Accurate market share statistics and The $60 Billion dollar question, Apr 28, 2008

Earlier this week an article concerning Vista and market share and one about how Open Source Software has cost the IT Industry $60 Billion dollars over the last five years or so hit the newswire.

Linux offers equivalents to many Windows applications that are often as good as -- or even better than -- the programs you're used to. In some cases the apps are also available in Windows and Mac OS versions, allowing dual-booters to stay with the same set of free programs regardless of the operating system in use.

The “One Laptop Per Child” project (OLPC), the brainchild of Nicholas Negroponte, was envisioned as a way to bring the cost of computing down to a level where more in the developing world could afford it, either directly,

The Russian Post has started testing the free software to be used in ordinary post offices. Cutting costs for software is one of the main reasons to migrate to Linux. No details are reported. However, according to some sources, the Russian Post might prefer Red Hat.

Your systems are all way overdue for an operating system upgrade, but your IT department is going over budget. You know you can’t afford the latest version of Microsoft Windows or Office. The easiest path to reining in your costs would be to migrate over to the Linux operating system. Unfortunately, corporate headquarters isn’t convinced that Linux is the way to go. How do you convince them otherwise?

IN A SOMEWHAT shocking revelation, One Laptop Per Child has said that they might dump Linux from their XO laptops in favour of the Vole’s Windows XP. The seeming surrender to the evil corporate world comes just a day after the company’s president tendered his resignation.

Open-source developers should stop bickering, unite and jointly develop a Windows user interface to make XO laptops more appealing to users, One Laptop Per Child Chairman Nicholas Negroponte has urged in a public note to that community.

Two of the biggest names in the world of Linux and open-source software picked the same day to back off their designs on a new world order in consumer computing.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has not received a formal appeal of its approval of Office Open XML as a standard, but it looks more unlikely with each day that passes.

Yankee Group market researchers have presented the results of a study on server and operation system reliability for 2007. Compared to the previous year, annual downtime on all systems has dropped sharply – except on Windows server 2000 and 2003.

Is Windows broken? Gartner says yes, and explains why. Many readers have other ideas, though, and not everyone is ready to jump ship to Linux. Give us your take on the situation.

Gartner analysts are running about in Las Vegas, hair on fire, shouting that Windows is collapsing. Or about to collapse. Or something.

Business users and Linux kernel developers hashed out issues like reliability, kernel patches, and bugs at the second Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit in Austin, Texas.

Linux usage has grown fast over the past several years as the operating system moved from perimeter Web servers to workloads much closer to the heart of the business, while gaining a broad following of contributors and commercial users. But the days of these easy advances may be past.

The diverse Linux community gathers to debate future paths for the open-source operating system.

Once upon a time, you found Linux as a server in two places in the enterprise: on the edge, as a Web server, and in the branch office, as a file and print server. That was then. This is now.

The free Linux operating system handles big tasks like running supercomputers and ATMs. Now Linux has a chance to finally crack Microsoft Corp.'s hold on computing's most visible domain - mainstream PCs - because of the rise of innovative, inexpensive machines.

Workloads running on Linux servers are shifting to become more business oriented, including databases and line-of-business applications, and the operating system appears headed for measurable growth over the next three years, according to a white paper released Tuesday by IDC.

We already knew that Asus was going to start selling their Eee PC subnotebook computer with Windows XP pre-installed, but we didn't know how much the Microsoft tax was going to be. As it turns, it's zero. Hopping on over to the Best Buy website, you'll find that the 4GB Eee PC with Windows XP is the same price as its Linux counterpart.

Noah Broadwater, vice president of information services at Sesame Street Workshop, likes using open-source virtualization tools for several good reasons -- starting with green ones that have nothing to do with Oscar the Grouch.

To some people, the increasing number of Linux distributions serves as a disadvante when it comes to attracting new users. To Christopher Smart, it's a plus point - the way he puts it, if he had not been able to roll his own, he never would have achieved the level of understanding of Linux he has today.

How'd you like to try out the ASUS Eee without paying a dime, sort of? ASUS just posted the software development kit for its groundbreaking Linux-powered notebook on SourceForge, along with a fully functional system image of the Eee's Xandros OS. It's not quite the same experience as the machine itself, but for those itching to develop for it, this is a way to get a jump-start on that without needing the hardware itself.

Ever since I wrote "It's Time to Get Over Microsoft," people have demanded in blogs and emails how I could ignore the obvious threat that Microsoft represents to free software. Usually, I ask them to read the article more carefully, and note that it suggests that free software has grown strong enough to take care of itself.

In a few years' time, almost all businesses will use open source, according to Gartner; even though IT managers may be unaware of it, and prefer to talk about fashions such as software as a service.

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