VMware, Inc., (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter, today announced its stand-alone ESXi hypervisor will be available at no cost to help companies of all sizes experience the benefits of virtualization. Since 2001, VMware has provided the industry’s most popular and reliable hypervisor, which is now used by more than 120,000 customers. In December 2007, VMware announced significant improvements with ESXi – its third-generation stand-alone hypervisor. With the industry’s smallest footprint and OS-independence, ESXi sets a new bar for security and reliability. ESXi 3.5 update 2, available today, meets the criteria for mass distribution: (1) ease of use and (2) maturity and stability now having been ‘battle tested’ for six months with customers. The leading server manufacturers have all embedded VMware ESXi, including Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens, Hitachi, HP, IBM, and NEC. ESXi can be downloaded now from www.vmware.com/products/esxi/

According to Gartner Vice President Distinguished Analyst Tom Bittman, “Virtualization is one of the most impactful trends in computing. The availability of free hypervisors will undoubtedly grow the market and provide a compelling reason for companies that have not virtualized their environment to begin doing so. This is especially true for small to medium business customers and customers in emerging markets. The hypervisor itself is really just a foundation. The business model and real value in virtualization is evolving toward a virtualized infrastructure and the management and automation tools leveraging the hypervisor.”

“VMware has always believed that virtualization needs to be ubiquitous. We want to accelerate the day that x86 servers and desktops are fully virtualized,” said Raghu Raghuram, vice president of products and solutions, VMware. “With the explosive growth of multi-core capacity, improvements in virtualization-aware hardware, and performance improvements in our virtualization software, we believe that no technical hurdles remain for 100% virtualization. Now we are removing financial hurdles as well. ESXi is mature enough and easy enough to use that it can be the entry point into virtualization for those companies just taking their first steps with the technology.”

VMware ESXi is Easy to Deploy and Manage

ESXi is purpose-built for running virtual machines, minimizing configuration requirements and simplifying deployment. Customers can go from installation to running virtual machines in minutes, particularly when downloading and installing a pre-configured virtual appliance. There are over 800 virtual appliances that have been created for the VMware hypervisor on the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace, and ESXi now incorporates a direct integration with the Virtual Appliance Marketplace to allow users to immediately download and run virtual appliances. This enables a new and radically streamlined approach to plug-and-play software delivery and installation. Read what partners are saying about ESXi here: http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/esxi_p...r.html

“ESXi is a dynamic and affordable entry point for learning about the power and benefits of virtualization as we investigate a larger deployment with related products like VMware Site Recovery Manager,” said Ron Pike, associate, Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects LLP. “ESXi integrates easily with our storage area network for simple deployment, monitoring, and backup of our virtual machines.” Based in Portland, Oregon, Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects is a nationally recognized architecture, planning and interior design firm.

“ESXi installation is so simple that it takes only a few minutes to get up and running,” said Daniel Jacobs, systems analyst, Foothills School Division. “Plus creating virtual machines is a breeze and we can build them remotely in a few minutes. We run a number of operating systems as virtual machines including both Linux and Windows and only ESXi provides high quality support for them all.” Foothills School Division in Alberta, Canada, is located in the front range of the Rocky Mountains, and offers innovative educational services to its students and the community.

The Reliable, Secure and Scalable Platform for Applications

Built on the proven and mature technology found in the ESX hypervisor, named “most reliable” by publications like Redmond Magazine, ESXi extends this tradition with an operating-system independent architecture that minimizes attack surface area. ESXi offers features, such as 4 virtual CPUs, 256GB hosts, and memory de-duplication, for running the most resource intensive applications. This allows ESXi to offer the highest consolidation ratios and thus the lowest TCO and cost per virtual machine. These features work equally well across the broadest set of supported operating systems in the industry, including Windows, Linux, Netware, and Solaris.

