MySQL AB and IBM Announce Open Source Database Support for the IBM System i Platform

MySQL Conference & Expo 2007 -- MySQL AB and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a joint technology and reseller agreement to bring support for the MySQL open source database to the IBM System i business computing platform.

The two companies will work together to offer the MySQL Server for i5/OS, the flagship operating system for System i, and plan to deliver DB2 for i5/OS as a certified MySQL storage engine on the System i platform. This will allow System i customers to implement online and transactional MySQL applications while storing all data in a single, easy-to-manage DB2 database.

In addition, MySQL Enterprise subscriptions -- a comprehensive offering of MySQL database software, services and support -- will be made available to IBM clients worldwide through IBM's reseller network and System i sales team. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

This morning's announcement was made at the 2007 MySQL Conference & Expo, being held this week at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

"IBM continues to innovate the System i platform with new investments in cutting-edge, open-source solutions. Today's news will make thousands of open source MySQL and PHP applications available to System i clients, helping them respond more quickly to business needs as they arise," said Mark Shearer, general manager IBM System i. "In addition, our customers will not only be able to deploy these applications with the support of IBM and MySQL, but -- thanks to the planned integration with our DB2 database storage engine for MySQL -- customers will continue to benefit from the integration and simplicity that System i consistently delivers."

"We are very pleased to work with IBM to bring two large, active hardware and software communities together around System i and MySQL," said Marten Mickos, MySQL AB's CEO. "As an IBM Business Partner, we hope this will open up an exciting new generation of online applications to take advantage of all the corporate data stored on one of the most reliable and secure platforms in the IT industry."

IBM becomes a member of the MySQL Certified Storage Engine Program (http://www.mysql.com/engines). With the planned DB2 storage engine for MySQL, System i customers will be able to run MySQL applications while continuing to manage their DB2 for i5/OS databases. It will plug into the MySQL Server and be managed as any other storage engine within the database server. The DB2 storage engine will provide superior storage management, transaction support, and database management for MySQL developers and DBAs -- and enable sharing of data between MySQL and DB2 applications.

About IBM

For more information about IBM, visit www.ibm.com. For more about System i, visit www.ibm.com/systemi

About MySQL

MySQL AB develops and supports a family of high-performance, affordable database products. The company's flagship offering is 'MySQL Enterprise,' a comprehensive set of production-tested software, proactive monitoring tools, and premium support services.

MySQL is the world's most popular open source database software, with over 11 million active installations. Many of the world's largest and fastest-growing organizations use MySQL to save time and money powering their high-volume Web sites, business-critical systems and packaged software -- including industry leaders such as Yahoo!, Alcatel, The Associated Press, Suzuki and NASA.

With headquarters in the United States and Sweden -- and operations around the world -- MySQL AB supports both open source values and corporate customers' needs in a profitable, sustainable business model. For more information about MySQL, please visit www.mysql.com

Sun Launches Online Sale to Celebrate 25 Years of Innovation

In celebration of its 25-year anniversary, Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW) is offering exciting deals on its most popular and innovative products to help customers quickly and securely build, develop and deploy network computing solutions. For two weeks starting today, limited quantities of select award-winning products will be available at discounts of up to 65 percent as an anniversary gift to customers in the U.S. and U.K. Sale offerings include UltraSPARC and industry-standard Sun Fire servers, Sun StorageTek systems, services and software.


"Over the past 25 years, thousands of customers have built their businesses on Sun because of our exemplary value and investment protection," said Marsha Cavanagh, vice president of Lifecycle Marketing at Sun Microsystems, Inc. "On our 25th anniversary, we're further lowering the barriers to entry by featuring great promotional prices on some of our hottest products, offering them online where many of our customers prefer to purchase. In addition to rewarding our loyal customers, we want to introduce the next generation of companies to the innovation that has made Sun a leader in network computing."

Sun technologies—offering customers excellent value as well as processor platform and Operating System (OS) choice—will be available at unprecedented promotional prices online at http://www.sun.com/25thsale. The promotion enables both new and existing customers to quickly and easily engage with Sun's most powerful technologies, including the Solaris OS. Sale highlights include:

Systems: 50 percent off the Sun Fire x4500, the industry's first data server; up to 50 percent off the Sun Fire x4600, the world's first 16-way modular x64 server; up to 60 percent off Sun Fire CoolThreads systems, the most energy-efficient, high-performance systems on the market; and up to 50 percent off high-performance x64/x86 and SPARC workstations.
Storage: Up to 65 percent off leading NAS systems such as the Sun StorageTek 5320 and 5220 NAS Appliances.
Services: Sun offers lower-cost training and high-quality services, including Solaris Subscriptions priced less than commercial Linux; 40 percent off a service plan with the SunSpectrum Instant Upgrade program; and 25 percent off most Solaris support subscriptions.
Software: Sun's Solaris OS is available free at anytime and is supported on the broadest set of x86 and UltraSPARC platforms, making it the strategic OS of choice. Customers can easily develop applications with free Sun development tools such as Sun Studio and NetBeans software.
"Sun is always looking for creative ways to reach new and existing customers, through programs such as Try and Buy and Sun Startup Essentials," said Cavanagh. "Our anniversary sale is intended to attract new customers, encourage migration off competing platforms, and expand our footprint into broader markets."

Sun also launched a Web site (http://www.sun.com/25years) honoring the company's quarter-century of innovation, with videos from CEO Jonathan Schwartz and Chairman and Co-founder Scott McNealy; historical timelines; photos; a virtual scrapbook of memories from Sun's 25 years; and more.

Founded in 1982 and led throughout its history by the guiding principle "The Network is the Computer," Sun has pioneered an abundance of technologies that have helped customers grow their businesses on the network: from Java and Solaris to ultra-thin clients; from network storage to open source software. Now Sun is poised for another 25 years of innovation, delivering new open, eco responsible network computing technologies to help empower the people that will push the boundaries of participation on the network.

During its 25 years in business, Sun has built a massive network of customers, partners, developers, employees, alumni and other advocates. Sun now operates in more than 100 countries around the world and supports an ecosystem of more than 20,000 channel partners, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), System Integrators (SIs) and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). More than 5 million developers code in Java, supporting more than 4 billion personal computers, mobile phones and other devices worldwide that run Java applications.

New Intel Tools Help Developers Create, Debug And Tune Applications For Windows Vista And Latest Multi-Core Processors

Intel Corporation today announced the availability of new versions of its Intel® Thread Checker, Intel® Thread Profiler, Intel® VTune™ Performance Analyzer and Intel® Threading Building Blocks. These software development products enable developers to create more reliable, scalable applications, and have now been enhanced for the latest multi-core processors – Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme QX6800 and Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q6600 – and newest operating systems - Microsoft Vista*, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise*, Red Hat Enterprise Linux* and Fedora Core*.

"Our Intel Core 2 processors have essential new profiling capabilities we're taking advantage of for the first time in our VTune Analyzer 9.0. Since nearly all systems shipping with Windows Vista will be multi-core systems, developers targeting Vista have been asking us for these parallelism tools," said James Reinders, director of marketing for Intel's Developer Products Division. "Developers on all operating systems want their move to parallelism well supported by development tools and we're committed to keeping up with our aggressive pace of supporting developers in as many ways as possible."

Performing multiple tasks simultaneously is referred to as "running in parallel." Parallelism is accessed in hardware and operating systems with the concept of threads of execution that are easier to program when abstracted into the software concepts of data and task parallelism. Intel Software Development products are the latest example of the company's commitment to simplify parallel programming and represent an efficient way for development teams to prepare applications for multi-core processors. These products ensure threaded applications are scaleable, reliable and optimized for current and future processor innovations.

Intel Thread Checker 3.1 for Windows and Linux detects errors in the coding of parallelism so that developers can introduce threading more safely and quickly. With its patented advanced error protection engine, the product provides "thread safety" by identifying the most obscure threading errors in 64-bit applications. This tool is enhanced with optimized performance for lower instrumented image size and runtime overhead, which gives developers even faster analysis.

Intel Thread Profiler 3.1 for Windows provides developers with insight into how application threads behave and pinpoints parallel performance issues such as bottlenecks. It allows developers to measure the number of cores that are effectively utilized by the application and indicates the percentage of the code that is not optimally parallelized for the hardware platform on which the application is running. This updated version now offers selectable stackwalking for much faster analysis and display, and is easier to use repeatedly through support for automatic recall of custom configuration settings within an activity. This updated product increases consistency and saves developers time on repetitive tasks.

Intel Threading Building Blocks 1.1 for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X is a C++ template library that simplifies introducing threads to an application, making performance gains possible while shielding software developers from the low-level complexity of assigning threads to processor cores. It enables developers to write an application once that automatically recognizes the number of available cores and scales performance appropriately. This enhanced version includes an automatic grain size calculator for optimal algorithm parallelization.

