SCO Group to do a Lazarus

THE SCO Group, which claims ownership of Unix code used in the open source Linux operating system, is on the verge of emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after organising $100 million in new financing.

The company, which is embroiled in a legal action with both IBM and Novell over the ownership of some Unix program code, announced that Stephen Norris Capital Partners and its unnamed partners from the Middle East had agreed to provide up to $100 million in funding to finance a reorganisation plan.

As part of the financing, SNCP will take a controlling interest in the company, while taking it private. The immediate effect of the plan would be to allow SCO to emerge from bankruptcy protection.

The SCO board of director unanimously agreed the financing and plan of reorganisation was in the best long-term interest of the company, as well as its customers, shareholders, creditors and employees.

“Not only will this deal position us to emerge from Chapter 11, but it also marks an exciting future for our business,” SCO president and chief operating officer said Jeff Hunsaker said in a statement.

“This significant financial backing is positive news for SCO's customers, partners and resellers who continue to request upgrades and rely upon SCO's UNIX services to drive their business forward,” Mr Hunsaker said.

SNCP has developed a business plan for SCO that includes unveiling new product lines aimed at global customers. The reorganisation would also allow the company to see SCO's legal claims through to their full conclusion.

“We saw a tremendous investment opportunity in SCO and its vast range of products and services, including many new innovations ready or soon to be ready to be released into the marketplace,” said Stephen Norris, managing partner for SNCP.

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LiMo’s Lino announced on 18 phones

THE LiMo Foundation, an open source consortium that has developed a Linux-based platform for mobile devices, has announced 18 mobiles phones from leading manufacturers that use its platform.

Announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the Foundation said the announcement was just the first wave of handsets that will use the LiMo Platform.

The initial LiMo handsets confirmed at MWC are from by industry leaders including LG Electronics, Motorola, NEC, Panasonic and Samsung.

“The breadth of the initial wave of LiMo handsets—18 models from 7 vendors—consolidates LiMo’s role as the unifying force within Mobile Linux and highlights the strong momentum established in the 12 months since LiMo was launched,” Limo Foundation executive director Morgan Gillis said.

The LiMo Platform leverages standards and other open-source projects, and is a modular, hardware-independent architecture built around the Linux operating system. It offers a secure run-time environment for support of downloaded applications.

Launched in January 2007, LiMo Foundation is open to all vendors and service providers in the mobile communications marketplace, including device manufacturers, operators, chipset manufacturers, independent software vendors, integrators and third-party developers.

“We look forward to the continued, rapid rollout of LiMo handsets, further expanding LiMo’s market reach and unifying the Mobile Linux ecosystem,” said LiMo Foundation chairman, Kiyohito Nagata of NTT DoCoMo.

“The mobile industry is embracing Linux and openness as the key enablers of lower device development costs, increased flexibility and quicker time to market for innovative services of all kinds. LiMo Foundation is driving these trends.”

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Renault engages strange bedfellows

IT was always a weird relationship, but now with car giant Renault engaging the Microsoft-Novell alliance as a customer, it is all the more interesting to watch the strange bedfellows promote the deal.

More than a year ago, parts of the open source community was outraged when Novell signed a partnership agreement with Microsoft under which the companies promised improved interoperability between products. Microsoft also promised to support the Novell flagship SUSE Linux distribution.

Under the Renault agreement, Microsoft will deliver to Renault more than 1,000 certificates for priority support subscriptions to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell, as Renault consolidates existing Linux distributions to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with the goal of improving interoperability and taking better advantage of virtualisation.

“Customers have asked for solutions to make Microsoft products work better with other platforms and for IP assurance that enables vendors to build technical bridges,” said Microsoft general manager of strategic partnerships and licensing Susan Hauser.

“We are pleased to provide this real-world, pragmatic solution to customers such as Renault,” Ms Hauser said.

“Increasing the presence of SUSE Linux Enterprise in the datacentre, well integrated with a Microsoft Windows environment, will enhance the deployment of applications and increase the competitive advantage of innovative companies,” Novell global strategic licences vice-president and general manager Susan Heystee said.

“With growing marketplace understanding of the solutions we are providing to the interoperability challenges in a world of mixed-source software, we expect to continue to see growth of SUSE Linux Enterprise in the market,” said Ms Heystee.

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French police move to Ubuntu

THE French Gendarmerie Nationale, or paramilitary policy force, has dumped Microsoft Windows in favour of the Linux distribution Ubuntu, making it one of the largest administrations in the world to move to open source.

Reports from the Solution Linux Conference 2008 in Paris say the gendarmerie will progressively move its 70,000 desktops using Windows XP to the Ubuntu distribution of open source Linux.

The plan marks the final phase of the gendarmerie’s move away from Microsoft, a process that started in 2005 when it switched from using the Microsoft Office productivity suite to the free OpenOffice open source offering.

