IBM to acquire Sun? TomTom countersues Microsoft. Sun unveils Open Cloud Platform. Oracle’s contributions to the Linux kernel. SpringSource updates Tool Suite. And more.

More than two years since Microsoft persuaded Novell to enter into an interoperability agreement concerning Linux and Windows, it has finally got Red Hat to talk interoperability.
The agreement does not appear to be a repeat of the one Microsoft struck with Novell, however. I’m still taking in the details but one element stands out:

“There are [...]

Yesterday Sun introduced Glassfish Portfolio. Its a new stack of open source middleware products including Glassfish Enterprise Server, Glassfish ESB, Glassfish Web Space Server, and the new Glassfish Web Stack, which includes support for projects such as Tomcat, Memcached, Apache, PHP, Ruby and Python and a copy of MySQL Community.
It’s a pretty complete infrastructure stack. [...]

I would normally leave the Linux netbook market alone thanks to Jay’s great coverage but since Marks and Sparks is a British institution I’m grabbing this one.
Via Glyn Moody comes the news that a £99 Elonex netbook is expected to go on sale in high street M&S and Next stores next month.
According to The Telegraph: [...]

I mentioned just few weeks ago that virtualization specialist Qumranet, would make an “obvious target should Red Hat decide it needs more hypervisor in-house expertise.”
It was so obvious that Red Hat announced today that it is to acquire Qumranet for $107m in cash, adding its KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine) platform and SolidICE virtual desktop infrastructure [...]

IBM, Canonical, Red Hat and Novell have put out an interesting joint release about how they are working together with regional hardware manufacturers to “to deliver Microsoft-free personal computing choices with Lotus Notes and Lotus Symphony in the one billion-unit desktop market worldwide by 2009.”
In celebration of Linux’s imminent domination of the desktop market I [...]

Nokia acquires Symbian, intends to open source mobile OS. SpringSource and rPath obtain new rounds of funding. Linux kernel developers issue statement on closed-source drivers. (and more)

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I wrote last week about how the conservatism of many senior IT executives is a significant barrier to widespread open source adoption. A recent post from Richard Steel, CIO of the London borough of Newham, is a reminder that the machinations of the open source software world are not as engrossing as some supporters might [...]

Earlier this week Silicon.com’s Naked CIO posted an article in which the anonymous chief information officer asked the question “Is open source dead?” and argued that “open source has found its niche and will continue to be of practical value in the realm of web and network security. But its application to business is limited.”
The [...]

While Microsoft’s focus on its making its applications (almost) exclusively available for its own software stack is understandable, I have often thought that in the systems management sector the strategy had the effect of restricting Microsoft’s potential market and increasing opportunities for its rivals.
The company’s decision to offer cross-platform extensions for System Center therefore makes [...]

I’m starting to see some big potential for symbiosis between two Linux and open source leaders: Red Hat and Ubuntu. Red Hat’s departure from the consumer desktop Linux market comes at the same time Ubuntu continues rolling in the same market with the release of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron this week. The latest Ubuntu also [...]

Early last year, Greg Kroah-Hartman led a Linux kernel development effort to address lacking support for hardware devices and drivers in Linux. Kroah-Hartman even devoted more of his work to the driver project and then put out another call for companies to come forward with their Linux driver issues. This work is highly commendable and [...]

The Linux Foundation has put out a fascinating study on Linux kernel development, who’s doing it and how fast things are moving. In reading through the report, I’ve picked out some of the statistics and points that stood out to me:
There have been almost 10,000 patches in each recent ~quarterly Linux kernel release. Releases include [...]

Microsoft has announced that it is to provide rivals and partners with free access the APIs and protocols it uses to ensure interoperability between its core products (Windows Vista and Server, Office, SQL Server, Exchange and SharePoint), as well as a new strategy that is focused on open access, portability, open standards and engagement with [...]

Here’s an interesting bit of news from the blurred line between open and closed source software. Ubuntu sponsor Canonical has announced that it is reselling IBM’s DB2 Express-C database as both a standalone software package and as a software appliance with VMware. While Express-C is free as in beer, it is not free as in [...]

It is interesting to see Google confirming that it has hired Codeweavers, to ensure that Photoshop Creative Suite and Creative Suite 2 run on Linux via Wine.
As the post states “Photoshop is one of those applications that desktop Linux users are constantly clamoring for” and projects like this will go a long way to (eventually) [...]

SCO Group has announced that it has arranged $100m financing from Stephen Norris Capital Partners to exit bankruptcy, go private, and continue its litigation against IBM, Novell and AutoZone. “SNCP has developed a business plan for SCO that includes unveiling new product lines aimed at global customers. This reorganization plan will also enable the [...]

Novell has announced that it has acquired open source collaboration software vendor SiteScape for an undisclosed fee, adding team workspace and collaboration functionality to its collaboration software portfolio. The main question the deal raised for me is why it took so long. Novell announced an OEM relationship with SiteScape almost exactly a year ago but [...]

Yet another open source acquisition. This time it is mobile device vendor Nokia stepping up to the plate with its purchase of open source development tools vendor Trolltech. Nokia will offer NOK 16 is cash for Trolltech, which values the firm at roughly $153m (taking into account currency conversion and rounding).
Trolltech hadn’t yet announced its [...]

Following on from my instant reaction to the news that Sun was acquiring MySQL for $1bn, the deal deserves some closer attention. Subscribers to The 451 Group’s TechDealMaker service can read the QuickTake and the full Deal Analysis, while a couple of points are worthy of further analysis:

Despite the best efforts of MySQL and other [...]