Programmers have released a new version of Xen with a graphics feature that makes the virtualization software more useful on desktop computers. Xen lets a single computer run multiple operating systems simultaneously, which is useful today as a way to replace servers with one, more efficiently used computer. On a desktop system, Xen virtualization promises to keep separate zones for test, work, personal and management software. So far, however, that promise has been hampered by a major weakness: the inability to display multiple graphical user interfaces for these "guest" operating systems.

Red Hat plans to ship the next version of its premium Linux product on February 28, debuting major virtualization technology but missing an earlier deadline by about two months. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 had been scheduled to ship by the end of 2006. However, the company began giving itself scheduling wiggle room in September, when Red Hat released the first RHEL 5 beta. A second beta arrived in November.

Mac users will no longer have to compromise on their collaboration tools. Today, IBM announced the availability of Lotus Notes 7.0.2 for the Mac OS X platform, allowing Mac users to take advantage of features from IBM Lotus Sametime, including instant messaging and presence awareness, and Web 2.0 tools, such as RSS technology and an easy-to-use blogging template. Other collaboration solutions, like Microsoft’s Entourage, lack these key collaboration features such as groupware and strong mail and iCal applications.

Investors expressed concern Thursday regarding the latest reports about options grants made to Apple Computer’s enigmatic chief executive officer Steve Jobs. The Financial Times reported that Apple’s board gave Jobs 7.5 million stock options in 2001 without the approval of the company’s board, and said the company later falsified documents that purportedly showed a full meeting of the board had taken place to approve the options grant. The newspaper also reported that Jobs later surrendered the options without exercising them.

Another year is coming to an end, which of course means another year is about to begin. Funny how that works. As the new millenia turns one year older, our thoughts turn to the happenings of the past year and wishes for the year to come.

Read this DominoPower article.

Next year will be a busy one in the server industry with a host of new products and innovations, thanks in large part to the increasing importance of multicore computing and virtualization technology. However, it looks like 2007 will prove lackluster in the PC space, as enterprise users and consumers decide whether to immediately adopt Microsoft’s Vista Windows operating system. Industry analysts agreed that the server market is well-poised to take advantage of innovations in both multicore processing and virtualization.

Telecom companies quickly cobbled together new telephone and Internet networks on Thursday as Asia began recovering from a Taiwanese earthquake that snapped undersea cables, snarling service across the tech-savvy region. Less than 48 hours after the powerful quake ruptured the two crucial cables off Taiwan’s southern tip, companies from South Korea to Singapore said they managed to partially restore most of their service to millions of customers.

For companies that use enterprise applications from the leading vendors, 2007 to some degree won’t offer many surprises. The top vendors–SAP, Oracle and to some degree, Microsoft–will continue investing in service-oriented architectures and will grow their investments in software as a service, according to industry observers. All three companies will continue their investments in their respective next-generation ERP (enterprise resource planning) suites, with an underlying middleware platform: mySAP ERP, Oracle Fusion and Microsoft Dynamics.

GFI, provider of network security, content security and messaging software has released GFI MailArchiver 4. GFI’s latest update to its email archiving solution is designed to bring affordable email archiving to any sized company. It allows archiving directly to an NTFS drive, removing the expense of purchasing a license for an MS SQL server. Furthermore, GFI MailArchiver features new email retention policies and a "Saved Search" function that allows individual users to save their search requests for repeated use. With GFI MailArchiver 4, businesses of all sizes are able to heavily reduce reliance on cumbersome PST files and ensure central archiving of all company email, also in keeping with compliance and legal requirements.

In this InfraSpectrum: The New Years’ Outlooks of eWEEK Labs get some air time as Peter Coffee looks at highlights of the analysts’ expectations.