Sean Michael Kerner

From the ‘Open Source Rules‘ files: One of the big pieces of news out of the Google I/O conference last week was the open sourcing of the VP8 video codec. With VP8, the promise from Google is a video codec on par with H.264 that will be available royalty-free. It’s a good idea, but there […]

If Canonical wants its Ubuntu Linux to make some headway in the enterprise, it needs the tools and support services, not just the operating system. With the release of Canonical Landscape, the company is taking another step in that direction. Landscape is the company’s system administration tools, and the new version gets bulked up a […]

IBM has opened up its wallet to acquire Sterling Commerce from AT&T for $1.4 billion as it looks to build out its WebSphere business. Through the all-cash deal, IBM hopes to help its clients build more effective business networks, improving the communication across partners, customers and suppliers. CIO Update has the story on IBM’s acquisition […]

Red Hat is on a mission to harmonize the numerous cloud environments that can give administrators headaches. The open source vendor is moving its deltacloud offering toward commercialization, with plans to debut a cloud management engine sometime next year that will enable admins to manage multiple virtualization environments through a single console. CIO Update has […]

From the ‘Fastest Browser Release Cycle Ever’ files: As a Chrome user, I don’t actually notice the version number I use all that much, since it’s always auto-updated to the latest version (as opposed to say Firefox where users actually have click something to update). That’s part of the reason why I was somewhat surprised […]

Are we going to have a battle of open source codecs, or will they co-exist? It look like in the case of Theora, backed by Mozilla and VP8, backed by Google, it will be the latter. The two open source Internet video codecs will both be supported side-by-side in the Mozilla Firefox browser and in […]

With an increasing number of applications migrating to the cloud, identity management has to adjust to this brave new world of non-dedicated servers, and Novell has done that with version 4.0 of its identity management software offering. Version 4 not only supports on-premises apps but also major on-demand a cloud-based services. Enterprise Networking Planet tells […]

Novell has taken the unusual step of introducing a new kernel with the release of its first major update to its SUSE Enterprise Linux 11 operating system. After consulting with the ISVs and hardware vendors that certify its enterprise Linux OS, Novell determined that it could launch a new kernel without forgoing its current compatibility. […]

Metasploit greeted the security world this week with version 3.4 of the open source vulnerability testing framework. The latest iteration now boasts a larger portfolio of exploits, along with new technologies for testing Java and brute-force security flaws. Rapid7, the principal commercial sponsor supporting Metasploit, has also rolled out a commercial version it’s calling Metasploit […]

From the ‘Walled Garden‘ files: Yesterday, Google announced its chrome web store as a way to highlight web apps for Chrome. The desire for the app store is model is one that Apple has already proven to be successful (albeit tightly controlled). With Google’s entry into the space for web apps, there are some larger […]

As one of the first enterprise software firms to hop get onboard with Cisco’s Unified Computing System, CA already has strong ties to the networking heavyweight. Now, the two firms are expanding their partnership with a new software integration for Cisco’s server system. The new deal between Cisco and CA comes with a gaggle of […]

From the ‘Ex-Employee FUD‘ files: Five years ago, most Windows users were only aware of IE  as a web browser that was available to them. Since then Firefox versions 1, 2, 3, 3.5 and 3.6  have altered the landscape forcing Microsoft to innovate IE in versions 7 and 8 and creating new competition from Apple […]