Microsoft takes on Apple music

Microsoft plans to launch its own online music download service on Thursday in the hopes of taking market share from its competitor, Apple.

According to AP, Apple is already dominant in the market, with its iTunes music store and iPod music player. There are also a number of other participants in the fledging industry, including RealNetworks` Rhapsody and Roxio`s Napster, but their market share is significantly smaller.

Microsoft is eager to establish its Windows Media format as the standard for copyright-protected digital music and video distribution. But the popularity of Apple`s products, which use different technology standards, could derail those plans, says Forrester Research principal analyst Josh Bernoff.

Software company Sendmail is developing an open source technology that could prevent spamming. The technology forms part of an Internet standard called Sender ID.

The company released a module of its e-mail server software that attempts to verify the source of spam, allowing Internet users to block mail from unwanted addresses, says Sendmail CEO David Anderson.

"Authenticating allows you to rely on who sent the message. We believe people will stop filtering out bad messages based on bad content and instead allow good messages with good senders."

The new module for the open source program, which runs on Linux and Unix operating systems, allows e-mail administrators to modify their systems and add the authentication technology.

The e-mail server will then forward messages with the necessary sender ID information and authenticate incoming e-mail messages using the system, reports ZDNet.

Rumours are rife that Apple plans to unveil a revamped version of its iMac desktop at today`s Apple Expo 2004 in Paris.

Apple has refused to comment on reports that it is about to launch the first iMac featuring the high-speed G5 processors used in its top-end Power Macs. Speaking to Forbes, Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said: "I couldn`t possibly comment on any of that."

The launch of the G5 iMac is long overdue, with its initial released expected by June. The first iMac, launched in 1998, sold six million units and helped the company stem a three-year run of financial losses.

Netline Internet Service has released its Openexchange Server as open source software.

The Openexchange product is a direct competitor to Microsoft`s Exchange e-mail and collaboration server software. According to ZDNet, the German company released the product under the General Public Licence, which is already used as part of Novell`s SuSE Linux Openexchange Server.

The product is available for download from the company`s Web site.