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Microsoft hints at Windows 7 beta for next month
3 Dec 2008 at 1:31pm

After weeks of speculation, it appears that the general public will soon be able to get its hands on the first beta of Microsoft's follow-up to Windows Vista. A message on the MDC (MSDN Developer Conference) site states that all attendees of the upcoming MDC events, a series of Microsoft-sponsored road shows running from early December through mid-February, will receive a Windows 7 Beta 1 DVD in the mail "when they become available."

Microsoft isn't giving an exact delivery date for the Windows 7 beta, but some reports speculate the disc will be ready before January 13.

[ InfoWorld's Randall C. Kennedy and OSNews' Thom Holwerda debated the best way to assess Windows 7's changes ]

Some bloggers, the few who've actually tested the pre-beta code, have voiced concerns about the Windows 7 feature set. Infoworld's Randall C. Kennedy, for instance, recently declared that Windows 7 was essentially a slightly tweaked version of Vista. Other reports have praised-with some reservations-Windows 7's interface improvements, such as a vastly remodeled Windows Taskbar.

Microsoft has indicated that Windows 7 will likely be ready by late 2009 or early 2010, and given the lack of spectacular new features in Vista's replacement, there's no reason to think that Redmond won't meet that timeline. Certainly, the average Vista user would be thrilled if the hated User Account Control security feature would simply go away. Early indications are that it won't, but UAC will undergo some major changes in Windows 7.

PC World is an InfoWorld affiliate.

IT vendors may be growing increasingly desperate amid the global economic downturn, but customers must employ a range of tactics -- not just bullying -- to extract cost savings from them, a group of Forrester Research analysts said during a client teleconference Wednesday.

Companies simply can't use a shotgun-style approach and expect to succeed, said software licensing analyst Duncan Jones: "Anything that is undifferentiated, like a general letter that goes out [to vendors] saying we've got to cut everyone's maintenance by 10 percent? That's not going anywhere."

[ For more on how to deal with the recession, check out InfoWorld's special report: IT and the financial crisis. ]

Analyst Paul Roehrig, who focuses on outsourcing and IT services, said it is difficult and awkward to extract price concessions on a signed contract.

"Either you're begging or threatening.... Those [tactics] tend to work, but only for a short time," he said, adding, "unless you're really overpaying, there's really not that much room in the provider's margin where they can lower the price point without changing the service level."

And if a customer does succeed in lowering its services costs, "the vendor is going to immediately substitute junior people," said analyst John McCarthy, whose coverage areas include offshoring.

Instead of begging for a rate cut, customers could instead ask their vendors to assign more seasoned workers to their projects, resulting in productivity gains and cost savings, McCarthy said.

Meanwhile, the tactics are different for software licenses and maintenance agreements, according to Jones.

"One of the problems is, you're dealing with a software rep who has different goals than you. He needs to sell new licenses and has no interest in helping you cut costs," he said. "But if you get up higher in the organization, there are going to be people who care more about the long-term relationship, and there's flexibility there."

That said, now is the time to push for bigger discounts on new licenses, as sales representatives "are desperate to meet their number by end of the year," Jones added.

Companies could even indicate they'd be happy to let any outstanding deals float over into 2009, he said: "That will probably be too late for the rep, so try it as a tactic and see how much flexibility you've got."

Also, customers could use money they're prepared to spend on new software as leverage, Jones said: "Anything you're trying to get, like cutting maintenance on products you're not using, you might be able to get that as a quid pro quo for spending in another area."

Beyond maximizing their buying power, companies should save money by determining which software assets no longer need a maintenance contract, Jones said: "You save costs with minimal impact on the business, but you put pressure on other vendors because it shows you're seriously looking at everything."

A similar approach should be taken to IT services contracts, Roehrig said. "If you're asking for the highest levels of service, you're going to be paying top dollar, when the reality is that the enterprise can function just fine with not everyone having gold-plated service."

Companies should also try to get more value out of outsourcing in general through strategic hiring, he said. "If I had money as a client to invest in one thing ... I would get someone who really knows how to manage a service provider. Some of the best outsourcing deals I've come up against have really good people who know how to get a service provider to do what you want."

Customers should also seek to lower the total number of service providers they contract with, leading the way to bigger volume discounts, Roehrig said. But he noted that this can be difficult for heavily federated organizations to accomplish.

It's also possible to save money by actually helping one's vendor cut costs, according to Jones.

If four divisions within a company are negotiating separately with a vendor, they should consider consolidating those relationships, he said: "I would go to the vendor and say, how can I earn cost reductions by dealing with you in a centralized fashion?"

