This could be a decisive moment for the software market. Microsoft's big cash cow is the Windows/Office combo. If you look through the company's financial reports, you'll see that profits come mainly from Windows and Office. This means that Windows sales support the existence of other products and services. An unexpected drop in demand of Windows could cause a domino effect. At the moment this seems highly improbable because Windows desktop market share is over 90%, even though there is an increasing interest in MacOS X and Linux.

Flexbeta.net has got a few screenshots showing off the new Longhorn build.

Microsoft finally told Web developers what they've wanted to hear for years, promising support for graphics and style sheet standards.

Version 2.1 of CRUX, the lightweight keep-it-simple Linux distribution, has been released. It's based on the 2.6.11.7 kernel, Glibc 2.3.5, GCC 3.4.3 and X.org's X11 6.8.2. Changelog.

Welcome back to another issue of my reviews of Linux distributions. Not really surprisingly, this time I decided to take a close look at the second version of the most popular Debian offshoot, Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu's performance probably was the biggest surprise that 2004 had in store for Linux users. Just 9 months ago, almost noone even knew that there was a new project underway, but then things went really fast: after a preview version in mid-September, Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, released version 4.10 in October. Being based on Debian, Ubuntu has a solid base and, despite not being supported officially, all the (18.000) Debian packages available. Ubuntu 4.10 proved to be a decent operating system (especially for a first try) and had overall pretty positive reviews (here's mine).

Long-awaited versions of the operating system geared for speed finally see the light of day. Order it here for free to replace your 32bit version, or download a trial. A review is here.

MontaVista Software, Inc., today announced Mobilinux, a new product built to address key areas of development for mobile and wireless devices. Mobilinux is built on the fourth generation of MontaVista’s Linux platform, which is the most widely deployed Linux distribution in the world and the only proven Linux solution for mobile devices.

First phones started becoming more like computers. Now computers are getting to be more like phones. Phonelike features are prominent in several prototype computers that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is expected to unveil at a conference today where Microsoft is helping computer makers build the PCs of tomorrow.

Memory ProtectionOne common complaint or feature request for RISC OS improvement is to add "memory protection". This is largely a result of the relative ease of which single programs can take out the entire operating system, combined with a misunderstanding of what precisely memory protection is. In this article, Peter Naulls will try and cover some of the issues around memory protection, and why RISC OS is often so susceptible to breakage and some of the measures which can be taken to improve the situation.

Before the weekend, Opera's CEO, Jon S. von Tetzchner boldy proclaimed at a company meeting that if download numbers of Opera 8 reached 1 million within four days he would swim from Norway to the USA Opera's communications department could not resist the temptation, and made his statement public. As any respectable CEO and gentlemen, Mr. Tetzchner stands by his word.

Solaris Express 4/2005 (a.k.a. Nevada Build 10) was posted today, providing improved performance, X.org 6.8.2 final, and a host of bug fixes. You can obtain a free download. An overview of new features is available.

So, I went out to at least partially test this theory, and to do appropriate comparisons between Dell computers and Apple computers. I'm hardly the first one to take this challenge but I've decided it's time to stop talking and taking other peoples' word for it, and go get some concrete facts to put on (digital) paper.

Stardock's newest application allows you to control multiple computers from one workstation. While it has some of the features of Win2VNC and Synergy2, the Pro version allows you to connect to an unlimited number of computers and "copy and paste" files between them. Review here.

Now that he has covered why cluster computing is a great idea and what's involved in doing it in Parts 1 & 2, Rob Lucke concludes this series by describing how to take those first steps on the road to building a Linux cluster for your organization.