In order to deliver expanded support options to companies running their business operations on SAP applications and the SUSE Linux Enterprise operating system, Novell and SAP announced an extension of their long-standing relationship. In a move that will help meet the growing demand for SUSE Linux Enterprise and provide support for the open source community, Novell and SAP are planning to offer enhanced options for customers who choose to run open source.

Appcelerator announced updates to its software that will further its ability to bring together RIA and SOA. The company has created Appcelerator RIA Developer, an Eclipse plug-in that makes it easy for developers who prefer an Eclipse environment to create Appcelerator projects. It is also releasing an updated version of the Appcelerator SDK platform that includes powerful new features that streamline the use of third-party software with Appcelerator to quickly create RIAs.

Sun Microsystems announced a small and medium-sized business (SMB) initiative that makes it easy and affordable for SMBs to buy Sun's innovative, open source and reliable solutions. Sun is delivering complete, easy-to-deploy solutions that tackle many of the technology issues commonly faced by SMBs to help them increase productivity, reduce costs and grow their businesses.

The Eclipse Foundation announced a new initiative to develop and promote open source runtime technology based on Equinox, a lightweight OSGi compliant runtime. While Eclipse is well known for its widely used development tools, this initiative establishes a community of Eclipse open source projects focused on runtime technology that provides a more flexible approach to building and deploying software on mobile, desktop and server environments.

XAware announced that its open source Plug-in for Salesforce is now available on salesforce.com's AppExchange. Salesforce.com customers utilize the AppExchange to find additional applications to extend the benefits of SaaS throughout their business and operational objectives. XAware's Plug-in for Salesforce is an open source product that enables users to migrate, manage, share and mashup data from various systems

Moonwalk announced its latest Moonwalk software suite, with support for Novell's Open Enterprise Server 2 (OES2). Novell's Open Enterprise Server 2 combines workgroup services from Novell with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, completing the Open Enterprise Server shift to providing workgroup services entirely on Linux. It includes dynamic storage technology for user-defined policies, storage management enhancements and Netware virtualization.

Vyatta confirmed its open source networking software scales to 10 Gigabit Ethernet environments, providing enterprises and service providers relying on high-performance networks with an open alternative to expensive proprietary routers. Scalability tests were performed using IBM servers and 10 Gigabit Ethernet cards from Neterion.

Protecode announced an automated preventive Intellectual Property (IP) management solution. Protecode plug-in is a software development tool that unobtrusively manages IP by detecting and logging 100% of content entering a software project. Protecode logs, identifies and reports pedigree and licensing information associated with external content in any stage of software development projects. Protecode automatically creates a software Bill of Materials (BOM), and manages compliance with organization's IP policies, offering a clean pedigree that insures that developers/contributors are using licenses accurately. Protecoding (coding with Protecode plug-in as part of the development environment) frees developers from having to understand open source rules and licenses.

The open source advocates at the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) are telling the open source community at large that Microsoft's 'irrevocable' Open Specification Promise (OSP) protecting open source projects from patent risk as far as its up-for-standardization OOML file format goes is hollow and can't be relied on 'for any free software implementation, whether under the GPL or another free software license.'

Undoubtedly, as the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) continues to emerge as a hallmark of service-oriented architecture (SOA), the competition between open source and proprietary products will continue to heat up. Granted, ESB is a well-established category of infrastructure software. Enterprises across the world (medium to large) rely on this technology to provide the reusable business services for its applications, business processes and users. In parallel, the ESB market has proven ready for open source disruption.

'It has been a long time coming and includes a lot of new features and polish,' said Chris Wiiliams, who runs the RadRails project. 'We're especially proud of the progress we've made here at Aptana since we took over the project. RadRails 0.7.2 users will definitely want to check out this new release - it offers a more stable environment, full Rails 2.0 support, support for JRuby, and a boatload of new features.'

Intalio announced a partnership with Alfresco Software. The integrated offering of Intalio|BPMS and Alfresco ECM allows users to manage advanced document-centric workflow processes and support the collaborative development of complex business processes.

