Dec 28
One of the major Korean cities, Gwangju Metropolitan City, has successfully completed a first phase of transitioning to open source software.
Dec 22
Despite the onslaught by Oracle and Microsoft Redhat prevailed this quarter and beat Wall street estimates with revenue rising 45 percent to $105.8 million. It is encouraging, however, I do not believe that the have felt the brunt of the two front battle that Microsoft and Oracle have started.
Dec 21
IBM and its partners have just reported a 30 percent year-to-year growth of mainframe customers running Linux. I wonder if IBM owes Microsoft licensing costs for using Linux on their mainframes? Maybe one day the SCO saga will repeat itself again. This was covered in a press release over at IBM The linux virtual servers seems to be driving force behind this growth.
“This increase in Linux application development for the mainframe is being driven by a number of factors, including the overwhelming acceptance of partitioned Linux virtual servers — and the associated great price and performance — which is driving new workloads on System z. “
Dec 20
Linux was launched into space Dec 16 on-board the Tacsat-2 satellite program as covered at www.linuxdevices.com. The TIE (Target Indicator Experiment) payload sensor was developed by the Naval Research Laboratory on top of an application-ready Linux system created by PTR Group.
Todd Brackett, PTR Group president, explains, “Say the Marines are going to land on a beach, and you want a satellite’s view of the situation, but you don’t have access to one of the big national asset satellites. That kind of access is very difficult to get for tactical purposes. You want to quickly create a satellite and get it up in space, and over the space you’re interested in. We’re proving you can do that, leveraging COTS solutions, easy solutions, and free software.
I have done a little work with some of the engineers at the PTR Group. They are very dedicated and talented group of engineers to work with. Congratulations guys!
Dec 18
Applications are now making waves in the business world, by enabling companies to implement economical open source solutions across the whole enterprise with support from major vendors.
“The value proposition for businesses is simple: sites can use the features and functions of Linux/Open Source to better support remote offices and to aid in IT resource consolidation. They can economically replace older technology with commodity-priced servers with Linux/Open Source that can interoperate with many different computing platforms, and that enjoy enthusiastic endorsement from all the major IT vendors”
It is a major shift in business and thought process, because instead having of a monopoly business model protected by law, you now can now have one that is protected by common sense and options.
Dec 13
RLPTechnologies turns vast amounts of data into business value with speed and accuracy which serves as a foundation for research across multiple industries.
Running a grid computing environment on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite for a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) platform, RLPTechnologies has experienced an increase in data-file processing performance by 70 percent, increased scalability by 400 percent
Dec 12
You can now find penguins in Ohio. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has made a switch from HP-UX to Linux in order to reduce increased maintenance costs.
“Holler was unable to say specifically how much was saved on support, but he estimated the EPA saved 35% overall by migrating from HP-UX to Linux.”
“The difference in the purchase price between RISC-based and Intel-based servers was dramatic, Holler said. Additional RISC-based servers would have cost up to $20,000 each. By switching to Linux, Holler paid $5,000 for Intel-based servers from HP Co. or Dell Inc.”
Dec 08
A project to enable rural access to the internet through satellite is using a Debian Linux router within the project. A big advantage using Debian is being able to push updates to the routers. If you are more interested in the technical details, it can be found over at www.computerworld.com.au.
Some 75 towns across New South Wales have started accessing the Internet through Linux-based satellite routers in what is said to be largest network of its type in Australia spanning upwards of 800,000 square kilometres.
Dec 07
IBM is throwing more support towards Linux by certifying over 2,500 applications that run on its Power CPU architecture.
“One of the first ports of Linux to the Power platform was Yellow Dog Linux. But IBM saw the potential value of Linux on its high-powered RISC systems, and spent more than $1 billion in 2000 to port Linux to all its server platforms, including its Power-based systems. The company’s milestone for Linux-on-Power application support is a sign that this investment is paying off.”
Dec 05
From an article at the Computer Business Review Online.
“The Linux operating system is the recipient of 75% of all vendor investment in open source software, according to a new report from the Harvard Business School, which also indicates that vendor support for open source is primarily motivated by boosting their proprietary offerings.”
A breakdown of the money being pumped into Open Source Software from the Harvard Business School report, between 1995 and 2005.
Linux: $1,500 million
Firefox: $317 milion
OpenOffice: $76 million
Mysql: $48 million
PHP: $24 million
JBOSS: $10 million
