Microsoft's dozen red alerts for Valentine Patch Tuesday

Microsoft plans to release 12 security patches next Tuesday including one repairing a 'critical' flaw in its anti-spyware product. As part of its monthly cycle of patches, dubbed 'patch Tuesday', the software company will be issuing the code to fix an undisclosed number of vulnerabilities in its software. There will be patches covering flaws in its operating systems (XP and older), Office software, Microsoft Data Access Components and its Visual Studio development tool as well. ...more

Dell posts a heavy loss

Dell posts more gloomy figures for the PC market, reporting a net loss for its second quarter of $101m. In the manner of a vicious cycle, the company attributed some of the losses to charges related to recent job cuts. In terms of revenue, the company's sales were $7. ...more

Key open-source code passes muster

Analysis of the source code for key open-source projects has shown fewer than 29 'defects' in every 100,000 lines of code. Analysis of the LAMP stack - the Linux platform, Apache web server, MySQL database and Perl, PHP or Python scripting languages - showed that the commonly used open-source building blocks were well below the average for some 32 open-source projects scrutinised by Coverity. These included the likes of Samba, gcc, Gnome and FreeBSD. ...more

Windows XP unveiled

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates showed off the new XP operating system yesterday at an event held in the Experience Music Project in Seattle. He described it as "The most important Windows release since Windows 95." Gates and Windows exec Jim Allchin previewed some of the new features of the OS, which has cost some $1bn to develop. ...more

EC clears Hitachi's IBM disk takeover

The European Commission has given the go-ahead for Hitachi to acquire sole control of IBM's hard disk business. A statement issued by the Commission reads that although 'As a result of the transaction, Hitachi will have a leading position in HDDs for mobile applications.. ...more