VMware working on public cloud service
Sources told CRN on Friday that VMware is developing a public cloud solution to compete with Microsoft's Azure and Amazon's EC2 services.
At VMware's Partner Exchange Conference in Las Vegas just last week, "sources familiar with the plans" let slip some information about the cloud service to CRN.
The public cloud solution is, reportedly, referred to internally as "VMware Public Cloud" and currently in beta.
CRN reported in August of last year that VMware was working on a similar-sounding hosted solutions service, but wrote that this latest leak refers to a separate project. Read more...
HP halfway through restructuring, 15K layoffs to go
Hewlett-Packard (HP) CEO Meg Whitman said this week that the company has reached the halfway point in its restructuring, with 15,000 employees left to cut to meet its layoff target.
HP last May announced plans to reduce its workforce by some 27,000 people out of a staff of 350,000. The company is using layoffs and early retirement incentives to reach its goal by the end of next year.
At the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference this week, Whitman talked about the challenges and opportunities at HP, but also praised a predecessor, former HP CEO Mark Hurd, for some of the steps he took.
Whitman said that something that Hurd did "very well" was to centralize global functions, including human resources, information technology, finance and legal. "Kudos to Mark Hurd for doing that," she said. Read more...
Evernote hit in hacking attack, users must reset their passwords
Evernote, which makes business and consumer productivity software for things like taking notes and doing research, is forcing all of its 50 million users to change their passwords after detecting a hacker intrusion on its sytem.
The attacker gained access to Evernote accounts' usernames, email addresses and passwords. Although passwords are encrypted, the company "in an abundance of caution" is implementing a password reset, the company said in a blog post on Saturday.
There is no evidence that the malicious hackers accessed user content nor that they got a hold of customers' payment information, according to the company. Read more...
Tech groups question new do-not-track bill
New legislation in the U.S. Senate that would allow Internet users to tell companies to stop tracking them is unnecessary and could slow e-commerce growth, some tech groups said.
Senators John "Jay" Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, and Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, reintroduced do-not-track legislation on Thursday. The Do-Not-Track Online Act, similar to legislation Rockefeller introduced in 2011, would require all online companies to honor do-not-track requests from consumers.
Online companies have failed to live up to promises to honor do-not-track requests, Rockefeller said in a statement. Read more...
Oracle ports DTrace to Oracle Linux
Oracle has ported one of its most coveted Solaris tools to the Linux platform, a real-time debugging tool called DTrace, though the company has made it officially available only for its own Oracle Linux distribution.
With the release of Oracle Linux 6.4, Oracle announced that participants in its Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN) -- available with a paid Oracle support license -- can download a copy of DTrace for Linux.
Many Linux developers and administrators have pined for a version of DTrace to run on Linux, a few even citing DTrace -- along with the ZFS (Zettabyte File System) -- as a major reason for not moving from Solaris to Linux. Red Hat's SystemTap, among other alternatives, duplicates some of DTrace's functionality for Linux, but doesn't offer the same level of granularity. Read more...