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In a move that shouldn't be much of a surprise, given the close collaboration between Canonical and Inktank—not to mention Mark Shuttleworth personally—around the open source Ceph storage system for Big Data and the cloud, the two companies on Monday announced a deal to provide full support for Ceph on Ubuntu. Here are the details, and what they mean for the channel.

There may be no part of the channel in which open source is better positioned to dominate than Big Data. Not only are open source solutions such as Hadoop and Ceph enjoying huge popularity for building Big Data infrastructure, but open source relational database technologies are also proliferating among enterprises looking to cut software costs. Survey results released Tuesday by EnterpriseDB on PostgreSQL adoption show just how much that's the case.

It's official: Microsoft's near-monopoly on personal computing is over. At least, so says Ubuntu founder (and space traveler) Mark Shuttleworth, who has declared Ubuntu's infamous Bug #1 -- titled "Microsoft has a majority market share" -- closed. Actually, Shuttleworth's ruling says much more about Canonical's future focus on tablets, smartphones and the cloud than it does about Microsoft's traditional dominance of the OS market. But it still offers huge insight into where Ubuntu is headed in the future, and the types of challenges on the horizon for Canonical.

From headline-grabbing threats by Microsoft to more subdued court battles involving the cloud, the open-source ecosystem has a pretty good record of winning patent challenges. But a crushing defeat has now tarnished that record with Google's (GOOG) grudging surrender in a campaign to make the open-source VP8 video codec ubiquitous across the Web. Free-software stalwarts need not panic, though: In this case, they can blame Google, not a systemic failure by the open-source world itself.

The Cisco Systems (CSCO) Jabber vs. Microsoft (MSFT) Skype video conferencing war has pushed beyond product features and functions, and now includes a new word: Monopoly. Indeed, Cisco is pushing a European court to overturn Microsoft's 2011 buyout of Skype. Why does the networking giant care so deeply about free video conferencing, phone and instant messaging software? Just look at some of CIsco's least successful business moves in the past decade and you'll get the answer.

Red Hat (RHT) is making bold statements about its IaaS Open Hybrid Cloud strategy -- only a few days after VMware (VMW) launched its vCloud Hybrid Service. So what's the reality check? It goes something like this...

Chinese hackers have accessed US weapons designs. North Korea is becoming a hacking super power. Iran hackers are targeting US energy firms. Alas, Kaspersky Lab CEO Eugene Kaspersky was right: The world needs a secure operating system to protect industrial, financial, communications, transportation and government systems from state-sponsored espionage. But how soon will Kaspersky Lab's cyber secure operating system arrive? And where will open source play?

Sometime this July will mark my seventh anniversary of becoming a desktop Linux user. While I may or may not bake a cake to celebrate the occasion, it has gotten me thinking about what has changed in the world of Linux since I entered it -- and, especially, how much more usable my Linux PC has become then. And what better way to quantify those improvements than to take stock of just how many apps are now available for Linux users that were not seven years ago?

Canonical's long-term Ubuntu strategy remains focused on convergence -- a single operating system designed for smartphones, tablets and PCs. But here's the thing: Can Ubuntu really achieve mass-market consumer success without a proper multi-million-dollar consumer marketing push? Hmmm...

OpenStack, the open source cloud platform, has hundreds of backers. But like Linux, multiple OpenStack distributions may emerge on the market. That could trigger customer confusion and indecision. Enter Red Hat (NYSE:RHT), the leading provider of corporate Linux solutions. I'm betting Red Hat will gradually repeat that success with OpenStack. Here's why.

How does Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) CEO Meg Whitman feel about Windows 8 vs. emerging Google Android and Chrome OS tablet and notebook alternatives? The answers emerged indirectly amid HP's Q2 2013 earnings call. Here's the scorecard.

Big Data is becoming a big deal beyond the United States, and it's time for the international software market to pay attention. The latest evidence: DataStax, which provides enterprise database management services based on open-source software. The company is making an aggressive push into the European market in what may be the first move toward a greater presence throughout the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) region as a whole.

The demand for expertise in open-source programming has come up fairly frequenly in recent months . Now, Pantheon has launched a partner program to connecting Drupal developers with customers that want the open-source content management system (CMS). Here's why.

Dell has killed its OpenStack public cloud plan. Rackspace is not growing as quickly as planned, despite betting the company on OpenStack. Some pundits now wonder if a giant like IBM can save OpenStack. Should cloud integrators, consultants and customers be concerned about the open source platform? Absolutely not. Here's why.

Dell has killed its OpenStack and VMware public cloud strategy and will instead focus on private clouds for customers. The move comes as Dell marches toward a potential company sale, and competition in the public cloud market -- between Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft Windows Azure, Rackspace and now VMware vCloud Hybrid Service -- continues to intensify.

What if VMware (NYSE:VMW) and its Zimbra email business countered Microsoft (NYSE:MSFT) and Office 365 -- plus Google Apps? At first that sounds far fetched. Zimbra is widely available from multiple cloud services providers (CSPs) and third-party hosting companies. But what if Zimbra was available in VMware's new public cloud -- called the vCloud Hybrid Service? Now that could be a game changer.

Ubuntu 13.04 debuted in April. And Ubuntu 13.10 (code-named Saucy Salamander) is expected in October 2013. Canonical's long-term vision (starting with Ubuntu 14.04) is a single code base for smart phones, tablets and PCs. The big question mark: When will Ubuntu PC makers like System76 and ZaReason jump into the Linux tablet market? The question has multiple answers.

Yahoo is buying Tumblr for $1.1 billion. So let's get this straight: On one side of the table we have a big, aging Internet media company that needs to boost profits. On the other side of the table we have a blogging platform that has generate tiny revenues -- and no profits. So how exactly will Tumblr boost Yahoo's fortunes?

SugarCRM continues to grow fast. But is the open source alternative to Salesforce.com, Oracle Siebel and Microsoft Dynamics CRM a serious contender in the IT channel? I believe the answer remains yes. The bigger question is whether SugarCRM will remain independent, march toward an IPO, or seek a buyer over the next couple of years. Here's why.

A few days ago, Canonical reiterated its commitment to restoring the Ubuntu "community" Web portal to front-and-center of official Ubuntu websites. At almost the same moment, news hit that the Ubuntu Technical Board has decided to discontinue the Ubuntu Brainstorm site, another part of ubuntu.com that has served in the past as a vector between developers and community members. Bad timing or cognitive dissonance? Here's a look at the details.