Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Ask any security guru. Whats makes for better security, two-factor authentication or the typical one-step username/password combination? Even Homer “Burns Nuclear IT Assistant” Simpson would know that its two-step. Of course, Homer would probably think you were talking about dancing, but you get the point. So why arent we all carrying authentication cards for our […]

OK, so the biggest market for Apples new iPod Touch, and its newly reduced in price 8GB iPhone, is consumers. But, if you take a closer look at both youll see mobile devices that also make a great deal of business sense as well. When you first look at the iPod Touch, what youre likely […]

Standards expert and attorney Andrew Updegrove has predicted that on Sept. 4 the International Organization for Standards will announce that the draft ISO specification based on Microsofts Office Open XML formats failed to make the standardization grade. The voting to make Open XML an ISO standard closed on Sept. 2. The ISO is expected to […]

Microsoft conceded that it had been unsuccessful in its attempt to make its document formats, Open XML, an ISO standard in an early morning press release on Sept. 4. According to Microsoft, the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) released the results of the preliminary ballot to participating National Body members for the ISO/IEC DIS 29500 […]

The IT nations long national nightmare is over. The Department of Justice, under the wise reign of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, has declared that the Microsoft monopoly has been broken by the antitrust settlement. Let the rejoicing begin! “The final judgments have been successful in protecting the development and distribution of middleware products and in […]

Starting in early August, beta versions of Windows Vista SP1 started to appear on BitTorrent sites such as Pirate Bay. Over the Aug. 24 weekend, a new beta has appeared on the BitTorrent sites. The first beta SP1 appeared on hacker sites in early August as a 3.2 GB DVD ISO. This version could only […]

For what I think will prove to be a cheap $500 million, XenSource has been picked up by Citrix Systems. Citrix, for those of you who dont know, has made a living for ages by providing Windows desktops and applications to remote users—first with MetaFrame and now with Presentation Server. So what, you ask? One […]

In 1997, which is when I started following Sun, the business, and not just its hardware and operating systems, it was a hardware company. Oh, Sun would talk about Solaris, and it would promote Java, but Sun really made its money from hardware. Specifically, Sun filled its piggy bank from servers and workstations built around […]

Quick! Think of some of the most popular open-source programs. Ill bet you thought of at least one of these: Linux, Firefox, Thunderbird and Apache. Now, name some of Microsofts most active open-source projects. Dead silence, except, perhaps the sound of a cricket in the distance? Theres a reason why you were able to quickly […]

IBM and Sun announced on Aug. 16 that IBM will distribute Suns Solaris operating system and Solaris Subscriptions for select x86-based IBM System x servers and BladeCenter servers to IBMs customers. It was only two and a half years ago that IBM, based in Armonk, N.Y., said there was no significant customer interest in Solaris […]