Microsoft on Wednesday unveiled a free plug-in for Firefox to translate Open XML documents, an update to its document translator, and a toolkit for Java developers that was built under the umbrella of its Document Interoperability Initiative.

The group released the OpenXML Document Viewer as an open source project on its Codeplex Web site. The viewer translates documents in the Open XML format, which became an ISO standard in April after much contentious debate , to HTML so they can be viewed on a browser. The viewer, which is still in the preview stage, eliminates the need for a user to install Microsoft Office or any other productivity tool set.

[ Discover the top-rated IT products as rated by the InfoWorld Test Center. ]

The first implementation developed by MindTree and Microsoft works with Firefox 3.0 running on Windows or Linux and translates font types, images, text styles, diagrams, tables, and hyperlinks. In early to mid-2009, the project will add support for Opera and add server-side features.

The software was released during a Document Interoperability Initiative (DII) meeting this week in Belgium.

Microsoft created DII in March with the help of Novell, Mark Logic, Quickoffice, DataViz, and Nuance Communications. The goal was to foster interoperability between document formats, most notably Open XML and the Open Document Format (ODF).

"Basically this is Microsoft sincerely going out and following up with what they did with OpenXML," said Peter O'Kelly, principal analyst with O'Kelly Consulting.

As part of that follow-up, Microsoft plans to support ODF in Office 2007 SP2, which is slated to ship next year.

On top of the Firefox plug-in, DII released Version 2.5 of the Open XML/ODF Translator , which supports Office 2003, 2007 and XP. The new version includes a set of ODF 1.1 compatible templates and chart enhancements for spreadsheet programs.

The templates provide preformatted documents, such as a business letter or fax sheet, that are based on either ODF or Open XML and allow predetermined conversions between formats.

DII also introduced an software developer kit for Java developers that aids in working with Open XML documents. The project aligns with the Apache POI project, which provides Java libraries for reading and writing in Microsoft Office formats.

All the DII software was released as open source projects.

"We have been seeing that a lot of people now understand that what is most important is the end user," said Jean Paoli, general manager of interoperability strategy for Microsoft. "Since for maybe a year now, we are seeing far less passion about the format issue and more rationality."

Network World is an InfoWorld affiliate

Scotland is to host two pioneering datacenters, with plans being announced to build an eco-friendly cloud centre in Inverness, and the world's largest computing facility in Lockerbie.

A new business park, a "sustainable village" with hundreds of homes and what is claimed to be the world's largest datacenter, are to be built in the south-west of Scotland under an ambitious £800 million development plan.

[ Find out more on being environmentally responsible while saving money. And stay up to date on green tech with InfoWorld's Sustainable IT blog, with our Green Tech Topic Center, and with the Green Tech newsletter. ]

The Peelhouses datacenter in Lockerbie, which is being built by Scottish firm Lockerbie Data Centres, will use green energy generated from wind turbines and a new bio-mass power station.

The entire facility will be spread over 250,000 square metres, including the development of 800 new homes in the village. Waste heat generated by the banks of computer servers will be reused to heat the new village as well as the existing town, and the business park

Scottish IT services company Alchemy Plus, with backing from Microsoft, has revealed plans to build a £20 million cloud computing center on the Inverness harbour. Inverness was chosen as an ideal site for the large computing facilities because of its cold climate, which Alchemy intends to harness to reduce the need for cooling.

[ Learn more about what cloud computing really means from InfoWorld's cloud computing primer. ]

The 20,000-square-foot facility is billed as Scotland's first eco-friendly computing facility, with the heat created by the center being used to warm nearby businesses, including a nearby hotel.

The Inverness center will operate on a cloud computing model, enabling users to subscribe on a monthly basis for the IT resources their businesses uses. Alchemy claims this companies that took part in an 18-month pilot saw an average cost savings of 28 percent.

Lockerbie Data Centres still waiting for planning permission of its plans, but chief executive John Hume said he had already received interest from a number of IT firms keen to get involved with the project.

Hume said: "The worldwide shortage of suitable data storage and the high demand for local affordable housing presents a unique opportunity for Scotland and local residents."

"With global demand for data storage expected to double by 2012, demand already outstrips supply."

Chief executive of Alchemy Plus, Peter Swanson, echoed similar sentiments on the demand for datacenter space. "The current economic downturn is driving a rapid shift towards cloud-based services which offer greater economy and flexibility."

Computerworld UK is an InfoWorld affiliate.

VMware has introduced View 3, the updated version of its virtual data infrastructure (VDI) offering. The company claimed that the new product would reduce desktop storage demands by as much as 70 percent.

