Robert McMillan

Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday said that it is looking for ways to work more closely with developers of the Open Office open source project, while at the same time, apparently reserving the right to sue them, according to a legal agreement between Microsoft and Open Office's major sponsor, Sun Microsystems Inc., made public this week.

Part of a broader strategy by IBM to help seed Brazil's labour force with new graduates who are educated in the use of Linux and open technologies.

IBM Corp. next week will begin shipping the second generation of its rack-mounted dual processor servers based on Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s (AMD) Opteron microprocessor. The new server, called the eServer 326, will be IBM's first product specifically designed to support the upcoming dual-core Opteron processors that AMD is expected to ship next year.

Sun Microsystems Inc. plans later this month to unveil its first ever content switch: a load-balancing and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) acceleration switch based on the Nauticus N2000 products that the Santa Clara, Calif., company acquired in January of this year.

With its cash reserves dwindling and losses continuing to mount, The SCO Group Inc. is taking measures to cut its expenses and ensure it will have enough cash to process its lawsuit with IBM Corp, the company announced during its quarterly earnings conference call Tuesday.

Six California counties and cities on Friday filed a class action lawsuit against Microsoft Corp. accusing the software giant of violating California law with anti-competitive business practices.

Hewlett-Packard Co. has moved its Active Counter Measures network security software into beta tests with a select group of European and North American customers in hopes of readying the product for a 2005 release, an HP executive said at the HP World conference in Chicago Wednesday.

Hewlett-Packard Co. customers will continue to have difficulties ordering custom configurations of HP's ProLiant servers though the end of August, company executives told attendees at the HP World conference in Chicago Tuesday. The problems are due to continuing problems with an SAP AG order processing and supply-chain deployment rolled out last month, they said.