News reports this week that the U.S. Department of Justice is formally reviewing a proposed advertising deal between Google and Yahoo came as no surprise to some tech trade groups and advocacy groups based in Washington, D.C.

A Washington Post story Wednesday saying the DOJ had launched a formal investigation of the ad deal wasn't much of a shocker to Google and Yahoo, either, as the two companies had voluntarily delayed the implementation of the deal for more than three months in recognition that the DOJ would look at the antitrust implications.

A DOJ spokeswoman said Wednesday that the agency has acknowledged since mid-June that it was looking into the deal. A public confirmation that the DOJ is examining the deal amounts to a "formal investigation," she said.

Google said it is cooperating with the DOJ.

"We are continuing to have cooperative discussions with the Department of Justice about this arrangement, and voluntarily delayed implementation for three and a half months in order to give them time to understand the agreement," said Adam Kovacevich, a Google spokesman. "That process is continuing exactly as expected. We are confident that the arrangement is beneficial to competition, but we are not going to discuss the details of the process."

Google and Yahoo announced June 12 a deal to run some of Google's advertisements alongside Yahoo search results. The announcement came just hours after a proposed acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft fell through, although Microsoft has continued to express interest in such a deal.

Google and Yahoo had run a test of the advertising program in April.

Still, with recent news of the DOJ investigation, representatives of two tech trade groups said they expected the agency would look into the deal.

"Even though serious antitrust problems are unlikely, it was appropriate for the parties to offer up a delay while regulators review the deal," said Ed Black, CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a trade group that has raised concerns about anticompetitive behavior in the tech industry. "This is a good provision to help everyone understand the facts surrounding the deal and make sure there is no harmful impact on competition or consumers."

A formal review was "inevitable," added Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology, a trade group often aligned with Google competitor Microsoft. The deal is between the number one and number two companies in the "crucial" online ad market, Zuck added.

"It's a very complex deal in a very complex market," Zuck said. "The deal raises a lot of questions that the DOJ must answer before letting it go."

Google has worked hard to structure a deal that would meet regulatory approval, he said. "The big question is whether Google could ever do enough to satisfy competition concerns over the consolidation of number one and number two players in the market."

The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), an advocacy group focused on consumer privacy, called on the DOJ to reject the Google-Yahoo deal.

"Google has reached way beyond the proverbial tipping point when it comes to its dominance of the interactive ad business," said Jeffrey Chester, the group's executive director. "Yahoo's agreement to the deal is a desperate move acknowledging they can no longer compete with Google. The DOJ -- even a Bush Administration business-friendly one -- shouldn't permit Google to operate a key part of Yahoo's business."

Earlier this month, CDD asked the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to investigate how the deal could affect consumer privacy. "Privacy is at risk, as Google gains access to even more consumer data," Chester said.

A Trojan horse program that has been around for about six years is now being used to steal system-administrator passwords, including those at banking and brokerage houses, according to security researchers. And it could be that six years from now we'll still be talking about Microsoft's aim to buy Yahoo's search business, which could involve obtaining the entire company and breaking it apart. Meanwhile, early adopters will undoubtedly be out in force on July 11 to be among the first to buy the new iPhone 3G.

1. Report says Microsoft readying new try for Yahoo: Bill Gates said on his way out of his full-time gig at Microsoft that he thought a deal for his company to buy Yahoo was unlikely, but a couple of days later the Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft is looking for partners -- Time Warner and News Corp. were named -- to help it obtain Yahoo's search business. So, to quote baseball legend Yogi Berra, "It ain't over 'til it's over." And this one clearly ain't over yet.

2. Trojan lurks, waiting to steal admin passwords: The Coreflood Trojan horse program lurks until a system administrator logs on to an infected computer and then steals the password, using a Microsoft administration tool to spread malware on the network. The malware is being used to swipe banking- and brokerage-account usernames and passwords. So far, criminals have infected hundreds of thousands of computers with Coreflood, including more than 14,000 in one global hotel chain.

3. iPhone 3G set for 8 a.m. debut on July 11 and AT&T dishes on iPhone rate plans: AT&T announced prices for iPhone 3G service, which are, of course, more costly than plans for earlier iPhones. The carrier also announced that the new iPhones will be on sale at 8 in the morning, local time, on July 11. That's earlier than Apple retail stores open, though someone who answered the phone at the flagship San Francisco Apple Store wouldn't say if the opening will be moved up two hours and suggested that a reporter ring back later. (There has to be some element of the launch that maintains an air of secrecy, eh?)

4. Microsoft eases hardware terms for XP on low-cost PCs: Although June 30 marked the end of Microsoft offering most licenses for its Windows XP operating system, the company is still pushing the OS for use in low-cost PCs and it has eased hardware restrictions. Low-cost PCs with touchscreens, larger screen sizes and bigger hard drives now are eligible to use XP.

5. Oracle reveals BEA roadmap: Since Oracle closed its $8.5 billion merger with BEA, questions have abounded as to how the two companies' technologies will mesh -- or if they will even mesh at all. This week, Oracle finally laid out its plans of what to do with BEA's technology, saying it plans to make BEA's application server Oracle's strategic Java container and pledging continued support for BEA customers.

6. Long-awaited JBoss AS 5.0 moves closer to release date: The release candidate of the long-awaited JBoss Application Server 5.0 will be out soon, according a blog posting from the chief technology officer of Red Hat's JBoss division. Product development started three years ago and stretched out as the company decided to make more changes to the next version.

7. DOJ continues probe of Yahoo-Google partnership: The U.S. Department of Justice continues to investigate the proposed advertising partnership between Yahoo and Google, a DOJ spokeswoman said this week. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the DOJ had just initiated a formal antitrust investigation around the proposed deal, but the spokeswoman said that the probe under way was begun June 16. Regulatory scrutiny was widely expected.

8. Adobe, Google, Yahoo enabling Flash searches: Yahoo and Google are working with Adobe to facilitate Flash pages being returned as search results. The move could mean that millions of rich Internet applications that had previously been all but invisible to search engines will now become serachable.

9. Mozilla's Firefox 3 sets geeky world record: The 8,002,530 downloads of Firefox 3 in the first 24 hours after the browser's release made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for the most downloads in that time period. Mozilla set out to achieve the first-ever such record. "Our community members came together and not only spread the word, but also took the initiative to help mobilize millions of people to demonstrate their belief that Firefox gives people the best possible online experience," said Mozilla Vice President of Marketing Paul Kim. Or maybe they just wanted to be part of setting the record ...

10. Gartner: Seven cloud-computing security risks: Cloud-computing customers need to ask hard questions about security and should think about getting a third-party security assessment before choosing a vendor, analyst firm Gartner recommends. A Gartner report, "Assessing the Security Risks of Cloud Computing," lays out the areas of security concern.

Microsoft will release four security patches for its Windows, Exchange, and SQL products next Tuesday, all rated "important."

The Exchange and SQL flaws are "Elevation of Privilege" bugs, meaning that an attacker could theoretically exploit them to get administrative access to a PC. One of the Windows flaws is labeled a "spoofing" bug, meaning that it could help hackers trick the user into doing things like visiting malicious Web sites.

The fourth update fixes a Windows flaw that could allow an attacker to run unauthorized code on a victim's PC, Microsoft said. Normally, this type of flaw is rated "critical" by Microsoft, but in this case the bug was probably given a less-severe rating because it doesn't work without the user first taking some extra actions or adding special software or drivers, said Eric Schultze, chief technology officer at Shavlik Technologies.

This remote code execution flaw affects Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

The SQL vulnerability affects Microsoft's SQL Server software and the internal SQL software that ships with some versions of Windows. It does not affect Vista or XP users, but it does exist on the Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 products.

Microsoft published a note on the upcoming security patches on its Web site on Thursday. Unless it is forced to rush out an emergency fix, the company releases its security patches on the second Tuesday of each month.

