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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.

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...

Windows computer servers tie with Unix in revenue The worldwide computer server market grew 5.3 per cent to $12.1 billion in the first quarter, with revenue for servers running the Microsoft Corp Windows operating system equalling that of Unix servers for the first time, market research firm IDC said on Friday. Revenue for Windows servers grew 12.3 per cent to $4.2 billion in the quarter while unit shipments grew 10.7 per cent. Unix servers saw 2.8 per cent revenue growth to $4.2 billion while unit shipments increased 5 per cent. "The equal level of spending in both segments this quarter...

Operating system vendors were given two months' notice before a security flaw was made public, but some have yet to resolve the issue, a security researcher has claimed. Colin Percival detailed the vulnerability--which affects versions of Intel's CPU that use a technology called hyperthreading--at a conference on May 13. The vulnerability could allow a local hacker to steal sensitive information, such as passwords, held on servers configured to allow multiple users to log in simultaneously. FreeBSD security team member Percival has received formal responses to the issue from the makers of the BSD family of open-source operating systems, as well...

Every year or so I like to see how Microsoft is doing in its attempt to make a desktop operating system as usable as Linux. Microsoft Windows XP, Home Edition, with Service Pack 2, is a tremendous improvement over previous Windows versions when it comes to stability and appearance, but it still has many glitches that keep it from being competitive with GNU/Linux for everyday users, including a tedious installation procedure, lack of productivity software included with the operating system, hardware compatibility problems, and a price so much higher than any of the Linux distributions I've tested lately that I...

Last month, when I tested Linspire 5.0 for my series on Linux desktops for government enterprises, I discovered NVU. At the time, I realized something special had happened to the Linux application inventory. As the NVU Website states: Finally! A complete Web Authoring System for Linux Desktop users as well as Microsoft Windows and Macintosh users to rival programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver. A tad skeptical, I didn't totally believe it. So, I downloaded NVU and tried it on a Fedora Core 3 desktop before I turned it lose on other Linux distributions. Having had to use MS Frontpage more...

HAVANA (AFP) - Cuba will gradually switch to the open-source Linux operating system for its state computers, eliminating its exclusive use of Microsoft Windows, the government daily Juventud Rebelde reported. Roberto del Puerto, director of the state office of information technology, told the daily that Cuba already has about 1,500 computers using the Linux system, a free operating system whose technical data is open for public viewing. Del Puerto said his office was working on a legal framework that would allow the replacement of the Windows system. Although Windows is used on about 90 percent of the world's personal computers,...

After ten years of working on Windows based PCs, I have finally had enough! The last straw came Wednesday night, when I set my Win XP computer up to run Norton Speed Disk and then went off to bed. In the morning, I found the computer locked up hard, and when I restarted it, it hung up on the opening screen. I tried to do a repair with the XP installation disk - it hung up. I finally did a clean install of XP on an old 40 GB hard drive I have, and then hooked up my now screwed...

Silicon Valley Watcher: Early next week IBM will introduce the largest ever corporate blogging initiative in a bid to encourage any of its 130,000 staff to become online evangelists for the company. Tom Foremski's report today in Silicon Valley Watcher makes for very interesting reading. He says IBM's plan comes hot on the heels of their Q1/05 financial results, which missed financial analysts' expectations and led to IBM announcing layoffs of up to 13,000 employees, with the majority of those lost jobs in Europe. Also see this ZDNet report with additional commentary. Tom's report says that IBM hopes blogging could...

"Lintel," or the Linux operating system and Intel, is now encroaching on this empire, and behind it is the entire open-source software movement, which threatens to overthrow the Windows industry. Faced with this challenge, Microsoft is showing classic symptoms of "incumbents' disease." Rather than remaking itself, Microsoft is using legal threats, short-term deals, and fear, uncertainty, and doubt to fortify its position. But this strategy probably won't work. The Linux operating system and the open-source model for software development are far from perfect, but they look increasingly likely to depose Microsoft.

RALEIGH - Billionaire Michael S. Dell, founder and chairman of Dell Inc., has placed a $99.5 million bet on Red Hat. Dell invested his own money in the Raleigh Linux software developer, taking the largest single chunk of $600 million in debentures offered by the company in January 2004. The investment was made by investment firm MSD Capital LP, which deploys an estimated $10 billion of Dell's personal wealth in public companies, private investments and real estate. The investment firm was given Dell's initials - MSD - as its name. "It is certainly a good endorsement for Red Hat,"...

