See also: last week's Commerce page.

Linux and business

Joel Moses sent us a tip last week that Schlumberger intended on releasing their Linux Smartcard Developer's Kit, called "Cyberflex Open 16K for Linux". We didn't manage to trace down a useable link in time, so, belatedly, we'll tell you that you can find it at Schlumberger's SmartCard Marketplace, or just read about it here.

Several people wrote to point out that the personal edition of StarOffice 5.0 for Linux is out. As before, this office package is free for personal use. The web site also lists information on ordering StarOffice on CD, if you prefer not to download the (very large) package.

Applix is heading into serious corporate territory with their announcement of the "TM1" OLAP system for Linux. "With Applix TM1 OLAP for Linux, over seven million customers using the popular Linux operating system now have immediate access to multidimensional views of their business with a full-featured, easy-to-use solution."

This press releasedescribing Red Hat's new CDROM products. Included therein is a new Powertools release, the return of the old Variety Pack (Intel, Sparc, and Alpha distributions all together), the "Offline" CD (copies of a number of FTP sites), and the "Linux Library", full of all kinds of documentation, including the Linux Weekly News archives.

David Bar dropped us a note to say that GoldED is going open source. GoldED is a mail reader for FidoNet systems, evidently one of the best ones.

Back in our October 10 issue we reported on the WebCMO survey of Linux users. They have now released their first results to the world, mostly focusing on the demographics of Linux users.

Siliware has announced the "Clusterspace" system - a commercial product designed to aid parallel processing on Beowulf clusters. They will start a beta testing program soon, see their announcement to sign up. It is most encouraging to see commercial activity around Beowulf. World domination in the supercomputing realm may be sooner than people thing.

Pacific HiTech and Adaptec have announced an alliance to better support the operation of Adaptec's controllers under TurboLinux. Presumably, unless they are going to start from scratch, the improved drivers that result from this agreement will be made globally available. See their press release for more.

Press Releases:

• Ardent software, their O2 object database for Linux.
• HP, their Firehunter ISP package ported to Linux.
• GoodNoise, their new open-source MP3 player.
• Data Translation, their "Broadway" video application software now available as open source.
• Intel, demoed Torrent's "Orchestrate" data warehouse application over Oracle on a 4-processor Xeon system.
• Borders, Red Hat Linux as a Christmas gift idea (right next to "The First Time" by Cher).
• Visual Numerics and MicroEdge, "Visual SlickEdit" editor works with PV-Wave (on Linux too).
• Axis, "ThinWizard" thin server management software.
• Data Harmony, document management software.
• Printronix, the last holdout in the line printer business, P5000 line printer with Linux-compatible management software.
• Corel, announcing donations to Algonquin College, including 32 NetWinders.
• Oracle, "invites software developers to build for the Internet."
• SimpleNet, their "SimpleRaQ" service, built on Cobalt RaQ servers.
• Cirrus Logic, low-power embedded ethernet controllers with source-available Linux driver.

Next: Announcements