Desktop software

With all the hubbub about Snow Leopard and Windows 7, there's another operating system out there you may not have noticed that's getting a significant update: Ubuntu Linux.

Ubuntu backer Canonical plans to release its "Karmic Koala" version on Thursday, and both the desktop and server versions of the open-source operating system take significant steps toward cloud computing. The concept of moving work away from the computer in front of you and into the network does have some merit, but cloud computing is today's fashionable buzzword, and Canonical Chief Executive Mark Shuttleworth is sensitive to its overuse.

"What frustrates me is the term 'cloud' has come to mean anything with an Internet connection, including some stuff that really looks familiar like internal IT," said Shuttleworth in an interview. It's fair to say that in Ubuntu's case, though, it's not a stretch.

Built into the server version of Ubuntu 9.10 is Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, technology built atop the Eucalyptus software package. Amazon Web Services (AWS), a collection of computing infrastructure accessible over the Net on a pay-as-you-go basis, is among today's most significant cloud-computing efforts, and Eucalyptus implements many of its functions so companies can build their own "private clouds" using the same services.

And in the desktop version of Ubuntu, the cloud connection is a service called Ubuntu One, which lets Ubuntu users synchronize files stored on different machines and back them up on the central service. Storage space of 2GB is free, and 50GB costs $10 per month.

The Ubuntu software itself is free; Canonical sells Ubuntu support services. … Read more

Windows 7 has spawned a new breed of inexpensive laptops at retailers like Best Buy and Frys.

At many stores on Thursday, Best Buy refreshed almost its entire stock of laptops: all running Windows 7 and all sporting new model numbers. Frys--a megastore electronics retailer with locations throughout California, Arizona, and Texas--also refreshed many of its laptops with new Windows 7 models.

One of the most inexpensive Windows 7 arrivals is the Gateway model EC1410U. This tiny laptop is distinctly Netbook-like in appearance but uses a more powerful Celeron M ULV 743 processor (1.3GHz, 1MB cache) than the Atom-chip fare found in Netbooks. In addition to the Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit version, other features include 2GB of memory and a 250GB hard disk drive.

Many seductive Windows 7 newcomers are categorized as "ultrathins." These slim designs are typically discernibly bigger than Netbooks (though, as evidenced by the Gateway above, it's now always clear-cut) and pack more processor horsepower. The Toshiba Satellite T-135 (model: T135-S1309), which falls into this category, is priced at $549 at Best Buy and comes with Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 32-bit operating system, a 13.3-inch display, a dual-core power-efficient Pentium processor, 3GB of memory, a 320GB hard disk drive (5400RPM), and built-in Web cam.

The HP dm3 (model: dm3-1035dx), also an ultrathin and also priced at $549, packs 3GB of memory… Read more

With the release of its first beta version of Photoshop Lightroom 3.0 on Wednesday night, Adobe Systems is trying to improve the heart of the photographic editing and cataloging software.

"With Lightroom 3, we're looking at a performance and image quality rearchitecture," said Product Manager Tom Hogarty. Those two goals are in opposition, since better image quality demands more computing horsepower. But Hogarty said the software is more responsive when moving among photos, and images look better with new noise reduction and sharpening abilities.

There are other changes, too, though: a revamped import process for importing photos into the software catalog; built-in connections to upload photos to online services and keep them in sync; a more flexible mechanism for laying out photos to be printed; new abilities for stamping watermarks onto photos; and the ability to export photos and music as a video file. … Read more

ORLANDO, Fla.--Watch out, business technology managers, because Google has its eyes on your domain.

If Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt gets his way, the line that separates the computing services used by businesses from those used by consumers will fade fast. And Google, through services such as Google Apps and the new Google Wave, hopes to accelerate the change.

The company has done well so far with services that appeal chiefly to consumers, but Schmidt said at the Gartner Symposium here that Google likes services that become part people's lives regardless of whether they are doing work. And because the company covers its costs by charging enterprise accounts $50 per person per year for those services at work, he said it's just a matter of attaining scale before the business becomes "very profitable" for Google.

