German universities embrace Linux, Aug 31, 2007

A German state has signed a major contract with Novell for the supply of Linux server and desktop products to 33 universities.

New US airline Virgin America has migrated to Red Hat Linux to host its website.

ISP Host Europe, which supports firms in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, is using systems from Red Hat.

Kingfisher Group has migrated its 240 Castorama and Brico Dépôt stores on the continent to Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Oracle databases.

Around 25% of enterprises will be running mission-critical business application on Linux platforms by 2009.

Citrix says it has no interest in delivering native Linux support in its products, and that it will continue to rely on the Windows platform.

Developers are being urged to join the new Linux Standard Base (LSB) Developer Network, a developers’ website designed to rival the Microsoft Developers Network (MSDN).

Motoring organisation the AA is to implement an identity and access management solution running on Novell's SuSE Linux to automate the management of digital identities for around 6,000 staff.

Novell has unveiled a SUSE Linux Enterprise training course contained on a portable USB drive, which it says is an industry first.

Oracle has now made its low-end, free-of-charge Oracle Database 10g Express Edition generally available to the public.

Panasonic is ending development of GSM mobile phones and will concentrate instead on 3G Linux-based phones, which are already popular in Asia.

Although Linux-driven servers increased 34% in the quarter year-on-year, the growth was less than the previous quarter. Unix servers accounted for 0.5% less sales in the third quarter.

It is believed up to a fifth of Novell’s staff could be made redundant in a desperate attempt to improve the company’s financial performance.

In a widely predicted move loss-making chip company Transmeta is extricating itself from the processor manufacturing business and making a bid to generate sales from licensing its chip technologies instead.

Linux will take a significant share of the mobile operating system market over the next five years, says analyst Meta Group.

Oracle has tightened up the security of a number of its products to allow customers to use them in critical national infrastructures, including in conjunction with open source technology from Linux.

Wyse Technology has launched a thin client terminal based on the latest Linux operating system.