Microsoft also said Thursday that it is planning to upgrade the Windows Update software it uses to deliver bug-fixes to PC desktops.

The upgrade will speed up the software download process, said Windows Update Product Manager Michelle Haven in a blog posting. "Weve invested heavily in reducing the amount of time it takes the Windows Update agent to scan to see if new updates are available," he wrote. "In this case, weve seen some instances of the scan times on some machines decreasing almost 20 percent."

Microsoft plans to make further changes to the Windows Update software and back-end infrastructure over the next few months, Haven said.

A federal judge has agreed to put off a trial involving Visto's patent-infringement claims against Research in Motion, but limited RIM's ability to cause further delays.

The trial over mobile e-mail provider Visto's lawsuit against RIM had been set to begin next week. Visto sued RIM in 2006 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, claiming its popular BlackBerry system infringed four Visto patents and asking for a shutdown of RIM's service as well as damages. But on Wednesday, Magistrate Judge Charles Everingham granted a stay of the trial, requested by RIM, because several of the patent claims involved are being re-examined by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

RIM had requested the re-examinations, in which the patent office is studying the validity of certain parts of Visto's patents. But as a condition of the stay, the company can't ask for any more re-examinations, either directly or indirectly, the judge wrote. RIM also won't be allowed to challenge the validity of any of the patents during the trial by bringing up evidence that has already been considered in the re-examinations.

Earlier this week, the patent office validated 21 out of 22 claims in one of those patents, number 7,039,679, which involves technology for synchronizing e-mail between a mobile device and a LAN server.

Mobile e-mail, based on complex sets of technologies and rapidly growing in popularity, has been fertile ground for patent disputes. RIM came to the brink of a service shutdown in 2006 before settling a suit brought by NTP for $612.5 million. Visto has also aggressively defended its intellectual property, suing competitors including Good Technology, Seven, and Microsoft.

Apple's focus over the last year or so has been largely on the iPhone, leaving Mac developers who work in the enterprise market to pretty much fend for themselves. And that seems to be just fine for companies in a newly launched Mac enterprise group and even other Mac developers.

Earlier this week Atempo, Centrify, Group Logic, LANrev, and Parallels joined forces to form the Enterprise Desktop Alliance (EDA), a group of software developers dedicated to helping adopt the Mac--especially in larger companies with existing Windows-managed IT environments. Other Mac developers who cater to business customers think it's a good idea as well, and that it will help keep Apple focused on the end-user.

[ Special report: IT's guide to the Mac ] 

"I don't think Apple should be specifically target the enterprise," said Alykhan Jetha, president and CEO of Marketcircle (makers of billing and productivity management software). "It's not that I don't want those customers, because I do, but the enterprise market has fundamentally different requirements than you and I."

For example, those in the enterprise market may not be as willing to switch to a new operating system as quickly as individual consumers for fear of incompatibilities. Retraining employees on a new operating system can also be costly for large companies.

"This would slow us all down," said Jetha. "You won't see the type of innovation Apple shows from Microsoft because they have to cater to enterprise. If Apple caters to the enterprise like Microsoft, progress is going to slow."

That point is not lost on Tim Deal, senior analyst at market research form Pike & Fischer. "Apple has not tried to be everything to everyone and that has certainly been a key factor in its strong position of innovation," said Deal.

While Deal doesn't feel Apple does enough to promote its strengths in the enterprise market, he does think that Apple's focus on certain areas of the market over the years has been a winning strategy.

"Focusing on and having good reputation for those niche markets has really worked for them [Apple]," said Deal. "Those markets typically don't look anywhere else for their products."

Dennis Bilowus, president of FastTrack Scheduler-maker AEC Software, thinks that Apple should do more to promote itself in the enterprise, but recognizes that the company has been doing a much better job in the past year.

Bilowus points out that one of Apple's strongest niche markets, higher education, is also one of its biggest enterprise customers.

Of course, Apple's iPhone 3G, being released on July 11, will include many enterprise-targeted features as well. This will be another catalyst in getting Macs into the large companies as executives purchase iPhone and expect their IT departments to support them.

Overall, Mac developers seem pleased with Apple's position on the enterprise market. While a little more promotion might be nice, focusing on growing the business seems to be in everyone's best interest.

"When it comes to Apple, they have a long history of customers evangelizing for it," said Deal. "That puts the company in a unique position in the market. People will vehemently argue for the benefits of its products. That represents the unique nature of Apple."

Opera Software patched the newest version of its flagship browser for the first time Wednesday when it released Opera 9.5.1 to fix several flaws.

The update patches bugs in the Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux editions, said Opera in notes posted to its Web site.

Among the vulnerabilities addressed in 9.5.1 was one credited to noted researcher Billy Rios that affected only the Windows version of the Norwegian-made browser. "Fixed an issue that could be used to execute arbitrary code, as reported by Billy Rios," said Opera in the 9.5.1 change log "Details will be disclosed at a later date."

Danish vulnerability tracker Secunia rated the unspecified bug as "highly critical," its second-highest threat ranking.

Other flaws fixed by 9.5.1 included an information disclosure bug that could reveal data stored in memory and another involving digital certificates that were being summarily rejected.

Also included in the update were multiple changes to the user interface, a patch that boosted the browser's stability when accessing Yahoo Mail and a fix for problems related to search engines when upgrading from older Opera editions.

Opera only recently released version 9.5 , a major update to the free browser that emphasized security enhancements and bookmark synchronization, among other improvements.

Yesterday's patch update was the first since that launch.

Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.

4Apple's launch of its new iPhone 3G will produce a flurry of spam and scams, a security company warned Thursday.

Users should also expect a Storm botnet campaign this weekend that touts the Fourth of July holiday in the U.S., said MX Logic in its monthly threat forecast.

The Englewood, Colo.-based security firm said "significant spam, scams and malware campaigns" touting the rollout of the iPhone 3G on July 11 would likely reach users starting next week. "Scams will be especially prevalent if supply doesn't meet demand," said the company in the July forecast it posted earlier this week to its Web site (download PDF) .

MX Logic cited a notice published by rival Websense of San Diego, Calif., last month of an iPhone 3G scam that had made the rounds among users in South America. Two weeks ago, Websense warned that users who clicked on links in e-mail touting the new Apple smart phone risked infection by malware posing as Apple marketing video.

Also on MX Logic's radar for the month is the Storm Trojan, which the company predicted would again use the Fourth of July holiday to tempt users into clicking on malicious links.

"The July 4th holiday marks the one-year anniversary of the Storm worm e-card campaign that several other Storm variants have since latched onto," said the company's forecast. "MX Logic expects to see Storm release another July 4th variant again this year."

Last year, researchers linked Storm -- a bot Trojan that collects compromised computers into large armies of PCs ready to spread spam or more malware -- to a massive surge in spam during July.

Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.

Security company Secunia has found a flaw in the VLC Media Player that could allow an attacker to gain control of someone's PC.

The problem, which Secunia ranks as "highly critical," affects version 0.8.6h on Windows. Secunia said in an advisory that version 0.8.6i should be released soon.

The flaw is an integer overflow error, which can be exploited to cause a heap-based buffer overflow, a type of problem in how the program allocates memory. Secunia said it can be exploited by creating a specially-crafted ".WAV" sound file, which would the allow a hacker to run other code on the PC.

VLC Media Player is a free, open-source program released under the GNU General Public License by the VideoLAN project . The player can handle video files in MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, MP3, and OGG formats, among others.

The project also develops a streaming media server for several platforms. The VLC software has been download close to 90 million times, according to the project's Web site.

Secunia notified the VideoLAN project on June 30 and advised that until the update is released, users should be wary of untrusted ".WAV" files.

Google has released for free one of its internal tools used for testing the security of Web-based applications.

Ratproxy, released under an Apache 2.0 software license, looks for a variety of coding problems in Web applications, such as errors that could allow a cross-site scripting attack or cause caching problems.

