Linux solutions everywhere

January saw the return of LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, the current king of Linux business shows, to New York City . Defying the freezing temperature outside the Javits Center , large numbers of Expo attendees swarmed the aisles of the show floor and walked away with plenty of information.

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Unlike previous LinuxWorld shows, this year's event had little in the way of swag. I saw no bouncing balls, no Frisbees, and no penguin-shaped toys. Nor did this show feature vendors selling Linux CDs, stuffed Tux dolls, or other Linux paraphernalia.

This show wasn't about freebies or nickel-and-dime sales. It was about dollars. Big dollars. Corporate dollars.

I could not help but think that back around 2000 when detractors claimed that Linux would never scale,  never become a mainline operating system in business, and  never be used as a business desktop. A scant three years later, this expo was displaying multiple solutions in each category.

Clusters seemed to be omnipresent. From IBM to Dell to HP to NEC and many more, various cluster engines littered the show floor. The most groundbreaking of the bunch was the SGI Altix 3000. A NUMA machine that scales to 64 Itanium-2 processors, this box finally shatters the bandwidth limitations of Beowulf-style clusters and brings Linux closer to the realm of classic supercomputing.

For SGI, which is struggling to redefine itself in the eyes of the IT world, it's an especially good product. Considering that too many computer companies have faded away while pushing mediocre products, this move makes sense. SGI is trying to claim the high end of Linux supercomputing for itself, letting all its competitors play catch-up.

In the business server software category, lots of people were discussing products such as Red Hat Advanced Server, SuSE's Openexchange Server, and SCOoffice Server. Red Hat Advanced Server features long release times designed to be attractive to corporate situations and a cluster manager for failover capabilities. SuSE's Openexchange Server provides a solution for corporations seeking to replace Microsoft Exchange with a lower-cost Linux alternative.

In the business desktop category, products such as Red Hat 8 and SuSE Linux Office Desktop drew lots of attention. Even in the show's press room, the PCs were set up to dual boot Red Hat and Windows. Unlike many earlier shows where the PCs were set up for Windows only, I saw a number of journalists successfully using Linux without so much as a comment. And that's the game on the desktop — producing an easy-to-use tool that nontechnical people can use to get their work done.

Among the more interesting solutions at the show was ERP from ABAS Software. A Java-based enterprise resource planning solution, ERP is aimed at bringing big capabilities to small to midsize businesses. What I saw seemed quite impressive.

RealNetworks also discussed the fact that it has made several of its products available under open-source licenses. It has determined that open source is a good way to go for developing leading-edge multimedia tools. Details of its Helix DNA projects can be found at www.helixcommunity.org .