Amazon has started offering Windows Server instances on its Free Usage Tier. AWS positions the move as helping new customers get started in the cloud. They can run, test or develop Windows apps, host a web site or do all of those things and not be locked into a particular operating system. Amazon’s free widgetry has previously been limited to Linux instances. Now it says it’s “fine-tuned the micro instances to make them even better at running Microsoft Windows Server.” Presumably Microsoft would prefer the exposure happen on its Windows Azure PaaS, which is incredibly supposed to add Linux sometime this year.

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"We are pleased to be able to pass the improvements that Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.0 offers in centralized provisioning of virtual desktops directly on to our customers," states Florian Spatz, Product Marketing Manager at IGEL Technology, who also points out that, "this partnership strengthens our market position as the world's leading vendor of Linux-based thin clients and presents our customers with attractively priced solution options for enterprise-wide provisioning of virtual desktops."

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CloudLinux, Inc., developers of the only commercially-supported Linux server operating system made specifically for shared hosting, today announced that CloudLinux OS is now fully compatible with the Atomia software automation platform. "Now, Atomia customers can easily upgrade their operating system to CloudLinux OS greatly enhancing the security and efficiency of their shared hosting businesses," said Igor Seletskiy, CloudLinux CEO. "Better control over computing resources leads to a better overall customer experience and results in lower churn." CloudLinux cages each user account within its own Lightweight Virtual Environment (LVE), allowing system administrators to limit CPU, memory, and the concurrent connections available to each server tenant. LVE effectively prevents the "bad neighbor effect," wherein one tenant can slow or take down an entire server. By limiting abuse, shared hosters can substantially increase server density, bringing far greater efficiency to their business.

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AMD has named Rajan Naik chief strategy officer, reporting to CEO Rory Read. Naik, 40, was a partner in McKinsey’s technology practice. His charter will embrace both the company’s short- and long-term strategy development, including market opportunities, strategic partnerships and investment strategies. Read said Naik “possesses a strong track record of execution in strategic planning, product and market strategy, and operational performance. He will help ensure strategic and operational alignment across our business to take advantage of growth opportunities in lower power, emerging markets and cloud computing.”

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The more things change, the more they stay the same. That is certainly true of anti-open source virtualization FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt). Linux virtualization is robust and enterprise-worthy, and is evolving rapidly. It is a threat to the established giants of virtualization. And, so the same old FUD is spread around: Open source virtualization software is free, like a free puppy. It's unpolished and lacking important features. It's communists and hippies. It is only for elite hackers who can code in a dozen languages and who love the command line. Linux virtualization admins are expensive and scarce. Licenses are complex, scary, and viral, and will infect all of your code and force you to give it away.

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The more things change, the more they stay the same. That is certainly true of anti-open source virtualization FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt). Linux virtualization is robust and enterprise-worthy, and is evolving rapidly. It is a threat to the established giants of virtualization. And, so the same old FUD is spread around: Open source virtualization software is free, like a free puppy. It's unpolished and lacking important features. It's communists and hippies. It is only for elite hackers who can code in a dozen languages and who love the command line. Linux virtualization admins are expensive and scarce. Licenses are complex, scary, and viral, and will infect all of your code and force you to give it away.

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The Apache Software Foundation, where Oracle sent OpenOffice in June after it adjured the stuff, said Tuesday that it will put out OpenOffice 3.4 in the first quarter whose code will all be under the Apache license, resolving lingering incompatibility issues. It used what was ostensibly an open letter to the Open Document Format community to distance itself from the new German Team OpenOffice.com fork and its fund-raising attempts and warn it about misusing its trademark including “OpenOffice.org and all related marks.”

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Typemock, a provider and pioneer of unit testing solutions, has announced it has been selected to participate in Red Hat Innovate, a new initiative launched by Red Hat in Israel. The initiative is designed to assist software development start-up companies based in Israel to leverage the power of open source communities. Red Hat Innovate offers numerous benefits, including joint marketing activities and access to Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system and JBoss Enterprise Middleware for development.

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Typemock, a provider and pioneer of unit testing solutions, has announced it has been selected to participate in Red Hat Innovate, a new initiative launched by Red Hat in Israel. The initiative is designed to assist software development start-up companies based in Israel to leverage the power of open source communities. Red Hat Innovate offers numerous benefits, including joint marketing activities and access to Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system and JBoss Enterprise Middleware for development.

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CloudLinux, Inc., developers of a commercially supported Linux server operating system made specifically for shared hosting, has announced its Preferred Partner Program with VPS.net the first to join. VPS.net, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, with operations and data centers all over the world, is part of UK2 Group, which provides web hosting and Internet services to a million customers worldwide. With offices in London and Utah, the UK2 Group employs more than 200 staff. VPS.net provides a high-performance, optimized and scalable cloud hosting service that includes the CloudLinux OS, which it offers to all of its customers worldwide. As a Preferred Partner, VPS.net and CloudLinux will do joint marketing and sales while VPS.net will have special access to technical resources. Additionally, VPS.net will host CloudLinux repositories allowing for exceptionally fast and reliable updates for VPS.net customers using CloudLinux software.

