HP: Open source can be profitable, Oct 31, 2006

Hewlett-Packard claimed it is starting to see higher returns from open source contracts.

Somewhat hidden within HP's launch of otherwise Windows-driven consumer products last week was the fact that the HP Media Vault, one of the newly announced entries, uses embedded Linux underneath the covers.

HP-hired investigators searching for the source of boardroom leaks allegedly tried to plant a trojan horse program on a CNET reporter's laptop, but apparently the attempt failed because the reporter was running Linux instead of Windows, according to Groklaw's Pamela Jones.

A proposed patent provision in a revamped General Public License isn't sitting well at Hewlett-Packard, raising concerns that two competing versions of the license could survive.

While Linux is almost in the mainstream, there are a number of pain-points for existing and potential customers that need to be addressed, says Christine Martino, the vice president for HP's open source and Linux organization.

Hewlett-Packard will ensure that the operating system works on several of its notebook models by year-end.

Hewlett-Packard has no plans to preload versions of the upcoming Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 10 on PCs but will certify the operating system.

Desktop sales played a big role in Hewlett-Packard's recent news-making profit gains. In the future, Linux will figure prominently in HP desktops, says Christine Martino, vice president of HP's Open Source and Linux Organization. She's not predicting an overthrow of Windows desktops anytime soon, though.

TestDrive, is accessed online via the TestDrive Web site. It allows free-of-charge access to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Novell SuSE Linux and other open source operating systems like Debian, FreeBSD and OpenVMS.

Businesses deploying Linux should be driven by long-term planning rather than doing it "because they can", Hewlett Packard vice-president Martin Fink said, during his presentation at the Sydney Linux World Conference and Expo yesterday.

Christine Martino, vice president of Hewlett Packard's Open Source and Linux organization, talks about middleware, Linux on the desktop, and other open source trends.

As HP claims market leadership over IBM, will the real leader in Linux servers step forward?

Hewlett-Packard Co. and Novell Inc. have teamed up to offer a bundling license that they say makes it easier and cheaper to run SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) on HP servers.

HP South Africa is to release a range of Linux-based notebooks at the end of February. In an interview with Tectonic HP's Sean Owen-Jones said the HP 6110 notebooks will sell for R5999-00 and will run the Linspire operating system.

HP is considering selling services designed to ease customer participation in the open source programming community, the company's new open source boss said.

Computer maker Hewlett-Packard plans to sell PCs running Linux across 37 countries in Latin America, and has selected Mandriva to provide the open source operating system.

Hewlett-Packard is considering selling services designed to ease customer participation in the open-source programming community, the company's new open-source boss said.

Pauline Nist, for years a leader of Hewlett-Packard's high-end NonStop server group, has become senior vice president of product development at Penguin Computing, the Linux server maker plans to announce Monday.

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