LinuxWorld rundown on CNN, HP and IBM Highlighted

Mr.Intel writes: "CNN released a story reviewing LinuxWorld and Linux's progress since last year. They mention new hardware and market niches coming to light in 2001. Mike Balma, a Linux strategist at HP, said 'The move to an increased array of outsourcing, migration and porting services that have been traditionally available to Unix customers is part of the continued rollout of the operating system within HP's product line. Previously, HP had informally offered such integral service and support only to its best Linux customers. But as the operating system gains momentum, more customers are seeking more services.' I hope this means as installed customer base increases, companies like RedHat will start making real money." Archie Steel writes "Interesting news for the Linux Desktop: Open For Business have an article on the partnership by HP and MandrakeSoft announced at the current Linux World Expo." Update: 01/30 16:56 GMT by H : Just a quick note: Rob is gonna be in the Golden Penguin Bowl, while I'm going to be doing a presentation with the Boston Consulting Group about the demographics of open source developers - if you are interested, it's tomorrow (Thursday) from 4:00 - 5:15.

Comments

Re:HP's utility pricing

[birder]

In the world of mainframe and Unix farms, a lot of companies sell their products based on 'server class' or number of CPUs besides Oracle.

In big business, when a company asks "how much", the vendor says "How much do you have". They know companines that can afford million dollar servers will shell out more for the same thing.

Utility Pricing flies in the face of Open Source

[A Commentor]

Also new for HP is utility pricing, which is now being offered to Linux customers, allowing them to pay for the operating system based on usage -- rather than standard licensing fees. Lower usage means lower fees, while higher usage would bring higher fees for customers.

"This is part of an overall strategy for HP," Balma said. "We firmly believe that utility pricing is the way to go."

So if I actually want to use the system I have, I have to pay more money? How is this any different from being charged for how much you use your TV/Microwave/Wash-machine? Unbelievable....

Great, HP...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, when will you release drivers for Linux that support Deskjet printers at their best resolution. Having Ghostscript drive them at 300dpi is nice, but unimpressive.

And where are those drivers for your USB and Parallel scanners?

Your hardware supports Windows and Macintosh. Even if you don't supply the drivers, could you at least release the specs so that some open source people can do it themselves? SANE supports SOME HP Scanners. But what about the others?

Best Qoute

[ScumBiker]

"What we're seeing is the maturation of the market," Schescherareg said. "That's really nothing but good news.". This says a lot to me and, more importantly, to my Boss. Events like this and the fact that major players are giving Linux the attention it deserves is finally allowing me to get a test box setup here in house. This is a major step ahead for a network that authenticates to an NT domain, runs NT4.0 on the desktop, is slowy (glacially) migrating servers to Win2k, and runs Tru64 on Alpha gear for the Oracle geeks. I can't wait to start the CD spindles turning!

Re:Questions raised about Debian commitment by HP

[Bruce Perens]

Let's please concentrate on getting a desktop on which the naive user can do all of their typical work-load using Free Software alone. Then, we can have it on all distributions. We need to address some ease-of-use and installation issues.

At the moment, Debian is not the best way to support the naive user. It's not really the community that the Debian developers are writing for - although there are exceptions among them. Debian developers, in general, make Debian for themselves and people like themselves. This is something I've always regretted, and I want to do more about it.

Thanks

Bruce