Open-source vendor SugarCRM has unveiled a new technical-collaboration partnership with Microsoft that will boost interoperability between SugarCRM products and Windows Server.
Announced at the Open Source Business Conference, the collaboration project is designed to help customers of both vendors take advantage of Windows administration for running SugarCRM.
As open-source databases have grown in popularity among large enterprises and small and midsize businesses alike, many CIOs have taken a closer look at the savings associated with switching to these noncommercial alternatives.
Despite the attractive prices that are drawing more CIOs to open-source applications such as MySQL and PostgreSQL, traditional software vendors have not exactly thrown in the towel. Some — including Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM — are fighting back by releasing free, scaled-down versions of their fully featured database products in the hopes that customers might one day upgrade.
In a new survey of I.T. organizations, respondents claim that recent developments in
Linux have eased management complexity and lowered the price associated with running the operating system and its related software.
The results contradict some Microsoft claims that Linux’s total cost of ownership is higher than Windows.
The report was sponsored by Open Source Development Labs and member company Levanta, and undertaken by Enterprise Management Associates.
In the survey, the majority of respondents noted that they spent less effort in managing and supporting Linux than they spent on Windows. Over half said that they could diagnose and repair problems in Linux environments in less than 30 minutes.
SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK: Memo to Google: Welcome to life as an everyday Internet stock.Shares of Google Inc. fell nearly 5 percent on Monday and have lost a quarter of their value this month as the Web search company that once could do no wrong faces up to the realities of a business that must face the bad with the good.
But despite several bouts of negative news that have knocked a stock once thought headed to $500 back below $350, the vast majority of Wall Street analysts remain sanguine over Google’s prospects and advise investors to buy the stock.
The latest drop follows a report in Barron’s, the financial weekly, that speculated the Web search company’s stock could drop 50 percent under a scenario in which it would fall well short of bullish analysts’ 2006 revenue estimates.
News.com says that Open-source database company MySQL said it has secured $18.5 million in series C funding, a round led by Institutional Venture Partners. The total venture investment in the company, which has operations in Sweden and Cupertino, Calif., is about $39 million.
The money will be used to fund the company’s growth, product development and expanded marketing and sales operations, MySQL said. Also participating in the round were Intel Capital, Red Hat, SAP Ventures and Presidio STV, the venture investment subsidiary of Sumitomo. “With the release of MySQL 5.0, the company is offering deep functionality at a fraction of the cost of the competition, prompting many CIOs to reconsider their database strategy,” said Steve Harrick, managing director and general partner of Institutional Venture Partners.
Google has launched a beta for hosted e-mail accounts that feature the user’s domain instead of gmail.com.The hosted-Gmail beta, which is going head-to-head with a similar beta that Microsoft launched in November, is offering 2GB of storage, e-mail search tools and a control panel to manage user accounts, aliases and mailing lists, as part of its test version.
Google’s beta follows on the heels of a similar one Microsoft launched in November. The Microsoft Windows Live Custom Domains beta features hosted e-mail and instant messaging.
According to a statement issued yesterday by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Google Desktop ain’t what it seems. A new feature of the application now records the contents of your hard drive, storing actual copies of your files — including Word documents, PDFs, and spreadsheets. Concern about the new “Search Across Computers” feature arises out of the possibility that making such files available to Google opens users up to severe invasion of privacy, not only from hackers, but from government surveillance as well.
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Don’t leave the lair without adding these 10 indispensable add-ons to your Firefox pack.
You probably know what Firefox extensions are and how they work. Here’s the quick-and-dirty definition, from the Fox’s mouth:
Extensions are small add-ons that add new functionality to Firefox. They can add anything from a toolbar button to a completely new feature. They allow the application to be customized to fit the personal needs of each user if they need additional features, while keeping Firefox small to download.
The new chip, called Clovertown, bundles four processors in a single package, allowing computers to process data more quickly or run more applications at the same time, while using less power than a single-core design.
The preview of Microsoft’s Windows AntiSpyware wrongly fingered two Symantec enterprise anti-virus products as password-stealing programs last week. If users followed Microsoft’s recommendation and removed the offending Registry key, the Symantec software turned into so much digital junk. Read more
