Linux News Desk

Cloud Expo: Architect Full Performance Potential of IaaS Cloud Services

Wed, 09 May 2012 06:00:00 EDT

In a world of ever-increasing demand for performance vs cost, the importance of optimizing infrastructure utilization is critical. With today’s easy access to extremely high-performance hardware and the overabundance of management software, it is easy to “over subscribe” either accidentally or intentionally. Plenty of these discussions center around RAM and CPU, but what about storage and bandwidth and who is going to manage it all? There is a gentle yet optimal balance between performance, redundancy and capacity. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Mike Carpenter, VP Business Development at CARI.net, will discuss how CARI.net utilizes efficient and powerful hardware along with both open source and proprietary software to achieve that ideal balance.

Porticor is Now a Red Hat Innovate Member

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 05:45:00 EDT

With an objective to deliver an end-to-end cloud data security solution based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux to Red Hat customers, Porticor – a company offering cloud data security solutions – recently joined the Red Hat Innovate program. By joining the Red Hat Innovate program, Porticor is able to leverage the power, openness and collaborative nature of open source [...]

Dell and Morphlabs Partner on SSD Cloud

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 08:15:00 EDT

Morphlabs has launched what it reckons is the first all solid-state drive (SSD) cloud platform. Yes, Amazon’s DynamoDB database uses SSDs, and CloudSigma added SSDs to its public cloud last November but not end-to-end. The Morphlabs entry is based on Dell hardware that’ll be pre-integrated with Morphlabs’ open source orchestration widgetry. They’re using Dell’s PowerEdge C5220 microservers, part of its so-called hyperscale server line developed by Dell’s Data Center Solutions (DCS) team that Dell uses for OpenStack.

Open Source Status Rising, Nvidia Joins Linux Foundation

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 04:45:00 EDT

After Facebook's recent shimmy towards an opportunity to promote the adoption of open source hardware techniques, Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) manufacturer Nvidia has reportedly now also signed up to join the Linux Foundation this month.

cVidya Achieves Oracle Exadata Ready Status

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 11:37:00 EST

cVidya’s MoneyMap® Version 6.5 has achieved Oracle Exadata Ready status through Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN). This will significantly assist clients with the extreme performance available only with Oracle Exadata Database Machine. This announcement demonstrates that cVidya has fully tested and supports MoneyMap Version 6.5 on Oracle Exadata Database Machine, including Oracle Database 11g Release 2 and Oracle Linux. This milestone follows cVidya's recent participation in the OPN Forum opening keynote session at Oracle OpenWorld 2011 where cVidya's executives highlighted the benefits of the Oracle Exastack Program and cVidya's achievement of Oracle Exadata Ready status. cVidya is also on track to achieve Oracle Exastack Optimized status as part of the Oracle Exastack Program. Third party applications that are Oracle Exastack Optimized signal to customers that they have been tested and tuned to achieve optimal performance, scalability and reliability.

Azul Stops Being Agnostic, Gets "Come to Linux" Call

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 08:00:00 EST

Azul Systems is going with the herd, which is congregated down around Linux, commodity x86 hardware, Big Data, the cloud and the cloud’s little friends PaaS and SaaS because that’s where the business is. The latest spin of Azul’s Zing JVM is just for Linux. The company’s not going to be OS-agnostic anymore, and offload workloads from different operating system onto Zing. Nope, it’s converted completely to Linux. It’s the third time Azul has changed its faith. It used to preach that scaling Java apps required Vega, the fancy $200 million proprietary rig it built around exotic multi-core chips. Then last year it saw the light and said it could all be done in Zing software. Its new stuff is advertised as the industry’s only JVM specifically architected and optimized for Linux and, being the fifth generation from the first Vega machine, it’s styled Zing 5.0. CEO Scott Sellers reckons that Azul and Java’s owner Oracle are the only commercial providers of enterprise JVMs for enterprise Java apps left and, like a sign Azul may come to regret, it was elected last week along with Twitter to the Java Community Process (JCP) Executive Committee.

