Michael Singer

Prices for computer memory jumped as much as 10 percent on the spot market this week, thanks in part to a surge in corporate customers, analysts said. The price spike for dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips seems to be a combination of an enterprise pull and a capacity bottleneck. Prices averaged just above $5 for […]

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Oracle’s future upgrades to its grid software suite are now expected to include better collaboration with XML-based Query data, company execs said Wednesday. Known as XQuery, the markup language is capable of labeling the information content of several data sources including structured and semi-structured documents, relational databases and object repositories. The […]

The state of Michigan is joining the U.S. government and seven other states that want to block Oracle’s $9.4 billion proposal to takeover PeopleSoft, Attorney General Mike Cox said in a statement Wednesday. Cox said that if Oracle acquires PeopleSoft, the merger would “impair competition between businesses, government agencies and other organizations that depend on […]

While hammering out plans to become compatible with Windows, Sun Microsystems is advancing its own Solaris server operating system. The Santa Clara, Calif., network computer maker Wednesday released the sixth update to Solaris 9 and previewed pieces of Solaris 10 for developers and partners to test in their systems. Sun has been supplying a steady […]

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The hottest trend in clustering, High Performance Computing, is using commercial off-the-shelf products (or COTS), according to Intel’s multi-threading expert. David Kuck, enterprise platforms group fellow and director of Intel’s KAI Software Lab, said advances in price, performance and interconnects are improving at such a rate that the clustering industry is […]

SAN JOSE, Calif. — IBM took the wraps off a variety of pre-packaged and pre-tested cluster servers targeted toward small to mid-size organizations Tuesday. Under the marketing name of “Departmental Supercomputing Solutions,” the Armonk, N.Y.-based company is targeting universities, departments within universities and research companies with a combination of IBM eServers like its Intel Xeon-based […]

SAN FRANCISCO — Intel scientists are branching out their job skills beyond just building the next generation of wireless computing on silicon. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaking giant is using some of this year’s $4.8 billion R&D budget to work carrier and OEM partners on interoperability. In addition, company execs say they are working the […]

Despite the trash talking between Intel and AMD about their 64-bit x86 processor architectures, the chips are “almost, but not quite, identical,” according to a new research report. An independent analysis released last week by In-Stat/MDR even discovered a few differences that even AMD and Intel were unaware of. The report shows that near-100 percent […]

New faces are taking over in key spots at Sun Microsystems as the company restructures itself out of ten quarters of red ink The Santa Clara, Calif.-based network computer maker said Monday that it has promoted John Loiacono to executive vice president of software, replacing Jonathan Schwartz. Schwartz became president and COO of Sun on […]

Apple Computer said it is seeing a definite shift in the types of the people building for its operating system. The Cupertino, Calif.-based computer maker, which is preparing for its annual developers conference in late June, claims a spike in the number of enterprise code writers. The company said it has seen a large number […]

Semiconductor trade groups saw a slight, but notable February increase in sales driven by a rebound in corporate information technology spending, according to a report issued Friday. The survey issued by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) said worldwide sales of semiconductors in February rose 30.8 percent compared to February 2003. However, the most romantic month […]

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Several smaller companies that specialize in making voice over IP networks are banding together to provide an alternative to the larger carriers like AT&T and Vonage. The wild growth in the VoIP sector has seen the Baby Bells and cable firms hopping aboard the bandwagon. The likes of SBC, Verizon, BellSouth […]