Sun Delivers OpenSolaris Development Distro, Plus Support
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

It may be anywhere from one to two months late coming to market, depending on how generous you want to be, but Sun Microsystems has delivered a usable distribution of OpenSolaris, the open source and development edition of the Solaris 10 Unix platform. But don't be confused. Sun also thinks that for those bleeding-edge companies who need all the latest-greatest features that have not yet been added to a patch for the commercial-grade Solaris, OpenSolaris is appropriate for production, too. READ MORE >

AMD Revises Opteron Roadmaps, Pushes Out Rev Gs
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Hoping to build some confidence in its processor roadmaps, Advanced Micro Devices this week is talking more specifically about its Opteron and Athlon X64 processor plans between now and 2010. With the difficulties of the 'Barcelona' quad-core Rev F Opterons for two-socket and larger machines behind it and the 'Budapest' quad-core variants for single-socket boxes coming this quarter, AMD has taken a hard look at its roadmaps and made some important changes--changes that should improve its chances of keeping pace with a resurgent Intel. READ MORE >

IBM Loses Two Key Executives to Retirement--Really
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The deck chairs are changing once again at the good ship Big Blue, and this time, not only are the top brass moving into new roles at the company, but some heavy hitters at IBM are trading in their office chairs for Adirondack chairs at their vacation hangouts as they retire from the company. It is hard to get any bluer than Bill Zeitler and Nick Donofrio, but a new team of managers is now being given a chance to try now that these two are retiring from the company in the wake of their impending 60th birthdays. READ MORE >

GDCM Seeks to 'Defrag' the Data Center for Higher Efficiency
by Alex Woodie

Earth Week has come and gone, hopefully leaving behind a desire to consume less and generally be more 'green.' For operators of large data centers, cutting electricity consumption can not only gain you environmental kudos, but it can also save millions of dollars a year. That's the goal of a little-known software company called GDCM, which is currently ramping up North American sales of nlyte, a Windows application that enables users to model their use of electricity, cooling, network capacity, and space, and predict when they will run out. READ MORE >