Linux Core Consortium: Déjà Vu All Over Again
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

If there is one thing that makes the Linux community and most of the vendors that support it nervous, it is not competition with Unix, Windows, or other platforms; it is not that Linus Torvalds will take a job with Microsoft; and it is not that the SCO Group will prevail in its attempt to undermine Linux sales as it protects what it alleges is its Unix intellectual property. No, the one fear is that Linux will fork and then splinter, just as commercial Unix did more than two decades ago. This fear is the main reason that the Linux Core Consortium was announced recently. READ MORE >

Pogo Linux to Ship First Commercial 8-Way Opteron Server
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

In December, Linux server and storage specialist Pogo Linux will become the first server maker to stop messing around and actually deliver an eight-way server based on the Opteron 800 series processors. Pogo Linux, which is cheekily based down the street from Microsoft in Redmond, Washington, has adopted motherboard technology from Taiwanese motherboard maker Iwill for its PerformanceWare 5864 server. READ MORE >

Appro Preps XtremeBlades for First Quarter
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The computer business may be compressing down to a handful of dominant architectures, but there is no shortage of innovation within those architectures. Appro, a specialist in the high performance computing (HPC) portion of the server market based in Milpitas, California, has been previewing its third generation of blade servers--this one based on Advanced Micro Devices's Opteron processors--and they can cram a dozen blade servers into a 7U chassis, or up to 72 processors in a full 42U industry-standard server rack. READ MORE >

IT Spending Predicted to Increase Modestly in 2005
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

If you looked at the earth from outer space, you might never guess how much churn there is in the atmosphere and the ocean; everything looks relatively calm. Likewise, looking at current and projected spending on worldwide IT spending, you might not expect a lot of churn under the surface. According to some recent analysis, IT budgets are growing modestly, which should be comforting. However, the aggregate growth numbers mask the churn in subsectors of the IT economy. READ MORE >

  But Wait, There's More

Linux Still a Fraction of Novell's Sales, But Growing . . . Stratus, Scalix Join OSDL . . . Penguin Computing Gets $10 Million in Venture Dough . . . World Community Grid Established by Big Blue . . . IBM's p5 575 Uses Four Chips, Not an MCM . . . IDC Says Services Spending to Grow Steadily . . . META Group Says IT Salaries Will Be Up 10% to 15% Through 2007 . . . READ MORE >

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