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See also: last week's Linux in the news page.

Linux in the news


The press section is somewhat incomplete this week - being at Comdex has made it hard for us to keep up. Here's what we have...

This week's recommended reading:

  • The Red Herring covers the Corel Linux launch. "Corel's move to stake out a growing portion of the desktop PC market has caused many at this trade show to wonder why Microsoft doesn't retaliate by either releasing its own version of Linux or opening up its Windows source code for outside development. Either move, observers say, would give Microsoft the capability to lower the development costs for its operating system software and compete for the business that Corel hopes to serve by embracing Linux."

  • Taking a perspective look at Microsoft's actions in the recent past and their potential actions in the future is popular right now. Tim O'Reilly weighs in with his view of how the battle for the web was almost (and still might be) lost. "I don't think people realize just how close we came to a Microsoft-dominated Web. If Microsoft, having trounced Netscape, hadn't been surprised by the unexpected strength of Apache, Perl, FreeBSD and Linux, I can easily imagine a squeeze play on Web protocols and standards, which would have allowed Microsoft to dictate terms to the Web developers who are currently inventing the next generation of computer applications."

  • Paul Rosenberg has produced a lengthy analysis of the business of developing and marketing software. Available in pdf or postscript format, this paper is over 40 pages in length, so put aside some time before you decide to scan it. Some interesting quotes from within it:

    If the timescale for reliability is considerably shorter than the timescale for the competition for customers then reliability of the software has no significant bearing on market share.

    ...

    It is possible for a closed source company Software Inc. and its operating system to dominate the software industry indefinitely.

    Conversely, it also concludes that an open source solution can dominate the market if it can sufficiently increase its name recognition, create the proper electronic bazaar and effectively counteract the FUD of its competitors.

  • Con Zymaris looks at Linux and Microsoft marketing in this osOpinion column. "What events have occurred in recent times to make me believe that Microsoft's once much-feared marketing phalanx has retreated like a pensioned warrior? I'll briefly run through a few of them here..."

There was, of course, some Comdex coverage:

  • Here's PC World's take on the Corel Linux launch. "Releasing Corel Linux at the Comdex show here on Monday, Corel hopes to bring the open source operating system to the masses."

  • InfoWorld covers Michael Cowpland's Comdex keynote. "Corel has a localization team based in Dublin, Ireland, working on 25 language versions of Linux. 'We will distribute it in multiple languages very soon.'"

  • News.com covers Linus' keynote at Comdex. "In an indication of how far Linux has come since its unveiling, Torvalds addressed a crowd of about 7,000 at a keynote address at Comdex..." (Thanks to Christof Damian)

  • The Arizona Republic reported a declining interest in Comdex, apparently due to the cost of the event and the difficulty in making deals. However, the Linux Business Expo being held at Comdex was apparently enough to change some people's minds. "Scottsdale-based eBiz originally planned to skip Comdex but then decided to go. ... When they learned that this year's show would include a pavilion showcasing Linux products, eBiz executives changed their minds."

  • Here's an article (in Italian) in La Repubblica which talks about Microsoft and Linux at Comdex. English text available via Babelfish. (Thanks to Arrigo Triulzi).

Some articles on the Corel Linux launch:

  • Here's a News.com story about the Corel Linux launch. "However, some industry observers question whether Corel can pull it off. The company's stock price has been boosted by several gains in Linux-related stock, but Corel has been faced with fierce competition from market leader Microsoft. In an earlier effort to sidestep Microsoft, Corel jumped on the Java bandwagon, but the company has abandoned that effort."

  • InfoWorld writes about the Corel Linux launch. "'Today, Corel Linux is as easy to use as Windows,' [Corel CEO] Cowpland said, noting that Corel's booth features six applications running on Linux."

  • Reuters looks at the latest rise in Corel stock following the announcements. "The gains followed the Monday morning release of a new Corel DRAW 9 Office edition, a graphics software package, and in advance of this afternoon's launch of a Linux operating system designed for the desktop."

Other Linux and business coverage includes:

  • News.com reports on Intel's investment in eSoft and the resulting stock price surge. "The investments mark the continuing strategy of Intel in incubating Linux as one of the operating systems that runs on Intel chips."

