Until I started graduate school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I had never heard of open source. However, every computer science department of any age and stature uses open source software to support their infrastructure. One or another variant of Linux was always being installed on our desktops by the departmental systems administrators, and many academic programs are open source. I accepted the whole situation more or less as I found it.
Jean-Jacques Moulinier has announced the release of Toutou Linux 2014, an updated release of new version of the project’s Puppy-based distribution designed French-speaking users. This is an update to version 5.5 “Wolx” released in November 2013. It is primarily designed for those users who preferred the simplicity and….
Read more at DistroWatch
Over at The Register, Dan Olds writes that, with the acquisition of the x86 servers business from IBM, Lenovo is buying a spot on the Top500 list and a sizeable place in the HPC market. Using the November 2013 list, Lenovo would hold onto second place in terms of systems – 25 per cent of the total (127 boxes). This puts it ahead of everyone except HP. IBM without x86 boxes would place fourth on the system count list, behind HP, Lenovo and Cray.
VMware reported its fourth quarter earnings yesterday, and what’s remarkable is that despite a number of open source virtualization and cloud computing advancements that serve up free competition to VMware’s products, the company continues to hold its ground. VMware reported fourth quarter 2013 revenue of $1.48 billion, up 15 percent year-over-year. For the full year, VMware revenue was $5.21 billion, up 13 percent over 2012, with net income of $1.01 billion. Some reports are even speculating about whether the company might be on a brand new growth path.
VMware is the leading provider of virtualization software, allowing companies and users to run multiple software operating systems and apps concurrently, often saving on costs. All the way back in 2008, I produced a post noting that free and open source virtualization and cloud platforms were going to be serious threats to VMware. Virtualization is increasingly being improved in open source offerings, and it is always a precarious proposition for tech companies to depend on one product category as heavily as VMware has. Just ask the former employees of Netscape or Lotus about that.