Cloud Expo Silicon Valley Call for Papers Deadline September 16

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 06:45:00 EDT

The September 16 deadline for the Call for Papers for the 9th International Cloud Expo, to be held November 7-10, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, is fast approaching. As enterprises in ever-increasing numbers start to evaluate cloud computing, many are assessing which applications can run in public clouds, which should run in a private cloud, and how to ensure that applications will be portable from one to another. Since there will be many different kinds of clouds, another issue is what kind of cloud resources should you use? How easy will it be to migrate to a public or private cloud, and how easy will it be to move between them? If you entrust your data to a Cloud Computing vendor, how will the vendor secure your data and segregate it from that of other customers? Will they encrypt the data both in motion and at rest? What key management policies will they employ? What access control will they enforce for the application and physical security? What third-party groups will audit their security? What compliance or other certifications do they possess? What is their disaster recovery plan and how does data security figure into those plans? What visibility do you have into the process? What is their network topology? Are they consistent with best practice tiered networking?

Create Linux User Login Monitor on Monitis

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 04:28:00 EDT

Monitis provides the ability to monitor almost any operation on your server. Using simple Linux tools and scripts you are able to monitor each time a user logs into the server and capture various information, including username, host address and login service. Using pam_script and bash scripts, you are able to transmit information to a Custom Monitor with this information. The first thing you will need in order to create this monitor is the Monitis API Key and Secret Key. The API Key is a alphanumeric code that allows you to access the Monitis API url’s and transmit or receive data about your Monitis services. The Secret Key is an alphanumeric code that allows you to digitally sign your information to ensure that only you can transmit data to your Monitis account. Your API Key may be disclosed to anyone, but your Secret Key must be maintained private and should not be shared nor transmitted. To obtain your Monitis API Key and Secret Key, log into your account and from the top menu bar, go to Tools then API then API Key, it will display both your API Key and your Secret Key.

Hyper-V Now Supports CentOS

Tue, 17 May 2011 15:42:00 EDT

Hyper-V, Microsoft's virtualization technology now supports CentOS Linux distribution. That actually means that now you can run CentOS as guest OS under Hyper-V. CentOS is community-supported, mainly free software operating system based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Besides that, Microsoft already supports Hyper-V environments that include Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Suse Linux Enterprise Server. It is also good to know that Microsoft already supports Hyper-V environments that include Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Suse Linux Enterprise Server.

Centrify Goes Cloud

Tue, 03 May 2011 01:30:00 EDT

Centrify Tuesday extended its Active Directory-based cross-platform security and compliance widgetry to the cloud with the release of Express 2011, a major new version of its suite of free solutions. It promises automated security for Linux cloud servers, reporting identity and privilege management data to both the free or licensed version of Splunk, the operational intelligence solution.

Cloudera Puts Out New Hadoop

Sat, 23 Apr 2011 18:45:00 EDT

Hadoop’s prime commercializer, Cloudera, has started pushing its third rev of the popular Big Data open source data management framework inspired by Google’s MapReduce as the competition for such widgetry is heating up. Tested for production use, it’s supposed to have improved performance, greater stability, and extended authentication throughout. It integrates with business intelligence tools and RDBMS systems like Informatica, Jaspersoft, MicroStrategy, Netezza, Talend and Teradata and, besides Apache Hadoop 3, now includes HBase, the Hadoop database for random read/write access; Hive, the Facebook-built SQL-like queries and tables for large datasets; Pig, the Yahoo-developed dataflow language and compiler; Sqoop, Cloudera’s MySQL-Hadoop connector; Flume, its own data-loading program; the Hue GUI; and the Zookeeper configuration tool.

