In the News Archive

OEone HomeBase Offers Computing, Simplified

The Open For Business web site features a review of the OEone Homebase 1.3 operating system. OEone is based on Red Hat, however its user interface is brand new, it has been written from scratch (in the Mozilla XUL API). The company behind OEone also sells machines with their software pre-installed, a software developed in such a way to resemble something between an Internet Appliance and a light iMac-like office workstation. OEone is something to definately check out, since they offer more than IAs do, however they are built in such a way to be simplistic, just like IAs. An older review of both the OEone machine and software can be found at NewsForge.

Microsoft Chooses Sides in DVD War

"Microsoft has decided to support one of two competing formats for popular DVD recording technology , a decision that is intended to make the storage devices as easy to use as current CD burners and floppy drives. At its annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), Microsoft plans to demonstrate software and to provide technical documentation for incorporating the DVD+RW format into its Windows operating system, according to a Microsoft Web site detailing the schedule for the conference." Read the rest of the report at ZDNews.

SoftwareMarketSolution Interviews Don Rosenberg

"As visitors to SoftwareMarketSolution.com know, we've reviewed Don Rosenberg's Open Source, 'The Unauthorized White Papers' (Wiley), and think it's an excellent look at the business, marketing, and legal issues surrounding the Open Source movement. If you have any interest in the Open Source movement we strongly recommend you purchase a copy and keep it close by. Don is a Ph.D. and the president of Stromian Technologies, a highly respected and well known consulting firm in the industry." The interview is mainly about the success and failures of Linux and open source in general.

HP-Compaq: Dumb and Dumber

"The way things are going with the proposed merger between Hewlett-Packard and Compaq Computer, the next thing you'll see is a supermarket tabloid headline blaring, "Fiorina punches hole in Hewlett's prize cello with high heel," with a subhead that reads, "Carly takes revenge for Walter's plot to have hairdresser make her bald." The real thing is pretty close to that." Read the editorial at ZDNews.

Corel Shuts Down its Open Source Site

According to ZDNet, the final note in Corel's gradual abandonment of its ambitious Linux initiatives seems to have arrived. Corel was involved in several open source projects including its own Linux distro, WINE, Application Printing Services API, Corel Package Utilities, 10n-i18n Internationalization, and Cprof Performance Profiler. The site will only be up through the end of the month.

Palm: OS, Hardware Don’t Mix

"As David Nagel ponders the future of Palm, he is ever mindful of what happened to Apple Computer. Both companies have a legion of loyal fans and both are considered leaders in making technology that is easy to use. Both walk a treacherous line by building hardware and operating system software. And a growing number of Apple refugees now work at Palm." Read the rest of the story at ZDNews. Update: Here is an interview at C|Net with PalmSource's CEO, David Nagel.

New OS Would Link PCs, Gadgets

Sony, Toshiba and IBM have reached a basic agreement on jointly developing a new operating system to be released in 2005 for computers capable of high-speed Internet connections. The OS will allow personal computers and home appliances to exchange huge volumes of data, including the high-resolution graphics of a television screen, through a broadband connection.

BeOS Refugee Redux

The 'Tales of a BeOS Refugee' seems to have touched a nerve. In the two weeks since it was published at OSNews, I have received more than 500 email responses from users of Mac OS, BeOS, Linux, and Windows. Most of the responses were point-by-point rejoinders to facts and observations in the original piece, some of them highly detailed. Because it was impossible to respond to everyone individually, and because I thought many people would appreciate being able to read some of the comments and my reactions to them, I've assembled this addendum: Reactions to "Tales of a BeOS Refugee". The piece includes further clarifications and extrapolations on my ideas about the Creator code and application binding, plus dozens of miscellaneous notes and continued comparisons between BeOS and OS X. Many thanks to everyone who took the time to write. As always, comments are welcome, but no guarantees on responses.

Linux More Bark Than Bite With Web Users

"WebSideStory, Inc., the world's leading provider of outsourced e-business intelligence services, today reported that despite much hype and expectation in recent years, Linux has failed to gain market share from Microsoft and Apple operating systems. As of December 17, 2001, Linux held a global usage share of only 0.24 percent, according to WebSideStory's StatMarket. This compares with Microsoft's Windows and Apple's Macintosh operating systems, which hold a combined global usage share of more than 98 percent. For almost three years, Linux usage share has fluctuated between .2 and .3 percent, with no substantial growth. Usage share is the percentage of Internet surfers that are using a particular operating system." Read the rest of the press release.

