Clear indication that Linux has arrived, Nov 13, 2006

Oracle’s announcement of providing support on Red Hat Linux is a clear indication that Linux has arrived. Linux, which started out as a hobby among some engineers, is today enterprise-ready and important enough for Oracle to provide support.

As Kerala logs Microsoft out of its schools, Linux world is buzzing with excitement over opportunities in the Left-ruled states

After the cola ban, it is now the turn of Microsoft to log out of Kerala. Children in 12,500 high schools in the state, India’s most literate, will not be taught Windows. Instead, instructors are lining up Linux for them. This is because Kerala has chalked out a plan for migrating its high school students to free software platforms in three years.

His professor thought he would have made a great biologist but Richard Mathew Stallman, had more important things in mind. He wanted to be a professional hacker at Harvard. He also wanted to wage a war against big corporations like Microsoft, seeking a monopoly on knowledge

Expect Microsoft vs Linux battle to heat up once again. Stoking the flame of the ongoing war now are intellectual property (IP) issues. The rising threat of third party IP infringement is promising to give a new turn to the entire debate, till now primarily focused on the ownership and security concerns.

The large installed UNIX base in the Indian enterprise space has generated a natural leeway to Linux adoption.

At a fraction of the size of software behemoth, Microsoft, Linux distributor Red Hat commands an enviable following, both among developers and the enterprise community, with about a 25% market share on the servers and 5% on desktops. In India, its big wins include the automation of Canara Bank’s 1,000 branches on Linux.

Sales of Linux servers are booming and HP is riding the wave. Akhtar Pasha finds that Penguin-powered servers are doing just fine in India

Linux and open source have transformed the computing landscape by making innovation a collective effort. Open source software eliminates traditional high licensing fees, limited options and vendor lock-in that too often accompany proprietary software.

Microsoft wants to put to rest all the perception and speculation about the vulnerability of its server and desktop operating systems in India compared with various Linux flavours like Red Hat and SuSe

While Linux has spread its wings in the recent past, the desktop market has remained a tough nut to crack. Factors such as the lack of applications and hardware support have restricted the penguin to servers for the greater part.

IT company Wipro Infotech on Monday announced a tie-up with Red Hat to offer Linux services in India.

Desktop customers have become tired of dealing with vendors whose products need frequent patch updates. With every virus attack, users are going to be more wary of choosing their operating system. Security is one of the biggest draws of using Linux on the desktop.

Microsoft is all set to compete with Linux for the various e-governance projects at the Centre and state level in India.

He hops from one city to another to meet prospective and existing customers and his colleagues at various locations, and even journalists and public relations executives, to drive home his message: the value of Microsoft’s Windows operating system (OS).

Juergen Geck, chief technology officer (CTO), Suse Linux, a Novell company, who is responsible for aligning and communicating the company’s technology strategy, was also instrumental in designing SuSE’s flagship product SuSE Linux Enterprise server. The enterprise server was the first Linux offering in the market. In an interview with eFE, he spoke about the current trends in the Linux market.

Sensing increased opportunity in the country, Red Hat India, the leading Linux applications and open source provider, is doubling its headcount in the country to 100 in the next 12-18 months.

The company, which has offices in five cities in India, will also open an office in Chennai in the next quarter, Javed Tapia, director (India), Red Hat India told in Chennai.

In an initiative to make inroads in the entry-level market segment in India, Sun Microsystems and AMD have announced a joint initiative to bring customers the benefits of their Solaris operating system (OS), Linux and Java technology. By offering both Solaris OS and Linux, Sun customers will have a choice of enterprise operating systems and access to numerous applications.

“When the government purchasing law comes out, Linux will win a piece of the market,” said Fang Xingdong, chairman of China Laboratory, an independent software consulting firm. “Of course, the party that will be most affected will be Microsoft.”

In what could hit Microsoft’s interest in Indian market, the government owned non-formal software education outfit DOEACC has silently modified its syllabus dropping subjects on Microsoft technologies and increasing focus on open operating systems such as Linux.