Top 10 Tech Stories Reveal Fast-Changing Landscape, Jan 02, 2004

10. Information technology as a commodity. Makers of information technology saw their wares becomes more like commodities in 2003, as business buyers scooped up cheap Intel-type machines and embraced the Linux operating system.

Despite threatened lawsuits and license fees from SCO Group Inc., which calls Linux an illegal copy of its Unix software, the renegade software got big backing from IBM Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and others.

Best known as a network software firm, Novell Inc. made a big bet on Linux by buying Ximian Inc. and Germany's SuSE. Even Sun Microsystems Inc., (SUNW) hit hard by the shift away from pricier Unix systems, took a stab at the lower end. It announced systems that use x86-type chips from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD)

Governments around the world appear to be taking an interest in Openoffice.org and open source software in general. The city of Austin, Texas recently adopted openoffice.org software and governments in Germany, France, Brazil and China to name of few have stated interest in going the open source route as well. In the U.K Scottish Public Libraries have made Openoffice.org software available for lending to the public.

"We have been working towards having as many governments both regional and federal adopt open source and open office in particular because we are the flagship of any desktop open source system. Suarez-Potts said. "We're now in some ways the most definite obvious example that a person is going to encounter of open source software."

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