IBM is to announce that it is investing $200m in Linux, in an effort to speed the uptake of the free technology. The money will be used to set up developers' centres across Europe, in which software vendors will be able to create software for Linux.

Although Microsoft Office users aren't likely to switch their desktop software, they believe Sun is making a smart move by opening up the source code, XML file formats and APIs to the development community and that small businesses are more likely than large businesses to adopt it.

Linux's share of the Japanese server OS market grew a staggering 666.3 per cent last year, market research company IDC has reported.

Far more likely is that the two could strike up co-operative distribution arrangements which cut out the channel duplication, which could potentially offer customers a Unix for every occasion.

Although almost a quarter of domains around the world are hosted by a specific type of Microsoft server, Apache servers continue to dominate the server market with over 56 percent global market share.

The number of companies running R/3 on Linux has climbed from 40 in September 1999, to 400 today. Most of these installations are in Linux-friendly Europe.

Sun is working with the leaders of the free software and open source community to make the source code for its StarOffice software suite freely available under

the GNU General Public License.

Windows 2000 may be the next big thing, and sales should ramp up shortly, but Sun Microsystems and Red Hat are powering much of the Internet these days.

Caldera Systems, a leading Linux distributor, is on the verge of buying SCO's server division for a price expected to be north of $70 million in stock.

Caldera Systems and SCO's Tarantella Division, are delivering the first application server bundle of Linux and the Tarantella Express application server.