In addition, the company said that it could "decouple" a desktop from specific locations to create a personalized view of that desktop, accessible from any other device -- so that a desktop could now be visible from a laptop in another office.

[ Read about VMware's VDI Storage Considerations guide. And stay up to date on the latest virtualization developments with InfoWorld's Virtualization Report blog and newsletter. ]

Jocelyn Goldfein, VMware's global manager for its desktop business said that the move supported the current trend towards mobile working. "Users are no longer tied to a desk," she said. "They use PCs, thin clients, notebooks or even smartphones."

Goldfein said that View3 was part of the vClient initiative announced at VMWorld. She said that the company was now looking at the desktop in the same way that it had looked at the datacenter. "The problem with desktop virtualization is that you still need a device. When you consolidate in a datacenter, you can get rid of 90 percent of the servers, you can't do that with the desktop." She added that View 3 would help bring virtualized desktops to devices.

The main element in View3 is View Composer. This uses a new technology called Linked Clone to generate many virtual desktops from a master image. Only desktops could be created in seconds and centrally controlled by View Manager.

Tommy Armstrong, VMware's senior marketing manager for enterprise desktops said that View 3 users would be able to provision many machines with common software -- for example, Windows, with that "golden master" as VMware calls it. He said that this could also be used for patch management.

In addition, the company has released Offline Desktop, a feature that provides the means to securely move virtual desktops between the datacenter and a local laptop or desktop. The company claimed that this would enable users to "check out" a virtual desktop onto an ordinary PC, such as a laptop, run the virtual desktop locally, and then check it back in to the datacenter.

Techworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.

Dell believes that customers do not necessarily need to build new datacenters, and is now offering to show customers how to optimize their existing ones to extend their life span.

Dell says that its expertise in this area came about two years ago, when it discovered it had reached the capacity limits of its two datacenters in Austin Texas. Rather than going to the expense of simply building a new datacenter, the company instead looked at whether it was possible to squeeze more life out of its existing ones.

[ Check out these 11 tips for datacenter efficiency. And keep up on green IT trends with InfoWorld's Sustainable IT blog and Green Tech newsletter. ]

"Michael Dell looks at building new buildings in order to make money, and not making money in order to build buildings," explained Rick Becker, VP, Software and Solutions Enterprise Product Group at Dell.

Becker was one of the men charged with overseeing the redevelopment of Dell's datacenter resources. Dell estimates that its own datacenter optimization has internally reduced costs by more than $29 million.

"When we optimized our own datacenters, we learnt a lot of lessons," Becker told Techworld. "And now we want to share these lessons with our customers," he added. To this end, Dell is offering customers a datacenter optimization service.

Alongside the service, Dell is offering some simple advice, in line with the company's established policy of simplifying IT . This includes the decommissioning old servers, consolidate existing equipment; virtualize as much as possible, and re-equipping with new kit in order to take advantage of much better energy-efficient technology.

On the consolidation point, Dell points out that many companies have unnecessary servers running in their DCs, legacy of past projects, but which are not shut down because managers don't know what they are used for.

Becker said that with a 70 percent server volume reduction, coupled with an equipment refresh with energy-efficient products, a typical datacenter would see 50 to 70 percent less energy use.

Becker also makes it clear that he is also a big fan of virtualisation, and believes that this is one of the most important ways for companies to reduce their server sprawl and optimise their server resources. "At Dell in 2006, we only had 543 virtual machines. Now the number is over 5,000," he said.

"We will also ask customers to raise the temperature of their datacenters," said Becker, pointing to the fact that most datacenters are currently too cool.

Dell equipment can run at 25 degrees Celsius (77 Fahrenheit). Indeed, Dell's equipment is certified to run at 29.4 Celsius (85 Fahrenheit), but Becker says that at 25.6 Celsius (78 Fahrenheit), it found that its fans ran at a greater speed and started impacting on energy cost savings.

By its own estimate, Dell believes it can help companies increase their DC computing capacity by 270 percent within the same power and space footprint, using less hardware. Its message then to the market is spend now, in order to save down the road.

But will anyone buy in to this argument considering the current economic climate?

Becker disagrees somewhat with the gloomy forecasts touted by IDC and Gartner . While everyone seems to agree that the industry won't experience the extreme cuts it suffered in 2001 after the dot-com bust, Becker feels that customers will not be holding off all their spending plans, especially if Dell can demonstrate real ROI (return on investment) within a 12 to 18 month period.

"Post September, IT has suddenly become the key enabler on how companies can remain viable," said Becker. "We can show the ROI that customers can achieve, plus we have financing options available.

If companies can reduce the amount of people needed (by adding in more automation), as well as trimming their real estate costs, there is much less expense. The finance guys absolutely get that. That is what we mean when we say, simplify and save," he said.

Techworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.

The first round of registrations for the new TLD (top-level domain) ".tel" will open Wednesday.

The new TLD isn't a run-of-the-mill domain like ".com" or ".org," for example. It's not about Web content -- instead it will allow both individuals and companies to store all their contact information in the DNS without the need to build, host, or manage a Web site, according to Telnic, which is in charge of operating .tel.

[ Related: "ICANN gives .tel domain thumbs up." And keep up on the latest tech news headlines at InfoWorld News, or subscribe to the Today's Headlines newsletter. ]

.Tel is about making it simple for people to get in touch with a domain owner, according to Justin Hayward, communications director at Telnic.

"That might be listing a traditional telephone number or it may be about a Web site, but it can incorporate any and all forms of digital communications as it stands, including location records and also textual keywords that enable the .tel to be search-engine optimized," said Hayward.

He has decided to include, for example, phone numbers, his Twitter page, a Google Maps location, and a Skype address at his domain, justin.tel.

"I have made it publicly available, but it could easily be privatized to protect the contact information from spammers," said Hayward.

Solving privacy issues is one of the reasons it has taken so long for .tel to get off the ground -- Telnic was awarded the .tel domain in May 2006 -- but those issues have now been resolved, according to Hayward.

Information associated with .tel addresses will be available to any device that is connected to the Internet. The user types in the address and a page with all the available contact information will come back, according to Hayward.

Users can then click on the information to start, for example, a chat session or a phone call. That will only work, of course, if the right application or functionality is in place.

"We've also created a number of different applications, both for the PC and mobile devices that enable you to bypass the Web completely and access .tel information from the address book," said Hayward.

Applications have been created for the iPhone, as well as BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices, and for Microsoft Outlook.

Using these will make it even cheaper and quicker to access information from the DNS. It will also make the address book a very live and dynamic application, rather than static and having to be manually updated, according to Hayward.

The applications have been open sourced to attract developers to do more with the domain. One developer has, for example, created a plug-in for the Wordpress blogging platform, according to Hayward.

To make searching for information easier, Telnic also plans to launch a directory service called telpages.com during next year. It will only search .tel domains for relevant information.

The launch is backed up by 120 registrars worldwide spanning 29 countries, according to Telnic.

From 3 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time on Wednesday only trademark owners will be able to apply for a domain -- the so-called sunrise period.

That period will end Feb. 2 and will be immediately followed by a period during which anyone who is willing to pay a premium price can get their hands on a domain. On March 24 registrations will be open to everyone, at a lower cost.

Three-year registrations made during the sunrise period will cost between $300 and $400, according to Hayward.

During the second period, Domainmonster.com will charge €120 ($150) for a single domain.

Generally, after March 24, Telnic expects domain registrations to cost around $15 to $25.

The domain will go live on Feb. 3.

A technical problem in a license management server at SonicWall created havoc Tuesday for users of the company's e-mail security products, leaving many customers temporarily unprotected against spam, phishing and malware threats while others were unable to log into their own systems.

Colleen Nichols, a spokeswoman for SonicWall , said Tuesday evening that the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based vendor had resolved the server issue as of noontime PST and that affected customers could "resynchronize their licenses" by visiting the customer support section of the company's Web site.

[ Learn how to secure your systems with Roger Grimes' Security Adviser blog and newsletter, both from InfoWorld. ]

It wasn't immediately clear how many customers were affected by the license server glitch. But numerous users posted angry messages on a forum on the SonicWall site during a period that lasted for several hours.

According to a user who reported the problem to Computerworld via e-mail, the glitch affected all customers of SonicWall's ES series of e-mail security appliances, based on what he was told by a person he described as the vendor's "general support ticket-taker."

The user, who asked not to be identified, said that during the overnight hours from Monday into Tuesday, SonicWall's license manager erroneously reset the license keys for products installed on his systems and those of other customers, thereby making the licenses appear to be invalid.

"Very early this morning," Nichols confirmed via e-mail, "one server in SonicWall's licensing server pool that handles distribution of  [antivirus] signatures and license keys malfunctioned." The malfunction caused "some" license keys to be reset, requiring them to later be resynchronized with SonicWall's servers, she said.

The company shut off the problematic license server "shortly after it began malfunctioning, and at the same time proactively stopped automatic license key updates while we verified the integrity of the rest of our licensing servers," Nichols wrote. During that period, customers were still able to manually download updates and resynchronize their licenses through the company's Web site, she added.

Nichols said that SonicWall was working to contact customers believed to have been affected by the problem to ensure them that the technical issues had been resolved.

