First F500 Linux licensee

SCO Group, the Unix copyright holder threatening Linux-using companies with legal action if they don`t pay for a licence to run it, has said an unnamed company in the Fortune 500 list of the world`s biggest companies had been convinced by its arguments, and took out licensing.

CNet reports the company said the deal illustrated the merits of its case, but analysts said the undisclosed terms of the deal could mean that it offered a good price to try to build momentum for its plan.

Eolas Technologies and the University of California have been awarded $520.6 million after a jury agreed Microsoft had infringed patents held by both organisations, reports The Register.

At the heart of the case is a patent granted to the University of California but administered by Eolas, a firm set up in 1994 by the inventors of the technology described in the patent to capitalise upon it.

The patent describes how a user can use a Web browser to access and execute a remotely stored program object that has been embedded in a Web page.

Microsoft`s new computer mice, due out on 3 September, will take scrolling in a new direction: sideways. The new innovation underlying Microsoft`s next generation of mice is the "tilt wheel", a feature that allows the scroll wheel set between the two mouse buttons to "lean" left and right.

Extreme Tech reports that most of Microsoft`s new mice will include tilt functionality. A spokesperson declined to comment on the names, number of models, or pricing of the new models. However, some retailers are already taking pre-orders.

The next generation of Oracle`s database, application-server and enterprise-management software, dubbed Oracle10G, will offer new capabilities to facilitate grid computing, Oracle executives say. InformationWeek reports that the software will be unveiled at next month`s OracleWorld conference in San Francisco.

Although there`s a perception that widespread adoption of grid computing is 10 or 15 years away, Robert Shimp, Oracle`s database product marketing VP, says companies can benefit from grid computing today. Oracle is keeping most details about the new products` specific capabilities under wraps. But Shimp says they will address grid computing`s current weaknesses, including the need for software that`s more self-managing.

Demand for anti-spam software will lift global sales of secure content management (SCM) products to at least $6.4 billion in four years` time, an independent report has said.

AFP reports that the International Data Corporation has said that message security, which includes anti-spam products, is the smallest segment of the SCM market, but will post the fastest growth in 2003 to 2007 with sales rising from $236 million last year to $1.1 billion in 2007.