Newsgroup: it.economia.borsa.estero
Titolo: LINUX

riporto di seguito un aticolo trovato su CBS Marketwacht:
Conference shows Linux is for real
By Rebecca Lynn Eisenberg,
CBS MarketWatch
Last Update: 9:32 PM ET Mar 3, 1999 Silicon Stocks
SAN JOSE, Calif. (
CBS.MW
) -- Anyone who had doubts about Linux being for
real should have stopped by the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo this week in
San Jose.
According to developers and system administrators, Linux offers a less
expensive, more stable, more powerful alternative to Windows NT.
The Linux operating system, an open-source free alternative to proprietary
server software such as Unix (from Sun [SUNW], H-P [HWP], IBM [IBM] and
others) and Microsoft  (MSFT) Windows NT, has become a credible market
player. Now it even has a trade show to prove it.
A survey of the conference brochure shows some wealthy sponsors, as does the
show floor, where Compaq (CPQ), Oracle (ORCL), IBM, Sun, Caldera, Sybase
(SYBS) and Hewlett-Packard all rented sizable turf space for their booths.
Some of them, such as IBM and Compaq, were showing off high-end systems
pre-installed with the Linux OS. Others, such as Corel, hawked recent
versions of software ported to the Linux OS.
S.R.O. ... for WordPerfect?
"Corel (COSFF) was demo-ing WordPerfect 8.0 for Linux," reported a developer
from the floor. "Every chair was occupied. I had to stand in the back."
The crowd didn't go unappreciated by the conference's organizers.
Attendance at the keynote session on Tuesday, headlined by Linus Torvalds,
the original programmer responsible for the operating system's core, or
"kernel," apparently beat all IDG conference records -- including the recent
Macworld Expo keynote delivered by Apple's (AAPL) charismatic cult leader,
"interim" CEO Steve Jobs.
"We beat Steve Jobs' record," gloated conference chairman Larry Augustin,
chatting with me late in the evening, after the blowout LinuxWorld bash
Tuesday night. "Sixty-three hundred people attended Linus' keynote -- 4,300
in the main room and 2,000 more in the spill-over room. That's more than
Steve Jobs!" he laughed, apparently surprised himself.
"There used to be about 15 people at these things," Augustin had marveled at
the podium earlier that night, as he introduced Torvalds to the sellout
crowd. As appreciative laughter and applause erupted from the San Jose
Conference Center hall, Augustin's smile grew wide.
The name game
Beyond the conference turnout and applause, Augustin had more reasons to
smile. VA Research Inc., the Silicon Valley start-up he founded in 1993 in
order to provide pre-installed Linux computer systems to enterprise clients,
made two stunning announcements earlier that day.
First, the company acquired the domain name Linux.com to serve as a portal
Web site dedicated to information and resources about the Linux OS. More
importantly, it received a substantial investment from Intel and started
selling Linux computer systems that run on Intel's (INTC) brand-new,
high-powered processor, the Pentium III, on Friday, the same day Intel's new
chip debuted.
As to the domain name, "the competition for the domain name Linux.com was
intense," said Donna Sokolsky, a spokeswoman for VA Research. "It was a
bidding frenzy."
VA Research had to compete for Linux.com with numerous other bidders --
computer giants of the likes of Compaq and Dell (DELL). "Even Microsoft bid
for the name," Sokolsky noted.
"The highest bid was $5.5 million, but Linux developer Fred van Kempen, who
owned the domain previously, wanted it to go to the company that would use
it for the good of most people. So he chose VA Research," Sokolsky
concluded, "who paid a lot less."
VA Research will use Linux.com as a free resource about Linux. What would
Microsoft have done with the domain name? Answered Sokolsky: "That's a good
question."
It is a good question, and it points to one undeniable fact: Microsoft, like
the rest of the industry, is starting to take the open-source operating
system very seriously.
As Microsoft should. According to developers and system administrators,
Linux offers a less expensive, more stable, more powerful alternative to
Windows NT. Bundled with installers and service contracts sold by Red Hat
Software and others, Linux OS's source code is publicly available, meaning
that Linux servers can be modified to cater to a business's specific needs,
unlike proprietary systems such as Windows NT, which are sold on a
one-size-fits-all basis.
Plus, Linux systems are said to be more scalable than NT solutions, with the
power to run on computers with multiple CPUs, serving numerous accounts and
even powering Web servers. With support from powerful brands like IBM, Sun
and Compaq, low-cost Linux server software may well take a bite out of
Microsoft's market for Windows NT.
Empire striking back
Of this worry, Microsoft seems to be well-aware. "Off the record," said
Sokolsky, "Microsoft sent a shill to our press conference."
Going through the business cards of the people arriving to hear the VA
Research news, someone apparently spotted a card bearing the company name
Waggener Edstrom, Microsoft's ubiquitous public relations firm.
"He represented Microsoft's Windows NT division," said Sokolsky. "When we
saw that, we wouldn't let him in. I kept him at the door."
For Microsoft to keep tabs on Silicon Valley start-ups is nothing new. For
those start-ups to be peddlers of open-source software is very new indeed.
Rebecca Lynn Eisenberg of San Francisco writes her column on Internet issues
for CBS MarketWatch.

