Declare your 'wIndependence' this July 4th!, Jun 20, 2002

DesktopLinux.com, today proclaimed July 4th, 2002 to be the first annual wIndependence Day. Coinciding with the US Independence Day holiday, wIndependence Day celebrates the burgeoning use of Linux on business, government, educational institution, and personal end-user computer desktops as an alternative to dependence on Microsoft's Windows operating system and associated products.

Keep your eye on Walmart.com for new Microtel systems bearing the Mandrake logo. The systems will sell alongside the newly announced Lindows-based PCs, say sources. And continue to look for more online retail envelope-pushing from Wal-Mart's online wing, of all places.

The Sun server, to be officially named Cobalt LX50, is the company's first general-purpose server to run Sun Linux and could be attractive to customers looking for a system to handle tasks such as e-mail, file and media serving. The new server will use two 1.4GHz Pentium III processors from Intel and two 72G-byte hard drives, the sources said. Future versions of the server will also likely come bundled with several software packages, including Sun's Grid Engine software, which manages large collections of servers, and Sun ONE Internet server-related software.

It's no accident, according to Gartner Dataquest. While the Linux Intel server market remains small in terms of revenue, it's growing quickly and it's this growth that has enabled IBM to grab a bigger part of the server market pie.

And IBM knows this. Rich Michos, IBM's v.p. of Linux servers, says, "The Intel platform is the fastest growing platform, and Linux is the fastest growing server OS. Each year Linux is becoming more and more important to IBM and it gains a bigger share." To be exact, Scott Handy, IBM's director of Linux solutions marketing, says that 27% of new servers requests are for Linux servers." And, those requests are increasing.

IBM initially will fund the center in Manhattan with $1 million, helping financial services companies move their software to Linux computers, the company said. Though the company didn't disclose how many employees will work in the center, other IBM facilities for helping customers and companies develop their software typically have 12 to 50 employees.

Red Hat will begin selling an Itanium version of its Advanced Server Linux product early this fall, executives disclosed Tuesday, one of several partnerships under way with Hewlett-Packard.

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