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Fans of IBM's OS/2 operating system are petitioning the company to open source the discontinued operating system, or least portions of it. A petition on the OS/2 World website, which is signed by over 8000 people, argues that an open source version of OS/2 will ensure that current users will be well served. "Customers that are willing to continue using OS/2 will get the benefits of an open OS that will be continuously developed by individual developers and/or software companies, their ownership fees will decrease and they will have the enhanced security of an OS that will continue to be...

Davidson reports: The project was a result of SCO's executive management refusing to believe that it was possible for Linux and much of the GNU software to have come into existance without *someone* *somewhere* having copied pieces of proprietary UNIX source code to which SCO owned the copyright. The hope was that we would find a "smoking gun" somwhere in code that was being used by Red Hat and/or the other Linux companies that would give us some leverage. (There was, at one stage, the idea that we would sell licenses to corporate customers who were using Linux as a...

SCO Group Inc's attempt to change its legal case against IBM Corp for the third time has been denied by the judge, who has also set the two companies a deadline to present their respective evidence "with specifity".Both companies have been set an interim deadline of October 28 to submit their evidence, with a final deadline of December 22, a date that will loom large for the open source community, which has consistently denied SCO's claims that Linux contains its copyrighted code. The Lindon, Utah-based Unix vendor first sued IBM in March 2003 claiming IBM breached a contract by contributing...

Microsoft Corp. agreed to pay $775 million and provide software to International Business Machines Corp. to settle a long-running antitrust dispute between the giants. The companies said the settlement resolves claims arising from the federal government's antitrust case against Microsoft in the mid-1990s, where IBM, of Armonk, N.Y., was identified as having been impacted by certain Microsoft practices. Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., will pay IBM $775 million and extend $75 million in credit towards deployment of Microsoft software at Big Blue. The agreement is part of an effort during the last two years by...

In an effort to meet the demand for more functionality from virtualization , IBM recently acquired Meiosys, a privately held software company based in Palo Alto, Calif., and Toulouse, France. Meiosys's software allows users to transfer a running application from one server to another (or to a virtual machine), without interruption. The technology is called stateful application transfer. Industry experts say that adding a tool to move applications around on the network will add significant value to Big Blue's virtualization portfolio, specifically its Tivoli line of management tools. "The premise of virtualization is to match resources with what you need....

US tech giant IBM plans to increase its payroll in India this year by 14,000 workers, even as it cuts 13,000 jobs in Europe and the United States, a labor group said on Friday. The shift, first reported by The New York Times, highlights the transfer of some skilled jobs to low-wage countries such as India by a number of companies including IBM, the world's largest information technology company. The moves in India were indicated in what was claimed to be an internal company document posted on the website of the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, of Washtech, which seeks...

China Cos. Show Appetite for Brand Names By ELAINE KURTENBACH, AP Business Writer Wed Jun 22, 8:50 AM ET China is moving into the merger-and-acquisition major leagues, as its star corporations shop for American household names like Unocal, Maytag and IBM, hoping that global ambitions will mean bigger profits. State media reports quoted unnamed officials at China National Offshore Oil Corp., or CNOOC, as saying the company's board would meet this week and decide whether to go ahead with a $20 billion bid for Unocal Corp., the ninth-biggest U.S. oil and gas company. The CNOOC purchase, if it went through,...

International Business Machines Corp, the world's largest computer-services company, said it won a $1.6 billion contract from NiSource to provide technology consulting and human resources management services. The 10-year contract starts on July 1 and includes NiSource's procurement, customer services, billing, finance and accounting operations, IBM said in a statement. The order is a boost for IBM's services business, which had a 6 per cent increase in sales to $11.7 billion in the first quarter. Armonk, New York-based IBM sold its personal computer unit and plans to cut 13,000 jobs mostly in Europe as it focuses on high-growth countries such...

NEW YORK - Marc Fleury is shocked--shocked!--that IBM would use the same tactics to attack him that he's been using to attack IBM. "Frankly, it leaves us scratching our heads," he says. For the past two years Fleury's company, Atlanta, Ga.-based JBoss, has been stealing business from IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) by giving away a set of open source programs that do the same work as IBM's WebSphere software. Fleury claims JBoss shipped more copies last year than IBM did. IBM apparently has grown tired of having a freebie program eating away at its sales. So...

