LINUX hardware and software makers have been trumpeting the virtues of the open-source operating system for quite a while, but businesses have been slow to take the bait.

When deer hunting season begins in Mississippi, or its time for the alligator lottery to start down in Florida, sportsmen flock to the Internet to order their licenses through companies like Automated License Systems (ALS). To keep its servers running reliably, ALS's Infrastructure Manager Rich Edwards uses Red Hat Linux and servers from Levanta, no questions asked.

Funambol, which makes an open source mobile application server, announced last week that it will be creating a mobile messaging system designed specifically for Google’s Android platform.

Novell's channel partners have not been happy lately. Novell knows that, and on Nov. 19, the Linux power announced a new initiative to increase revenue and profitability for solution providers and consulting partners that specialize in selling Novell technologies.

Network Appliance's latest earnings report is fascinating. Dan Warmenhoven, NetApp's CEO, reported that enterprise spending is on the wane, with the financial services industry allegedly battening down the hatches and sitting out a soft economy.

"After many months of hard work by a variety of parties, the new Spread Firefox has finally arrived (in beta form…the full-on launch will follow before long). Although there’s still more to be done, we all feel like this is a big step forward for SFx and our open source marketing efforts..."
http://newsfx.spreadfirefox.com/

Search king Google has unveiled Android, its open-source platform for the smartphones of tomorrow. What will it mean for corporate IT? Perhaps a greater number of targeted, portable applications that hop from phone to phone, for starters.

Dell is expected to announce in the first quarter of 2008 that it has certified Ubuntu Linux for its server lines.