Intel VTune Performance Analyzer 9.0 is a solution that helps developers run their software faster on single and multi-core systems. Vista users now have full support, including Intel's new signed driver, which will install without Vista blocking for security concerns. Intel Core 2 Duo and Quad processors have significantly enhanced performance analysis capabilities and support more events, higher precision in event location correlation and an innovative new pipeline stall accounting. The stall accounting features radically improve tuning by focusing the user on instances of possible issues, such as cache misses.

VTune 9.0 for Linux offers a new connection between the Intel compiler's analysis and VTune run time analysis of hotspots. This new version contains an intuitive hotspot navigator that enables developers to scroll to the source from hotspot to hotspot. This allows users to identify hotspots and benefit from the knowledge built into the Intel compiler.

Pricing and Availability

Intel VTune Performance Analyzer 9.0, Intel Threading Building Blocks 1.1, Intel Thread Checker 3.1 and Intel Thread Profiler 3.1 are available today. Suggested pricing for the products: Intel VTune 9.0 $699; Intel Threading Building Blocks 1.1 for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X operating systems $299; Intel Thread Checker 3.1 for Windows and Linux $999 and $499, respectively; and Intel Thread Profiler 3.1 for Windows $299.

Intel provides software products, training, resources, technologies and services software developers need to create innovative products and industry-leading software solutions that run best on Intel platforms. Intel offers a complete line of software development products, including compilers, libraries and analysis tools, which enable developers to get more performance out of their systems and applications. Intel software developer products offer industry leading support for parallel programming for systems of all sizes. For more information, visit www.intel.com/software/products.

Sun Microsystems Announces OpenSolaris as Industry's Most Comprehensive Multi-Vendor Storage Operating System

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced it is donating storage technologies for storage developers within the OpenSolaris community. This will enable community members to combine OpenSolaris with hardware from any source to create compelling storage solutions at a fraction of the price of traditional proprietary storage vendors. This combination of open source and commodity hardware heralds a new stage in the storage industry.


Sun is taking the lead in creating a community-driven software development platform that speeds time-to-market for storage application development and which better addresses customers' ever-evolving data management and archiving needs. Sun is donating the source code to the Storage community at http://opensolaris.org/os/community/storage/ which will feature email forums, design documents and open source code.



"Just as free and open source code has changed the way server and desktop operating systems are developed, evaluated and deployed, today marks a big step in repeating this model for storage software technology," said Rich Green, executive vice president, Software, Sun Microsystems. "Sun is taking the lead in changing the market by enabling the creation of compelling low-cost storage solutions via the free and open availability of open source software, including Solaris, on commodity hardware from a wide-range of vendors including HP, Dell, IBM, and Sun."



Today Sun also announced the previously Sun-only flexible administration features of Solaris ZFS will be donated to OpenSolaris. ZFS is a dynamic file system which simplifies management and adds functionality. The features donated include:

• ZFS Clone Promotion feature, which allows storage users to turn a clone back into the active file system;


• Recursive Snapshots feature, which automatically creates snapshots for all descendent file systems.


• Double Parity RAIDZ, a data protection enhancement to that provides storage users with enough protection so that no data will
  be lost if up to two devices fail


• Hot Spares for ZFS Storage Pool Devices, data protection disks that can replace failed or faulted devices, eliminating downtime
  after disk failure.

Sun and its partners are also introducing the following storage technologies into the OpenSolaris Storage community:

• Point-in-Time Copy data service and Remote Mirror data service - allows volumes and their snapshots to be replicated between physically different servers. Includes filter-driver framework and utilities. This is the first commercial version of replication software that has been open sourced;


• NFS v4.1 (also known as parallel NFS) -- provides scalable parallel access to files distributed among multiple servers;


• YANFS (formerly known as WebNFS) - Java implementation of the client side of the XDR, RPC, NFSv2, and NFSv3 protocols;


• iSCSI device drivers -- provides both the initiator and target support for the IETF iSCSI protocol which allows the use of the SCSI protocol over TCP/IP networks;


• OSD device drivers and related software -- provides both initiator and target support for storage devices that adhere to the SCSI Object-Based Storage Device (OSD) command protocol;


• QLogic Fibre Channel HBA driver – The QLogic QLC driver enables booting from internal and external Fibre Channel devices and are now a part of OpenSolaris, making Sun’s stack of drivers which facilitate I/O activity to host bus adapters open from top to bottom – a first in the world of open storage;

OpenSolaris already provides an extensive array of storage software including a native CIFS client, UFS, Solaris Volume Manager, Traffic Manager (multipathing I/O support), a complete Fibre Channel framework with drivers, as well as traditional target drivers. Please see http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/storage/ for the entire list. Sun also has plans to open source the following technologies in the coming months: Sun StorageTek QFS shared file system, Sun StorageTek Storage Archive Manager, Sun StorageTek 5800 client interfaces and simulator/server and other storage-related technologies.



OpenSolaris Launches The First Open Source Storage Development Community
The new Storage community on OpenSolaris.org will help give developers a quicker way to deploy data-intensive applications. The community includes developers adding data management functionality and customizing the storage stack for new applications and platforms; system administrators implementing Solaris technology in data centers; educators and students researching data management in universities; and new users exploring the technology and discovering that OpenSolaris offers new opportunities. Application developers that adopt OpenSolaris as a storage platform can now utilize and enhance their existing data services and have the means to develop their own data services.



Further details on Sun's Storage family can be found at http://www.sun.com/storage.

Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta Hits Xbox LIVE Worldwide on May 16

Microsoft Game Studios and Bungie Studios today confirmed the multiplayer beta of “Halo® 3” will debut to audiences worldwide via Xbox LIVE® on May 16 at 5 a.m. PDT and run through June 6 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. Coming exclusively to the Xbox 360™ console this fall, “Halo 3” is the highly anticipated third chapter in the groundbreaking “Halo” trilogy from legendary developers Bungie. “Halo 3” lets gamers experience Master Chief’s greatest battle as he launches an epic mission to stop the Covenant, destroy the impending Flood threat and ultimately save mankind.

Made possible through Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox LIVE gaming and entertainment network, which provides a robust online service for more than 6 million gamers worldwide, the multiplayer beta for “Halo 3” will give anxious Xbox 360 gamers their first opportunity to get their hands on the new levels, weapons, vehicles and game types, as well as a chance to provide valuable data that Bungie will use in continued development. Starting May 16, gamers who secured their admission to the multiplayer beta either through the “Rule of Three” promotion or by purchasing a specially marked copy of “Crackdown™” for Xbox 360 will be able to don their Spartan armor, download the beta on Xbox LIVE, and jump online using their Xbox LIVE Gold account* to battle other gamers from around the world.

When gamers gather online to play the multiplayer beta via Xbox LIVE in May, they will be treated to three richly detailed, action-oriented maps: Snowbound, High Ground and Valhalla, which represent a mixture of large- and medium-scale combat environments and are brand-new to “Halo 3.” Each map will test gamers’ mettle as they are placed behind the controls of new “Halo 3” vehicles such as the agile Mongoose all-terrain vehicle, and armed with deadly weapons such as the new and improved Assault Rifle, the ferocious Brute Spiker, the devastating Spartan Laser and the treacherous new Spike Grenades. This is just a taste of what gamers will experience later this fall when “Halo 3” goes on sale.

“‘Halo: Combat Evolved’ and ‘Halo 2’ changed the face of console gaming forever,” said Shane Kim, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios. “Gamers from around the world have logged more than 800 million hours on Xbox LIVE playing ‘Halo 2,’ and years after its launch it remains the No. 1 title on our Xbox LIVE network. Bringing an early look at the multiplayer elements of ‘Halo 3’ to our passionate fan base is tremendously exciting for us.”

Gamers worldwide who did not participate in the “Rule of Three” promotion but are interested in joining the multiplayer beta of “Halo 3” can still participate through the purchase of the critically acclaimed Xbox 360 title “Crackdown,” which was launched in February. “Crackdown” sets players loose in a free-form, persistent city for action-packed crime fighting that requires a bigger, faster and stronger hero that evolves as a more efficient weapon through continued gameplay. Each copy of “Crackdown” has been specially marked with a “Halo 3” beta sticker prior to the beta period, and starting May 16 the game will act as a key for gamers to download and participate in the “Halo 3” multiplayer beta.

In addition, gamers who can’t wait for the multiplayer beta this May can get an even earlier look at “Halo 3” with a new, behind-the-scenes video feature available at http://www.bungie.net and in high definition over Xbox LIVE Marketplace. Starting today, viewers can go behind the scenes at Bungie Studios to learn about the people, technology and process that are making “Halo 3” an unforgettable multiplayer experience, and to get a taste of what to expect from the upcoming “Halo 3” multiplayer beta. The latest multiplayer video documentary, titled “Is Quisnam Protero Damno!,” will offer a glimpse at how “Halo 3” multiplayer maps are being designed, built and architected, and how these amazing spaces are converted into fun places in which to play. Gamers can also catch the first-ever glimpse of brand-new “Halo 3” multiplayer levels in their early stages of evolution and construction.