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CloudLinux, Inc., developers of a commercially supported Linux server operating system made specifically for shared hosting, has announced its Preferred Partner Program with VPS.net the first to join. VPS.net, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, with operations and data centers all over the world, is part of UK2 Group, which provides web hosting and Internet services to a million customers worldwide. With offices in London and Utah, the UK2 Group employs more than 200 staff. VPS.net provides a high-performance, optimized and scalable cloud hosting service that includes the CloudLinux OS, which it offers to all of its customers worldwide. As a Preferred Partner, VPS.net and CloudLinux will do joint marketing and sales while VPS.net will have special access to technical resources. Additionally, VPS.net will host CloudLinux repositories allowing for exceptionally fast and reliable updates for VPS.net customers using CloudLinux software.

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Azul Systems is going with the herd, which is congregated down around Linux, commodity x86 hardware, Big Data, the cloud and the cloud’s little friends PaaS and SaaS because that’s where the business is. The latest spin of Azul’s Zing JVM is just for Linux. The company’s not going to be OS-agnostic anymore, and offload workloads from different operating system onto Zing. Nope, it’s converted completely to Linux. It’s the third time Azul has changed its faith. It used to preach that scaling Java apps required Vega, the fancy $200 million proprietary rig it built around exotic multi-core chips. Then last year it saw the light and said it could all be done in Zing software. Its new stuff is advertised as the industry’s only JVM specifically architected and optimized for Linux and, being the fifth generation from the first Vega machine, it’s styled Zing 5.0. CEO Scott Sellers reckons that Azul and Java’s owner Oracle are the only commercial providers of enterprise JVMs for enterprise Java apps left and, like a sign Azul may come to regret, it was elected last week along with Twitter to the Java Community Process (JCP) Executive Committee.

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Azul Systems is going with the herd, which is congregated down around Linux, commodity x86 hardware, Big Data, the cloud and the cloud’s little friends PaaS and SaaS because that’s where the business is. The latest spin of Azul’s Zing JVM is just for Linux. The company’s not going to be OS-agnostic anymore, and offload workloads from different operating system onto Zing. Nope, it’s converted completely to Linux. It’s the third time Azul has changed its faith. It used to preach that scaling Java apps required Vega, the fancy $200 million proprietary rig it built around exotic multi-core chips. Then last year it saw the light and said it could all be done in Zing software. Its new stuff is advertised as the industry’s only JVM specifically architected and optimized for Linux and, being the fifth generation from the first Vega machine, it’s styled Zing 5.0. CEO Scott Sellers reckons that Azul and Java’s owner Oracle are the only commercial providers of enterprise JVMs for enterprise Java apps left and, like a sign Azul may come to regret, it was elected last week along with Twitter to the Java Community Process (JCP) Executive Committee.

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As soon as the market closed Thursday, AMD said it was going to lay off 1,400 people, upwards of 10% of its worldwide staff. Seems they are the wrong people and it wants to trade them in for people who can get it into low power, the cloud and emerging markets, all deemed more profitable. Otherwise the restructuring is supposed to create a more competitive cost structure and accelerate future growth, according to AMD’s new CEO Rory Read, who gets to play the heavy although AMD hinted at layoffs earlier this year. Supposedly his predecessor Dirk Meyer was ousted in January because he didn’t have a mobile strategy. For once it’s a problem Intel shares. It can’t get traction in mobile either.

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Facebook Thursday set up a non-profit foundation to run its six-month-old Open Compute Project (OCP) aimed at defining the cheapest and most efficient massively web-scale infrastructure possible using the open source model. Its first OCP data center in Prineville, Oregon, managed a 38% increase in energy efficiency for 24% less than other Facebook facilities cost. The idea is to push the envelope. The Open Compute Foundation (OCF) is reportedly well enough funded to start. There is a board of directors. Hardware designs and source files will be published, IP contributed and many eyes will look for ways to improve the standard à la Linux. The idea is to speed innovation by commoditizing the baser elements.

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The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, has announced that five Europe-based companies are joining the organization: AboveIT, Comarch, CSR, Symbio and Tieto. These companies are joining The Linux Foundation to collaborate on advancing Linux in the enterprise and in mobile computing. They join seven other new members from Europe announced earlier this month (http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2011/10/linux-fo...) and are coming together to collaborate this week at the first-ever LinuxCon Europe taking place in Prague, Czech Republic: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/linuxcon-europe.

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The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, has announced that five Europe-based companies are joining the organization: AboveIT, Comarch, CSR, Symbio and Tieto. These companies are joining The Linux Foundation to collaborate on advancing Linux in the enterprise and in mobile computing. They join seven other new members from Europe announced earlier this month (http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2011/10/linux-fo...) and are coming together to collaborate this week at the first-ever LinuxCon Europe taking place in Prague, Czech Republic: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/linuxcon-europe.

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