsten MIMS Version 1.8 almost out the door,” he said. “It was an amazing product. It worked on the Tungsten T with Bluetooth to a GPRS [General Packet Radio Service] phone, worked on the Tungsten C, Tungsten W, et cetera. It had full groupware support for Exchange, Domino, IMAP. They dumped the whole thing.” Palm officials said the company’s future software plans are based on partnerships with large software companies and carriers, which like to choose their own backend software. “Some of the ThinAir technology is still in use,” said Jon Oakes, senior director of business solutions at Palm and former CEO of Thin- AirApps, who works from his New York home now that Palm’s office there has closed. “Some technologies will be a part of the IBM WebSphere Everyplace Access suite. We were proud to be part of WEA Version 4.3.” Explaining why MIMS was nixed, Bradley said in March, “In the enterprise arena, market conditions have caused us to rebalance our areas of emphasis.” Palm will still make client software. Oakes said: “We will continue to develop our own software solutions. But we intend to leverage software partners for most of our backend, connectivity-oriented solutions.” Palm has a history with IBM competitor BEA Systems Inc. In August, Palm announced plans to work with BEA and its WebLogic Server to develop what was to be the first Web- Logic Workshop control for handheld devices. ´
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Page 3 and 4: MAY 26, 2003 CONTENTS NEWS&ANALYSIS
Page 5: NEWS&ANALYSIS LATE NEWS Microsoft t
Page 9 and 10: NEWS&ANALYSIS Network analysis: Fas
Page 11 and 12: NEWS&ANALYSIS SERVERS StarView remo
Page 13 and 14: NEWS&ANALYSIS Face to Face: Clark M
Page 15 and 16: Security: Government DHS revamp on
Page 17 and 18: Software links backup, SRM CA, VERI
Page 19 and 20: Storage: OS upgrade Bigger, better
Page 21 and 22: NEWS&ANALYSIS SPARC workstation is

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