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Archives for August 2009

4000 PCs Switch To Linux

Verona University is migrating 4000 PCs over to Ubuntu Linux. Linux Magazine reports the migration as a 3 year project which began in January 2009. Users are switching to Ubuntu Desktop and using Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice. The university also offer educational courses in Ubuntu. And another technical school in Iceland makes a similar move. It goes to show you that migrating over to Linux and open-source is not that difficult. All it takes is courage and commitment. It’s a great move for both schools.

TechRadium Suing Twitter

TechRadium, a Texas firm is suing Twitter over three patents the firm allegedly owns. The firm’s main product is called Iris, a notification system that sends alerts to many devices including mobile phones. TechRadium clients include the US Army, American Red Cross, United Way and several others.

I had a chance to briefly review the Iris system. From what I understand, the Iris system uses a web-based client to send notifications to mobile phones, email addresses, pagers, etc. It sends notifications to members using five different color-coded alert levels based on the severity of the message.

Now, why is Twitter is being sued for a system that anyone can program and develop? That’s a bit of a head scratcher, unless Twitter used the same source code from the Iris system. It will be interesting to see how this suit develops in the future.

Microsoft Sees Linux Threat

Finally, Microsoft is acknowledging that Red Hat and Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, are a threat to its client business. Microsoft mentioned both Redhat and Canonical in its annual filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Canonical threat is due to the popularity of netbooks powered by Linux.

To those of us who have been using Linux, it’s a well known fact that Microsoft has been attacking Linux for years as attested by the now infamous Halloween documents. The Halloween documents are a series of leaked Microsoft confidential memos pertaining to free software, open-source software and Linux.

Interesting enough, Microsoft does not mention Google Chrome OS which is still a year away from fruition. I imagine, the next time around, Microsoft will shift its focus away from Redhat and Canonical, and towards Google, a much bigger threat with lots of cash and brand to boot.