Industry Players Accepting Linux

If recent developments are indicators of the operating system’s ability to gain worldwide acceptance, things are looking good for Linux.

Caldera Systems, Inc. announced sponsorship and support this week for the Linux Professional Institute’s (LPI) exam-based certification program.

LPI’s standardized certification program is seen by some industry analysts as a means to further increase Linux implementation by small-to-enterprise class businesses and make the open-source operating system (OS) more attractive to Authorized Education Centers (AECs), VARs and resellers.

Benoy Tamang, marketing vice president for Caldera commented that “LPI can provide a vendor-neutral forum and standards that will ensure Linux value to end users.”

The program consists of three levels, from general and distribution specific Linux to specializations. The first exams will be delivered in the third quarter of this year.

Lonn Johnston, vice president of Pacific HiTech, explained his company also plans to work closely with LPI “to broaden the acceptance of Linux in the corporate enterprise market.” However, Pacific HiTech has been grabbing Linux headlines of its own lately.

TurboLinux

In another move intended to bolster the Linux corporate marketplace, Pacific HiTech this week announced a partnership with Computer Associates, Inc. (NYSE: CA), combining Unicenter TNG management technology with TurboLinux.

“In the world of electronic commerce, high availability provisioning has become more critical than ever,” commented Rei Jane Huai, senior vice president and general manager for CA, Asia. The partnership will bring a solution, according to Huai, “that will be extremely suitable for revenue-critical applications and services.”

TurboLinux will provide a cost-effective platform for running CA’s Unicenter TNG Enterprise, and the two companies have additionally agreed to collaborate on engineering multiprocessor clustering and support for their respective solutions.

Corel for Linux Hits Million Download Mark

Corel Corporation (Nasdaq: COSFF; TSE: COS) this week announced that its WordPerfect 8 for Linux word processor product, available for free at its Web Site, has hit the mark of one million download attempts.

“Not only does it speak volumes for WordPerfect,” declared Dr. Michael Cowpland, CEO and president of Corel, “I think it is somewhat indicative of the growing popularity of Linux.”

WordPerfect 8 for Linux, which includes the same word processing capabilities as the Windows version, is additionally available through Download.com, and is bundled with the new Red Hat 6.0 package.

Mary Branscombe, editor of the Computing Channel on AOL UK, which is also making the program available for download, commented that “Corel is the first of the major software vendors to take Linux seriously.”

Corel plans to extend its presence in the Linux market by releasing a graphical interface and a Linux version of its WordPerfect Office 2000 product.