"We decided to make this tool freely available as open source because we feel it will be a valuable contribution to the information security community, helping advance the community's understanding of security challenges associated with contemporary web technologies," wrote Google's Michal Zalewski on a company security blog.

Ratproxy -- released as version 1.51 beta -- is quick and less intrusive than other scanners in that it is passive and does not generate a high volume of attack-simulating traffic when running, Zalewski wrote. Active scanners can cause problems with application performance.

The tool sniffs content and can pick out snippets of JavaScript from style sheets. It also supports SSL (Secure Socket Layer) scanning, among other features.

Since it runs in a passive mode, Ratproxy highlights areas of concern that "are not necessarily indicative of actual security flaws. The information gathered during a testing session should be then interpreted by a security professional with a good understanding of the common problems and security models employed in web applications," Zalewski wrote.

Google has posted an overview of Ratproxy as well as a download link to the source code. Code licensed under the Apache 2.0 license may be incorporated in derivative works, including commercial ones, but the origin of the code must be acknowledged.

Weak web application security continues to embarrass companies, potentially causing the loss of customer or financial data.

A 2006 survey by the Web Application Security Consortium found that 85.57 percent of 31,373 sites were vulnerable to cross-site scripting attacks, 26.38 percent were vulnerable to SQL injection and 15.70 percent had other faults that could lead to data loss.

As a result, security vendors have moved to fill the need for better security tools, with large technology companies acquiring smaller, specialized companies in the field.

In June 2007, IBM bought Watchfire, a company that focused on Web application vulnerability scanning, data protection and compliance auditing. Two weeks later, Hewlett-Packard said it would buy SPI Dynamics, a rival of Watchfire whose software also looks for vulnerabilities in Web applications as well as performing compliance audits.

Nvidia has uncovered a problem with some older graphics chips that shipped in "significant quantities" of laptop PCs, the company said Wednesday.

Nvidia hasn't determined the exact cause of the problem but said it relates to a packaging material used with some of its chips, as well as the thermal design of some laptops. Modern processors generate considerable amounts of heat.

[ Keep up on the latest tech news headlines at InfoWorld News, or subscribe to the Today's Headlines newsletter. ]

To tackle the problem, the company is releasing a software driver that will cause system fans to start operating sooner and reduce the "thermal stress" on the chips. The driver has been provided to laptop makers directly, said Derek Perez, an Nvidia spokesman.

Nvidia will take a charge against second-quarter earnings of $150 million to $200 million to cover the expected cost of repairing and replacing the products, which include graphics processing units and media and communications processors. It didn't say specifically which of its products were affected.

The products have been failing in the field at "higher than normal rates," Nvidia said. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, it said it was talking to its supply chain about getting reimbursed for some of the costs.

The company also had other bad news on Wednesday. It said it was lowering its revenue forecast for the second quarter due to pricing pressure and delayed product ramps. The company now expects revenue to be between $875 million and $950 million.

Krugle plans to ship next week an upgrade to its search appliance for enterprise software development projects, which makes it easier for teams of developers to maintain code.

Version 2.3 of Krugle Enterprise optimizes defect management across related projects and coordinates component development, Krugle said.

Offered as a piece of Intel-based hardware, Krugle Enterprise is installed inside a firewall and pointed at all source code management systems. A library of all source code is created, which is then made searchable from the developer's desktop.

"Developers who are involved in creating software might use this to understand and learn about code that's already been written," said Mel Badgett, Krugle vice president of marketing. Software development organizations can uncover intellectual property contained in source code as well as related information.

Version 2.3 can handle more than 10 billion lines of source code per appliance and has caching and processing methods for duplicate code modules.

Among other improvements is the ability to search for multiple lines of code. "Snippet" search results lists exact and approximate matches, enabling detection of similar code across multiple code branches or releases. Developers could find multiple instances of problem code and perform search-and-replace operations on it.

Also featured is a capability for associating custom data fields with each code file indexed. Users can extend code file search queries with custom qualifiers, such as file identifiers and links to other resources.

The base price of Krugle Enterprise 2.3 is $12,500 per year; pricing depends on how much code is being managed.

While perhaps best known as a major social networking site in the Web 2.0 vein, Facebook is becoming a popular place to interface with potential customers, similar to what companies such as Scribe and iLike have done. Facebook also is being viewed as a place for enterprise collaboration, with Serena Software leveraging the site for this purpose. To get perspective on Facebook, InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill recently spoke with Aditya Agarwal, Facebook director of engineering. Agarwal formerly worked in the Oracle server technologies division.

Agarwal oversees product design and development at Facebook and also is responsible for Facebook's search strategy. Agarwal discussed the company's intentions, search efforts, developer strategy, and infrastructure. He also commented on why the company has been gaining traction in the enterprise.

InfoWorld: It?s interesting that you worked at Oracle right before Facebook. And you went to Facebook three years ago when the company was not as in the news as it is now. Why would you leave an established software giant like Oracle to go to a startup like Facebook??

Agarwal: I think that at that stage it was clear that Facebook was a young startup with a lot of energy. It was something that had tremendous potential. And there is so much information out there. People put a lot of information online. They made it accessible, but over time really the [intent] is going to be to try to help people make the Web more social. And even then, about three years ago, it was apparent that that was the direction, the trend that the Web was moving in.

InfoWorld: You wanted to talk about search efforts. What exactly is happening there with Facebook? When I think of search, I think of Yahoo or Google or some of the others. I don?t necessarily think of Facebook.

Agarwal: The reason you use search in Facebook is that there is a lot of information that people are generating within the context of social networks. It becomes quite imperative that you have a way of being able to search that information. And I think that Facebook is taking the first crack at that. And the first crack that we really tackled was -- how do we let people find other people? And you are right in that the scope of this is different than from other Web search engines, but there is a value-add that you can provide when you think of search -- returning users' relevant results that are not based on traditional mechanisms. [For example], when you search for somebody named John, chances are that you are going to get your friends who are named John, your friends of friends who are named John. So [in the case of someone in Silicon Valley, the search might include people] from San Francisco, San Jose, Palo Alto who are named John. I think that we try to essentially provide value based on the unique position that we have. That?s the way that we approach search.

InfoWorld: So where are you headed with search??

Agarwal: Well, I think we are continuously innovating in the search space. One of the things that we have learned is that search is obviously something that requires a tremendous amount of infrastructure, and we?re in the process of scaling our systems out, building up new services and in the future obviously exposing more functionality to the user.

So to give you an example of something that was released very recently, we now allow users the ability to search through their entire inbox, the people inbox, the people?s messaging system. The important thing to note there is [that] that?s a pretty difficult problem in the sheer size, the scale of the data that we have. But the way that we view search today is that as Facebook becomes more and more [of a public] communications utility and people start using Facebook messages almost exclusively instead of something like e-mail, then we need to provide them with search capability there because it?s an important part of having a complete holistic experience.

InfoWorld: You also wanted to talk about Thrift, which is your software framework for cross-services development. Could you tell me what the intent of that is and what?s happening with that?

Agarwal: Thrift is a lightweight RPC framework that allows really high-performance, intra-datacenter communication. Another aspect of Thrift is [it] allows you to have cross-language communication. So you could be writing some functionality in PHP and by phone, and it seamlessly makes calls out to services that might be running in Java or C++. The key thing I think, or the key motivation behind building out Thrift and not using any of the existing frameworks, for example, something like CORBA or something like a REST services framework, is that Thrift is designed to be extremely high-performance. So when you?re looking at providing really a quick user experience, you?re thinking of response times, latencies in terms of 100 milliseconds, in terms of 150 milliseconds, and at that latency level, you have to have something that is much more [higher-performing] than anything out there that?s in the market right now. So we decided to develop this in-house and then basically release it as open source to the world. A lot of the functionality that allowed us to innovate quickly, we also wanted to expose to everybody else because part of our vision is to provide a platform but also provide the tools that people can use to help scale their services.

