In brief: Google buys online word processor

Google, which late last year brushed aside rumors it was developing productivity applications, can no longer feign lack of interest, because last week it acquired Writely, an online word-processing application. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Writely is a Web-based, collaborative document editor, but Upstartle, Writely's previous owner, says it is an entry point to a new way of managing documents, projects and Web sites online. Today the software is offered as a free service in the model of software as a service. Upstartle co-founder Sam Schillace told Network World in December that the company planned to introduce a premium level of service, presumably for a fee, that would be geared more to corporations and corporate workgroups and include document- and user-specific permissions, password-protected documents and user accounts.

The latest version of Research In Motion's BlackBerry Enterprise Server, introduced at Cebit last week, supports enterprise instant messaging and the development of applications that mobilize corporate applications, RIM says. Mobile Blackberry users at companies that have upgraded to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server Version 4.1 can IM with users of Microsoft Windows Messenger, Live Communications Server 2005 and IBM Lotus Sametime systems. Another new feature lets administrators wirelessly push data to replacement BlackBerry handsets without the users having to return to base. Previously, users would have downloaded data to a new device via a wired connection to their desktops.

In its monthly patch release Tuesday, Microsoft is expected to issue a critical security bulletin concerning the Office suite and a bulletin on Windows that is rated important, the company said last week. Also tomorrow, Microsoft plans to release an updated version of the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool. The company consolidates updates for its products into one monthly release on the second Tuesday of each month, which has come to be known as Patch Tuesday. In its Thursday advisory, the company didn't discuss what vulnerabilities the next round of security bulletins will address. The security bulletin for Office will involve updates that may require restarting systems. They will be detectable with the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer and the Enterprise Scanning Tool. The updates coming with the security bulletin on Windows will not require a restart. They will be detectable with the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer.

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Google, which late last year brushed aside rumors it was developing productivity applications, can no longer feign lack of interest, because last week it acquired Writely, an online word-processing application. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Writely is a Web-based, collaborative document editor, but Upstartle, Writely's previous owner, says it is an entry point to a new way of managing documents, projects and Web sites online. Today the software is offered as a free service in the model of software as a service. Upstartle co-founder Sam Schillace told Network World in December that the company planned to introduce a premium level of service, presumably for a fee, that would be geared more to corporations and corporate workgroups and include document- and user-specific permissions, password-protected documents and user accounts.

The latest version of Research In Motion's BlackBerry Enterprise Server, introduced at Cebit last week, supports enterprise instant messaging and the development of applications that mobilize corporate applications, RIM says. Mobile Blackberry users at companies that have upgraded to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server Version 4.1 can IM with users of Microsoft Windows Messenger, Live Communications Server 2005 and IBM Lotus Sametime systems. Another new feature lets administrators wirelessly push data to replacement BlackBerry handsets without the users having to return to base. Previously, users would have downloaded data to a new device via a wired connection to their desktops.

In its monthly patch release Tuesday, Microsoft is expected to issue a critical security bulletin concerning the Office suite and a bulletin on Windows that is rated important, the company said last week. Also tomorrow, Microsoft plans to release an updated version of the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool. The company consolidates updates for its products into one monthly release on the second Tuesday of each month, which has come to be known as Patch Tuesday. In its Thursday advisory, the company didn't discuss what vulnerabilities the next round of security bulletins will address. The security bulletin for Office will involve updates that may require restarting systems. They will be detectable with the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer and the Enterprise Scanning Tool. The updates coming with the security bulletin on Windows will not require a restart. They will be detectable with the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer.

IBM said last week it had developed technology to speed the way large computer networks access and share information. Under a project code-named Fastball, IBM's ASC Purple supercomputer has been able to achieve 102G byte/sec of sustained read-and-write performance to a single file, the equivalent of downloading 25,000 songs in 1 second over the Internet, according to IBM. The company's General Parallel File System software managed the transfer of data among thousands of processors and disk-storage devices. IBM said it enhanced the software in several areas to handle such fast data rates. The world's third most powerful supercomputer, according to the Top500 list, ASC Purple is housed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The Fastball project's capabilities were demonstrated at that lab. IBM supplied the computer to the U.S. Department of Energy and the lab for use in nuclear weapons research.