Acquia has yet to price its maintenance and support subscriptions - there should be a variety of SLAs - but they're supposed to include an electronic update notification system code named Spokes for updates that have been reviewed for security and compatibility and are supported by Acquia. Acquia is currently at 12 people, expecting to be 25 by the end of the year. Its Series A money comes from Northbridge Venture Partners, Sigma Partners and O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. According to Dries' blog, Drupal 7 should offer the ability to create, share and mashup managed content, letting Drupal be a data repository accessed by tools and web sites across the network.

One of the beauties of Linux from a business point of view is that it doesn't require the 'latest and greatest' hardware to run properly. This means you can increase the return on investments (ROI) for legacy hardware. As I'll show in this article, as in the case with virtualization, the 'latest and greatest' software is not required either.

New Atlanta will be creating and distributing a free open-source Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) version of BlueDragon, its ColdFusion-compatible web application server. It will be released under the popular GPL license, mirroring the licensing path chosen by MySQL and Java. BlueDragon has been around for nearly a decade now.

Bluenog announced that MultiPlan has chosen Bluenog Rich Portal as its portal platform. Bluenog Rich Portal brings open source to enterprise IT shops in an affordable way. The platform is built on top of open source projects and Web 2.0 standards and integrates with commercial enterprise software vendors.

Zoho announced Zoho People, its human resource management application for companies that want to run their businesses online. People joins Zoho's suite of business applications, including Zoho CRM, Zoho Meeting, Zoho Projects, and Zoho DB. The new offering is ideal for small and medium businesses (SMBs) with 50+ employees.

Appistry unveiled a new initiative providing free and easy access to its grid-based application platform. The initiative introduces a new product, Appistry EAF Community Edition, an Open Distribution licensing model, and the company's new Peer2Peer developer portal.

GridGrain Systems announced the release of GridGrain 2.0, the next version of open-source Java grid computing platform. GridGain 2.0 provides an open-source grid computing infrastructure that combines a focus on Enterprise Java and enhanced features. Since its release in August 2007 GridGain became the fastest growing Java grid computing infrastructure with over 10,000 downloads and more than 500 projects utilizing it, and deployed in a dozen production systems.

Metastorm announced that its software has been successfully deployed by the City of Richmond, an economically progressive city and Virginia's capital, as the foundation to automate its citywide processes.

Red Hat announced that Florida Hospital relies on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, Red Hat Global File System, Red Hat Cluster Suite and Red Hat Network to maintain reliable disaster-recovery systems that protect and maintain critical patient information.

PreEmptive Solutions launched its Evaluation Process Management (EPM) Service, a combination of software plus managed-services that provides visibility into - and control - over commercial software evaluations and beta software deployments.

Josep Mitjà, COO of Openbravo and OSA board member, argues that while technological advances in open source software should be viewed on a worldwide basis, its ultimate success in the market requires a localized approach. The secret, he says, is to 'think global, but act local.'

Sun Microsystems and the Forum do Sistema Brasileiro de TV Digital Terrestre (Forum SBTVD took a big step forward in providing an affordable alternative for DTV conversion. The organizations announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding to join forces in the development of an open-source content platform based on Java technology for use in the country-wide conversion of television applications and services.

NextMedium announced that Deutsch will be the first advertising agency to partner with and utilize the company's Embed platform to maximize brand integration opportunities for its clients. For agencies such as Deutsch, NextMedium's Embed platform serves as a complete management system to secure and analyze brand integration opportunities available in the marketplace. Deutsch will be able to register its brands on the platform and define specific campaign objectives, including demographic and psychographic targeting, desired exposure types and general branding objectives.

Throughout the last decade, society has witnessed an explosion of network connectivity among PCs and mobile devices as well as a vast proliferation of networked applications, ranging from Web-based email to online banking. The end result of this is that network connectivity has become an almost indispensable resource for many individuals.

'Web developers never had it so good...' gushed Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz last week as he contemplated how in addition to Glassfish and NetBeans, millions of developers could now look to Sun to provide them with MySQL - which, as of February 26, is now officially a part of Sun.

