Linux Online - Software vendors hand aging products to open-source community

Software vendors hand aging products to open-source community


Publication:	Information Week	Date:	Jul 26 2004
Reporter:	Larry Greenemeier

Students, faculty, and staff returning to Golden Gate University this fall will have remote access to database, printing, and E-mail functions from any Web browser, no longer having to connect through the school's network. The reason for this newfound freedom: open-source software.

The implication of the San Francisco institution using open source goes deeper than simply trying an alternative to proprietary products. It shows how the popularity of open source is influencing the strategy of proprietary software vendors, especially how they deal with older products.

Golden Gate this summer is testing iFolder, iPrint, and NetMail software, products that Novell turned over to the open-source community. Novell, which has a long-standing reputation for providing a solid network operating system, two years ago contributed once-proprietary code to the open-source community. Last year, it went a step further into open source, acquiring operating-system vendor SuSE Linux and Ximian Inc., a maker of Linux desktop software.