James Niccolai

ObjectWeb and the Apache Software Foundation, which each develop an open-source Java application server, have reached a technology sharing agreement designed to accelerate certification of their products under Sun Microsystems Inc.'s latest J2EE standard.

Sun Microsystems Inc. is hatching a plan to offer versions of its application server and Web server under an open source license, Jonathan Schwartz, the company's executive vice-president for software, said in an interview Wednesday.

Sun Microsystems Inc. has partnered with Zend Technologies Ltd. in a move to let developers deploy applications written using the PHP scripting language on Sun's Java Web server, the companies announced Monday.

BMC Software Inc. will soon release the first of its SmartDBA tools for IBM Corp.'s DB2 mainframe database, marking what it called a significant milestone in its effort to provide a single console for managing mixed database environments.

WebEx Communications Inc. will introduce several enhancements Thursday to Meeting Center, its service for conducting meetings over the Internet using a telephone and a PC with a Web browser.

Microsoft Corp. on Friday released the first public beta of a product that should allow developers to build and manage reports using its SQL Server 2000 database. It also disclosed pricing for the product and pegged it for release by the end of the year.

Three senior executives at Computer Associates International Inc., including its chief financial officer, have been asked to leave the company in an ongoing investigation over past accounting practices, CA announced Wednesday.

In what should come as a relief to some customers, Microsoft Corp. said it will continue to provide support for its Java virtual machine software until the end of September 2004, 10 months longer than it had originally planned, under a new licensing agreement announced Tuesday with Sun Microsystems Inc.