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Linux and Business


It was a good week for Open Source announcements. Mission Critical Linux, Inc. announced the release of the source code for its high-availability Kimberlite cluster technology under the GPL.

Metro Link contributed a number of enhancements and bug fixes to Open Motif. "These changes were developed for Metro Link's commercial Motif products and are now being contributed back to Open Motif."

Lineo has announced a new website, http://opensource.lineo.com, "dedicated to open source projects funded or maintained by Lineo and its employees". The website may be intended to balance concerns about Lineo's business direction, based on bundling its Embedix Linux distribution with proprietary software and then licensing the result.

Finally, TCS announced the opening of a Linux Research and Development facility in Texas to develop "Linux-related technologies" for Dell Computer Corporation. "'TCS and Dell are making a commitment not only to help each other develop and support the latest Linux technologies, but also to provide those technologies to the Open Source community,' said [CEO of TCS.] Ramadorai".

Transmeta's Crusoe. Transmeta's Crusoe chip is apparently being demonstrated this week at PC Expo in Ultra-light laptops from Fujitsu, Hitachi, IBM and NEC, according to this press release. Battery life and reduced noise were sited as the reasons for the high interest in the chip. Unfortunately, actual shipments of such Ultra-lights are still months away.

IBM has reported its plans to use the Crusoe chip in ThinkPad notebooks by the end of the year. " Transmeta says the Crusoe chip extends the battery life of mobile computers by using a hybrid of software and hardware, replacing millions of power-hungry transistors.

Nichols said IBM retrofitted a ThinkPad 240 with the chip so that it could demonstrate the unit this week for customers at the PC Expo at the Jacob Javitts Centre in Manhattan. He said IBM's notebook division has been working with the chip the past six months."

Netwinder manufacturer Rebel.com also announced plans for using the Crusoe chip in upcoming versions of the Netwinder. "Rebel.com selected Crusoe based on a number of factors, including its ability to work in a small fanless enclosure, its low power consumption, its high performance and its compatibility with industry standards."

The news is also covered in this CNet article.

ZF Linux Devices, Inc. has a slew of announcements. New York company ZF Linux Devices made several announcements this week. Their new MachZ PC-on-a-Chip is "ultra-low power (less than 1/2W @ 133MHz)". It comes with a software suite that includes a PhoenixBIOS and a choice of Linux or WindRiver VxWorks. They also announced an alliance with Phoenix Technologies to bundle the PhoenixBIOS with the MachZ.

The FailSafe MachZ runs a family of products providing distributed network solutions for the Small Office/Home Office (SOHO), education and developing economy markets.

LynuxWorks, Inc., formerly Lynx Real-Time Systems, will bundle LynuxWorks BlueCat Linux and the LynuxWorks development tools with the MachZ Integrated Development System (IDS). WindRiver will supply VxWorks.

The device is financed, to the tune of $15 million, by Sands Brothers Venture Capital LLC of New York, and included additional investments from National Semiconductor, Samsung, TAT Capital Partners, and individual investors, and it will be distributed by Kanematsu Semiconductor Corporation, a Japanese distribution company.

Linux Stock for Sale. In the past two days, two announcements of large sales of VA Linux stock have gone out, the first from Small Cap World Fund, which will be selling 1.55 million shares and the second announced that Larry Augustin will be selling a more modest number, only 120,000 shares.

Larry isn't alone. Red Hat Inc. co-founder Marc Ewing has filed his intent to sell 1.5 million shares of Red Hat stock. "The shares have an estimated market value of $49 million, the filing said."

Corel successfully completed its sale of new common shares, guaranteeing it will stay afloat for at least some time longer. "In the event that all of the warrants are exercised, the Company will issue an additional 3,649,635 common shares resulting in gross proceeds of Cdn. $16,642,335.60."

Rackspace.com has amended it's prospectus and lowered its IPO terms according to this article from Reuters.

Award Winners. In the midst of other problems, Corel was pretty happy to pick up a couple of awards this week, for Corel Linux and the Corel Draw 9 Graphics Suite.

Enterprise Linux, a quarterly supplement inserted into several business magazines (ENT, MIDRANGE Systems, Enterprise Systems Journal, HP Professional and Application Development Trends), picked up an award at this year's American Society of Business Press Editors (ASBPE). In addition, the press release announces that Enterprise Linux will become a stand-alone monthly magazine beginning in August.

That brings us to three monthly print magazines for the Linux community so far, including Linux Journal and Linux Magazine. Enterprise Linux differs from the other two since it comes from the established business publishing arena, which has clearly decided the time is ripe for added Linux coverage to their current stock.

