Linux-based Unison server to challenge Microsoft Unified Communications Platform, Feb 28, 2008

A group of former execs from a Microsoft messaging hosting partner are going to launch a Linux-based unified communications platform that will compete directly against Microsoft.

About a week ago I got an e-mail asking me to comment on rumors that Nvidia might buy AMD.

In a speech before the World Economic Forum in Switzerland this week, mega-billionaire Bill Gates is calling for a “creative capitalism” in which businesses build and target products for poorer nations.

The purchase of mySQL completes Sun’s transformation into an open source company.

Sun’s “open source road map” is to make OpenSolaris a viable alternative to enterprise Linux through a simpler install package and alliances in the enterprise open source space.

Some feel there are too many Linux distributions, and in the server area I disagree, since the distros are basically compatible. But in the desktop space things may be different. To beat Windows we may need unity.

Microsoft’s hire of Tom Hanrahan, formerly director of engineering for the Linux Foundation (and before that of the OSDL, one of its predecessors) says a lot about the company’s true open source situation.

Given the reality of Microsoft’s patent threat, it was only a matter of time before Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin laid the smackdown.

The Race to Linux contest, in which developers try to convert programs from other operating systems to Linux as fast as possible, drew six times the entrants as last year, an estimated 600.

There are days on this beat when I fear I'm covering politics, not business.

A new IBM-sponsored study on Linux sent me by Joe McKendrick, our SOA expert, goes a long way toward explaining the big Oracle and Microsoft moves regarding Linux.

Hospitals are the toughest nut to crack in the IT business. The systems they need are complex. They must be highly-networked, and they have to deal with tons of regulations.

I've been a professional writer for over 25 years now. And what is most striking about the last few years, besides the rise of open source and blogging, is the rise of forced amateurism.