But Wait, There's More

BizTalk Server 2004 SP1 Now Available for Download

Microsoft developers recently posted BizTalk Server 2004 Service Pack 1 to the Microsoft Download Center. BizTalk Server 2004 SP1 contains a collection of hotfixes, security fixes, and fixes for performance and stress, and runs 10 percent faster than the first release, developers say. When deploying this product, Microsoft recommends that customers first test SP1 and then deploy it across all editions of BizTalk Server, to ensure that their implementations are up to date. At the same time, Microsoft unveiled an Adapter Migration Toolkit for BizTalkServer 2004, which is designed to help BizTalk Server 2002 users migrate to the more current edition. Users can download the new software from Microsoft's Download Center.

Microsoft Expands Anti-Piracy Campaign World Wide

Microsoft is expanding an anti-piracy campaign and will soon be requiring all users to participate in it if they want to get enhancements and bug fixes through the company's Windows Update service. The current anti-piracy program, Windows Genuine Advantage, will be expanded globally starting in the second half of 2005, when all visitors to the Microsoft Download Center and Windows Update will need to prove that they are using legitimate versions of Windows before accessing content. Users will prove they're not using pirated copies by agreeing to allow Microsoft to download an ActiveX control that can tell the difference between a real copy of Windows and a forgery. Microsoft's new anti-piracy measures do not appear to affect its Windows Server customers. In 2003, more than one third of the software installed on computers around the world was counterfeit, which costs legitimate software resellers $29 billion per year, according to the Business Software Alliance. Microsoft will give away free software as an incentive for people to participate in the program. The company will also offer steep discounts to people in China, Norway, and Czechoslovakia who trade in their counterfeit versions of Windows for real copies.

IBM Offers Discounts on Windows-Based xSeries Servers

IBM is offering discounts of up to $400 to customers who go online to buy an xSeries server that is pre-loaded with the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system. To get the $400 discount, customers must buy Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition. The Standard Edition of Windows Server 2003 qualifies for a $100 discount, while buyers of Small Business Server 2003, Standard Edition, get $75 off. Yesterday's announcement is good for practically any of IBM's xSeries products, including BladeCenter editions. However, purchases must be made between February 1 and March 31, and they must be made on IBM's Web site.

New MSN Engine Helps Users Search Other People's Computers

Microsoft is hoping to steal a piece of Google's pie with the new MSN Search engine it launched yesterday. The global roll-out of the new MSN Search engine to 25 markets will be bolstered with a multi-million-dollar ad campaign that Microsoft claims will reach 90 percent of U.S. households and hundreds of millions of people in other markets. Microsoft is also touting the technological capabilities of the new technology, the first search engine it has built from the ground up. The new engine includes things like "Search Builder," which allows users to emphasize some words in their search more than others; "Category-Specific Searching," which Microsoft says will enable even more fine-tuning of searches, and "Search Near Me," which gives users results based on where they are geographically located. While it is engaged in battles with Google and Yahoo for search-engine supremacy, Microsoft has also been working to improve the capability for users to locate items stored on their own computers, which was the focus of the WinFS file system. However, WinFS was removed from the upcoming "Longhorn" release of the Windows operating system, and is currently slated to ship sometime after Longhorn, which is still slated to ship in 2006, followed by a server version of Longhorn in 2007.

Microsoft Supports Interface A to Help Semiconductor Manufacturers

Microsoft this week announced its intent to support Interface A, a new communication standard that could maximize yield and minimize downtime for semiconductor manufacturers. By agreeing on the XML-based Interface A standard, Microsoft says that equipment vendors, software vendors, and systems integrators will speak a common language when sharing equipment diagnostics and advanced process control data and applications. "Interface A is rapidly emerging as the dominant high-speed data highway for chipmakers to bring new processes online more quickly and improve process performance," says Harvey Wohlwend, project manager for e-manufacturing at International SEMATECH Manufacturing Initiative. Companies that have already been successful with Microsoft-based Interface A solutions include AIS Automation Dresden GmbH, Asyst Technologies, Cimetrix, HCL Technologies OSIsoft, and Wonderware.

IBM Announces New SOX Compliance Service

IBM is selling access to its Lotus Workplace for Business Controls and Reporting software to help companies comply with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, it announced at Lotusphere last week. The new service, which bears the awkward yet quintessentially Big Blue-esque name IBM Flexible Hosting Solutions, WBCR Service, provides companies with Web-based access to WBCR, which is a portal-based collaborative application designed to help companies assess their internal controls. By using IBM Global Service data centers and personnel instead of running the software on their own Domino servers, IBM says, companies can save money while still gaining access to the sophisticated WBCR software. WBCR runs only on AIX and Windows 2000 operating systems, and currently costs $28,875 for a 25-user license. Pricing for WBCR as a service was not immediately available.

IBM Gives Data Centers What They Really Need: SOMA

Sometimes, you just have to laugh at the ridiculous acronyms in the computer business. IBM Global Services this week announced a perfectly reasonable new offering with the unfortunate name of Service Oriented Modeling and Architecture, or SOMA. Everybody is interested in designing and implementing more flexible information technology and applications that reside on top of it, and that is what SOMA is all about. Unfortunately, that is also the name of the drug that people blissed out on in Aldous Huxley's sci-fi classic, Brave New World. Oops. But sometimes it's hard to stop the IBM marketing machine once it gets in motion in Somers, New York (not to be confused with Soma, New York, where all IBM marketing focuses on the iSeries). IBM is clearly excited about services-oriented architectures (SOAs), and for all we know the SOMA name is absolutely appropriate, since it is supposed to systematically analyze and reorganize all business processes, tweak them for improvements, and get IT aligned with these changes in such a way that future refinements are more easily implemented.

Sounds like a drug to us.