Mobile
eWeek, 12/8/03: Wi-Fi Blackberry in Works
By Carmen Nobel
RIM is testing BlackBerrys that can roam between 802.11, or Wi-Fi, WLANs and wide-area cellular networks.
Research in Motion Ltd. is building BlackBerry messaging devices that run over wireless LANs, company officials confirmed last week.
RIM, of Waterloo, Ontario, has started testing BlackBerrys that can roam between 802.11, or Wi-Fi, WLANs and wide-area cellular networks.
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Microsoft
Infoworld, 12/8/03: Microsoft's patchwork security blanket
Microsoft has had a lot of Windows patches, but is that really a bad thing?
By Wayne Rash
A few days ago, I was asked whether a particular fact being used by an InfoWorld writer was reasonable. The fact, according to the writer’s research, was that Microsoft has issued 60 patches to Windows and related software in the last 18 months. In this case, the writer was referring to critical updates, not just the random (but important) patches that some users consider more or less optional.
Being too lazy to actually research the number myself, I thought about it instead. Sixty critical updates? If anything, the number seemed low. But when I considered the fact that critical updates are often rolled up into service packs and similar conglomerations of patches, perhaps the number was reasonable. So I assured my editors at InfoWorld that it seemed reasonable to me. P.J. Connolly, who actually went and checked, agreed.
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ZDNet, 12/8/03: Microsoft to drop older products
By Martin LaMonica
Microsoft will retire several of its products next week, including Windows 98 and SQL Server 7, to comply with a court order related to its dispute with Sun Microsystems over Java.
In a posting to Microsoft's developer Web site, the company lists several older products that are being phased out and that will no longer be available to customers as of Dec. 15.
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Information Week, 12/8/03: An update on Windows updates
Microsoft has had two months to get experience with its new once-a-month software-update schedule. So how's it going? So far, so good, says Jeff Jones, senior director of trustworthy computing, security, with Microsoft's Security business unit. Microsoft jammed seven updates into its mid-October release and another four updates into its November release. "Feedback from customers has been almost uniformly positive," Jones said in a recent interview.
Microsoft now distributes patches on the second Tuesday of every month. The new patch-distribution schedule fell into place quickly after CEO Steve Ballmer acknowledged widespread dissatisfaction with the old process, which involved unpredictable patch releases that occurred, on average, once a week. "We need to improve the entire patch-management process," Ballmer said in a Sept. 15 speech at the Churchill Club in Santa Clara, Calif. A few weeks later, on Oct. 9 at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner conference in New Orleans, Ballmer announced the once-a-month update schedule along with several other security initiatives. A Microsoft whitepaper titled "Revamping The Security Bulletin Process" provides an overview of what's changed.
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