Feras Bankosly, Uncle Who Kidnapped Sofia to Syria, Is MD in Chicago

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 19:54:00 EDT

More than a year ago, Sofia was abducted from her home in Lighthouse Point, Florida, by her Syrian National uncle, who is practicing medicine in the Chicago area. Last March, a Florida judge issued an order to pick Sofia up from the uncle's house in Chicago and return her to her home to Florida. Due to a jurisdiction question in court - since Sofia had never lived more than 6 months in one state at the time of her abduction - the judge later gave temporary custody to her mom until the court could determine final jurisdiction between Florida, New Jersey, and Illinois. In July 2010, based on this uncle's instructions, Sofia was abducted by her mom to Syria where she has been missing her life-saving medical treatment. Sofia's Syrian National uncle is still practicing medicine in the Chicago area. As I explained repeatedly in multiple blog posts since her abduction more than six months ago, she needs urgent daily therapy, which was initially scheduled until the age of three. I strongly believe that the MD uncle's "physician license" in the United States should be revoked immediately due to his abduction of Sofia from her home in March, 2010, as he has endangered Sofia's life. The Syrian doctor should also be deported from the United States for his actions against humanity, as he doesn't care about his two-year-old niece Sofia. I will discuss the details of this situation on national morning TV shows, which will air in the United States.

State Department Photos of My Abducted Daughter Sofia in Syria

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 18:45:00 EDT

Wednesday morning I received new photographs of Sofia from the State Department in Washington, DC. Sofia remains in Syria since being abducted in July 2010. The day after my last tweet regarding the lack of any new information about my abducted daughter Sofia since March 4, I received an updated letter on Thursday, April 7, 2011, from the State Department on Sofia's welfare in Syria. Sofia was abducted by her mother from the United States to Syria last July, following her diagnosis of GDD with possible autism. She had 13 remaining medical appointments left at the time of her abduction, none of which she was able to keep. Last week's welfare report prepared by our Embassy in Damascus, Syria, after their second welfare visit to the home in Syria where Sofia remains with her mother and grandmother, showed a bleaker outcome for my daughter than the previous report dated November 2010.

Cloud Expo Silicon Valley Opens Call for Papers for “Cloud Foundry” Track

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:15:00 EDT

Cloud Expo Silicon Valley has expanded its technical program through the addition of an all-new "Cloud Foundry" track to complement the already extensive selection of tracks. Cloud Foundry is the open platform as a service project initiated by VMware. It can support multiple frameworks, multiple cloud providers, and multiple application services all on a cloud scale platform.

My Abducted Two-Year-Old American Guest Worker Daughter in Syria

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:06:00 EDT

Since her abduction by her mother last summer, my two-year-old US citizen daughter, who is in ailing health, remains in her abducted country of Syria under the immigration status of "Palestinian Immigrant Worker." Sofia needs to appear every three months before Syrian immigration authorities to renew her "guest worker" visa, stamped in her American passport. Syria, one of the most oppressed regimes in the world together with North Korea and Iran, does not offer many human rights, freedom or democracy, nor does it recognize the International Hague Convention for Child Abduction. Not being a Syrian citizen Sofia has no civil rights. For the past seven months she did not receive any medical care for her GDD - Global Development Delay condition with autism. Since she is an out-of-status American child, she is also not able to enroll in any accredited child care facilities in Syria.

Uncle Who Kidnapped Sofia to Syria Still a Practicing MD in Chicago

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:15:00 EDT

The End of an Era: PJ To Stop Updating Groklaw

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 20:15:00 EDT

"The crisis SCO initiated over Linux is over, and Linux won," wrote Pamela Jones Saturday as she announced that Groklaw will stop publishing new articles at Groklaw.net on its anniversary, May 16.

DOJ Could Scotch Novell Patent Sale: NY Post

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 05:15:00 EST

The New York Post claimed Wednesday to have a disinterested source “close to the situation” telling it that the Justice Department could scotch the $450 million sale of Novell’s patents to the Microsoft-led consortium that includes Apple, Oracle and EMC, a sale that’s integral to Novell’s $2.2 billion acquisition by Attachmate. Of course it’s hard to imagine anybody “close to the situation” who doesn’t have a dog in the race – and the paper is still saying it’s 882 patents when Novell has already corrected that initial number downward to 861 in an SEC filing – but let’s give the devil his due. Anytime the DOJ asks for seconds on information, it can spell trouble.