SAN FRANCISCO - After two decades of touting its Macintosh as a superior alternative to PCs based on Intel Corp. chips and Microsoft Corp. software, Apple Computer Inc. announced plans to switch the Mac to the same Intel chips that have powered Windows-based machines for years.The deal, which has long been rumored, will help Apple better compete with the performance - and potentially the price - of Windows PCs. Still, Apple will continue to build its own computers and says it won't be licensing its software to other PC vendors.Speaking to thousands of software developers Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developers...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Apple Computer Inc.'s decision to use PC chips made by Intel Corp. may not have as great an impact on current chip supplier International Business Machines Corp. as some investors might suppose at first glance. That's because IBM (IBM: news, chart, profile) has been shifting its emphasis in recent years away from PC chips to those used to power other types of devices, especially video-game players, several analysts wrote Monday. IBM is supplying the microprocessors that will act as the brains for the next generation of best-selling game consoles, including Microsoft's Xbox 360, (MSFT: news, chart,...

Apple has confirmed that it is dropping IBM chips from its Mac computers in favour of those made by Intel. The first Apple computers with the Intel chips onboard will be on the market by this time next year. "We think Intel's technology will help us create the best personal computers for the next 10 years," Steve Jobs, the head of Apple, said. The move is being seen as a big gamble for Apple strategy, and a boost to Intel at the expense of IBM. It ends a decade-long relationship between Apple and IBM, which have recently wrangled over supply...

Mac OS X has been leading secret double life. Every Mac project build for Intel and PowerPC. Every release of Mac OS X has been built for both Intel and PowerPC-based Macs. For the last 5 years. Mac OS X is cross-platform by design. Apple's demo is on an Intel-based system. Jobs shows all Mac OS X Tiger features are already compatible with Intel-based processors. Not done yet. Will put into the developer hands to help Apple finish it.

An effort to create the first computer simulation of the entire human brain, right down to the molecular level, was launched on Monday. The “Blue Brain” project, a collaboration between IBM and a Swiss university team, will involve building a custom-made supercomputer based on IBM’s Blue Gene design. The hope is that the virtual brain will help shed light on some aspects of human cognition, such as perception, memory and perhaps even consciousness. It will be the first time humans will be able to observe the electrical code our brains use to represent the world, and to do so in...

Apple Computer Inc. plans to announce on Monday that it will switch to using Intel Corp's microprocessors and phase out its current chip supplier, International Business Machines Corp., CNET News.com reported late on Friday.

Excerpt, subscription required - SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple Computer Inc. is expected to announce Monday that it will begin shifting its Macintosh computer line next year to Intel Corp. chips, people familiar with the situation said. The move is a major change in strategy by Apple, a high-profile win for Intel, and a potential blow to International Business Machines Corp. and Freescale Semiconductor Inc., suppliers of the PowerPC chips that Apple has long used in its Macintosh systems. [snip]

So is Apple moving the Mac onto Intel processors? News.com says so. Other news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, have also reported those rumors. Meanwhile, analysts and intelligent commentators alike have said that an Apple move to Intel makes no sense. I tend to be in the latter camp. I honestly can’t see how Apple moving wholesale to Intel processors — forcing yet another platform transition for a platform that’s only now stabilized after the tumultuous march to Mac OS X — makes much sense. Then again, Apple has surprised us in the past, so you can never say...

Apple Computer plans to announce Monday that it's scrapping its partnership with IBM and switching its computers to Intel's microprocessors, CNET News.com has learned. Apple has used IBM's PowerPC processors since 1994, but will begin a phased transition to Intel's chips, sources familiar with the situation said. Apple plans to move lower-end computers such as the Mac Mini to Intel chips in mid-2006 and higher-end models such as the Power Mac in mid-2007, sources said. The announcement is expected Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, at which Chief Executive Steve Jobs is giving the keynote speech. The...

Apple will use dual-core PowerPC G5s... contrary to reports that they will switch to Intel... Link to eWeek article per request not to post

DALLAS (AP) - Dell Inc. said Thursday it would take disciplinary action as appropriate against an American salesperson who sent an e-mail discouraging former IBM clients from buying Lenovo products. International Business Machines Corp. sold its personal computer business last year to Lenovo Group Ltd., which is partly owned by the Chinese government. That made Lenovo the world's third-largest personal computer business, behind Dell and Hewlett-Packard Co. "We have a code of conduct that we uphold here for Dell in the U.S. and worldwide, specific guidelines for not commenting on competitors from an employee's standpoint. We're pretty serious about it,"...