InfoWorld: What type of services are people building for Facebook using Thrift?

Agarwal: That's a good question, and a lot of our core services like search, you?ve seen chat, our advertising systems, some of our mobile systems. There are a lot of services that are built on top of Thrift, and they?re built in a variety of different languages. We have services running in C++, we have services running in Java, Python, Erlang.

The best part about Thrift is that you can choose to use the tool that you want, the language that you want, the framework that you want to best solve your problem. You?re not constrained by a standard three-tier architecture, you?re not constrained by only being able to use one application language. We really believe in giving our engineering organization the best tools to solve problems, and Thrift is a key part of that because it allows you to concentrate on creating the product that you want, solving the problem that you?re trying to tackle and not have to worry about -- how do I go in between languages? How do I efficiently transmit data between one project and another?

InfoWorld: Facebook is generally viewed as a platform for social networking in a nonbusiness sense, but I know that?s changing. What exactly does Facebook have to offer enterprises?

Agarwal: Without getting into the actual specifics of that question, I think that the way I think about that is that we strive to provide a platform that can enable many different types of applications. And our focus is really on having a platform that [is] fully feature-complete enough to allow people to build different kinds of things on top of it.

InfoWorld: And what type of enterprise capabilities are people building on top of Facebook?

Agarwal: I don?t have that data off the top of my head, which is about the enterprise capability that applications are providing, but I?d be happy to put you in touch with somebody from our platform product marketing team, who could maybe provide a more accurate answer to that.

InfoWorld: Slide, a personal media network, has used Facebook as a Web vehicle. iLike discovery service has used Facebook for a music discovery service. Is Facebook surprised by businesses that are using Facebook to grow their businesses?

Agarwal: I?m not entirely surprised because I think that Facebook has -- it?s such an important and useful communications utility -- but more than that, it also has an incredible amount of distribution. Like the distribution engine in the form of [Facebook] News Feed and all of the different other platform integration points that we offer. It?s pretty compelling in terms of having a vehicle to kick-start the growth of a particular service or an application, which I guess which is just simply not provided in Web 1.0.

InfoWorld: You?ve sort of mentioned this with Thrift, but what type of developer services does Facebook offer?

Agarwal: If you?re a Facebook platform application developer, then obviously we have a number of client libraries. And the approach that we have taken is that we support some of the client libraries internally, but by and large, we let the developer community contribute client libraries in different languages because we feel that they are in a better position to maintain and optimize those particular client libraries. We have a suite of open source software, also, that we are happy to share with developers, Thrift being the major one there. We are going to be releasing a new open source software package called Scribe, which is a distributed logging framework that we use extensively in-house. We thought that we would give that back to the community as well. And a lot of the other open source projects that we work on that are not -- that were not created by us but we have contributed heavily to, such as memcached and obviously Apache, MySQL, and so on.

InfoWorld: Does Facebook have any plans to participate in Google?s OpenSocial Initiative? I know you?ve been a hold-out on that.

Agarwal: Actually, once again, I think that somebody from the platform product marketing team would probably be the best person to answer that.

InfoWorld: I heard a presentation last week about Enterprise 2.0 and enterprise social networking. During the presentation, a Serena Software representative said the company is using Facebook as its collaboration platform. Is that something that?s pretty widespread? Do you expect it to grow? And once again, is that something that Facebook would have expected three years ago?

Agarwal: It doesn?t surprise me because, once again, a lot of our internal world view and how we approach the products that we build is that we want to be enablers for external applications, but also we are [a] communications utility. We are facilitating interactions between people. And for me, when you talk about enterprise collaboration software, that is one aspect of that. And what we build should allow developers and users alike to benefit in terms of building applications that provide that functionality and for users to actually be able to utilize that particular functionality.

InfoWorld: How do you respond to criticism that the Facebook platform is a closed platform?

Agarwal: I will take an initial stab at answering the question, but I?m going to have to defer to the platform product marketing team. I think that I don?t view it as a closed system. I actually view it as an enabler in the sense that we are enabling the ability for external Web sites and the application that you earlier mentioned to provide a compelling user experience in the form of new functionality. So I?m not quite sure I would view it as a closed platform.

InfoWorld: What can you say about the infrastructure at Facebook? What powers Facebook?

Agarwal: I?d be happy to talk about that. We have two different kinds of code stacks, and I think I described one earlier, which is primarily running on Thrift and some other kind of core component that we have. The other part of our stack is something you mentioned briefly in your question, which is a kind of a LAMP stack, obviously running a Linux kernel. We modify that to be more optimized for our purposes, and then after that we are running the Apache Web server, we?re running PHP, and we?re running memcached, which is a distributed in-memory hash table. And we have 25TB of in-memory cache, which is kind of where more than 95 percent of our data access comes from. And we have MySQL, which is a persistence store on the back end, and we obviously dabble heavily in each of the underlying technologies to make them more efficient, make them more [higher performing] and basically help in scaling

InfoWorld: Are you using mostly open source software to power Facebook?

Agarwal: Most of our systems are running open source.

InfoWorld: Have you found Linux adequate for what you?re doing?

Agarwal: Yes, absolutely. In fact, Linux is more than adequate for the kind of things that we?ve been doing, and as we roll out new features and new products and we see certain parts of Linux that don?t work as well, then our first [reaction will be], OK, how can we fix it and give this back to the Linux community such that everybody might benefit from it?

InfoWorld: How many servers do you use?

Agarwal: We have more than 10,000 servers.

InfoWorld: All Intel servers?

Agarwal: I?m not aware of the hardware specifications, but we have more than 10,000 servers.

InfoWorld: I have nephews that are using MySpace. I don?t know if they?re using Facebook. What would you say the main difference between MySpace and Facebook would be, for somebody like myself who doesn?t get the time to hang out in some of these social network sites?

Agarwal: I think it?s a good question and if you are doing a direct comparison, I want to stress our core values. We are creating products that help people communicate better, help people share information, and essentially create trusted relationships [on] the Internet. And have a way of expressing themselves efficiently. We also want to create a platform that lets others create compelling functionality based on the social graph and some of the core services that we provide.

InfoWorld: Are any announcements coming up from Facebook in the next few weeks or months??

Agarwal: Well, we are having our developer?s conference on July 23. It?s in San Francisco. It?s a developer?s conference, so obviously we?ll be talking a little bit about the platform and so on.?

InfoWorld: Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about?

Agarwal: I think the major thing I?ll stress is some of my philosophy within engineering, I?ve thought a little bit about this earlier in the interview, but what I?m really trying to stress is that we want to create tools, we want to create components, we want to create stand-alone items that allow developers, both internally and externally, to create products. And not just create products, but create them as quickly as possible. So you want to allow them to focus on the functionality they want to provide, on the end-user product, like -- what benefits are you providing to the user? And so a lot of our development philosophy is really centered around providing people with the tools to be great at what they do. And you know, Thrift, Scribe, and a lot of the other open source initiatives that we take part in, have [an] underlying philosophy.

Taiwan's Asustek Computer (Asus), the leader of the mini-notebook category due to its early launch of the Eee PC, launched two new models of the family last month, the 901 and 1000, the first Eee PCs that use Intel's Atom microprocessor.

I was able to use both models at a company visit and you can see why Asustek is the leader in mini-notebooks.

[ For more on products in the hot mini-notebook category, check out our hands-on looks at the  Cloudbook Max netbook,  Elitegroup's G10IL mini-laptop, and MSI's Wind low-cost laptop ]

For one, the company has put the speediest wireless Internet I've seen so far on a mini-noteboook, Wi-Fi 802.11n, which is a generation better than the 802.11b/g that's in most rival mini-laptops. Since mini-laptops, or netbooks, are mainly designed as Internet devices, a speedy wireless connection is vital.

