As the Linux community gathers in San Francisco to celebrate the
10th anniversary of Linux, a host of vendors will roll out a range
of products intended to boost the fortunes of the open source
operating system in the corporate arena.
IBM will unwrap what company officials believe is the first
Linux-based e-commerce suite for mainframes. Version 5.1 of the
Websphere Commerce Suite is intended to increase corporate
customers' global reach by making it easier to conduct e-business
around the world.
"Given that users are increasingly moving workloads to the zSeries
[mainframe] platform, we see this as a significant offering. It
will also help establish it as a platform ready to host
mission-critical applications," said Dan Powers, IBM's director of
Internet Technologies.
Big Blue will also debut two new Intel-based xSeries servers aimed
at the telecommunications industry. The models 300 DC and 330 DC
are single-processor servers equipped with self-managing,
self-healing hardware and software products born from the company's
Project eLiza initiative.
IBM will also announce a partnership with Colorado State
University. Under the deal, IBM will equip the university with a
Linux-based zSeries mainframe that will be used as a National
Technology Hub for both faculty and students.
"They will use it to set up virtual Linux machines for all their
students, but also for 20 other universities connected with this
project," Powers said.
IBM will also launch a contest, called the Linux Scholar Challenge,
which will encourage students to make contributions to the open
source community. Entires will be judged by a panel, and the 25
winners will receive an IBM ThinkPad. There will also be a team
prize for the best work, with the winning university getting to
choose a new zSeries system or a Linux cluster.
Turbolinux will support IBM's mainframe-flavoured offering with the
introduction of Version 6.5 z/Linux 6.5 for IBM's zSeries eServers.
Turbolinux will also show off EnFuzion 7.0, clustering software
that ties together Linux, Unix, and Windows servers and
workstations across a corporate network, and allows them to
function as a single supercomputer.
Borrowing from the concept behind grid computing, EnFuzion links
systems together and emulates a supercomputer by drawing on the
idle processing power of linked desktop and server systems.
Trying to build momentum for its recently released e-commerce suite
of applications for SMEs, Red Hat will announce partnering
agreements with Compaq and Pioneer-Standard to piece together a
range of solutions based on the suite.
Pioneer-Standard installs and configures Red Hat's product on
Intel-based systems and offers consulting services for Web
application development, site design, and legacy system
integration.
Intel will emphasise its commitment to Linux by announcing a series
of programming tools to help developers create applications that
make the most of its chips.
The company's new compilers translate Linux programs written in C++
or Fortran into commands that an Intel Pentium 4 can understand.
Like Intel's compilers for Windows, the Linux compilers include
support for the OpenMP standard for multiprocessor systems,
according to an Intel spokesman.
Ximian will roll out Ximian Desktop as part of its campaign to
establish Linux as the corporate desktop operating system of
choice. The new product contains the Gnome graphical interface,
several versions of Linux for top-tier vendors, and a range of
third-party applications.
The Standard Edition of Ximian Desktop includes Red Carpet, a
systems management application, and a preview version of Ximian
Evolution, a suite of groupware applications for managing personal
information. The Desktop Professional Edition contains Sun's
StarOffice suite along with 90 days of Web-based technical support
for users.
SuSE Linux will show off its Linux Firewall, a live system that
enables the operating system to be booted directly from a read-only
CD-ROM. Company officials believe that because the product's code
is on fixed media, it will be impossible for outsiders to
manipulate the firewall software.
Hewlett-Packard will debut its HP Secure OS Software For Linux,
expected to sell for $3,000 (£2,063). The OS will include version
2.4 of the Linux kernel, a variety of HP-developed open-source
enhancements, and the Apache Web Server.