The Most Trusted Foundation for Building a Virtual Datacenter

ESXi is the base virtualization platform that customers can build upon for continuous application availability and infrastructure security. VMware offers more than 20 additional software products for datacenter virtualization, desktop virtualization, application and infrastructure management and automation. With VMware Infrastructure 3, the industry-leading datacenter virtualization and management suite, customers can add to ESXi the benefits of centralized management, automatic load balancing, business continuity, power management and the ability to move a virtual machine across physical machines to minimize service interruption. VMware Infrastructure 3 is also compatible with VMware’s desktop virtualization and management solutions.

VMware Infrastructure 3 is available in three editions.

• VMware Infrastructure 3, Foundation Edition enables centralized management with VirtualCenter, automated patch management of physical and virtual machines with Update Manager, and off-line backups with Consolidated Backup.
• VMware Infrastructure 3, Standard Edition adds in VMware High Availability which automatically restarts virtual machines on a new host when a physical server fails. This provides an operating and application independent high availability solution without the cost and complexity of clustering.
• VMware Infrastructure 3, Enterprise Edition includes VMotion for the non-disruptive migration of running virtual machines, Storage VMotion for the live migration of virtual machine disks between storage locations, Distributed Resource Scheduler for dynamic load balancing based on application demand, and Distributed Power Management to reduce power consumption by powering down idle server capacity.

Proven In the Most Demanding Environments

Over 120,000 companies of all sizes and across all industries are using VMware and its partner products to simplify their infrastructure, dramatically reduce costs while improving service levels, and provide cost-effective availability and disaster recovery solutions to all of their applications. 100% of the Fortune 100 and 95% of the Fortune 1000 deploy VMware products. 85% of customers deploy VMware in production with 46% standardizing all or most new applications in a VMware virtual machine. The performance, quality, and ROI of VMware encourage 90% of customers to recommend VMware products to others. VMware virtualization is a fundamentally better way to deliver IT services and is a core technology component for every IT environment.

About VMware

VMware (NYSE: VMW) is the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter. Customers of all sizes rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green. With 2007 revenues of $1.3 billion, more than 120,000 customers and nearly 18,000 partners, VMware is one of the fastest growing public software companies. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, VMware is majority-owned by EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) and on the web at www.vmware.com.

VMware is a registered trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.

Related Links:

VMware ESXi Resources:

VMware ESXi Download site

VMware ESXi Documentation and Hardware Compatibility

VMware ESXi online training course  

VMware ESXi Web site

VMware ESXi product community

Virtual Appliances Market Place

Other Resources

VMware Infrastructure Web site

VMware Infrastructure team blog

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements made in this press release which are not statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements and are subject to the safe harbor provisions created by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements relate, but are not limited, to continuing customer adoption and deployment of our products and architecture, levels of demand for our products including market size and leadership, ongoing development and delivery of innovative new products and applications of our product. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (ii) delays or reductions in consumer or information technology spending; (iii) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures, industry consolidation, entry of new competitors into the virtualization market, and new product and marketing initiatives by our competitors; (iv) factors that affect timing of license revenue recognition such as product announcements and beta programs; (v) our customers’ ability to develop, and to transition to, new products, (vi) the uncertainty of customer acceptance of emerging technology; (vii) rapid technological and market changes in virtualization software; (viii) changes to product development timelines; (ix) VMware’s relationship with EMC Corporation, and EMC’s ability to control matters requiring stockholder approval, including the election of VMware’s board members; (x) our ability to protect our proprietary technology; (xi) our ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees; and (xii) fluctuating currency exchange rates. These forward looking statements are based on current expectations and are subject to uncertainties and changes in condition, significance, value and effect as well as other risks detailed in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2008, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. VMware disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.

Designed and priced for midsize businesses, Windows Essential Business Server 2008 simplifies your daily activities with a Centralized Administration Console that gives you a single point of access to your IT environment. Windows Essential Business Server 2008 also provides an integrated and predictable platform, allowing you to view, deploy, manage, and administer third-party applications from one starting point.

Download Page (registration required)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Fa...ang=en

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif.-July 10, 2008-Seagate (NYSE:STX) today unveiled the industry’s first 1.5-terabyte desktop and half-terabyte notebook hard drives to meet explosive worldwide demand for digital-content storage in home and business environments.

