– By Grant Gross –

If you’re a business owner wondering just how this Linux thing can fit into you business, consider this announcement from IBM today: The number of business applications available for Linux has increased by 30 percent in 2001 alone, at least by IBM’s count.

IBM now counts 2,300 business-related applications available for Linux, according to IBM’s Global Solutions
Directory, which lists applications from IBM and independent software vendors.

One underlying message from Linux supporter IBM: There’s never been a better time to use Linux, whether you’re running a small mom-and-pop business or a large corporation.

Scott Handy, director of Linux solutions marketing for IBM, expects that rate of growth in business applications to keep up with the projected rate of growth in the Linux server market, which IDG projects will be 28 percent a year until 2004.

“We’re very happy to see the shift to business applications in addition to what Linux was used for before,” Handy says. “Linux has become a marvelous operating system, and now it’s really becoming a marvelous business operating system. It’s really self-sustaining at that point.”

The IBM press release, released this afternoon, also promotes IBM, of course. In this case, how IBM can help independent software vendors port their applications or create new applications for Linux.

Among the software vendors working with IBM to, in the words of the press release, ” deliver Linux-based applications,” are:

• SAP, “providing e-business software solutions,” according to the press release;
• QAD, “delivering collaborative commerce applications for global
  manufacturing enterprises and their private exchanges;”

• SAS, “delivering business intelligence, e-commerce and customer
  relationship management solutions;”

• jBASE Software, “offering client/server and World Wide Web based
  multidimensional database management software.”

IBM offers about a half-dozen ways for small software houses to work with Linux, from the previously mentioned Global Solutions Directory to a handful of Linux competency centers to worldwide IBM Developer Centers, where ISVs can port and test their Linux-based applications with IBM middleware and servers.

Among the Linux applications listed at the IBM Global Solutions Directory are offerings from Oracle, Red Flag Software, H.R. Management Software, and Innovative Software Europe. To search the directory database for Linux applications, click on the “Search for solutions now!” button on the front page, then click on the “Operating systems” button. Check “Linux,” then hit search.

The Register adds more to the continuing story. Caldera sees its per-seat license as putting it “midway
between Red Hat and Microsoft in the ideological debate about free software.”

Oreillynet.com has an article with its take on Microsoft announcing plans to release a
shared-source version of its .NET infrastructure for Windows and FreeBSD.

Network World Fusion has a short item. “Via Technologies Wednesday announced that
a U.S. company, Rauch Medien, is offering
lower power Web servers based on its C3
microprocessor.
The GreenServ comes with up to 60G bytes of hard-disk space and up to 1G
byte of RAM, and comes installed with Linux, Free BSD or Windows 2000.”

ZDNet UK reports on new servers from the two companies. Also, Compaq expanded its TaskSmart line of server appliances. The TaskSmart W line, which
uses the Linux operating system, is used for hosting Web pages.

It’s at LWN.net. Among the items: “JoeSNMP 0.2.6 Released:

Following the identification of several problems related to SNMP
data collection, the fixes are in, tested, and the new JoeSNMP has
been released.”

From a press release at Sandia.gov: A computer program that enables a collection of
off-the-shelf desktop computers to rank among the world’s fastest
supercomputers has been released to the public by Sandia National
Laboratories. The program, called Cplant system software, dramatically
extends the capability of researchers to modularly assemble large blocks of
off-the-shelf computer components.

The rationale behind this open-source release is to allow researchers free
access to the body of research and development that created the most
scalable, Linux-based, off-the-shelf computer available, says Sandia
manager Neil Pundit.

LinuxPlanet has a column about the differences in Linux distributions and the confusion that can cause. “Now incompatibilities are being introduced hand over fist, as distributions fight for a bigger and bigger
piece of a diminishing pie, until one day one will own all of nothing. Does this do anything useful for the
distributions, users, Linux, anybody? Well, no.”

Reuters reports on Sharp’s plans to sell its Zaurus multimedia PDAs, using Linux and Java, in the United States in October and in Europe early next year.

From Canada Newswire: CAE today announced it has signed two contracts
with ALSTOM (Switzerland) Ltd. to develop first-of-a-kind simulators for two
different Gas Turbine-based (GT-based) power plant configurations. Already an
established world leader in the supply of power plant simulators, CAE enters
the growing market for GT powered plants with these two orders valued at
approximately C$3.5 million.
These simulators will use the Linux operating system – CAE’s latest
alternative to the Unix and Windows NT operating systems for power plant
simulators.