About Bungie Studios

Bungie Studios was founded in 1991 with two goals: to develop games that combine brilliant technology, beautiful art, intelligent stories and deep gameplay, and then sell enough of those games to achieve its real goal of total world domination. Over the past 10 years it has produced games such as the “Marathon Trilogy” and the first two “Myth” games, hailed as classics by critics and gamers around the world. Bungie’s “Halo” franchise is an international award-winning action title that has grown into a global entertainment phenomenon, selling more than 14.7 million units worldwide, logging over 800 million hours of multiplayer action on Xbox LIVE and spawning action figures, books, a graphic novel, apparel and more. Bungie is currently at work on “Halo 3,” which represents the third chapter in this “Halo” trilogy and is slated for release in 2007. More information on Bungie can be found at http://www.bungie.net

About Microsoft Game Studios

Microsoft Game Studios is a leading worldwide publisher and developer of games for the Xbox® and Xbox 360 video game systems, the Windows® operating system and online platforms. Comprising a network of top developers, Microsoft Game Studios is committed to creating innovative and diverse games for Windows (http://www.microsoft.com/games), including such franchises as “Age of Empires®,” “Flight Simulator” and “Zoo Tycoon®”; Xbox and Xbox 360 (http://www.xbox.com), including such games as “Gears of War” and franchises such as “Halo,” “Fable®,” “Project Gotham Racing®” and “Forza Motorsport®”; and MSN® Games (http://www.games.msn.com), the official games channel for the MSN network and home to such hits as “Bejeweled” and “Hexic®.”

Intel Delivers Its Fastest Enthusiast Quad-Core Processor

Intel Corporation today advanced its enthusiast-level quad-core processor family with the introduction of the Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme processor QX6800, the company's twelfth quad-core processor offering. Running at 2.93 GHz -- the fastest native clock speed yet reached with the Intel® Core™ microarchitecture for the quad-core desktop -- this addition to Intel's innovative processor family sets new standards for desktop PC performance. The Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX6800 is ideal for those gamers, digital design professionals and enthusiasts who crave the highest performing computers they can get their hands on.

At the recent Game Developer's Conference* in San Francisco, several software developers demonstrated new games that have been "threaded" to take advantage of multiple processor cores and threads. This increased performance can help deliver smoother gameplay, more realistic game effects and more lifelike artificial intelligence. Some of the most exciting titles of the year such as Crytek’s Crysis*, Gas Powered Games’ Supreme Commander* and Flagship's Hellgate London* have undergone substantial joint engineering efforts with Intel to use more than two processing threads to their advantage.

One of the first games ever developed for the PC is also entering the quad-core era. "The latest version of Microsoft Flight Simulator* X, Service Pack One (SP1), due out later this month, is a great match for the extreme multi-core processing delivered by the new Intel Core 2 Extreme quad-core processor," said Phil Taylor, Flight Sim Program Manager, Microsoft Game Studios. "Flight Sim X SP1 greatly increases multicore utilization and will scale as more threads are available leading to reduced load times as well as frame rate improvements and greater visual complexity during flight. The Flight Simulator team at Microsoft is pleased to work with Intel to provide our end users with a great gaming experience."

In addition to delivering adrenaline to hardcore gamers, the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX6800 is also being embraced by media users and developers. Adobe*, Cakewalk*, DivX*, Sony Creative Software* and dozens of other developers have delivered applications that use all four cores, enabling media professionals to do what they do best-- capture creativity quickly and reliably. For example, the Intel Core 2 Extreme quad-core processor QX6800 is up to 65% faster1 than the Intel Core 2 Extreme dual-core processor X6800 on video encoding. This is a key capability as more households are recording and editing high-definition video to capture, preserve and share memories.

"The performance and technology leadership we are delivering with our enthusiast quad-core processor lineup is a direct result of the reliability provided by Intel's manufacturing and engineering strength," said Eric Kim, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Home Group. "This translates to user benefits such as better gameplay with more intelligent computer-generated opponents and less wait time for demanding high-definition media editing."

The Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX6800 is produced on Intel's industry-leading 65 nanometer process, key to enabling the large 8 megabyte cache. A 1066 MHz system bus is supported and the processor is available now at a cost of $1,199.


* Other brands may be claimed as the property of others.

1 1 MainConcept* H.264 Encoder v2.1 using input file 30sec long, 1920x1080 HD mpeg2 video clip with a bitrate of about 18000kpbs. Output is H.264 format video encoded at 6000 kbps. Details and system specs at http://www.intel.com/performance/desktop/extreme/video_encoding.htm

100 Million iPods Sold

Apple® today announced that the 100 millionth iPod® has been sold, making the iPod the fastest selling music player in history. The first iPod was sold five and a half years ago, in November 2001, and since then Apple has introduced more than 10 new iPod models, including five generations of iPod, two generations of iPod mini, two generations of iPod nano and two generations of iPod shuffle. Along with iTunes® and the iTunes online music store, the iPod has transformed how tens of millions of music lovers acquire, manage and listen to their music.

“At this historic milestone, we want to thank music lovers everywhere for making iPod such an incredible success,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPod has helped millions of people around the world rekindle their passion for music, and we’re thrilled to be a part of that.”

“It’s hard to remember what I did before the iPod,” said Mary J. Blige, GRAMMY Award-winning singer. “iPod is more than just a music player, it’s an extension of your personality and a great way to take your favorite music with you everywhere you go.”

“Without the iPod, the digital music age would have been defined by files and folders instead of songs and albums,” said John Mayer, GRAMMY Award-winning singer-songwriter and guitarist. “Though the medium of music has changed, the iPod experience has kept the spirit of what it means to be a music lover alive."

The iPod has also sparked an unprecedented ecosystem of over 4,000 accessories made specifically for the iPod that range from fashionable cases to speaker systems, and more than 70 percent of 2007-model US automobiles currently offer iPod connectivity.

“I take my running shoes and my iPod with me everywhere,” said Lance Armstrong, seven-time Tour de France champion. “I listen to music when I run. Having my music with me is really motivating.”

Every iPod features seamless integration with iTunes 7. The iTunes Store (www.itunes.com) features the world’s largest catalog with over five million songs, 350 television shows and over 400 movies. The iTunes Store has sold over 2.5 billion songs, 50 million TV shows and over 1.3 million movies, making it the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store.

IBM and Covalent Contribute JBoss-to-Apache Geronimo Migration Tool to Apache Software Foundation Open Source Community

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Covalent Technologies™, today announced they have contributed technology to the Apache Geronimo community to help enterprise customers easily migrate from the JBoss Application Server to the open source Apache Geronimo application server, which is free to download and use.

The new migration tool being contributed to the Apache Geronimo community converts applications built for JBoss to Geronimo by generating the appropriate configuration files.

The Apache Geronimo Application Server is the lightweight J2EE-compatible pure open source application server project of the Apache Software Foundation. The easy-to-configure application server is built using open source components to help Java developers, small and mid-sized businesses (SMB) and departmental users reduce the complexity of application development by pre-integrating the most common services for building mainstream Java applications.

Apache Geronimo and other application servers based on the open source software have been demonstrating tremendous growth. According to a recent report from Evans Data Corporation, in a single year, IBM WebSphere Application Server Community Edition, which is based on Apache Geronimo, gained 16 points of market share with Eclipse developers, versus only a 6.6 share gain for JBoss. Additionally, more than 600 independent software vendors and systems integrators have joined IBM's WebSphere Application Server Community Edition partner initiative in just six months. As a direct result of that initiative, more than 200 ISVs have developed and introduced new software applications that support WAS Community Edition. Customers are using WAS Community Edition to provide departmental and small and medium-sized customers with an open source foundation for a service oriented architecture (SOA) that can scale to meet business needs.

"Many customers are looking for alternatives to traditional J2EE application servers," says Jim Jagielski, CTO of Covalent and a director of the Apache Software Foundation. "We look forward to the development of additional tools that will help with the rapid adoption of Apache Geronimo in the enterprise."

"The contribution of this tool to the Apache Community is a direct result of feedback we are hearing from our customers," said Paul Buck, Director of IBM WebSphere Open Source. "The recent momentum behind products based on Apache Geronimo is indicative of customers' desire to use collaboratively built open source technology backed by commercial support to meet business goals."

