Sun acquire open source Innotek

SUN Microsystems has announced it is to acquire the German open source virtualisation company Innotek, which makes VirtualBox software that lets users more easily run different operating systems on a single box.

The company said that enable developers to more efficiently build, test and run applications on multiple platforms, VirtualBox would extend Sun’s own xVM platform.

Sun did not say how much the stock purchase agreement is worth.

Innotek's open source VirtualBox has had more than four million downloads since January 2007. The product lets desktop or laptop PCs running the Windows, Linux, Mac or Solaris operating systems to run multiple, different operating systems side-by-side, switching between them with a click of the mouse.

This means software developers can more easily build multi-tier or cross-platform applications, or power-users to take advantage of applications that may not be available for their base operating system of choice.

“VirtualBox provides Sun with the perfect complement to our recently announced Sun xVM Server product,” Sun Software executive vice-president Rich Green said.

“Where Sun xVM Server is designed to enable dynamic IT at the heart of the datacentre, VirtualBox is ideal for a laptop or desktop environment.”

The agreement to acquire innotek follows Sun's announcement on January 16 of a definitive agreement to acquire MySQL, the popular open source database.

Sun said the acquisitions reaffirm the company’s status as the largest commercial open source contributor.

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IBM, Yahoo update free enterprise search tool

IBM and Yahoo! has unveiled an updated version of its enterprise search software, which lets companies customise and personalise searches of information within their organisations and across the web.

The so-called IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition software was launched a year ago to provide a no-cost, full-featured search product that eliminated financial and technology barriers to information access.

Since its launch, nearly 25,000 users have downloaded the software and global organisations of all sizes are using it to improve enterprise search. In addition, numerous independent software vendors (ISVs) and businesses have developed applications that integrate with or support the free IBM search platform.

“Last year, IBM and Yahoo! came together to change the rules of enterprise search, defining a new market standard for search as a core capability that should be ubiquitous and free,” Yahoo! Search Distribution senior director of product management Joff Redfern said.

“We're committed to helping enterprises – both large and small – get more value out of their information quickly and inexpensively, and providing them with an on-ramp to leveraging the power of all their information.”

The new version of IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition provides the ability to create a number of collections, each indexing a different set of documents. This allows the user to limit the search to only the documents from a specific source, providing more accurate results.

It also provides the ability to define additional custom fields in the index allowing field values to be mapped from HTML meta tags, extracted from the document's own metadata, or pushed in from the push API.

The OmniFind Yahoo Edition software is based on the open source Lucene project. The update includes the latest version of the Lucene core.

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Mozilla release Firefox 3 beta

OPEN source software specialist Mozilla has launched the first beta release of its next-generation Firefox 3 browser, highlighting better security, ease of use, and personalisation features.

The organisation said the beta was still “a bit rough”, but would let developers preview features and functions, and to get feedback before the project proceeds into its next phase.

“Much of the work leading up to this first beta has been around developing the infrastructure to support a bunch of exciting new features,” Mozilla said in its release notes.

“With this first beta, you'll get a taste of what's coming in Firefox 3, but there's still more to come, and much of what you'll see is still a bit rough around the edges.”

Rough edges include the fact that Firefox add-ons don't work properly with the beta version.

Those add-ons include applications such as ad blockers, search engines, and dictionaries in other languages. Mozilla did not offer a final release date, noting only that the final version will be launched “when we qualify the product as fully ready for our users.”

Mozilla has set out to make the Firefox 3 browser more personal, with a star button that lets you add bookmarks from the location bar with a single click. A “smart places” folder lets you access recently bookmarked and tagged pages, as well as more frequently visited pages.

New security features in Firefox 3 include malware protection, more informative SSL information, and a one-click function to identify who owns a site.

Firefox 3 automatically checks add-ons and will disable older, insecure versions. The browser even will inform anti-virus software when downloading executables, and it respects the Windows Vista parental control setting for disabling file downloads.

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Open Source takes hold in public sector

MORE than half of technology exexcutives in the US federal government have implemented open source software projects in their agencies, citing security and reliability issues as the chief reason.

A survey conducted by the Federal Open Source Alliance – a group supported by HP, Intel and Red Hat – said more than 70 per cent of respondents said their agencies would benefit from open source software.

The Federal Open Source Referendum is the first of an annual report aimed at identifying open source adoption rates and trends in federal government.

Federal ICT executives view data centre consolidation as accelerating open source transition – 58 percent of respondents note they are more likely to consider moving to open source as they consolidate data centres.

The survey found that those executives that had already implemented Open Source in a project identify advanced security as the biggest benefit, with 30 percent citing access to advanced and multi-levelled security capabilities as the top benefit.

Those that had not implemented an open source project cited security as a top challenge – 40 percent.

“The focus on data centre consolidation as an inflection point on open source migration echoes what we hear directly from Federal as well as state and local agencies,” said Red Hat government sales operations vice-president Paul Smith.

“The study underlines the perception divide on security as well as the important role that cultural attitudes to change and robust structured technical support play in open source migration success,” Mr Smith said.

“The Federal Open Source Alliance is committed to fostering collaboration to close the open source education divide and empower implementing agencies to obtain maximum value from their open source migrations.”

The study underscores the fact that open source is gathering broad-based support and an impressive record for success in the Federal space. Some 55 percent of respondents note that they have been or are involved in open source implementations and 90 percent of those respondents assert that the deployment has benefited their agency.

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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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