Software

Germany's cash-strapped public sector will be the driving force behind the takeup of open-source software in the country as state-run organizations strive to lower their IT costs, according to a study released Wednesday by the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering.

SugarCRM became the latest open-source player to offer users a way to more simply install and support a full software stack comprising its own CRM (customer relationship management) application and other third-party offerings.

It's taken five years, enough lines of code to span the globe several times

Microsoft's fledgling consumer anti-virus service, Windows Live OneCare, wrongly identified Google's Gmail service as a virus infection, Microsoft has admitted.

On the heels of the completion of Vista and Office, Microsoft Tuesday opened its annual IT Forum conference by confirming the road map for the next beta of Longhorn Server, announcing the release of its long-awaited PowerShell command line tool, and unveiling a host of new and upcoming releases of platform and application management tools.

You should be aware there are many pluses and minuses to Vista. It's not a slam-dunk decision, but there's a lot to like about the new Windows. Once you decide to make the upgrade, you'll find that you're confronted with more than the usual number of questions to answer and details to sort through before you arrive at your Vista upgrade path.

Microsoft has slowly begun shipping automatic updates of Internet Explorer 7 to all users of the English language version of the browser.

Microsoft continues to expand ways customers can get access to Windows Vista as the OS' official launch date approaches. The company said it was teaming with CompUSA stores to offer early access to Windows Vista to U.S. small businesses.