OStatic

While Novell's report yesterday that its quarterly Linux revenue soared 22 percent year-over-year was a positive note, and one that was expected, the real upshot of the company's earnings report was that every other part of its business sank. Overall, its revenues slipped to $216 million for the quarter, compared to $245 million for the comparable quarter last year. Despite the company's drum pounding about the promise and growth of its Linux business, Novell is a public company that needs revenues to come from more than one aspect of its business.?

As Matt Asay notes, Red Hat's financial performance has been much rosier during the recession, but there are also questions arising about why Red Hat's revenue growth is slowing. Both companies need more than just Linux business to grow over the long run, and there are good reasons to believe that Red Hat may be the one of the two that pulls a rabbit--or a series of them--out of its red hat.?

While frugality isn't by any means the only reason a business should consider open source software, it would be foolish to think that the current economic situation isn't making it more attractive to companies. There is often, however, an imposing barrier standing in the way of all-out adoption. The mythical learning curve involved in moving to open source isn't half so steep or intimidating as that first step -- where do we go, what applications are best for us, and how do we put it all together and make it all work?

This week, Red Hat and IT services distribution provider, SYNNEX, announced the formation of the Open Source Channel Alliance. The Alliance's aim is to help value-added resellers and solutions providers deliver all the benefits of open source applications to their customers.

GNOME 2.26's 5 best features. It has solid Exchange/Outlook mail compatibility, improved CD/DVD burning, better support for multiple monitors, and more.

Is Ballmer conceding victory to Linux netbooks? He acknowledges that buyers are extra sensitive to prices now.

French police switch from Windows to Linux. Department cuts costs by 70 percent.

Sun deal could make IBM unbeatable in Unix server market. It would give IBM nearly two-thirds share of the Unix systems business.

Red Hat's JBoss Developer Studio 2.0 - Portfolio Edition is now available. It adds Enterprise Application, Portal, SOA and Data Services Platforms.

Synkron: An open source tool for syncing folders across computers.....

Red Hat is expanding its open source JBoss SOA platform.....

LinuxWorld is no more.....

Mixing Windows and Linux: How do you manage choice?.....