“Enterprises should thus view Centerlex and PowerCockpit with caution. Turbolinux’s exit from most worldwide markets indicates the difficulties of Linux distributors relying on OS sales alone. Except for Red Hat, other distributors likely do not have the financial viability to become worldwide suppliers.”

SWsoft, Inc., leader in hosting automation and enterprise server software (www.sw-soft.com), today announced a new program that lowers the entry point for hosting providers to integrate virtual private server (VPS) technology into their existing hosting plans. Based on the Virtuozzo(TM) technology and HSPcomplete^(TM) 2.0 hosting automation solutions, SWsoft’s program is part of a larger campaign to increase the number of VPS users and offer SMBs access to more hosted applications. www.sw-soft.com/vzpromo.
SWsoft’s VPS campaign started in August with a $5,000 promotional price for a full-system HSPcomplete automation solution, which includes billing and fully-anonymous reseller capabilities. www.sw-soft.com/hsppromo.

Confident that this unique and no-risk way to sell VPS hosting plans will increase the number of SMBs using virtual hosting and jump-start the idling hosting industry, SWsoft lowered the entry-point for a VPS system to $2,500.

The $2,500 price tag includes:
Virtuozzo-powered VPS licenses for two (2) servers Virtuozzo Management Console (VZMC), which uniquely monitors all customers, resellers, applications and servers from a single user-interface Installation and access to support plans.

HSPs will offer VPS services to increase revenue per-server and per-customer. “I decided to only offer VPS services for my new hosting operations and am now generating over $2,000/month per physical server, far more than the $200/month average per physical server that I could receive with dedicated servers,” added Jackie Yung, CEO of OnSmart (http://www.onsmart.com). “VPS services are easier for me to sell than dedicated or shared services because it allows my customers all of the benefits of their own server, only for a price closer to that of shared hosting.”

Virtual Private Servers (VPS)

Powered by Virtuozzo technology, which partitions Intel-based and blade servers with mainframe-like functionality, virtual private servers (VPS) are fully-isolated instances of the Linux OS (called “virtual environments”) that function as stand-alone, dedicated servers and allow an HSP to generate more revenue per-server and per-customer. Customers are granted root access and can install any application within a VE or change system libraries on-the-fly. OS virtualization and resource control provide maximum security and isolation – what happens to one VE/customer does not affect the quality of other virtual Linux customers on the same machine.

“HSPs are seeking new revenue sources and VPS plans help to create new hosting revenue – due to low pricing and high flexibility of VPSs, which are perfect for SMBs and others who are conducting more of their important business transactions on the Web,” said Craig Oda, VP, Business Development, SWsoft, Inc. “Our goal is to increase the availability of VPS hosting plans, which will breathe new life and revenue into the hosting industry by opening up the largely untapped SMB market.”

“We needed a way to automate our infrastructure and offer customers a virtual hosting option. I was naturally skeptical of investing hard-earned money into a VPS system without making sure it integrated well within my business,” said Ben Ossei, CEO, Computer Advantages (http://www.vpservers.com). “The low-price point enabled me to begin selling VPS plans to customers, who were slicing the VPS up into virtual web hosts. I also signed up businesses that needed the flexibility to install special applications on their own. VPS is now my top-selling service plan.”

HSPcomplete 2.0 provides a fully-automated infrastructure and a full set of management and reseller user tools that enables hosting providers to support thousands of customers on a single network, integrating a flexible billing system and generating new revenue through reseller and virtual private server (VPS) products. www.hspcomplete.com.

Studies Show New Web Services, Virtual Linux Hosting Key to Recent Linux Growth

According to the Netcraft(TM) Web Server Survey for July, 2002, Apache Web servers, which run on Linux, increased by almost 5%, giving it a 65% overall marketshare (versus 25% for Microsoft). Currently available on the Linux OS and FreeBSD, virtual private servers and new Web services on Linux are believed by industry analysts to widen this gap even further.

“When Microsoft sets out to dominate a market, they usually do so. But at the same time, IBM is pushing Linux, and Solaris isn’t dead yet,” said Melanie Posey, IDC in a recent article, referring to Sun Microsystems Inc.’s Solaris operating system. “It’s obviously not a slam dunk.”

SWsoft will present study results – HSP problems, cost structures, third-party software requirements, bandwidth and hardware usage and business models – in a free Web seminar titled “The New Face of Web Hosting.”

