Glossary of People, Companies, and Products

Acer

Company. Taiwanese maker of consumer desktop computers, laptops, and various peripherals. Among the top sellers of computers worldwide.

Active Directory

Technology. Microsoft's name for the database that underlies a private network domain managed by Microsoft Windows servers. It contains information on all resources in the domain (servers, workstations, and printers), user accounts, and security settings and configuration policies. Computers that are part of a Windows domain use the information in Active Directory to find shared folders and printers, for the most part transparently to the user.

See also: Microsoft, domain

ActiveSync

Technology. System developed by Microsoft that allows you to access your Microsoft Exchange Server mailbox from your mobile phone, including e-mail, contacts, calendar items, and a tasks list. It is also now supported by Droid-based phones, the iPhone, and phones made by Palm. Significantly, IBM and Novell, the publishers of the two major competitors of Exchange Server, both licensed ActiveSync to enable mobile phone support for their mail server products instead of developing their own. Originally, this term applied to the system used by early phones running the Windows Mobile operating system to synchronize documents and messages with a desktop or laptop computer back in the late 1990s, which is no longer used. The technology for synchronization with Exchange Server mailboxes was introduced in 2002.

See also: Microsoft, Exchange Server, sync, push technology, Enterprise Activation

ActiveX

Technology. Program extensions compatible with Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser, which do not work in other browsers such as Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome.

See also: web browser

Adobe Systems

Company. Significant and successful company that has produced widely used application software and graphic design technologies since the early days of the PC. Notable products include Photoshop photo editing software, Illustrator for graphic design, Dreamweaver for web site design, and the Flash player platform integrated into all modern web browsers. In addition, Adobe invented early innovative desktop publishing technologies such as PostScript and related proportional fonts that were used by Apple in the first desktop laser printers. Adobe also invented the universal PDF file format, and produces the free Adobe Reader software for displaying PDF files, and the Acrobat application for generating and editing PDF files.

See also: PDF, Flash

Allman, Eric

Person (1955 - ). Computer scientist credited with developing the sendmail program in the early 1980s, which delivered most of the Internet's e-mail in the ensuing decades, and still maintains a significant presence. In addition, the logging system built in to sendmail, called syslog, became an Internet standard was well, currently used by millions of UNIX-based servers as well as networking devices worldwide to record system status and error messages.

Amazon.com

Company. Originally founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos as an online bookseller during the infancy of the Internet commerce era, Amazon.com eventually became one of the largest online retail sales sites in the world. Amazon.com was able to achieve this largely due to having built its own highly functional and reliable global network computing infrastructure to properly service its own developers, employees, and millions of customers every day. Today, Amazon.com is also a major cloud computing and storage service provider, offering the use of its computing capability to the public under the brand name of AWS (Amazon Web Services). The top-line products of AWS include Amazon S3 (storage service) and Amazon EC2 (virtual servers), used by many major online service providers, streaming content providers, and software publishers.

See also: Jeff Bezos

AMD

Company. Major producer of Intel-compatible microprocessors, second most popular in the PC market behind Intel.

See also: Intel, microprocessor

America Online

Company. The largest and most well-known online services provider in the 1980s before the existence of the web, then the largest dial-up Internet access provider during the heyday of dial-up access, and now still a major presence in the online services arena. Also known as AOL. Very high-profile due to their unsolicited mass-mailing of their software CDs many years ago, other major marketing efforts, and simply the fact that they had tens of millions of subscribers. AOL has long offered additional online services available through their custom software that are not available to those who access the Internet by other means. In the 1990s, due to the sheer number of subscribers, most AOL subscribers knew several other people personally who were also on AOL. Because of this, and the heavily branded custom software used to access AOL services and Internet web sites alike, many AOL subscribers thought of AOL as one and the same as the Internet and/or being online in general.

Android

Technology. Software developed by Google that drives the latest generation of mobile phones, competing with iPhone and Windows Mobile. Similar to the Apple iPhone and the Apple App Store, all Android-based phones offer access to the Android Market, with countless applications to install.

See also: Google, Droid, iPhone, Windows Mobile

AOL

See: America Online

Apache

Software Product. A widely-used open-source web server software package that has run a majority of the world's websites since the 1990s. The actual name of the package is called Apache HTTP Server, one of many projects handled by the Apache Software Foundation.

Apple

Company. Creator and manufacturer of all Macintosh (Mac) computers, the iPhone, iPad, and iPod, and developer of iTunes and the QuickTime video player system. Innovative and consistent trend-setter since the mid-1970's, with passionate devotees who enthusiastically pay a premium for their fashionable and functional products. The most notable personality of Apple was its co-founder and CEO, Steve Jobs.

See also: Macintosh, iTunes, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Steve Jobs

AWS

Software Product. Acronym for Amazon Web Services. Major cloud infrastructure, platform, and application software service offered by Amazon.com. Includes EC2 for Microsoft Windows and Linux virtual machines, S3 for web and other content hosting, and several other services providing cloud-hosted databases, analytics applications, data archiving, and development platforms.

See also: Amazon.com

Azure

Software Product. Microsoft's cloud infrastructure, platform, and application software service based on Microsoft products such as Windows Server, IIS, SQL Server, and Visual Studio.

Berners-Lee, Tim

Person (1955 - ). European computer scientist who invented the World Wide Web (that is, essentially inventing the Internet as we know it) by implementing the combination of communications protocols necessary for it to work, then building the first web site and web browser.

See also: World Wide Web

BES

Software Product. Acronym for BlackBerry Enterprise Server. This is proprietary software produced by RIM, now available in a free Express edition for a limited number of users, that runs alongside a Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino, or Novell GroupWise e-mail system, to automatically synchronize e-mail, contacts, calendars, and tasks lists with BlackBerry mobile phones.

