Google enlists help

Google plans to announce the formation of an "open phone" coalition, with the goal of developing an operating system for the so-called Google Phone, says USA Today.

The new operating system, geared specifically for cellphones, will be used to showcase and promote Google`s ever-growing panoply of services; much like Microsoft has done for decades with its Windows operating system.

Google`s coalition partners, as of Sunday, included Sprint, Motorola, Samsung and Japanese wireless giant NTT DoCoMo, according to people familiar with Google`s plans. They declined to be identified because they weren`t authorised by Google to speak publicly.

GigaSpaces Technologies and GridGain Systems announced their partnership, which offers a high-performance grid computing platform for Java, reports Grid Today.

The joint offering integrates GigaSpaces` eXtreme Application Platform (XAP) with GridGain`s computation grid framework, enabling businesses to process high volumes of data, transactional or analytical, in extremely short periods of time. In addition, the two companies will co-operate on joint marketing and sales efforts.

GridGain provides an open source computational grid framework that enables Java developers to improve general performance of processing intensive applications by splitting and parallelising the workload. With GridGain, developers can achieve better overall throughput, better scalability and availability of services.

Oracle`s fastest-rising executive has just stepped into a job that could determine how successful the world`s second-biggest software company will be during the next decade, says Business Week.

Thomas Kurian, described as thoughtful, charismatic, eloquent, and ambitious, took the helm of Oracle`s Fusion project during October amid growing worries that the pivotal, complicated initiative may underwhelm customers and investors when it arrives in late 2008.

The first Fusion version of Oracle`s applications will attempt to solve those problems using the Java programming language and "Web services", an industry term for a set of Internet communications protocols. If successful, Fusion will lower customers` IT costs, yet keep them doling out lucrative support and maintenance fees to Oracle for years to come.