Weekly Edition
Daily updates
Events Calendar
Book reviews
Penguin Gallery

SLC/LWS 2001 Exhibit Floor

March 26, 2001
Liz Coolbaugh

There were XX booths at this year's Singapore Linux Conference/LinuxWorld Singapore 2001.

Here are some shots from the various booths:

ASPLinux

ASPLinux booth

ASPLinux is a Singapore-based business which has just announced the launch of their first stable version of the ASPLinux distribution, a "100% Red Hat-compatible" distribution. Revenue sources are expected to include box sales, but are primarily focused on hosting services and on high-level consulting services. Training and certification services are also planned for the future. Check also the summary from their press conference at the event for details on the new release.

Also announced at the conference was their HSPcomplete hosting technology. Think web-hosting in a box, then check out their "patent-pending Virtuozzo[tm] virtualization, resource management and clustering technology".

eLinux Pte Ltd

eLinux Pte Ltd booth

eLinux Pte Ltd is a Singapore-based provider of Linux services and training, founded in 1997. Their curriculum appears to be based on the Linuxcare University and supports the Linux Professional Institute certification program. In addition, they have partnerships with e-smith, inc., out of Canada, Scyld Computing, Linux-Mandrake and more.

Borland

Borland booth

Borland was present, pushing hard on its Kylix development product, available for Linux. For commercial sites that already use Kylix, its availability for Linux can dramatically cut the cost of porting existing applications to the Linux platform. Presumably Borland has a significant customer base in Singapore, significant enough to want to make sure their customers are aware of their Linux version.

Rock Linux

Rock Linux booth

It was fun to run into Chris Hamilton and his wife at the Rock Linux booth. Rock Linux is a distribution with a powerful autobuild feature that allows users to install and build entirely from scratch, making it relatively easy to optimize the distribution for a variety of hardware platforms. Clifford Wolf is the lead developer for Rock Linux; Chris is focusing primarily on maintaining the stable version of Rock Linux. LWN first found and reported on Rock Linux in September of 1999; this is the first opportunity we've had to talk to any of the developers in person.

The booth was there both to make people aware of the availability of the distribution and in the hopes of attracting new developers to the project as well.

SGI

SGI booth

SGI provided both one of the keynote vendors and the biggest name on the show floor. The SGI keynote included recent statistics from IDG that talked of the expected growth in Linux in Asia. Also emphasized were SGI's plans for Linux, which include a presence on the high-end, particularly for data-intensive requirements, and improved security models for Linux.

LUGS Booth

LUGS booth

Not to be forgotten, the Linux User Group (Singapore) also had a booth, providing more information on Linux, memberships, coffee cups and more.

Other Vendors

There were also vendors represented at the event that did not have booths. Looking through the business cards we received, these included:

dotXtra Pte Ltd, Singapore

EastCommerce Pte Ltd, Singapore

eXtropia, Singapore

IQmind.com, Singapore

InfoLinux, Jakarta

Micronics, Jakarta

Starcom Software, Mumbai, India