MS moves to per-user pricing for Dynamics; IBM's Notes to run natively on Linux

Daily IT News Audio Update
Yahoo expands its travelers' aid ... IBM's Notes to finally run natively on Linux ... U.K. officials doubt national ID plan


HIGHLIGHTS
News: Microsoft moves to per-user pricing for Dynamics
News: Oracle finds buyer for Siebel's OnTarget operation
News: IBM's Notes to finally run natively on Linux
Opinion: Pain/Gain Thresholds in Software Engineering
Tip: Revisiting Group Policy Refresh
ITwhirled: 2+2=5 (for extremely large values of 2)


NEWS UPDATES
Microsoft moves to per-user pricing for Dynamics
Microsoft Corp. is streamlining the pricing of its four Dynamics ERP (enterprise resource planning) applications families from a per-module basis to a per-user basis as a way to make it easier for its partners to sell the software, the company announced Monday.

Oracle finds buyer for Siebel's OnTarget operation
Oracle Corp. has found a buyer for the OnTarget sales consultancy it acquired through the purchase of CRM (customer relationship management) software vendor Siebel, five months after putting the OnTarget business up for sale, the vendor announced Monday.

IBM's Notes to finally run natively on Linux
IBM Corp. is to announce Monday that its Lotus Notes desktop collaboration software will finally fully support the Linux operating system. It's a move users have long been demanding, with those wanting to run the Notes client on the open-source operating system previously having to resort to Web clients or software emulation.


INTERVIEW

McAfee ready to hold its own against Microsoft
George Samenuk, the chairman and chief executive of McAfee Inc., is not losing any sleep over Microsoft Corp.'s impending entry into the security software market, saying Microsoft's effort falls short of what customers need. Samenuk sat down with IDG News Service during a recent visit Beijing to discuss Microsoft's plans for Windows Live OneCare and McAfee's response.


OPINION

Pain/Gain Thresholds in Software Engineering
By Sean McGrath

When I am down in the bowels of a software development project, I can easily spend 50 hours a week pounding at a keyboard. My wife tells me that when I am doing that, I wear a permanent look of complete puzzlement on my face.


TIP

Revisiting Group Policy Refresh
By Mitch Tulloch

In a recent tip here in Windows in the Enterprise, I mentioned that administrators could remotely refresh Group Policy on desktop computers using a free tool from Sysinternals called psexec and that this can save them the labor of touching (visiting) desktops when Group Policy refresh needs to be forced for some reason. Several readers of this newsletter commented afterward that there are other tools that can be used to do this, and this week I'd like to thank these readers for their feedback and highlight their suggestions.