See also: Research In Motion, ActiveSync

Bezos, Jeff

Person (1964 - ). Clever American entrepreneur, innovator, and founder and CEO of Amazon.com.

See also: Amazon.com

Bing

Website. Microsoft's web search engine, accessible through an installable toolbar in your browser, or on the MSN or Bing websites.

BlackBerry

Product Brand. One of the first successful smart phones with Internet e-mail and web browsing capabilities, a full keyboard, and the ability to run installed applications like a computer. Introduced in 2002 by Research in Motion Limited (RIM). Although RIM built a strong brand image in the ensuing years for the BlackBerry, and the phone's functionality in terms of remote managability, security features, and compatibility with business e-mail systems is superior, the BlackBerry has lost tremendous market share in the past few years to Android-based phones and iPhones, which simply offer a better user experience.

See also: smart phone, iPhone, Android, Symbian, Research In Motion

Carbonite

Website. Online data backup service for business and home users, founded in 2005 by Carbonite, Inc. Due to excellent marketing over the years, Carbonite is one of the two most well-known online backup services (the other being Mozy), amongst the many dozens of websites offering the same service.

See also: Mozy

Cerf, Vinton

Person (1943 - ). Highly accomplished Ph.D. in computer science. Best known as the co-inventor of the TCP and IP networking protocols in the early 1970s at ARPA, meaning essentially that he, along with Bob Kahn, invented the Internet.

See also: Bob Kahn

Chrome

Software Product. Web browser created by Google, first released in 2008, now optimized to support Google's online web services.

See also: Google

Chromebook

Product Brand. A laptop computer running Chrome OS, which is essentially only the Chrome browser, for running web-based applications (particularly Google's). It is only able to run applications designed for Chrome OS, limiting its versatility compared to conventional laptops, but more functional than a tablet for web-based business applications due to its full size keyboard. Chromebooks are manufactured not only by Google, but by partners such as Acer, Samsung, Lenovo, and HP. Schools have been the most prolific customers.

See also: Google, laptop, tablet

Cisco

Company. Standard-setting provider of networking equipment, such as routers, switches, e-mail and digital telephone systems. Best known for their routers, the prestigious certifications they offer related to their products, and outstanding technical support.

See also: Juniper Networks

Citrix

Company. Well-known name in the remote/virtual desktop domain, particularly due to their widely-used remote access software products such as WinFrame, MetaFrame, Presentation Server, and XenApp, and related technological innovations. Large companies have for years deployed their users' desktop computers as virtual machines, or just certain application programs as virtual applications, using Citrix software.

See also: virtual machine

Compaq

Company. Early manufacturer and innovator of the portable PC, the precursor to the laptop. The company name reflected the "compact" nature of its systems. Now owned by HP, the HP-Compaq line focuses on home computer use.

See also: Hewlett-Packard (HP)

Corel

Company. Canadian software company best known for CorelDRAW graphic design program, Corel Photo-Paint photo editor, and Corel WordPerfect.

See also: WordPerfect

Debian

Software Product. Venerable Linux distribution dating back to 1993, founded by Ian Murdock. Known for its reliability due to a decentralized development model with hundreds of volunteer contributors and a strong formal development, source code control, bug-tracking, and testing systems, and a conservative approach in choosing stability over cutting-edge features.

See also: Linux

Dell

Company. The most popular personal computer maker in history, although not necessarily the highest selling (often beat by HP). Pioneer in direct sales and marketing to end users. Second-most successful, behind Apple, in culling brand loyalty amongst its customers.

See also: Hewlett-Packard (HP), Apple

DOS

Software Product. Acronym for Disk Operating System. The most widely used operating system for PCs in the 1980s and early 1990s, before being superseded by Microsoft Windows. Its characteristic feature was its ability to support only one running application program at a time, and its command-line user interface that required users to know what commands to type to manage their files on disks or start a program. The branded version licensed by Microsoft was called MS-DOS, and other versions used similar nomenclature (such as PC-DOS by IBM, or DR-DOS by Digital Research). Sometimes people refer to any text-only command-line interface as "DOS" to describe its appearance, but many systems besides DOS may appear this way.

See also: Windows

Droid

Product Brand. A heavily marketed brand of smart phone manufactured by Motorola, and available only through Verizon Wireless. It runs on the Android software platform, developed by Google, and was designed to take the popular iPhone head on. HTC and Samsung also make Android-based phones available through Verizon Wireless, which have their own brand names, but are often referred to as Droid phones anyway.

See also: iPhone, Android

eBay

Website. Among the busiest and most popular websites in the world, owned by eBay Inc., offering individuals and business the ability to post new and used consumer goods and collectibles for sale in an online auction or with fixed prices.

EMC

Company. A major manufacturer and service provider in the enterprise storage domain, and owner of many well-known other product brands, such as Iomega, Mozy, RSA Security, and VMware.

See also: Iomega, Mozy

Enterprise Activation

Technology. This is the method of connecting a BlackBerry mobile phone to a Microsoft Exchange Server, Lotus Domino, or Novell GroupWise e-mail system, to automatically synchronize e-mail, contacts, calendars, and tasks lists. The mail system server must have BES installed. Also, the BlackBerry user has to subscribe to what's usually called an Enterprise Data Plan with his cellular provider for this to work.

See also: ActiveSync, BlackBerry, BES

Excel

Software Product. Microsoft's spreadsheet, part of the Microsoft Office suite.

See also: spreadsheet, Microsoft Office

Exchange Server

Software Product. A corporate e-mail, personal information management, and collaboration system developed in the mid-1990s by Microsoft for networks based on Windows servers. It offers users remote access to their centrally stored mailbox (including stored e-mail messages, contacts, and calendars), corporate contact lists, and shared resources, using the Microsoft Outlook software, a web browser (using what is called Outlook Web Access), and mobile phones.