Red Hat Partners with Fujitsu Extending to the Cloud

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 14:30:00 EST

Red Hat, a provider of open source solutions, on Wednesday announced an expanded partnership with Fujitsu that extends the technology leaders' collaboration to the cloud. Building on the companies' long-term partnership, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is now available as a guest operating system on Fujitsu's "On-Demand Virtual System Service" public cloud. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is an effective platform for running applications in the cloud with its broad base of developers and extensive ecosystem of certified applications that allow for flexibility, portability and scalability. The combination of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fujitsu's enterprise-ready "On-Demand Virtual System Service" offers customers a powerful infrastructure for the cloud with proven Red Hat technologies and enterprise-class support from Fujitsu, backed by Red Hat.

Top Two Technology Priorities for CIOs in 2011: Cloud & Virtualization

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 08:00:00 EST

"New infrastructure and operations technologies such as cloud services and virtualization ... were selected by CIOs the most often and are the top-two technologies for 2011," said Mark McDonald, group vice president and head of research for Gartner Executive Programs, as the results were announced of the 2011 CIO Agenda survey by Gartner Executive Programs (EXP).

Cloud Expo, Inc. Announces Cloud Expo 2011 New York Venue

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 20:45:00 EST

Cloud Expo, Inc. announced on Thursday that Cloud Expo 2011 New York, the 8th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, will take place June 6-9, 2011, at the Javits Center in New York City. The International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo series is the world’s leading Cloud-focused event and is held in New York, Silicon Valley, Prague, Tokyo, and Hong-Kong. Over 600 corporate sponsors and more than 65,000 industry professionals have participated in Cloud Expo since its inception, 10-folds more than all other Cloud-related events put together.

Ex-Red Hat CEO Claims He Was Taken for a $60 Million Ride

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 06:15:00 EST

Former Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik, who hates spending a dime, claims he and his family were snookered for $60 million by their trusted personal financial adviser, a longtime friend his children used to call “Uncle Jim.” Szulik filed suit in federal court on behalf of himself, his wife, his 96-year- old father and his three children right before Christmas charging TAG Virgin Islands Inc with fraud, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, legal malpractice, conspiracy, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, malfeasance, breach of implied covenant and violations of the Investment Advisors Act, SEC regulations and the North Carolina Investment Advisers

NoMachine and Cloud Technology Integrator Partner

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 14:26:17 EST

NoMachine, a provider of desktop virtualization, remote access and application delivery, has announced a technology collaboration with Arcus Cloud Brokers, a cloud based services and solutions provider focused on delivering to the SME's, charity and education market in the UK. The partnership will enable Arcus Cloud Brokers to deliver NX hosted desktops as an integral part of its Linux-based cloud service offerings, thus further extending its already established cloud-based services portfolio. As cloud computing gains popularity, more organizations today are actively looking to move towards cloud computing. Without the worry of significant upfront hardware costs, a cloud-based hosted solution offers vast savings and total flexibility as well as energy efficiency and economies of scale. But, many organisations find themselves with a deluge of information to digest, being overwhelmed by the vast selection of cloud-based offerings on the market.

First Operation Payback Arrest Made: WSJ

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 22:00:00 EST

An unidentified 16-year-old boy reportedly involved in the massive WikiLeaks-provoked Operation Payback attacks on MasterCard, Visa and others was arrested by Dutch police in The Hague Wednesday night, according to the Wall Street Journal Thursday. According to the Dutch prosecution office he confessed. His computers and storage devices were seized and he remains in custody bound over for a court appearance Friday.

Unix Copyrights Will Remain with Novell

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 17:00:00 EST

It took Novell more than two days after the announcement that it's being bought for its chief marketing officer John Dragoon to say on the company's web site that Novell's Unix copyrights will stay with Novell. God knows it wasn't answering the phone. What Dragoon says still means control passes to Attachmate's owners and it is still unclear what control Microsoft has over them - considering the acquisition seems to have Microsoft's fingerprints all over it - or how interested Attachmate might be in preserving those rights against SCO, whose case still exists. Oral argument in its appeal of the jury decision award Unix ownership to Novell will be heard January 20.

