Gates Brings Cash to India
Bill Gates left a half a billion dollars behind on his trip to India last week.
The billionaire co-founder and chairman of Microsoft pledged $100 million of his own money to fight AIDS. He also said his software company will spend $400 million in India over the next three years to expand its development operations and improve overall computer literacy.
The goal is to teach 80,000 teachers and 3.5 million students about computer hardware and software in a program called Project Shiksha. Microsoft is also going to set up 10 Information Technology Academy Centers, Gates said.
Gates also introduced versions of Windows XP and Microsoft Office that run in Hindi.
Oracle Reports Linux Benchmark
Oracle last week raised the bar in the race to prove its namesake database is faster than Microsofts SQL Server—and in the process took a swipe at Windows.
Oracle announced what it said was the best TPC-C benchmark for online transaction processing using its Oracle10i database running under Red Hats Red Hat Linux on a Hewlett-Packard rx5670 server running four Intel Itanium 2 processors. The result—about 80,500 new order transactions per minute at a cost of $4.84 per transaction—bested Microsofts SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition by about 2,000 tpm and 64 cents per transaction, according to the TPC Web site.
Verity to Acquire Inktomi Software
Verity said last week it will acquire Inktomis enterprise search software business in a cash deal worth $25 million.
Inktomi will remain in business but focus on developing its Web search engines. The acquisition will give Verity more technology in the basic search area, including Inktomis Enterprise Search (formerly known as UltraSeek) suite, which includes basic search, content refinement and categorization, as well as its XML tool kit.