In posts on the user forum, a person named Jody Spoor who identified herself as a senior technical support engineer at SonicWall said that the company had been alerted about the problem "as early as we could be" and had taken immediate steps to prevent the issue from spreading further.

Typically, a problem with a license server shouldn't result in local product-registration information being lost, Spoor said in one post. But for some reason, the registration information was lost "for a number of units," she added. Spoor recommended a manual work-around for affected customers while SonicWall worked to fix the technical snafu.

The glitch sparked outrage among some SonicWall customers who vented their frustrations on the user forum, which can be accessed from the company's main support page but requires registration.

"I'll say it to whoever I need to say it to. This is unacceptable," wrote a customer using the handle rhouseholder. "We are a 100 million dollar 'technology' defense contractor with serious security considerations, and I can't just have SPAM and VIRUSES pouring into my network for half a day because your license server went down."

One forum poster, who works at an educational institution that has nearly 30,000 students and is hit by more than 2 million spam messages daily, fumed at the fact that the manual work-around recommended by SonicWall didn't work for the school.

That user also complained that e-mails and phone calls to SonicWall's tech support department had gone unreturned for hours. "There comes a time when you need to stop waiting for tech support to call you back and just call your own internal legal department," the user wrote.

Another customer said several schools that rely on SonicWall products for content filtering had decided to disconnect their Internet access until the license server problem was resolved.

"Say goodbye to one customer ? I will not be renewing," wrote another user who was identified as pcicanada on the forum. In that post, pcicanada added that although the problem eventually was resolved, the entire episode was completely inexcusable.

"What exactly is it," pcicanada wrote, "that I am paying for? My systems spent most of the day completely exposed because the wizards at Sonicwall have no mechanisms in place for dealing with something like this!"

Other users also lamented about the apparent lack of a backup plan at SonicWall for handling the crisis, and blasted the company for leaving them exposed to e-mail threats for a prolonged period of time because of a license server glitch. Some demanded a prompt and complete explanation of what had happened so they could tell their managers why their companies had been left completely open to e-mail security threats.

One user, who said his SonicWall system had been down for more than eight hours, called the situation "ridiculous" in a forum post. "I had no idea they were running real-time licensing, but since they were, they should have some redundancy," the user wrote. "This is BS. I'm livid."

Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.

A support page on Apple's Web site recommending users purchase anti-virus software for their Macs received a lot of attention over the past couple of days, but on Tuesday, Apple removed the page from its Web site.

"We have removed the KnowledgeBase article because it was old and inaccurate," Apple spokesman Bill Evans, told Macworld. "The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box."

[ Read the related story "Apple quietly recommends using anti-virus software." And learn how to secure your systems with Roger Grimes' Security Adviser blog and newsletter, both from InfoWorld. ]

The Web page seemed to go against Apple's newest ad campaigns that suggested only the PC needs anti-virus software. Even though the page has been removed, Apple did not telling customers to absolutely not protect themselves.

"Since no system can be 100 percent immune from every threat, running anti-virus software may offer additional protection," said Evans.

Macworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.

Nvidia officials on Tuesday reiterated the company's interest in the mini-laptop space but said it would wait for the market to mature before jumping in.

Earlier this year, the company made a deal with Via Technologies  to make graphics chipsets to work with Via's Nano processors, which are designed for laptops and mini-laptops. Mini-laptops, also called netbooks by Intel, are inexpensive laptops with screens of 10 inches or less.

[ For more on products in the hot mini-notebook category, check out our hands-on looks at Asus' Eee PC 901 and 1000 and the N10 netbook, the Cloudbook Max netbook, Elitegroup's G10IL mini-laptop, MSI's Wind low-cost laptop, Giga-byte's M912X mini-laptop, HP's Mini-Note netbook and Acer's Aspire one. ]

The netbook market is growing, and it could branch out into product categories such as smartphones and multimedia netbooks that can handle graphics effectively, said Marv Burkett, the company's chief financial officer, on a webcast from the Credit Suisse annual technology conference being held in Scottsdale, Arizona.

"We're not saying we're not interested; it's a matter of how the market will evolve," Burkett said.

Most netbooks today contain Intel's Atom processor and are not capable of handling video games or multimedia effectively, said Michael Hara, vice president of investor relations at Nvidia. Netbooks offer good battery life and are good for basic programs like Web applications, but they don't have the graphics capabilities to effectively play video games or video files, he said.

Netbooks could have integrated graphics in the future to better handle graphics, Hara said. Though they were tight-lipped about plans for the netbook space, Nvidia executives said the company prefers to watch the market evolve before getting involved.

