Cognos, the leading strategic vendor of enterprise business intelligence (BI) solutions for e-business, today announced its intention to port its software to the Linux operating system.

SGI, the company also known as Silicon Graphics, said its fiscal second quarter results set a platform for future growth. The platform is there, but the growth is missing. And to keep investors interested until it puts up better numbers, SGI is hoping to hitch its stock to the Linux bandwagon.

Now that real commercial-quality games are starting to appear for Linux, it's about time that Linux system vendors gave us a comparable system on which to play them. Some vendors are stepping up with half-hearted attempts, but appear more interested in keeping the price down than offering a game system with punch.

Linux creator Linus Torvalds, who often comes across a bit sheepish anyway, tried even harder to blend with the herd at Wednesday's unveiling of Crusoe. Linus explains why he joined the mobile chipmaker.

The two first Linux certification organizations are enjoying great popularity and support, but it remains to be seen how they will get along with each other.

Lineo, Inc., the leading developer of embedded Linux system software, announced Lineo Embedix PDA, a Windows CE-compatible embedded Linux software solution. Embedix PDA will provide a Windows CE-compatible layer on top of Lineo Embedix Linux, allowing Windows CE applications to be easily ported to Lineo Embedix Linux, a stable, compact and low-cost OS.

Magic Software Enterprises announced that it will be introducing its new Magic Enterprise Edition V.8 development environment for Linux at the Linux World Conference and Expo.

Sun Microsystems is expected to eliminate licensing fees for Solaris 8 to boost its appeal against Linux and Windows NT, say sources close to the company. Sun is expected to make its "free Solaris" campaign the centerpiece of its Solaris 8 unveiling, which takes place this Wednesday in New York City.

On Dec. 7, 1999, Sun announced plans to ship Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition for Linux in the first quarter. On Monday, IBM beat Sun to the punch with deals bringing Java to Caldera Systems, Red Hat and TurboLinux's Linux operating systems.

India is rich in talent (human talents) but poor in talents (the ancient currency of India; in other words: money). India, and many other third world countries, have ample resources of brains - brilliant software developers - but poor means of paying for the licensing of software.