Perhaps this wasn't something to celebrate, but it's a testament to the power of Red Hat's software, and a painful reminder to Microsoft that its software is not ready for the heaviest enterprise loads, given its own .Net-inspired crash of the London Stock Exchange last month. Microsoft urges us to "get the facts" about Windows performance. Don't worry, Microsoft: we got them.
Though this does not provide a complete picture, SMBs can look at Linux as analternative solution that is cheaper to setup and use if it works for you. Also, you could use a combination of applications like Novell OpenOffice on a Windows based computer to reduce costs.
The firm is eyeing a growing market in Linux-powered Netbooks, Nettops and, no doubt, stockingtops.
NEC announced two new POS (point-of-sales/service) computers that run Linux. The TwinPOS 5500 and 3500 feature integrated flat panel touchscreens, resistance against dust and liquids, and optional MSRs (magnetic stripe readers) and customer-facing displays, says the company.
Linux is what Windows had once promised to be - at least in terms of cross-platform support. In the wake of the PowerPC alliance from IBM, Apple, and Motorola in 1991, Microsoft made a commitment to support Windows NT 3.51 on PowerPC chips. Windows eventually added support for Digital's Alpha NEC's and SGI's MIPS chips. Workstation maker Intergraph ported Windows NT 3.51 to its Clipper chips and said it was creating a port to Sparc chips from Sun. Neither ports saw the light of day.
Advertising intelligence company Xtreme Information plans to drop Ubuntu-based DVRs in Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane to expand the reach of its monitoring.
Brazilian state IT company SERPRO (US$ 1 billion annual revenue) has selected Debian GNU/Linux as their preferred distribution for its thousands of GNU/Linux development and production servers. The announcement occurred during Debian Day in Porto Alegre.
Linux publisher Mandriva has released its latest distribution, Mandriva Linux 2009, offering a faster boot time and up-to-date versions of tools such as KDE, Gnome, OpenOffice and Firefox, plus an installer that optimises the platform for mini-laptops.
The memo should answer many lingering questions still surrounding the open source, said Daniel Risacher, the data strategy leader for the Office of Secretary of Defense who is drafting the memo. The draft may point out some potential benefits as well.
Comments
David Gerard
2008-10-10 10:41:31
We consider it very important to keep an entirely free stack so people can duplicate our use of the free content freely.
(There was a bit of Java, most prominently the Cortado Vorbis/Theora player expecting Java in browsers, before Java was entirely free software, but Sun has followed through nicely on this. It's all good!)