See also: Microsoft, Lotus Domino, GroupWise

Facebook

Website. Very high-profile social networking website launched in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and his associates. It allows users to construct their personal web page with photos and messages from other Facebook users, as well as a list of groups to indicate pop culture and political tastes, for free. Users can access and update their pages, and receive notifications of their friends' updates, from mobile phones as well as a standard web browser. Its ease of use and addictive nature drove Facebook's popularity to surpass the former social networking leader, MySpace, in the late 2000s. Facebook represents the first time a private website owned by a private company has itself become a new distinct communications medium, for individual messaging, broadcasting to groups of friends, and even holding online meetings of potentially millions of users that can lead to kinetic action in real life—all of which is possible on any website, but is particularly feasible and powerful due to the sheer size of the Facebook user base. Because of this, Facebook is under frequent scrutiny for its use of personal information posted by users (for the benefit of its advertisers), the extent to which it allows or prevents users from controlling information previously posted, and the power this one company can potentially have over political and social discourse in controlling communications within its system.

See also: MySpace, Mark Zuckerberg

Firefox

Software Product. Web browser introduced in 2004, descended from Netscape Navigator, which proved to be a very popular alternative to Internet Explorer last decade, although its popularity has since tapered.

See also: web browser

Flash

Technology. A web-based animation software platform created by Adobe.

See also: Adobe Systems

Flash Player

Software Product. Free download from Adobe for playing Flash-based content on web sites.

See also: Flash

Free Software Foundation

Company. Group founded by Richard Stallman in the 1980s to promote open-source software and crusade against proprietary software; developed the GNU Public License (GPL) as a legal mechanism to prevent open-source software from being incorporated into any proprietary software.

See also: Richard Stallman, GNU, GPL, open source

Gates, Bill

Person (1955 - ). Co-founder and long-time chairman of Microsoft; a powerful and high-profile industry titan known as much for being among the richest people in the world as for what he and his company actually produced.

See also: Microsoft

Gmail

Website. Free web-based e-mail system launched by Google in 2004, which was available by invitation only for the first few years. It offered a new approach to spam filtering, more storage space, and an innovative interface for searching your mailbox and organizing messages which has since been adopted by its competitors.

See also: Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, spam, Google

GNU

Software Product. Open-source version of the UNIX operating system written from scratch, started in the early 1980s by Richard Stallman and the GNU Project group. The operating system is mostly complete, except for the kernel; however, GNU has been widely used for many years in combination with the Linux kernel.

See also: Richard Stallman, Linux

Go Daddy

Company. Popular domain name registrar and provider of other related Internet services (web hosting, e-mail, SSL certificates, etc.), known as much for its racy television commercials as for its products.

See also: registrar

Google

Company. Major web services provider. Starting with a search engine website, this company has branched out to provide a wide range of online services, with a goal of balancing innovative features with ease-of-use, in addition to developing the Android operating system powering many of the latest handheld computers, all the while maintaining its leadership in the search engine business. Google's other popular applications include their web-based e-mail system (Gmail), their Google Earth and Google Maps projects, the Google Talk chat system, Google Docs for online word processing and file storage, a competitor of Facebook called Google+, and a new competitor of AWS called Google Cloud Platform.

See also: Android, Gmail, Facebook, AWS

Website. Search engine launched in 1998; the original product of Google, Inc. Introduced a superior method of finding and indexing websites to return relevant results in response to search queries entered by its visitors. The site used a minimalist look that has persisted to this day. It quickly became the most-used search engine in the world, and remains among the most visited websites overall worldwide. In fact, the search engine is so much considered the standard that the verb "to google" is now synonymous with an online search.

See also: search engine, Bing, MSN, Yahoo!

GroupWise

Software Product. A corporate e-mail, personal information management, and collaboration system developed by Novell in the 1980s, and still available today. It offers users remote access to their centrally stored mailbox (including stored e-mail messages, contacts, and calendars), corporate contacts lists, and shared resources, using the GroupWise client software, a web browser, and synchronization with mobile phones.

See also: groupware, Exchange Server, Lotus Domino, Novell

Hewlett-Packard

Company. Quiet giant of the computer hardware manufacturing industry; leading producer of high-quality laser and inkjet printers; world's top-selling manufacturer of personal computers through corporate and retail-store sales; serious competitor with IBM for development of major hardware, software, and cloud systems for large business.

Hotmail

Website. One of the first free, web-based e-mail services, launched in 1996 and purchased shortly after by Microsoft. After being renamed to Windows Live Mail several years ago, it is now known as Outlook.com, and still probably the most popular free webmail system in the world, with hundreds of millions of active accounts.

See also: Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Microsoft

HP

See: Hewlett-Packard

Hyper-V

Software Product. Virtualization product by Microsoft, replacing their Virtual Server product, for running Windows desktop and server operating systems in virtual machines. This has shipped with Microsoft Windows Server since 2009, and has been available as a free standalone product since 2008 (of course, a license for the Windows software in each virtual machine must be paid for). Since then, Microsoft has been trying to catch up with the king of virtual server software, VMware ESX, in performance and features. Today, compared to VMware, Hyper-V is more suited for smaller virtualized server deployments with less skilled system administrators, or for implementing a Microsoft virtual desktop infrastructure.

See also: Microsoft, VMware, Windows, VDI

IBM

Company. Venerable colossus of the computer industry; leading producer of mainframes since the 1950s, standard bearer for the personal computer in the 1980s, and a persistent leader in virtually every aspect of computing from major hardware systems and software applications, to consulting services for large business, to personal computing equipment and desktop software.

