"NEC's senior VP, Kazuhiko Kobayashi's comments perhaps aren't as negative as they might at first seem. They're actually a call for a greater level of standardisation in the Linux arena - not so very far from the concerns expressed by those observers who fear the Unix-like fragmentation of Linux."

A joint development programme was announced, under which the two companies will ensure Nautilus works with Solaris, supports a broad range of different languages and contains tools to help users with disabilities. Eazel's part of the agreement is to commit itself to using Sun's StarOffice as the default document viewing tool in Nautilus.

How and why did IBM decide to support Linux when they already have their own OS?

The shift started about two years ago. An internal effort was started and

I was also part of this team of 6-7 people. We wanted to know what this thing

was and whether we needed yet another OS. We also looked at open source.

Open source had far more benefits in terms of process. There was a lot of

vigor in the process, lot of value in the process. It was a self-policing

environment. If you did good work, you got noticed and got to do more good

Open source databases are emerging as viable alternatives to costly proprietary

databases and, in so doing, are filling a key slot in the open source e-business development stack.

Dell has signed an agreement to offer Eazel's applications on laptop and desktop computers. Dell's investment arm also made an investment in Eazel as part of measures designed to increase the adoption of Linux among PC users.

Are you waiting for your favorite desktop game to come to Linux? Although there's a handful of big-name games available, people who are both gaming enthusiasts

and Linux fans say parity in the gaming desktop is still years away.

"It's been roughly four months since potato got released, which means

woody's been in existance for eleven months, and that we probably want

to think about freezing and releasing it in a few more months."

Processor technology has come a long way. Right from 4 and 8-bit

processors to the latest 32-bit processors. They have all been significant

in powering the computers. Processors also define the architecture and

computing standards. Since the age of 386 processors, Intel has been

lugging on to 32-bit computing. 64-bit computing in going to be the next

leap in computers and 64-bit processors and operating systems are going to

play a significant role in powering the computers of the future.

64-bit computing has been around for a while now. Several of the IT

Finnish programmer Linus Torvalds says the creation of the Linux operating

system is his biggest technological achievement. Good news for the IT

legend: his nine-year-old achievement keeps getting bigger.

After taking a beating on Wall Street for most of the last year, VA Linux

Systems Inc. may finally be winning over skeptics who have questioned the

company's ability to make money over a product that is essentially free.