The tool will be available soon for download free of charge under the Apache license at http://geronimo.apache.org/

About IBM

For additional information please visit www.ibm.com

About Covalent Technologies

Founded in 1998, Covalent Technologies is the most trusted source for complete enterprise open source solutions. The leading provider of products and services for the Apache Tomcat Application Server, Apache Geronimo Application Server, Apache Axis Web Services Framework, and Apache HTTP, the world's leading Web server, Covalent is one of the few sources for full commercial support for Apache, Tomcat, Geronimo and Axis on a global basis. Covalent has been the trusted source that Fortune 1000 enterprises turn to when migrating to open source and when deploying new open source initiatives. Covalent currently supports more than 50% of Fortune 500 and 70% of Fortune 100 companies. Customers include, among others: AT&T, Pfizer, Morgan Stanley, National Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, Johnson & Johnson, British Telecom, NASA, Hallmark Cards, 3M, Siemens, General Electric, and Bear Stearns. Covalent has assembled the deepest talent pool of Apache experts in the industry and is proud to be one of the most distinguished supporters of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the dominant community for usable open source, and the open source community in general. For more information, visit http://www.covalent.com/

iTunes Introduces Complete My Album

Apple® today announced Complete My Album®, a groundbreaking new iTunes service that allows customers to turn their individual tracks into a complete album at a reduced price by giving them a full 99 cent credit for every track they have previously purchased from that album.

“Music fans can now round out their music collections by upgrading their singles into complete albums with just one click, and get full credit for those songs they have previously purchased from iTunes,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “Complete My Album is a wonderful new way that iTunes helps customers grow and enjoy their music collections.”

“iTunes continues to revolutionize the digital music industry by offering music fans innovative ways to explore and enjoy new music,” said Thomas Hesse, president, Global Digital Business and US Sales, Sony BMG Music Entertainment. “With Complete My Album, iTunes is giving music fans the best of both worlds—the ability to discover great new music by buying just the single and a credit toward the purchase of the complete album.”

Complete My Album offers customers up to 180 days after first purchasing individual songs from any qualifying album to purchase the rest of that album at a reduced price. When users buy any song on iTunes the corresponding album will immediately appear on their personalized Complete My Album page with the reduced price listed. For example, a user who’s already purchased three 99 cent singles and decides to buy the corresponding $9.99 album would be able to download the remaining songs to complete the album for just $7.02, without having to buy the singles again.

With Apple’s legendary ease of use, pioneering features such as integrated podcasting support, iMix playlist sharing, seamless integration with iPod®, groundbreaking personal use rights and the ability to turn previously purchased songs into complete albums at a reduced price, the iTunes Store (www.itunes.com ) is the best way for PC and Mac® users to legally discover, purchase and download music and video online.

Microsoft Unveils Xbox 360 Elite, Premium black console includes 120GB hard drive and line of new accessories

Microsoft Corp. today announced the upcoming availability of Xbox 360™ Elite, a new model of the video game and entertainment system that will include a 120GB hard drive, a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) port, a high-definition cable, and a premium black finish for the console, wireless controller and Xbox LIVE® headset. Xbox 360 Elite has enough space for a library of Xbox LIVE Arcade games and thousands of songs, as well as downloadable high-definition TV shows and movies available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace. The new 120GB hard drive also will be sold as a stand-alone accessory to give current Xbox 360 owners greater choice and flexibility in their games and entertainment experience. Additional Xbox 360 Elite accessories, such as the black Xbox 360 Wireless Controller, Xbox 360 Play & Charge kit and the Xbox 360 rechargeable battery, will be available separately. The Xbox 360 Elite and its accessories are expected to begin arriving in U.S. stores on April 29.

“Today’s games and entertainment enthusiast has an insatiable appetite for digital high-definition content,” said Peter Moore, corporate vice president for the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. “Xbox 360 Elite’s larger hard drive and premium accessories will allow our community to enjoy all that the next generation of entertainment has to offer.”

Distinguished by its black finish and signature metallic detailing, Xbox 360 Elite will have an estimated retail price1 of $479.99 (U.S.) and will come packed with components and accessories for the ultimate high-definition entertainment experience:2


• Xbox 360 Elite console. The console is equipped with a premium black finish and three powerful core processors capable of producing the best in HD entertainment (up to 1080p), 16:9 cinematic aspect ratio, anti-aliasing for smooth textures, full surround sound, HDMI output and DVD playback with upscaling capabilities right out of the box.

• Xbox 360 120GB hard drive. The 120GB detachable hard drive allows gamers to save their games and store television shows, movies, music, pictures, trailers, levels, demos and other content available from Xbox LIVE Marketplace.3 The hard drive is sold separately for an estimated retail price of $179.99 (U.S.).

• Xbox 360 Wireless Controller (black). This award-winning, high-performance wireless controller, now in black, features the Xbox® Guide Button for quick, in-game access to friends and music. It has a range of up to 30 feet and a battery life of 30 hours on two AA batteries. It is sold separately for an estimated retail price of $49.99 (U.S.).

• Xbox 360 headset (black). Now available in black, the headset lets gamers strategize or trade taunts while playing games and send voice messages to friends on Xbox LIVE.

• Xbox 360 HDMI cable. New to Xbox 360, HDMI allows consumers to get HD video (up to 1080p) and multichannel surround sound, all from one cable.

• Xbox LIVE Silver Membership. With this, gamers can chat with friends online, collect achievements and gamerscores, send and receive voice and text messages, and access Xbox LIVE Marketplace content such as game demos, HD movies and TV, as well as the best in downloadable games from Xbox LIVE Arcade.

• One-month subscription to Xbox LIVE Gold. An Xbox LIVE Gold Membership provides a complete online entertainment experience. Those who subscribe to this premium service can engage in competitive online multiplayer matches, tailor their matchmaking via feedback and accomplishments, chat with more than one person at a time, and take advantage of unique privileges in the Xbox LIVE Marketplace and Xbox LIVE Arcade.


The following accessories for the Xbox 360 Elite console will only be sold separately:

• Xbox 360 Play & Charge kit. Complete with a charging cable and a black rechargeable battery pack, the Xbox 360 Play & Charge kit allows gamers to recharge their Xbox 360 Wireless Controller without interrupting their gameplay. It is sold separately for an estimated retail price of $19.99 (U.S.).

• Xbox 360 rechargeable battery (black). The rechargeable battery pack provides more than 25 hours of gameplay per charge. It is sold separately for an estimated retail price of $11.99 (U.S.).


About Xbox 360

Xbox 360 is the most powerful video game and entertainment system, delivering the best games, the next generation of the premier Xbox LIVE online gaming network and unique digital entertainment experiences that revolve around gamers. Xbox 360 has a catalog of more than 160 high-definition games and is available in 37 countries. More information can be found online at http://www.xbox.com/xbox360

.

1 Prices stated are estimated retail prices; actual retail prices may vary.

2 Total retail value: more than $600 (U.S.)

3 TV and movie downloads available only in the U.S.

IBM Helps Developers Form Social Networks

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new resources designed to help developers form social networks to work together more collaboratively and accelerate the software development process.

The new developerWorks Exchange provides a venue for developers to share resources, such as code, plugins and ideas with the large software development community. Effective immediately, the new program will enable users to share and browse code submissions related to the Lotus Sametime 7.5 platform by providing new plugins, graphics and other customized additions to extend the value of the application.

For example, developers and customers can download and further enhance a "buddy note" plugin that allows them to store comments and background information about business associates on their buddy list. Developers now have an easy way to share and collaborate on Lotus Sametime plugins with the 5.7 million members of IBM's developer community. All users can submit code to the exchange, download the resources, offer comments and feedback through online forums, and rate the available submissions.

Collaboration has always been a core component for software development. By giving developers the ability to rely on the collective intelligence of their peers, IBM is expanding the social computing capabilities of developers throughout the world. The Lotus Sametime 7.5 Exchange is the first example of the types of collaborative resources that will be available to the developer community through developerWorks Exchange. Additional venues for popular industry technologies, IBM products and curricula will also be available to help developers share ideas and resources.

As part of this initiative, IBM has also launched a 3-D area called "CODESTATION," which resides in the virtual world of Second Life. Through CODESTATION, IBM is allowing developers to explore how 3-D environments can revolutionize the software development process by encouraging developers to collaborate in a visual environment where they can share ideas and information for the betterment of the greater developer community. CODESTATION serves as a virtual forum for developers to share ideas, develop code and interact with one another to design new applications and improve upon existing ones.

For instance, IBM is inviting developers to the Labyrinth Beta within CODESTATION, a maze for users to test their scripting skills and navigate through the Labyrinth as quickly as possible using a demo bot. Once developers have mastered this task, they can design their own bots to challenge other coders, further exercising and deepening their skills.

There is also a repository for Second Life developers to download and upload code to share with others. Known as Code Library, it allows coders to share their knowledge and bot designs with other developers in the vast Second Life community. Software developers, computer science students and other technical professionals who wish to explore the strengths of virtual communities during the software development process are encouraged to participate.

"Code sharing, searchability and an interactive forum for discussing that code with a network of peers can dramatically improve the software development process," said Christopher Balz, an independent software developer. "With developerWorks Exchange, IBM is providing a unique opportunity for developers, businesses and others in the community to share technologies and ideas with one another."

