ZD Net follows up on reports about VA Linux’s new stackable servers, which are 1.75 inches thick. OK, that’s a really large pancake. (VA Linux owns NewsForge.)

IBM today announced Linux*-based software that enables businesses to deliver personalized marketing messages to customers on the Internet. The announcement is IBM’s latest initiative to support Linux throughout its portfolio of e-business software, servers and services.

Using IBM’s WebSphere** Personalization software businesses can:
Build tailored Web pages that attract, engage and retain users;
Understand and predict user preferences; and
Differentiate a Web site from competitor sites quickly and efficiently.

According to IDC, Linux became the number two operating system in 1999 in new server shipments with 1.3 million licenses and anticipates Linux to remain the fastest growing server operating system thru 2004, with a compound annual growth rate of 28 percent from 2000 – 2004. The market opportunity for software on Linux is expected to grow even faster, with relational database servers expected to increase from $30 million in 2000 to $3.4 billion in 2004, a compound annual growth rate of 226%.

“With today’s announcement, we’re able to deliver software that allows companies to engage their customers over the Web, which is a powerful business tool,” said Ed Harbour, director of marketing, WebSphere software platform, IBM. “IBM’s WebSphere Personalization allows businesses to develop, deploy and update personalized data quickly on various platforms, including Linux– the fastest growing operating system in the industry.”

WebSphere offers the only product family that contains all of the following:
WebSphere Studio, Web site development tools;
WebSphere Personalization, to tailor Web content to each site visitor’s interests using business rules technology, and Macromedia LikeMinds collaborative filtering technology;
WebSphere Site Analyzer, to analyze users’ attraction to site content to optimize a site’s personalization strategy; and
WebSphere Application Server v3.5, to provide a Web environment that can quickly adapt to volume changes without losing critical transaction information. As businesses expand, WebSphere allows for easy integration with additional e-commerce applications and existing legacy business systems.

WebSphere Application Servers are the foundation of the WebSphere software platform, which is Internet infrastructure software that enables businesses to develop, host, run and integrate e-business applications. According to Giga Information Group, the market opportunity in this area is $1.6 billion this year and will grow to $9 billion by 2003. WebSphere Application Server, Standard and Advanced Editions v3.5, were made available for Linux operating systems on December 15. With today’s announcement, WebSphere Personalization supports deployment on Linux of personalized e-business applications ranging from Web publishing through high-volume Web transactions typical of business-to-business e-marketplaces.

The previous release of WebSphere Personalization, v3.5, included in one product both rules-based personalization as well as a recommendation engine which utilizes LikeMinds collaborative filtering technology from Macromedia. In the latest release of WebSphere Personalization, v3.5.2, the recommendation engine is now available on AIX, further broadening a site owner’s choices of operating environment.

Additionally, in Personalization v3.5.2 the rules-based personalization capabilities have been extended to allow the personalization strategy to be based upon what is occurring during a visitor’s tour of a site. Sample uses of these new functions can include monitoring what site content has been viewed or what has been placed in a shopping cart application by a site visitor. This allows the site’s personalization strategy to capture more fully the interests of each site visitor and therefore more accurately select content that will be useful and interesting to the visitor. This can help attract and retain visitors to a site.

Pricing and Availability
WebSphere Personalization for Multiplatforms v3.5.2 is available worldwide on January 26, 2001 for Linux, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Windows 2000 and Windows NT operating systems. The WebSphere Personalization for Multiplatforms v3.5.2 rule engine and resource engine will support Linux, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Windows 2000 and Windows NT operating systems. The recommendation engine will support AIX, Solaris, Windows 2000 and Windows NT operating systems. A release of WebSphere Personalization for the OS/400 environment which includes recommendation engine support of AIX is planned for availability at a future date. The distributions of Linux supported are Red Hat 6.2, Caldera 2.3 e-Server, TurboLinux 6.0, and SuSE 6.4. WebSphere Personalization for Multiplatforms v3.5.2 supports SuSE 6.4 on the S/390.

WebSphere Personalization sells for $10,000 per processor.

About IBM’s (NYSE: IBM) WebSphere Software
WebSphere is Internet infrastructure software — known as middleware — that enables companies to develop, deploy and integrate next-generation e-business applications, such as those for business-to-business e-commerce. WebSphere supports business applications from simple Web publishing through enterprise-
scale transaction processing. WebSphere transforms the way businesses manage customer, partner and employee relationships. More information about the WebSphere software platform is on the Web at http://www.ibm.com/websphere and at http://www-4.ibm.com/software/webservers/personali zation.

About IBM
IBM is the world’s largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. IBM Software offers the widest range of applications, middleware and operating systems for all types of computing platforms, allowing customers to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. The fastest way to get more information about IBM software or solutions for Linux is through the Internet at: http://www.ibm.com/linux.

# # #

* Indicates trademark or registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
** Indicates trademark or registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.
All other trademarks or registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.”

Submitted by Tania Talman.

Digital Creations, leaders in time-to-market-focused content management solutions, and ActiveState, suppliers of solutions for user-friendly development, today announced the first release under the Perl for Zope project.

