See also: last week's Commerce page.

Linux and Business

Announcements from O'Reilly Convention. At this writing the O'Reilly Open Source Convention is in full swing. Now O'Reilly Con isn't one of those big commercial events like Comdex or LinuxWorld where you can see all the latest toys and snappy apps and the press releases swell this section to two or three times normal size. The O'Reilly conference is a place where developers go to talk about new technologies and open source projects. This year's conference, however, has been generating a buzz in the commercial world.

Perhaps it started with the debate between Red Hat CTO Michael Tiemann and Microsoft Senior Vice President Craig Mundie. The topic: "Shared Source vs. Open Source". Interesting, no doubt, but most developers have already made up their minds on the topic, and they are not likely to be swayed by any arguments given here. What is more exciting are the open source announcements from Hewlett Packard Company and Sun Microsystems.

HP Labs created cooltown, a developer's community with a "vision of a technology future where people, places, and things are first class citizens of the connected world, wired and wireless". The CoolBase open source project, launched at O'Reilly Con, provides the initial set of building blocks for researchers and advanced developers to create cooltown services and environments, and to participate in a community of like-minded experts. So CoolBase isn't really the sort of product usually covered here, but it may well be used to develop those future products that will drive the crowds at Comdex wild. LinuxDevices also has more information on CoolBase.

Sun Microsystems first introduced the Sun(TM) Grid Engine software in September 2000. The Sun Grid Engine is a resource management system. It makes systems more productive by putting idle resources to work. The program has always been freely available, but this week Sun announced the release of the source code for the Grid Engine. CollabNet will be helping Sun to manage the code which will be licensed under the Sun Industry Standards Source License.

LPI Announces New President And Director. The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) announced the appointment of Chuck Mead as President and of James Lacey to the LPI Board of Directors. Mead is LPI's second President, replacing Dan York who has held the position since the Institute's inception in 1998. Mead is a co-founder of LPI, the CEO of Moongroup Consulting and former CTO of LinuxMall.com. James Lacey has been involved with LPI since 1999 and is CEO of Bradford Learning, a company formed by the spinoff of Linuxcare University.

A new boss at SuSE. SuSE has announced that Johannes Nussbickel, previously chief financial officer at the company, will be taking the chief executive officer position. Former CEO Roland Dyroff is taking a seat on the board of directors.

Sleepycat Releases Berkeley DB version 3.3. Sleepycat Software, Inc. announced Berkeley DB version 3.3, which provides features for high availability and support for the Lineo Embedix embedded Linux operating system.

Sair Linux and GNU Newsletter #9. Here is the ninth Sair Linux and GNU Newsletter. Sair will once again be offering Linux certification at LinuxWorld; Sair self-study kits are available; and other topics are covered.

Linux Stock Index for July 19 to July 25, 2001.

LSI at closing on July 19, 2001 ... 28.08
LSI at closing on July 25, 2001 ... 28.09

The high for the week was 28.09
The low for the week was 28.01

Press Releases:

Open source products

• Borland Software Corporation (LONG BEACH, Calif.): Borland Delivers Kylix Open Edition for Linux Community.

• OpenLink Software, Inc. (BURLINGTON, Mass.): OpenLink Software Unleashes ODBC SDK Update for Mac OS..

Proprietary Products for Linux

• AppWorx Corporation (BELLEVUE, Wash.): AppWorx Enterprise Job Scheduler Now Available for Linux.

• Borland Software Corporation (SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif.): Borland Drives Rapid Application Development for Linux with Kylix Evaluation Program; Borland Kylix Now Available for 60-Day Free Trial Download.

• Computer Associates International, Inc. (ISLANDIA, N.Y.): Unicenter Wins Editors' Choice Award From CNET Linux Magazine.

• Extended Systems (LONG BEACH, Calif.): Extended Systems' Advantage TDataSet Descendant Client to Support Kylix.

• Oracle Corporation (REDWOOD SHORES, Calif.): Developers Can Download Oracle9i Database on Linux Today.

• Total Impact (Camarillo, CA): Total Impact's New BRIQ Provides Lightweight, Energy Efficient and Affordable PowerPC Linux Computing.

• Xi Graphics Inc. (DENVER): Xi Graphics Announces Support For New ATI Radeon VE Card.

Hardware with Linux installed

• Dell Computer Corporation (): Dell PowerEdge 7150 (Itanium) with Red Hat Linux 7.1 now available!.

