Cody Taylor

Many sources are reporting that SpringSource has acquired Hyperic, creating a company that could go after IBM and Microsoft. SpringSource has long dreamed of being able to offer a complete open source solution that accelerates the entire build, run, manage Java application lifecycle, and Hyperic offers the last piece of the puzzle. “Regardless, the SpringSource/Hyperic combination creates a clear and present danger to IBM and Microsoft, two companies that have largely stood alone in the ability to build, run, and manage applications. It’s also a significant boon to companies looking to open source to save money and improve productivity. Is it a sign of good things to come from not only SpringSource, but also open source, generally? Time will tell, but I suspect we’re on the cusp of an aggressive and ambitious new phase in open-source competition.”

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Vic Gundrota, Vice President of Engineering at Google, talks with Tim O’Reilly about the moment he decided he had to move to Google.

David Gerard writes “Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 claims support for ODF 1.1. With hard work and careful thinking, they have successfully achieved technical compliance but zero interoperability! MSO 2007sp2 won’t read ODF 1.1 from any other existing application, and its ODF is only readable by the CleverAge plugin. The post goes into detail as to how it manages this so thoroughly.”

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Slatterz writes “Acer’s UK managing director has revealed the day that Windows 7 systems are expected to begin shipping. Bobby Watkins said that Acer will start offering systems sporting the new Microsoft operating system on 23 October, confirming earlier reports that Windows 7 would ship ahead of Microsoft’s original target of early 2010.”

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shutdown -p now writes “On April 28, Microsoft released service pack 2 for Microsoft Office 2007. Among other changes, it includes the earlier-promised support for ODF text documents and spreadsheets, featured prominently on the ‘Save As’ menu alongside Office Open XML and the legacy Office 97-2007 formats. It is also possible to configure Office applications to use ODF as the default format for new documents. In addition, the service pack also includes ‘Save as PDF’ out of the box, and better Firefox support by SharePoint.”

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Get more from this author Only Microsoft Developer Network members and technet members were offered keys, but Microsoft still had to make some changes to keep the site up and running.

Wired is reporting that Microsoft is releasing the most secure version of Windows XP ever created, but only if you are the US Air Force. “The Air Force persuaded Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to provide it with a secure Windows configuration that saved the service about 0 million in contract costs and countless hours of maintenance. At a congressional hearing this week on cybersecurity, Alan Paller, research director of the Sans Institute, shared the story as an template for how the government could use its massive purchasing power to get companies to produce more secure products. And those could eventually be available to the rest of us. Security experts have been arguing for this “trickle-down” model for years. But rather than wield its buying power for the greater good, the government has long wimped out and taken whatever vendors served them. If the Air Force case is a good judge, however, things might be changing.”

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Death Metal notes an EFF report on information wrested from the FBI over the last three years via Freedom of Information requests. The report characterizes what Ars Technica calls the FBI’s “Everything Bucket” — its Investigative Data Warehouse. (Here’s the EFF’s introduction and the report itself.) The warehouse, at least 7 years in the making, “…appears to be something like a combination of Google and a university’s slightly out-of-date custom card catalog with a front-end written for Windows 2000 that uses cartoon icons that some work-study student made in Microsoft Paint. I guess I’m supposed to fear the IDW as an invasion of privacy, and indeed I do, but given the report’s description of it and my experiences with the internal-facing software products of large, sprawling, unaccountable bureaucracies, I mostly just fear for our collective safety.”

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Sockatume writes “Yesterday, two Acer executives in Europe separately let slip details that give us a good date for the release of Windows 7. First, Acer’s vice-president for Europe discussed a new product, launching this September, that will support Windows 7’s touch features. Asked whether this confirmed the Windows 7 release date as September 2009, he coyly remarked that ‘when it’s in store it won’t have Windows 7 pre-loaded.’ Microsoft would probably prefer that he had stopped there, but he added: ‘We won’t be actually selling [Windows 7] a day before the 23rd October.’ Then, Acer’s Managing Director for the UK helpfully clarified that while their product will ship with Windows Vista at launch, because it is on sale less than 30 days before the Windows 7 release date, it will be eligible for the ‘upgrade program’ to get a free upgrade to the new OS.”

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We discussed Microsoft making IE8 a critical update a while back; but then the indication was that the update gave users a chance to choose whether or not to install it. Now I Don’t Believe in Imaginary Property writes in with word that the update not only does not ask, but it makes IE the default browser. “Microsoft has a new tactic in the browser wars. They’re having the ‘critical’ IE8 update make IE the default browser without asking. Yes, you can change it back, but it doesn’t ask you if you want IE8 or if you want it as the default browser, it makes the decisions for you. Opera might have a few more complaints to make to the EU antitrust board after this, but Microsoft will probably be able to drag out the proceedings for years, only to end up paying a small fine. If you have anyone you’ve set up with a more secure alternative browser, you might want to help check their settings after this.”

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