Also: Microsoft to release Windows Server 2003 R2 second beta ; Ballmer, McNealy to detail collaboration progress; China attacked by zombies; Services ReliableMessaging spec submitted
Qwest late last week said it had made what it called its “best and final offer” to purchase the outstanding shares of MCI for about $9.9 billion. The new offer raises the cash portion of Qwest’s bid by $2.50 per share, to $16 per share. Qwest maintained its offer of $14 per share in stock and plans to cover a recent 40 cents per share dividend paid by MCI to stockholders. Qwest’s new offer is about 30% higher than the $7.64 billion offer from Verizon that was accepted by MCI on March 29, Qwest said. Qwest set a deadline of 5 p.m. April 30 for MCI to consider its offer. Verizon responded in a statement: “As we move through the proxy process, we will continue to assess the situation and intend to take the necessary steps at the appropriate time to secure shareholder approval and complete our pending transaction.”
Microsoft this week plans to release the second beta test version of Windows Server 2003 R2, an update to Windows Server that the company expects to ship in the fourth quarter. The software will be available for download on Microsoft’s Web site, probably on Tuesday, a company spokeswoman says. The release will coincide with Microsoft’s Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Seattle and follows the limited release of the second beta last week to a select group of testers via the Betaplace Web site. A first beta test version of Windows Server 2003 R2 was released to about 1,500 testers in December. Microsoft expanded that pool to 2,800 early this year, but the first beta was still considered a “private” beta. The second beta will be a public beta and is set to run until the fourth quarter, when the final version of the software is scheduled to ship. Windows Server 2003 R2 is an interim release of Windows Server built on top of Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, which was released in late March. R2 will include most of the feature packs Microsoft has released since the initial Windows Server 2003 debuted, as well as new storage management capabilities and features such as branch server management and Active Directory Federation Services.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Sun Chairman and CEO Scott McNealy will host an event in mid-May to detail progress the companies have made since the signing of a 10-year collaboration agreement last year. The event will be the first time both CEOs publicly discuss their collaboration since the deal was closed in April 2004. Users and analysts have criticized the companies, saying the collaboration, which is intended to focus on interoperability, has not resulted in many tangible results. “Scott and I are going to do sort of a state of the union report [on] where we have gotten in a few weeks,” Ballmer said last week in a presentation at a Microsoft event. A Sun spokeswoman confirmed that an event is being planned for mid-May.
China’s rapid Internet growth has brought with it a somewhat disturbing side effect: multiplying zombies. Zombies, or Internet-connected computers infected by worms or viruses and under the control of a hacker, are used to launch denial-of-service attacks, or send spam or phishing e-mail messages. An average of 157,000 new zombies are identified each day, and 20% are in China, security company CipherTrust reported last week. CipherTrust analyzed e-mail collected throughout March and the first half of April from customers worldwide. It found that 57% of spam originated from the U.S., down from 86% during June and July of last year. As of January, there were 94 million Internet users in China, up 18% from the year before, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.
BEA Systems, IBM, Microsoft and Tibco last week submitted the Web Services ReliableMessaging specification they have been developing to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards. The specification lays out how to guarantee the delivery of messages between applications, especially those executing business transactions. OASIS for the past two years has been working on a similar specification called WS-Reliability, which was originally submitted in January 2003 by Fujitsu, Hitachi, Oracle, NEC, Sonic Software and Sun. OASIS has not decided if it will accept the specification. The WS-RM group hopes OASIS will form a technical committee to review its work and has said it would not charge royalties in conjunction with the WS-RM specification.