The device I tried out downloaded Web sites much faster than rival mini-laptops with 802.11b/g, making it a big plus for the new Eee PCs. The only caveat here is that there are other variables to consider in Internet speed, such as the technology in the network itself and the number of users online at the same time. I didn't have an 802.11b/g device with me to make a comparison.

Asustek has also worked to make the batteries last as long as possible by using power-saving components such as SSDs (solid state drives) for storage and LED (light emitting diode) backlights for the screen. The company added some of its own technology to the mix as well, its Super Hybrid Engine, which adjusts power consumption.

The result is that batteries in the Eee PC 901 and 1000 last around 8 hours, according to Asustek, which is about an hour longer than most rival devices with similar 6-cell lithium-ion batteries. But the Eee PC 1000H, which carries an 80GB HDD (hard disk drive) lasts only around 7 hours.

In general, the new Eee PC 901 and 1000 series differ mainly in size, with the 901 weighing in at around 1.1 kilograms and sporting an 8.9-inch screen, while the 1000 weighs 1.33 kg and has a 10-inch screen.

The Eee PC 1000H weighs 1.45kg and has a 10-inch screen. The 80GB HDD on board might sound better if you need more storage, but overall a 40GB SSD in the Eee PC 1000 is better for three reasons. First, SSDs are made from flash memory chips and have no moving parts, therefore they don't drain batteries as much as HDDs. SSDs are also more shock resistant, so they don't break as easily if the laptop is dropped. Finally, machines with SSDs boot up, load and run software faster than HDDs.

Another nice aspect of the new Eee PCs is high-definition audio with stereo speakers, as well as Dolby Sound Room for versions that run Windows XP. That turns an Eee PC into a portable stereo, or you can plug your iPod or other MP3 player into the Eee PC and play music through the speakers.

The Linux and Windows versions differ slightly in price -- but more in features. Asustek added hardware to the Eee PCs running a Linux OS to boost performance, but the side effect is to keep the price the same as a similar Eee PC shipped with a licensed copy of Windows XP.

In the Eee PC 1000 series with the 10-inch screen, the Linux OS device has the 40GB SSD, while the 1000H runs Windows XP and has the 80GB HDD. There is only a small price difference. The Eee PC with the SSD costs NT$19,988 (US$658) in Taiwan -- prices differ slightly depending on the market and components -- while the Eee PC with an HDD costs NT$18,988 (US$625).

The Eee PC with Linux is even a better deal on the 901 series, with the 8.9-inch screens. The version with Windows XP has a 12GB SSD, while the Linux version has a 20GB SSD for the same price of NT$16,988 (US$562).

Price on the new Eee PCs is also a concern. Most of the other mini-notebook makers have worked to keep the 8.9-inch screen models cheaper at US$399-$499 and the 10-inch screen models at $499-$599. Asustek's prices are slightly higher, but the components on board may justify that, especially the speedier Wi-Fi and SSDs.

Overall, I still think the new Eee PCs offer more than other models due to Asustek's experience with them.

One area Asustek has not listened to user feedback is on the keypad. I won't be the first to complain about it, other reviews and blogs have also pointed out that the keypad is small and some keys are too hard to find. Typing isn't easy on the smaller keyboards but over time you get used to it. Asustek also made the same mistake many Taiwanese companies make in the design of the keyboard, making keys flat with little or no space between them for looks. It makes too many keys easy to miss or miss-hit.

The best keypad I've used so far on a small device was the ClassMate PC, and the keypad is far smaller than the Eee PC 1000's. Keys on the ClassMate PC's keyboard are raised and there is a lot of space between them, making them easy to find by touch.

Asustek took more care choosing software to install on the devices. In some meetings with different laptop makers, engineers said "we don't put much software on because of limited storage space. Besides, people can download the software they want."

That may be true, but not everyone is as tech savvy as a laptop PC engineer, and most people like to have something that's ready right out of the box. Asustek took the trouble of loading its machines with necessary software, including Star Suite so people have an Office-like experience from the start. Most of the laptops I've tested did not come with any kind of Office-like software.

The new Eee PCs also include Microsoft Works, Powerpoint viewer, Skype and an Intervideo WinDVD multimedia player for music and in case you want to load a movie onto a USB stick or onto your hard drive. Movies on SD cards will likely be a big hit in mini-notebooks since most of them have SD ports instead of DVD players.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency expects to introduce its first Energy Star rating for servers by the end of the year, although a more comprehensive system that measures actual workloads will take longer to develop.

The Energy Star program is designed to make it easier for customers to identify the most energy-efficient products on the market. It is already offered for more than 50 kinds of products, including desktop PCs, monitors, ceiling fans, and even windows, but the rating system for servers has been much harder to develop.

[ Stay up to date on green tech with InfoWorld's Sustainable IT blog, with our Green Tech Topic Center, and with the Green Tech newsletter. ]

"This server program is one of the most complicated we've tried to deal with," said Arthur Howard, an associate with ICF International, which provides technical consulting to the EPA for its Energy Star programs.

That's partly because servers are used for so many types of work. Server makers say a benchmark test that measures power efficiency using one type of workload, such as file serving, won't provide meaningful results for customers that use the server for a different task, such as online transaction processing.

The EPA has been gathering input from server makers and other stakeholders for about a year. It quickly determined they would not be able to agree on a way to measure the "useful work" a server can perform with a given amount of power, said Andrew Fanara, who heads the Energy Star product development team.

"We all knew that in the long run, the most intellectually satisfying approach would be to marry energy consumption with work completed, yet admittedly we are not quite there yet in devising that holistic metric," he said in a recent interview.

The EPA hopes to use benchmark tests developed by a nonprofit group called the Standard Performance Evaluation Corp., or SPEC, but so far that group has published only one test for measuring power efficiency, based on a Java workload. It expects to publish several others but has not said when.

The EPA decided to sidestep the issue and come up with an initial, "Tier 1" rating that addresses two key areas it thinks can be measured. One is the efficiency of a server's power supply, which can be measured at various load levels. The other is how much power a server consumes at idle, when it isn't doing any real work.

The EPA will meet with stakeholders at Microsoft's campus in Redmond, Washington, next week to try to hash out definitions for a second draft specification, which could be ready for use by the end of the year, Fanara said. He acknowledged that it will be something of a stop-gap measure.

"If we were to develop this Tier 1 and then leave it in place indefinitely, I think it would not sufficiently recognize the most efficient products that emerged over time," he said. The idea will be to leave it in place for a limited period, while "on a slower track" the EPA figures out the type of "holistic measure" that it uses for other products, he said.

But the EPA has its work cut out for it even on the Tier 1 spec. It needs to work out which types of servers it will cover -- industry-standard servers with one to four processors are likely to be included -- and even the meaning of "idle."

"What's the definition of idle?" asked Mark Monroe, Sun Microsystems' director of sustainable computing. "How much of the OS has to be alive? Does idle mean it's responding to wake-on-LAN-type things, or is it truly in a bare minimum state?"

Like other vendors, Sun says it supports the Energy Star program in principle. But Monroe said the SPEC benchmarks being considered are untested and don't measure enough different kinds of workloads.

Some observers blame the server makers for the holdup. With customers paying more attention to power efficiency, vendors don't want to risk signing off on a specification that will make their products look bad, said Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research. "I think it is totally a political problem," he said.

He also questioned the usefulness of measuring efficiency at idle, especially as more companies are using virtualization to improve the utilization rates of servers. "It's like measuring miles per gallon when your car is sitting on the drive at home with the engine running," he said. "Who can use that?"

The difference, according to Howard, the EPA consultant, is that people don't leave their car engines running all night. But many data centers don't turn their servers off when they are not being used, because they are worried they won't come on again when needed.

Brad Brech, a distinguished engineer with IBM, said the measurements for the Tier 1 spec, though imperfect, will be a step in the right direction.

"I do believe we need more holistic measures as we go forward," he said, "but as with everything, having a good starting point gets the ball rolling."

