Posted 01/21/10 at 11:20:07 AM by Paul Lilly

It's finally over, at least as far as the European Union is concerned. The big news in the IT industry today is that Oracle has officially been given the green light by EU regulators to proceed with its $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

"I am now satisfied that competition and innovation will be preserved on all the markets concerned," said EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes, in a statement. "Oracle's acquisition of Sun has the potential to revitalize important assets and create new and innovative products."

It wasn't that long ago that EU regulators were singing a different tune. The major stumbling block had been Oracle's impending control of the free MySQL, which drew concern over what Oracle would do with the database software in light of selling its own database product. But those concerns were put to rest when Oracle agreed to a series of concessions, some of which included promising to pay $72 million over the next three years in R&D to improve MySQL, and extending MySQL's existing commercial licenses for up to five years.

"The Commission's in-depth investigation showed that although MySQL and Oracle compete in certain parts of the database market, they are not close competitors in others, such as the high-end segment," the EU said in a statement.

There's still work to be done, and before Oracle can pop the cork on the champagne bottles, it will need to convince regulators in Russia and China to jump on board. Protesters from the MySQL community recently turned their attention to these very markets in hopes of blocking the deal, but Oracle still says it expects "unconditional approval" to come soon.

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Posted 12/09/09 at 01:30:00 PM by Christopher Null

Is it a savvy corporate email manager? A text-happy messaging device for Gen Y? The Nokia Surge has style galore but it is heavily skewed toward the latter camp due to an unconventional design and more than a few awkward interface choices.

This Symbian S60-based GSM phone immediately catches the eye with its glossy black shell, impressively small footprint, and an unusual design that recalls a shrunken version of the iPhone, complete with metal trim around the edge.

To do just about anything with the Surge, you'll need to slide it open -- in landscape mode -- which reveals a QWERTY keyboard. There's no touchscreen on the phone, though it feels like there should be one, especially since the accelerometer in the handset responds quickly by reorienting the display when you twist the device between the horizontal and the vertical.

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Posted 12/08/09 at 02:30:09 PM by Jason Cross

Five years ago, when IBM sold its consumer PC division to Chinese manufacturer Lenovo, business users trembled. ThinkPads were a staple of the IT community not because they were attractive, nor especially powerful, nor dirt cheap. IT guys often insisted on ThinkPads because they were simple, durable, and reliable. Price was "low enough" and performance was "good enough." Five years later, we can safely say that Lenovo has kept the ThinkPad principles alive. If anything, one could complain that it hasn't evolved enough. The SL510 model is a good example of this.

Is it fast? It's fast enough. The particular configuration we reviewed, clocking in at $999.00 at press time, comes with a Core 2 Duo P8700 (2.53GHz with 3MB of L2 cache), a decent 320GB 7200 RPM hard drive, but only 3GB of DDR3-1066 memory. It's outfitted with Windows 7 Professional 32-bit. It's built on Intel's GM965 chipset platform with GMA4500 integrated graphics. Our configuration includes Intel's 5100 AGN wireless adapter as well as an AT&T-ready 3G radio with GPS. If you can't decide whether you like to use a touchpad or a eraser-head like "nub", you'll be happy to see the SL510 includes both.

Read on for the full review!

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Posted 12/01/09 at 06:15:20 PM by Brendon Whateley

Much of our personal and business lives are moving online. Access from anywhere is great but security is, and should be, a concern. Most systems (i.e. a computer or online applications) now require a username and password. Not just any old “passw0rd” but a SECURE one. Yeah, you know that user. Applications are figuring out how to enforce better security practices. Passwords are now tested to make sure they are long enough, weird enough, not in a dictionary, don't include real words, but do include numbers and punctuation. For added beauty, some systems even remember all the passwords I’ve ever used to ensure I don't ever recycle them. Oh, and to make absolutely, positively sure, you may even be forced to change them every few weeks.

This gives a wonderful sense of security, since you are forcing ever changing passwords to be extremely long, utterly complex combinations of case sensitive letters, numbers and symbols that don't contain any words. Even automated brute force methods of guessing will take eons to break into the system. That’s great, right?

Wrong!

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Posted 11/18/09 at 04:30:00 PM by Katherine Stevenson

GammaTech’s Durabook D14RM is the antidote for folks who are really rough on their hardware. The notebook’s gray and black magnesium-alloy case, complete with black rubberized corners, not only makes the rig look burly, but also serves to protect it from aggressive manhandling.

GammaTech says the notebook complies with MIL-STD-810F guidelines for ruggedness, so we put those claims to the test. We “accidentally” knocked the D14RM off a desk when the machine was open and running a program, dropped it from a standing position onto a concrete floor (a few times, because it gave us such a thrill), and spilled a full 16-ounce cup of liquid across its keyboard. The D14RM withstood all that abuse without any apparent damage to its structure or functionality. And mind you, the D14RM uses a mechanical hard drive. Yes, an SSD seems like a more obvious choice for a notebook that’s meant to be tossed about, but then it wouldn’t be nearly so affordable. 

Read on for the full review!

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