Gobe Now Shipping gobeProductive for Windows

Gobe Software, Inc. is now shipping gobeProductive for Microsoft Windows, "the "all-in-one" productivity package that brings increased productivity to "all-in-one" computer users - people who "wear many hats" in their computer use - including office workers, educators and small office/home office computer users." Read the rest of the press release ahead of everyone else on the Net, sent to OSNews directly from Gobe.

Hot News Soup as Found on the Web

NewsForge holds a preview for Opera 6.0, Linux edition. BitStream, the world leader in Font Rendering engines, suggests opening their PFR technology to Mozilla. Zope founder Paul Everitt gives an interview to Zopera.org. WinPlanet features two reviews on office suites. One for the Software602 office suite and a brand new article, a preview for gobeProductive3. On WindowPlanet you will also find a short review of VMWare 3.0 Workstation.

Palm Moving Ahead with Spinoff

After earlier announcing plans to create a subsidiary for its operating system, Palm on Thursday said it is looking to divide itself into separate, publicly traded companies. "We are looking to move into external separation next year," acting CEO Eric Benhamou told CNET News.com on Thursday, shortly after the company announced that Carl Yankowski was resigning as Palm's chief executive. The company is also looking into asking David Nagel to become the Palm CEO, while he was originally hired to be the CEO of the new Palm subsidiary -- the OS division -- where the Be engineers and Be's COO Steve Sakoman would be employeed, after the buyout of Be's IP would complete. There is a fair amount of uncertainty in the Palm land, as revenue fell a lot recently and the new PocketPC is a rival that the aged PalmOS can't compete with anymore.

REBOL and Morpheus to Create the Largest Programmable Content Network

Following up on last week's interesting interview with REBOL's own Carl Sassenrath, Rebol Technologies announced today that StreamCast, makers of Morpheus and next generation peer-to-peer content distribution networks, will base Morpheus 2.0 on REBOL's X Internet operating system (IOS) technology to provide interactive programmable content to more than 30 million users by the end of the year.

Wireless Internet PDA Market Already Full?

Danger Research (which employs 9 ex-Be, Inc. engineers out of about 20 engineers total) is a company that does not talk too much about their product, but it is already known that they are developing a PDA that is able to send and receive email and access the Net among other goodies. Danger hoped to be the first company to have a PDA product that will feature the full range of Internet connectivity, but it seems that the market is getting "dangerously" crowded. RIM already is talking about an updated version of BlackBerry that does more, Motorola have already announced a device oh-so-similar to Danger's, and now even Sharp with a Linux-oriented device is doing the same. Handspring, which this week announced a deal with Aether Systems, is partnering with other companies to bring corporate data to its handhelds while Good Technology, which was founded in March 2000, prepares a similar product too. Also Motient, a wireless data network company plans to unveil a device that effectively allows a Palm handheld to act more like a BlackBerry pager. The plan in most of these devices is to have the device always connected to the net, as there is a special contract with some major mobile phone networks when you purchase such a device in order to activate it. Our take: Amazingly, Palm still haven't announced something exciting as this (where most of the software running in a remoted server, and not included and running in the actual machine), and please don't start posting comments that they will use BeIA for it, because they just won't. Palm has even postponed any wireless plans.

HancomOffice 2.0 Preview Available

The new up and coming HancomOffice 2.0 according to LinuxWorld.com could be a serious contender for StarOffice and Microsoft Office. The most interesting point is that the same boxed product can be installed on Windows, GNU/Linux and Solaris. This could be great for people switching operating systems as they could continue to use the same office package on their new OS, without even having to purchase new software. A Preview version is already available for download.

Grim Economic Times for the Technology Industry

Just as these days of crisis have made for sparse technology news, the health of the technology industry has gone "from bad to worse," according to a Siliconvalley.com article. Confidence among individual consumers is down (athough I personally witnessed brisk traffic at a local outlet mall over the weekend) but more importantly, businesses are postponing large expenditures of PCs, enterprise software and other high tech equipment.