John Fontana

Senior Editor, Infrastructure

 

jfontana@nww.com (303) 377-9057 Fax: (303) 377-9059

Network World 1200 Madison Street #676 Denver, CO 80206

Recent articles by Fontana

IE 8 hits Beta 2, privacy features added
Aug. 28, 2008
Microsoft Wednesday released the second beta of Internet Explorer 8 and introduced new features focused on privacy, including one users are referring to as "porn mode."

Microsoft virtualization tools reinforce user's data center plans
Aug. 27, 2008
Hosting provider RackForce Networks expects that Microsoft's just released Hyper-V virtualization technology will give it a chance to take a major step in its business strategy.

Mozilla garners praise over Firefox security feature
Aug. 26, 2008
The debate over the self-signed certificate issue in Firefox 3.0 has fostered an add-on from Carnegie Mellon researchers and it seems a prevailing tide that Mozilla is headed down the right path.

Microsoft completes Small Business Server 2008, preps for November launch
Aug. 25, 2008
Microsoft Friday said it has completed development on Small Business Server 2008 and that the software will hit its targeted ship date of Nov. 12.

Red Hat admits breach of its servers, Fedora
Aug. 22, 2008
Red Hat confirmed Friday that hackers compromised infrastructure servers belonging to the company and the Fedora Project, including systems used to sign Fedora packages.

Firefox SSL-certificate debate gets gnarly
Aug. 21, 2008
Debate is reaching a fever pitch over a new security feature in Firefox 3.0 that throws out a warning page to users when a Web site's SSL certificate is expired or has not been issued by a trusted third party.

Talend readies open source tool to tackle dirty data
Aug. 20, 2008
Open source data integration vendor Talend on Wednesday unveiled a tool aimed at scrubbing dirty data from corporate information repositories.

Microsoft invests $100 million more in Novell
Aug. 20, 2008
Microsoft Wednesday said it would spend another $100 million to purchase certificates it will distribute to users who can cash them in for support on their Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Servers.

Microsoft floats PowerPoint 'canvas' prototype
Aug. 14, 2008
Microsoft Thursday floated a trial balloon on a new PowerPoint prototype that starts with a single view and uses a zoom feature for highlighting text, pictures and other details. Called pptPlex, http://www.officelabs. ...

Hosted e-mail seats will grow 40% by 2012, survey says
Aug. 14, 2008
The number of hosted e-mail seats will grow by nearly 40% in the next four years, with small-to-midsize businesses contributing to a portion of the boost, according to a new study by The Radicati Group.

Internet Explorer, Office hit hard on Patch Tuesday
Aug. 12, 2008
Microsoft Tuesday issued six critical patches, one less than expected, covering Windows, Office, Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player. Five other patches rated as important were delivered as part of Microsoft's ...

From Lego robots to hammers and nails, Linux gets embedded
Aug. 08, 2008
The computing industry is familiar with the low-cost lab known as the garage, a historic hot-bed for innovation, and this week LinuxWorld had its own "garage" to showcase embedded Linux.

IBM exec predicts the future of Linux, open source
Aug. 07, 2008
With LinuxWorld showcasing the popularity of the open source operating system, and with open source in general finding its legs in the enterprise, Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president of open source and standards, made a ...

Oracle to package apps on virtual machines
Aug. 06, 2008
Oracle Wednesday unveiled a set of "templates" that are fully configured systems distributed as virtual machines that can be used for testing purposes or for deployment.

IBM to open source supercomputing code
Aug. 05, 2008
IBM Tuesday marked its 10 years of participation in Linux and open source by introducing new software, upgrades to existing platforms and an open source code contribution focused on supercomputing.

Merrill Lynch building toward stateless data center
Aug. 05, 2008
Financial giant Merrill Lynch is building a stateless data center where it can dynamically combine capacity with operating system and application components to meet its computing needs in real time.

BitKoo clamps tight user controls on SharePoint
Aug. 04, 2008
Access-control vendor BitKoo Monday unveiled an authentication and authorization gateway that lets users control internal and external access to Microsoft's SharePoint server.

IBM counters Microsoft's software seat-stealing boast
Aug. 01, 2008
IBM/Lotus Thursday hit back at Microsoft's boast that it plans to steal 5 million Notes customers this year by detailing a new 300,000-seat licensing deal with an Asian company and strong interest in Notes from emerging ...

Alfresco creates open source SharePoint clone
Jul. 31, 2008
Alfresco Software Thursday said it has added support for SharePoint Server 2007 protocols to its Alfresco Labs 3 beta and created an open source clone of Microsoft's content management platform.

LinuxWorld: Community roots bolster Linux growth
Jul. 31, 2008
Linux is beginning to find its legs as the foundation in many different technologies and in the process is fueling a feedback loop that is helping accelerate the operating system's popularity.

Microsoft's open source guru faces slings and arrows
Jul. 30, 2008
Microsoft's Sam Ramji is like a turkey knocking on Thanksgiving's door. Ramji has the unenviable task of stretching his neck out into the open source world as Microsoft's representative. And on top of it, his employer ...

Microsoft puts up $100K to support Apache Software Foundation
Jul. 25, 2008
Microsoft Friday said it was contributing $100,000 in sponsorship money to the Apache Software Foundation in what the software giant called an endorsement of "the Apache Way" and made its first code contribution to an ...

Ballmer: Microsoft ready to claim title as top enterprise software vendor
Jul. 24, 2008
Microsoft is very close to being able to claim it is the No. 1 enterprise software company in the world, says CEO Steve Ballmer.

Sun offering support for OpenSSO
Jul. 24, 2008
Sun Wednesday said it would offer support to corporate users of OpenSSO open source identity technology and introduced a new version that also protects companies against patent infringement suits.

Microsoft wants to steal five million Notes customers
Jul. 24, 2008
Microsoft is seeking to get five million Lotus Notes customers to make the switch to Microsoft's collaboration tools in its fiscal 2009 year, according to Kevin Turner, COO for the software giant.