I spoke to Schmidt after a Gartner Symposium talk in which he said the enterprise market is Google's next billion-dollar revenue opportunity. Here's an edited transcript of the interview. … Read more

Mozilla hopes to classify the upcoming Firefox 3.6 as a minor update, a move that may sound inconsequential but that in fact might have significant repercussions with Firefox users and the speed the open-source browser is developed.

Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's director of Firefox, in a mailing list discussion that he'd like to call the new version a minor release "to quickly migrate our user base to Firefox 3.6." Minor releases in the past typically have been steps from, for example, 3.5.3 to 3.5.4, but Mozilla is trying to speed up … Read more

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Some new fruits of Mozilla's effort to speed Firefox development are about to arrive.

Mozilla plans to release the first beta version of 3.6 this weekend or early next week. But what exactly is coming in the new version and its successors?

Mike Shaver, Mozilla's vice president of product development, and John Lilly, Mozilla's chief executive, detailed some of the browser's future in an interview at the corporation's headquarters here. And the company has an aggressive schedule, with three releases due within about a year.

The present version of Firefox was … Read more

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--John Lilly wants it both ways.

Working at Mozilla Corporation since 2005 and as chief executive since early 2008, he helped oversee a remarkable achievement. Mozilla has built the Firefox browser from a largely unsuccessful remnant of the Netscape era of the 1990s into the browser that nearly a quarter of people on the Web use. Now the challenges are different.

First, for new growth, Mozilla must make its open-source browser appeal to an even more mainstream crowd, one that's more interested in working and playing online than in sticking it to Microsoft or being part … Read more

Dell, Acer, Intel, and others together are, in effect, creating a muddle of light laptop categories as part of a not-so-well-orchestrated marketing strategy, according to an analyst. This is expected to become particularly acute when a deluge of new Windows 7 laptops hit the market this week.

Acer offered a graphic example of this recently when it introduced a small, inexpensive Windows 7 notebook--the Aspire Timeline AS1810T--that, from all outward appearances, looks like a Netbook. But it isn't--at least as defined by Intel. It's a new category of laptop called an ultrathin.

"There's a lot of confusion that Intel has created and they haven't really segmented the market that well," according to Bob O'Donnell, an IDC Research vice president.

And it gets more complicated. The inexpensive ultrathin is, in turn, competing now with the expensive luxury laptops, like the Dell Adamo, according to O'Donnell. "Ironically, what's actually happening we think is that the (ultrathin) is actually killing the high-end ultraportable," O'Donnell said.

Here's the problem: any given Windows 7 laptop with an 11.6- or 12-inch screen could be a Netbook, an ultrathin, or a high-end ultraportable, each with distinctly different price-performance characteristics not readily apparent to consumers.

"There's too many overlapping products," according to O'Donnell. Intel tried to prevent this from happening by declaring that any laptop with a screen larger than 10 inches diagonally is not a Netbook. That policy is fine in theory but does not carry over to the real world of head-butting competition among PC makers where even the subtlest production differentiation can mean a leg up on the competition.

Intel says look at performance and price. "Which offers the best performance overall? That's important," said Intel spokesman Bill Calder. "Pricing is a factor too. While some ultrathin laptops including 11.6 and higher are very affordable, none are in the $249 to $399 range that typically defines a Netbook," Calder said.

Some consumers might say it's not a big deal. But… Read more

ORLANDO, Fla.--Cloud computing? It's got its place, but apparently not one very close to the heart of Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Mark Hurd today.

At the Gartner Symposium here, Hurd said cloud computing has promise but that he and customers he speaks to are leery of moving important applications to another company's infrastructure outside the company's own firewall.

"I think it's a very attractive model, but there will be challenges," Hurd said. "At the end of the day, if you tell a CEO, 'Put our e-mail in the cloud,' a certain amount of … Read more