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Can open-source software crack into ultra-competitive business intelligence marketplace by offering packages that include more than a reporting tool? Our reviewer takes you on a tour of two that try.

Like many companies, National Semiconductor Corp. is looking for ways to cut costs and has Linux and open-source high on its list. While the Santa Clara, Calif., company already is making the move to Linux, the big project this year is to take a close look at open-source databases to figure out where less-expensive data management products could fit in its infrastructure.

Martin Taylor, Microsoft Corp.'s general manager of platform strategy, recently approached Open Source Development Labs Inc., in Beaverton, Ore., to consider ways in which the two could conduct a joint research project to do some facts-based analysis of Linux and Windows. OSDL CEO Stuart Cohen talked to eWEEK Senior Editor Peter Galli about OSDL's future relationship with Microsoft and why he rejected the proposal out of hand.

The second beta version of OpenOffice.org 2.0, featuring the OASIS-approved XML file format, is being released for testing, but is not ready for production use.

If you think the manufacturer's sticker gave you a reliable estimate of the city mileage for that new car of yours, you should try negotiating traffic on the hills of San Francisco. You'll discover pretty quickly that in my town, the old adage "Your mileage may vary" has never been truer.

Two IBM-sponsored reports published this week have found that Linux is cheaper to deploy and operate than Windows. One report found Linux was 40 percent cheaper overall than Windows, and 56 percent cheaper than Unix based Solaris. These findings appear to contradict Microsoft's "Get the Facts" campaign, which found Windows to be less expensive than Linux.

The recent launch of the Synapse project to create an open source web mediation framework for web services will highlight the growing importance of open source middleware, industry experts have predicted.

Everyone's talking about Xen, but the code is complex. Here's a starting point.

Writing at LXer.com, Tom Adelstein reasons that a recent upsurge in anti-Linux desktop press probably isn't due to shortcomings in the software. It may signal that Microsoft -- and by extension its partners -- are feeling pressure from the free operating system. Perhaps a new wave of disinformation is coming? "The media buzz about Linux's alleged failure on the desktop probably means Linux is continuing to take a significant share of Microsoft's market -- maybe even more than we think," Adelstein opines. "Why else would the big Redmond company's minions write such claims? Disinformation provides an insight into someone's fears. The noise level has gone up and that probably means Linux is creating trouble for Windows."

Linux has always made one hell of a server operating system. Anyone who's ever administered a server (or many of them) can tell you why. It really needs no explanation here, as most of our readers already know this for law. The more interesting news, in my opinion anyway, has been that over the past several years Linux has made some serious inroads on the desktop platform. As Linux becomes a more viable contender for the consumer desktop market (and it is... slowly), the need to make it stand out from the competition just gets greater and greater. Some might see this as functionality, others look and feel, still others might see it as a bit of both.

TimeSys this week launched a new subscription-based service allowing embedded developers to "roll their own Linux." The LinuxLink subscription service targets processor architectures from Intel, Freescale, ARM and MIPS. TimeSys said it offers on-demand access to components relevant to embedded developers' design requirements and target processor. This is different, the company said, from traditional Linux distros that determine feature sets of applications and components.

When you're on the road and need to connect to the Internet, sometimes the only way to do it is through a cellular GPRS or GSM connection. Wi-Fi wireless access points are not always readily available, and sometimes are not secure enough for private communications. Why not hook up your GSM/GPRS-capable cell phone to your GNU/Linux-based computer and connect that way? The free GPRS Easy Connect utility makes it easier for you to do just that.

Yesterday, Sam Hiser called to let me know he placed an article in the pending queue at Lxer. "It's a scoop," he said. Turns out he was right. The article made the major media wires shortly after hitting Google News at 3 PM on Wednesdy.

Neoware is shipping a ruggedized thin client designed to support industrial applications such as retail distribution centers, transportation hubs, and manufacturing shop floors. The e900 comes stock with a Neoware's custom embedded Linux OS, but can be modified to run other OSes, the company says.

The announcement of a new Forensic File System led into another discussion of kernel tainting and the legality of binary-only kernel modules.

INSTEAD of clearing the air about open source with its Get the Facts campaign, Microsoft is clouding the open source debate by taking advantage of people’s limited knowledge of Linux. This is according to members of the open source community in response to comments made by Martin Taylor, head of Redmond’s competitive strategy and architect of the Get the Facts campaign, in a recent interview with Reseller News. In the article Taylor said competing against Linux has become easier since providers such as Red Hat and SuSE Linux, which is now part of Novell, have become more commercialised. However, Con Zymaris, director of Open Source Industry Australia and CEO of Cybersource, a Melbourne-based Linux and open source solution provider, says this argument is a fallacy as these vendors have always been commercially focused.

Over the past few years SATA has become a standard interface on hard drives and is starting to show up in many peripheral devices. Today we're taking a look at two similar hard drives to see how well SATA is supported in Linux.

The third stable major Linux Kernel update of the year, v. 2.6.13 was released this week. The new kernel includes a long list of updates, a few enhancements and even an odd regression. Among the new enhancements to the Linux kernel is "Kexec," which allows for a fast reboot without the need to go through a bootloader.

Ease of Installation, better Compatibility and integrated Performance enhancements featured

Plans for an Eclipse Application Lifecycle Framework (ALF) will open up new opportunities for open source developers and systems integrators, executives said at EclipseWorld. At the New York conference this week, Eclipse Foundation Executive Director Mike Milinkovich said the evolution of the Eclipse Java IDE into a full-fledged application lifecycle management (ALM) platform will spur more commercial activity on the open source development environment over the next 12 months.