Intel

Company. Producer of the vast majority of the world's microprocessors, such as the Pentium, Xeon, and Core processors. All personal computers are based on Intel's early designs, even if the processor inside was not manufactured by Intel. Although Intel has dabbled in other types of hardware (mostly internal components for personal computers, and kits for building servers), the company has remained focused for nearly 40 years on microprocessors, and not on software, storage, networking, or telephony.

See also: microprocessor

Intuit

Company. Software company with essentially one major enduring product, QuickBooks. Intuit also has produced or acquired ownership of other accounting-related software products and services, such as TurboTax software for filing income tax returns, as well as credit card and payroll processing.

See also: QuickBooks

Iomega

Company. Popular manufacturer of storage products, particularly external and network-attached backup hard drives. This company traces its roots to the early 1980s when they invented innovative disk drives for the earliest PCs, such as the Bernoulli Box and later the hugely popular Zip drive. Iomega is now owned by EMC.

See also: EMC

iMac

Product Brand. The name for Apple's standard desktop computer.

See also: desktop, Apple

iPad

Product Brand. Apple's tablet brand. Launched in 2010 to unprecedented and astounding success, ranking among the fastest selling electronic products in history. The interface and applications it supports are similar to the iPhone; installable applications can be acquired from the same App Store as the iPhone.

See also: tablet, Apple

iPhone

Product Brand. Apple's smart phone, with an advanced interface that supports a broad range of installable applications in addition to standard web browsing and e-mail. Originally only available for use on the AT&T cellular network, Verizon Wireless has also offered iPhones for years now along with Android and BlackBerry phones.

See also: smart phone, Android, BlackBerry, Apple

iPod

Product Brand. Apple's MP3 player, and earliest of Apple's handheld devices, predating the iPhone, which, of course, can also play MP3s.

See also: MP3, Apple

iTunes

Website. Site launched by Apple to enable purchasing of music online; also accessible through the iTunes application program you can install on an Apple Mac or Windows computer.

See also: Apple

iWork

Software Product. Apple's office productivity software suite, which includes the Pages word processor, Numbers spreadsheet, and Keynote presentation software. Introduced in 2005 as a low-cost and less feature-rich alternative to Microsoft Office. It originally only ran on Mac computers, but it is now available on the iPad, iPhone, and through Apple's online iCloud service in a web browser.

See also: Microsoft Office

Java

Technology. A widely used platform-independent application environment, developed by Sun Microsystems in the early 1990s. The Java concept enables programmers to write their applications to run in the Java environment, and then any user of any kind of computer can run the application by installing the Java platform software. Java became the property of Oracle when Oracle purchased Sun.

See also: Sun Microsystems, JavaScript

JavaScript

Technology. A simple programming language supported by all web browsers for enhancing interactive functionality of web pages. Invented by Brendan Eich of Netscape in 1995 for use in the Netscape Navigator web browser, it was soon designated as an industry standard. Although the JavaScript language is not related to Java, the trademark name of JavaScript is now owned by Oracle, which also happens to own Java.

See also: web browser, Java

Jobs, Steve

Person (1955 - 2011). Co-founder and CEO of Apple, also founder of well-known companies such as Pixar and NeXT Computer. His unconventional, demanding, yet whimsical approach to the business was largely responsible not only for the innovative and artistic character of Apple products, but for the success of Apple throughout the decades in which such a small percentage of companies even survive.

See also: Apple

Joy, Bill

Person (1954 - ). Co-founder of Sun Microsystems, known also for his work on the Berkeley variant of the UNIX operating system, and particularly as author of a powerful and enduring UNIX utility program called vi, the UNIX C shell, and the integration of TCP/IP into BSD UNIX, which placed it ahead of commercial versions at the time. He was also heavily involved in the creation of Java.

See also: Sun Microsystems, Java, UNIX

Juniper Networks

Company. Competitor with Cisco in the high-end network equipment market, but less well-known due to its low key approach to marketing, and because their products cater to companies that run the core of the Internet, rather than business users.

See also: Cisco

Kahn, Bob

Person (1938 - ). Co-inventor of the TCP and IP networking protocols in the early 1970s at ARPA, meaning essentially that he invented the Internet.

See also: Vinton Cerf

LaserJet

Product Brand. Legendary printer sold for many years by HP, known for its reliability and quality. Although HP did not invent the laser printer or make the first ones, it established itself as a leader in the desktop and workgroup laser printer market for decades.

See also: Hewlett-Packard (HP)

Lempel, Abraham

Person (1936 - ). Isreali computer scientist who invented the LZ77 and LZ78 lossy compression algorithms in 1977 and 1978, respectively, along with his research partner Jacob Ziv. The algorithms and their derivatives are used in many common applications, such as GIF and PNG file formats for compressed pictures, and the GZIP compression format used by virtually all websites.

See also: Jacob Ziv, lossy compression

Lenovo

Company. Chinese company that purchased the ThinkPad line of laptops and ThinkCentre desktop computers from IBM in 2005, and has continued producing them with the same high quality these brands have always been known for.

See also: IBM

LinkedIn

A social media site geared towards business networking for executives and other professionals.

See also: social media

Linux

Software Product. A free, open-source UNIX-like kernel written from scratch by Linus Torvalds around 1991, specifically for Intel-based desktop computers, but now available on many other platforms. Linux runs many web servers and mail servers, as well as desktop computers for developers and computing enthusiasts. It is also found on network devices such as firewalls, routers, and storage devices. Although Linux technically only includes the core of the operating system (the kernel), the term colloquially refers to a complete operating system using the Linux kernel combined with GNU utilities (which may properly be called GNU/Linux). Several separate companies and project groups develop, maintain, and support their own customized versions of GNU/Linux, sold or given away along with additional tools and applications, collectively called a Linux distro. Some well-known distros include Red Hat, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS, openSUSE, Mandriva, and Slackware.

