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Linux World had no buzz

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DQW Bureau
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The low attendance at the annual LinuxWorld Show did little to erase the sense of rejection. Many of the 200 exhibiting companies are already experiencing in the business community where the Open Source business model has found few supporters and left investors holding tens of billions of dollars worth of worthless stock certificates.

A year ago, IDG, the organization sponsoring the LinuxWorld shows decided to move the show from its birthplace in San Jose to San Francisco in order to accommodate the Linux movement, which was spreading like wildfire at the time.


A year and dozens of bankruptcies and financial horror stories later, the show could easily have fit into the San Jose Convention Center, and the previously jammed isles were only sparsely populated at best. Even Linux founder Linus Torvalds failed to show up despite the show marking the 10th anniversary of his software.

Some of the biggest names in the Linux community also did not even bother to show up, including server and workstation maker Penguin Computing, and distributors TurboLinux and Corel.

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Another indication that the Linux industry remains in a state of flux, SuSE Linux, the No. 2 distributor of the Linux operating system, announced its president, Dirk Hohndel, had resigned to pursue other interests. In July, SuSE Chief Financial Officer Johannes Nussbickel replaced Roland Dyroff as CEO. Many believe the resignation of Hohndel signals broader changes to come. "When companies shift around senior executives, it's usually because they're planning to shift their business strategy," said analyst Dan Kusnetzky, who covers Linux and other operating systems for IDC

There were some positive signs for the future of Linux, however. For one, the complete failure of the software to make inroads on the desktops of end users is forcing the remaining companies to focus on where Linux has traditionally done best, servers.


The show floor was dominated by companies that have been leading providers of server solutions for years. The biggest booths belonged to IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Intel and Compaq. "Linux is moving into the mainstream,'' said Ross Mauri, a vice president at IBM, His company has budgeted one billion dollars to develop and market Linux-based business solutions.

As part of that program, IBM said it has released a version of its Websphere e-commerce software that runs on IBM's Linux-based mainframes. And IBM is now targeting the financial community for adopting Linux-based solutions. Mauri said IBM decided to endorse Linux 18 months ago, because of its popularity among talented young programmers.

Dan Kusnetzky, VP, IDC, said Linux currently holds a 27 percent share of the server market, compared to 41 percent for Windows 2000 and 14 percent for both Novell's Netware and Unix systems from Sun and others.

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