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Microsoft won’t likely miss the chance to showcase Windows 7 in the next two months at a pair of tech conferences, and it will give developers code for hands-on work, an analyst said today.

Windows 7, the follow-on to Vista, is already on the agendas of the Professional Developers Conference (PDC), scheduled for Oct. 27-30, and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), slated for Nov. 5-7, but Microsoft will likely provide early code to developers at one or both of the shows, said Michael Cherry, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft.

"When that many developers [come] together, you want them to go home with something that they can play with," said Cherry. "Microsoft will want to do more than just tell developers about Windows 7."

Of the two conferences, Cherry put his money on WinHEC as the most likely target for Microsoft. "It’s a small grouping by number," he reasoned, "so I think they are more likely to get something." That smaller number, he said, might be more attractive to Microsoft, which until recently has played Windows 7 closer to its vest than previous editions.

"Microsoft might have some concerns about the early code getting reviewed," said Cherry. "They won’t want anyone to do any performance testing with a beta, but once it’s out it’s inevitable that those of us as analysts will start writing our impressions about the early code. Analysts abhor a vacuum."

Read full article @ computerworld.com

Virtualization specialist VMware is sticking its head in the clouds, and hoping for sunshine.

The company on Monday opened up its VMworld 2008 conference with a flurry of announcements. Most notably it is aiming to turn its infrastructure products and technologies into what it’s calling a Virtual Datacenter Operating System (VDC-OS). Using the data center system, VMware says, businesses will be able to unite servers, storage gear, and other networking resources together into an "on-premise cloud."

Cloud computing has become one of the dominant drives in the IT sector in recent months. It’s a loose term, but generally it refers to hosting applications away from local desktops and in an Internet-based computing resource, accessible by browser.

Practitioners and proponents of cloud computing range from Dell, Amazon.com, and Google to VMware’svirtualization rival, Xen.

Read full article @ news.cnet.com

IPhone (and iPod touch) Software 2.1 has been unlocked by the iPhone Dev Team.

The move means the cat and mouse game between Apple and hackers attempting to open the platform up for use on different mobile phone networks and in order to install non-Apple approved music applications continues.

The iPhone Dev team released software - Pwnage Tool - to unlock the iPhone and iPod touch across this last weekend.

For its part, Apple has introduced new anti-unlocking measures within iTunes 8, measures designed to prevent some hacks from working. And the Dev Team claims Apple has built-in a series of countermeasures within iTunes, in order that unlocked iPhones won’t easily sync with the system.

"We’re waiting to see what Apple tries next," the iPhone Dev Team says. "But we think they might want to rethink their priorities. They probably won’t though."

Source: networkworld.com

Amid the chaos on Wall Street this morning, another, much smaller bailout was announced: Best Buy is buying Napster, the second-place music subscription service, which has been losing money and subscribers.

The deal is almost a rounding error for a company of Best Buy’s size. The stated price is $121 million. But since Napster has $67 million in cash, the effective cost to Best Buy is $54 million. That is still a good deal for Napster’s shareholders because Best Buy will pay $2.65 per share, nearly double its closing price Friday.

Napster is a descendant of the Roxio music software company that bought the name and cat logo of the pioneering file sharing service that was started by Shawn Fanning and closed by the courts in 2001. Like other subscription services, it was an attempt by the music industry to replicate the primary appeal of the original Napster: Listen to whatever you want whenever you want.

But the legal versions, as constructed by the music labels, have not caught on with listeners. The song downloads have digital rights management restrictions that limit what devices you can play them on. Moreover, they don’t work at all on iPods, because Apple doesn’t believe in subscription music.

Oh yes, they are all missing one key piece of the original Napster’s appeal: Free. The subscription services, including the new Napster, cost about $15 a month.

Read more @ nytimes.com