Microsoft Lacks Innovation, Fairness in Pricing of Protocols, EC Says
by Alex Woodie

The regulatory battle between Microsoft and the European Commission continued last week when the EC issued a fresh statement of objections and threats of new fines concerning the royalties that Microsoft charges others to obtain the "communication protocols" for developing client-server applications. Microsoft, which has four weeks to respond, contested the new allegation, and claimed it is offering protocols for 30 percent less than competitors. READ MORE >

Symantec Gives Vista Security a So-So Grade
by Alex Woodie

While Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system has made some big strides in the area of security, it doesn't fully protect users from emerging threats on the Web, security software giant Symantec concluded in a new report issued last week. READ MORE >

Midrange Boxes, Big Iron Drive Server Growth in Q4 2006
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The server market watchers at IDC have built their models of the business for the final quarter of 2006, and this time around, some interesting things seem to have been a-foot as last year drew to a close. IDC reckons that for the first time in a long time, the midrange and high-end server markets are outgrowing the volume server space (which is mostly X64-based machines these days). Moreover, revenue growth far outpaced shipment growth in the fourth quarter of 2006, which is a reverse of the usual trend.READ MORE >

HP Ships Virtual Connect I/O for Blades, Adds Blade Workstation
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Back in June 2006, when Hewlett-Packard launched its third generation, c-Class BladeSystem blade server chassis and related blade servers, one of the interesting features of the new box was a gadget called Virtual Connect. While the c-Class machines started shipping last July, Virtual Connect, which virtualized links between blade servers and their connections to Ethernet networks and storage area networks, is only available starting today.READ MORE >