Novell Agreed to Be Acquired by Attachmate for $2.2 Billion

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 12:45:00 EST

Attachmate Corporation on Monday announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire, upon closing, Novell, Inc. for a purchase price of $6.10 per common share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $2.2 billion. Novell, a leader in intelligent workload management, helps organizations securely deliver and manage computing services across physical, virtual and cloud computing environments through solutions for identity and security, systems management, collaboration and Linux based operating platforms. Attachmate Corporation is owned by an investment group led by Francisco Partners, Golden Gate Capital and Thoma Bravo. As part of the transaction, Elliott Management Corporation, one of Novell's largest shareholders, will become an equity shareholder in Attachmate Corporation. Upon close, Attachmate Corporation will manage a brand portfolio consisting of Attachmate®, NetIQ®, Novell® and SUSE®.

The Top 250 Players in the Cloud Computing Ecosystem

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 06:45:00 EDT

In the run-up to the next Cloud Expo, 7th Cloud Expo (November 1-4, 2010) at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Silicon Valley, it's time to give my earlier list a complete overhaul. Here, accordingly, is an expanded list of the most active players in the Cloud Ecosystem.

IBM Seems To Be Having Trouble Supporting its Mainframe Restrictions

Sat, 23 Oct 2010 12:00:00 EDT

A filing in the Neon v IBM mainframe antitrust case managed to get past the IBM censors, who have been sealing court documents willy-nilly in the name of confidentiality agreements. Imagine not being allowed to know the grounds for Neon's motion for a partial summary judgment - and in Texas no less. However, it seems we were right in betting that Neon Enterprise Software asked the federal court down there to rule that nowhere in IBM's contracts with its mainframe users does it say they can't run whatever workloads they want on the mainframes zIIP and zAAP specialty processors (SPs).

Ray Ozzie, Microsoft Chief Software Architect Leaving Company Unexpectedly

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 11:00:00 EDT

In a memo sent Monday to all Microsoft employees, Steve Balmer has announced the departure of Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's Chief Software Architect. The announcement was short on details although it seems to be a mutual decision between Balmer and Ozzie.

Cloud Expo 2011 East To Attract 10,000 Delegates and 200 Exhibitors

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 17:45:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced today that the 8th International Cloud Expo will take place June 6-9, 2011, in New York City. The International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo series is the world's leading Cloud-focused event and is held three times a year, in New York, Silicon Valley and in Europe. Over 600 corporate sponsors and 10,000 industry professionals have participated in Cloud Computing Expo since its inception, more than all other Cloud-related events put together.

Amazon Scales MySQL for Heavy Traffic

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 13:00:00 EDT

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has added Read Replicas to its Relational Database Service (RDS) to make it easier to scale MySQL deployments to meet the performance demands of high-traffic web applications. Read Replicas lets users create one or more copies of a MySQL Database Instance and an application serve read traffic from the multiple replicas. They can create or delete replicas in minutes using the point-and-click interface of the AWS Management Console. Amazon says Read Replicas can be made to another Availability Zone as a disaster-ready failover measure under its Multi-AZ deployments program. Once a Read Replica is created, any subsequent updates to the source will automatically be replicated in the Read Replica. And Read Replicas can be elastically added to any RDS database deployment to keep query response times fast, even as request volumes scale.

Uh-Oh, Java Trouble Percolating

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 09:16:00 EDT

Add Java to the list of rebellious Sun properties bucking Oracle hegemony. According to the Register, before Oracle OpenWorld the Java Community Process (JCP), the only entity that's supposed to be able to approve changes to Java, quietly passed a resolution demanding that Oracle spin it out an independent, vendor-neutral legal body like Oracle had demanded Sun do back in late '07. Reportedly only Oracle abstained from the otherwise unanimous vote by such as IBM, Red Hat, Intel, VMware, Nokia, RIM, the Apache Software Foundation and of course Google. Oracle suing Google over Java probably guaranteed this would happen now. The Java executive board apparently discussed a "symbolic vote distancing themselves from Oracle's prosecution" of Google but didn't.

TIBCO Buys OpenSpirit

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 07:00:00 EDT

TIBCO has brought OpenSpirit Corporation, which sells data and application integration solutions to the oil and gas industry, on undisclosed terms. Its widgetry gathers data from multiple sources to help spot likely deposits. The privately held Texas concern has 200 clients in 57 countries. TIBCO made the announcement when it posted better-than-expected fiscal Q3 results with revenues and license both up 23%. It projected a better-than-expected Q4 attributed to clients doing real-time analyses, with retailers, say, making cross-sell and up-sell offers while the customer is in the store or on the web site. It is seen by some as acquisition fodder.

