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This month’s version of my Microsoft Codename Tracker includes a number of brand-new entries in the high-end server space — including MFx, Dryad, Nectar, Orleans, Quincy and TidyFS — plus lots, lots more.

The vulnerabilities expose Windows users to remote code execution attacks via maliciously crafted Web sites.

Cisco intends to acquire San Francisco-based Arch Rock Corp., developer of IP wireless network technology for the smart grid.

Hewlett-Packard officially won storage vendor 3Par after Dell declined to match a $33 a share, or $2.4 billion, bid.

3Par said Hewlett-Packard has raised its offer to $33 a share for the storage company, or $2.4 billion, after Dell countered with a $32 a share offer.

Asia Dent (right) must be the most famous face in Poughkeepsie today.

She was photographed by IBM PR recently putting a probe to a new 5.2 GHz chip that is at the heart of the company’s new zEnterprise mainframe, shipping next week.

Florian Mueller calls this the most dangerous product announcement of the century. That’s because zEnterprise could let IBM create a cloud monopoly among large enterprises, assimilating Linux under its mainframe patents.

All this goes back to the Turbo Hercules case, he writes.

You may recall that Turbo Hercules is an IBM mainframe emulator that works on PC-type hardware. When it was a labor of love IBM had no problem with it. When its maker tried to productize it, in the way other open source projects are productized, IBM’s lawyers were on him in a flash.

Hercules founder Roger Bowler then filed a complaint with the EC’s antitrust authorities, saying IBM was illegally tying its mainframe software to hardware.

The new chip makes those chains less burdensome to customers. They’ve got the fastest chip in the world on their side. And if you’re processing bank or credit card transactions (or health claims) that’s a very big deal.

This kind of transaction processing continues to grow rapidly. IBM has driven everyone out of the old mainframe business. Nearly everyone in the space — all the biggest global trade enterprises — have their key functions riding on IBM mainframes.

They’re thrilled with the new IBM mainframes.

Which means that if any scaled enterprise is going into the cloud, it’s taking its mainframe with it. IBM has kindly allowed this new mainframe to assimilate what Linux and Unix can do, without offering any way back.

It’s precisely what critics were accusing Microsoft Sharepoint of doing, but under complete patent protection and control.

In this way, IBM hopes to embrace and extend the cloud into its mainframe monopoly, and keep filing patents on the technology so as to make it an eternal lock on the top end of the business, Mueller writes.

Who is going to rewrite their core processing systems in order to gain the price benefits of true cloud technology?

Which may be why IBM doesn’t want to step up to the plate and be an open source hero.

Under the arrangement, Google provides search for AOL and the companies share revenue. The AOL-Google search pact now includes mobile search and YouTube.

It is common currency in open source to say that patents are an American problem.

That’s not true. Software patents, or patents on what is expressed in software, are a global problem.

(Picture from our Apple Core blog, co-starring Jason O’Grady and David Morganstern. Always filled with Apple-flavored bloggy goodness.)

This is especially true in the case of Apple, which has sued HTC (and by extension Google) for violating its claimed rights to multitouch technology.

As Florian Mueller explained recently, Apple filed international patent applications for how it operates its touchscreen display in early 2007, and how you unlock the device with gestures on the locked image, in late 2006. It applied for patents on its touch screen interface late last year.

From this it’s clear Apple thinks it has a worldwide monopoly on how the iPhone works, one that could last until late in the next decade. The questions courts must ask are:

1. Does this cover any portable touch screen system, as Apple contends, or just this particular system?
2. Should the patents be considered valid, since Google asserts it was working on its own Android system before the iPhone patents were filed.

There is another important question. Does it respect and reward innovation to give Apple control of all portable touch screen devices, for as long as touch screens may be an interface of choice? Would society have benefited if Microsoft had to wait until the 21st century to deliver Windows, or something like it?

Patent suits are most commonly filed in the U.S., Mueller writes, because this is still the largest technology market, because lawyers are comfortable with the legal system here and because victory usually leads to quick negotiations on global rights.

This leads me to two further questions:

1. If China creates a reasonable patent law framework, will its market eventually draw patent litigation there?
2. If U.S. legislators do return to patent reform, how will that impact technology markets worldwide?

Discuss.

Twitter in an email said it would begin logging all URLs that pass through its service as it delves more into link tracking. Twitter is looking to collect more data to improve its analytics.

Apple is trying again with Apple TV in an attempt to be the center of the digital living room. The concept isn’t new since Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Amazon and others are also targeting your living room. Here’s our ranking of the digital barbarians at your door.

Windows users were left out in the cold when Apple streamed its annual September event to showcase its lineup of music products for the holiday season. In its place, we offer you a lineup of video clips from the event, highlighting the new lineup of iPods. changes to iOS and an upgrade for AppleTV.
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