SCO license currently for biggest users only, Oct 22, 2003

Linux users outside of the Fortune 1000 cannot buy the software licence The SCO Group Inc. has been offering since August as a way to protect themselves against legal action, the company confirmed Tuesday.

"We're trying to execute on this licensing plan (by) really starting to deal with the very top players and working our way down," said Blake Stowell, a SCO spokesman. "After the company has rolled this out to the Fortune 1000 and we're satisfied with how the program is going ... we'll then roll it down to small to medium businesses."

SGI's latest results edged closer to profitability, as it announced NASA had bought a Linux machine with 256 Itanium 2 processors and was planning to buy more

NASA is using a Linux machine from Silicon Graphics with 256 Itanium 2 processors and plans to double that soon, the company said on Monday after posting financial results that moved it closer toward profitability.

Motorola, the world's second largest mobile phone maker, will use the RealNetworks RealOne Player in some of its phones, RealNetworks said Tuesday.

Motorola's licensing agreement covers any operating system it chooses to develop phones on, but initially RealNetworks and Motorola will focus on Linux-based handsets aimed at the consumer mass market, said Ian Freed, vice president for mobile products and services at Seattle-based RealNetworks.

We will list the myths Federica Troni, a senior Gartner analyst, told the hundreds of PC system builders here at the conference.

• 1 Linux will be cheaper than Windows because StarOffice can be used instead of MS Office
• 2 Linux is free
• 3 No forced upgrades
• 4 Linux will require significantly less labour to manage
• 5 Linux will have a lower total cost of ownership than Windows because of available management tools
• 6 Hardware will be able to be kept longer if Linux is used or holder hardware can be used
• 7 Applications will be cheap or free
• 8 Transferable skills

Enhanced system management capabilities, better security, support for third-party drivers and more unity among the various distributions top user wish lists when it comes to Linux. They also would like to see more of their peers embrace the open source operating system as it evolves into a platform capable of supporting even the most-critical layers in the data center.

"One of the biggest hurdles that Linux has to overcome to be a bigger player in the enterprise is FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt]," says Timothy Kennedy, a senior projects engineer at content-services firm YellowBrix in Alexandria, Va. "As Linux continues to prove itself in the enterprise, corporations are becoming more confident of the performance and savings that Linux offers. And with corporate support available [from companies like Dell, HP and IBM], it provides some peace of mind."

Dominant Linux seller Red Hat will begin offering the newest incarnation of its product for business customers on Wednesday, a version that opens several new markets for the company.

Version number notwithstanding, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 is the company's second edition of Linux specially designed for corporate users that prize stability. The company says that the new version of the operating system runs Java software and databases faster, can run on mainframes and several other new machines, takes advantage of powerful 32-processor hardware and comes with better programming tools.

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