A few announcements from LinuxWorld

[This article was contributed by Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

Every trade show produces a slew of press releases from vendors, and this year's LinuxWorld Expo is no different. Here's a quick summary of some of the more interesting announcements made this year.

AMD introduced a trial version of the 64-bit Opteron CPU at LinuxWorld. AMD and IBM announced that a 64-bit trial version of DB2 was ready for computers based on the Opteron. The company is planning to make about 500 Opteron-based systems available to system builders and potential customers. In further Opteron news, AMD and Scyld announced that they are working on a 64-bit version of Scyld Beowulf for Opteron machines.

While working together on DB2 on Opteron, AMD and IBM were touting separate Linux-based PDA solutions at LinuxWorld. AMD has partnered with Metrowerks to produce the OpenPDA platform. OpenPDA is designed to run on the AMD Alchemy Solutions Au1100 processor for PDAs and smart phones. AMD's reference platform includes Trolltech's Qtopia multi-language user interface, Insignia's integrated Java Virtual Machine (JVM), and the Opera Web browser.

SYS-CON Media plans to debut its own Linux-focused magazine, Linux Business & Technology, in May. The magazine is a spin-off of SYS-CON's Linux Business Week website and will be aimed at enterprise market. LBT will carry a cover price of $5.99. SYS-CON also publishes Java Developer's Journal, Web Services Journal and XML-Journal.

There were a few UnitedLinux announcements at LinuxWorld Expo, including plans to create a software developers program and partner with the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) to create a certification program. The United Linux developer program is designed to encourage development for the United Linux platform and includes a Software Evaluation Kit developed by IBM. LPI and United Linux will be rolling out the new certifications in the first quarter of 2003: a UnitedLinux Certified Professional (ULCP) certification and a UnitedLinux Certified Expert (ULCE) certification. UnitedLinux also announced that HP was becoming an UnitedLinux Technology Partner.

Speaking of HP, the company announced Tuesday that it is now raking in $2 billion a year on its Linux offerings. This announcement was actually made by Carly Fiorina at HP's annual storage and enterprise event in Amsterdam, but it seems to fit in nicely. At LinuxWorld, HP announced several new Linux-based products, including a line of workstations with Red Hat 7.3 pre-installed and a four-processor blade server.

The Ximian folks were also busy at LinuxWorld. Ximian announced a collaboration with Sun Microsystems, releasing the Sun ONE Connector for Ximian Evolution. Like Ximian's Connector for Microsoft Exchange, the product will allow users on Linux or Solaris systems to exchange calendars, schedules, address books and task lists. Ximian also announced the release of Red Carpet Enterprise 1.2, which adds rollback support so admins can return a system to a previous configuration.

Dell was somewhat low-key at LinuxWorld this year, but did announce a new line of server blades that will fit 84 servers in a standard rack. The PowerEdge 1655MC blade runs Red Hat Linux. Red Hat was also fairly quiet, though Michael Tiemann gave a keynote address with Jeffrey Birnbaum of Morgan Stanley on Wednesday.

SuSE unveiled its Desktop edition on Tuesday. The SuSE Linux Office Desktop includes CodeWeavers CrossOver 1.3.1, allowing users to run Microsoft Office and a number of other Windows applications on Linux. The Office Desktop also includes Sun StarOffice for companies that would prefer to migrate off of Office entirely.

MySQL AB announced that a few new features had been added to MySQL. MySQL 4.1 now includes subselects and improved SSL support. The company also used the occasion to announce their own conference. The MySQL Users Conference & Expo will take place in San Jose, April 10-12.

Some of the more interesting Linux-related products announced this year include the LTrix Engineering lice 1.7 Patchless Linux Kernel Debugger and the PTC Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire MCAD software for Linux.

The next LinuxWorld Expo is scheduled for August 4-7 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

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