BusinessWire: Sphera Corporation, a pioneer in service automation for the Web hosting industry, today
announced the availability of Sphera HostingDirector 3.0, the first open and extensible software
platform to address the mission-critical IT needs of the hosting provider industry.

In her keynote speech at researcher Gartner’s
Symposium/ITxpo in Florida, Fiorina said: “The open source
movement is natural, inevitable and creates huge benefits.
It’s part of the next wave of computing, and that will involve
participants and users within the industry in open source.”, from vnunet News.

Reuters reports, 3Com Corp.
on Tuesday unveiled a home Internet appliance
named Audrey that provides electronic mail, Web
access, a calendar, address book and synchronization
capability for personal digital assistants.

Handspring, the developer of Palm OS-based Visor devices, would present
an even greater threat to Palm Pilots if it decided to create Linux-based, Palm-compatible appliances, suggests this article from All Linux Devices.

vnunet News reports, Unix and Linux will fight each other for supremacy over the
next 18 months but only one can survive, according to
Caldera Systems.

Linux Interactive article asks, and answers “Why is AOL at a Linux show (4th annual Atlanta Linux Showcase)?”

Chaired by VA Linux Systems UK country manager Ed Cole, the conference will focus on
the factors driving the increasing share of Linux in the corporate technology mix – and cut
through the hype to examine how you can exploit Linux to operational and competitive
advantage, from LinuxUser.com. (Full disclosure: NewsForge is owned by VA Linux.)

ZDCOUK reports that PC manufacturer Gateway found itself the target of a class action
lawsuit Monday, which accuses the company of misleading
customers with a “free” Internet access offer and a Gateway credit
card.

A music industry consortium formed to secure the next generation
of digital music denied Monday that vandals had successfully
breached the security of six new technologies designed to protect
music copyrights. “To think, that in 24 hours, that [the testing group]
could analyse almost 450 submissions… then leak those results… it’s
simply ridiculous,” said Leonardo Chiariglione, executive director of
the the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI). ZDCOUK reports.

Ageism is alive and well in IT according to a survey released this
week, although mounting evidence suggests the UK is suffering a
severe skills shortage in the sector. From ZDCOUK.