Real Linux Growth

Linux continues to show strong growth across the entire industry from small devices up to the enterprise level. The following are just a few examples of this from the week of April 9th.

• Sumitomo Electric buys into Novell - This was a major deal with a very conservative, established business that didn't rely on the Microsoft/Novell deal that so many hold in disdain. Novell knows how to sell solutions, and Novell knows how to create excellent software, open or closed. Here's to Novell's continuing success.
• Red Hat Signs Master Marketing Agreement with SAIC - I'm no fan of SAIC, but I have to appreciate what this deal means for Red Hat. Basically, SAIC will use Red Hat system software solutions (OS, JBoss, etc) as part of their overall engineering solutions that they pitch to the federal government. From personal experience the military side of the government is truly split about the use of closed (Windows, etc) vs. open (Linux, etc) software underpinning their systems. With this fragmented mind set it's difficult to make headway with open source. I know that SAIC has used Red Hat internal to a number of programs, but this formalizes the arrangement and allows Red Hat to use SAIC's formidable muscle to openly accelerate sales of even more Red Hat open source solutions into the overall federal market.
• Palm fesses up to Linux Treo plans - Palm, not one of the better success stories of late, has announced that they are finally migrating to a Linux-based phone to be delivered sometime later in 2007. Reasons cited for the migration include reliability, stability, performance, and flexibility. Whether this is in contrast to their Palm OS or to Windows Mobile is not too clear. I also believe you can include lower costs in that list as well, especially compared to Windows Mobile. I'm curious to see if this will help Palm regain ground and expand into new markets and customers. I'd like to see them take off and wildly succeed again.
  

Linux isn't going anywhere, and Microsoft can't stop it. Too many major companies around the world now use it, and the world also recognizes the issues with moving to Vista, especially major businesses. It will be interesting to see how Linux use evolves through the rest of 2007. This will be, in my humble opinion, a pivotal year for Linux.