Intel Delivers Low-Power, Quad-Core Xeon Chips
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Consider it two for flinching. This week, chip maker Intel rounded out its quad-core "Clovertown" Xeon 5300 processor line with two low-powered variants that burn considerably less electricity and generate a lot less heat than the initial Clovertown chips that Intel launched last November. The news comes just as Advanced Micro Devices has warned Wall Street that it will not make its numbers for the first quarter, and it has to wait patiently to deliver its technically better but not yet finished "Barcelona" quad-core Opteron Rev F chips. READ MORE >

Server Makers Have $5.3 Billion Bumper Crop in Q4 in Europe
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Server makers, resellers, and distributors in EMEA had a pretty good end to 2006, according to statistics compiled by market researcher IDC. By its reckoning, the server market grew by 7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006, hitting $5.3 billion in sales across all vendors and breaking through the $5 billion mark for the first time in the history of the server business. Sales growth in Europe, in fact, helped push up the worldwide market in the final quarter of last year. READ MORE >

Lawson Updates ERP, Unveils SaaS Plans at User Conference
by Alex Woodie

Lawson Software announced a new release of its M3 (formerly Movex) ERP application suite that addresses performance concerns last week at its annual user conference, held in San Diego. The software giant also outlined its plans for the ERP hosting and software as a service (SaaS) market, added more OEM'ed WebSphere components from IBM into its technology stack, unveiled a new version of Lawson Business Intelligence, and expanded its network of partners, among other announcements. READ MORE >

As I See It: The Digital Life
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

It's situated about 40 miles from Seoul, on 1,500 acres of man-made island off the Inchon coast. When completed in 2014, it is intended to become a living laboratory, a shining microcosm of technologically enhanced life in the new millennium. Think of it as Korea's version of Disney's Tomorrow Land; a place where imagination and IT intersect, backed by a huge investment of cash. It will be clean, modern, and efficient. A place where everything is tracked, every action recorded, every service personalized, and every transaction automated. But unlike Tomorrow Land, people won't just visit, they will actually live and work there. Welcome to the model surveillance society, welcome to Songdo, welcome to the future. READ MORE >