Ditching Microsoft can save millions PA News Published: 06 May 2005 Primary schools could cut their computer costs by nearly half if they stopped buying, operating and supporting products from the world’s largest software company, government research has found. Secondaries could also slash their information technology overheads by a quarter if they moved away from Microsoft and other commercial programs, according to an analysis carried out by the British Educational Communications and Technology Association, the Government’s ICT agency. The findings could undermine Microsoft’s hold on the education market, but they raise the prospect of millions of pounds of savings for...

Here's the Todd Shaughnessy affidavit [PDF] from IBM that Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells requested they file when they turned over all the code and paperwork to SCO, which we now find out happened on schedule on March 18.

IBM to Cut Up to 13,000 Jobs, Take Charge Wednesday May 4, 4:29 pm ET IBM to Cut 10,000 to 13,000 Jobs, Record Pre-Tax Charge of Between $1.3 and $1.7 Billion in 2Q NEW YORK (AP) -- International Business Machines Corp. said Wednesday it would cut between 10,000 and 13,000 jobs and record a pre-tax charge of between $1.3 billion and $1.7 billion in the second quarter. IBM surprised investors last month when it missed first-quarter earnings estimates by 5 cents a share. When it reported earnings, the chief financial officer Mark Loughridge said the company would take a "sizable...

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the General Public License (GPL), the great enabler of the open source movement, were sued last Thursday for restraint of trade under the Clayton Antitrust Act (15 US Code Section 26) in the US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. The pro se suit, filed by physicist, computer programmer and Groklaw gadfly Daniel Wallace, charges that the GPL “contract licensing scheme” artificially fixes software prices. Wallace is asking the court for an injunction that would outlaw the use of the GPL in the United States. The four-page suit claims that the “Free...

While Windows and other Microsoft Corp. products are the favorite targets of hackers, the malicious code writers are increasingly targeting software that run on other operating systems, including Apple Computer Inc.'s Mac and open-source Linux, a security research group said Monday. In its list of the top 20 most critical Internet vulnerabilities in the first quarter of the year, the Sans Institute reported that software fixes were released for flaws in RealNetworks Inc.'s RealOne Player and RealPlayer. Security flaws were found in versions of the multimedia players running on Windows, Mac OS and Linux. In addition, vulnerabilities were listed for...

Here's IBM's Objections to SCO's Privilege Log[PDF] as text, thanks to Feldegast, who certainly earned a gold star with this thankless task. The detail is a bit overwhelming as it is, so he left the footnotes on the page where they appear, rather than clustering them at the end, as we normally do. I hope it helps. Footnote 1 is interesting, because SCO's privilege logs from November and December of 2004 had 19,207 entries. This one, filed in March, has only 2,998 entries, and IBM has no clue why. So IBM reserves the right to object and to compel...

Hey mods if this isn't in the right place please move or delete. I don't write vanities much but since I'm asking for the broad knowledge of fellow FReepers maybe I'll be forgiven. I'm looking for a good starter Linux desktop OS for my wife's computer, I have an old Win2k box (P31G-512) that I can use but needs the OS re-installed after years of abuse by the kids. I can put put a clean Win2k back on but figured this is a good time to learn a bit about Linux, so I've been checking out some distros. I'm looking...

Two weeks ago theregister.co.uk summarized an analysis (done by Quocirca) of reader response to questions on Linux desktop migration. To no one's surprise, the study found that business people cite the opportunity to sidestep the insecurity of the Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT - news) PC, not cost savings, as the primary reason for considering desktop Linux. Most respondents agreed, furthermore, that the high cost of matching Windows applications, particularly Microsoft Office and custom applications, is the greatest barrier to change. What's most interesting about this is what it reveals about the respondents: specifically that they're so focused on fighting Microsoft's alligators...

Microsoft (Quote, Chart) plans to take a hard-charge at the burgeoning market for computer virtualization, including offering greater Linux compatibility, its chief executive said today. Amid jokes about cooperating with rivals such as Sun Microsystems (Quote, Chart), Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the company would make serious investments in, and open up, its Virtual Server 2005 product to run on non-Windows machines. This includes Linux, he said during his keynote address Wednesday at the Microsoft Management Summit in Las Vegas. To prove the point, Microsoft official Bill Anderson demonstrated how Red Hat Linux could run on Virtual Server 2005. The...