Vendors Spur Linux On, Feb 12, 2002

Hewlett-Packard expects "a breakout year" for Linux, CEO Carly Fiorina says. This spring, HP will add Linux systems to the pay-per-use programs it offers Windows and Unix users. Under the program, HP assumes full life-cycle management of a customer's servers, and customers can dictate the size of their infrastructure based on computing needs. HP is also enhancing its broader Linux services; for example, it will offer Linux porting and migration services, along with security and telecommunications application services.

Linux software seller Red Hat has acquired assets of ArsDigita, an open-source company that expired after a failed attempt to make its software proprietary.

ArsDigita sold software that helped manage routine Web site maintenance duties--keeping track of users and managing content, for example--and had a number of high-profile customers such as Deutsche Bank, Finnish cell phone maker Nokia, Boston-based public broadcasting station WGBH and German electronics giant Siemens.

Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, appeared in a penguin suit at a meeting of financial analysts recently, hoping to show his company's support for Linux and introduce new server offerings aimed at the lower end of the server spectrum.

DesktopLinux.com founder and executive editor Rick Lehrbaum speaks with Gaël Duval, Founder of Mandrake Linux. Duval relates the history of Mandrake, explains what makes Mandrake unique, discusses the company's market focus, describes Mandrake's philosophy with respect to open source, and offers his vision of the future of the Desktop Linux Market and what will help its success

Members of the standards group freely admit that LSB is geared mainly to making more commercial software applications available on Linux servers.

"Every ISV I've talked to has known the pain and suffering of trying to port applications to multiple distributions of Linux," says John Terpstra, a Linux evangelist at Caldera.

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