Novell Taps Zonker to Manage openSUSE Project
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Commercial Linux distributor Novell has wanted the best of both software worlds since it acquired SUSE Linux back in November 2003. The company wants to be a powerhouse in the open source software community, which is a 180-degree departure from its historical proprietary software development, and it also wants to make money off open source products just like it does on its proprietary products. Making the transitions from closed to open products and from in-house to community development is not easy. READ MORE >

Novell Partners with SNA to Make Mainframe Linux Easier
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Mainframes are very efficient machines, but no one every called them inexpensive. If you are a mainframe shop that doesn't know a lot about Linux and you want to try out Linux on a mainframe, you have to go through a lot of grief--the same as for any other server, with some twists added for the mainframe architecture--to get Linux running on the box. This takes time, and time is money--particularly when you are talking about mainframe cycles. That's why commercial Linux distributor Novell has teamed up with Sine Nomine Associates to make Linux easier to install on mainframes. READ MORE >

IBM Gets Power6 Chips into Entry System p Servers
by Timothy Prickett Morg

The wait for the Power6 processors to make their way down into the low-end of the System p line is over--or, very nearly so. Last Tuesday, IBM did what its top brass said it would do a few weeks ago: started ramping up the Power6 platform on its entry servers and chasing customers with the high performance, respectable thermals, and very good virtualization embodied in the System p line, the Power6 processors, the AIX 6.1 operating system, and the related PowerVM hypervisor, formerly known as Advanced Power Virtualization. READ MORE >

The X Factor: Survive, Adapt, Repeat
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

If you are like me and you have been working for at least 30 years, you are supposed to be rich by now. Isn't that the American dream? To be an entrepreneur, to cut your own swath through the business world, to find your niche and expand it, to be safe. So it is with us personally, so it goes for most of the millions of companies that are trying to stay in business in the world. Isn't this supposed to be a lot easier than it is? What on earth is wrong with the economy--I mean the global one that we can't escape--that it can create and destroy jobs and wealth so quickly? READ MORE >