Swedish wireless telecommunications equipment provider Ericsson will use Norwegian Opera Software's Linux-compatible browser in the Ericsson Cordless Screen Phone HS210, which offers both cordless telephony and Internet access. The Linux operating system has been making inroads in the market for nontraditional computing and Web-browsing devices.

VA Linux Systems saw revenue grow to $20.2 million during its first quarter as a public company, but the computer maker reported a net loss of $11.6 million.

Worldwide open-source association Linux International is about to go national, according to its executive director and most colourful representative, John "Maddog" Hall. Linux International, which coordinates the activities of open source programmers and Linux companies of all sides around the globe, will be split off into a number of national bodies.

Matthew Vernon is a Debian developer and a candidate for the Debian Project Leader position. He maintains trn, word2x, electric-fence, and other packages.

On Thursday at CeBIT, the Symbian consortium dismissed as hype Transmeta's claim that MobileLinux would establish itself as the dominant platform for the mobile Internet.

Although Linux already has a pair of evolving GUIs -- KDE and Gnome -- neither is anywhere near as easy to set up and use as the Mac OS or Windows. Indeed, users must occasionally resort to typing commands into a command-line interface.

A comprehensive survey of over 2200 IT, education, and government decision makers reveals that Microsoft Windows 2000 will not only fend off the Linux/Open Unix threat, but will, in fact, have no real competition for the next few years at least. The survey indicates that Linux will experience massive percentage gains in marketshare over the next two years but that Windows will maintain or increase its lead regardless.

Windows 2000 is here, and it is a significant upgrade over Windows NT. For those who say Microsoft never gets it right, Windows 2000 is likely to be a rebuke, an operating system that does everything it's supposed to do and does it well. Start-ups that are extremely cost-conscious and wary of long-term license commitments, however, will consider free Solaris or Linux, or a combination of the two.

Even as rumors circulate at the CeBIT trade show in Germany that Microsoft is planning a version of Microsoft Office for Linux, the company is denying the report. On Thursday, an executive at LinuxCare said he had heard from several sources that Microsoft is about to offer a Linux suite, a move that would spin heads in the anti-Microsoft Linux community.

National Semiconductor Corporation announced that it has licensed Citrix Systems, Inc.'s Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) client software for the Linux operating system. National, the leading provider of silicon solutions and development platforms for the thin client market, will use Citrix ICA to provide its customers the most enhanced solution utilizing the Linux operating system.