Linux Gets Game. The available games for Linux continue to multiple with the announcement that WarBirds III, a multi-player online World War II air combat game, has been enhanced with Linux compatibility.

Also, Terminus, a new epic space role-playing game, has been released for Linux (as well as Mac and Windows) after three and a half years of development. "Another exciting feature in Terminus is the ability of computer-controlled characters to express human emotions as they interact with other characters and react to events using advanced AI technology. Characters can become angry and impatient; they can even fall in love."

A demo of Terminus is available at www.vvisions.com.

Internet Partnership Group Tunes Into PenguinRadio. PenguinRadio, which is developing a stand-alone Linux-based Internet appliance for listening to radio stations broadcast on the Internet, announced the receipt of an equity investment from the Internet Partnership Group.

Michael Tiemann appointed to Embedded Linux Consortium board. Red Hat has announced that Michael Tiemann, Red Hat's CTO, has been appointed to the board of the Embedded Linux Consortium.

IDC: the impact of a Microsoft breakup on the Linux Market. IDC takes a gander at the impact of a potential breakup of Microsoft into two separate companies on Linux, foreseeing potential increased competition in personal productivity software and hardware sales. "IDC believes an independent Microsoft applications company could present a serious threat to desktop/personal productivity players in the Linux space -- including Corel, Applix, and even Sun Microsystems."

EuroLinux Congratulates British Telecom. The EuroLinux Alliance, promoters of the petition against software patents in Europe, has issued this release congratulating British Telecom "for demonstrating the absurdity of software patents." "BT was granted its patent nearly 15 years ago for a software concept which may have seemed new and inventive at the time. But such a patent, by being so abstract and general, has actually given BT the right to strangle the development of the World Wide Web and a lot of related technologies, which owe nothing to the inventive effort of BT."

Press Releases:

Open Source Products.
Unless specified, license is unverified.

Commercial Products for Linux.

  • AbsoluteValue Systems (MAITLAND, Fla.) the developers of linux-wlan, a Linux Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) driver package, announced the AVS Wireless LAN System Developers Kit. Intersil announced that AVS is using the PRISM WLAN chip set in the SDK.

  • Active Concepts (SAN FRANCISCO) announced it will test its flagship product, Funnel Web on the integrated Linux software and hardware distributed by VA Linux and will have direct access to Linux-Mandrake open source code and beta versions for development purposes.

  • Emulex has announced Fibre Channel drivers for Linux that are "tested and approved for use with Caldera, RedHat and TurboLinux". The press release mentions that the drivers will be provided on an "open source" basis from their website. A quick scan of the site turned up the Windows, Solaris, AIX and other drivers, but did not yet list the Linux drivers.

  • Enhanced Software Technologies, Inc. (PHOENIX) announced they will be demonstrating their BRU 16.0 Backup & Restore Utility at the "DVD-RAM-Defining Storage Convergence" press announcement activities at PC Expo in New York City.

  • Here is IBM's big voice technology announcement, which includes the availability of the ViaVoice dictation product for Linux.

  • Inprise/Borland (SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif.) announced that Delphi for Linux (Kylix) will be available later this year.

  • LinuxPPC Inc. has released a new version of Netscape Communicator.

  • PortalSphere Inc. (OTTAWA) has made its PortalSphere Application Server developers toolkit freely available to users worldwide from http://www.portalsphere.com/DevDownload.html.

  • Proven Software, Inc. has announced the availability of their BestAcct suite of corporate business accounting programs for Linux.

  • SteelEye Technology Inc. (MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.) announced immediate general availability of its LifeKeeper for Linux 3.0. LifeKeeper is an automated high-availability clustering solution.

  • Synergy Microsystems (SAN DIEGO, CA) announced support for Linux with Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) on all of its PowerPC-based multiprocessor boards.

  • Total Impact (Camarillo, CA) announced Linux support for its line of Total mPOWER PCI based multiprocessor boards.

  • Trustix AS (Trondheim, Norway) announced its release of XPloy a graphical user interface for Linux operating system administration and management.

Products Using Linux.

  • Linux NetworX announced a new rack mount chassis design to be officially unveiled in August.

  • Neoware Systems, Inc. (NEW YORK) announced that it demonstrated the newest version of its embedded NeoLinux operating system software at PC Expo.

Products with Linux Versions.

  • Ajuba Solutions, Inc. (MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.) introduced Ajuba2, a platform for modeling, developing, operating and managing B2B applications.

  • Alliance Systems, Inc. (PLANO, Texas) introduced the I-Series 2000 Appliance Server, a high-density communications server.

  • Brooktrout Technology (BIRMINGHAM, England) announced that its TRxStream Series of media resource platforms are now available in the CompactPCI (cPCI) form factor.

