10/26, 11:35am
Sour negotiations may be to blame
Support for ZFS was ultimately dropped from Snow Leopard as a result of licensing issues, claims Jeff Bonwick, a project team leader at Sun. The technology was initially expected to be a highlight of Snow Leopard, for instance providing image-based backups, and eliminating the need for drive partitions. Hints that ZFS had been removed came in June however, and the technology is nowhere to be found in shipping copies of the OS.
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10/23, 4:25pm
Company may be working on its own alternative
Despite previous efforts to bring support for the ZFS file-system to Mac OS X, Apple has dropped the project. Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz several years ago publicly claimed Leopard would utilize ZFS instead of HFS+, although Apple only provided limited support for the new technology. Even the read-only functionality was dropped with the transition to Snow Leopard.
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10/06, 10:50am
Case involves embedded web apps
Research and development company Eolas Technologies has filed a lawsuit against over a dozen companies, including major technology businesses such as Apple, Adobe, Amazon, Google, eBay and Sun. Eolas accuses the companies of violating two US patents, 5,838,906 and 7,599,985; the broadest of these is the first, which allegedly covers all "fully-interactive" embedded web applications. The second is an extension, specifically covering embedded apps using plug-in and AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML) code.
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06/03, 11:50am
Oracle Considers Netbook
Oracle chief Larry Ellison late Tuesday said (registration required) his company may jump into the netbook field in the aftermath of its buyout of Sun. While referenced casually at the JavaOne conference, the expansion into computers is considered a logical offshoot by Ellison given Sun's experience in hardware and other fields outside of Oracle's preferred database apps.
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04/20, 8:25am
Oracle to Buy Sun
Oracle today said it would buy Sun for about $7.4 billion, or $9.50 per share. The move gives Oracle both a significantly stronger position in databases, letting it produce the servers that run its apps, as well as access to Sun's software. Oracle will have access to Java as well as Sun's Solaris operating system and promises to invest heavily in both.
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04/16, 11:05am
Sun May Resum IBM Talk
A pair of sources claim Sun is willing to return to discussions with IBM over stalled takeover talks, according to Bloomberg. The insiders say Sun's main condition is that IBM make a stronger commitment to closing the deal, which might be subject to anti-monopoly investigations of the combined server business if a deal is struck. Whether Sun is willing to accept a lower offer, which was also considered a sticking point, isn't mentioned.
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04/15, 3:40pm
Microsoft 2nd EU Delay
Microsoft today said it had been given a second extension by the European Commission to prepare a response against antitrust charges that it has unfairly controlled web browsers. Having already been given a first extension that gave it until April 21st, the American firm has until April 28th to provide its own stance and early defense against the claims. Why the added time is required hasn't been formally explained.
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04/07, 11:10am
AAPL leads in market cap
Apple is so far at the forefront of 2009's S&P 500 market cap ratings, figures show. Market cap is a relative reflection of company value, in terms of stock price multiplied by the number of outstanding shares; as of April 3rd the company's cap had grown by approximately $27.425 billion, easily surpassing that of IBM, which nevertheless managed a cap increase of $24.081 billion. Another notable tech company on the list is Google, which placed in fourth with $19.719 billion.
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04/06, 3:35pm
IBM pulls $7B Sun offer
IBM on Sunday pulled its $7 billion offer for Sun Microsystems, three people close to the talks indicated, the New York Times claimed on Sunday. The withdrawal came one day after Sun's board members rejected a much lower offer during negotiations, believed to be near $6 billion. IBM's intention to buy Sun was first heard of in mid-March, with a final decision that was expected by today. The $7 billion offer was much higher than the value of Sun's shares, and the deal's dissolution raises questions about the future of the computer workstation and server manufacturer.
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04/03, 8:25pm
IBM Sun Deal Maybe Monday
IBM's rumored deal to take over Sun may close as soon as the start of next week, multiple sources indicate. Initially thought by sources of both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal (one, two) to be worth as much as $7 billion, the Financial Times now says negotiations and the market have tentatively pushed that number down to $6 billion but that a deal could be made public as early as Monday. Discussions are characterized as hectic and have the price changing from moment to moment.