Through developerWorks, IBM continues to build a thriving interactive community of developers around the world. developerWorks offers both online and in-person educational resources to help users build and deploy open standards based applications across heterogeneous systems, creating a foundation for skills and innovation among developers, independent software vendors (ISVs), VCs, faculty and students involved in software development within universities. Over 50 percent of the content on developerWorks is generated by the broad developer community, further demonstrating IBM's strong commitment to open source and exemplifying the powerful collective intelligence of the developerWorks community.

For more information on developerWorks Exchange, please visit: www.ibm.com/developerworks/exchange/

To access IBM CODESTATION, please visit: http://slurl.com/secondlife/IBMCODESTATION/128/156/25/?x=400&y=400&img=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/138/377787488_b957acef84.jpg?v=0&title=IBM

Apple TV Now Shipping

Apple® is now shipping Apple TV™, an easy to use and fun way to wirelessly play all your favorite iTunes® content from your PC or Mac® on your widescreen TV, including movies, TV shows, music, photos and podcasts. With Apple TV’s stunning new interface, anyone can quickly browse and view their entire collection of digital media from across the room using the simple and intuitive Apple Remote. Apple TV easily connects to almost all modern widescreen televisions.

“Apple TV is like a DVD player for the Internet age—providing an easy and fun way to play all your favorite iTunes content from your PC or Mac on your widescreen TV,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Apple TV allows you to wirelessly play your content from your PCs or Macs using your existing WiFi network as well as the newest and fastest version of WiFi—802.11n.”

The seamless integration of Apple TV and iTunes lets users choose from over 400 movies and 350 TV shows in near DVD quality; over four million songs; 5,000 music videos; 100,000 podcasts; and 20,000 audiobooks from the iTunes Store (www.itunes.com ). Users can also watch their favorite movie trailers right on their widescreen TV, listen to their favorite music on their home entertainment system, and view slideshows of their photo albums in high definition resolution. Apple TV makes it easy for users to explore their entire media collection with an easy to use and intuitive new interface. With the Apple Remote, consumers can easily browse through their favorite movies, TV shows, music and photos from up to 30 feet away.

Apple TV has a 40GB hard drive to store up to 50 hours of video, 9,000 songs, 25,000 photos or a combination of each and is capable of delivering high-definition 720p output.* Apple TV is easy to connect to a broad range of widescreen TVs and home theater systems and comes standard with HDMI, component video, analog and optical audio ports. Using high-speed AirPort® 802.11** wireless networking, Apple TV can auto-sync content from one computer or stream content from up to five additional computers right to your TV without any wires.***

Pricing & Availability Apple TV, which includes the Apple Remote, will be available beginning this week from the Apple Store® (www.apple.com ), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $299 (US). Apple retail stores will also offer hands on workshops and demonstrations of Apple TV’s features.

Apple TV requires iTunes 7.1 or later running on a Mac with Mac OS® X version 10.3.9 or later, or a Windows PC with Windows XP Home/Professional (SP2).

An 802.11b/g/n wireless network using AirPort, AirPort Extreme® or 10/100 Base-T Ethernet networking is required. Internet access is required and a broadband connection is recommended. Apple TV requires an enhanced definition or high-definition widescreen TV. iPod® games will not play on Apple TV. The iTunes store is available in the US and select countries.

*Video playback based on 640x480 iTunes video content. Music capacity based on four minutes per song and 128-Kbps AAC encoding. Photo capacity based on Apple TV viewable photos transferred from iTunes. Actual capacity varies by content.

**Compatible with 802.11b/g/n. Based on an IEEE 802.11n draft specification.

***Wireless video streaming requires an 802.11g/n network.

OpenAjax Alliance Welcomes Microsoft and Other New Members and Announces Interoperability Awards

OpenAjax Alliance, an open industry collaboration dedicated to developing and expanding Ajax, today announced that its membership has grown to 72 with the addition of Microsoft Corporation and 30 other companies.

"Microsoft is joining the OpenAJAX Alliance to collaborate with other industry leaders to help evolve AJAX-style development by ensuring a high degree of interoperability," said Keith Smith, group product manager of the Core Web Platform & Tools to UX Web/Client Platform & Tools team at Microsoft Corp. "By joining OpenAJAX, Microsoft is continuing its commitment to empower Web developers with technology that works cross-browser and cross-platform."

The newest OpenAjax Alliance members include: 24SevenOffice, ActiveGrid, ActiveState, Appeon, Aptana, Arimaan Global Consulting, Custom Credit Systems (Thinwire), ESRI, Getahead (DWR), Global Computer Enterprises, GoETC, Helmi Technologies, HR-XML, iPolipo, Isomorphic Software, JSSL, Lightstreamer, Microsoft, MobileAware, NetScript Technologies, OpenSpot, OpenSymphony (OpenQA), OpSource, OS3.IT, Redmonk, Tealeaf Technology, Teleca Mobile, Transmend, Visible Measures, Visual WebGui and Volantis Systems.

The Alliance is also announcing that the following members have all been awarded OpenAjax Interoperability certificates: Apache XAP, Dojo Foundation, ICEsoft, ILOG, Isomorphic, IT Mill, Lightstreamer, Open Link, Open Spot, Nexaweb, Software AG and TIBCO. The interoperability certificates represent progress by both OpenAjax Alliance and its members towards defining and achieving industry support for OpenAjax Conformance.

The term OpenAjax Conformance is shorthand for the set of requirements that OpenAjax Alliance will be placing on Ajax technologies, products, and applications. These requirements focus on a small number of simple but important aspects of Ajax deployment, thereby providing the critical bits of Ajax interoperability that customers require. The conformance criteria are being designed in a manner that allows Ajax suppliers to continue to innovate and move forward with new technologies and products in an open platform.

OpenAjax Conformance will provide the following benefits to IT managers and the Ajax developer community:

-- Seamless integration of multiple Ajax products and technologies within
the same Web application, particularly with applications that use mashup
techniques
-- Greater certainty about product choices and reliability
-- Lower training costs, lower development costs, and faster delivery of
Web 2.0 innovations due to industry adoption of common approaches that
build from OpenAjax standards
-- Interchangeability of OpenAjax Conformant products, such that
customers can choose among multiple vendors (and change vendors in the
future)

"After only 10 months this organization has achieved significant milestones in defining interoperability standards for the industry, the membership has grown from 13 to over 70 and the alliance has published multiple white papers on the background technology and business benefits of Ajax," said David Boloker, OpenAjax Steering Committee Chairman. "The group has also established task forces to investigate possible areas of new activity in security, IDE integration, server integration and client-side server communications. Our end-goal with all of these activities is to increase adoption and provide value to the software community on both technical and marketing fronts."
OpenAjax Alliance recently published a revised set of white papers, including a new article titled -- When Does Ajax Make Business Sense -- which can be found at www.openajax.org. The new article states that the benefits derived from Ajax come from more interactive and productive connections between users and Web-based applications. Beyond better user interfaces for existing applications, Ajax enables new classes of applications that fall under the umbrella term "Web 2.0" and that also fit into a service-oriented architecture (SOA). According to the article, among the next-generation Ajax tools that will power the enterprise and the Internet of the future, include the following:

-- Users as co-developers - New Ajax-powered environments, such as
"application wikis," are empowering users to create their own customized
mashups that include personalized dashboards and situational composite
applications.
-- Collaboration - Ajax technologies are typically the centerpiece of Web
2.0 information collection and sharing environments that harness the
collective intelligence of disparate communities.
-- Software above the level of a single device - Web 2.0 is accelerating
the movement from installable desktop applications to Web-based
applications, thereby leveraging the advantages of networks and information
sharing.
-- Cross-device applications and mobility - Simultaneous with the
adoption of Web 2.0 is the growing proliferation of Web-capable mobile
devices. Ajax technologies enable Web 2.0 applications across both large-
screen desktops and small-screen mobile devices.

OpenAjax Membership Growth
The existing group of Alliance members include: Adobe, The Ajaxian, American Greetings, BEA, Curl, the Dojo Foundation, Eclipse Foundation, edge IPK, eLink Business Innovations, Finetooth, The Front Side, IBM, ICEsoft, Ikivo, ILOG, Innoopract, IT Mill, JackBe, Javeline, JWAX, Laszlo Systems, Mozilla Corporation, Nexaweb, Nitobi, Novell, Open Link Software, Openwave Systems, Opera, Oracle, SAP, Scalix, Seagull Software, Sitepen, Software AG, Sun Microsystems, Tibco, Vertex Logic, Webtide, XML11, Zend, Zimbra and Zoho.

Ajax Conformance Award Recipient Quotes

Apache XAP (at Apache Incubator)

"Apache XAP is the declarative Ajax runtime at Apache Software Foundation," says Robert Buffone, a committer at Apache XAP project. "Adding support for OpenAjax Hub brings XAP a step closer to its vision of enabling developers to plug in their favorite Ajax widgets and toolkits while utilizing a unified open declarative framework to dramatically simplify Ajax application development."