The debut of the Barracuda® 7200.11 1.5TB hard drive, the eleventh generation of Seagate’s flagship drive for desktop PCs, marks the single largest capacity hard drive jump in the more than half-century history of hard drives – a half-terabyte increase from the previous highest capacity of 1TB, thanks to the capacity-boosting power of perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology.

The Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive combines proven PMR technology, components and expert manufacturing to provide 1.5TB of reliable storage for mainstream desktop computers, workstations, desktop RAID, gaming and high-end PCs, and USB/FireWire/eSATA external storage.

Seagate’s new 2.5-inch half-terabyte 5400- and 7200-rpm drives – Momentus® 5400.6 and Momentus 7200.4 – deliver the best combination of capacity, mobility and durability for mainstream and high-performance notebook computers, external storage solutions, PCs and industrial applications requiring small form factor.

Highlighting the global growth of digital content, Seagate expects to ship its two billionth hard drive within the next five years. Earlier this year Seagate shipped its one billionth hard drive since the company’s inception nearly 30 years ago.

“Organizations and consumers of all kinds worldwide continue to create, share and consume digital content at levels never before seen, giving rise to new markets, new applications and demand for desktop and notebook computers with unprecedented storage capacity, performance and reliability,” said Michael Wingert, Seagate executive vice president and general manager, Personal Compute Business. “Seagate is committed to powering the next generation of computing today with the planet’s fastest, highest-capacity and most reliable storage solutions.”

Momentus 5400.6 and Momentus 7200.4 hard drives are the fourth generation of Seagate’s laptop family to use PMR. The Momentus 5400.6, a 5400-rpm drive, combines a powerful Serial ATA 3Gb/second interface and capacities ranging from 120GB to 500GB with an 8MB cache.

The Momentus 7200.4 hard drive, with its 7200-rpm spin speed and a Serial ATA 3GB/second interface, delivers true desktop performance. The power-efficient 7200-rpm drive maximizes battery life and comes in capacities ranging from 250GB to 500GB with a 16MB cache.

Both Momentus drives are built tough enough to withstand up to 1,000 Gs of non-operating shock and 350 Gs of operating shock to protect drive data, making the drives ideal for systems that are subject to rough handling or high levels of vibration. For added robustness in mobile environments, the Momentus 5400.6 and 7200.4 are offered with G-Force Protection, a free-fall sensor technology that helps prevent drive damage and data loss upon impact if a laptop PC is dropped. The sensor works by detecting any changes in acceleration equal to the force of gravity and parks the heads off the disc to prevent contact with the platter in a free fall of as little as 8 inches and within 3/10ths of a second.

Seagate’s new Momentus drives are lean on power consumption, allowing notebook users to work longer between battery charges, and are virtually inaudible thanks to Seagate’s innovative SoftSonic™ fluid-dynamic bearing motors and QuietStep™ ramp load technology.

The Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive combines the capacity and speed required for today’s most demanding desktop PC applications. The drive packs 1.5TB on just four platters and its fast Serial ATA 3Gb/second interface delivers an industry-leading sustained data rate of up to 120MB/second for fast boot, application startup and file access. The 3.5-inch drive is also offered in capacities of 1TB, 750GB, 640GB, 500GB, 320GB and 160GB with cache options of 32MB and 16MB.

All Momentus and Barracuda drives are backed by Seagate’s leading five-year warranty. You can find photos of these three new drives, and other Seagate products, at: http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/about/news_room/photos/

Availability
Shipments of the Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB are set to begin August 2008. Momentus 5400.6 and 7200.4 hard drives are to begin shipping in Q4 calendar 2008.

HOUSTON — July 8, 2008 — Today at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2008, Microsoft Corp. announced that Response Point Service Pack 1 (SP1) is now generally available. SP1 is a significant feature update to Microsoft Response Point, easy-to-use and -manage phone system software designed for small businesses with one to 50 employees. Current Response Point customers and partners in the U.S. and Canada can download SP1 for free at http://www.microsoft.com/responsepoint.

