Lineo has snapped up the third in a series of companies to bolster its effort to

push Linux into all manner of non-PC devices. Lineo this week picked up United

System Engineers, a 27-person engineering consulting firm based in Shiojiri, Japan. The 15-year-old firm will help Lineo explain to prospective customers why they might want to switch from existing operating systems to Lineo's version of Linux for set-top boxes, factory robots and other "embedded" devices, said Lyle Ball, vice president of marketing and communications.

As time to market becomes more and more critical to companies hoping to build a Web presence, officials at Cobalt Networks think they have made it easier and less costly for companies to do so. Cobalt has integrated network-based applications, such as Web hosting, e-mail, and file sharing, as well as system and network setup, into a browser-based graphical-user interface.

The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other written document "free" in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially.

Java Tool Ships With Support for all Leading Platforms: Linux, Windows and

Solaris. Inprise/Borland announced JBuilder 3.5, a new version of its popular Java development tool. With JBuilder 3.5, Java developers building Internet and enterprise applications will dramatically shorten their development cycles.

When I attended the Bazaar conference in New York in December and found it wanting, I ended my commentary with the hope that users looking for a high-caliber technical conference would at least be able to go to a Linux Expo in North Carolina. Oh well, it looks like that ain't going to happen. The original Linux Expo is dead, at least this year.

A Ready availability of graduates with Linux skills is driving the next wave of open-source adoption in business. Daniel Frye, 42, the IBM program director for Linux, said the global skills shortage was driving corporations to consider open source over proprietary solutions to keep ahead of competitors.

Technauts, a provider of software for smart Internet appliances, announced that it has entered into a joint development arrangement with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), to open an engineering center in India.Technauts will leverage TCS's infrastructure in joint product development, testing and support of its eServer product family. Technauts developed the low cost Linux-based eServer information appliances.

Having previously dabbled with the "open source" software movement, Novell said it plans to make versions of its networking software available for Linux users and launched a version of its directory services for the growing operating system.

RealPlayer allows you to enjoy streaming audio and video on networks and the Internet. It provides sound and video to systems with 28.8-kbps or faster modems. Features include destination buttons for one-click access to news and entertainment, near CD-quality audio (28.8-kbps and faster connections only), and full-screen video capability (high-bandwidth connections only).

A Linux version of the SAS System software suite will be available in the fourth quarter of this year, vnunet.com can exclusively reveal. The suite will initially be available for Red Hat Linux on Intel hardware and be extended to all major distributions of Linux.