The company's most likely move in the netbook arena would be to provide integrated chipsets with better graphics than most netbooks offer now. The graphics giant already provides integrated chipsets for laptops and next year will ship the Tegra system-on-chip for smartphones. Tegra puts an Arm processor core, a GeForce graphics core and other components, including a high-definition video decoder, onto a single chip.

Integrated chipsets is just one focus of the company as it tries to grow in these tough economic times. Nvidia also is trying to push further into the supercomputing space through its Tesla platform, which includes graphics processing units (GPUs) with 240 cores as well as the CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) programming architecture, a set of development tools that allows programs to be executed on its graphics processors.

The company is now developing Tesla-based "personal supercomputers" in partnership with PC makers including Dell and Lenovo. It already offers such systems with Penguin Computing and Velocity Micro. Nvidia claims the systems can process data as much as 250 times faster than standard PCs, with 960 processing cores in four GPUs.

Microsoft has come up with a faster, cheaper way to build its datacenters over the next five years, and it says other companies could use its methods too.

Microsoft's approach, described by General Manager Michael Manos in a blog post Tuesday, uses a modular design in which standard units of computing, cooling, and electrical equipment are delivered to a facility on the back of a truck and assembled on site. The system, which Microsoft calls its "Generation 4" design, will allow its datacenters to become operational more quickly and cut the cost of building traditional, brick and mortar facilities.

[ Find out more on how Google and Microsoft are sparking interest in modular datacenters. ]

"Our 'Gen 4' modular datacenters will take the flexibility of containerized servers -- like those in our Chicago datacenter -- and apply it across the entire facility," Manos wrote, referring to servers that are delivered and run in self-contained shipping containers. "Think of it like 'building blocks,' where the datacenter will be composed of modular units of prefabricated mechanical, electrical, security components, etc., in addition to containerized servers."

Some companies already use modular computing and cooling systems for specific jobs, but Microsoft is taking the idea a step further. Its clout as a big customer means it can persuade equipment makers to build products that meet its specifications, and it is developing common interfaces for computers, power supplies and generators that manufacturers will be able to "plug into," it said.

"In short, we are striving to bring Henry Ford’s Model T factory to the datacenter. ... Gen 4 will move datacenters from a custom design and build model to a commoditized manufacturing approach. We intend to have our components built in factories and then assemble them in one location (the datacenter site) very quickly. "

It would be a big change in how datacenters are built and one that's important for Microsoft as it looks for a cost effective way to expand the infrastructure for its online services. Microsoft plans to build 20 "supersize" datacenters in the coming years at a cost of up to $1 billion each, according to a recent BusinessWeek article. Manos said the Gen 4 design will cut the time it takes Microsoft to build a datacenter in half, to one year, and reduce its capital costs by up to 40 percent.

The containerized equipment allows Microsoft to take other radical steps, like building datacenters with no roofs. Besides cutting construction costs, this makes it much easier to use outside air for cooling systems, one of the costliest areas of a datacenter. Microsoft said it is working with server vendors to develop systems that can operate in wider temperature ranges -- 10 to 35 degrees centigrade -- so that in some cases it can eliminate chiller equipment completely.

It posted a short video to give a high-level view of its plans.

Bob Seese, chief architect with Advanced Data Centers, a San Francisco company that leases datacenter space, applauded Microsoft for sharing the information. Companies are typically secretive about what goes on in their datacenters, but along with Google and some other large companies, Microsoft has been opening up recently to discuss its best practices.

Pressuring vendors to design more flexible and standardized equipment could benefit all companies, Seese said. "One of our biggest struggles in the industry has been the tail wagging the dog -- the manufacturers telling IT departments what they need. Having someone push back against the vendors could by itself change this industry tremendously," he said.

Datacenter operators are risk averse, he noted, because their jobs depend on keeping things running, and the research being done by Microsoft and others should help everyone. "As a result of their successes and failures, other companies are going to benefit," he said.

Others were less convinced. Ron Croce, the COO at datacenter infrastructure provider Validus DC Systems, said Microsoft and Google are unique in their requirements. Microsoft's online services are mostly Web-based applications running on x86 servers, he said, and don't need the level of uptime and security as firms in, say, the financial services sector.

Building traditional datacenters may not be cost-effective for Microsoft, but for other companies it's still a necessity, he said. "A lot of the requirements are driven by regulatory mandates. If you're a financial services company, you can't have a datacenter with no roof."

"It's certainly a valid concept but I don't see it as suitable for everyone," said Christopher Johnston, vice president of critical facilities at Syska Hennessy Group. "I think people will have to make a judgment depending on the type of industry they are in."

