Practical Technology

for practical people.

October 12, 2010
by sjvn01
1 Comment

Big business go big on Linux

I know Linux is continuing to play a larger and larger role in big business, but it’s always nice to see hard, cold proof that this is true. The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating Linux’s growth, published “Linux Adoption Trends: A Survey of Enterprise End Users.” This report shows that Linux is continuing to grab market share from Unix and Windows and it’s doing it more mission critical applications.

Admittedly, the 1,900 people surveyed were both from The Linux Foundation’s Enterprise End User Council as well as other companies and government organizations, but I feel the results still were valid. And, unlike similar surveys, sponsored by proprietary software companies where you have to dig to find out who paid for the research and who’s actually being surveyed, the Linux Foundation comes right out and tells you ”

In particular, the Foundation, and its partner in the survey, Yeoman Technology Group, an engineering and management firm, focused on larger enterprise companies and government organizations–those with $500 million or more a year in revenues or greater than 500 employees.

These businesses are moving to Linux far faster than they are to Windows or Unix. Given that we already know that they’re interested in Linux that’s not too surprising. What was interesting was that conventional wisdom is that Unix users are the most likely to switch to Linux. While it’s true that Unix users are migrating to Linux, it turns out that, by a few percentage points, Windows users at 36.6% are more likely to be heading to Linux than Unix, 31.4%.

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October 12, 2010
by sjvn01
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Netgear gets back into Internet video with Roku

Everyone knows Netgear as, along with D-Link and Cisco’s Linksys, as one of the leading SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) and home networking companies. What’s less well known is that, like D-Link with its Boxee Box, Netgear would like to compete with Apple’s Apple TV and Google’s upcoming flood of Google TV-enabled devices.

The reason why you don’t know about this is that Netgear has, well, flopped at this business with such non-starters as the NTV550 and NeoTV 550. That may change now. Netgear has quietly started selling a Roku XD under its own name at Fry’s.

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October 11, 2010
by sjvn01
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Is Windows Phone 7 really a threat to Android or the iPhone?

Maybe it’s a slow news day. Maybe people want to find nice things to say about Microsoft’s rather dismal recent history. But, for some reason or the other, people actually seem to be excited about Microsoft’s launch of Windows Phone 7. Yawn.

How many times do we have to go through this? Whether Microsoft calls it Windows CE, Pocket PC, or Windows Mobile, Microsoft has never done that well in the mobile device or smartphone space. The company’s market-share has been declining for years. Specifically, Windows Phone’s slice of the market pie has been shrinking fast even before Android started grabbing so much of the smartphone business.

In a way, it’s a shame. From what I can see of Windows Phone 7 in action, it doesn’t look bad. But, it’s too little, too late.

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October 11, 2010
by sjvn01
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Oracle and IBM join together on OpenJDK

Oracle and IBM announced on Oct. 11 that the companies will collaborate on the OpenJDK reference implementation. OpenJDK is an open-source implementation (most of it under the GPLv2) of Java Standard Edition (SE) 6.

In a press conference, IBM and Oracle officials said that the collaboration will center on the OpenJDK project and its related Java Development Kit (JDK) and the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). At the same time though, the Java Community Process (JCP) will continue to be the primary standards body for Java specification work and both companies will work to continue to enhance the JCP.

OpenJDK was founded by Sun in 2006. In many ways, OpenJDK was Sun keeping its promise to open-source Java. In the meantime, other projects, such as Apache’s Harmony sought to create its own open-source version of Java SE 6. IBM, and many other companies and open-source groups had also supported Harmony.

That’s not to say that OpenJDK didn’t also have its supporters. Red Hat and Canonical were early OpenJDK supporters. So why is IBM now supporting OpenJDK?

"IBM, Oracle and other members of the Java community working collaboratively in OpenJDK will accelerate the innovation in the Java platform," said Rod Smith, IBM’s VP of emerging technologies. "Oracle and IBM’s collaboration also signals to enterprise customers that they can continue to rely on the Java community to deliver more open, flexible and innovative new technologies to help grow their business."

What that means for Harmony, according to Smith, is that while "IBM will continue to support Harmony, but our main interest will be in OpenJDK."

In a blog posting, IBM’s VP of Linux and open source, Bob Suitor, further explained, "We think this is the pragmatic choice. It became clear to us that first Sun and then Oracle were never planning to make the important test and certification tests for Java, the Java SE TCK [Technology Compatibility Kit], available to Apache. We disagreed with this choice, but it was not ours to make. So rather than continue to drive Harmony as an unofficial and uncertified Java effort, we decided to shift direction and put our efforts into OpenJDK. Our involvement will not be casual as we plan to hold leadership positions and, with the other members of the community, fully expect to have a strong say in how the project is managed and in which technical direction it goes."

IBM hadn’t done this earlier because, Smith said, "In the past, while Sun expressed interest in having IBM join, IBM didn’t see a real dialogue. Under Oracle, doors have opened and we’re pleased to work together now on OpenJDK."

In addition, Smith said, "We want to focus our efforts and double down our work to increase innovation in Java. It may sound boring, but also by working on OpenJDK, we’ll be able to commit bug fixes directly and advance improvements in Java more quickly."

At least one major Java player is looking forward to IBM and Oracle joining forces in OpenJDK. Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, said, "Today’s announcement is clearly good news for Java, and by extension the Eclipse community. It will strengthen the platform, increase the pace of innovation and solidify the value of the Java ecosystem."

As for Harmony, it appears the Apache Software Foundation may be willing to close its doors. In a blog posting by Tim Ellison, one of Harmony’s senior members, Ellison wrote, "So what’s best for the Java ecosystem? I believe that compatibility is vital, and rather than risk divergence the right thing is to bring the key platform development groups together on a common codebase. Lessons learned on Project Harmony will be of value to OpenJDK, and I know there is immense mutual respect between the IBM and Oracle engineers."

October 8, 2010
by sjvn01
0 comments

Xmarks Lives!

When the news broke that Xmarks, my favorite Web browser bookmark service and utility, was going under, I was really ticked off. It turned out I wasn’t the only one. So the company asked people would they be willing to pledge that if they made Xmarks into a pay service that they’d sign up for it .

The people, about thirty-thousand, have spoken, and it looks like that’s convinced another company to buy Xmarks and keep the service going. Hurray!

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October 8, 2010
by sjvn01
1 Comment

Google TV, Apple TV, & Roku’s Biggest Enemy: A lack of Internet Bandwidth

I’m sure the future of TV is on the Internet. It used to be that you needed to be an audio/visual pro to set up an Internet/TV connection . Now, Google TV, mark two of the Apple TV, and the Roku XDS make it easy for anyone to do it. Better still, on many new HDTVs and high-end DVD players, like my own Sony BDP-S570 Blu-Ray Disc Player, come with Internet video built-in.

So, which is the best? That’s a question for another day. My concern today is that for any of these to work they need a serious Internet broadband connection. You may have one today–I currently have a 20Mbps cable connection–but what happens when everyone needs one and when ISPs start placing bandwidth caps on home accounts?

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