See also: UNIX, Linus Torvalds, GNU, open source, Red Hat, Slackware, OS, kernel

Lotus

Company. Developer of the well-known spreadsheet for DOS-based computers, named Lotus 1-2-3, among the first hugely successful PC applications in the early 1980s, which was followed with related but less well-known word processing and database applications. Creator of the earliest server-based groupware application for PC networks, called Lotus Notes (now called Domino). IBM purchased Lotus way back in 1995, and has maintained the Domino server system since then.

See also: groupware, IBM, Lotus Domino, DOS

Lotus Domino

Software Product. A corporate e-mail, personal information management, and collaboration system developed by Lotus in the 1980s, which is now owned by IBM. It was originally called Lotus Notes, but the server component took the name Domino in the 1990s. It offers users remote access to their centrally stored mailbox (including stored e-mail messages, contacts, and calendars), corporate contacts lists, and shared resources, using the Lotus Notes client software, a web browser, and synchronization with mobile phones.

See also: groupware, Exchange Server, GroupWise

Lotus Notes

See: Lotus Domino

Mac

See: Macintosh

Macintosh

Product Brand. Apple's brand name for their line of personal desktop and laptop computers, often shortened to Mac. The full line includes the iMac or Mac Pro desktop computer, the MacBook laptop, and the Mac mini server. Not to be confused with "MAC address", which is a component of Ethernet network communications and not related to Apple.

See also: Apple

Mac OS

Software Product. The name of the operating system that runs the Apple Mac line of computers. The latest version is OS X (the X being a Roman designation for 10).

See also: Apple

MacBook

Product Brand. Apple's brand name for its current line of Intel-based laptop/notebook computers.

See also: Apple

Microsoft

Company. Giant of the personal computer software world. Developer and publisher of the most widely used operating systems (MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows), web browser (Internet Explorer), and office productivity software (Word and Excel) in the world, as well as many other software applications for LAN servers (such as Exchange Server and SQL Server). Also produces some hardware (keyboards and mice), and the gaming system Xbox. Its most notable personality is its co-founder and former CEO, Bill Gates. Microsoft for most of its existence did not make or sell computers. However, Microsoft has lately rebranded itself the "Devices and Services Company", with more focus on its cloud-based services (Office 365 and Windows Azure) and its line of tablets and mobile phones.

See also: Bill Gates, Windows, Exchange Server, Surface

Microsoft Office

Software Product. Proprietary suite of desktop applications, including a word processor (called Microsoft Word), spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel), database (Microsoft Access), personal information manager and e-mail client (Microsoft Outlook), and presentations creator (Microsoft PowerPoint), developed by Microsoft in the 1990s for Windows computers, also available on the Mac.

See also: proprietary, spreadsheet, database system, OpenOffice.org

MiFi

Technology. This is the trademarked name for a small cellular device that connects to the Internet via a cellular phone line subscription, and provides a Wi-Fi hotspot, to which a laptop computer, or a mobile device such as an iPad without cellular service, can connect and thus access the Internet. The term is a contraction of "My Wi-Fi". A MiFi device is typically just a little box that cannot be used to make or receive phone calls or text messages.

See also: hotspot

Moore, Gordon

Person (1929 - ). Co-founder of Intel, who is better known as the namesake of Moore's Law due to an apparently prophetic article he wrote for Electronics Magazine in 1965, although he didn't coin the term itself. This "Law" describes the trend of computer microprocessor speed and/or hard drive storage capacity doubling every 18 to 24 months (depending on who you ask). Although generally mythical, for certain technologies this seems to have held up, even across several decades, but it still makes more for interesting analysis of trends than as a predictor of the future. Moore's 1965 article itself only talked about the number of transistors in an integrated circuit chip, and not microprocessors specifically—those weren't even invented yet.

See also: Robert Noyce, Intel

Motorola

Company. A television and radio equipment producer with company roots back to 1928, most recently known for being an early pioneer in cellular phone technology, and for producing the 6800-series, 68000-series, and PowerPC microprocessors in the 1980s and 1990s to run many brands of computers that competed for market share with IBM and compatibles running on the Intel platform, most notably the Apple Macintosh. In the past decade, Motorola partnered closely with Google, providing the hardware platform for mobile phones running the Android software platform developed by Google. Google purchased the ailing Motorola corporation in 2012.

See also: Intel, Google

Mozilla

Company. Group founded by Netscape to produce open-source software to be incorporated into Netscape's commercial products, which outlasted Netscape and eventually produced the popular Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client software.

Mozy

Website. Online data backup service for business and home users, founded in 2005, now owned by EMC. Due to excellent marketing over the years, Mozy is one of the two most well-known online backup services (the other being Carbonite), amongst the many dozens of websites offering the same service.

See also: Carbonite

MS-DOS

See: DOS

MSN

Website. Acronym for the Microsoft Network, originally a dial-up Internet access provider, and now a major web portal, offering current news and other entertainment content, as well as Internet search called Bing that competes with Google and Yahoo!.

See also: Bing, Google, Yahoo!, web portal

MySpace

Website. One of the first hugely successful and popular social networking sites, which rose above other contenders to become the de facto standard for an ordinary individual's web-based presence on the Internet in the mid-2000s. It was started by a couple of guys from Los Angeles, and is now owned by a company called Specific Media LLC. Users can easily develop their own sites with their favorite music, pictures, and messages posted from other MySpace users, all for free. It has long been geared towards music groups to promote their bands. While bypassed in popularity by Facebook over recent years, MySpace is still quite popular, if not as high-profile.

