Lisa Vaas

Oracle spruced up its recently acquired embeddable database, Berkeley DB, releasing on Sept. 27 Version 4.5 with multiversion concurrency control and more. The new features are designed to improve performance, availability and ease of use for developers of the open-source database. One of the major positive items in the update is the ability of developers […]

IBM is launching a mastery exam to help DBAs identify and resolve thorny issues, the company will announce on Tuesday. The new DB2 Problem Determination Mastery Exam is designed to give database administrators the skills to investigate and isolate database issues such as the implementation of workarounds or fixes; to deal with common installation issues […]

Intel unveiled five new Atom processors at the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai, China, on April 2, while OEMs pulled out a host of pocket-size mobile Internet devices that will feed off the small, energy-efficient, low-cost but powerful chips. Intel’s Atom processor, formerly code-named Silverthorne, will come in speeds up to 1.86GHz and will support […]

Windows XP, edging perilously close to its June 30 end-of-support date, is looking to get a reprieve when Intel rolls out low-cost subnotebooks and MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices). Intel has been touting its low-cost Atom processor, a small yet powerful chip created with Intel’s 45-nanometer process that can be crammed together 2,500 CPUs to a […]

Talk of recession is at fever pitch, fanned by the news that the august Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns went belly-up on March 14. With sluggish hiring, spiraling fuel costs and the mortgage foreclosure crisis gripping the nation, it would seem to be only common sense to say that IT is one of many […]

Dell has unleashed two new PowerEdge servers-the R300 and T300-that it claims perform up to 31 percent better than comparable Hewlett-Packard servers and up to 51 percent better than similar servers from IBM. Dell is also claiming that the new servers have up to three times the memory capacity and are thus better suited to […]

On March 10, IBM vowed to make a major push into UC, starting with its new Lotus Sametime Advanced software and going far beyond that into a three-year plan that will encompass acquisitions, internal development and new services. IBM dangled figures from IDC that predict the market for UCC (unified communications and collaboration, which includes […]

Google is dead set on convincing businesses that it’s safe to move data from under their mattresses to the bank-the bank being Google Apps, of course. To that end, Google on March 13 introduced two-factor authentication: an extra layer of access security that Google hopes will help to get businesses over the impression that Google […]

Fonality on March 4 is announcing a major upgrade to its business phone system-the PBXtra 4.0-that promises to sniff employees out and forward calls to their cell phones if it detects that they’re not tapping away at their keyboards. PBXtra 4.0’s new FindMe feature allows users to stipulate when and how they can be tracked […]

Microsoft on Feb. 20 is spreading its arms to draw its SMB and midmarket servers under one roof, announcing what it’s calling a new “family,” the Windows Essential Server Solutions family. The new product family will encompass both the company’s small business and its midmarket servers, with licensing and migration paths to ease the move […]