Linux has been criticized for not being able to tap into the potential power of large servers, but programmers have begun taking early steps to push it onto these high-end machines. The next version of the core of Linux, the 2.4 kernel, is up and running on Sun Microsystems' top-end E10000 server with 24 processors.

The lack of a journaling filesystem has kept Linux from being an option for administrators of busy e-commerce sites. But that will soon change, as IBM's JFS and others fill the void.

With Turbolinux's EnFuzion, it's no longer computing for the masses but supercomputing by the masses.

Linux hardware seller VA Linux has an interesting strategy, and its financial grounding in computer hardware sales makes it stand out among the pure Linux companies.

Caldera Systems announced that its network orientated Linux management solution is entering open beta. The solution, formerly known as Cosmos, remotely manages networked Linux systems, of any distribution.

SAP has announced that it will make the SAP DB database management system

available as open-source software under GNU General Public License. SAP will

host a community forum at http://www.sapdb.org to drive further development of

SAP DB.

IDC reported that Linux is going to overtake the Mac within two years. Linux's

client numbers are not to be ignored. It's currently just a single percentage

point behind the Mac in installed base, and that's just counting sales.

When Oracle9i on Linux is released, business apps built on it will be able to run on Linux "supercomputer" clusters, and a large part of the gap between Linux and the high-end proprietary Unices will be closed.

"With the announcement this week of Corel and Microsoft completing a $135 million dollar deal, it brings into question the seriousness of the commitment Corel has to Linux. This monster deal entitles Microsoft to a very large stake in Corel, 24 million non-voting shares (a whopping 24 percent of the shares), which to some may border on conspiratorial."

At the mainframe end, the z900 represents a totally new hardware architecture -- and IBM is pushing Linux as a core product to run on it.