 from the floor. "Every chair was occupied. I had to stand in the back."
la versione di CorelWordperfect 8 per LINUX e' un'indecenza.... non e' degna
neanche della relise 0.00001 alpha...
Quindi per adesso non e' su questo che bisogna puntare. Piuttosto, e' stato un
segnale importante per quanto riguarda l'interessa di softwarehouse
commerciali verso il mondo Linux.
Della Corel bisogna tenere d'occhio i Netwinder che sono basati su Linux...
secondo me l'impatto di Linux su compagnie tipo DELL, HP ecc. non sara' molto
rilevante... nel senso che queste compagnie non incrementeranno di molto i
loro volumi di vendita grazie a Linux...
La VA Research e' una delle prime ditte che ha fornito Linux+Hardware, ma
questo non e' molto significativo per il mercato. Se paragoni nomei come Va o
IBM, puoi star certo che la gente si ricordera' solo di IBM....
Bisogna tenere d'occhio case come RedHat, SUSE, e Caldera... Linux, sta avendo
un successo incredibile (forse anche dovuto al fatto che zio Bill ha bisogno
di trovare un "concorrente" per i giudici dell'antitrust....) e sono queste le
ditte che si svilupperanno molto con il diffondersi di Linux.
Attenzione anche a Sun e Netscape e Oracle che utilizzeranno molto Linux per
intaccare il mercato di mamma MS.
Panoramix

Caro Gianni chi e' dell' ambiente informatico e ha un po' di serieta'
intellettuale non esita a riconoscere che 
tra Linux ( o altro Unix System..) ed NT  (o che so ...Windows
qualcosa...95,98 ) c' e' la stessa differenza che tra una MERCEDES e una
vecchia (pre_Wolkswagen) SKODA.
Il punto e' che Linux richiede quel minimo di competenza (... all'
inizio...) che i quadri manageriali o commerciali , e comunque gli utenti
finali del software, non hanno ( ne vogliono dovere acquisire...).
Linux e' una spanna sopra NT da tutti i punti di vista..., ma l' impero di
Gates mi pare ormai inespugnabile...
 

tra Linux
scusate l'OT ma oggi in visita a mia mamma ho dato una scorsa a Famiglia
Cristiana che lei compra sempre:
Incredibile! due pagine dedicate a Linux con tanto di foto di Linus Torvald!
Va bene che i paolini sono all'avanguardia della modernizzazione del
messaggio evangelico, ma da qui  a "Prendete ed installate, questo e' il mio
S.O." ce ne corre.
Giovanni