Under this work, ActiveState teamed with Digital Creations to add Perl as a scripting language for Zope, a leading Open Source application server. Perl is one of the dominant programming languages on the Internet today, used globally by individual developers and Fortunate 1000 teams. Zope is written in Python, another popular scripting language that has dramatically grown in the last two years.
“Our customers are intensely excited about the speed-to-market advantages that Zope gives, particularly in content management,” says Paul Everitt, CEO of Digital Creations. “Perl remains the dominant language for web programming and fits in nicely with the rapid development model of Zope.”

“The addition of the power and popularity of Perl to Zope has provided an innovative platform for web development,” says Dick Hardt, Founder and CEO of ActiveState. “We use Zope internally and find both our Perl and Python programmers like the option of using their language of choice and are therefore more productive with this enterprise-class web application server.”

With this release, Zope sites can add software that embeds Perl into the Zope server. Site developers and designers can write business logic in Perl as well as Python, plus tap into existing Perl code bases. Changes to Perl logic can be instantly deployed across the Zope cluster using Zope’s unique ZEO software for distributed transactions.

About Digital Creations
Digital Creations was formed in 1995 as a joint venture with Infinet, itself a joint venture between newspaper chains Gannett, Knight Ridder, and Landmark Communications. Infinet’s goal was to bring newspapers online, providing a point of presence on the Web for every newspaper, that could then be resold under the paper’s own brand.

Digital Creations was commissioned to develop a classified advertisement engine for the Internet. As part of that work, they developed Bobo, a free toolset for publishing and storing Python objects; Principia, a commercial superset of Bobo aimed at the application server market; and Aqueduct, a commercial package that integrated relational data into the application server. When the partnership with Infinet dissolved in 1997, Digital Creations received the intellectual property rights for the products.

In November 2000, Digital Creations closed a $12 million round of Series C funding, led by Whitney & Co. The funding round is being used to scale the company and build significant strategic partnerships.

About Zope
Zope is the leading Open Source application server for dynamic, high-performance Web services. Zope’s unique integrated object database and object model greatly simplify the job of creating and deploying truly impressive Web applications. Zope delivers content management, comprehensive database integration, application development and support for a wide range of operating systems, Web servers and databases.

Since Digital Creations introduced Zope as an Open Source product in late 1998, Zope has quickly become the platform of choice for demanding application developers and content managers. As an Open Source solution, Zope is available free of charge, and comes with complete source code. More information about Zope is available at www.zope.org.

Key Customers,br>
Digital Creations has provided high-end solutions for organizations such as newspapers and other media, telecommunications firms, the government, the military, educational institutions, and Internet businesses. Customers include WebMD, the U.S. Navy, HomeGain.com, ZapMedia, Cox Communications, and a major television-broadcasting network.

About ActiveState
ActiveState is at the forefront of open source software, providing Internet programming products and services for all popular operating systems and platforms. ActiveState’s key technologies are Perl, the Internet’s most popular programming language, Python, a user-friendly scripting language, and XSLT, the XML transformation language. ActiveState solutions provide enterprise-wide deployment of open source programming languages, improved programmer productivity, and seamless integration with other technologies.
For more information please visit www.ActiveState.com.

LWN.net interviews LinuxPPC co-founder Jason Haas about the organization’s decision to become a non-profit. He says: “When LinuxPPC was started, it was our intention to become a non-profit organization. At the time, it was easier and less
expensive to file as a for-profit organization. The reason we didn’t immediately make the transition to a non-profit was due to
the growth of the Linux world, the dot-com market, etc.

The fall of the dot-com market reminded us of our original intent.”

Jon Panker alerts us to this story: “In this conversation with searchEnterpriseLinux.com Linus Torvalds says he is more fascinated with the emergence of Linux on the desktop than what is happening in the server market because it is the harder market to enter and one that tends to set the pace for business use. The creator of Linux talks about where the operating system has been and where it is headed.

From LinuxPR: Linuxcare, Inc., a leader in providing
comprehensive professional services and solutions for Linux and open-source
technologies, today announced strategic services deals with Maxtor Corp.,
Network Appliance Inc., and Silicon Graphics, Inc. to help each vendor bring
innovative storage products to market. Linuxcare’s renowned experts are
working with these and other key storage players to design open-source
solutions that will meet the exploding demand for inexpensive, reliable network
storage and provide ubiquitous access to stored information.

Jon Panker writes: “Next week’s LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in New York is expected to bring record crowds, create a big splash in the world of storage and feature a tantalizing array of previews based on the 2.4 kernel.

Read the full story at SearchEnterpriseLinux.

From LinuxPR: SlashTCO, the U.K.-based open source
services provider, today announced a partnership with Runaware, the world’s
first Evaluation Service Provider for software vendors and consumers. This
collaboration will promote Linux awareness and provide complete education of
Linux products through online testing and supplementary resources to help
research, evaluate and download Open Source products and applications,
backed up by a range of training and support options.

Michael Carlson writes: “A Nvidia Driver Petition has been started at http://m87-blackhole.org/nvidia_petition/formhandl er.html for FreeBSD drivers. Sign it and tell all your friends!”

Posted at LWN.net: “LinuxPPC Inc. has formally announced its
plans to become a non-profit organization (NPO). The NPO will focus on
the development and promotion of the Linux operating system on the PowerPC
processor. It will also be better able to support the growth and
development of the operating system.
Like many other free software projects, the LinuxPPC operating system was
largely built by volunteers. Non-profit organizations are designed to
organize such efforts, rather than have a for-profit corporation
controlling it.”