Visualising .Net
Microsoft recently began shipping the retail edition of its new top-end development product, Visual Studio .Net Enterprise Architect.
Microsoft recently began shipping the retail edition of its new top-end development product, Visual Studio .Net Enterprise Architect.
With the release of Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002 specification, which raised the bar for Windows PDA performance, Toshiba decided the time was right to break in to the PDA market with a sleek device called the e570. Audiovox then rebranded Toshiba's model under its own label as the Maestro PDA1032C.
PDA users may fantasise about looking up inventory or browsing the corporate intranet via their handheld devices, but without a wired connection to a PC or a mobile phone, such applications are impossible.
After Gartner recommended that companies ditch IIS (Internet Information Server), Microsoft's frequently hacked Web server, Sun quickly proffered its ChiliSoft ASP as an alternative.
A great many Java developers considered Microsoft's Visual J++ to be the most productive Java IDE (integrated development environment) on the market.
Microsoft hopes that Windows XP Professional, the software giant's latest desktop OS, catches on in a way that NT 4.0 Workstation and 2000 Professional never did.
Dual-processor platforms threaten to make the lone CPU obsolete
To overcome the inertia of its flagship OS, HP has opted to open up HP-UX to allow the best of both worlds: Linux's populist appeal and HP's bulletproof, if staid, image to create HP-UX 11i, Hewlett-Packard's most ambitious operating system to date.
With StoreSense 4.0, Kurant offers service providers an unusually sweet deal. In one fell swoop, StoreSense will put you in the e-commerce site-hosting business without you having to shell out much cash or hire a gang of Web developers. Just plug the included Cobalt Networks RaQ server into your network, and after a few hours of Web-based configuration - no programming or HTML hacking required - your StoreSense server is open for business.
Unix is one of the IT world's few living legends. It has been in continuous use since its birth in 1969 and its historic past is like that of a nation: inept rulers brought it to the brink of ruin, a dictator was deposed by a public rebellion, coalitions were made and dissolved, party loyalists inflamed passions by defecting to the other side and, for a time, anarchy reigned. Unix's journey through adolescence was anything but fun.
It's natural to breathe a sigh of relief when a big project finally ships, but for many companies, the delivery of a product means the trouble is just beginning. The instant your complex application or device reaches users, their wish lists and bug reports start streaming in. No matter how sweet your product is, you can't stay in business unless you have a solid workflow for the management of change requests.
Microsoft .NET, the software giant's language-independent architecture for enterprise applications, is a decisive departure from current Windows programming methods. Even the most intrepid developers have taken to the command-line tools supplied with the .NET software development kit (SDK), doing well enough with those tools to ask Microsoft to permit production use of .NET software.
Enterprise application integration (EAI) is just a pipe dream for many facilities, with primitive, nightly database dumps being the most common way to share data among back-office applications. The faster pace of business makes the absence of real-time application integration a competitive handicap.
Unix aficionados have for years chronicled vendors' attempts to push Unix onto the desktop. We've watched all such attempts end in abject failure and total market rejection, mostly because Unix vendors were clueless to the needs of desktop users - until now. Corel channelled its considerable application expertise into a Linux release that marks a turning point for the OS industry. Corel Linux OS Deluxe is the first Linux - in fact, the first Unix of any kind - that can realistically take the place of a Windows or Macintosh desktop. It has a few warts, but Corel's Linux debut is a stunner.
When a deep-pocketed company decides to start selling on the Internet, it can rely on a stable of in-house developers or hire consultants. Many other businesses, however, are not served by this type of online launch strategy, most notably small, struggling companies that are short on capital, employees, and time.