The EPA is also working on an Energy Star rating for datacenters, and Fanara said it will start to tackle storage equipment in the fourth quarter.

Mobile e-mail and calendar vendor Visto has chalked up one legal win as it heads toward a patent-infringement trial against Research In Motion that is set to begin on Monday.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has validated 21 claims of a patent that RIM challenged after Visto sued the company for patent infringement in 2006. The patent, number 7,039,679, involves a technology for synchronizing e-mail between a mobile device and a LAN server. It was filed in 2003 and granted to Visto in 2006.

[ Get the latest on mobile developments with InfoWorld's Mobile Report newsletter. ]

Visto sells software that competes with RIM's push e-mail technology, which synchronizes e-mail to BlackBerry devices. In April 2006 it sued RIM, claiming the dominant mobile e-mail vendor had infringed four of its patents. Visto asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas for unspecified damages and sought to have RIM's network shut down.

Soon afterward, RIM countersued and asked for three of Visto's patents to be invalidated. Visto's original suit is set to go to trial on Monday.

Visto is no stranger to the courtroom. Shortly before it sued RIM, it won a $3.6 million award against rival Seven Networks in a similar patent suit. In March, the company settled a suit it had filed against Microsoft  concerning e-mail technology in Windows Mobile.

Cloud computing is fraught with security risks, according to analyst firm Gartner. Smart customers will ask tough questions and consider getting a security assessment from a neutral third party before committing to a cloud vendor, Gartner says in a June report titled "Assessing the Security Risks of Cloud Computing." 

Cloud computing has "unique attributes that require risk assessment in areas such as data integrity, recovery, and privacy, and an evaluation of legal issues in areas such as e-discovery, regulatory compliance, and auditing," Gartner says. (Compare security products.)

Amazon's EC2 service and Google's Google App Engine are examples of cloud computing, which Gartner defines as a type of computing in which "massively scalable IT-enabled capabilities are delivered 'as a service' to external customers using Internet technologies."

Customers must demand transparency, avoiding vendors that refuse to provide detailed information on security programs. Ask questions related to the qualifications of policy makers, architects, coders and operators; risk-control processes and technical mechanisms; and the level of testing that's been done to verify that service and control processes are functioning as intended, and that vendors can identify unanticipated vulnerabilities.

Here are seven of the specific security issues Gartner says customers should raise with vendors before selecting a cloud vendor.

1. Privileged user access. Sensitive data processed outside the enterprise brings with it an inherent level of risk, because outsourced services bypass the "physical, logical and personnel controls" IT shops exert over in-house programs. Get as much information as you can about the people who manage your data. "Ask providers to supply specific information on the hiring and oversight of privileged administrators, and the controls over their access," Gartner says.

2. Regulatory compliance. Customers are ultimately responsible for the security and integrity of their own data, even when it is held by a service provider. Traditional service providers are subjected to external audits and security certifications. Cloud computing providers who refuse to undergo this scrutiny are "signaling that customers can only use them for the most trivial functions," according to Gartner.

3. Data location. When you use the cloud, you probably won't know exactly where your data is hosted. In fact, you might not even know what country it will be stored in. Ask providers if they will commit to storing and processing data in specific jurisdictions, and whether they will make a contractual commitment to obey local privacy requirements on behalf of their customers, Gartner advises.

4. Data segregation. Data in the cloud is typically in a shared environment alongside data from other customers. Encryption is effective but isn't a cure-all. "Find out what is done to segregate data at rest," Gartner advises. The cloud provider should provide evidence that encryption schemes were designed and tested by experienced specialists. "Encryption accidents can make data totally unusable, and even normal encryption can complicate availability," Gartner says.

5. Recovery. Even if you don't know where your data is, a cloud provider should tell you what will happen to your data and service in case of a disaster. "Any offering that does not replicate the data and application infrastructure across multiple sites is vulnerable to a total failure," Gartner says. Ask your provider if it has "the ability to do a complete restoration, and how long it will take."

6. Investigative support. Investigating inappropriate or illegal activity may be impossible in cloud computing, Gartner warns. "Cloud services are especially difficult to investigate, because logging and data for multiple customers may be co-located and may also be spread across an ever-changing set of hosts and data centers. If you cannot get a contractual commitment to support specific forms of investigation, along with evidence that the vendor has already successfully supported such activities, then your only safe assumption is that investigation and discovery requests will be impossible."

7. Long-term viability. Ideally, your cloud computing provider will never go broke or get acquired and swallowed up by a larger company. But you must be sure your data will remain available even after such an event. "Ask potential providers how you would get your data back and if it would be in a format that you could import into a replacement application," Gartner says.

Apple's legal woes over the backdating of stock options is not over yet. A new class action lawsuit has been brought against the company, two former executives and several members of the Board of Directors, according to InformationWeek

Filed in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., Martin Vogel and Kenneth Mahoney brought the suit against former CFO Fred Anderson, former counsel Nancy Heinen, CEO Steve Jobs and board members William Campbell, Millard Drexler, Arthur Levinson, and Jerome York.

The lawsuit alleges the accused intentionally filed false documents, concealing stock option grants to executives.

"The defendants knew that options were not granted on the dates that were disclosed to shareholders and falsified the company's records to create the appearance of illegality, and thus bear direct responsibility for their actions," reads the complaint. "Here, Jobs and the Individual Defendants clearly appreciated the fraudulent nature of their conduct."

Apple uncovered irregularities in stock option grants in June 2006 and immediately launched an investigation. Six months later Apple released its findings and cleared CEO Steve Jobs of any wrongdoing. That left the blame to fall to former CFO Fred Anderson and former counsel Nancy Heinen.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission later charged Heinen with fraudulently backdating stock options . Anderson agreed to a multimillion dollar settlement.

This is not the first lawsuit brought in the backdating scandal. An earlier lawsuit filed by the New York City Employees' Retirement System was dismissed in 2007.

IBM has acquired Platform Solutions, a vendor of mainframes and other computer hardware, in a move that raised antitrust concerns from one IT trade group.

IBM's acquisition of Platform Solutions, announced Wednesday, ends lawsuits the two companies had filed against each other. In November 2006, IBM filed a lawsuit against Platform Solutions (PSI), accusing the Sunnyvale, Calif., company of patent infringement by creating computers that allow customers to run IBM's System z operating systems and software on mainframes from other vendors.

PSI filed a countersuit in January 2007, accusing IBM of antitrust violations and unfair competition.

IBM and PSI did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.

The Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) said Tuesday that the acquisition will allow IBM to swallow up its "most significant" competitor in the mainframe market.

"This is a black-hole acquisition," said CCIA president and CEO Ed Black. "It sucks the life out of the market and destroys the matter."

The deal transforms a market with potential for competition into one "with little prospects for anything but complete domination by IBM," Black added in a statement.

CCIA has long been a critic of IBM and some other tech mergers. The IBM deal may fall below the financial threshold for a mandatory review by U.S. and European Union antitrust regulators, CCIA said, but the trade group urged authorities in both locations to look into the deal's potential impact on the mainframe market.

In addition, the deal could affect PSI customers' ability to get mainframes based on open systems, CCIA said. PSI products are based on open systems, while IBM's mainframe products are based on proprietary systems, the group said.

More than 80 percent of the world's corporate and government data resides on mainframes, the CCIA said.

The U.S. Department of Justice abandoned a 1956 antitrust consent degree against IBM in 2001, CCIA noted. The DOJ said then that IBM could be subject to a new antitrust lawsuit if it engaged in anticompetitive behavior.

This week, mainframe vendor T3 Technologies said it planned to file an antitrust complaint against IBM with the European Commission. IBM has shut out other mainframe vendors by ending support for older mainframe systems and not licensing its mainframe software to rivals, T3 said this week. The company in November filed a request to join PSI's U.S. lawsuit against IBM.

