Clint Boulton

Network Appliance backed up its backup and recovery systems by acquiring Alacritus for $11 million in cash. Alacritus makes Securitus, a virtual tape library (VTL) system that lets disks emulate tape by creating separate VTLs for each host while sharing the same physical tape library. This allows users to share a tape library among incompatible […]

UPDATED: Computer Associates agreed to acquire Concord Communications for $350 million in cash to fortify its network service management software position. CA will offer $17 per share for $330 million, plus an assumption of $20 million in debt from Concord for the total purchase price. CA COO Jeff Clarke said on a conference call that […]

Volvo moved to make its cars safer by asking IBM to build a supercomputer that performs crash simulations. IBM will provide more than 150 IBM eServer 325 machines running AMD Opteron processors, as well as services to help increase the “design-for-safety” approach cultivated by the Swedish car company. IBM did not disclose the cost of […]

IBM will resell hardware and software from Network Appliance , as both companies seek to put more distance between EMC and themselves in the storage market. Under the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement, IBM will resell networked-attached storage (NAS) , iSCSI and IP storage area network (SAN) products from NetApp. This includes NetApp NearStore disk-based […]

Intel’s Itanium 2 chip is getting a shot in the arm by Fujitsu Computer Systems (FCS), which unveiled a high-performance computing server based on the much-maligned processor. Designed to compete with systems from IBM and HP , the new PrimeQuest server line runs Windows and Linux. FCS said the machines will be used to power […]

UPDATED: Microsoft said it has moved closer to meeting the European Commission’s demands for more flexible licensing terms for computer code. This would help rivals write software that interoperates with Microsoft products. In a letter to the commission last week, the Redmond, Wash., software giant agreed to 20 of 26 demands to open up pockets […]

IBM added new services to help customers integrate mixed software using service-oriented architectures . SOAs are distributed computing architectures that enable a range of services, such as data-exchanges or a collection of Web services , to communicate with each other. They often involve melding disparate applications to work together more efficiently, by reusing software code […]

UPDATED: Only 24 percent of the 136,000 Windows XP PCs in 251 North American companies have upgraded to Service Pack 2 (SP2), according to a new survey from AssetMetrix Research Labs. SP2 is loaded with several new security features, including a revamped Windows firewall, to help shore up system defenses. Aside from concerns about security, […]

Companies spent a record $75 billion in acquiring rivals or other vendors to fill holes in their portfolio in the first quarter of 2005, according to The 451 Group. Acquirers snapped up 604 enterprises in the period, led by 48 purchases from private equity firms. Twenty-two of these deals have the potential value to top […]

Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) plans to announce new network-attached storage (NAS) blades, which will run embedded in its TagmaStore Universal Storage Platform (USP), internetnews.com has learned. The NAS blades, thin servers that slide into bigger servers, will consolidate existing NAS gateways and filers in an enterprise environment, according to a source familiar with the plans. […]

The $465 million award that a jury ordered Toshiba to pay Lexar Media could negate an injunction, legal experts said. At a hearing April 13, Lexar is expected to request an injunction barring Toshiba’s Flash memory products in the United States. Lexar’s argument is that Toshiba’s CompactFlash, Secure Digital and xD Picture Cards use some […]

Microsoft has released its first service pack for Windows Server 2003 with several improvements in security. The upgrade is crucial, because the company is constantly under fire for the safety of its software. Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) features stronger default settings and reduced privileges to better keep perpetrators from hijacking users’ machines, […]