Open source has made signficant inroads into middleware deployments in the enterprise. More and more, open source is being used to deliver the benefits of SOA and open source to the enterprise. There are many custom Enterprise Service Bus deployments waiting to be upgraded to a simple, open and affordable SOA integration platform. This session explores where open source is getting the most traction in SOA deployments with a focus on ESB and illustrates this by describing some of the customer SOA solutions the speaker sees at Red Hat.

Gartner is almost as suspicious of Microsoft's week-old interoperability promises as European Commission antitrust chief Neelie Kroes. It's warning open source developers to beware the patent trap. 'Do not use Microsoft's documentation,' it says, 'unless you have rigorous processes to keep track of applicable patents. Keep work that depends on these patents separate from other OSS work to avoid exposing downstream distributors and user to litigation risk.'

InterSystems Corporation announced that it is ranked as a leader in customer affinity- an accurate measure of predicting customers' technology purchasing intentions and decisions, according to a marketing effectiveness study recently released by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council.

AccuRev and Electric Cloud announced a technology partnership designed to improve software development productivity and efficiency. The combined solution, which integrates the automated build, test and deployment functionality of Electric Cloud's ElectricCommander software with process-enabled software configuration management (SCM) using AccuRev, advances multistage continuous integration and scalable agile best practices.

If you heard a thump Monday, that was the cost of memory crashing. What cost maybe five grand last week can now be had for, oh, $1,500. See, Monday was when ex-AMD CTO Fred Weber's stealth start-up, MetaRAM, came out of hiding sporting an attention-grabbing way to cut the price of a computer system outfitted with four quad processors and 256GB of main memory from $500,000 to below $50,000.

Nexaweb Technologies announced Nexaweb Advancesm - a technology-enabled modernization solution that allows enterprises to transform legacy business applications from 3GL/4GL technologies to rich, composite web applications with less risk, in less time, and at less cost.

McObject announced that NextPoint Networks has integrated McObject's eXtremeDB in-memory embedded database system in multiple applications within its IntelliConnect System product family, which enables operators to deliver intelligent, secure and scalable session management between fixed, mobile and blended IP networks.

LogLogic announced that software vendors Compliance Spectrum and UpperVision have used LogLogic's Open Log Services API to integrate their offerings with LogLogic's log management and intelligence (LMI) platform. Via LogLogic's Open Log Services, joint customers utilizing LogLogic's security and compliance appliances can attain business agility and productivity through ease-of-integration.

AccuRev announced the availability of AccuRev 4.6 for ClearCase, the latest add-on to its software configuration management (SCM) solution. AccuRev 4.6 for ClearCase provides coexistence for optimal support of parallel, geographically distributed and Agile development with AccuRev in existing ClearCase environments. This enables a coexistence strategy, where teams are able to use the most appropriate SCM solution for each group, project or user.

Acquia provided new details on plans to deliver a commercially supported distribution and value-added network services based on the popular Drupal open source social publishing system. The company also threw open the doors on Acquia Projects, a collaborative environment for Drupal community members to participate in the direction of forthcoming Acquia products and services.

Sun Microsystems announced the latest additions to its open archive portfolio, adding a midrange modular library and tape drive. In addition, Sun introduced enhancements to archive data security and release of a multi-tiered archive appliance that will work heterogeneously with Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) and other operating systems. Sun also announced that is has donated the source code for the Sun StorageTek 5800 system, formerly known as 'Project Honeycomb,' to open source communities.

Nothing will slow the progress and increased adoption of open software. What was traditionally viewed as developer and infrastructure tools has quickly infiltrated the enterprise environment. The public sector was one of the first to initiate the trend. For example, 400,000 workstations in the French administration have already migrated to Open Office.

Zaheda Bhorat, Google's Open Source Programs Manager, has reiterated Google's position that Microsoft's Open Office XML (OOXML) 'doesn't meet the criteria required for a globally-accepted standard.' The comment comes as the deadline approaches for ISO member bodies around the world to possibly revise their September 2007 vote, when the original submission to ISO of OOXML as an additional international standard was defeated.