Asset management tools provider Centennial Software is lowering the entry point for its data protection solution from 25 to five seats. The product, DeviceWall, provides encryption so that data that slips out by today’s version of SneakerNet (e.g., via memory keys) can be made unintelligible to unauthorized users. As part of the SMB offering, the company is ramping up efforts with VAR channels in the Microsoft space, and is piloting online sales.

For those of you SOA trivia buffs who were wondering, just what was Intel actually going to do with its Sarvega acquisition of a couple years back, it’s finally providing the answer: Intel is getting back into the OEM software business. To recap, Sarvega was one of those XML appliance vendors that managed to execute superbly on its exit plan. More about that in a moment.

Instead of going into the x86 XML firewall business (which would dissuade anybody else from Intel processors), Intel dissembled the Sarvega technology, optimized it for x86 (of course), and refactored and updated it for today’s multicore architectures. And it’s planning to offer the technology on an OEM basis for middleware and ESB providers to embed it in their offerings.

A year after moving its SilkTest functional testing tools to Eclipse (the old UI is also still available), Borland is doing what it terms a “relaunch” of the product by rewriting its core record-and-playback agent. The result is that the new record/playback agent is more modular, enabling customers to extend it to their own custom objects.

Rogue Wave, which specializes in C++ tooling, has just released results of a brief survey of 300 respondents that it conducted showing that C++ still matters. Over 60% reported that they would continue enhancing C++ apps, rather than migrate to some more modern or trendier language. And while a quarter of the sample said they planned replacing one or more C++ with Java or .NET apps, over 90% planned to continue maintaining other C++ programs in their portfolios.