About SWsoft www.SW-soft.com

SWsoft is a leader in hosting automation and enterprise server software (www.sw-soft.com). Since 1999, the company has focused on the development of its patent-pending Virtuozzo^(TM) technology and the HSPcomplete 2 full-lifecycle hosting automation solution. The only end-to-end solutions and services for hosting service providers, e.g. Internet data centers, application service providers, managed hosting providers, SWsoft’s products deliver powerful, comprehensive solutions that power data center automate management, accelerate business and infrastructure operations and provide excellent return on investment.

For more information about SWsoft, please visit www.sw-soft.com.

ITWorld quotes a Gartner Group analyst as saying Linux will keep Unix from being overrun by Microsoft products. “Linux will hold Windows at bay and there will be enough room for the other three. Windows will grow but not as significantly as it would have if Linux hadn’t been around.”

LinuxToday reports that the Venezuelan government has announced an official policy that exclusively calls for the use of Open Source software in that government.

Anonymous Reader writes: “Darl McBride on Harleys and Bottled Water: SCO’s new CEO Speaks to DesktopLinux.com contributing editor Malcolm Dean in-depth about Linux, the desktop, and the company’s new direction …”

“The fact that Netscape 7.0 arrives hot on the heels of the similar but superior Mozilla 1.1 only serves to illuminate the small but significant differences between the two: Mozilla is highly customizable and offers a number of user options, while Netscape forces users to accept many features and functions they probably don’t want while removing some they probably do.”

Henri Bergius writes: Nemein’s Henri Bergius presents the Midgard
application server in the OSCOM Open Source Content Management Systems
Conference in Berkeley, California on Sep 25th 2002, starting at 11 a.m.

The OSCOM Open Source Content Management Conference is a three-day
developer-oriented conference bringing together all leading Open
Source CMS projects for presentations and workshops. The keynote
address for the conference will be held by Charles Nesson from the
Berkman Center for Internet & Society. The conference is held at
Lawrence Hall of Science, Berkeley, California.

The OSCOM Berkeley 2002 conference is a major event for all developers
and organizations working in the field of content management. Open
Souce is a leading force in software industry, and provides an
important opportunity for all CMS implementations.

Midgard is a freely-available solution for managing content on Web,
Extranet and Intranet services. It is also a toolkit for building
dynamic applications to power eBusiness and Information Management
processes.

Nemein is the leading Nordic provider of Open Source Midgard solutions
for Professional Services Automation and Content Management.

Henri Bergius is a co-founder of the Midgard project, and a partner in
Nemein. Henri’s main responsibilities are in coordinating Nemein’s
product development for the Midgard platform. Henri’s previous
appearances have included Global Linux 2000 in South Korea, Linux Expo
Madrid 2001 in Spain and OSCOM March 2002 in Zurich, Switzerland.

For more information visit the conference Web site.

http://www.oscom.org/conferences/berkeley2002/

Contact information:

Henri Bergius, Nemein
henri.bergius@nemein.com
+358-20-198 6032

http://www.nemein.com/
http://www.midgard-project.org/

” … A recent CNET article suggests that the NSA may not make further contributions to software released under the GNU General Public License, and perhaps other open-source licenses.

What prompted this decision? Not abuse of their code by script kiddies, nor the ungrateful trolling of the hordes, but lobbying by the U.S. software industry against the government giving away something that could compete with products sold commercially.”

– by Tina Gasperson –
A group of Turbolinux’s ex-employees has threatened to pursue claims against the
company because for more than a month they were owed salary. Turbolinux
eventually paid, but apparently the ex-workers are seeking recompense for the
delay.
Turbolinux is based in Asia but has a secondary base of operations in California. The Linux distributor is also part of the newly-formed UnitedLinux coalition, along with SuSE, SCO (formerly known as Caldera) and Conectiva.

Turbolinux CFO Ernie Cicogna confirmed this morning that he and the board of directors received an email from the employees that stated, among
other things, “It appears that the company is avoiding this clear statutory obligation. As loyal employees until the end, it is very
disappointing that the company is not forthcoming in fulfilling its responsibilities and is not willing to respond or open a dialogue with those
impacted by recent events. For many employees this is a significant financial
hardship and we are not asking for anything more than what is due to us under
California Law.”