Everyone knows that techies love "Dungeons & Dragons," where they can prowl the bowels of a castle and cast spells on clueless managers, er, mages. After all, it's just a game.

Or is it? Many tech staffers are also hard-core PC gamers. For good reason: In virtual worlds like "World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King" and "Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword," you can show off your awesome mental powers and flex the most feared fingers in the universe. You can hone the problem-solving skills that make you good at IT, take out frustrations from your day-to-day work, and celebrate the technology that you so love.

[ Check out InfoWorld's slideshow of the six perfect PC games for IT. | Looking for other cool techie stuff? Peruse our 2008 geek gadget gift guide. ]

So what, exactly, does a kick-ass shooter game like "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" or the beautifully rendered role-playing game "Fallout 3" really say about tech life? Well, saddle up your Mechano-strider and watch as the Blade of Vaulted Secrets carves deeply into the tech-worker psyche.

The techie-gamer relationship is rooted in "Civilization"
Ah, the early days of "Civilization," or "Civ" in tech-speak. This classic Sid Meier game ran on PC DOS -- no games ran on Windows 3 in the early 1990s -- which basically locked out mere mortals from playing it.

That is, you needed to know how to reconfigure autoexec.bat and config.sys to load extended memory and mouse drivers so that "Civ" could run. "You had to know technology to even play games," says George Jones, editorial director of GamePro, an InfoWorld sister publication. "Back then there was no Internet resource to help you, and so you had had to figure it out on your own. It was crazy."

When PC games finally reached the masses, thanks largely to Windows 95, techies were already masters of "Doom," "Quake," "Counterstrike," and "World of Warcraft." (Let the jocks play "Madden NFL" -- why throw a football for a touchdown when you can toss a flash grenade through a window and storm the door for a beat-down?)

Today, Jones figures more than half of all hard-core PC gamers work in tech. Jerald Block, a psychiatrist specializing in the gamer lifestyle, agrees: "There's a large overlay between people who game and people who chose technology for work," he says, adding, "Some people can read people, others can understand ? a computer."

Stupid users are lost in the virtual world
The single experience nearly every tech worker shares is that, at some point in their career, they've had to deal with stupid users, more stupid users, and even more stupid users. These users rarely respect the unsung tech worker -- and PC games can provide an opportunity for a little payback.

Let's face it: There's a tinge of happiness when one of these smug users creeps around the corner and right into your sniper crosshairs. It's your "Call of Duty" to put the poor sap out of his misery. Even better, the next day you can chuckle at him in the cafeteria line.

Indeed, users should thank techies for creating an industry of sophisticated games. When users look at a game screen, they probably wouldn't notice poorly overlapping 3-D images if a Hammer of Judgment hit them over the head.

But best-selling games such as "Fallout 3" don't have shoddy graphics rendering or crude artificial intelligence because "top game developers know their work will be scrutinized by trained eyes," explains Jones. "You can't fool them."

Solving problems with bloody execution
Many tech workers are fervent problem solvers. Some are strategic, some tactical. Some solve problems through reverse engineering, others by invention, and a few by sheer luck. PC games play smartly into the many aspects of this problem-solving passion.

In "Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword," a player spends days, weeks, or maybe months shaping a civilization from the beginning of time to the modern era. The goal is to emerge as the leader, and there's not just one solution or path to success. "It's the ultimate problem-solving experience," Jones says, "and epitomizes the mind frame of the tech worker."

Of course, many tech workers don't have weeks or even hours to solve a problem. That's where "StarCraft" comes in. In this game, you're a military leader of an alien species. The game calls for quick thinking and some serious team management during short missions.

"StarCraft" perhaps best mirrors the challenges and successes of life in IT. "'StarCraft' is firefighting," says Jones. "Things are crumbling, and you have to figure out how to fix it in 25 minutes. It's the nature of IT work." (FYI, "StarCraft II" is planned for release next year.)

Perfect PC games for IT
OK, now that it's clear why techies and gaming go so well together, which games are the ideal fit for IT? InfoWorld has picked the ideal game for six kinds of tech staffers. Check them out in our "Perfect techie games" slideshow.

Microsoft this week is proceeding with an update to Windows Vista and Windows Server, making available a beta-level service pack featuring capabilities for virtualization and power savings.

The company on Tuesday began offering the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 SP2 (Service Pack 2) Beta release to MSDN and TechNet subscribers and will extend it to the public via TechNet on Thursday. Offering a single service pack minimizes deployment and testing complexity, Microsoft said.

Included in the service pack, according to the Windows Server Division blog, are Hyper-V bits in the release-to-manufacturing stage, meaning the bits are completed. Hyper-V is Microsoft's hypervisor-based server virtualization technology enabling multiple operating systems to run on a single physical machine. This enables workload consolidation across multiple underutilized servers onto a smaller number of machines.

