Microsoft surpasses rival Palm

Microsoft has overtaken the PalmSource operating system in the handheld computer market in the third quarter of the year, Washington Times reports.

According to research firm Gartner, Microsoft sold more than 1.3 million units over the third quarter, while PalmOne managed slightly more than 850 000.

However, the overall size of the handheld market is declining as more consumers shift to cellphones, MP3 players and other gadgets that incorporate electronic organiser features, says PalmSource chief competitive officer Michael Mace.

"Every time someone buys a Palm OS [operating system] smartphone, that`s one person less buying a Palm OS handheld, so shrinking handheld numbers are what you would expect."

Sun Microsystems has introduced its Solaris 10 operating system, expected to be commercially available in January.

The company invested over $500 million (R3 billion) into the latest version, which it says offers more than 600 new features.

Some customers who have been testing Solaris 10 have seen performance increases of as much as 500% when using the technology, says Sun software group head John Loiacono.

According to Reuters, Solaris 10 runs on computer servers using Sun`s own Sparc processors - so-called x86 processors made by Intel, AMD and others - as well as Opteron chips.

Solaris 10 will also allow customers to run software programs, written for Linux, natively on the operating system, without modifications, alongside programs written for Solaris, the company says.

VA Software will add Wiki integration to its SourceForge Enterprise Edition environment for collaborative application development in March 2005, InfoWorld reports.

The company will support Wikis - Web sites that allow content to be edited by any reader - in SourceForge Version 4.2, says VA Software product development senior VP Colin Bodell. "We`re applying more structure to Wikis" to make it easier to find relevant information. Users will be able to integrate Wiki pages with structured materials.

Version 4.2 will also integrate with the Subversion open source change management project, for checking in and checking out source code, and will integrate with existing change management offerings, says Bodell.