"CCIA strongly believes that IBM's actions since the consent decree was dissolved, the purchase of PSI and these new allegations by T3 collectively paint a convincing picture that IBM has gone back to its old ways," Black said. "When it comes to violations of competition law, IBM appears to be an unrepentant recidivist."

An IBM spokesman downplayed CCIA's concerns. IBM has focused on making its mainframes open servers that run open technologies such as Linux and Java, said spokesman Tim Breuer. Applications that run on IBM's mainframes run on other major servers, he said.

In addition, IBM disputed CCIA's view of the mainframe market. "IBM's mainframes compete in an intensely competitive worldwide market with a variety of alternative platforms offered by many competitors," Breuer said. "IBM's acquisition of PSI will enhance the ability of IBM's mainframes to compete against those alternative platforms."

IBM said PSI's technologies will become part of IBM's long-term mainframe engineering cycles.

"We are pleased to become part of IBM, knowing IBM has the industry's most comprehensive vision for the future direction of enterprise computing, and has the requisite technologies to realize that vision," Michael Maulick, PSI's president and CEO, said in a statement.

The acquisition "makes the most sense" for the two companies, Maulick added.

The first release candidate of Red Hat's long-brewing JBoss Application Server 5.0 will be available imminently, according to a blog post by Sacha Labourey, CTO of Red Hat's JBoss division.

"JBoss AS5.0 RC1 just got frozen and will be released this week," Labourey wrote. A second release candidate should be ready in six to seven weeks, and general availability will follow "closely thereafter," he added.

Red Hat believes the product's flexible architecture will serve as a differentiator in the market, according to Labourey.

An application server revolves around three technology tiers, he wrote: A base runtime -- in JBoss' case, the Java virtual machine -- core middleware services, and the APIs and methodologies on top.

"JBoss AS 5.0 is the first release which will give us the ability to cleanly separate those three layers," he wrote. "The JBoss Microcontainer abstracts us from the runtime environment and our core enterprise services have been completely componentized and aspectized so they can be fully leveraged from any higher level framework/API/language."

Red Hat plans to support component-based Java development specifications such as OSGi (Open Services Gateway initiative), which is backed by the likes of Sun and IBM.

But the company decided against throwing its lot entirely in any one camp, he wrote.

"Our core architecture is not dependent on any fashionable spec or language du jour," he added. "Personalities can be plugged in and out, à la carte. You don't have to make a bet on which is 'the' API you need, and then be locked in one of the few [application server] implementations that implement such API -- possibly relying on weaker core middleware services."

The scope of changes to the product extended the development process, which started three years ago, according to Labourey.

But the project was not just "a fancy engineering exercise," he said. "This investment will have a drastic impact on the overall JBoss Enterprise Middleware offering, its longevity and its ability to adapt to market changes."

Red Hat's arms-length embrace of technologies like OSGi is perhaps to be expected given the company's history, according to one observer.

The original JBoss micro-kernel "gave a component-oriented way to do Java and applications before there were other viable options," said Michael Coté, an analyst with RedMonk. "As with lots of teams who've already invented a technology that others try to standardize, it looks like the JBoss folks see OSGi as being more faddish [as opposed to] the way things will be."

But the company may nonetheless be making a wise move, he said.

"Rather than build their core on OSGi, they're building the core on their own stuff, and supporting OSGi as a sort of way of using that JBoss-specific core," he said. "The hedge there being that they can add on support for whatever comes into fashion if OSGi becomes tomorrow's bell-bottoms. If you have the time to build an architecture that lets you hedge like that, it's usually a good thing."

At this point, it's anyone's guess as to which Java component technology will emerge as the leader, or whether multiple approaches will gain steam, he added: "There's plenty of OSGi enthusiasts building up, but this question of how Java components will be solved is still early on. We need more time to see what developers far and wide like using."

Red Hat faces competition in the application server market from big platform vendors such as Oracle and IBM, as well as on the open source side through SpringSource's recently announced application server platform, which leverages OSGi.

Microsoft has loosened the hardware restrictions that PC makers must adhere to in order to install Windows XP on ultra-low-cost PCs, according to documents seen by IDG News Service.

While June 30 marked the last day for selling most new Windows XP licenses, Microsoft has made several exceptions for the older operating system, including its use on ultra-low-cost laptops such as the Asus Eee PC, as well as on an emerging class of mini desktops. These devices are sometimes called netbooks and nettops.

[ Robert X. Cringely: Is Windows XP really dead? ]

Microsoft is offering Windows XP Home Edition to encourage PC makers to use that OS instead of Linux on the low-cost machines, but it places restrictions on the hardware that can be offered.

Under the new terms, outlined in the documents, PC makers must limit screen sizes to 14.1 inches and hard-drive capacity to 160GB. ULPCs with touchscreens will also be eligible. Earlier terms set in April did not allow touchscreens at all and limited screen sizes to 10.2 inches and hard-drive capacity to 80GB. The processors are still limited to a single-core chip running at no more than 1GHz, and memory is limited to 1G byte of RAM.

ULPCs are an emerging class of products with limited system capabilities in the $250 to $500 price range. Examples include the Asus Eee PC and MSI's Wind. They are designed for basic tasks like surfing the Internet and sending e-mail, but not for more advanced tasks like video editing.

The updated terms, especially the larger screen size, mean Windows XP can be used on machines that look more like standard low-cost laptops. But ULPCs are not only defined by their size, and they remain a distinct product category due to their limited performance, said Roger Kay, founder and president of Endpoint Technologies Associates. "You can have a low-cost PC that's not small," Kay said.

The goal of the program is apparently to limit the hardware capabilities of ULPCs so that they don't eat into the market for mainstream PCs running Windows Vista, something both Microsoft and PC vendors would want to avoid.

As part of the new terms, Microsoft also added low-cost desktops to the list of products eligible for Windows XP Home, and it added Windows Vista Home Basic as a second OS option.

Microsoft declined to comment on the matter, saying it doesn't speak publicly about the details of its agreements with PC makers.

Low-cost PC vendors may be pushing Microsoft to keep Windows XP available, Kay said. Linux is another option for ULPCs, but is not yet a viable alternative, according to Kay. "I don't think Linux is going anywhere in the low-cost market," he said. "Linux doesn't really cut it when it comes to compatibility."

The documents show that for developed markets, Microsoft charges $32 to install XP Home Edition on standard netbooks, and $47 for netbooks with the larger screens. PC makers who meet certain requirements in Microsoft's Market Development Agreement can get a discount of as much as $10 on those prices, the documents show. There is a similar discount for systems sold in emerging markets, although the starting prices are lower, at $26 and $43.

If you're the sort of person who creates countdown widgets for major Apple product releases, you've now got an official Zero Hour for the iPhone 3G launch, straight from AT&T. The exclusive iPhone service provider in the U.S. says that the latest version of the iPhone will go on sale at 8 a.m. local time on Friday, July 11.

The July 11 ship date had been set by Apple during Steve Jobs' Worldwide Developers Conference keynote last month, but the exact time of the release was still up in the air. AT&T made the announcement amid detailing the pricing plans for the iPhone 3G.

"We can't wait to offer iPhone 3G to our customers, and we want to make sure the buying process is as easy as possible," Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of AT&T's wireless unit, said in the press release announcing the 8 a.m. launch.

The early-morning release is something of a departure from recent high-profile Apple product launches. The company tends to roll out major products -- the kind that generate lines of customers -- at the end of the day. Last year, the original iPhone went on sale at 6 p.m. local time, as did Leopard, when the Mac OS X update debuted last fall.

An 8 a.m. release time would mean a change to the operating hours of Apple Stores, which typically open at 10 a.m. Macworld called the flagship Apple Store on San Francisco's Stockton Street to find out if the store would open at 8 a.m. on July; an employee there said the store wasn't revealing that information at this time, but suggested calling back later.

Because it requires in-store activation, the iPhone 3G is available only at brick-and-mortar Apple Stores and AT&T outlets in the United States.

