November 18, 2008
by sjvn01
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You’ve already got Ubuntu on your computer so why not have some Ubuntu under your Christmas tree-or Hanukkah bush, Ubuntu’s for everyone-as well.
Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, the popular Linux distribution, has launched an U.S.-based on-line shop for Ubuntu-branded merchandise and software. The U.S. Ubuntu Shop carries a wide range of Ubuntu-branded items.
November 17, 2008
by sjvn01
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How the mighty have fallen! In February, Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo for a cool $44.6 billion. Yahoo, under CEO Jerry Yang, turned them down.
That was then. This is now.
Then, Yahoo had an ad deal in the works with Google. Then, Yahoo had a stock north of $27 a share. Then, Yahoo thought it controlled its destiny.
Now, Yahoo’s ad deal was scuttled. Now, Yahoo’s stock is just above $10 a share. Now, Yahoo has been trying to convince Microsoft to play let’s make a deal.
November 17, 2008
by sjvn01
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You can count on Microsoft pulling the fake research report trick at least once a year. It’s always the same. They’ll report some result that makes them look good and/or their competition look bad from an ‘independent’ source, but not mention that they paid for the results, had their own people do the report, and usually manage the research. This time around it’s a study by ClickStream Technologies, which found Microsoft Office, to be far more popular than OpenOffice.org, which in turn was far more popular than Google Docs. What Microsoft doesn’t mention is that ClickStream is headed by Microsoft’s former head of Microsoft Office research. Very independent, eh?
Boycott Novell did some digging about this latest Microsoft study, and found, just underneath the dirt’s surface that ClickStream’s senior research analyst is also a former Microsoft Corporation researcher and strategist for the Office product. If you buy that this study will say anything except what Microsoft wants it to say, I have some early-release, Detroit Lion SuperBowl tickets you might also want to buy. Cheap!
So why is Microsoft doing this? It’s no secret that Microsoft Office is the most popular office suite around. I think that the goal is to make Google Docs look less significant than it really is. After all, while OpenOffice 3.0 is an excellent free and open-source office suite. Microsoft had held OpenOffice off with one hand tied behind its back. So, Microsoft doesn’t worry about OpenOffice or its commercial versions, Sun’s StarOffice and IBM’s Symphony. Google Docs, that’s another story.
Microsoft, and in particular Steve ‘Why is this man still the CEO?’ Ballmer, are obsessed by Google. I mean, Ballmer, with a straight face, even recently compared the fragile Microsoft David to the big, mean Google Goliath. In the case of Google Docs, Microsoft has real reason to worry. Google Docs represents a real threat to Microsoft Office and its revenue stream. If you haven’t used it, you should give it a try. It’s an excellent, light-weight office suite, and, unlike Microsoft Office, you can run it on Windows, Macs, Linux, or, if you’re a glutton for punishment, you can even try to use it on some mobile phones.
November 16, 2008
by sjvn01
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Over the years I’ve had mixed feelings about Sun. I like SPARC systems, much of the software, and several of their senior staffers are great, bright people. On the other hand, for ages the company kept going back and forth on such fundamental questions as: “Are we a hardware or software company?” And, “Are we a proprietary or open-source software company?”
That used to really tick me off about Sun, and, far more importantly, I think it also confused Sun’s customers, which made it easier for Red Hat, Novell, Microsoft, and IBM to grab Sun’s business. Today, Sun has finally become a true open-source company. Unfortunately, I think it may be too late.
Sun is laying off 15% to 18% of its employees, that’s between 5,000 and 6,000 employees, after a quarter which saw a $1.68 billion quarterly loss. Even before the economy started its nose-dive, Sun had been bleeding red-ink for several quarters.
I don’t see how Sun can recover. The bulk of Sun’s business came from high-end financial companies. You don’t have to know a thing about the stock market to know that the financial sector is a burnt-out husk.
November 13, 2008
by sjvn01
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If you think about where Linux is fighting for market and mind-share, chances are you’re thinking about Linux slugging it out with Microsoft Windows or Sun Solaris on the server, or trying to tear desktop customers away from Windows, and to a far lesser extent, from Mac OS X. That’s all true, but there’s also fierce competition between Linux distributions.
Some of that conflict is inside baseball stuff. Some Debian developers, for example, are jealous of Ubuntu’s popularity and some developers feel that Ubuntu hasn’t done enough for Linux. Unless you’re a Linux insider this kind of stuff isn’t going to matter to you.
What is going to matter to everyone who buys and deploys operating systems is that Novell is heating up its competition with the number one Linux distributor: Red Hat. On November 11th, Novell announced a new subscription and support program “designed to aid customers making the transition from their existing third-party Linux distribution to SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server).” What makes this interesting is that the three-year SLES subscription under this plan also includes two years of technical support for a customer’s existing Linux deployments while they make the SLES transition.
That’s new. I can’t recall ever seeing a vendor offering to support the competition’s offering while helping you to transition to their product. It does make sense. This is Linux after all. There are a lot of differences between how Novell handles management with its ZENworks and Red Hat does the same jobs with its Red Hat Network, but underneath the top-level management tools a good Linux administrator won’t have any trouble running either SLES or RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux).
November 12, 2008
by sjvn01
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DATELINE: WindowsWorld 2008: Microsoft CEO and President, Steve Ballmer was happy as a clam today at his WindowsWorld keynote in San Francisco’s Gates Center. “Nothing can make me happier to tell you that, Larry Page CEO of Google,” a niche AOL search engine, “has agreed to run their search engine on Windows Server 2004.”
Ballmer continued, “It can only be good that even Google’s customers finally have access to a real server. Unix had its place, but, come on, that old command-line driven thing? Unix hasn’t been businesses’ operating system of choice since NT was introduced.”
Ballmer also announced that Windows Longhorn for Personal Computers would be released, after nine years of development, “sometime in 2011 for a list price of $799.” This made the fourth time in the 21st century that Ballmer had announced that Longhorn would be release soon. In the meantime, users will have to make the best of Windows 98 XP.
At this point in his keynote speech, there was a disturbance in the front as a group of demonstrators started shouting “GNU-HURD! GNU-HURD! GNU-HURD!” The police quickly hustled them away.