Quest Nabs Vintela, Pushes Multiplatform

• By Doug Barney
• 06/01/2005

Of course, our profile of Vintela as an independent company ran pretty much the day the deal was announced. Blimey! Read our suddenly out-of-date story.

Take That Unix, and That, and That!
Windows Server execs must be dancing round their dual-cores over the news that Windows' market share has now caught up with Unix and seems poised to pass the old server standby for good.

According to International Data Corp., in the first quarter of ‘05, Windows and Unix each had some 34.4 percent server market share. There was more good news for Microsoft: Linux still only has 10.3 percent, about a third of Windows’ share. The bad news? Linux grew more than 35 percent year-to-year.

Even Better News
I always thought Microsoft's biggest weakness was Web servers—but not according to a new survey by Port80 Software. Microsoft kicks proverbial application serving butt, as IIS, ASP and ASP.NET hold over 43 percent market share amongst Fortune 1000 Web sites.

Here’s how the rest of the application server and scripting deployment technology field fared:

• Java platforms (J2EE, JSP, WebLogic, WebSphere, Tomcat): 12.2 percent
• PHP: 5.2 percent
• ColdFusion: 2.7 percent
• Perl: 2.3 percent
• Python (Zope): 0.1 percent

Dang, all those Python classes gone to waste.

AMD Copies Intel Again
AMD late last week wrapped up its new 64-bit virtualization spec, which when implemented will make it easier and more reliable to run multiple operating systems on a single server. Intel beat AMD by over two months with its own 64-bit spec.

No matter who does it, virtual 64-bit servers are very, very cool. Think how many lame old 32-bit PowerEdges you can replace with just one of these puppies.

New York Times Breaking News—Not!
On Sunday the New York Times busted a story wide open! It seems that after making millions at Microsoft, some former executives go on to do other things—and sometimes those things are actually interesting.

The piece led with Chris Peters, who for years ran Office development, left Microsoft, and bought the PBA bowling league. Peters was one of 10 ex-Microsofties profiled in our December issue.

The Times went on to mention a woman that started a local political action group; a venture capitalist; and a fellow that sells coffee. Someone give me a sedative—this is way too exciting. Meanwhile, Redmond magazine talked about a woman that gives away billions for Bill, a guy with a $10 million house with a heliport, a Ferrari collector and a dinosaur bone hunter. Oh, and we tossed in a venture capitalist, too!

Fighting Spam—One Self-Indulgent Inch at a Time
Microsoft is going after spam with a fierceness not seen since Roberto Duran said, "No mas."

Does Microsoft have a new, foolproof blocker or some other fancy technology? No. They have a new Web site to teach bulk e-mailers how to send, and not send, mail to Hotmail users. I'm sure all the spammers in Romania are lining up, ready to follow Redmond's advice and only send what is appropriate. Right.

On the other hand, Microsoft is releasing a beta tool to help ISPs filter out spam that is heading towards Hotmail. Hmm. I'm sensing a trend here.

To be honest, I use Hotmail, set my filter on moderate and get almost no junk mail. Maybe that's because Microsoft has been using its Bayesian filter and supporting Sender ID, and for that I am grateful.