Software: News

In today's business environment, the topic of big data is ubiquitous. In 2011, the global output of data was about 1.8 zetabytes (each zetabyte equals 1 billion terabytes). Amazingly, 90 percent of the data in the world was created within the last two years.

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter's approach.

In an 8,600-word epistle yesterday, Microsoft's top Windows executive pulled aside the curtain on the first version of the company's iconic OS that targets tablets.

Google has begun replacing the chunky, black drop-down menu of services it launched in November as part of an effort to integrate Google+ across its whole platform.

Encouraged by the success of its Web and Chromium vulnerability reward programs, Google has decided to expand their scope in order to cover security issues in Chromium OS as well.

If you took one look at Google Wallet and said to yourself, "There's no way that's completely secure," it turns out you were right.

A new security tool lets enterprise IT groups set access and share policies for employees, including mobile users, who are working with the online Google Apps suite.

A jury in Texas gave the verdict that two patents of Eolas Technologies that enable Internet browsers to host embedded interactive applications were invalid, in a protracted legal battle which involved top Internet companies like Google and Amazon.com.

Supercomputer company Cray has created a new division that will sell big-data systems, the company has announced. The division will market its offerings to large enterprises, which will be a new kind of client for the company.

Cloudscaling plans to introduce on Monday an OpenStack-based platform that enterprises can use to build private clouds.

Microsoft today said it would deliver nine security updates next week, four of them critical, to patch 21 vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer (IE), Office, .Net and Silverlight.

Microsoft Thursday said that the second Patch Tuesday of 2012 will see nine security bulletins, four of which were deemed critical.

As patent infringement lawsuits continue to pile up in the mobile industry, Google, Apple and Microsoft appear to be trying individually to reassure regulators and standards bodies that they won't use their patents to build a monopoly, experts said.

Google is planning to enter the home entertainment market with a Google-branded wireless device that streams music within a house, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Microsoft has released technical design details about the new version of Windows for devices that use ARM chips, outlining in a lengthy blog post different ways in which this OS, called WOA and still in the works, will be alike and different from existing versions of Windows.

You're familiar with autocomplete. Now get ready for auto-page rendering.

If you're like most enterprises, you have data everywhere. It's in line-of-business applications. It's in directories. It's in various departmental servers. It's in your e-commerce platform. To manage all this, most shops use databases of all sizes running on a variety of operating systems and database applications, often from different vendors and editions. Chances are, they're not consistent.

Oracle is buying cloud-based talent management and employee recruitment software vendor Taleo for roughly US$1.9 billion, the company announced Thursday. The move comes shortly after SAP's move to acquire SuccessFactors, a close competitor of Taleo, for US$3.4 billion in a deal that has yet to close.

Google promised radical technology proposals would be a part of its Solve for X project, and its initial offerings so far haven't disappointed.

Microsoft is looking at creating a bridge between Lync, its enterprise IM, voice and video communications product, and Skype as part of its broader initiative to extend the Office platform, a company executive said on Wednesday.