“Small businesses want the same powerful, productive and cost-saving features that big businesses enjoy, but tailored to their needs,” said Xuedong Huang, general manager of Microsoft Response Point. “By aligning with industry-leading vendors, SP1 delivers improved performance with many new features like voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) calling, in a complete phone system that can help small businesses and channel partners grow their businesses.”

Response Point SP1 builds on the overall ease of version 1 and enables small businesses to immediately take advantage of powerful new features, including session initiation protocol (SIP) trunking for VoIP calling; click-to-call functionality for any contact using the Assistant software; a call history log; and the ability to select music for parked calls and hold time. SP1 is a simple, free download that takes a matter of minutes for a customer or partner to install.

Aastra Debuts Response Point Hardware

Today at the conference, Aastra Technologies Ltd., one of three Response Point hardware manufacturers, announced the release of its debut Response Point-based phone system, AastraLink RP™. AastraLink RP base unit comes pre-loaded with SP1 and is available to customers in the U.S. and Canada starting today.

“The telephone is a cornerstone of small-business operations and customer relations,” said Yves Laliberté, executive vice president at Aastra. “We’re pleased to partner with Microsoft to deliver AastraLink RP, an easy-to-use, scalable phone system that will help small businesses achieve their business goals.”

Aastra offers a convenient starter package that includes a base unit, external analog telephony adapter and three phones (including one cordless model) for a suggested list price of $2,400. Additional desktop and cordless phones are available ranging in price from $139 to $399 MSRP for the cordless model; prices are estimated retail prices. D-Link Corp. and Quanta Computer Inc. also will begin to roll out SP1 on their Voice Center IP Phone System and Syspine systems, respectively.

New Industry VoIP Partner

Small businesses now have greater choice and flexibility for VoIP service on the Response Point SP1 phone system. Junction Networks, a leading VoIP provider, will offer SIP trunking service to Response Point customers. A small business can activate a new account with Junction Networks quickly and easily using the Response Point Administrator software. Junction Networks offers a pay-as-you-go service model, with no penalties to cancel at any time; a customer needs only a working Internet connection to acquire service and lines. Additional VoIP providers for the Response Point phone system include New Global Telecom Inc. (NGT) and Cbeyond, both of which have been announced previously.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass on Microsoft’s corporate information pages. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/contactpr.mspx.

Microsoft® Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2006 Service Pack 1 introduces new features and functionality to ISA Server 2006 Standard and Enterprise Editions.

Overview

The new features focus on configuration change management and enhanced troubleshooting designed to help you identify and resolve ISA Server configuration issues within the ISA Server Management console.

The service pack includes the following new features and feature improvements:

• Configuration Change Tracking—Registers all configuration changes applied to ISA Server to help you assess issues that may occur as a result of these changes.
• Test Button—Tests the consistency of a Web publishing rule between the published server and ISA Server.
• Traffic Simulator—Simulates network traffic in accordance with specified request parameters, such as an internal user and the Web server, providing information about firewall policy rules evaluated for the request.
• Diagnostic Logging Viewer—Now integrated as a tab into the ISA Server Management console, this feature displays detailed events on packet progress and provides information about handling and rule matching.
Improvements for existing features, including:
• Support for integrated NLB mode in all three modes, including unicast, multicast, and multicast with Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP). Previously, ISA Server integrated NLB-supported unicast mode only.
• Support for use of server certificates containing multiple Subject Alternative Name (SAN) entries. Previously, ISA Server was able to use either only either the subject name (common name) of a server certificate, or the first entry in the SAN list.
• Support for Kerberos Constrained Delegation (KCD) cross-domain authentication. Credentials from users located in a different domain than the ISA Server, but in the same forest, can now be delegated to an internal published Web site by using KCD .
• Support for client certificate authentication in a workgroup deployment. This removes the requirement to map each client certificate to an Active Directory® directory user account.

For more information about this service pack, see Microsoft Article 943462.

For general information about installing ISA Server updates and hotfixes, see Microsoft Article 885957.

Download Page:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Fa...ang=en

Adobe updated Acrobat Reader to version 9.0.0 .

Here is a direct download link to the installation file ( eBay application excluded):

http://ardownload.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/9...US.exe