OSDL Names Thomas Hanrahan Head of Linux Engineering, Sep 30, 2004

The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), a global consortium of leading technology companies dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux, today announced the appointment of Thomas Hanrahan as the Lab's new director of Linux engineering. OSDL Lab director Timothy Witham has been promoted to Chief Technology Officer.

Michael Robertson--founder of MP3.com, Linspire and SIPphone, which specializes in Internet telephony--has been embroiled in a lot of controversies.

Although Linux may be shipping on a growing number of PCs sold in the emerging markets of Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, about 80% of PCs shipped with the open source operating system this year will eventually run pirated versions of Windows, industry research firm Gartner estimated in a report issued Sept. 21.

Impossible?

OK. So anti-trust lawyers would have a field day but consider this -- the software giant is on an official spending spree and this is the best time to spread its wings ... to become the Coca-Cola of the IT industry.

Microsoft does not need Longhorn to compete with the growing threat from Linux, according to one of the software giant's senior executives.

In an exclusive interview with vnunet.com Martin Taylor, Microsoft's general manager of platform strategy, said that, even without its next-generation Windows operating system, Microsoft can still fight off the penguin.

Networking and Linux specialist Novell's company-wide rollout of Linux on the desktop is falling behind schedule.

Senior company executives estimated on Tuesday that only 1,500 out of 5,000 employees have made the jump to Linux since the process began in March this year. This is 1,000 fewer than chief information officer Debra Anderson's target for the end of October 2004.

Red Hat's Enterprise Linux 4 products, scheduled for release early next year, will support five Indian languages, reflecting the growing importance of the Indian market, according to an executive of the Raleigh, North Carolina-based Linux company.

South African retailer Pick ‘n Pay has donated more than 800 computer workstations to the Shuttleworth Foundation’s tuXlab programme to assist the Foundation in their drive to increase the usage of open source software in South African schools. The donation will enable the establishment of up to 40 new tuXlabs in schools.

In a move to add more open-source arrows to its quiver, Linux seller Red Hat has acquired the Netscape server software products of AOL Time Warner, the companies plan to announce Thursday.

Red Hat plans to release the Netscape Enterprise Suite as open-source software, meaning that anyone will be able to use, modify and redistribute the products. It's a new step in Red Hat's "open-source architecture" plan to expand beyond its core product, the Linux operating system, Chief Executive Matthew Szulik plans to tell analysts at a company conference Thursday in New York.

ETrade Financial Corp. and other online stock brokerages are at war over how fast they can execute a trade. Ameritrade Holding Corp. kicked off the execution promise game in 2001 by guaranteeing a turnaround of 10 seconds or less. ETrade countered with a nine-second guarantee, and since then it has all been downhill.

"NEC will make a full-scale commitment to Linux for mission-critical systems," said Toshiro Kawamura, senior executive vice president, during a conference at which he announced the "Enterprise Linux Solution for MC," a set of services and platforms to implement Linux in mission-critical systems.

Toshiro Kawamura, NEC senior executive vice president "Currently, Linux holds only about 2% of NEC's total business, but in Japan, Linux business is growing at a rapid rate of 25% per year, and will reach 450 billion yen by 2007," said Kawamura at the announcement, as he presented NEC's market estimates.

Microsoft is fighting to win over the minds and pocketbooks of IT decision makers inch by inch with its latest "Get the Facts" on Linux effort and an extension of its mainframe migration resource site.

The latest moves come after the company warned that software licensing revenue would be seasonal and would show only modest growth in the first quarter of 2005.

Microsoft will offer a low-cost, localised version of its Windows XP operating system in India to tap the large market potential offered by the country of 1 billion people, most of whom do not speak English.

The Windows XP Starter Edition, designed for first-time personal computer users in India's national language, Hindi, will be "significantly cheaper" than the Windows XP, said Rajeev Kaul, managing director of Microsoft India.

For years, Sun Microsystems ignored Linux or dismissed it as just another Unix variant. But company officials are now talking bluntly about their failure to recognize the corporate IT push to low-cost commodity systems, which Linux has helped foster.

Sun "dropped the ball" while customers rushed to Linux/Intel computing, said John Loiacono, executive vice president of Sun's software group. But with its Solaris 10 upgrade due by year's end, Sun is hoping to change that perception by adding a list of new features and adopting an open-source model that's as good as or better than the models used for Apache, Mozilla Linux and others, Loiacono said.

RealNetworks Inc. recommends users download updates it released to patch multiple security holes in RealOne Player, RealPlayer and Helix Player. An attacker could use the vulnerabilities to launch malicious code and delete files.

2.6.9-rc3 has been released today.
See changelog for full details.

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