Buffet gives Gates foundation $30.7 billion ... Oracle releases PeopleSoft version 9

Today's IT news audio update
Buffet gift makes Gates foundation world's largest ... Stringer taps software designers to boost Sony ... Oracle rolls out next Peoplesoft release


HIGHLIGHTS

News: Prospects fading for single European patent regime
News: IBM aims Sametime at Microsoft users
News: Oracle releases PeopleSoft version 9
News: Salesforce.com's latest offering targets partners
Tip: Getting the Water Out of Your Storage
ITwhirled: Robot ethics: Security, safety, and sex


NEWS UPDATES

Prospects fading for single European patent regime
The prospects for a single, European Union-wide patent regime appear to be dimming, as industry groups representing some of the most innovative companies active in Europe are urging the European Commission to abandon its promise earlier this year to make “one final push” to adopt the so-called Community patent.

IBM aims Sametime at Microsoft users
IBM Corp. is revamping its Sametime enterprise IM system so it can venture better armed into Microsoft Corp. enemy territory, IBM plans to announce Monday.

Oracle releases PeopleSoft version 9
Oracle Corp. released version 9 of its PeopleSoft Enterprise application suite on Monday, an upgrade the company said will prepare customers to move toward a service-oriented architecture (SOA).

Salesforce.com's latest offering targets partners
Salesforce.com Inc. is due to officially announce Monday a version of its on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) software targeting companies looking to better manage their direct and indirect sales organizations.

ClearCube challenges HP with new PC blades
ClearCube Technology plans to launch two PC blade servers Monday, in a bid to compete with Hewlett-Packard Co. for customers in finance, insurance, hospitals and the military.

IBM hopes to Eclipse anti-Aperi group
IBM is placing Aperi, its open-source storage management group, under indirect industry authorization. Aperi will join the Eclipse Foundation, the generic open source community. There will be a formal relationship with the storage networking industry organisation (SNIA).

NetApp sells NetCache to Blue Coat
Blue Coat Systems has splashed out some $24 million in cash and $6 million in shares to buy Network Appliance's NetCache business. The deal brings together the number one and two players in the proxy caching market.

LANDesk jumps into BPM market
LANDesk Software Ltd. on Monday launched its first products for business process management since acquiring the assets of BPM vendor NewRoad Software Inc. earlier this year.


TIP

Getting the Water Out of Your Storage
By David Hill, Mesabi Group

Backups and restores take too long, transmitting data over networks uses up too much bandwidth, and disk drives and disk arrays continue to be purchased at what may seem to be too frequent intervals. What can you do about it? The answer is to move and store less data and the action is on eliminating interfile redundancies.