Dojo Foundation

"The open source Dojo Toolkit is one of the industry's most popular and comprehensive Ajax development platforms. The Dojo Foundation was a charter member of OpenAjax Alliance and serves on the OpenAjax Alliance Steering Committee. We are excited to demonstrate support for the OpenAjax Hub within Dojo," Dylan Schiemann, chief executive at Web application design and development firm SitePen and co-founder of the Dojo Foundation.

ICEsoft

"We are pleased to demonstrate ICEfaces compatibility with the Open Ajax Hub," says Ken Fyten, VP Product Development at ICEsoft Technologies. "This confirms our commitment to the Open Ajax Alliance and to our customers that want the flexibility to incorporate other Ajax libraries into their ICEfaces Ajax applications."

ILOG

"The approaching one-year anniversary of the OpenAjax Alliance is an important milestone for Ajax technology and the community. ILOG is proud to have been there from the start, and based on the overwhelming demand from our customer base for Ajax-enhanced graphical displays, we are excited to participate in the OpenAjax InteropFest and to continue to contribute to this flourishing ecosystem with open and interoperable technologies," said Jean François Abramatic, Chief Product Officer, ILOG.

Isomorphic

"Years before the term AJAX was coined, our customers demanded interoperability with other early AJAX technologies as part of the process of integrating SmartClient into commercial portal servers and other enterprise products," said Charles Kendrick, CTO of Isomorphic Software. "And we delivered. Isomorphic remains committed to AJAX interoperability, and we are excited to see the industry make strides toward interoperability standards. Our customers value Isomorphic's ability to immediately embrace emerging industry standards via SmartClient's flexible and extensible architecture."

IT Mill

"OpenAjax Hub is one of the key components that allow easier integration in future," said Joonas Lehtinen, CEO of IT Mill. "IT Mill Toolkit 4.0 enables Java programmers to create solid enterprise user interfaces on top of Ajax technologies and OAA Hub will help to integrate it better into other applications. We are excited that our product is one of the first ones to pass the compliance tests."

Lightstreamer

"We are pleased to have passed the InteropFest test and we are committed to further OpenAjax Hub specification adherence," said Alessandro Alinone, CTO at Lightstreamer. "Our goal is not to compete in the general AJAX toolkit market, but to remain focused on the delivery of a scalable and reliable Push Server that can work with any AJAX solution."

OpenSpot

"The technologies developed by the OpenAjax alliance let toolkit libraries from different vendors work together within a web application," said Gideon Lee, president of OpenSpot. "At a higher level, virtual desktop technologies such as our open source SameDesk environment let applications delivered from different sites interact across domain boundary at the browser. These two complementary types of technologies will help narrow the gap between desktop and web applications, thereby creating more flexible alternatives for the developers and the end users."

Nexaweb

"Nexaweb Universal Client Framework supports Ajax, Java as well as offline web computing for Enterprise Web 2.0 applications," said Coach Wei, CTO at Nexaweb Technologies, Inc. "As a key contributor to various open source projects and a member of the Steering Committee of OpenAjax Alliance, Nexaweb is excited to announce the support for OpenAjax Hub in its Universal Client Framework offering."

Software AG

"As a global provider of mission-critical software infrastructure solutions, we are very pleased to see the increasing momentum and the significant progress of the OpenAjax Alliance," said Dr. Peter Kuerpick, Member of the Board of Software AG and responsible for Crossvision. "We believe that businesses are expecting solutions that are manageable, interoperable and open. Already a leader in SOA Governance, Software AG is proud to be one of the first companies that have an OpenAjax conformant offering for building rich SOA front ends."

TIBCO

"Ajax interoperability standards are critical to our customers' enterprise Ajax implementations -- TIBCO's OpenAjax Conformance certificate reduces their technical risks and enables them to leverage existing skill sets," said Kevin Hakman, director General Interface product marketing, TIBCO. "Interoperability standards also open up the Ajax eco-system so anyone can create new components that can predictably work with literally dozens of OpenAjax Conformant toolkits. The OpenAjax Alliance provides developers and their management with a reliable way to mix and match Ajax pieces and parts from multiple projects and vendors to efficiently build and maintain their solutions."

About OpenAjax Alliance

The OpenAjax Alliance is an organization of leading vendors, open source projects, and companies using Ajax that are dedicated to the successful adoption of open and interoperable Ajax-based Web technologies. The prime objective of the group is to accelerate customer success with Ajax by promoting a customer's ability to mix and match solutions from Ajax technology providers and to help drive the future of the Ajax ecosystem. To learn more about OpenAjax Alliance, please visit: www.openajax.org

IBM and Red Hat Announce New Development Innovations in Linux Kernel

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Red Hat, the world's two largest commercial Linux developers, today announced developers at the companies' world renowned Linux labs have collaborated to integrate new technologies in the Linux kernel that will help customers improve efficiency and gain a competitive edge in their industries.

Developers at IBM's Linux Technology Center, which has some 600 engineers in 40 locations worldwide, collaborated with Red Hat's Engineering team to integrate improved virtualization features, security enhancements, and "Real-Time Linux" capabilities into the Linux kernel. Hundreds of IBM and Red Hat developers work full-time on making Linux better as part of the open source community.

With today's announcement, the companies said new virtualization and security capabilities in the Linux kernel will also be available in the new release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. "Real-Time Linux" technologies are currently being incorporated into the kernel and will be extended to IBM and Red Hat customers in a future offering. The companies announced IBM is currently testing and certifying RHEL 5 across all of its standards-based middleware and servers and that IBM also plans to provide services and support for RHEL 5 as well.

IBM and Red Hat cited these three key Linux development innovations:

-- Xen Virtualization Optimizes IT Environments:

IBM, Red Hat and the open community have now integrated open source Xen virtualization software with the Linux kernel in addition to hardening the Xen hypervisor. Xen is open source virtualization software that helps customers increase server utilization and more efficiently manage Linux-based IT systems. The technologies will be incorporated into Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and supported by IBM's Virtualization portfolio of products running on Intel and Opteron processor-based servers and IBM BladeCenter systems.

IBM customer ServerCave, a website hosting and data center management company catering to individuals and SMB customers, expects to increase server utilization rates from 10 percent to nearly 80 percent running Linux-based IBM x3550 systems taking advantage of Xen virtualization capabilities. ServerCave expects to reduce new hardware acquisition for its hosted and managed customers by 75 percent. It expects to save nearly $60,000 in power and cooling expenses this year because by virtualizing its IT environment it doesn't need to run as many servers.

-- Security Enhanced Linux Offers Greater Data Protection:

Addressing customer demand for features that provide greater data protection, IBM and Red Hat developers collaborated with the open source community to build Security-Enhanced Linux into Red Hat's core operating system to provide Multi-Level Security capabilities. These capabilities enable enterprise customers, particularly those in the government sector, to create a mandatory access control policy that allows information to be classified as top secret, secret, confidential and unclassified. This security underpinning of the Linux kernel compartmentalizes applications and services into distinct security domains, providing a highly secure platform for applications or data for all types of customers. After testing and certification, these features will be available in RHEL 5, and supported by IBM software and systems.

The UK Cabinet Office, for instance, is currently running IBM WebSphere and Security Enhanced Linux, SELinux, together as part of a solution developed by Tresys and IBM aimed at creating a secure environment for Belmin Group's Automated Reconciliation & Invoice Creation Service, ARIES, eProcurement application which currently runs on RHEL 4 at a National Health Service hospital trust in England. SELinux provides customers the ability to contain hackers and provide confinement for its applications.

Additionally, IBM hardware and software products running on RHEL 5 are being evaluated at the Common Criteria Evaluated Assurance Level (EAL) 4+, Labeled Security Protection Profile, Role Based Access Control Protection Profile, and Controlled Access Protection Profile (CAPP). RHEL 4U1 has currently achieved CAPP EAL 4+ certification.

New encrypted file system capabilities developed by IBM have been adopted in the kernel to protect user identity by encrypting data at the file level in systems and on laptops. Red Hat plans to include these technologies in RHEL 5.1 as a technology preview.

-- Innovation for the Future: "Real-Time Linux" Application Development Platform

IBM and Red Hat are collaborating to deliver a new "Real-Time Linux" application development and deployment platform providing customers the ability to run systems that can perform at greater processing rates with high levels of reliability. The new platform includes IBM WebSphere Real Time, a real-time J2SE Java Virtual Machine, with a real-time version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 running on IBM System x and BladeCenter AMD and Intel-based servers. This new computing infrastructure also provides a broad community of Java programmers the ability to develop applications that can execute and provide predictable to millisecond granularity execution times.

