The Power6 Server Ramp: Better Than Expected
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

With many software makers having made the shift to per-core pricing for all or some aspect of their software price--and moving away from server tier pricing or user-based pricing in some cases--it is no wonder that both AIX and i5/OS customers are looking at IBM's Power6-based System p and System i 570 servers as a means to upgrade their existing machines while keeping their software bill the same or even possibly lowering it. READ MORE >

Rock and Tukwila Are the Stars of ISSCC This Week
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The two popular chip conferences held each year--the IEEE's International Solid State Circuits Conference in the winter and Stanford University's Hot Chips Conference in the summer--are like debutante balls for advanced microprocessors. This is where chip makers who have been shaping advanced technologies and bringing them to maturity announce them to the world. This week, it is the ISSCC show, and Sun Microsystems, Intel, and IBM are talking about their latest processor designs. READ MORE >

Who Needs a Web Application Firewall?
by Alex Woodie

At the turn of the millennium, IT shops were scrambling to deploy firewalls and other devices to stop hackers from infiltrating their servers. Over the ensuing years, network security professionals got very good at locking down their charges. As a result, hackers have moved onto more productive pastures, including exploiting vulnerabilities in Web applications themselves. This has given rise to a new security device: the Web application firewall. The question is: Do you need one? READ MORE >

The X Factor: Survive, Adapt, Repeat
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

If you are like me and you have been working for at least 30 years, you are supposed to be rich by now. Isn't that the American dream? To be an entrepreneur, to cut your own swath through the business world, to find your niche and expand it, to be safe. So it is with us personally, so it goes for most of the millions of companies that are trying to stay in business in the world. Isn't this supposed to be a lot easier than it is? What on earth is wrong with the economy--I mean the global one that we can't escape--that it can create and destroy jobs and wealth so quickly? READ MORE >