Windows narrowly bumped Unix in 2005 to claim the top spot in server sales for the first time, according to a new report from IDC. Computer makers sold $17.7 billion worth of Windows servers worldwide in 2005 compared with $17.5 billion in Unix servers, IDC analyst Matthew Eastwood said of the firm’s latest Server Tracker market share report. "It’s the first time Unix was not top overall since before the Tracker started in 1996."

Oracle has acquired open source database vendor Sleepycat Software, strengthening its hand in the embedded database market and proving true at least one of the rumors about its plans to buy open source companies. The acquisition extends Oracle’s embedded database product line, which also includes Oracle Lite for mobile devices and last year’s acquisition TimesTen for high-performance in-memory database applications. Sleepycat’s Berkeley DB is embedded in several open source products, including the Linux and BSD Unix OSes, Apache Web server, OpenLDAP directory, and OpenOffice.

This multi-part series on PDF security examines how to make the most of your Acrobat security options, and then takes you step-by-step through applying and verifying PDF security credentials. Part one defines digital signature and makes sure your security preferences in Acrobat are set properly.

IBM researchers plan to describe an advance in chip-making that could pave the way for new generations of superchips. The development, which comes from materials research in the design of advanced lenses and related technologies, will make it possible to create semiconductors with wires thinner than 30 nanometers, one-third the width in today’s industry-standard chips. The advance potentially clears one of the biggest hurdles facing the progress of Moore’s Law, the observation of Gordon E. Moore, a co-founder of the Intel Corporation, that the density of chips doubles roughly every two years. Mr. Moore made the observation about chip-making technology in 1965, and most semiconductor engineers now believe that the doubling rate will continue through at least the middle of the next decade.

Senior Google executives are being deluged with complaints in an email campaign organized by opponents of the internet company’s relationship with the Chinese government. Students For A Free Tibet, a New York-based organization campaigning against China’s repressive policies, claims that more than 50,000 letters have been sent to Google bosses in recent days protesting at the company’s decision to censor searches on its google.cn Web site in line with Beijing’s wishes. Protesters have also staged public "break-ups" with Google at demonstrations outside many of its offices around the world.

We first mentioned OpenNTF.org back in 2002, in an article about the changing world of Domino development. After happily talking to many very nice, but slightly wacky OpenNTF T-shirt wearing developers at Lotusphere, we realized we’d never done an article specifically about this very useful resource.

Read this DominoPower article.

Fighting cybercrime requires cooperation between law enforcement and private industry, FBI Director Robert Mueller told attendees at the RSA Conference. "Together we must work to stop these attacks," he said at a town hall meeting sponsored by the Business Software Alliance. Most companies that experience network intrusions don’t report the incidents to law enforcement out of privacy and other concerns, Mueller said. He urged the audience of infosecurity professionals attending the RSA Security Conference to share cybercrime data, promising that his agency will take steps to ensure their privacy.

Corporations are starting to invest in mobile security software, but among consumers the takeup is still at least a year away, a senior official of U.S. security software firm Symantec said on Thursday. "In enterprises, this is starting to happen now, but in consumer side I would not expect a large uptake at least for a year," Sarah Hicks, vice president for strategy, told Reuters in an interview at mobile communications fair 3GSM in Barcelona. She said the world’s largest security software maker was benefiting from its wide customer base among corporations who are starting to invest in mobile security software as the amount of advanced handheld devices grows.

Use IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software 6.0 to debug your IBM Workplace Collaboration Services applications. This article shows you how with a sample application that contains two bugs.

Seeking to more easily accommodate distributed development, IBM later this year plans to modernize its Rational software lifecycle management products to make them strictly Web-based. While Rational has products now that can run in a browser, IBM is focused on server enablement of the offerings so they live on the Web, said Danny Sabbah, IBM Rational general manager. Rational RequisitePro, for example, could be deployed as a distributed application.