A full year ahead of schedule IBM has brought Lotus Notes to the Linux desktop. A Linux client for Notes wasn't expected until the arrival of "Hannover", the next major release of the Notes platform, in 2007. But Big Blue had a surprise up its sleeve, and this month it announced the availability of a Linux version of the current Notes 7 client.
Officially, a version of IBM's Lotus Notes client for Linux wasn't supposed to arrive until sometime in 2007 with the planned next release of the Notes platform. But IBM surprised customers last week with a Linux version of Lotus Notes 7, as much as a year ahead of schedule.
Open source gives you choices. Not happy with commercial software? Try the open source alternative, and work to add the features you need. If no open source project already exists, start your own. Chances are, other folks have the same itch and would be willing to help you scratch it.
For the forthcoming SLED (Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop) 10, Novell went back to the drawing board to rethink what makes a good desktop. The result is extremely impressive.
Scott McNealy is out. Jonathan Schwartz is in. And the future never looked brighter for Sun Microsystems -- or so we're told. But if Sun's new CEO is going to convince me that his company can remain a dominant player in enterprise software, first he's going to have to get his story straight, particularly when it comes to Linux and open source.
Red Hat's acquisition of JBoss came as something of a surprise. Like many others, I expected Oracle would be the one to snap up the open source J2EE vendor. Still, stranger things have happened.
Red Hat's acquisition of JBoss came as something of a surprise. Like many others, I expected Oracle would be the one to snap up the open source J2EE vendor. Still, stranger things have happened.
Virtualization-related announcements were flying at this year's LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in Boston. Given a flurry of new products and initiatives from the likes of Virtual Iron, VMware, and XenSource, I guess it should have come as no surprise that Microsoft would throw its hat into the ring. What is surprising, however, is just how much of an about-face Microsoft seems to have made.
As of this week, there's a new participant in the process of standardizing the OpenDocument office file format: Say hello to Microsoft.
As of this week, there's a new participant in the process of standardizing the OpenDocument office file format: Say hello to Microsoft.
There's no mistaking that buying desktop hardware for use with Linux is more difficult than buying Windows PCs. Even if you manage to avoid the "Microsoft tax" and buy a system without Windows preinstalled, you still have the additional hurdle of getting your Linux of choice onto it.
Major software updates are always disruptive, and with as many as six separate SKUs for the U.S. market alone, Windows Vista will be no different. As if the launch plans for Vista weren't confusing enough, Microsoft execs have played up the steep hardware requirements of the operating system's bells and whistles, prompting many IT managers to wonder whether the upgrade might signal a jumping-off point for shops that have grown tired of life under Redmond's collective thumb.
Oracle's done it again. Not only has it acquired another company, but in the process it has riled up the open source community once more.
Eyebrows raised around the globe last week, as Microsoft announced that it would license Windows source code to third-party developers as part of a settlement of antitrust litigation in the European Union. E.U. competition regulators had demanded that Microsoft make detailed technical documentation available to developers who want to write software that will interoperate with key Windows protocols. In a surprise move, Microsoft decided to go them one further.
Has database vendor EnterpriseDB found the business model for the next generation of open source companies?