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03/18, 9:25am
IBM May Buy Sun
IBM is discussing a deal that could see it buy Sun Microsystems for about $6.5 billion, sources tell the Wall Street Journal. The takeover would be worth twice as much as Sun's current stock value and would give IBM a significantly larger influence on Internet businesses, where both companies' preferences for open-source and cross-platform technologies like Linux and Java would give them better clout against Microsoft's closed software as well as give them further independence from Intel or other x86 hardware.
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01/26, 9:00am
AMD Opteron HE Quad Core
AMD early Monday upped its claims to performance with a new set of Opteron HE quad-core processors. The new chips are the company's first of the type built on the current 45 nanometer "Shanghai" architecture and use just 55W of average power while also reportedly consuming about 20 percent less power than an equivalent Xeon when idle. The semiconductor firm touts the technology as ideal for servers but also makes it available for workstations.
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12/22, 11:35am
Steve Jobs on CEO survey
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has placed near the top in a list of most-liked bosses, according to the user review site Glassdoor. In compiling its first annual CEO rankings, the site lists Jobs in second place with a 90 percent approval rating; to qualify for the list a company must have at least 50 reviews, and Apple presently has over 290. Number one in the rankings -- at 93 percent -- is Art Levinson of the biotechnology firm Genentech, who also sits on Apple's board of directors.
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12/11, 4:35pm
Addonics NAS Adapter
Addonics on Thursday announced the release of its NAS Adapter that lets users add USB-based storage devices to local area networks. The USB storage device can then be shared by any user on the network and up to eight outside users with an Internet connection via FTP access. The adapter is compatible with SMB and open-source Samba network protocols, and can be configured as a printer server or BitTorrent downloader.
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11/17, 12:05pm
StarOffice 9 final release
After brief period of beta testing, Sun says it has released the final version of StarOffice 9, its work suite aimed directly at competing with Microsoft Office. Unlike the Microsoft software, StarOffice is open-source, being based on OpenOffice 3.0; StarOffice 9 is also the first version of Sun's program to be coded natively for the Mac, and allows users to read Microsoft's Open XML format, though not save in it.
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08/04, 12:25pm
StarOffice 9 beta released
Sun Microsystems has released a beta version of StarOffice 9, the first edition of its office suite to natively support the Mac. StarOffice includes presentation, spreadsheet and word processing software, as well as programs for drawing, databases and HTML editing. The v9 upgrade includes better Microsoft Office filters, support for OOXML files, and a new PDF import option with improved export options to match.
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05/09, 12:55pm
xVM VirtualBox 1.6 update
Sun Microsystems on Friday introduced a new update for xVM VirtualBox, adding support for Mac OS X and Solaris, making it the first open sourcevirtual machine to support both operating systems. According to The Inquirer, Sun is offering both a free open source version which has no usage restrictions, as well as a free licensed version with more features for individual home users. Business customers are required to pay for licenses, should they want the full version.
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05/06, 4:35pm
Sun demos JavaFX language
Sun Microsystems on Tuesday announced it will soon be releasing JavaFX Rich Client Technology, a family of products for creating Rich Internet Applications without resorting to complex programming associated with Java. The announcement took place at the 13th annual JavaOne Conference. JavaFX programs will allow easier access and therefore appeal to more people who wish to create Java applications, the according to Sun's executives.
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03/08, 11:00am
Sun Wants iPhone Java
Sun intends to use the newly established iPhone SDK to provide a Java virtual machine for the device, the company's Java marketing VP Eric Klein said late Friday. The company hopes to implement a native version of Java Micro Edition that would provide a direct framework for most any application that can run with the mobile-optimized virtual environment. Implementing the engine should allow the Java games that often land on most phones as well as business-grade tools such as customer relations management and enterprise resource management software, Klein adds.
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01/16, 10:05am
Sun Acquires MySQL
Potentially creating a major ripple effect in software, Sun today said it would acquire MySQL in a deal worth roughly $1 billion. The buyout gives Sun control over the most significant open-source database in the world but will also give MySQL distribution deals with Dell, IBM, and Intel that it would never have had otherwise, according to the two merging companies. Although the maneuver is expected to help Sun's preferred Linux and OpenSolaris systems integrate the database, the acquisition is also reportedly aimed at improving development of MySQL for Mac OS X and Windows.
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