Fending Off Office Killers, Jan 20, 2008

Every few days, it seems, another "Office Killer" is turning up in the market to challenge Microsoft by offering productivity applications for free. Some are cross-platform. Many are Web-based. All offer the promise of delivering Microsoft-level functionality for nothing, or next to nothing.

Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz is defending his company's actions in the Linux community, hours after Linux creator Linus Torvalds ripped Sun for taking but not giving back to the open source universe.

The San Diego Unified School District has tapped education solution provider Arey Jones and PC maker Lenovo to provide Linux-powered notebooks for students, standardizing on Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 operating system in the first phase of a districtwide deployment, according to officials there.

With increasing chatter about whether 2007 will be the "Year of the Linux Desktop," you hear considerably less about whether it's time for the Linux Office. But business desktops aren't just islands unto themselves. In a networked world, the desktop is just a piece of the office puzzle. There are also servers, printers, faxes and productivity applications.

The back-and-forth rhetoric between Linux companies Red Hat and Novell has reached a new intensity, with top executives lobbing verbal grenades at each other over Novell's decision last year to enter into a cooperation agreement with Microsoft.

The OpenOffice Project has sent a letter to Michael Dell, showering praise on Dell Inc.'s chairman and CEO and asking him to consider pre-loading OpenOffice onto PCs.

Hewlett-Packard is closing custom deals for thousands of desktop PCs running Linux, which has the company assessing the possibility of offering factory-loaded Linux systems, an HP executive said.

Open Source Development Labs' Desktop Linux Working Group has published what amounts to an annual report on the state of desktop Linux, providing a point-by-point update on how the technology is doing on the client side.

Novell signed a business agreement with Microsoft last year, and many in the open source community started taking shots at Novell.

It looks like the education space could be the first, real place where Linux could grab beachhead in the desktop PC market.

Novell is feeling the heat from its decision to enter into a cooperation agreement with Microsoft over Linux, patents and interoperability.

Hargadon Computer will get a lot busier in about three weeks, after kids are back in school and teachers and school administrators realize they need to do something with their outdated classroom PCs.

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.

Microsoft has had product delays before but never, it seems, has it faced this much pressure.

Is the channel ready for a Linux desktop as a replacement for Windows? Or better yet, is a Linux desktop ready for the channel? Novell has a head start in this race, with its Linux desktop expected to hit the streets by mid-July, whereas Vista is slated for general release in January.

Lenovo executives Monday backtracked from remarks last week that the company would not support Linux on its PCs, saying it would continue to pre-load Linux onto ThinkPads on a custom-order basis for customers who purchase licenses on their own.

Computer maker Lenovo will not install or support the Linux operating system on any of its PCs, including ThinkPads and a series of new notebooks, the company said this week.

Novell Chief Technology Officer Jeff Jaffe recently started blogging, and that looks like a good thing. It appears he has a lot to get off his chest - especially about the Linux Desktop.