SERVER

Windows Home Server update coming Tuesday

Microsoft said Monday that it has finished a planned update to its Windows Home Server software, paving the way for Hewlett-Packard to finish its product based on the new operating system.

HP, which had expected to be one of the first to offer a home server based on Microsoft's software, earlier said that it would wait for this update before releasing its MediaSmart Server. The changes are designed to improve the products "usability and out-of box experience," Microsoft said.

The software update is also being made available to other Windows Home Server customers via Windows Update. More … Read more

Microsoft begins beta testing Vista service pack

Microsoft on Monday said it has released a beta version of the first service pack of Windows Vista to about 12,000 testers.

Microsoft had said back in August that it expected to start private testing of the service pack within a few weeks. The update is largely a collection of bug fixes and performance and compatibility improvements, but includes some minor new features such as support for the ability to encrypt multiple hard drive partitions using Vista's BitLocker feature.

In another expected move, Microsoft said that it has completed its first near-final "release candidate" version of … Read more

Got 200 Blu-ray discs? Stick 'em here!

There are a lot of products out there that seem awesome in theory but don't always deliver in reality. The Sony HES-V1000 Home Entertainment Server is one of them.

First, what it does, then what it doesn't.

It stores 200 Blu-ray discs, DVDs, and CDs in its built-in changer. There's also a 500GB hard drive for storing video, music, and pictures. You can easily import and store lots of home video, CDs, MP3s, and digital pictures on the system, which is easy to use. There are also built-in applications for making instant slide shows that are pretty … Read more

Windows Server 2008 test release due next week

SAN FRANCISCO--Microsoft next week plans to issue its first Windows Server 2008 release candidate, a near-final version of its operating system, a senior executive at the software company said Thursday.

"We expect the release candidate next week," said Mike Neil, Microsoft's general manager of virtualization, in an appearance during a speech at the Intel Developer Forum here.

The release candidate will include a test version of software code-named Viridian and formally called Windows Server virtualization. This "hypervisor" allows multiple operating systems to run simultaneously, a useful technology in improving server efficiency and eventually leading toward … Read more

Microsoft stirs up a price war in the database market

Even as MySQL and PosgreSQL yank the carpet out from under Oracle and Microsoft, Microsoft is turning the other cheek by cutting Oracle off at the knees on price, as Mary Jo Foley reports:

Microsoft officials announced on September 19 that they have no plans to increase the price of SQL Server 2008 beyond what the company already charges for SQL Server 2005. Microsoft execs also announced that, starting today,… Read more

Sun to ship Microsoft Windows Server on its hardware

Longtime rivals and occasional collaborators Sun Microsystems and Microsoft announced on Wednesday that Sun will ship 64-bit servers with Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 operating system.

Within 90 days, Sun will offer Windows Server 2003 on its entire line of Sun x64 systems, the companies said in a release. Sun already certifies that Windows Servers will run on its hardware, but this agreement will allow Sun to preinstall the software and offer support to customers.

The two companies also committed to expanding their technical collaboration--first announced in 2004 but one which had not lived up to the initial hoopla… Read more

Early word on AMD's Barcelona chips: More efficient than powerful

AMD released its long-awaited Barcelona server chip today while Intel upped its earning forecast, underscoring the importance of AMD's latest release. AMD has lost ground in the server market since Intel launched its Core architecture, and things are even more one-sided with desktops and laptops with Intel's Core 2 Duo processors dominating the scene. While AMD has stated it will role out Barcelona chips for desktops under the Phenom name in December, it released new Opteron server chips today based on its native quad-core architecture.

Unlike Intel's quad-core Xeon parts, which simply package together two dual-core processors, … Read more

A new crop of sensors for keeping data centers cool

Some large corporations now have a million square feet worth of floor space dedicated to data centers.

It's a factoid that Peter Van Deventer, CEO of SynapSense and a former Intel exec, likes to fling out. The company, which evolved from research at UC Davis, makes software and sensors for mapping out the weather in data centers. The sensors measure temperature, pressure and other environmental factors on a continuous basis.

Data center owners can then take this data and tweak their air conditioning and cooling systems. Soon, the SynapSense's technology will also be able to automatically control the … Read more

Windows Home Server release issues

When last we left Microsoft's Windows Home Server software, it was off to manufacturing and we expected to see WHS-equipped hardware show up at our doorstep shortly thereafter. After a post on Microsoft's official Home Server blog, we get the company line as to why we haven't seen HP's MediaSmart Server yet. As follows:

"We've identified a number of ways to make the product even better since the initial release. As with most Microsoft products, updates to Windows Home Server will be automatically available throughout the lifecycle of the product, and the WHS team … Read more