Guild Companies

Windows & Linux Edition
Volume 2, Number 1 -- January 8, 2003

But Wait, There's More . . .

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

U.S. Federal District Judge Frederick Motz, who is hearing an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft by rival Sun Microsystems, issued a preliminary injunction against Microsoft in late December that will compel the company to ship a Java Virtual Machine in the various flavors of its Windows operating systems. Microsoft, predictably, has gone to the U.S. Court of Appeals to overturn the ruling, and has asked that court to make a quick decision on the matter. The injunction implies that Judge Motz believes Microsoft's practices have harmed Sun and that, absent an injunction, more harm would come to Sun as the trial slowly gets under way. Sun is seeking $1 billion in damages from Microsoft in the antitrust lawsuit, regarding Java.

Just as 2002 was winding down, Microsoft issued several notices saying that it had discovered several important security exposures in its Windows platforms. The most jarring one is a flaw in the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) embedded in Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. According to Microsoft Security Bulleting MS02-069, a set of security issues were uncovered that might enable hackers coming into a Web site to gain access of the server and change data, load and run programs, and reformat hard disk drives. Microsoft has issued a new JVM to fix the eight security flaws identified in this bulletin. At the same time, the company issued the MS02-070 bulletin, dealing with Windows 2000 and Windows XP machines. This security flaw might allow a hacker to break in and modify network security policies in these environments. Customers with Windows XP Service Pack 1 already have a fix, but those with the original Windows XP and any Windows 2000 release level have to get an update. Customers using Windows 2000 have to have SP2 or SP3 installed. In MS02-071, the final security bulletin of 2002, Microsoft said that another flaw it found might allow a hacker coming in from Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, or Windows XP to gain access to the machine and take complete control over it through the log-in features of the operating system. Microsoft has released a patch for this security flaw as well.
Commercial Linux distributor Red Hat, the market leader among Linux distributors, has made good on its promises, for the past two years, to fully support the entire range of IBM eServer platforms. In late December, the company finally announced that the 64-bit versions of Red Hat Linux 7.1 are supported on iSeries Model 270, 820, 830, 840, and 890 servers; on pSeries Model 620, 640, and 660 servers; and on zSeries 800 and 900 servers. It is noteworthy that Red Hat is not supporting the big pSeries 650, 670, and 690 Power4-based servers, and that the latest Red Hat Linux 8.0 and Linux Advanced Server (which occupies the same niche as Windows 2000 Advanced Server) are not available on the non-xSeries machines. All xSeries machines support Red Hat's various releases. On the iSeries, pSeries, and zSeries, Red Hat 7.1 is available in English, German, and Japanese. The latter two languages target the markets controlled by rivals SuSE and Turbolinux. It seems likely that support for Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese, and Russian is in the works, since the OS/400 platform is widely used in countries that speak these languages.
As 2002 was ending, there was a flurry of press surrounding IBM's purported killing off of its OS/2 Warp server and workstation operating system. While some customers were surprised by this announcement, many others were probably surprised that IBM was still selling and supporting OS/2 Warp, which no one has paid much attention to for years. OS/2 Warp is still used in many IT organizations, and IBM says that it absolutely is still supporting OS/2 Warp, even though an announcement letter dated December 20, 2002, said that prepackaged implementations of OS/2 Warp V4, announced in 1996, and Warp Server for e-Business, announced in 1999, would not be available in shrink-wrapped form after March 10, 2003. Program services for the withdrawn programs are available until December 31, 2004, according to the announcement, but according to IBM's internal sales manuals, service was discontinued on December 31, 2000, for Warp V4, and was discontinued on May 31, 2002, for Warp Server for e-Business. Go figure. IBM has assured customers and channel partners that, until further notice, it will sell electronic versions of OS/2 licenses and documentation through its Web site and in downloadable or CD formats. How long this will persist is unclear, but it doesn't cost IBM any money to put these files on its site and interface them with an electronic shopping cart, so OS/2 could be available indefinitely, even though it is entirely ignored.
Only one day after finishing its acquisition of security software vendor PentaSafe in December, NetIQ went out and bought another company, Marshall Software of Auckland, New Zealand, for $23 million in cash. The deal is expected to bring NetIQ about $2 million a quarter in revenue starting in the third quarter of 2003. Marshall sells e-mail and Web server content security software, including spam filtering software, and has 3,500 customers. NetIQ says its customers have some 10 million Microsoft Exchange Server clients installed, and hopes to sell the Marshall tools to these companies. In October, NetIQ bought PentaSafe Security Technologies, a Houston, Texas, company that sells security software for a variety of operating systems and applications. The acquisition of PentaSafe's VigilEnt suite of integrated tools will help it to consolidate its own security management products and should bolster its presence against larger security management vendors. NetIQ paid $192 million in cash and $63 million in stock to acquire PentaSafe.