News briefs

Microsoft to enhance Exchange

Microsoft plans to add speech-enabling technology to a future version of its Exchange Server as part of its unified messaging strategy, a move that could potentially compete with its third-party ISV partners. The addition of speech technology to the software giant’s messaging and collaboration server would enable a host of next-generation unified messaging scenarios, such as business users listening to their e-mail being read to them by an automated system over a mobile phone.

Oracle eyes Indian software company
Oracle said it will buy a majority stake in Indian banking software vendor i-flex Solutions, the latest in a string of acquisitions to strengthen the U.S. company’s applications business. The deal is Oracle’s latest move to expand beyond general purpose ERP applications to industry-specific software, and follows its acquisitions of retail software vendors Retek and ProfitLogic.

Penguin adds 64-bit BladeRunners

Linux hardware and clustering company Penguin Computing is releasing two new blade servers in its BladeRunner family. The BladeRunner 4130 and 4140 will be based on 64-bit chips from Intel and AMD, respectively. The 4130 is based on Intel’s Xeon EM64T 64-bit processor and is available now, and the 4140, which is based on AMD’s dual-core Opteron HE chip, should ship on Sept. 15.