The U.S. Navy is an early adopter of IBM's Real-Time Java technology running on a customized "Real-Time Linux" platform deployed by IBM, Raytheon, and Red Hat. It is taking advantage of a single and open standards-based computing environment for applications ranging from command-and-control, navigation, targeting, weapons control, and radar systems. The first-of-its kind deployment will aid the Navy's efforts to cut the cost of developing and maintaining traditionally expensive real-time applications so it can speed the development of mission critical combatant systems for its DDG 1000 Zumwalt Class Destroyer Program. IBM is currently offering WebSphere Real-Time 1.0 running on a customized RHEL4 environment to customers in the government, financial, and telecommunications sectors.

IBM will continue to work with Red Hat and the open source community to offer performance tuning and system debugging features through a SystemTap toolkit. Additionally, the companies are also working on Samba, kernel scalability, customer testing, and numerous ongoing technology projects.

"IBM's Linux Technology Center is an incubator for technology innovation, and ultimately for business transformation," said Daniel Frye, vice president, Open Systems Development, IBM. "We're continuing to work with Red Hat and the open source community to drive innovative technologies into the Linux kernel to offer customers the efficient, cost-effective production environment they need to gain a competitive edge in their own industries."

"The upcoming release of our enterprise platform signifies much more that just an upgrade to Linux, it is the culmination of a complete enterprise architecture that includes a broad ecosystem of certified, reliable solutions from partners like IBM," said Paul Cormier, Executive Vice President of Engineering at Red Hat. "We continue our heritage of close collaboration with customers and partners to deliver a highly relevant technology platform that delivers on performance and value."

Microsoft Announces HD Photo, a New Imaging File Format With Advanced Features for Today’s Digital Photographers

Today at the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) 07 International Convention and Trade Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft Corp. formally announced HD Photo, a new file format for end-to-end digital photography that offers higher image quality, greater preservation of data, and advanced features for today’s digital-imaging applications.

This new, next-generation digital image format offers the best solution for digital image editing and storage and unlocks the potential for digital photography on devices, applications and services. Microsoft also announced that it intends to standardize the technology and will be submitting HD Photo to an appropriate standards organization shortly.

HD Photo offers compression with up to twice the efficiency of JPEG, with fewer damaging artifacts, resulting in higher-quality images that are one-half the file size. In addition, HD Photo offers increased image fidelity, preserving the entire original image content and enabling higher-quality exposure and color adjustments in the image. This new format offers the ability to decode only the information needed for any resolution or region, or the option to manipulate the image as compressed data.

“With HD Photo, we’re taking a new approach to creating and editing photos that simply isn’t available to photographers with today’s formats,” said Amir Majidimehr, corporate vice president of the Consumer Media Technology Group at Microsoft. “HD Photo fully preserves the original image fidelity with high dynamic range while still allowing for significant improvement in compression size.”

In addition, HD Photo offers both lossless and lossy image compression, and can retain the full dynamic range and color gamut data from a camera’s sensor. Also, because making adjustments to common color balance and exposure settings won’t discard or truncate data as other common bitmap formats typically do, it’s easier to “undo” those changes at a later time. As a result, significantly smaller files can be created while still retaining optimum picture quality.

Microsoft also announced the beta release of a set of HD Photo plug-ins for Adobe® Photoshop® software, developed with the help of Adobe Systems Inc. These plug-ins enable users to both read and write HD Photo files from within Adobe Photoshop software, and include support for high dynamic range pixel formats. The plug-ins support both the CS3 and CS2 versions of Adobe Photoshop software, and will be available for Windows Vista™ and Windows® XP, as well as Mac OS X (Universal Binary). A beta version of the Windows plug-in is available today for download at the Microsoft® Download Center at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads. Microsoft expects to release finished plug-ins, which will be free of charge, in approximately 60 days.

The HD Photo Device Porting Kit is also available for download at the Microsoft Download Center, allowing manufacturers to add HD Photo support in devices and to other platforms.

HD Photo is natively supported in Windows Vista by a Windows Imaging Component (WIC) codec, and can be similarly supported in Windows XP and Windows Server® 2003 through a free WIC download. HD Photo is also included in Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0.


With support on popular platforms such as Windows XP, Windows Vista and Mac OS X, HD Photo will allow consumers to easily view, edit and share images without conversion or special applications. The format also allows for flexible metadata handling and supports industry-standard metadata formats.

Adobe Unveils Plans for Two Editions of Photoshop CS3

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced at the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) show that it will expand its digital imaging product line, offering two editions of Adobe® Photoshop® CS3. In addition to the highly anticipated Photoshop CS3 software for designers and professional photographers, Adobe will also deliver Photoshop CS3 Extended, a completely new edition of Photoshop which allows cross-media creative professionals to stretch the limits of digital imaging. Photoshop CS3 Extended includes everything in Photoshop CS3 plus a new set of capabilities for integration of 3-D and motion graphics, image measurement and analysis. Photoshop CS3 Extended also simplifies the workflow for professionals in architecture, engineering, medical and science.

Both Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended software will be formally introduced on March 27, 2007 - as part of the company’s launch of Creative Suite 3, where further details will be disclosed. The software is expected to ship in Spring 2007.

"We never imagined that Photoshop would someday help make major motion pictures, let alone save lives," said John Loiacono, senior vice president of the Creative Solutions Business Unit at Adobe. "Whether it's a video producer texture editing the backdrop of a movie or a researcher counting hundreds of cancer cells, diverse industries are already relying on the professional standard in digital imaging."

Breadth of Advanced Features in Photoshop CS3 Extended
With Photoshop CS3 Extended, film, video and multimedia professionals, and graphic and web designers can leverage the power of the Photoshop image-editing toolset and paint engine when editing 3D and motion-based content. Film and video specialists can perform 3-D model visualization and texture editing, paint and clone over multiple video frames. Animators can now render and incorporate rich 3-D content into their 2-D compositions. Graphic and web designers can create an animation from a series of images - such as time series data - and export it to a wide variety of formats, including QuickTime, MPEG-4 and Adobe Flash® Video.

“The National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) is over 60,000 members strong and as it continues to grow, so do the variety of uses for Photoshop,” said Scott Kelby, president of NAPP. “Photoshop CS3 Extended will further redefine who the ‘creative professional’ is, allowing cross-media professionals to really push the limits of their craft, while also inviting engineers, scientists and architects to add the power of Photoshop to their arsenal.”

Photoshop CS3 Extended also enables users to extract valuable quantitative and qualitative data from images. In addition to measurement and analysis tools, architects, medical professionals and scientists will enjoy increased support for specialized image formats so they can easily view, annotate, and edit images in their native format. Radiologists can closely monitor a patient’s progress over time, scientific researchers can create animations from medical images for presentation purposes, and architects can make accurate measurements of objects in their 3-D images.

“With the release of two new editions of Photoshop, Adobe continues to push the boundaries with innovative tools that empower people to communicate visually in powerful new ways,” said Alexis Gerard, author of “Going Visual” and president of Future Image Inc., hosts of the 6Sight® Future of Imaging conference. “While Photoshop CS3 will remain the digital imaging standard for photographers, Photoshop CS3 Extended is bringing to new audiences the proven benefit of Photoshop, and also exploring feature sets that eventually may benefit a broader market.”

Availability
Announced in December 2006, a beta version of Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Macintosh and Windows is currently available for download for Photoshop CS2 users on the Adobe Labs Web site: http://labs.adobe.com

Both Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended software will be formally introduced on March 27, 2007. Available as Universal Binary for the Macintosh platform as well as for Microsoft® Windows® XP and Windows Vista® computers, the final shipping releases of Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended are planned for Spring 2007. For more information, please visit the Adobe Web site: www.adobe.com/go/photoshop

Adobe Photoshop Family
Adobe offers the right Photoshop for all types of users. Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended are at the heart of the Photoshop family. The portfolio also includes Adobe Photoshop Lightroom™, which provides a complete digital darkroom for professional and serious amateur photographers; Adobe Photoshop Elements with editing and sharing options for photography enthusiasts; and the free Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition, which meets the needs of the casual photographer.

Massive Continues Strong Momentum, Adding 10 Xbox and Four PC Titles to Its Video Game Network

Massive Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corp. and a leading network for video game advertising, shows strong momentum and continued leadership of the dynamic in-game advertising market by adding 14 titles since October 2006. This month, the Massive network will include more than 50 premier titles for the Xbox 360™ and Xbox® video game and entertainment systems from Microsoft and the PC platform. Massive’s reach of audience continues to increase. With new releases such as Microsoft Games Studios’ “Crackdown™,” EA’s “DEF JAM: ICON™,” “Major League Baseball® 2K7” from 2K Sports, and Ubisoft Entertainment’s “Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter™ 2,” the Massive network is projected to be live with more than 100 titles across the Xbox and PC platforms by the end of 2007.

