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Microsoft Takes Steps Toward 'Software Factory' Vision

The vision of "software factories" that use a common set of industry- and application-specific tools and languages for developing new software took a step closer to reality yesterday. At the Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages and Applications (OOPSLA) conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, yesterday, Microsoft announced the preview of a new framework and tool for building "domain-specific language designers" based on the modeling technology in the upcoming release of Visual Studio 2005. The Community Technology Preview release of the new framework and tool should help customers and partners to test its use with the visual designer technology, formerly code-named "Whitehorse," which will ship with the Visual Studio 2005 Team System.

Microsoft and others envision the creation of a set of development tools that feature specific functionality tailored for both industry verticals (such as healthcare) and horizontal domains (such as CRM applications) in order to reduce the dependence on "generic tools, ad hoc processes, and custom architectures." So far, Microsoft has recruited several IT organizations into its Visual Studio 2005 Team System ecosystem, which eventually aims to create "software factories," including Borland Software, Kinzan, Nationwide Building Society, Siemens, and Unisys.

Exchange Server 2003 Licenses Up 55%, Microsoft Says

Migrations from Exchange Server Version 5.5 might be a sticking point for Microsoft and many of its customers, but today the adoption of Exchange Server 2003 is going well, the company says. In the first 12 months of availability, Microsoft has sold 55 percent more licenses for Exchange Server 2003 than for the previous release of Exchange, according to Exchange Server Chief Dave Thompson, who spoke at the Microsoft Exchange Connection conference in Orlando, Florida, this week. "We had high hopes for this version of Exchange, so we're very pleased to see it has now surpassed our expectations, with over 20 percent growth in revenue," he said. Sales of all of Microsoft's server products were generally up about 20 percent, which provided a significant boost to Microsoft's first quarter revenues (see "Server Product Sales Fuel Microsoft Revenue Gains"). By the end of 2005, Exchange Server 2003 should have exorcised the majority of the ghosts of past Exchange releases, according to The Radicati Group, which says Exchange Server 2003 will become the most-used version of Exchange next year. However, this will require adoption of the product to grow by nearly 300 percent next year, which Radicati says it can do.

Ingrian Ships New .NET Connector for Securing Windows Transactions

Ingrian Networks has furthered its support for the Microsoft .NET platform with a new release of its DataSecure security appliances, which offload cryptographic processing and encryption key management from application, database, or Web server layers. The California company announced this week that, in addition to its previously announced support for the SQL Server database, the DataSecure appliances can now interact with Windows applications through a new .NET Connector, which features interfaces for COM+ and Web services security architectures.

Ingrian brought support to Microsoft's database in September (see "Ingrian Adds SQL Server Support to Cryptographic Appliance"). Ingrian offloads cryptographic workloads by installing connectors in the target product, which intercept calls for data that needs to be encrypted, sending the data to the DataSecure appliance for encryption, and then routing the data back to the target platform after it has been encrypted. The DataSecure devices are based on dual Intel processors and a hardened Linux operating system.

PKWARE Launches PKZIP Server and SecureZIP Server Products

PKWARE has announced a refresh of its PKZIP and SecureZIP product lines, including a new line of PKZIP Server and SecureZip Server products that feature integrated e-mail and FTP capabilities, in reaction to the way people are using the products today. The Brown Deer, Wisconsin, company, which only six months ago created the SecureZIP product from PKZIP, announced the availability of the new server products on Windows, Linux, and Unix, and said it is working on bringing the same capabilities to its OS/400 and mainframe products.

PKZIP has come a long way from its roots in file compression, and it is now an enterprise-strength, cross-platform data distribution tool with built-in security. The new PKZIP Server products include integrated Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and FTP support; support for event logs and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) traps; self-extraction of files; and integration with antivirus software. In addition to these functions, some versions of the new SecureZIP Server products include an OEM'ed version of RSA Security's BSAFE encryption software (for Public Key Infrastructure certificate-based encryption and authentication), and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) integration.

PKWARE has also shaken up its product line a bit, so here's a look at the new packaged offerings. The base PKZIP Server product for Unix and Linux servers costs $400 per server and features basic compression and password-based encryption, in addition to virus scanning and SYSLOG or SNMP support. To get the FTP and STMP capabilities, one must purchase the Enhanced Data Processing Module, which costs another $200 per server. Similarly, PKWARE offers a base SecureZIP Server product for Unix and Linux, which includes all of the features of the base PKZIP Server product, in addition the more advanced FTP and SMTP server and RSA's PKI certificate-based encryption capabilities, and costs $1,800. To get LDAP support, through the optional Directory Integration Module, it costs another $360. PKWARE also offers an equivalent Windows version of PKZIP Server and Secure Server, with the same upgrade modules and capabilities, for the same prices.

Dell Refreshes Entry Servers for SMBs

Dell has been setting the pace in the small and midsized businesses server market for years, and its competitors know it and have been gunning for it in the uniprocessor and two-way server space. The company responded yesterday with an update of its popular PowerEdge SC line of servers, which are aimed at customers with tight budgets and no significant IT staff.

