Microsoft has set its mind on a Longhorn launch in the first half of 2006. As a result, WinFS would be further curtailed, and some database features would be added to NTFS as a compromise. The leaked memos also confirm that there will not be an XP Second Edition.
Whatever will be trimmed from Longhorn will come on the wishlist for Blackcomb, Microsoft's next OS, scheduled for 2009 or later.
Some more information about the leaked info can be found at The Register, Business Week and Anchordesk.
"IT managers have taken their foot off the brakes, but they are hesitant to put their foot on the gas ..." That's what we wrote in our Eye on IT newsletter in January 2004, and that is what we still think. Despite very good signs of a recovery in the US, possibly manipulated because elections are coming, there are very few signs that IT investments are back to normal.
This week, several software companies issued warnings about a weak quarter, but this did not surprise us. Sun managed to disguise its bad news about a miserable quarter and subsequent layoffs of 3300 staff with the news about a capitulation to Microsoft, but Sybase, E.Piphany, SeeBeyond and Kana Software were not so lucky. On the other hand, Siebel Systems suprised with some good news about its earnings, although Tom Siebel said "he doesn't see any indicators of dramatically increasing growth in the information technology market this year". Just wait and see...
Update: Nokia issued a warning that it will miss its sales guidance for the first quarter, due to a weaker-than-expected performance from its mobile-phone business in Europe and Asia. Its networks business and its enterprise solutions unit are doing well, but its shares were down over 16% in early trading.
Who's next ??
Under the settlement, Microsoft will pay a total of 1.6 billion USD, including 700 million USD to resolve pending antitrust issues, and 900 million USD to resolve patent issues between it and what sometimes looked like archrival Sun.
But the sun does not shine that bright for Sun: it warned that its earnings would be much less than expected, and that it will again cut over 3.000 jobs. Fortunately for Sun, that bad news will be overshadowed by the good news of the settlement with Microsoft, at least for today. Sun's shares jumped over 20% on friday 2nd of April.
But the settlement is really good news for Sun and Microsoft, as they can now bury the hatchet, put this legal battle behind them and start with a clean sheet. They also announced a pact that "will stimulate new products and cooperation, to the benefit of customers of both companies".
What this really means is unclear at this moment, but it looks like Sun and Microsoft will compete more pragmatically, and will no longer avoid win-win relationships. Are we dreaming if we think about better interoperability between MS Office and StarOffice, and between .NET and Java, maybe even up-to-date Java support on all of Microsoft's newest operating systems ??
As always, The Register has the best coverage ...
Candle Corp. builds infrastructure management software that helps customers manage, monitor and tune their data centers, J2EE servers, message queuing, etc. Candle is a partner of IBM since 1976, offering a lot of solutions for WebSphere and MQSeries (now called WebSphere MQ), so the acquisition does not really come as a suprise. Actually, we talked about this possibility last week at a seminar, with 3 Candle employees who knew some big news was coming out soon. It turned out to be big blue news...
The newly acquired products will certainly boost IBM's middleware capabilities for running on-demand systems, and the Candle technology will be integrated into Tivoli's monitoring software.
No financial terms of the deal were disclosed, Candle was (still) a privately held company. What will happen to Candle's products for BEA Weblogic (hard to find on Candle's Web site, but they exist) is not known.