  • Brooktrout Technology (NEEDHAM, Mass.) announced expanded Linux support across its broad range of products, including the Vantage Series, RDSP Series, RTNI Series, TRxStream Series and Netaccess Series product families.

  • Group 1 Software (LANHAM, Md.) announced the release of its DataVerse suite of products. The DataVerse family of products supports real-time address validation, correction, and/or formatting for the US, Canada, and over 200 countries worldwide.

  • LapLink.com Inc. (SEATTLE) announced that it will unveil its newest Internet product releases, ExpressLoader and ExpressDrive Accelerator, in tandem with the introduction of Internet File Management (IFM) during PC Expo 2000.

  • NetZero, Inc. (WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif.) announced that it will offer a Linux version of its Z3 software.

  • Omnis Technology Corporation (SAN CARLOS, Calif.) announced that Omnis Software released the latest beta of Omnis Studio 3.0.

  • Planet Intra (MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.) announced Planet Intra 2.4, the latest version of its Intranet solution.

  • SGI (MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.) introduced the Silicon Graphics Octane2 visual workstation, a new addition to its VPro graphics family.

  • UniPress Software, Inc. (EDISON, N.J.) announced the availability of FootPrints v.4.3, the latest release of the company's web-based issue tracking and help desk solution.

Java Products.

  • Solant, Inc. (WASHINGTON, DC) announced that it has created the a full Enterprise Java architecture for online billing and customer care in the industry.

  • Unify Corporation (SAN JOSE, Calif.) announced Unify eWave Engine 2.0, an Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) 1.1 application server, due out in July 2000.

Training.

  • Learning Tree (RESTON, Va.) announced its plans to release "Linux TCP/IP Networking and Services: Hands-On," a new course on how to install and configure TCP/IP networking and services on Linux.

Partnerships.

  • Bluepoint Linux Software Corp. (LOS ANGELES) announced that it has signed an agreement with China United Online. China United Online will purchase search engine system and free-email server system from Bluepoint, and Bluepoint will provide China United Online with technical support and technical training.

  • Loki Software, Inc. (Tustin, CA.) announced an agreement with QLITech Linux Computers to bundle a variety of Loki titles on the Advanced Multimedia Workstations.

  • Merlin Software Technologies International Inc. (ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, FLORIDA) announced the pre-loading of PerfectBACKUP+ 6.2 on select models of IBM ThinkPad A series and T series notebooks.

  • NonStopNet (OAKLAND, Calif.) announced a new alliance with VA Linux Systems, Inc. This partnership enables NonStopNet to offer VA Linux server solutions as part of its Internet Infrastructure Management Services.

  • Perle Systems (WESTMONT, ILLINOIS) announced that SuSE Linux AG, has included drivers for its complete range of Specialix and Chase muilt-port serial cards in its latest release.

  • Red-M (WEXHAM SPRINGS, United Kingdom) announced that it has been accepted as an associate member of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. The wireless Internet server product solutions being developed by Red-M are based on a combination of the Linux operating system and Bluetooth technology.

  • SteelEye Technology Inc. (SAN DIEGO) announced that it has joined the Linux International organization as a Sponsoring Corporate Member.

  • SuSE Linux AG and MacTech Magazine (OAKLAND AND WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA) announced that a free distribution CD of SuSE Linux for the Apple PowerPC is included in the June 2000 issue of MacTech Magazine.

  • TheLinuxStore.com (EBIZ) has announced a deal with TurboLinux to offer a new line of servers oriented toward e-commerce applications.

  • TheLinuxStore.com (SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.) announced a partnership agreement with 3ware Inc. to market and sell 3ware's Escalade line of RAID storage controllers.

  • XETA Technologies (BROKEN ARROW, Okla.) entered into a preliminary agreement to form a strategic alliance with Elastic Networks. The companies plan to offer the lodging industry a single hardware platform that includes both XETA's Virtual XL Series Call Accounting System and Elastic's Yesware Software solutions for High-Speed Internet Access. Both software solutions are Linux-based.

Linux At Work.

Other.

  • Linux NetworX Inc. (SANDY, UTAH) opened an office in San Jose, Calif.

  • Moonlight Systems, Inc. (SAN FRANCISCO) unveiled plans to deliver enterprise-grade applications optimized for Linux server deployments and the fast growing Application Service Provider (ASP) market. "Moonlight Systems(TM) will employ an open source strategy in developing and delivering its products, by providing source code to customers and partners to maximize flexibility and to foster ongoing innovation."

Section Editor: Rebecca Sobol.


June 29, 2000

 

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