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Microsoft Shakes Up Certification System for IT Pros

Prospective geeks looking to prove their proficiency in Windows environments, take note: Microsoft is shaking up its certification system. Yesterday the tech giant announced a new three-tiered certification system that it says more closely maps with its current and future products, and that will result in IT professionals getting more specialized education that. Perhaps most importantly, students will be able to get these specialized certifications by taking fewer exams (now we've got your attention). Under the new program, IT professionals will be able to obtain four credentials for specific Microsoft technologies that fall into three "series," including Certified Technology Specialist, Certified IT Professional or Professional Developer, and Certified Architect. The first certifications will be available for Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005, and BizTalk Server 2006 in early 2006. For more information and to get started with an online self-assessment, go to www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp.

Intel Reports 18 Percent Increase in Revenue

Intel reported net income of $2 billion, or 32 cents per share, on revenues of nearly $10 billion for its third quarter ending October 1, the chip maker announced last week. These numbers translated into a five percent increase in net income and an 18 percent increase in overall revenue compared to the third quarter of 2004. Intel CEO and President, Paul Otellini, was upbeat on the results, explaining that the company set records for total revenues and unit shipments across all major product lines. "Execution remained solid as we launched our new dual-core server platform ahead of schedule and began shipping microprocessors built on our industry-leading 65nm process technology," he says. The company's earnings per share took a two-cent hit related to the payment of about half of a $300-million settlement of a patent infringement lawsuit with MicroUnity unveiled last month; the remaining $160 million will be amortized over a 10-year period, the company says. Profits were further reduced by four cents per share as a result of $250 million in tax increases related to the decision to repatriate foreign-earned income under the American Jobs Creation Act. Intel does not expect revenues to grow at the same rate in the fourth quarter, as the company forecast revenues between $10.2 billion and $10.8 billion, which would be an increase of 6.25 to 10.4 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2004.

CommuniGate Pro 5.0 to Bring 'Carrier Grade' VoIP, Vendor Says

The next version of CommuniGate Systems' (formerly Stalker Software) CommuniGate Pro e-mail and collaboration software should be available in about a week, according to a spokeswoman with the company. CommuniGate Pro version 5.0 features numerous enhancements in the Voice over IP (VoIP) area and will provide a carrier-grade, software-based PBX system, the company says. With version 5.0, the session initiation protocol (SIP)-based CommuniGate Pro will act in a variety of new functions, including serving as a teleconference Server, providing auto-attendant and interactive voice response (IVR) functionality, providing call queuing and automatic call distribution (ACD) functionality, and serving voicemail. The company also claims users will be able to easily add nodes to their CommuniGate clusters, and scale up their "SIP Farm" to meet demands, while new logging functions and APIs will facilitate integration with billing systems. "The Internet is constantly evolving into the most widely used communications backbone, and users now demand sophisticated Internet Communications including instant messaging, e-mail, and Voice over IP," says Vladimir Butenko, chief executive of the San Francisco Bay Area software firm. Windows is one of several dozen operating systems that CommuniGate Pro runs on, including various flavors of Unix, Mac OS X, and OS/400.

Gartner Predicts IT Spending to Rise 5.5 Percent in 2006

Let the prognostications for 2006 begin! The analysts at Gartner have dusted off their crystal balls and taken a gander into the hazy future to declare that IT spending will increase by 5.5 percent in the United States in 2006. Gartner's preliminary results are based on surveys of IT departments, who are saying that some of this increase will be dedicated to application development and integration (of what, Gartner doesn't say). The 1,500 customers surveyed by Gartner say that spending on security and storage is going to level off, but they will boost spending on mobile computing and related infrastructure as well as on middleware and development tools. The survey results indicate that companies will boost spending on IT personnel in the areas of project and program management, systems management, and network management, but that they expected to spend less on contract employees. While the average increase in spending among those U.S. companies surveyed was 5.5 percent, companies in the services industry set the high water mark with an average expected increase in IT budget of around 11 percent, with all other industry sectors expecting to grow in the single digits; banks and financial institutions expected, on average, to increase spending by only 3.4 percent. "On the surface, these results paint an optimistic picture of long-awaited IT spending recovery," explained Barbara Gomolski, the vice president of research at Gartner who created the spending forecast. "But the increases involved are relatively modest. Many industries will see revenue growth outpace IT budget increases in 2006. As a result, although absolute dollars spent on IT will increase in 2006, IT spending as a percentage of revenue will actually decline in some organizations." Gartner presented its first pass on 2006 predictions at the Gartner Symposium in Orlando, Florida, last week.

