[TriLUG] Can open source solutions be viable companies?

[Sinner from the Prairy]

Yet another link:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/06/25/1023864575411.html

"Biotech group opts for Linux"

 Sydney
June 25 2002

Biotech company Medica Holdings Ltd today said it had formed an agreement with 
IBM that will allow its subsidiary Cytopia to speed up discovery of drug 
candidates to treat immune disease and cancer.

Medica said the Melbourne-based Cytopia would deploy IBM's latest generation 
Linux supercomputing technology, allowing it to increase 100 fold its speed 
and selectivity in screening drug candidates.

Cytopia, which is developing drugs to treat immune disease and cancer, has a 
worldwide exclusive licence to a number of proteins that play a pivotal role 
in triggering immune diseases and cancer. 

(...)

http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.php/1345351

June 6, 2002
HP Joins 'Unbreakable' Linux Party
By Michael Singer

When the dust settled from the Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL), Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) and 
Red Hat (NASDAQ:RHAT) "Unbreakable" Linux love fest, there was a cry from 
outside the room.

It was Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) scratching at the door saying, "Can we come 
in? We love Linux too."

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based computer and printer maker must have done some 
real sweet-talking because as of Wednesday HP is now officially a part of the 
team.

The company said it has combined engineering resources to certify and deliver 
Red Hat Linux Advanced Server on an 8-Node Oracle9i Real Application Clusters 
(RAC) environment running on the new HP's ProLiant DL580 servers.

HP was the first vendor to deliver a RAC certified configuration on Linux with 
the launch last year of Oracle9i. So it was kind of a surprise that Oracle 
tapped Dell to make its announcement. But, you know - that merger thing. 

(...)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A60050-2002May22?language=printer

Open-Source Fight Flares At Pentagon
Microsoft Lobbies Hard Against Free Software

By Jonathan Krim
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 23, 2002; Page E01 


Microsoft Corp. is aggressively lobbying the Pentagon to squelch its growing 
use of freely distributed computer software and switch to proprietary systems 
such as those sold by the software giant, according to officials familiar 
with the campaign.

In what one military source called a "barrage" of contacts with officials at 
the Defense Information Systems Agency and the office of Defense Secretary 
Donald H. Rumsfeld over the past few months, the company said "open source" 
software threatens security and its intellectual property.

But the effort may have backfired. A May 10 report prepared for the Defense 
Department concluded that open source often results in more secure, less 
expensive applications and that, if anything, its use should be expanded.

"Banning open source would have immediate, broad, and strongly negative 
impacts on the ability of many sensitive and security-focused DOD groups to 
protect themselves against cyberattacks," said the report, by Mitre Corp.

(...)

 The Mitre report said open-source software "plays a more critical role in the 
DOD than has been generally recognized."

The report identified 249 uses of open-source systems and tools, including 
running a Web portal for the Defense Intelligence Agency, running network 
security for the Army command in Europe and support for numerous Air Force 
Computer Network Defense tools.

Among the most high-profile efforts is research funded by the National 
Security Agency to develop a more secure version of the open-source Linux 
operating system, which competes with Microsoft's Windows.

The report said banning open-source software would drive up costs, though it 
offered no specifics. Some government agencies have saved significantly by 
using open source.

At the Census Bureau, programmers used open-source software to launch a Web 
site for obtaining federal statistics for $47,000, bureau officials said. It 
would have cost $358,000 if proprietary software were used, they said.

(...)

http://www.suffritti.it/informatica/comparazione_TCO_win_linux.htm

Comparazione di TCO di Windows e Linux (Italian for "TCO comparison for 
Windows and Linux")



Hope this helps.



Salut,
Sinner
-- 
RedHat QA Test Engineer  --  Running RedHat 7.3 on i386smp
http://www.ibiblio.org/sinner/