See also: Facebook

MySQL

Software Product. An open-source database server software package primarily for UNIX/Linux computers but also available on other platforms.

See also: SQL

Netscape

Company. Internet software company founded in 1994 by Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen that promptly developed the most popular web browser in the world in the 1990s (Netscape Navigator), as well as many software products for web servers such as the Netscape FastTrack and Enterprise web server, and servers supporting e-mail, SSL, e-commerce, LDAP, NNTP, etc. Netscape was purchased by America Online in 1998 and essentially no longer exists.

See also: America Online

Nokia

Company. Once the largest seller of cellular phones in the world, including early feature phones based on the Symbian operating system, and many other models of standard cell phones. Current Nokia smart phones run the Windows Phone system.

See also: Symbian, Windows Phone

Norton, Peter

Person (1943 - ). Popular software programmer and author, and long-time resident of Santa Monica, best known for his Norton Utilities for DOS in the 1980s that provided valuable tools, such as the ability to undelete files and edit disk sectors directly. Also known for books such as Inside the IBM PC from that era. Although he sold his software company to Symantec way back in 1990, many of Symantec's products still bear his name, most notably Norton Antivirus.

See also: DOS, Symantec

Novell

Company. Company that produced NetWare, the earliest network server system for small businesses on local networks, which supported secure, centralized file and printer sharing. Although NetWare is no longer in production and considered obsolete, Novell is still in business and produces other software related to networking, such as ZENworks, a version of Linux called SUSE, and an e-mail server system called GroupWise.

See also: GroupWise

Noyce, Robert

Person (1927 - 1990). Inventor of a technological innovation called the integrated circuit in the 1950s, which enabled the invention of the microprocessor and eventually the personal computer. Co-founder of Intel, along with the famed Gordon Moore.

See also: Gordon Moore, Intel, microprocessor

OpenOffice.org

Software Product. Suite of standard office applications, including a word processor, spreadsheet, database manager, and presentation creator. Originally developed as a proprietary product by a German company called StarDivision in the 1980s. After purchasing the product in 1999, Sun Microsystems converted it to open source, and rebranded it to OpenOffice.org. It is now owned and maintained by the Apache Software Foundation, and available for free. Despite this, and the fact it supports file formats by the leading office suite applications from Microsoft, and runs on Windows, Mac, Linux and other UNIX-based computers, it has failed for many reasons to significantly take market share from Microsoft Office.

See also: open source, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft Office

Oracle

Company. A leading provider of major CRM and ERP software applications, based on its own venerable database engine. Also provides underlying database engines to run in conjunction with other major software providers, such as SAP. Current owner of valuable properties formerly owned by Sun Microsystems, such as Java.

See also: Java, Sun Microsystems

Outlook

Software Product. E-mail client software and personal information manager, part of the Microsoft Office suite. Microsoft Outlook provide the most seamless access to a mailbox on Microsoft Exchange Server.

See also: Microsoft Office, Exchange Server, Outlook Express

Outlook Express

Software Product. E-mail client software that was included in Microsoft Windows operating systems, and available for free with Internet Explorer from Microsoft, until 2007. Did not support full-functional access to an Exchange Server mailbox or a calendar, as did Outlook. Replaced by Windows Live Mail.

See also: Outlook, Exchange Server

Parallels

Software Product. Virtualization software that allows the owner of an Apple Mac to run Microsoft Windows in a virtual machine, with data and printer sharing between the Mac and Windows environments.

See also: virtual machine

Postel, Jonathan

Person (1943 - 1998). Tremendously influential and accomplished computer scientist and early developer and administrator of the Internet infrastructure; director of the IANA, which controls domain names and addressing throughout the Internet, from its creation in 1988 until his death; wrote the RFC documents that defined the technical standards of the Internet, such as the TCP/IP protocol; originally from the Los Angeles area; held a Ph.D. from UCLA and then worked at USC.

PowerBook

Product Brand. Apple's brand name for a line of laptop computers sold between 1992 and 2006, which ran on the Motorola PowerPC processor (although the models sold through 1996 actually used the previous-generation 68000 series processors). The PowerBook was superseded by the current generation of Mac laptops than run on processors made by Intel with a completely different architecture, making software from the old systems incompatible with the current models.

See also: Apple, Macintosh, Motorola, PowerMac

Power Macintosh

Product Brand. Apple's brand name for a line of desktop computers sold between 1994 and 2006, which ran on the Motorola PowerPC processor. These were superseded by the current generation of Mac computers that run on processors made by Intel with a completely different architecture, making software from the old systems incompatible with the current models.

See also: Apple, Macintosh, Motorola, PowerBook

PowerPC

Product Brand. Microprocessor designed and produced by Motorola in the 1990s, which mounted worthy competition against Intel for market share running personal computers and servers.

See also: Motorola

PowerPoint

Software Product. Presentation/slideshow software by Microsoft.

See also: Microsoft Office

QuickBooks

Software Product. A popular small business accounting software package published by Intuit.

See also: Intuit

Quicken

Software Product. Not to be confused with QuickBooks, Quicken is another product by the same company designed for managing personal and home finances.

See also: Intuit

Red Hat

Software Product. A high-end distribution of Linux for business users. While it is still open source, Red Hat Linux is sold in a neatly-prepared package of the core operating system and many other critical and useful utility programs, and is offered with technical support.

See also: Linux, open source

Research In Motion

Company. Former name of the Canadian company that created the BlackBerry. Research In Motion Limited changed its name to BlackBerry Limited in early 2013.

