Stories by Julie Bort

VMware and Google on an acquisition frenzy in 2011

While the world has been distracted by HP's baffling $10.2 billion purchase of Autonomy and <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/subnets/microsoft/">Microsoft</a>'s surprising $9 billion buy of Skype, EMC/VMware and Google have been snapping up dozens of software companies throughout 2011.

Will IT certs get you jobs and raises? Survey says yes

Debate rages among IT professionals over the value of certifications, but a survey of 700 network professionals jointly conducted by Network World and SolarWinds may help put that argument to rest. Among those who earned certifications, most saw a significant boost in their careers as a result.

Microsoft releases manual fix for Duqu zero-day

<a href="http://www.networkworld.com/subnets/microsoft/">Microsoft</a> has released a Fix-it tool to allow <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/topics/windows.html">Windows</a> users to manually patch their systems to thwart the Duqu Trojan: <a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/advisory/2639658">Microsoft Security Advisory (2639658)</a>.

Microsoft expected to offer hot fix for Duqu soon

The big zero-day exploit on everyone's mind is Duqu, or "son of Stuxnet" - but researchers don't expect <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/subnets/microsoft/">Microsoft</a> to include a patch for it in next week's Patch Tuesday. Instead, a manual fix could be out as soon as this week.

Microsoft's Bing mobile app ships for iPhone, Android -- not Windows Phone

Microsoft has rolled out a new mobile app for Bing built with HTML5 and available first only to iPhone and Android users, not to Windows Phone users. It may be another indication that Microsoft is turning its attention away from its home-baked development platforms .Net and Silverlight and toward the industry-standard HTML5.

Microsoft claims Hyper-V will leapfrog VMware

After years of playing catch-up to VMware the upcoming version of Hyper-V is wowing the Microsoft faithful with unique new features -- and gaining the attention of VMware users, too, one consultant says.

Microsoft posts record quarter but says tablets have 'cannibalized' netbooks

Despite weak consumer demand for PCs, Microsoft posted record first quarter revenue of $17.37 billion for the period that ended Sept. 30. This beat analysts' reported expectations of $17.2 billion. Revenue increased 7% percent over the year-ago period. Microsoft credited the increase to enterprise demand for Office, server and development tools.

Microsoft strong-arms hardware makers into social responsibility

After years of failing to get <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/subnets/microsoft/">Microsoft</a> to adopt a formal environmental sustainability policy, shareholders seem to have won: Microsoft will now insist its hardware suppliers comply with the company's social responsibility requirements.

Red Hat raids cloud storage market by acquiring Gluster

Red Hat announced Tuesday that it is acquiring Gluster, which makes open-source software that clusters commodity SATA drives and NAS systems into massively scalable pools of storage, in a cash deal valued at about $136 million. Gluster is also a contributor to the OpenStack cloud project and Red Hat is promising this involvement will continue. Indeed, Red Hat is now uncharacteristically saying its support of OpenStack will grow even beyond Gluster to the next release of Fedora.

NEC to ship OpenFlow switch for Microsoft Windows Server 8 Hyper-V

Chalk up another big partnership win for Microsoft's Hyper-V from the world of virtual, programmable switching. NEC's OpenFlow-based network fabric, ProgrammableFlow, will be integrated with Windows Server 8 and Hyper-V when Windows Server 8 becomes available, NEC says. 

[]