Advertisers are embracing Massive’s ability to uniquely engage and target the growing gaming audience globally. More than 200 campaigns have run to date from a diverse roster of more than 100 advertising clients. Repeat customers include Dell Inc., the Discovery Channel, Intel Corporation, NBC Universal Inc., the U.S. Navy, and Verizon. Categories represented include automotive, entertainment, retail, apparel, consumer packaged goods, sports, technology, financial services and telecommunications.

“Our focus at Massive continues to be connecting blue-chip global marketing partners with the appropriate gaming audience through our relationships with major game publishers,” said Cory Van Arsdale, CEO of Massive. “During the past two years we’ve defined the dynamic in-game advertising business and continue to renew previous marketing partnerships as well as welcome new marketing partners and publishers to the Massive network.”

Recent and upcoming title additions to the Massive network include the highly anticipated “Crackdown,” Massive’s first partnership with Microsoft Game Studios, which launched Feb. 20 on Xbox 360; EA’s high-profile “DEF JAM: ICON,” which launched March 6; 2K Sports’ “Major League Baseball 2K7,” which launched Feb. 26 on both Xbox and Xbox 360 platforms; and the latest installment in Ubisoft’s best-selling Tom Clancy franchise, “Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2,” on both Xbox 360 and PC. As of March 2007, the complete list of Xbox 360 titles live in the Massive network will include these:

• “Crackdown” (Microsoft Game Studios)

• “DEF JAM: ICON” (Electronic Arts)

• “Major League Baseball 2K7” (2K Sports)

• “NBA 2K7” (2K Sports)

• “Need for Speed Carbon” (Electronic Arts)

• “Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2” (Ubisoft)

• “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas” (Ubisoft)

• “Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Double Agent” (Ubisoft)


About Massive Inc.

Massive Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft, is the creator of a leading network for dynamic video game advertising. With 40 game publisher partners and more than 100 committed titles, the Massive Network offers advertisers the ability to reach an aggregated gaming audience in real time across multiple platforms. Over 100 blue-chip advertisers have run campaigns across the Massive Network throughout North America and Europe. Publishers in the Massive Network generate revenue through dynamic in-game advertising, enabling them to leverage the value of their content while preserving and enhancing the game experience. Massive’s technology allows for all forms of downloadable media and advertising content to be contextually integrated into the game environment, including image, audio, video and game object formats. More information can be found online at http://www.massiveincorporated.com

2007 JavaOne Conference Profiles Latest Advancements In Java Technology, Dynamic Languages and Open Source Offerings

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW), today announced that more than 60 exhibitors and the following cosponsors will be participating in the 2007 JavaOne conference:

• Platinum – Intel, Motorola, Oracle


• Gold – BEA, NAVTEQ


• Silver -- InterSystems, Parasoft

In addition, Sun announced that out of more than 1400 submissions, approximately 350 sessions have been accepted for the 2007 JavaOne conference. Details on all the technical and Birds-of- a-Feather sessions will be posted at: http://java.sun.com/javaone/sf/sessions.jsp over the coming weeks. A sneak preview of some of the accepted sessions, includes:

• Java Technology Libre Panel: Geir Magnusson, Jr., Apache Software Foundation, Tom Marble, Sun Microsystems, Dalibor Topic, Max Planck Institute for Computer Science, Tom Tromey, Red Hat, Inc. and Mark Wielaard, Free Software Foundation


• Creating Amazing Web Interfaces With Ajax: Ben Galbraith, consultant


• 3-D Earth Visualization with NASA World Wind: Tom Gaskins, NASA


• A Step Along the Way: Using Ajax, Portals and Services to Provide Better Network Management : Anton McConville, Nortel


• Writing Java Platform Applications for Ubuntu: Jeff Bailey, Ubuntu, Etienne Goyer, Canonical and Sathyan Catari, Larry Freeman and Harpreet Singh, Sun Microsystems


• JRuby on Rails: Agility for the Enterprise: Thomas Enebo and Charles Nutter, Sun Microsystems


• Search Inside the Music: Using Signal Processing, Machine Learning, and 3-D Visualizations to Discover New Music: Paul Lamere, Sun Microsystems


• jPDL: Simplified Workflow for Java Technology : Tom Baeyens, JBoss, a division of Red Hat


• Top 10 Ways to Botch Enterprise Java Application Scalability and Reliability: Cameron Purdy, Tangosol


• Developing Flashy Mobile Applications, Using SVG and JSR 226: Marin Brehovsky, Sun Microsystems, Andrei Mihaila, Nokia and Marc Verstaen, Hyperion


• The Apache Harmony Project : Tim Ellison, IBM UK and Geir Magnusson Jr., Apache Software Foundation


• Exploring the Deep with SONIA: Martin Morissette and Felix Pageau, SONIA AUV Team


• What's Hot in BEA JRocket : Staffan Larsen, BEA Systems, Inc.


• What's Hot in IBM's Virtual Machine for the Java Platform? - 2007 Edition : Trent Gray-Donald, IBM

Members of the Sun Developer Network (SDN Program) can start preparing for the 2007 JavaOne conference by reviewing the sessions from last year's conference. SDN Program members get full access to JavaOne conference multimedia sessions and PDFs. Information on the SDN Program is available at http://developers.sun.com/.


Java University Program
The Java University program is returning as part of the 2007 JavaOne conference and will be held on Monday, May 7, 2007. Only Conference Plus Pass and Java University Pass holders can participate in these sessions and all courses are created and delivered by Sun certified instructors. This year, the Java University program will kick off with a general session and then attendees have the option of taking one full-day course or a selection of two half-day courses. As the focus for the JavaOne conference is expanding this year, so will the number and focus of the Java University program offerings.



Full-day courses:

• Using Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 5 (Java EE 5) and SOA to Architect and Design Robust Enterprise Applications


• Get eBusiness Solutions: Designing and Implementing Secure Java Web Services


• Managing Complex Web Applications: Should I Use Apache Struts Framework, JavaServer Faces Technology, or Both?

Half-day courses:

• Web 2.0: Building Dynamic Websites with Ajax and the Dojotoolkit


• Filthy Rich Clients


• Developing Portable Java EE Applications with the Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0 API


• Developing Enterprise Applications with the Spring Framework


• Web 2.0: Leveraging the Project jMaki and Google Web Toolkits for Rapid Website Development


• Learning How Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME) Development Works Best for Mobile Devices


• Developing Java Technology Applications with the Java Persistence API


• Rapid Website Development with Groovy and Grails

Bonus evening courses:

• Turbocharging Application Performance with D-Trace


• Deploying Collaborative Web sites to the Solaris Operating System using SAMP


• Digital Identity Trends and How to Realize Rapid RBAC Deployment


• Ruby on Rails for Java Technology Developers

About the JavaOne Conference
Located at Moscone Center in San Francisco, May 8-11, the annual JavaOne conference is one of the leading events for Java technology developers. Established in 1996, the Conference provides technology enthusiasts the opportunity to learn about the latest technology innovations with Java technology, scripting, Open Source, Web 2.0 and more. Developers get hands-on experience with the technology, can network with their peers, and have the opportunity to network directly with technology experts from technology industry leaders. For more information about the JavaOne conference, visit http://java.sun.com/javaone.

NetBeans Community Announces Support for Ruby and JRuby Programming Languages

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) and the NetBeans Community, today announced an early access release of the NetBeans Ruby Pack which provides support for the Ruby programming language. The NetBeans plug-in offers developers added support for dynamic and scripting languages and includes editing features for both Ruby and JRuby - a 100% pure-Java implementation of the Ruby programming language that runs on the Java Virtual Machine.


The NetBeans Ruby Pack goes beyond basic editing, syntax highlighting, navigation outline, project support and unit test execution to provide developers with a rich set of features to enhance productivity. These features include: code completion for modules, classes, methods and escape codes within literal strings and regular expressions. The NetBeans Ruby Pack also offers extended features such as integrated documentation pop-ups for Ruby API calls, semantic analysis with highlighting of parameters and unused local variables, as well as occurrence highlighting.

"Developing these plug-ins for NetBeans is yet another demonstration of our commitment to support dynamic languages," said Jeet Kaul, vice president for Developer Products and Programs, Sun Microsystems. "NetBeans -- with its broad adoption -- now extends its reach into a new community of users while exposing the existing Java development community to the power of the Ruby language. Building this synergy is what makes open-source a powerful strategy for aligning and moving the technology industry forward."

Ruby support is available for NetBeans 6 Milestone 7 as a download from the Autoupdate Center. Additional support for Ruby on Rails is expected to be available mid-year 2007.

Make plans to join us on May 7th for the fourth annual NetBeans Day that will be held the day before the 2007 JavaOne conference event, speakers will include: Charles Nutter, Thomas Enebo and Tor Norbye.

New Vista Desktop Wallpapers

Hamad Darwish has released some beautiful new desktop wallpapers for your Windows Vista desktop. Each of the wallpapers resolution is 1920x1200. Below are the pics (smaller of course)