Software: Interviews

Microsoft and EMC recently converged in New York City to announce a three-year extension of their alliance to work together on enterprise virtualisation, storage, security and content management products.

On this occasion we speak to Steve Bourne, creator of the Bourne shell, or sh. In the early 1970s Bourne was at the Computer Laboratory in Cambridge, England working on a compiler for Algol68 as part of his PhD work in dynamical astronomy. This work paved the way for him to travel to IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center in New York in 1973, in part to undertake research into compilers. Through this work, and a series of connections and circumstance, Bourne got to know people at Bell Labs who then offered him a job in the Unix group in 1975. It was during this time Bourne developed sh.

Red Hat managing director, Max McLaren, talks to ANDREW HENDRY about the year that was and what lies ahead for the software vendor in 2009.

When you already have a successful channel model which utilises all the traditional communication mediums, how do boost your ability to impart information and knowledge? Blog and start your own TV show. At least that’s what Microsoft has done.

With hundreds of thousands of software SKUs to manage from a broad range of publishers, the task of distributing software licensing to the channel is a tough one. But for Express Data, it’s a core part of doing business.

SoftGen general manager, Guy Coles, joined the distributor earlier this year and has been steadily expanding the business into new product areas. He spoke to ARN about his background in security, the company’s growth plans and his love of the industry.

Red Hat recently expanded its JBoss certified ISV program, what does this mean?

Recent outages affecting Google Apps have received a disproportionately large amount of coverage from the technology press, resulting in a misperception about the stability of this hosted collaboration and communication suite.

Microsoft this week launched its cloud computing environment, Windows Azure, which is the foundation of the Azure Services Platform for developing applications extending from the cloud to PCs, datacenters, phones, and the Web. Microsoft's goal is to let Windows developers transition from Windows client development to Windows cloud development, using familiar tools, both those from Microsoft and other sources such as Eclipse. Developers would continue to develop apps on their desktops, but the Azure platform would handle the app deployment in the cloud.

Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie has officially filled the shoes previously worn by founder and Chairman Bill Gates, stepping in as leader of the company's vast developer network, which is its lifeblood and crucial to the enormous success of Windows. Ozzie delivered Monday's keynote speech at the company's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles, introducing Windows Azure, a cloud-computing development and hosting environment that integrates Ozzie's vision for the future of the Web, which he began building at his company Groove Networks before he joined Microsoft.