The company announced that its Windows Advanced Server, Limited Edition, is now available for computers based on Intel's 64-bit Itanium chip. Microsoft said that Compaq Computer, Dell Computer, HP and IBM will start shipping servers running the new operating system within 30 days. The OS is based on the Win2000 codebase, while its 64-bit WindowsXP version will be available next year. In the meantime, Internet Explorer 6 was made available for download yesterday, and it includes several new features. Our Take: While most of the new IE6 features are pretty reduntant for me, the new version fixes an important crashing bug I had with the browser when browsing specific sites (Sourceforge and even Apple to mention a few) that utilized, through javascript, the PC clock. The bug was only reproducible when some special ASP server software was also installed in the same PC (which I had installed). Glad to see at least that specific bug (DLL-hell, to be more specific) go away!

In his latest (and final) BeView column for Byte.com, Scot Hacker takes a harsh look at the way Microsoft's Windows Licensing Agreement has affected Be's business with Hitachi and other PC vendors, as well the entire OEM hardware landscape. While the Hitachi relationship was no secret, this is the first time Be has divulged way in which Microsoft's sinister bootloader license kept BeOS from shipping on dual-boot machines from Hitachi, Dell, Compaq, and Micron. Be, Inc. nearly had deals with other major OEMs, and this is the first time JLG has told the complete story of Be's involvement with the DOJ case against Microsoft. Hacker adds: "I had a final column farewell attached to the end of the piece, but Byte removed it for some reason. So, quickly: It's been a great ride with Byte, and I'd like to thank all of the readers who have supported the column over the past 2.5 years. There is still life beyond Windows!"

Most of the big BeOS news sites are down (mostly server hardware failures), so OSAlert is taking the initiative to publish an all-around BeOS news article. First of all, a whole lot of nice software has been released on BeBits recently. Sequitur 2.0 is here, Palm Reflections, i.Scribe and even a new version of OpenTracker. Ubix.org is reporting that Apacabar is selling out its BeOS-related software, offering among others, BeOS 5 Pro and even T-Racks ($299 original price) for 99 French Franks (about $13 USD) each. I sent to Palm's CEO, Mr. Carl Yankowski, 5 questions for a mini-interview (questions that most BeOS users have in their mind these days), but instead, Marlene Somsak, Senior Director at Palm, replied:

MozillaZine reports that the next minor version of Mozilla, 0.9.4 should be out soon, while MozillaQuest reports that this release is scheduled for September 7th. MozillaQuest also reports that version 1.0 is set back for release to 2002 when previous roadmaps had set this release for December 2001.

The editorial, over at ZDNet, explains the impact .NET will have on Linux, analyzes the Ximian's Mono initiative and how all this will also have an impact on the open source and Free software in general.

Microsoft announced that its WindowsXP operating system is now complete and that the company will present the final "gold code" version to computer manufacturers today. Windows XP is scheduled for widespread release on October 25th and will be available in several versions: WindowsXP Home Edition will be available as an upgrade for Windows 98/ME users while WindowsXP Professional will be available as an upgrade for Windows 2000/NT users. In the meantime, this month 10 years ago, Linus Torvalds first invited open-source folks to play with his free operating system. Now Linux has grown a lot and it is serious business for giants like IBM, Compaq and HP and competes straight with Microsoft's OS offerings.

Get a free CD containing IBM Linux middleware products, tools, e-busines roadmaps, and documentation. The IBM Software Evaluation Kit for Linux CD contains the following: IBM WebSphere Application Server, Advanced Edition V4.0 for Linux, IBM DB2 Universal Database Enterprise Edition V7.2 for Linux, Lotus Domino Server Release 5.0.7a for Linux, IBM MQSeries V5.2 for Linux, VisualAge for Java, Professional Edition Version 4, Web Services tools, Java and XML tools, e-business documentation and roadmaps.

In this interesting interview, Hyperion Entertainment gives their views upon the currently troubled Linux games market. Ben Hermans also recently attended a Dutch Amiga show as one of the AmigaOne partners. Hyperion has acquired many game licenses for various alternative computer platforms, including Majesty and Soldier of Fortune.

From the Press Release: "Intel Corp today announced version 5.0 of the Intel C++ Compiler for Linux and the Intel Fortran Compiler for Linux. The compilers are specifically designed to help developers fully utilize the architectural innovations in the Intel Itanium and Pentium 4 processors, allowing for easy access to all of the performance features of Intel's latest processors." Our Take: The big news is not just to dryily report this release for Linux. The real news here is that Linux can now have an incredibly good compiler. Sharing a house with 4 ex-Be engineers in the past taught me at least one thing: the Intel compilers are many times faster (in generated executable code quality and compilation speed) than GCC 3.X and even VC++. While GCC is free and Intel's Proton costs $399, still, for professional use or for apps where execution speed matters (games or scientific software for example), Proton and VTune seems like the clear choice.

ZDNet writes: "Over the last decade, Linux has evolved from the pet project of a Finnish university student to a worldwide platform. The undisputed strength of Linux in the server arena has led to widespread adoption in the business arena--case in point, the ubiquitous Apache Web server, which serves roughly 65 percent of the world's Web sites." ZDNet continues with a full review of seven well-known Linux distributions, an interesting read especially for those who are still undecided as to which distro suits them better.