Oracle announced the industry's first clustered database server on the Linux operating system, Oracle8i Parallel Server. Customers will be able to use the low-cost Linux operating system to deploy mission critical, highly available business applications or large-scale data warehouses.

I think they?re (Microsoft) interested in Linux, says the analyst, who covers Linux company Red Hat. I think they?re going to have to make a move towards Linux or be left in the dust. I mean, absolutely left in the dust. I think they have finally figured that out.

Over the last several months, VA Linux has hired managing directors for its German and British offices, and key developers including Wichert Akkerman, leader of the Debian Project, who is based in the Netherlands.

Such an interpretation requires heroic optimism, and extraordinary faith - in the face of all the historical evidence - that Microsoft is prepared to view non-Windows markets as fields to be developed for rather than opposition to be crushed.

With KDE and GNOME development

getting all the headlines in the media

lately, Linux Orbit decided to take a

quick look at how other desktop

developments are doing. In this first

In order to face the shift of the Internet to serious business use, IBM announced a new range of servers built specifically for business--entrusting a number of its new server models to the stability of Linux.

VACM is a powerful, flexible Open Source software tool that is designed to enable easy remote monitoring and management of large clusters of hundreds of servers, whether they are all located under one roof or distributed across ISP data centers around the world.

It's time to get on the Internet. You fire up Netscape, go to www.freeos.com

and look in horror at the horrible fonts in use. FreeOS obviously doesn't

know how to make a good page. You move off to your other favourite news

site and more horrendous fonts are waiting for you there too. Something

wrong? Not really. Just that X doesn't use the newer True Type fonts which

are now heavily used on the web and thanks to Microsoft, have become the

most popular font format. X still uses the older bitmap fonts which don't

Linux means business is a collection of articles that focus on the way

businesses can make use of the Linux operating system. For many users the

attractiveness of Linux software stems from its price. However for business

users the price of the software license is only one factor. In a business

environment the total cost of the software is assessed.

There's no doubt that Torvalds has been a major force in computing and networking. His operating system started out as the catalysts of most revolutions do--quietly. But as interest in Linux grew, so did its commercial potential.