Articles by Jack M. Germain

Does the mobile phone world really need yet another platform, opensource or otherwise? South Korean-based electronics firm Samsung answered yesto that question on Tuesday when it announced thelaunch of Bada Bada, the Korean word for "ocean," is a new open platform that Samsunghopes will become a top phone OS in the future. Samsungenvisions its new ...

In a move that resembles a major food vendor giving away its prizerecipe -- minus the secret sauce -- to all of its customers and competitors, Yahoo onMonday donated the source code for its Traffic Server software to theApache Software Foundation through the Apache Incubator Project Yahoo hopes to grow a community of productusers who return to use ...

In the field of computer technology, some topics are so frequently and fiercely disputed that they almost resemble religious feuds -- Mac vs. PC, for instance, or open source vs. proprietary software Other topics, though, don't see nearly the same level of high-profile debate. Take the invulnerability of AES (the Advanced Encryption Standard) encry...

Windows 7 is on my wish list. I wish Microsoft didn't raise theequipment ante required to run its new operating system. I wishMicrosoft built in an easy upgrade path from Windows XP. I wishMicrosoft provided Windows 7 with some kind of Wow Factor that gave me acompelling reason to change my computing strategy....

Unix software firm SCO Groupannounced a corporate restructuring plan Monday to sever ties withCEO Darl McBride and reduced the company's workforce. The restructuring wasdesigned by the firm's Chapter 11 bankruptcy trustee, Edward Cahn These moves and other corporate adjustments will help the companycontinue its longstanding court battle against IBM...

Cross-site scripting (XSS)/SQL injection attacks have been blamed for numerous data breaches, perhaps most notably the nightmare of the Heartland Payment Systems data breach. This type of attack has been around for at least a decade However, the growing popularity of Web 2.0 applications and the tendency for programmers to continue with old, insecu...

Today's volatile economy is pushing more companies to consider themerits of a virtual workplace for some or all of their employees.Often, however, the idea fails to goanywhere because neither managers nor their workers are sure how toget started Also, attitudes among some old-school managers pose hurdles that blockworkers from pursuing virtual work...

It is rather challenging to hit a moving target when it keeps changingdirections. That's a bit like how Cameron Brain, CEO of Open BoxTechnologies, felt when he set his sights ona particular business market while still in college In 2006, Brain and a group of classmates at Rensselaer PolytechnicInstitute in Troy, N.Y., started to dabble in online s...

Openbravo announced on Tuesday its next-generation enterprise resourceplanning (ERP) product, called "QuickStart," an alternative to thecompany's generally more labor-intensive community package QuickStart represents a change in strategy for Openbravo. Unlike the ERP product that bears the company's name, QuickStart is not open source. It is propri...

Having secured funding from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners,Lightspeed Venture Partners and Morgenthaler Ventures, MuleSourcecofounder Ross Mason turned what was the Mule Project into an opensource player on the fast track. Re-invigorated with new CEO GregSchott when another cofounder, Dave Rosenberg, left the company, MuleSource hasbeen ramping up its business in the wake of a recession that hasgutted some proprietary legacy players...

Mention social networks to most Web users, and they'll likelytell you about general-interest gathering places like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. However, other social networks -- some large, some small -- exist to provide users with a way to communicate about slightly more specific topics. LinkedIn, for one, emphasizes professional and career networking. Wesabe is one that's focused on personal finance...

The security of any given computer system is no better than the skills researchersbring to finding the next potential program flaw. Network securityworkers concentrate on updating patches and making sure only validatedusers can access the corporate LAN (local area network). Meanwhile, security researchershunt for existing but unidentified infrastructure flaws that could letin the bad guys...

In 2004, KnowledgeTree CEO Daniel Chalef had no idea his interest in developing an open sourcedocument management product would thrust his South African company into prominence.That's the time a government agency there approached him to help the Medical Research Council retain control of its documents and track sharedaccess That South African counc...

You might say that entrepreneur Alan E. Hall lives in two businessworlds. Don't complain to him how challenging it is to grow a businessin today's fragile economy. He knows those struggles firsthand as abusiness owner. He also knows how next-to-impossible it is forstartup business owners to find financial backers. He is the founder and chairman of...

You might say that entrepreneur Alan E. Hall lives in two businessworlds. Don't complain to him how challenging it is to grow a businessin today's fragile economy. He knows those struggles firsthand as abusiness owner. He also knows how next-to-impossible it is forstartup business owners to find financial backers. He is the founder and chairman of...

You might say that entrepreneur Alan E. Hall lives in two businessworlds. Don't complain to him how challenging it is to grow a businessin today's fragile economy. He knows those struggles firsthand as abusiness owner. He also knows how next-to-impossible it is forstartup business owners to find financial backers. He is the founder and chairman of...

In the U.S., consumers are accustomed to paying for merchandise with checks, credit cards and debit cards. Online shopping and banking transactions are dependent on electronic money transfers between vendors and their customers' financial institutions That experience, however, is not universal. Consumers in Europe and Asia are used to different typ...

Part 1 of this two-part series discusses ways to transition into Linux without leaving Windows behind all at once Six months ago, I began a self-imposed experiment to see if I couldsurvive leaving Windows XP behind. After all, despite its flaws anddecade-old technology, the aging Microsoft OS had served me well. However,I decided to skip Windows 7 ...

Microsoft has a very clever philosophy that it uses to keep consumersmisinformed about the benefits of the Linux operating system. It's asimple message that effectively dissuades consumers from deviatingfrom the Microsoft upgrade path to Windows 7 The argument basically asserts that consumers making the Windowsupgrade will continue to enjoy a fami...

It seemed like a logical leap: If you already provide shoppers with couponsonline, what's to stop you from offering them an online source for e-gift cards? So thefounders of online gift card company CashStar pooled resources withonline shopping coupon mogul Coupons Inc. to create an outlet formerchants to offer more services than are available fr...