The reports from Paris quote Colonel Nicolas Geraud, the deputy director of the gendarmerie’s IT unit, saying the administration will transfer 5,000 to 8,000 PCs to Ubuntu this year, then 14,000 to 15,000 a year over the next four years so that its entire fleet of desktop is Linux-based by 2013-2014.

Colonel Geraud said the change was made for three reasons: to reduce reliance on a single supplier; to give the gendarmerie control of its own operating system; and to reduce IT costs.

The gendarmerie abandoned Internet Explorer and Outlook in 2006, moving instead to Mozilla’s open source Firefox and Thunderbird browser and email client.

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Broadcom targets open source VoIP

COMMUNICATIONS chip-maker Broadcom and open source developer Trolltech have entered a partnership that aims to create a multimedia VoIP development platform based on Linux.

The companies say they will create a platform for original equipment manufacturers wanting to produce next-generation multimedia VoIP products.

The partnership will combine Broadcom’s VoIP technology with Trolltech’s upcoming Qtopia software, which lets broadband devices offer a “feature-rich” graphical user experience with exceptional voice and video quality.

The companies said the VoIP platform gives OEMs integrated software that will allow for faster time-to-market for next generation IP phones.

Broadcom and Trolltech say the partnership will provide the technology platform that will ultimately support tens of millions of phone users.

“Our Qtopia software is the foundation for 10 million plus consumer electronic devices worldwide so this partnership with Broadcom will enable their customers to build customised next generation IP and mobile devices with robust voice, video, web and multimedia features,” Trolltech chief executive Haavard Nord said.

Qtopia is a software application platform and user interface for embedded Linux devices that has been optimised for Broadcom’s BCM1103 VoIP processors and its VideoCore II multimedia co-processor.

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Lenovo to offer Linux on ThinkPads

CHINESE PC-maker Lenovo has reached an agreement with Novell under which it will pre-install Suse Linux on its popular ThinkPad notebook machines.

Lenovo will also provide direct support for the Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop operating system – the first time the company has taken responsibility for both the hardware and operating system.

Lenovo and Novell have a five-year history of joint R&D work, and Lenovo has for several years Linux-certified its ThinkPad notebooks.

“We are extremely pleased to partner with Lenovo in delivering this pioneering Linux preload to the enterprise client computing market,” said Novell open platform solutions vice-president Roger Levy.

“We are extremely pleased to partner with Lenovo in delivering this pioneering Linux preload to the enterprise client computing market,” he said.

Lenovo Notebook Business Unit marketing vice-president Sam Dusi said the two companies would continue to expand their Linux cooperation as the market demanded.

“Known for hardware and software based innovations like our roll cage and ThinkVantage Technologies, we continue our tradition of building the industry's best engineered PCs and delivering excellent customer solutions, such as SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 from Novell,” Mr Dusi said.


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Palm to launch Linux smartphone

AFTER broadening its product line to include a Windows-based Treo smart phone last year, mobile specialist Palm says it will also release a device based on the Linux platform.

Speaking to analysts in New York this week, Palm chief executive Ed Colligan said the company had been developing the new Linux platform in the background for several years.

Mr Colligan said the Linux OS would be released later this year, and would run existing Palm applications.

Analysts reacted positively to the announcement saying the company had been hamstrung in recent years because it did not control the PalmOS operating system.

Palm spun off its OS operations as a separate company and recently paid US$44 million for a permanent license to use the software. PalmOS is now called Garnet.

The new Linux platform held the promise of allowing the company to get new product to market faster while lowering costs.

Mr Colligan told the analysts the mobile computing market was about to experience the next wave of growth as it moved into the mass market and that its new platforms – including Linux – positioned Palm to capitalise on that growth.

It is not clear how the announcement affects the immediate takeover rumours that have persisted about Palm. Wall Street has been buzzing in recent weeks with talk that Palm may be acquired, either by a device company or a private equity firm.

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Dell to ship pre-installed Linux

PC-maker Dell has promised to start selling notebooks and desktops preloaded with Linux and other open source software products after being inundated with customer requests for the platforms.

Dell announced yesterday that more than 100,000 people had responded in the past two weeks to an online survey about pre-loaded Linux.

“Dell has heard you and we will expand our Linux support beyond our existing servers and Precision workstation line,” the company announced through a corporate blog yesterday.

“Our first step in this effort is offering Linux pre-installed on select desktop and notebook systems. We will provide an update in the coming weeks that includes detailed information on which systems we will offer … and the Linux distribution(s) that will be available.”

“The countdown begins today.”

The decision has enormous implications for the PC software industry. Other PC-makers would be expected to follow Dell down the Linux path, and HP is known to already be considering such a plan.

The company issued the survey as part of its IdeaStorm customer consultation process that began in February. Dell launched IdeaStorm to seek direct input – ideas – from its customers.

Overwhelmingly, the biggest IdeaStorm talking point was open source software. Dell then posted the online survey to descover more precisely the open source preferences of its customers.

In announcing the Linux plan, Dell also released some of the broad findings of its survey, including that 70 per cent of its respondents said they would use a Dell system with Linux for both home and office use.

