But Wait, There's More

Pervasive Commercializes PostgreSQL Database for Linux, Windows

If you like the functionality of the open-source PostgreSQL relational database management system but have been wary of using it in production because of its lack of a formal support organization, fear no more. Pervasive Software, an Austin, Texas, provider of data integration products and another relational database called Pervasive.SQL, has launched a commercialized version of the PostgreSQL database for Linux and Windows platforms.

Pervasive, which has been around for two decades, has development and support centers in Texas and Bandalore, India, and wants to use its existing personnel and experience to create a new revenue stream. The Pervasive.SQL database has been embedded in myriad third-party account programs aimed at small businesses, and Pervasive can undoubtedly read the writing on the wall that some application software makers are going to be looking for open-source alternatives. With MySQL already supporting its eponymous open source database, that left PostgreSQL.

PostgreSQL has been commercialized before, back in late 2002, when Red Hat rolled out a supported version of the database called Red Hat Database 2.0. PostgreSQL is an offshoot of the University of California at Berkeley's Postgres database project, which is also where the BSD variant of Unix was created; both PostgreSQL and BSD Unix are licensed under the Berkeley Systems Design open-source license, which allows the software to be embedded in closed-source programs, unlike the GNU General Public License, which does not. Pervasive plans to have its variant of PostgreSQL available in February, and will offer support for basic updates for a mere $99 per server, per year, to $4,999 per server per year for two-tiered, 24/7 premium support.

Red Hat Hires New Head of North American Sales

By being acquired by Novell, more than a year ago, commercial Linux distributor SUSE got a war-battered and seasoned sales force that had fought Unix and Windows for years, albeit with dubious results (more because of the disadvantageous position that NetWare has against Unix and Windows than any other factor). Red Hat is a much younger company, and is still building up its sales expertise.

In April 2003, Red Hat hired Alex Pinchev to be president of international operations, which basically meant sales outside of North America. Pinchev was soon elevated to the post of executive vice president of worldwide sales. Now Red Hat has decided that it wants to have a dedicated sales person in charge of the North American market. To that end, Red Hat has named Lynne Corddry to that position. Corddry was most recently vice president and general manager of Unisys' Federal Systems and Technology Business unit, which rakes in $180 million a year in sales. Before that, she was in charge of government sales at Network Appliance, a network storage maker. She has also been in executive sales at server maker SGI and the former Digital Equipment, which is now part of Hewlett-Packard.

GUPTA Launches Team Developer RAD for Linux

GUPTA Technologies, a software tools and database maker that has been around for two decades, has announced that it has ported its Team Developer rapid application development tool to Linux.

Team Developer 2005 already supports Windows, but GUPTA is telling its customers, which create application software for internal use, or for sale at third-party application developers, that the Windows market is saturated and that any growth will come from emerging markets like Linux. That is why Team Developer supports the Red Hat and Novell variants of Linux for development platforms for programmers and deployment platforms for finished applications. Team Developer includes an active coding assistant, debuggers, team development and configuration management, and cross-platform deployment tools. GUPTA says that over 10,000 developers use its tools.

Consumer Electronics Linux Forum Becomes Nonprofit Corporation

The Consumer Electronics Linux Forum, founded in 2003, has incorporated in California as nonprofit organization. It will now be able to collect money from members to fund specific consumer-related Linux projects. CELF was founded by Hitachi, Matsushita, NEC, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, and Toshiba to promote the use of Linux in commercial electronics products; the organization now has over 50 members, and Linux is quickly spreading into the consumer market, even if consumers are woefully (some might say happily and appropriately) unaware.

OSDL to Host Linux Summit, Names Samba Creator a Fellow

Open Source Development Labs has announced that it will be hosting its Enterprise Linux Summit from January 31 through February 2 in Burlingame, California. Open-source luminaries Linus Torvalds, Andrew Morton, Brian Behlendorf, and Mitch Kapor will participate in a keynote "open conversation." The forum is designed to give Silicon Valley companies access to the people behind Linux and other open source projects. You can find out more on the summit's Web site.