SMBs Are Ill-Prepared for Security Threats, Trend Micro Says

Smaller organizations without dedicated IT professionals suffer the most for lack of security, according to a new study by security software firm Trend Micro. The study compared the security concerns of small and medium size business (SMB) users across the world, and found that the same security threats don't necessarily track across the globe. For instance, spyware is "much more likely" to be encountered by computer users in the U.S. than in Germany and Japan. However, the incidence if spyware encounters is growing the fastest in Japan, where one out of three users say spyware has increased in the last month. The Germans are more security conscious than their Americans and Japanese SMB counterparts, and are more likely to request security guidance from their IT department. However, only slightly more than half of German and U.S. SMB firms, and about a third of Japanese SMBs, even have an IT department. "Smaller businesses face a dilemma," says Steve Quane of Trend Micro. "Encounters with security threats are rising faster in smaller organizations, but these same organizations are restricted by time, cost, and available resources." The solution, according to Trend Micro, is to buy and use software that provides protection from online security threats, such as antivirus software, firewalls, and intrusion prevention systems.

Arkeia Rolls Out Volume-Based Pricing for Backups

Data protection software developer Arkeia last week unveiled a new way to charge for backups with Smart Backup, its new entry-level offering. Instead of charging users for the number and type of servers they back up, Smart Backup enables users to pay by the gigabyte backed up. Smart Backup uses the same Linux-based engine as its flagship Network Backup software, and supports the full range of Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, NetWare, and xBSD clients. The software replaces the company's free Arkeia Light software, and can also be upgraded from the company's Server Backup software. The software is free for the first 50GB, and costs $99 for each 100GB up to 1TB, and $499 for each additional 500GB above 1TB, including $99 yearly support renewal.

Newisys Launches Baby NAS

Newisys has created a tiny Linux-based RAID array aimed at supporting Windows and Linux clients. The NA-1400 RAID disk array is based on low-cost SATA drives and on a low-power, low-cost XScale 80219 600 processor from Intel (formerly known as the ARM RISC processors) with 32 KB of data cache. It has a single 256 MB DDR SDRAM memory stick, which can be expanded to 512 MB, and its software-based RAID, which supports RAID 0, 1, and 5 levels, is implemented in the stripped-down Linux kernel. The box is designed to hold four SATA disks, which come in 160 GB, 250 GB, 400 GB, and 500 GB capacities, and it has two USB ports on the front and two Gigabit Ethernet ports in the rear allowing connection to clients and servers. Perhaps most interestingly, its thermals and cooling airflow have been designed so it pulls from the bottom and pushes it out the top, which means it can be jammed up against the wall and still not cook itself. The NA-1400 supports SMB, CIFS, XFS, HTTP, CIM Client, and FTP file access, and its software has been set up to act as a print server for USB-connected printers. It can support up to 20 simultaneous connections and delivers between 18 MB/sec and 22 MB/sec of file serving performance, according to Barry Hutt, director of storage systems for Newisys. With four 250 GB SATA disks, the NA-1400 will cost $949, or just under a buck a gigabyte. It is aimed at home users, remote offices, and small businesses, all of which have substantial data sharing and storage needs these days, but who cannot afford to spend $10,000 for a disk array. Newisys is partnering with Bell Microproducts to distribute the NA-1400, and will be partnering to add other software functionality to the small array.