LinuxWorld Preview

jlttb writes "LinuxWorld gets under way this week in New York City, and CRN has some extensive preview coverage this morning, including a look at Raptor, IBM's first Linux mainframe, and other IBM and Compaq Linux servers to be announced at the show. A second feature takes a look at the growth of the Linux services channel, from industry heavyweights like IBM, Compaq, Red Hat and Caldera, to smaller 'mom and pop' Microsoft and Novell shops that are re-focusing on Linux. Finally, the magazine looks at how Microsoft and Sun are each fighting back against the gains made by Linux in corporate America." I still haven't packed yet, but I'm looking forward to the show.

Comments

Basketball Commercials!

[asv108]

I thought the best IBM commercials were the basketball themed spots where the good team was the "Linux All Stars?" with player names like, firewall, and Apache etc. The visiting team, wore black jerseys and had names like "hacker" and "downtime".

There were at least 4 unique commercials with this theme, the best one was when the team "management" paid a consultant 5 million and all he ended up doing was explaining what a triangle was, it reminds me of a friend I have who works at Accenture..

I spent a good 30 mins last night searching around for where I could download these commercials, but I had no success. Does anyone know where to find these? I know IBM had the codernaut commericials available for download.

Preparation for LWCE

[AntiTuX]

Well, I'm already in Florence(read: bumfuck egypt), New Jersey staying with friends. I'm taking the train up to the city tomorrow morning, check into my hotel, grab my boxen, get to my booth, set it up, and hook up my machines tomorrow. I wonder if they'll actually have network access early this year. Last year january, they didn't have network live (in the .org pavillion) till wednesday.

I'm also hoping they don't go weasel again like they did in SFO last august and turn off the power to the .org pavillion after hours. That just pissed me off. They cut the power at like EXACTLY 6pm. I was hosting one of my websites off of it, and lost everything when I lost the partition my MySQL databases were on. .ORG pavillion exhibitors, be warned, they might do this again. This year I'm using ext3, so hopefully if they pull the power, my shit won't be lost.

Also, if you're exhibiting, don't leave your laptops, or anything else that can be easily stolen, in your booth. My and hadess's laptops got stolen. The depressing thing is that the last picture of his laptop (an ibook, you know, the toilet seat-looking ones) was taken by myself after the IBM party. I feel really bad that the laptop got stolen too. I almost feel as though it's my fault. The thing is, is that they rummaged THROUGH the booth and took it. My laptop was in the little cabinet thing inside the booth, so they must have been there a while. I just can't believe that security was so lax that they'd let someone like that just walk in and out with them. It's quite depressing.

This year I'm taking no chances though. I'm bringing locks for everything, I'm going to be taking my computers back to my hotel with me every night, and I'm definitely NOT going to be leaving ANYTHING in my booth. I guess I just had too much trust in their staff.

BTW, I am going to be setting up a wireless access point in my booth. If you need wireless networking, set your ESSID to "tux0r". I'll happily share my bw with anyone who wants it. :)

I can't think of anything else to really say, other than stop by my booth (BOFH International, booth #7, way in the back, right side, by mandrakesoft) and say hi.

-- John

LinuxWorld *was* cool...

[Anonymous Coward]

I went to the first NYC LinuxWorld two years ago, and had a great time. There were tons of great people there, tons of interesting and respectable companies. I had a ton of fun just hanging out with people that had previously only been an email address - truly an affecting experience.

But last year was very different. The focus wasn't people, the focus was on startups. "Linux" companies that had little to no clue, just trying to cash in on year-old hype. The big guns used it as an excuse to glam up their trade booths and loose their down-to-earth technical aspects. SGI's XFS team were the only people willing to have a serious technical discussion with me. Wading through so much marketing bullshit really blew. Wandering over to the "dot org pavillion" showed a tremendous downsizing of support for important community projects. While they previously recieved a good chunk of floor space in which to present things, they'd been reduced to vacant and tiny cubes.

LinuxWorld seems to have become little more than commercial interests trying to pry money out of the community, without remembering *why* they have a product to expo.

Re:The Unix Market

[Catiline]

Exactly the same things as we have done before: Explain, to each person you meet, the reasons you choose Linux as your operating system. Explain

• how it frees you from the threat of virii becuase proper security was designed in from the start and has always been a priority.
• how nice it is to be free from crash worries: that even when it happens, it never takes down the whole box [unless you like riding the bleeding edge odd-dot-numbered kernels or it was a kernel crash, but you needn't mention those cases].
• how the Free (libre) software gives you more useful features, because the developers are also users.
• tell them the difference in technical help between people who want to empower you and those who wish to enslave you to their corporate budget.
• what it means that one person can't determine when your software is outdated or irrelevant, just to get a few more dollars.

And if they're still listening, explain the difference between proprietary and open protocols and why the proposed Microsoft settlement can only encourage Microsoft to develop more proprietary protocols [full text explaination to hit my journal this evening: short reason is because even though it is an illegal extension of their monopoly it wasn't forbidden to them].

Re:What the heck is a channel?

[jcorgan]

A sales channel is the method by which a product goes from manufacturer to end-user. There are many varieties, some of the more important ones are listed below:

• Direct channel: sales made directly (duh) by the manufacturer to end-users. Typical of companies which have high-price, low-volume, standalone products. Manufacturer is responsible for warehousing, distribution, extending credit to customer, collection, support, maintenance, etc.
• Single-tier Value Added Reseller (VAR) channel: Resellers purchase a variety of gear from different manufacturers, integrate them, and offer a completed product to end-users. A VAR channel can specialize in certain types of technology and can provide specialized services over and above any individual manufacturer. Typical of medium-volume products. In this case, the manufacturer "creates demand" by marketing, advertising, and even offering customer support to end-users.
• Two-tier VAR channel: For fast moving, high volume products, the first tier is made up of distributors, who provide warehousing and consolidated ordering to manufacturing. They are able to get volume discounts and allow the manufacturer to concentrate on shipments to just a few, large "customers." These distributors, in turn, then sell to individual VARs, extending them credit, etc. There is not typically end-user support or interaction at this level. Finally, individual VARs, which can be both mom-n-pop shops to large retail focused outlets, integrate and deliver whole products and associated services.
• Retail channel: For "shrinkwrap" products and consumer-focused items, the retail channel has two or even three tiers to get from the manufacturer to the consumer (think supermarkets, Good Guys, etc.)
• Dealer Channel: Similar to retail, but more in the franchise model where individual dealers are directly licensed by the manufacturer (think cars).
• Multi-level Channel: A network of people that both sell manufacturer's products as well as recruit people to become additional dealers (and can be very annoying in the process :)

There are endless variations on these, but you get the gist, I hope.

Does this answer your question?