In a separate announcement, OSDL said it has named a second fellow, Andrew Tridgell, creator of the open-source Samba print and file server. Linux Torvalds, the creator of Linux, was named the first fellow a few years ago. Samba is a program that mimics the print-and-file-serving functions in Windows servers such that Linux, Unix, and other platforms can transparently participate in Windows networks and talk to peripherals and file systems that are used to talking to Windows platforms. Samba was first introduced eight years ago on Unix. Tridgell is working on Samba Version 4 at the moment, which will allow Samba to become an Active Directory Domain Controller in a Windows 2000 or 2003 network. By being named a fellow, Tridgell is given the luxury of a paycheck from OSDL that allows him to focus entirely on Samba.

IBM Wins Patent Contest for 12th Year in a Row

IBM is once again the king of the patent holders. The Patent and Trademark Office said last week that, for the 12th year in a row, IBM was issued the largest number of new patents by the U.S. government. In 2004, IBM was issued 3,248 patents, and now has a portfolio of over 40,000 patents. Matsushita Electric Industrial Company, which makes products under the Panasonic brand name, rose to the number-two position in 2004, with 1,934 patents issued. Canon was number three on the list, and Hewlett-Packard was number four on the list, with 1,775 patents issued. Memory maker Micron Technology was issued 1,760 patents, followed by Samsung with 1,604 and Intel with 1,601. Industrial conglomerate Hitachi, which has a respectable IT business, particularly in disk arrays, and which bought IBM's disk drive business last year, dropped from the number-three position on the list in 2003 to the number-eight position in 2004, with 1,514 patents. Toshiba had 1,310 patents, with Sony coming in at number ten on the list, with 1,305 patents. As an aside, the Patent Office said that the U.S. government itself was issued 829 patents last year from its vast arsenal of research organizations in academia and the military.

"American innovation and discoveries are the foundation of our technological strength worldwide," said Jon Dudas, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, in a statement accompanying the numbers. "Increasingly, patents have become an essential ingredient of our economic vitality, paving the way for investment in commerce and in research and development, and creating jobs for millions of Americans." While this is true, there certainly are a lot of patents from Japanese and Korean companies on the list as well. It would be interesting to see a complete list of patents by the geographic region from whence the patents come. That might be a better indicator of innovation by geography than not. There could be a lot more--or less--innovation in American and Europe than shows up in this top-ten list.

As we reported elsewhere in this issue, IBM has granted the open source community the right to use 500 of its patents, free of charge, in their software projects--the first time any company has done this. This could be the first step in establishing a patent trust for open source projects.

IBM Rolls Out Low-Rate Financing to Boost Sales, Again

IBM's Global Financing unit is rolling out its "Low-Rate Financing" deal once again in the Americas region, and the interest rates the company is charging for financing its computers, software, and services are 0.2 percent lower than what it was charging last summer. While that may not sound like a lot of money, it adds up to over millions of dollars in equipment and several years of interest payments.

As the Federal Reserve Bank was raising interest rates last July, IBM increased its financing rates by 1 percent on the Low-Rate Financing deal. The on-again, off-again deal allows companies buying from $25,000 to $1 million in gear to get financing for low rates (at least by IBM's standards); customers buying pSeries products can get the low rates on deals as large as $2 million. IBM's best rate last summer was 4 percent for iSeries, pSeries, zSeries, and xSeries servers and their associated storage, up from 3 percent in May 2004. That rate is now 3.85 percent. This time last year, IBM was charging 3.25 percent, and even pSeries deals had a $1 million cap. If you read the fine print, you'll find these rates are only offered for qualified customers (meaning those with decent credit and solid financials), and they are only available on capital leases with a 24-to-36-month term with a $1 end-of-lease payout.

The interest rates IBM charges for PCs is 4.3 percent, and the company is charging 4.1 percent for any software sold under a one-time-charge licensing option and for various services from its Business Consulting Services unit. Financing for IBM's Integrated Technology Services products (this is systems integration, as opposed to business process engineering work) has been given a financing rate of 4.5 percent.