Novell Sale May Fall Through: Reuters

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 06:45:00 EDT

It’s unlikely that anybody in the industry needs three anonymous Reuters sources to tell them that NetWare has been the donkey on the bridge holding up the sale of Novell for lo the six months the company’s been in play. Everybody has known for years and years that that thing has been an albatross around Novell’s neck. Heck, if Novell had been able to solve its NetWare problem it wouldn’t have bought SUSE Linux.

Will Oracle Bid for HP?

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:00:00 EDT

"Larry Ellison is borderline bat-shit crazy on a good day," the analyst Rob Enderle is quoted as saying in a piece last week by Sam Gustin - a senior writer at DailyFinance, an AOL Finance & Money site. Enderle was prompted to utter this remark by speculation that perhaps the Oracle CEO is about to embark upon the acquisition of his life: of HP.

Show Report: Oracle OpenWorld & JavaOne 2010 - Day One

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 10:00:00 EDT

Oracle has managed to create a huge impact on San Francisco this week. Reports suggest that not since a US president (we're not sure which one) needed a little extra access in the city has a road been permanently closed for the week – but the local police have done it for Larry Ellison so go figure that one out!

Top 50 Bloggers on Cloud Computing

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 05:15:00 EDT

Ever since I first published here my tentative list of Top Players in the Cloud Computing Ecosystem - now expanded to a list of 250 and growing daily thanks to community feedback via my Twitter account (@jg21) and a very kind mention by ReadWriteWeb - there have been suggestions that another prism through which to view cloud computing might be that of people rather than companies.

New Owner of Novell Might Be Cloud Expo Sponsor VMware

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 03:15:00 EDT

Who is buying Novell? The Wall Street Journal is reporting that VMware is in talks to acquire Novell's Linux software unit. Novell, adds the Journal, is in "advanced talks with at least two buyers." VMware's primary interest would be in purchasing Novell's SUSE Linux operating system business, experts agree.

Has Microsoft Russia Gone Rogue on Redmond?

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 19:00:00 EDT

After the New York Times surfaced accusations that Microsoft was a willing tool in the Russian government's use of an anti-piracy ruse to crack down on dissidents, the software leviathan has responded with breathtaking spin. In dozens of alleged actions over the past few years, under the pretext of searching for pirated Microsoft software, Russian security services have selectively raided organizations and newspapers critical of the government, seizing computers and threatening to imprison their owners and users. In many of the cases, the authorities were vigorously supported by lawyers employed by Microsoft, who claimed harm and pressed for prosecution, even when the accused organizations presented evidence of rightfully acquired software licenses. Over the same period, Microsoft corporate executives seemingly ignored pleas for intervention from a number of human rights organizations until the Times presented them with its findings. Now, acknowledging only that "concerns have been raised", while simultaneously defending the company's abstract right to pursue all pirates, Microsoft corporate flacks and lawyers have blamed whatever happened on poorly trained contract attorneys and offered a solution to the vaguely acknowledged problem of the government's unfair selective piracy prosecutions. Microsoft has offered to grant free software licenses to NGOs and independent journalists for new software and to legalize existing pirated copies of Microsoft programs, ostensibly removing the government's incentive to make raids targeting Microsoft programs. The company's tepid handling of the matter may be partly explained by the fact that they make about $1B/year in Russia, with 10% of that coming from the government. Or, perhaps it has more to do with the announcement made in Russia on Monday and little reported in the US of a native, Linux-based "Russian Operating System" that will push Windows out of the government and maybe out of the country.

Novell To Be Sold: NY Post

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 09:00:00 EDT

Novell, which was put in play in March when Elliott Associates, a hedge fund, offered to buy it for $2 billion, has struck an agreement-in-principle to spin off SUSE Linux to an unidentified strategic buyer with the most of the rest of the company going to an equally unidentified private equity house according to the New York Post.