  • PC World interviews Caldera's Ransom Love. "The paradigm of the traditional desktop is quickly passing because of the Net and because the network is the Net. [With Corel] it's a case of let's go back five years and take on Microsoft when the paradigm has already changed underneath you."

  • ABC News talks to Linus Torvalds and Bob Young. "The kernel is kind of scary to mess around with, and there just aren't many developers willing to do it. We've seen Linux users grow from 1,000 to 10 million, but the number of people working on the kernel has grown from maybe 100 to 200. "

  • Here's InfoWorld's take on the Cygnus acquisition. "Red Hat Software, market-share leader among Linux distributors, made an aggressive move to consolidate its position in the open source movement Monday, announcing it was merging with Cygnus Solutions in a deal worth $674 million."

  • News.com looks at the VA Linux IPO. "VA said it intends to sell 5.06 million shares at $11 to $13 apiece. If the success of Red Hat or Cobalt is any indication, that price could prove to be a bargain."

  • This Information Week article says to be careful with Linux in your business. "If you're running one of those very rare IT shops with almost no turnover among your stable of very gifted programmers who are intimately familiar with the inner workings of your open-source platforms, the self-supporting possibilities offered by open-source software puts you in an enviable position. Ditto for the potential power of applications built on the known behavior of the innards of an operating system. For the rest of us, however, anchoring our IT efforts to a cadre of programmers with an intimate knowledge of and the ability to recompile entire operating systems belongs in the catalog of worst business practices."

  • ABC News covers Red Hat's acquisition of Cygnus. "The merger would combine Red Hat, the leading supplier of Linux software used to power servers, with privately-held Cygnus, a supplier of Linux software programming tools."

  • The Red Herring talks about what Transmeta is up to. "Only a select few know exactly what chip developer Transmeta is developing. That's why Monday's Comdex keynote is one of the most anticipated in recent memory. Pundits predict Linus Torvalds, Linux operating system creator and Transmeta software engineer, will let the cat out of the bag. That's not the plan. But don't despair -- there's good news. Redherring.com has learned details about Transmeta, including its pending patents, venture backers, IPO plans, and when it expects to really discuss what it's doing."

  • News.com reports on the new distribution being put together by Red Hat and Oracle. "The work will help bring several high-end features to an upcoming version of the Linux operating system from Red Hat. However, development of many of those features is already under way at Red Hat and other companies."

And here's the rest:

  • The New York Times has published some recommendations from various "anti-trust experts" as to what to do with Microsoft. None of them inspire much confidence, nor promise much penalty. (Note that the site requires registration. Thanks to David Brownell.) "For his part, Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman, said he would like to settle the case and would be willing to consider any settlement proposal that protects the company's ability to add any features it wants to the Windows operating system. "

  • This editorial from osOpinion focuses on why MS Office for Linux is not a good thing. "Microsoft's standards are both proprietary and arbitrary- the stealth incompatibility of Office 97 file formats with older versions of Office or the subversion of Open standards like XML with proprietary extensions that require Internet Explorer 5, MS Active server and so on, are sober reminders of what the company does to a market."

  • This article in the National Review easily qualifies as the most bizarre of the week. "It seems if you mention the LINUX OPERATING SYSTEM, millions upon millions of people see the link on the Slashdot.com website and come on over, because Slashdot.com monitors all mentions of LINUX SOFTWARE and links to them. Who would have thought that so many people were interested in Linux software? Maybe if Linux software told us something about Oral Sex? Oh well, never mind."

  • AboutLinux ran an opinion piece about software rental schemes. "Any company that tries to be too greedy will learn that the free market works; and will be hurt where it counts - their bottom line. I think these software rental schemes will be good for Linux."

  • Will The Priests Please Refrain From Kicking The Heathens? asks this osOpinion piece. "A Very Big Clue: You won't capture the heats [sic] and minds of MS users by calling them 'sheeple'. You won't do it by insulting their intelligence. You won't do it by shouting like a spoiled child whenever Linux gets bad press (no matter the reason.)"

Section Editor: Jon Corbet


November 18, 1999

 

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