Free At Last: Microsoft Ships Windows Server 2008
by Alex Woodie

The day has finally arrived. After seven years of development and numerous delays, Windows Server 2008, sometimes known as 'Longhorn Server,' was released to manufacturing (RTM) on Monday, starting the countdown to general availability. Despite indications and prognostications (including some in this newsletter) that it would be delayed once more, Microsoft deliver Windows Server 2008--as well as the first major update to Windows Vista, Service Pack 1--according to its latest revised schedule. READ MORE >

Microsoft Offers $44.6 Billion for Yahoo!
by Alex Woodie

Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 billion last week in an unsolicited bid for one of the industry's largest Internet search and online advertising providers. The deal, if approved by Yahoo, would serve as a much-needed infusion into Microsoft's struggling online services business and bolster its ability to compete with rival Google. READ MORE >

High Voltage DC Systems for Data Centers Cut Power Use
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

If you are running out of power and cooling in your data center and that is limiting your ability to add servers and storage for your company to support growing workloads, or if you are just simply tired of wasting energy, then Validus DC Systems wants to talk to you. The Brookfield, Connecticut, company has created a hybrid AC-DC power system for data centers that can cut energy consumption by as much as 40 percent, basically by eliminating AC power inside the data center and by running server and storage supplies at a higher DC voltage. 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 >