Summary: News catchup with vendors that pay Microsoft for the use of Linux

SUSE (SLES/SLED) hardly appears in the news these days. The exception is stories where RHEL and SLE* are aligned as "officially supported" distributions. Such is the case with SGI news that got covered in:

i. SGI unveils new supercomputer Altix UV

According to SGI, based on open standards, the system’s x86 architecture leverages quad, six or eight-core Intel Xeon processors, codenamed Nehalem-EX. It allows for the use of completely unmodified Novell SUSE or Red Hat Linux operating systems. It is suitable for open source, custom and commercial applications, ranging from technical computing applications like Ansys Fluent to enterprise applications like Oracle.

ii. SGI previews UltraViolet Nehalem EX blade clusters

The Altix UV systems will support Novell SUSE Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and will run out of the box without any modifications to the Linux code.

iii. SGI Intros Supercomputer With Intel Nehalem EX

The Altix UV's x86 architecture enables it to run unmodified Novell SUSE or Red Hat Linux operating systems. SGI says the supercomputer is designed for running open source, custom, and commercial applications, ranging from technical applications like ANSYS FLUENT to enterprise applications like Oracle or SAP.

Novell wrote about its relationship with SAP and then there is SEP:

SEP Releases 'SEP sesam Bare System Recovery for Novell Linux'

[...]

With the release of "SEP sesam Bare System Recovery for SLES Linux" SEP AG further enhances its backup and recovery software portfolio to provide a fast and secure methodology to recover from a major hardware failure.

Novell also wrote about the SUSE Appliance Program, which is related to SUSE Studio.

Today we are introducing the first in a series of podcasts featuring the SUSE Appliance Program and our ISV partners.

Cornelius Schumacher wrote about the versatile SUSE Studio and founder of "Nothing Is Impossible Studio" is supporting SUSE now, along with other GNU/Linux distributions.

Hollar, formerly a systems engineer with BrigTech Consulting of Reston, Virginia, and founder Nothing Is Impossible Studio, a multi-player online game publisher, works with Linux, including Red Hat, Novell and Debian systems.

Open Enterprise Server 2 has its second service pack (it is based on SUSE) while Netware and OES are mentioned for support in this new article about HP.

The software supports HP servers and storage running Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and Novell Open Enterprise Server for Netware and Linux.

Linspire

Linspire is part of Xandros now and its founder is still in hot legal water. Linspire/Lindows gets mentioned here, but in general, Linspire is more of a history now. It's like Napster.

Samsung

Samsung is one of the companies that sold out to Microsoft and helped it apply a "patent tax" to Linux. Samsung is bringing some Linux phones to Europe (where software patents are void), sometimes via carriers like Vodafone, which is run by a former Microsoft executive [1, 2]. We wrote about this before.

Samsung announced an Android-powered "Galaxy Spica I5700" smartphone, targeting Europe. In other Android news, Dell confirmed Brazilian and Chinese carriers for its Dell Mini 3, Google released a second-generation developers phone, and ZiiLabs is prepping an Android platform, say reports.

Luckily, Samsung's phones lag behind the Linux competition which is not submissive to Microsoft.

Like the H1, the M1 has an innovative user interface that puts your contacts front and centre, and uses the Linux-based LiMo operating system. It's a cool idea, but when we reviewed the Samsung H1 we found the whole thing a bit confusing.

To quote The Mirror:

Gadget review: Vodafone 360 H1 by Samsung

[...]

A nice effort, but there’s little to recommend this above HTC’s Hero or an iPhone.

There is also this:

The Vodafone 360 is currently accessible through desktop computer and on the Vodafone 360 H1 and M1 Linux Mobile phones by Samsung.

It is rather surprising to learn that Samsung may be placing its cards on Enlightenment.

Back in June Enlightenment E16 reached version 1.0.0 and then a few weeks later there was an E17 development snapshot released, but there hasn't been a whole lot of news out of the Enlightenment camp over the past year.

The H (Heise) wrote about it the following:

Samsung may be sponsoring the Enlightenment window manager project and Enlightenment may be a component in Samsung's bada mobile operating system. The Enlightenment project, which has been around since 1997, announced today that it was working with a "top-tier electronics maker" which "produces millions of mobile phones, televisions, sound systems and more".

Our reader MinceR has asked, "any info on Bada besides the press release? And that it's perhaps based on Enlightenment..."

It could be sarcastically argued that "Bada is Ballnux" because Samsung has a Linux patent deal with Ballmer. We continue to remind people not to touch Samsung products. They need to be persuaded to distance themselves from Microsoft and cancel their patent deal that harms GNU/Linux.

Sadly, Samsung receives preferential treatment in its own country, Korea.

LiMo Foundation announced that Korean wireless provider SK Telecom will deploy a Samsung-made "SCH-M510 "phone that complies with the LiMo (Linux Mobile) specification and offers a 3.5-inch AMOLED display. Meanwhile, LG Electronics, Samsung, SK Telecom, and the Korean government have launched the Korea LiMo Ecosystem Association to promote LiMo app development, says the Foundation.

We previously explained what Samsung does to LiMo [1, 2], emphasising the fact that even in Korea, Samsung helps spread Microsoft's patent abuse against Linux. The least one can do is avoid Samsung and tell others to do the same. ⬆