Novell Touts SUSE Linux 10, Says Desktops and Xen Are Ready
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Having already launched its SUSE Linux 10 variants for the server and desktop five weeks ago, Novell did not have a big announcement at the LinuxWorld tradeshow in San Francisco last week. But the company did offer some more details on how SUSE Linux 10 is being received by the market and took a few swipes at Red Hat, which has been saying that the Xen virtual machine hypervisor inside SUSE Linux 10 is not ready for enterprise deployments yet. Novell also talked a bit about the prospects for Linux on the desktop, its marketing campaigns, and new Linux partners it had added. READ MORE >

Open Source Expands Beyond Linux, and Vendors Follow
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

For many people in the IT community--particularly those who are under the age of 30--Linux was not only the first open source program they ever encountered. Linux was also the embodiment of open source ideals and the standard bearer for the open source movement. And, in many ways, Linux still plays this role. But if anything has become clear in the past few LinuxWorld conferences, it is that all eyes are moving up the stack from the operating system to other software, and possibly toward the holy grail of open source applications. READ MORE >

HP Chalks Up Another Decent Thirteen Weeks in Fiscal Q3
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The fiscal third quarter ended in July is typically Hewlett-Packard's weakest quarter, and in fiscal 2006, the May through July quarter was also the weakest one on the books. But what a difference two years makes. In fiscal 2006, HP's weakest quarter (the one it just finished) had slightly more revenue and a lot more profit than its best quarter in fiscal 2004. HP, lead by president and chief executive officer, Mark Hurd, has obviously made steady progress getting HP's business units and books in order. READ MORE >

The X Factor: Database Appliances Come Around Again
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The great thing about a general purpose operating system like a variant of Unix, Windows, or Linux is that it is designed to support a lot of different applications and many different means to access those applications. The original computers from decades ago were primitive and also relatively secure and easy to manage by modern standards. The price/performance improvements in increasingly complex operating systems have not come even close to offsetting the annoyance and cost of patching and securing them. Even a free operating system carries a very large people cost. READ MORE >