Linux and Windows Server Sales Outpace the Market in Q4
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Well, it is probably not a big surprise to anyone that revenues for servers running Linux or Windows outpaced the sales of the rest of the market in the final quarter of 2007. In fact, one way of looking at the market statistics just released by analysts at IDC is that Linux and Windows boxes are the main reason why the server market managed to grow revenues by 2.4 percent to $15.7 billion, driven by a 9 percent growth in shipments. READ MORE >

Novell Swings to a Modest Profit in Fiscal Q1
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Linux operating system licenses and, more precisely, support contracts for Linux, continues to allow commercial operating systems and systems management software maker Novell to transition away from its proprietary NetWare product line and toward a more open and distributed platform future. But the work, as Novell's financial results from the first quarter of fiscal 2008, remains undone, and while the company swung to a modest profit and grew revenues, the profit is still small and Novell is still fighting to stay a $1 billion company. READ MORE >

MetaRAM Quadruples DDR2 Memory Capacity in Servers
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

There are a lot of different ways to skin a system design, but the one that has been favored by processor and system designers alike for the past three decades is to boost the clock speed on the processor as high as possible, make each clock do more work, and add layers and layers of progressively faster main memory to the box to keep those faster processors fed. There are a number of problems with this approach, and they have caused a performance and capacity gap between central processors and memory subsystems that is still not being properly addressed. But a startup company called MetaRAM, which has just come out of stealth mode, thinks it has come up with an clever solution that will get CPUs and memory subsystems more in synch. READ MORE >

As I See It: Change in Plan
by Victor Rozek

At some point, we all come face to face with the specter of limitation as time begins to pare down our options, awakening a dormant sense of urgency. It is, in part, a whimsical reminder that we'll never become the major leaguer, or the astronaut, or the ballerina we once wanted to be. More bluntly, it is the humbling confirmation that we are not yet independently wealthy, are unlikely to win national acclaim, or have our book plugged by Oprah. It is the time when idealists discover that not only have they failed to save the world, they haven't even changed it a smidgen. In short, it is a belated awareness that the path to happiness lies in a different direction. READ MORE >