Survey respondents said they wanted to be able to choose Linux on a variety of different Dell notebook and desktop products. They also said existing, community-based support forums would meet their technical support needs for a tested and validated Linux OS.

They also said that improved hardware support for Linux is just as important as which Linux distributions are offered.

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IBM cranks mainframe Linux activity

IBM has been telling its large corporate and government users for some years that they can save money by consolidating distributed UNIX/Linux applications onto a single mainframe machine running Linux.

No it has a research report to prove it.

Forrester Research analyst Brad Day says Linux on the mainframe can give users “potential cost savings, productivity gains and improved utilisation rates through capabilities such as virtualisation and security and systems management.”

The Forrester report, titled “Why Choose Linux on the Mainframe”, examined the up-front costs, human resources, and capacity issues that customers need to address in their distributed Linux or Unix computing infrastructure.

In Australia, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs was the first Linux on the mainframe user. It has been followed by several other departments and corporate users including banks.

It states that the mainframe can provide customers with many clear benefits as the “cost – driven by new Linux OS images, new applications, new staffing requirements, and an ever-increasing user base – of deploying new physical x86 servers escalates.”

IBM has meanwhile sought to make its z series mainframe more attractive to first time mainframe users. The company has launched a System z Business Class Mainframe that it claims carries a similar price tag as an equivalent midrange RISC-based Unix/Linux server.

The company had also made a series of announcements in the areas of virtualisation, utilization and manageability. Last October IBM announced a US$100 million (A$124 million) company-wide development effort to make its System z mainframe easier to use for a greater number of tech professionals.

Software enhancements designed to let IT staff more easily program, manage and administer mainframe systems – as well as increased automation of the development and deployment of applications – were unveiled recently as part of the initiative.

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Pre-installed penguin mooted for Dell, HP

GLOBAL PC market leaders Dell and HP are considering offering boxes pre-loaded with Linux and other open source software in the face of growing customer demand for the service.

Both companies have been watched the demand grow for years, but have chosen to turn a blind eye.

The complications of licensing arrangement with their powerful software partner – Microsoft – has made any decision to pre-load Linux more complex than it might appear to the casual observer.

But the demands have become more difficult to ignore, particularly for Dell, which has launched a customer-facing web site called Ideastorm that aimed to elicit ideas from its user base.

In less than three weeks, Ideastorm has attracted 110,000 comments from people talking about pre-installed open source Linux – by far the most talked about idea talked about by customers.

And the next most discussed topic was a suggestion – with 72,000 comments – that Dell pre-install OpenOffice, either alongside Microsoft Office or MS Works, or instead of them.

Dell hasn’t officially commented on the response it has received from the Ideastorm, although a spokesman was quoted on US media sites saying the Linux buzz was “being taken into account” and that users should stay tuned.

Hewlett-Packard is also said to be considering offering pre-installed Linux as a product option – but says it is responding more to demand from corporate customers.

CRN magazine in the US quotes HP worldwide director of open source and Linux marketing Doug Small saying a series of massive deals for Linux desktops were “indicators of critical mass … so we are looking at it very hard.”

The company does not sell PCs or notebooks pre-loaded with Linux, but has several systems that are certified for both SUSE and Red Hat. It will pre-load Linux as part of custom orders, usually for large enterprise roll-outs.

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Linux women link to form AussieChix

THE two Australian chapters of LinuxChix, a social networking group for women involved in the open source software community, have united to form AussieChix to promote IT among women.

And the AussieChix group has won $70,000 in federal funding from the Department of Communications, IT and the Arts to support women in the ICT industry and to make the sector more attractive to women.

Now a global network of groups, LinuxChix was set up in 1999 in the US by women frustrated by the attitudes of many other Linix-oriented groups. Since then, the organisation grew dramatically to more than 40 regional LinuxChix chapters around the world.

Until two weeks ago, LinuxChix had chapters in both Sydney and Melbourne. But following discussions at the Linux.Conf.au conference in Sydney in January the groups combined.

AussieChix spokeswoman Donna Benjamin says being a woman in IT can be lonely at times.

“The image created for our conference T-shirts this year showed one woman in a line of men, and the caption was ‘standing out from the crowd’ because it's a bit like that,” Benjamin said. “We're often the only girl-geek in our local communities.”

Benjamin is a director of the Open Source Industry Australia (OSIA), and conference director for Linux.Conf.au 2008. She also runs a services business, Creative Contingencies.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan announced the AussieChix grant on March 8 – International Women’s Day. Senator Coonan has been a long-time supporter of initiatives that aim to get more women involved in ICT.

“Women account for less than 18 per cent of all ICT employees in the Australian ICT sector. The Australian Government is committed to increasing the productivity of Australia’s ICT sector through the improved retention and progression of female ICT professionals,” Senator Coonan said.

“In an environment where the demand for ICT skills is increasing, retaining ICT professionals is crucial for individual businesses and the wider economy.”


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