The International Organization for Standardization has approved Adobe Systems' widely used PDF (Portable Document Format) as an international standard, and is now in charge of any changes made to the specification.

The format is open and accessible to anyone as ISO 32000-1, the standards body said Wednesday. The standard is based Adobe's version 1.7 of PDF.

PDF, the file format for Adobe's Acrobat software, has long been used as a standard way for people to exchange and view business documents. However, Adobe kept a proprietary hold on the format until it finally succumbed to industry pressure and submitted PDF for standardization in February 2007.

Adobe's move reflected an industrywide trend to standardize broadly adopted file formats to increase interoperability between different applications people use to create business documents.

Microsoft submitted Office Open XML, a proprietary XML-based document format it built for its Office 2007 productivity suite, to the ISO. The ISO approved OOXML on April 1 in a controversial vote that is still being contested by some of the standards bodies that took part in it.

Microsoft had also aimed to include PDF support in Office 2007 but revised that plan at the last minute over a squabble with Adobe. However, PDF support will be added to Office 2007 in a service pack from Microsoft expected to be released early next year.

That update also will add support for Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), an XML-based file format that also is an ISO standard. ODF is a rival to OOXML; it became an international standard in May 2006.

Micro Focus and Microsoft are working to bolster efforts to enable Cobol-based mainframe applications to run on Windows and also plan a version of CICS for .Net.

Through the arrangement, Micro Focus will extend its Windows-based portfolio, including its Net Express, SOA Express, and Enterprise Server products to provide managed code-based 64-bit offerings that leverage several Microsoft technologies. These include Microsoft's .Net Framework, SQL Server, Team Foundation Server, BizTalk Server, and System Center Operations Manager. Previously, Micro Focus enabled 32-bit solutions for Windows that did not incorporate Microsoft's managed code concept.

"What we?re doing with Microsoft is we're investing to deepen the platform integration between Windows and Micro Focus to enable customers to do this work in a much quicker and repeatable fashion," said Peter Duffell, vice president of the Microsoft soft practice at Micro Focus. Users develop and test in a Visual Studio-based environment."Cobol has a first-class place inside .Net," he said.

Additionally, Microsoft and Micro Focus in 2009 plan to offer a CICS OLTP system, to be called CICS.Net, for Windows. Users could modernize CICS applications and move them onto Windows or keep them on a mainframe, Duffell said. With the modernization process, code is updated to remove errors and applications are fine-tuned.

Users want to continue leveraging Cobol applications but move them to Windows, according to Micro Focus. "There are 200 billion lines of Cobol," in use today, Duffell said.??

A Microsoft official in a prepared statement stressed ROI and modernization.

"By working with Micro Focus we are improving the value attained by mainframe customers choosing to go with the Windows platform for their modernization strategy, and improving the ROI helping them reduce the costs of their deployment efforts," said Bill Hilf, general manager for Windows Server marketing at Microsoft, in a statement released by the two companies.

HP has released a new AMD processor-based quad-core workstation that it says offers the performance of a workstation at the price of a conventional desktop PC.

The HP xw4550 workstation includes the quad-core AMD Opteron processor for workstation applications such as graphic design, and entry-level video post production and animation, and has a starting list price of £599 ($1,193)  plus VAT.

HP says that the xw4550 offers many of the same features as the company's higher-end workstations, plus new features from the AMD Opteron processor line, such as enhanced power management and virtualization capabilities. All models of the HP xw4550 include an integrated ATI RadeonTM X1250 graphics card with the new error correcting memory capability.

This workstation is also registered as an Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) Gold product, the highest rating available. HP says that all of its workstations are more than 90 per cent recyclable by weight and incorporate a tool-less chassis design for quick and easy upgrades by hand. Each workstation includes an 80 PLUS power supply, which HP says is substantially more efficient than a standard power supply, reducing both overall energy usage and the amount of waste and heat released into the environment.

The U.S. Department of Justice is continuing its formal antitrust investigation into the advertising partnership between Yahoo and Google, according to a department spokeswoman.

On June 12, Yahoo said it would run advertisements supplied by Google alongside search query results, a four-year deal estimated to bring Yahoo up to $800 million in revenue a year.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the DOJ had just opened a formal antitrust probe. However, DOJ spokeswoman Gina Talamona said the department has confirmed an ongoing investigation since June 16.

Yahoo and Google have been keenly aware of how their partnership might draw regulatory attention. In April, the two companies informed the DOJ of a planned two-week test of the advertising program, which was limited to U.S. traffic on yahoo.com and comprised no more than 3 percent of total search queries.

After reaching a larger agreement last month, the two companies said they would delay implementing the program for three and a half months pending a review by the DOJ. The DOJ said it was looking into the deal four days after the two companies announced that agreement.

The investigation means DOJ can ask questions of both companies, request documents and other material needed for its probe. It can also include the issuance of "civil investigative demands," a type of legal request for information.

Yahoo said the course of the investigation is proceeding as expected. "We cannot comment on the specific details of the process, but there is nothing unexpected in the review of this agreement as structured by the parties and Department of Justice officials," according to a statement issued by Yahoo.

"We are continuing to have cooperative discussions with the Department of Justice about this arrangement," Google said in a statement. "We are confident that the arrangement is beneficial to competition, but we are not going to discuss the details of the process."

The deal with Google, which already dominates text-based search advertising, was widely characterized as a move by Yahoo to deflect Microsoft's acquisition attempts.

(Grant Gross in Washington contributed to this report.)

Microsoft is seeking partners including Time Warner and News Corp. in a new bid to acquire Yahoo's search business, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Microsoft wants to acquire Yahoo search, with the partner, likely a media company, taking the rest of Yahoo's business. CEO Steve Ballmer called Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock and arranged a meeting set for Monday, but that meeting was cancelled, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the situation.

Microsoft officials contacted in London had no comment Wednesday morning.

In January, Microsoft made an unsolicited bid to buy all of Yahoo, an offer the latter refused. Although Microsoft later raised its offer price, Yahoo continued to decline, and in early May, Microsoft ended the negotiations.

[ For the complete saga of Microsoft's attempt to take over Yahoo, check out InfoWorld's special report ]

On Monday, his final day as Microsoft's chairman, Bill Gates stated that he thought any deal between his company and Yahoo was unlikely.

However, the matter has refused to go away, with Microsoft indicating it would still be interested in buying part of Yahoo, namely its search business. At the same time, Yahoo investor Carl Icahn has pushed for a deal with Microsoft. He has stated publicly on several occasions that the company's board failed to serve shareholder interests by refusing to sell and is maneuvering to replace the board at an upcoming investor meeting in August.

On Tuesday, Yahoo gave shareholders with a 32-page presentation that sought to shore up support for the board ahead of that meeting, and defended its decisions in the face of Microsoft and Icahn criticism.

Jeremy Kirk in London contributed to this report.

Microsoft has chosen the name "Equipt" for a forthcoming package of products that includes its Office suite, Internet security software and other services, and will sell it for an annual subscription fee of $69.99.

Equipt, which was formerly known by its code name, Albany, includes Office Home and Student 2007, Windows Live OneCare, Office Live Workspaces, Windows Live Mail, Live Messenger and Live Photo. Microsoft plans to begin selling it in the U.S. on July 15 through Circuit City, with other outlets to follow. It will be offered in other countries at about the same time, though pricing elsewhere was not announced.

The name comes from the idea that the package will help customers "equip their PC with a core set of services," said Bryson Gordon, a group product manager for Microsoft Office. "It resonated well with customers in testing."

Indeed, the name is more succinct than Microsoft has used for some other Office products, including unwieldy names like Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 and Microsoft Office Outlook with Business Contact Manager.

Rumors began circulating in March that Microsoft was devising a new way of packaging Office to help it better compete with Google Docs and other free or low-cost productivity suites. The company sent out invitations to a select few, asking them to test a myst