Also highlighted in the service pack are changes to the power profile to yield more power savings. The service pack also addresses reliability and performance issues and supports new types of hardware. The 64-bit CPU from Via Technologies is supported and performance is improved for Wi-Fi connections after resuming from sleep mode.

"We are tracking to ship SP2 in the first half of 2009," said Justin Graham, senior product manager for Windows Server, in the blog.

With the release, Microsoft is looking for developers and IT professionals to have an early look at the technology and offer feedback. The beta is being offered via a Microsoft Customer Preview Program (CPP)

"The CPP is intended for technology enthusiasts, developers, and IT pros who would like to test Service Pack 2 in their environments and with their applications prior to final release. For most customers, our best advice would be to wait until the final release prior to installing this service pack," said Mike Nash, corporate vice president for Windows Product Management at Microsoft, in The Windows Blog on Tuesday.

"Windows Vista SP2 builds on the solid foundation of Windows Vista SP1, and represents our ongoing commitment to Windows Vista today," Nash said.

VMware released on Tuesday VMware View 3, new software aimed at providing desktop virtualization, application virtualization, and management of virtual desktops in one product.

VMware View is a reworking of the company's VMware Desktop Infrastructure product that adds other components to solve the problem of managing virtualized desktop environments, said Raj Mallempati, a group product manager of desktop products for VMware.

[ Find out how VMware ThinApp 4.0 fared in InfoWorld's Test Center review | Keep up with the latest virtualization news in the InfoWorld Virtualization Topic Center | Discover the top-rated IT products as rated by the InfoWorld Test Center. ]

VMware View is part of an initiative that VMware is calling vClient, which it unveiled at its VMworld conference in September. Mallempati said with the vClient strategy, VMware hopes to solve the "desktop dilemma" of not only virtualizing applications and desktops, but also managing and deploying those environments.

"At the end of the day, we also want to make sure we can provide end-users with a virtualized view of their desktops, applications and data," he said.

In addition to providing desktop virtualization, VMware View 3 includes View Composer, a new product that creates virtual desktops from a master image; VMware ThinApp, which simplifies application packaging and deployment to a virtual desktop environment; and Offline Desktop, which provides the ability to move virtual desktops between the datacenter and a local laptop or desktop. The product also includes Unified Access, which provides desktop administrators a single management platform for virtual desktops and applications.

VMware View 3 comes in an Enterprise Edition and a Premier Edition. The Enterprise Edition includes VMware Infrastructure Enterprise Edition, VMware View Manager 3, and Unified Access, and it costs $150 per concurrent user for a perpetual user license. The Premier Edition includes those products but adds VMware View Manager 3, VMware ThinApp, VMware View Composer, and Offline Desktop. It costs $250 per concurrent user for a perpetual license.

As virtualization of server OSes becomes more common, both VMware, which remains the leader in the virtualization software market, and other vendors are expanding their offerings to tackle the problem of virtualization desktops and applications that run on desktop computers.

Even though VMware remains the leader in virtualization across the board, the company has had a bumpy year in which it's faced its stiffest competition to date. Vendors such as Microsoft are building virtualization directly into their server OSes and are branching out into desktop and application virtualization. And in July, the company had a major executive shake-up, with CEO Diane Greene leaving suddenly to be replaced by former Microsoft executive Paul Maritz.

Oracle has contributed data-integrity protection code, partly developed with the hardware vendor Emulex, to the Linux kernel, the vendors announced Tuesday.

The code helps maintain "comprehensive data integrity" as information "moves from application to database, and from [the] Linux operating system to disk storage," according to a statement. It also lowers the possibility that erroneous data will get written to disk.

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The companies' effort is meant to help datacenter administrators track and address corrupted data quickly, lowering costs and downtime, said Scott McIntyre, vice president of product marketing at Emulex, in a statement.

Oracle and Emulex, which makes products for connecting servers, networks, and storage systems, are developing an early-adopter program that will help customers start working with the new features.

When a lot of information is moving through various aspects of a system very quickly, its integrity can suffer, said Redmonk analyst Stephen O'Grady. And at the same time, data integrity grows more vital as systems scale up, he added.

But improvements like the code contribution announced Tuesday are only "one piece of the puzzle," and will work in tandem with next-generation Linux file systems now under development, such as Btrfs, he said.

The Btrfs project, now available under the GPL open-source license, was first developed at Oracle.

Oracle is a key contributor, along with other large vendors, to the kernel project. The company makes money on Linux through its Unbreakable Linux support service.