The PowerEdge SC420 is based on the Intel E7221 chipset and supports hybrid 32-bit/64-bit Pentium 4 chips running at between 2.8 GHz and 3.6 GHz, with an 800 MHz frontside bus or the Celeron processor running at 2.5 GHz with a 533 MHz frontside bus. The machine scales from 256 MB to 4 GB of main memory and includes a dual-channel Serial ATA RAID 1 disk controller and has an optional Ultra320 SCSI disk controller. Dell offers 40 GB, 80 GB, 160 GB, and 250 GB SATA drives and 36 GB, 73 GB, and 146 GB SCSI drives; the machine supports only two disk drives (like other entry tower servers from Dell). It has a Gigabit Ethernet port embedded on the motherboard, which is a big improvement over 10/100 Mbit Ethernet, and has five slots (two PCI Express, three PCI). Dell is configuring Windows Server 2003, Windows Small Business Server 2003, and Red Hat Linux 3 ES on the box. A base machine with the Celeron chip, 256 MB of main memory, a 40 GB SATA drive, with no operating system, costs $499. However, this is not a real configuration. With the 3.6 GHz Pentium 4 chip, 1 GB of main memory, and two 160 GB SATA drives in a RAID1 configuration costs $1,586. If you want an operating system on top of that, then Windows SBS 2003 costs $499, or a one-year subscription to Linux 3 ES costs $349.

The PowerEdge SC1420 is a two-way entry tower server with a $799 base price, which is being given away with a $100 instant rebate. It offers the same operating system options as the PowerEdge SC420, but it is an entirely different machine. The PowerEdge SC1420 is based on Intel's E7250 chipset and runs the hybrid 32-bit and 64-bit "Nocona" Xeon DP processors, which have an 800 MHz frontside bus; Dell is supporting Xeon DP speeds ranging from 2.8 GHz to 3.4 GHz. The E7250 chipset supports up to 8 GB of main memory, and the same disk options, Gigabit Ethernet, and PCI slots as the PowerEdge SC420. However, the SC1420 tower has room for four disks instead of two, which means it can support RAID5 data protection (which is not included in the base box). With two 3.4 GHz Xeon DPs, 2 GB of main memory, and four 160 GB SATA disks, with a RAID5 SATA disk controller, the SC1420 costs $5,152.

IBM's Third Quarter Is Decent; xSeries Sales Booming

For the third quarter, IBM booked sales of $23.4 billion, up 8.9 percent. Gross profits were $8.65 billion, up 10.7 percent. As the company rolled out new servers, storage, and software in the quarter, its sales, research, and development costs rose, putting pressure on profits. IBM had income from operations of $1.8 billion, up 1 percent. Income in the quarter would have been even higher if the company had not paid $237 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over its pension plan. Thanks to stock buybacks, IBM was able to boost earnings per share by 3.9 percent, to $1.06.

Sales of xSeries servers, which are based on Intel and Advanced Micro Devices X86 processors, exploded by 26 percent, and this was the tenth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth for IBM's xSeries line. Mark Loughridge, who took over as IBM's chief financial officer a few quarters ago, said that blade server sales were up 140 percent in the quarter and that blade products are now a significant contributor to profits in the xSeries line. Storage sales, including disk and tape together, were up 5 percent in the quarter, and were similarly muted by product transitions. Overall disk sales were down 1 percent in the quarter as midrange disk sales climbed by 27 percent.

Loughridge also said that server sales in emerging markets like Russia, China, India, and Brazil were up 30 percent or more in all of those regions in all of the three quarters of 2004, and this appears to be one of the primary drivers of big iron sales for IBM. This presumably includes the company's core server brands, including the iSeries. Think about it. If IBM were not seeing booming sales in these areas, iSeries sales would have been a lot lower, and even pSeries sales would have gone south. Take out those four booming markets, and even zSeries sales might have flatlined this year.

IBM's Global Services business, which accounts for just under half of total sales, accounted for $11.4 billion in sales, up 10 percent. For the third quarter, the Software Group had sales of $3.6 billion, up 5 percent, due mostly to currency effects. Operating system sales were $600 million, down by 2 percent (again, blame the iSeries for the decline), and middleware sales were up 6 percent, to $2.9 billion. Host-based middleware sales increased 5 percent, while middleware for Unix, Linux, and Windows servers increased 7 percent in the quarter. WebSphere family products were up 14 percent, but Lotus middleware sales declined 6 percent. DB2 sales across all platforms increased by 15 percent, and DB2 tools grew by 34 percent. IMS database sales were a lot lower, and other legacy middleware products saw sales decline, said Loughridge. Tivoli systems management products grew by 21 percent in the quarter, aided by the acquisition of Candle, and Tivoli security product sales were up 47 percent.

Some Europeans Come Out Against Software Patents

European IT companies have been in a tug-of-war match with the political bodies in the region over software patents. Right now, the European Patent Convention offers patent protection on many things, but software is not one of them. In the United States, software is covered by copyright protection, and in many cases patent protection. This is a fundamental difference of opinion about what protections writers of software are to be afforded. A contingent of European software makers want to adopt the U.S. style of patent protection for software, and legislation is moving forward in the European Union to accomplish this goal.

However, not everyone wants the Europeans to enact patent protection for software, and the people behind NoSoftwarePatents.com, including commercial Linux distributor Red Hat and open source database provider MySQL, are pushing for a grassroots campaign in the European IT community to block the adoption of laws enabling software patents.

Florian Muller, of SWM Software-Marketing, a German software company, is managing the NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign and is the main interface with the press and politicians. Muller is fired up on this issue.

"Software patents are used for anti-competitive purposes, stifle innovation, and would cost the entire economy and society dearly," said Muller in a statement accompanying the announcement of the organization. "On the bottom line, they create more injustice than justice. There is only a small group of people in the patent system who would benefit from them, and some large American corporations have ulterior motives. The public interest must prevail because every European citizen, every European company and every European government would end up paying a high price for such a monumental mistake." Muller called on everyone, particularly the open-source and Internet service provider community, to support the campaign. "Anyone who mistakenly believes that patents are the same as copyright will see that this campaign is supported by successful businesses who protect their software development investments on the basis of copyright law. I have been living off copyright law for almost 20 years myself. Copyright protects innovators--software patents are used as weapons against innovators."