Products and Services Using Linux

• Intrusion.com, Inc. (RICHARDSON, Texas): Intrusion.com Offers Four New Integrated, ''Secured by Check Point'' Appliances.

• Total Impact (Camarillo, CA): Total Impact announces Centricity Render Engine.

Products With Linux Versions

• Agere Systems (ALLENTOWN, Pa.): Agere Systems Makes It Easy to Set Up and Manage Wireless Networks for Homes, Small Businesses and Enterprises.

• Aladdin Systems (New York, NY Macworld Expo): StuffIt Engine(tm) Software Developer Kit (SDK) for Linux and Solaris shipped.

• BCC Technologies (IRVINE, Calif.): BCC Launches First iSeries 15K RPM Disk Drive.

• Ensim Corporation (SUNNYVALE, Calif.): Ensim Introduces First Hosting Reseller Automation Suite.

• GraphOn Corporation (MORGAN HILL, Calif.): GraphOn Announces GO-Global Next Generation Software for Web Enabling Windows, UNIX, and Linux Applications Instantly.

• MSC.Software Corporation (SANTA ANA, Calif.): MSC.Software Integrates MSC.Patran With MSC.Engineering-e.com Internet Infrastructure.

• ORINCON Corporation International (SAN DIEGO): ORINCON Launches New Company Focused On Growth in Network Security Market.

• Rolland Virtual Business Systems Ltd. (MONTREAL): RVBS Launches the New Version of Fractal Commerce.

• The MathWorks, Inc. (NATICK, Mass.): The MathWorks Announces New Curve Fitting Toolbox for MATLAB.

• The MathWorks, Inc. (NATICK, Mass.): The MathWorks expanded Filter Design Toolbox links with DSP Blockset and Developer's Kit for TI DSP.

• Xi Graphics Inc. (DENVER): Xi Graphics Announces UNIX(R) Graphics Support for Satellite Pro 4600.

Java Products

• Borland Software Corporation (SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif.): Borland Drives Java with JBuilder 5 Personal; Free Download Offers New Users Fast and Easy Way to Learn Java Technology.

• Borland Software Corporation (LONG BEACH, Calif.): Borland Announces New Version of Enterprise Studio for Java.

• Headway Software (DENVER and SAN DIEGO): Headway Software Extends Headway reView's Reach with the Release of reView Publisher and freeView.

• Headway Software (DENVER and SAN DIEGO): Headway Software Releases Beta Version of Pure Java Headway reView With Initial Support for Windows, Solaris and Linux.

• SmartMode (San Francisco, CA): SmartMode Releases Version 1.0 of Rapid JavaServer Pages (JSP) Development tools.

Partnerships

• EdgeMatrix (SINGAPORE): EdgeMatrix and Red Flag Ride the Linux Platform to Capture the Wireless Multichannel Market in China.

• Stratabase (ABBOTSFORD, British Columbia): Stratabase Announces Hewlett-Packard Relationship and Expanded CRM Solutions.

Investments and Acquisitions

• Lok Technology, Inc. (CORAL GABLES, Fla.): Lok Technology, Inc. Receives Funding.

Personnel & New Offices

• Caldera International Inc. (SANTA CRUZ, Calif.): Caldera International Inc. Boosts Marketing Efforts; Dr. Timothy Ashby named executive vice president of worldwide marketing..

• everStor Inc. (ANAHEIM, Calif.): everStor Appoints Jamie Broadbent as Director of Sales. everStor software is designed for Linux and Sun Solaris Sparc and X86 platforms. everStor software

• Open Source Development Lab (PORTLAND, Ore.): OSDL Recruits Linux Community Notables; Lab Announces New Hires to Facilitate Projects Using OSDL.

Financial Results

• MSC.Software Corp. (COSTA MESA, Calif.): MSC.Software Reports 41% Growth in Earnings.

Linux At Work

• IBM (Darwin): Northern Territory Department of Education Selects Linux and IBM.

• Wincor Nixdorf, Inc. (AUSTIN, Texas): The Home Depot Rolls with Wincor Nixdorf's Linux-based Mobile POS Systems for Expo Design Centers.

Other

• NuSphere (BEDFORD, Mass.): NuSphere President to Outline Market Landscape and Comment on the Parallel Universe of Open Source.

Section Editor: Rebecca Sobol.

Next: Linux in the news