The statutory obligation referred to is that of California’s Labor Code, Section 203, which
states:

2. Labor Code section 203: “If an employer willfully fails to pay any
wages of an employee who is discharged or who quits, the wages of such employee
shall continue as a penalty from the due date until paid or until an action is
filed and shall not continue for more than 30 days.

Apparently, the former staff members went unpaid for 37 days after
they were terminated. According to Cicogna, it was because of “the last-minute
withdrawal by one of our key investors.” In a reply email to the ex-employees,
he explained, “We did pay your salaries as soon as we had funds available and
were able to process the appropriate paperwork to generate payroll checks.”

Cicogna then hints at financial difficulties Turbolinux is
experiencing:

“Unfortunately, we do not have sufficient
funds to pay all our existing creditors. Further, we believe we will be
required by law to treat all our remaining creditors fairly. Accordingly, I
would like to confirm to you that it is the intention of the company to settle
our debts fairly with all our creditors to the extent we have available assets,
including any employee creditors. Again, let me reiterate that we sincerely
regret this unfortunate turn of events. However, please understand that we
cannot be sure of our ability to raise sufficient cash from the sale of our
remaining assets, which makes it impossible for us to assure you that the
company will ever be able to fully reimburse the total amount due to our
creditors.”

From his home this morning, Cicogna refused to comment on the possibility of a
bankruptcy filing, saying only, “it’s something we would like to avoid.”

The full text of the email exchange NewsForge received is as follows:

DATE: August 28, 2002
TO: Centerlex, Inc. (F. K. A. Turbolinux, Inc)
Board of Directors
Ly Pham, CEO
Ernie Cicogna, CFO
Paul Thomas, Chairman
CC: HR Administrator Centerlex, Inc.

FROM: Former California Employees of Turbolinux, Inc.

SUBJECT: California Labor Code Section 203

Dear Ly, Ernie and Board:

We, the former employees of Turbolinux, Inc. in California, are
dismayed by the lack of a response from the company and the Board of
Directors. It appears that the company is avoiding this clear
statutory obligation. As loyal employees until the end, it is very
disappointing that the company is not forthcoming in fulfilling its
responsiblities and is not willing to respond or open a dialogue with
those impacted by recent events. For many employees this is a
significant financial hardship and we are not asking for anything more
than what is due to us under California Law.

We do not want to escalate the situation by filing claims, but the
lack of response leaves us no choice. Please respond as soon as
possible if you feel there is some way we can avoid this.

——————————–

To: Employees

I would like to express the deepest apologies from the management team and the
company for the long delay of 37 days, in paying you the owed salary. As you
know, the last minute withdrawal by one of our key investors, lead to this
unfortunate situation. We did pay your salaries as soon as we had funds
available and were able to process the appropriate paper work to generate
payroll checks. We also understand that under the California Labor Code section
203 that each of you, who work in California, may be eligible to assert a claim
against the company due to that delay. Unfortunately, we do not have sufficient
funds to pay all our existing creditors. Further, we believe we will be
required by law to treat all our remaining creditors fairly. Accordingly, I
would like to confirm to you that it is the intention of the company to settle
our debts fairly with all our creditors to the extent we have available assets,
including any employee creditors. Again, let me reiterate that we sincerely
regret this unfortunate turn of events. However, please understand that we
cannot be sure of our ability to raise sufficient cash from the sale of our
remaining assets, which makes it impossible for us to assure you that the
company will ever be able to fully reimburse the total amount due to our
creditors. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any further
questions or would like clarification at my home number which is ***********.
Regards and thanks……………….Ernie Cicogna

Hector Martinez writes – “The EU is very active in supporting Open Source development by providing financial aids to European projects of interest, like OpenEvidence that was approved to be realized by a consortium of technology providers and users from 4 countries: Belgium, France, Italy and Estonia. In this contest C&A is very proud to announce its OpenEvidence participation, integrating its Time Stamping technology, to this ‘evidence creation and validation system’ of electronic documents and activities.

The technology developed by the project can be used as basic building blocks to support such services as non-repudiation of electronic business transactions, property right protection and notarisation.
Implementations and demonstration services using the protocols defined in RFC 3029 (DVCS) and RFC 3161 (TSP) will be provided as initial activity.
A version of time stamping service can be also be tested on the C&A web site.

To learn more about OpenEvidence:
http://www.com-and.com/openevidence.html“