See also: BlackBerry

RIM

See: Research In Motion

Ritchie, Dennis

Person (1941 - 2011). Soft-spoken early pioneer of modern computing, among the most influential figures in computer history. He created UNIX as we know it with Ken Thompson in the 1960s. He also created a programming language called C, which is the most widely used in history, powering the kernel, core functions, and device drivers for both UNIX and Microsoft Windows since their inception, as well as countless user applications.

See also: Ken Thompson, UNIX, Windows

Samsung

Company. A sprawling Korean technology company that makes products ranging from desktop and laptop computers and computer displays, big screen televisions, DVD and Blu-Ray players, cameras, printers and copiers, and even memory chips. Their most high profile product offerings have been innovative mobile phones and tablets based on the Android software platform, leading Samsung to replace Nokia as the world's leading seller of mobile phones around 2012.

See also: Android, Nokia

SAP

Company. The world's leading provider of major CRM and ERP software applications, which has been producing such software since the early 1970s, on mainframes, and now as well for modern LAN servers and personal computers. Founded and headquartered in Germany.

Skype

Company. Popular company known for its singular signature service, telephone and video conferencing through the Internet using free software you can download from the Skype website. The software uses a proprietary technological system to provide excellent quality compared to many other similar services. It also allows calls between a computer and a regular land-based or cellular telephone, including international calls, which use the Internet to get the connection as close as possible to minimize or eliminate long-distance charges. There are even versions of Skype software for mobile phones to take advantage of this. The company was founded in Europe, and was purchased by Microsoft in 2011.

Slackware

Software Product. The oldest Linux distribution still in production, put together by Pat Volkerding in 1993, who is still involved in its continuing development (upgrades to support new Linux kernels and new hardware, bug fixes, etc.). Its design philosophy focuses on simplicity in that Volkerding and his contributors simply compile open source utilities without modification and do not create many custom add-ons. In keeping with the spirit of its name, there is no formal code repository, and no support provided directly by the company.

See also: Linux

Stallman, Richard

Person (1953 - ). Founder of the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation who has, since the 1980s, made a name for himself promoting and defending open-source software.

See also: GNU, Free Software Foundation, open source

StarOffice

See: OpenOffice.org

Sun Microsystems

Company. A versatile company that has developed computer servers, workstations, operating systems, applications and application platforms (most notably Java), including high-performance computers based on their own brand of microprocessor (called SPARC) and a branded version of UNIX called Solaris. Sun was purchased by Oracle in 2009.

See also: Oracle, Java

Surface

Product Brand. A tablet produced by Microsoft that runs Microsoft Windows.

See also: Microsoft, Windows, Windows Phone

Symantec

Company. Starting in the 1980s, this company published various successful but unremarkable utilities and applications, until its acquisition of Norton Software, and its library of excellent utility programs, in 1990. They promptly added the Norton name to their own anti-virus product, creating one of its best-known software titles to this day. Since then, it has acquired other well-known brands, such as Backup Exec (a leading backup application for PC-based LANs), PGP technologies, and the highly-regarded VeriSign security apparatus.

Symbian

Technology. The software operating platform on which virtually all smart phones from the 1990s, and many brands into the following decade, ran, including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG, Samsung, and Siemens. It offered a platform for development of applications to be included in the phone, for such functions as web browsing and e-mail, a calendar, picture management, music and ringtones, and games. Superseded, for the most part, by the next generation of smart phone software, such as the iOS for the Apple iPhone; Android for phones made by HTC, Motorola, and Samsung; and Windows Phone for Nokia and others. Nokia now owns Symbian despite the fact its smart phones will now run Windows Phone.

See also: iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, Nokia

Tatham, Simon

Person (1977 - ). British programmer who wrote PuTTY, a free tool used worldwide by systems engineers to configure remote UNIX sytems and network devices from a Microsoft Windows workstation.

ThinkPad

Product Brand. High-quality laptop produced for many years by IBM, until IBM sold their entire personal computer product line to Lenovo.

See also: IBM, Lenovo

Thompson, Ken

Person (1943 - ). Another early pioneer of modern computing, among the most influential figures in modern computer history. He created UNIX as we know it with Dennis Ritchie in the 1960s. He also created a programming language called B, the precursor to the C programming language created by Dennis Ritchie.

See also: Dennis Ritchie, UNIX

Torvalds, Linus

Person (1969 - ). Finnish software developer who wrote Linux around 1991. He is still heavily involved in its continuing development.

See also: Linux

Twitter

Website. Unique messaging service introduced in 2006 based on a simple but clever idea, which merged SMS (text) messaging and blogging, resulting in blogs (called Twitter feeds) that you can update by sending a text message from your phone or on the Twitter website, and which your followers can subscribe to so your new posts (called tweets) are sent to their phones. The SMS function has been supplanted by the Twitter App for iPhone and Android. The website and the system itself are owned by Twitter Inc. It has become a popular link between celebrities and their fans. The service has been expanded to include photo and video sharing.

See also: blog, SMS

UNIX

Software Product. The oldest operating system still in wide use, characterized by extensive versatility and power combined with simple design concepts. Originally developed by AT&T's Bell Labs in the 1960s based on prior work by Bell Labs, GE, and MIT. The name itself is a trademark that has changed hands several times over the years since the 1960s. The name is also a generic term referring to the many operating systems derived from the original, with the same structure and philosophical design, if not much or all of the same program code. These include:

a. Commercial products derived from the original UNIX program code under license from AT&T, such as IBM's AIX, HP's HP-UX, and Sun's Solaris operating systems;

b. Open-source variants based on work at the University of California in the 1970s and 1980s that built on the AT&T program code, such as FreeBSD;

c. All GNU/Linux variants based on software written from scratch by the Free Software Foundation and Linus Torvalds since the 1980s.

