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AMD Joins Open Source Development Labs

Advanced Micro Devices announced this week that it has joined Open Source Development Labs, the nonprofit organization that Linux creator Linus Torvalds has entrusted with steering the development of the Linux operating system.

AMD is getting a big boost from the use of its Opteron processors running Linux in high performance computing (HPC) and technical environments, where applications can be easily moved in 32-bit mode to the Opterons and see a performance boost, compared with 32-bit Intel's Xeon processors. And as 64-bit Linux gets rolled into production--the new Linux 2.6 kernel supports the 64-bit extended X86 architecture that AMD put into the Opterons and that Intel mimicked for its future Xeon-64 processors--AMD is going to see even more enthusiasm as companies contemplate moving 64-bit RISC/Unix applications to 64-bit Opteron/Linux. Novell's SuSE unit and Red Hat, which are both members of Open Source Development Labs, have perhaps the most to gain as AMD embraces Linux and synchronizes its hardware to future Linux development through Open Source Development Labs. AMD has joined two Open Source Development Labs projects: the Data Center Linux working group and the Carrier Grade Linux working group.

Red Hat Says 750 Apps Certified for Enterprise Linux

Red Hat said last week that it now has over 750 different applications certified for its Enterprise Linux distribution of Linux 2.4, and that the breadth of applications is one of the driving factors behind the 200,000 Enterprise Linux licenses that the company has sold to date. To make it easier on Linux shoppers, Red Hat has created a solutions catalog for its Enterprise Linux, which you can peruse on Red Hat's Web site.

Red Hat Is First Linux Distributor with Linux Standards Base Certification

Red Hat said this week that it is the first commercial Linux distributor to be certified by Free Standards Group as meeting the "Linux Standards Base internationalization runtime environment specification." What that long line of gobbledygook means is that Red Hat's Enterprise Linux Version 3 embraces and uses those elements of the Linux Standards Base standard, which allow a single instance of Linux to support multiple languages, including difficult ones with non-romance character sets, such as Chinese or Japanese. Linux Standards Base is an effort to create a single Linux standard, as well as a single standard for the GNU open source tools, allowing them to be consistent across all Linux distributions and all languages.

Red Hat also said this week that it is the first Linux vendor to commit to the OpenI18N standard called IIIMF, which will allow a single Linux stack to switch between Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, and other character sets.

Linux Upstart Lindows Files Going Public

Beleaguered Linux operating system vendor Linux, which is being sued by Microsoft because Microsoft thinks the name "Lindows" infringes on its "Windows" copyrights and trademark, has decided to go public to fund future growth in the expanding Linux market and to help pay for its huge legal bills as it fights Microsoft.

Lindows, based in San Diego, chose WR Hambrecht and Roth Capital Partners to co-manage the initial public offering. Lindows has grown sales of its Linux desktop environment from $63,000, in 2002, to $2.1 million, in 2003, and losses have declined from $6.7 million, in 2002, to $4.1 million, in 2003. The company is still, quite obviously, under water, and needs funds to keep afloat. The company recently changed its product name from "Lindows" to "Linspire" to get Microsoft off its back, but has retained "Lindows" as its company name. While the company has not set the number of shares it will sell to the public, or the price at which it will target its shares, IPO filings require companies to make an initial guess. Lindows said in its filings that it would raise at least $57.5 million by going public. About $11 million of that will repay loans to company founder Michael Robertson, who owns 81 percent of Lindows shares.

Clear Technologies Invests in Linux and VERITAS Skills

New services are now available from Clear Technologies, a developer of CRM software for iSeries and xSeries servers. The Dallas company has announced that it has added new Linux and VERITAS high availability skills by hiring Tom Large, Clear Technologies' new lead open systems architect. "We're investing in Linux and VERITAS because we see the market exploding in these areas, and Tom will be the key engineer supporting both," said Van Symons, president of Clear Technologies. Large's primary responsibility will be providing affordable clustering solutions for Linux-on-Intel environments and helping users manage data with VERITAS disaster recovery and high availability tools. Large has more than seven years of experience in systems engineering, architecture, and project management, including integrating Linux and VERITAS products into the production environments of large commercial and industrial companies.

Companies Need to Develop Long-Term Compliance Strategies, Gartner Says

If you're looking for a "quick and dirty" fix for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance in 2004, be prepared to do it all again next year, and the year after that, advises Gartner. The IT analyst firm is recommending that companies take a more long-term and strategic view of their compliance initiatives, instead of purchasing one-off software products that address only one particular pain point. "Enterprises that choose one-off solutions for each regulatory challenge they face will spend 10 times more on compliance projects than their counterparts that take a proactive approach," said French Caldwell, research vice president at Gartner. The Stamford, Connecticut, company helped companies with compliance strategies at its Midsize Enterprise Summit East 2004 conference, held last week at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, Tennessee. Gartner's analysts recommend the following spending breakdown for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance initiatives: 50 percent for implementation and remediation issues, including directors' and officers' insurance and increased consulting fees; 30 percent for internal analysis, including redundant audits for the next three quarters; and 20 percent for software upgrades and new purchases.