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Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president of standards and open source, is urging computer users to pressure software suppliers, company executives and governments to support the OpenDocument format, a standardized file format for word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software. Widespread use of OpenDocument could undermine one way Microsoft keeps people coming back to its dominant Office product, whose file formats are proprietary.

In his blog last week, Sutor urged people to take several actions:

• "Insist today that the provider of your office applications is committed to support the OASIS OpenDocument...by January 1, 2007.

• "Insist today … Read more

Red Hat, the top Linux seller, has included in its latest update of Red Hat Enterprise Linux a preview version of SystemTap, software that lets computer administrators peer into some of the operating system's inner workings. The update was released last week.

The software's creators say the program was inspired by Sun Microsystems' DTrace (dynamic trace) and IBM's DProbes (dynamic probe) software.

Also included with RHEL 4 Update 2 is management software from a project called OpenPegasus. The software is an implementation of the Distributed Management Task Force's Web-based Enterprise Management (WBEM) and common information model (… Read more

OpenSolaris, the effort by Sun Microsystems and others to make the Solaris version of Unix into an open-source operating system, has started branching into the mobile computing domain. That's a notable step given that Solaris is generally designed for much more powerful--and stationary--servers.

The OpenSolaris Laptop Community Web site was launched earlier this month. It features support for Atheros' 802.11b/g wireless networking chip and said that drivers for Intel's wireless chips is "being evaluated." (Intel contributed open-source wireless networking drivers to Linux under General Public License, but Solaris is governed by a different license, … Read more

James Gosling, the Sun Microsystems programmer who was instrumental in the creation and development of Java, has spoken up in defense of the performance of the software technology.

On his blog Sunday, Gosling pointed to a discussion on the Slashdot "News for Nerds" site about myths of Java's sluggishness.

Java is a programming language and an accompanying runtime environment that executes programs written in Java. Because the runtime environment is available for many different operating systems and processors, programming in Java means that software may more easily run on different types of computers. But there are concerns … Read more

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Sun Microsystems and Google on Tuesday announced a multiyear partnership and software distribution deal.

Under terms of the widely expected announcement, the companies will cooperate to make it easier for consumers to acquire Sun's Java runtime, Google's Toolbar and the OpenOffice.org desktop suite.

Sun will include Google's Toolbar as a downloadable option to consumer versions of its Java runtime environment. In addition, the companies will explore future opportunities to "promote and enhance Sun technologies" such as Java and the OpenOffice.org suite.

"Working with Google will make our technologies available … Read more

Sun Microsystems debuted its UltraSparc IV+ servers last week, but IBM will counter that launch by announcing Unix servers with the new Power5+ processor next week, sources familiar with the plans said.

Big Blue will tout the latest generation of its Unix servers on Oct. 4, refreshing its pSeries line with the new processor and a new product family name. The Power5+ is expected to arrive at a clock speed of 1.9GHz, the same as the top speed of its predecessor, the Power5.

Following in the nomenclature footsteps of the new z9 mainframe, the new Power-based machines will be … Read more

Who knew that a top executive of Hewlett-Packard's high-end server group is a fan of the distorted guitars and psychedelic grunge rock of Seattle band Soundgarden? Or that he could transform that liking into a jab at rival Sun Microsystems?

Rich Marcello revealed this musical proclivity on his blog Wednesday, saying he would always "turn the radio way up" when Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" played. Most recently, he heard it while he was driving to work, leading him to free-associate to astrophysicist Stephen Hawking's work on black holes.

Marcello's thoughts then carried … Read more

Sun Microsystems Chief Executive Scott McNealy took potshots at many of his peers in the computing industry during a keynote address Tuesday--even at Larry Ellison, leader of the company hosting the Oracle OpenWorld conference at which McNealy spoke before an audience of 12,000.

Shortly after introducing servers based on Sun's new UltraSparc IV+ processor, McNealy showed a slide picturing him in jeans and Ellison in characteristically sharp attire. "That suit! You can buy 14 of our new servers for that suit," McNealy quipped.

He also listed the supposed song playlist on Ellison's iPod: "… Read more

Sun Microsystems on Monday released version 3.1 of its Sun Ray Server software, which lets a central machine run the desktop software of numerous Sun Ray thin clients.

According to the Sun Ray Blog, the new version supports Solaris 10, Sun's latest version of the now open-source Unix operating system, on both UltraSparc and x86 servers.