See also: Linux, Free Software Foundation, IBM, Hewlett-Packard (HP)

VDI

Software Product. Microsoft's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure is a set of software technologies that runs on Windows Server, and enables a company to have all their Windows workstations run as virtual machines on a set of powerful servers, which are then accessed over the network from any kind of Windows computer or tablet. This has the potential to enable tremendous configuration control and flexibility, since virtually nothing has to be installed on any of the computers or devices. It is not typically seen in the small or medium business market due to the costs of implementation and maintenance, and since small businesses typically do not require this kind of centralized control.

See also: virtual machine, Windows, Microsoft

VMware

Company. Pioneer and market leader in virtualization software for servers running on Intel and compatible platforms, such as Microsoft Windows and Linux, since 2002. Their flagship product, vSphere, is highly regarded as setting the standard for performance, reliability, flexibility, features, and manageability, and it commands a commensurate price, meaning it is generally only found in an enterprise environment.

See also: virtualization, Hyper-V

Windows

Software Product. The flagship product of Microsoft; an operating system for Intel-based personal computers, installed on a vast majority of desktops and laptops worldwide. Introduced in the 1980s as a spin-off from collaborative work on a similar product with IBM, called OS/2. The distinguishing feature of both Windows and OS/2, compared to their predecessor DOS, is the ability to run multiple applications at the same time in overlapping or adjacent displays (windows) on one screen, and the use of the mouse to perform operational and maintenance tasks on the computer by clicking buttons, icons, and menu items instead of having to type commands at a command line.

See also: Microsoft, DOS

Windows Live

See: Hotmail

Windows Mobile

Technology. Operating system produced by Microsoft for mobile phones such as those made by LG, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson. Descendant of early versions of mobile Windows (called Windows CE) from back in the late 1990s, when early handheld computers were designed to be more like small versions of regular computers, running word processing and spreadsheets in addition to the expected e-mail, contacts, calendar, etc.—and many of them didn't even have phone capabilities! After running its course, Windows Mobile itself had to be replaced by a completely new operating system, called Windows Phone, to enable the flexibility and features needed to compete with the new generation of smart phones—Android and iPhone.

See also: Windows Phone

Windows Phone

Technology. Positioned to compete with the iPhone and Android-based phones. Available on phones made by companies such as Nokia, HTC, LG, and Samsung. While Windows Mobile phones were amenable to central management and integration with a business network, phones based on Windows Phone are less so, and focus more on the flexibility and usability of its competition.

See also: iPhone, Android

Word

Software Product. Properly called by its full name, Microsoft Word. A trademark name for Microsoft's word processing software, which overtook WordPerfect in popularity in the 1990s.

See also: Microsoft Office, WordPerfect

WordPerfect

Software Product. Leading word processing software of the 1980s and early 1990s for IBM-compatible personal computers, currently owned by Corel; superseded in popularity by Microsoft Word.

See also: Corel, Word

WordPress

Software Product. The most popular web server software for managing blogs and similar websites with dynamic content. Created by Matt Mullenweb, first released in 2003, and offered for free to this day by the WordPress Foundation. It offers both a highly-customizable system for experienced web site programmers, and a simple way for the less technically saavy to get a blog up and running. Either way, it allows for easy updates by the website owner, easy arrangment of photos and text, management of comments posted by visitors, along with many other features.

See also: blog

Xerox

Company. More than 100-year-old company that started out making photography equipment, and later essentially invented the photocopy machine, laser printer, and fax machine. Xerox has long been such a leader in the copy machine industry that the term "xerox" is synonymous with a photocopied paper document. As for contributions to the computer world, Xerox also invented the graphical user interface, desktop document publishing with proportional fonts, and the Ethernet networking system, all in the early 1970s, but was never able to market any products of their own based on these spectacular technologies, until turning over development to Apple of what would eventually become the hugely successful Macintosh computer.

Yahoo!

Website. A search engine and web portal, which competes with Google and MSN, among many others. One of the earliest search engines, it was originally compiled manually, and categorized all web sites known to Yahoo! into browsable indexes. Launched in 1994 by Yahoo! Inc.

See also: search engine, web portal, MSN, Google

Yahoo! Mail

Website. Free web-based e-mail system launched in 1997 by Yahoo! Inc., shortly after Hotmail. Still very popular, especially due to its integration with the popular Yahoo! Messenger instant messaging system.

See also: Bing, Hotmail, Gmail, instant messaging (IM), Yahoo!

Ylönen, Tatu

Person (1968 - ). Finnish software engineer who, in 1995, invented the SSH protocol used for encrypted and authenticated remote command processing and file transfer by all computers running modern versions of the UNIX operating system and by any network device (routers, switches, and storage devices) that support secure remote management.

See also: SSH

YouTube

Website. A website, founded in 2005 and now owned by Google, that allows anyone to upload videos for anyone else on the Internet to watch for free. In its first inception, videos were comprised entirely of clips made by ordinary people; now media companies and many other kinds of businesses run their own "channels". YouTube is responsible for the overnight stardom of dozens of otherwise unknown people.

See also: Google

Ziv, Jacob

Person (1931 - ). Isreali computer scientist who invented the LZ77 and LZ78 lossy compression algorithms in 1977 and 1978, respectively, along with his research partner Abraham Lempel. The algorithms and their derivatives are used in many common applications, such as GIF and PNG file formats for compressed pictures, and the GZIP compression format used by virtually all websites.

See also: Abraham Lempel, lossy compression

Zuckerberg, Mark

Person (1984 - ). Founder of Facebook, subject of a fair amount of media interest due to his being among the youngest billionaires ever (along with Dustin Moskovitz, who left Facebook in 2008), his apparent manner of injecting his personal whims on Facebook and causing uproar among millions of people overnight, and his sometimes quirky behavior in media appearances.

See also: Facebook

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