Bill Gates and other communists, Feb 16, 2005

Mr. Gates' secret is out now--he too was a "communist;" he, too, recognized that software patents were harmful--until Microsoft became one of these giants.

The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) wants to find out what's needed to make desktop Linux successful, so it launched an initiative on Monday to find out how to make that happen.

In his address, Messman pushed several key terms as he discussed the success of Linux in the enterprise. Words like flexible, adaptive, greater control and independence have all become associated with Linux, while the questions and concerns that arose at last year's LinuxWorld have receded, he said.

Hewlett-Packard Co. and Fujitsu Computer Systems Corp. are looking to expand the Linux offerings in their blade server lines as well as some of their most powerful systems.

First National Bank of Omaha said this week that it's nearing completion of a complete changeout of its distributed server infrastructure for a mainframe and blade-server architecture based on Linux. While only 80% complete, the move is already expected to save the company US$1.8 million this year in operating expenses and another US$9.6 million through 2011.

You appear to be making some significant shifts in your strategy, moving beyond PDAs to smart phones and even Linux. Why?

Two years ago, we began to see the real growth opportunities in the handheld-computing market were shifting from stand-alone devices, like the original Palm Pilot, to devices that combine features of the handheld computer with communicator devices, whether it's a smart phone [Treo 650 review] or a BlackBerry-type device. We began refocusing our development efforts to serve that market, which we saw as the future.

Xandros has added Skype to the mix of applications bundled with its desktop operating system

Open-source programmers might not like the idea of software patents, but those critics would be better off adapting to the fact that they're not going away, Hewlett-Packard's top Linux executive said Tuesday.

An Italian bank is to move to thousands of computers to the Linux operating system.

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