[ MSWL - Economic Aspects ]

IBM chooses Red Hat Linux for supercomputers

IBM has chosen Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 as the operating system for its parallel BlueGene/Q and Power 775 supercomputers. On the one hand based on the excellent performance of the linux-kernel, on the other one because of the cut-throat price that Linux infrastructure offers.

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/19/ibm_redhat_linux_supers_loadleveler

[ MSWL - Economic Aspects ]

Unix to Linux and Cloud Migration

An interesting interview to the general manager of Red Hat India region, explaining how they have grown with the adoption of kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) technology and incentivating companies to migrate from Unix-based to Linux infrastructure. KVM is a robust open standard-based choice for companies and enterprises nowadays.

Source: http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/interviews/1086-migration-from-unix-to-linux-and-cloud-are-key-driving-factors-for-our-business

[ MSWL - Economic Aspects ]

Apple-Foursquare data sharing deal

Apple Inc. has the intention to integrate local data from Foursquare Labs Inc. into their mapping application. Strategic agreements such as this, reveals the Apple's concern to compete in the market of the current product lider Google Maps, also seeking independence from the latter application in their iPhone devices.


Is noteworthy that since March 2012, Foursquare Labs stopped using Google Maps as its geo-location platform, changing to OpenStreetMap (OSM), wich is a project based on Open Database License (ODbL).

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324907204578186074223787936.html

[ MSWL - Economic Aspects ]

THQ Is Looking At Bringing Their Games To Linux

Similar to the previous post, this time THQ Inc. (Toy Head-Quarters), a North American video & PC games developer company, is evaluating the option to get into the Linux field. Curious thing about this company is that they make money using the "Humble Bundles" method.

"Humble Bundles" are a series of video game collections that are sold and distributed online at a price determined by the purchaser, so in a certain way THQ have used unusual tecniques since the beginning, maybe incursion into an Open Source platform is another unusual strategy over other video games companies.

Source: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI1NDM

[ MSWL - Economic Aspects ]

Gaming on Linux

Recently Roccat, a games maker company with headquarters in Germany, has reaffirmed its commitment to support the Linux platform, specifically at keep developing their own Linux kernel-based drivers. They also have the intention to get to the U.S. market, which has a great volume of users.

This could be a strategy to spread out the company's name globally as possible, and make business in other gaming fields than PC like consoles. In any case, it is important to remark that companies like Roccat are aware of the impact that FLOSS communities are capable of when it is about to broadcast a product, so they contributes to free projects and also gets benefit from it

Source: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/roccat_reaffirms_commitment_linux2012?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=t.co

[ MSWL - Economic Aspects ]

Apple pierde terreno ante Android en mercado de tabletas

El mercado que venía ocupando el iPad con 56,3% en 2011 a bajado a 53,8% en 2012. Por otro lado, las tabletas que integran Android han aumentado de 39,8% a 42,7% en el mismo período.

Estos son datos publicados por International Data Corp (IDC), quienes en estimaciones previas indicaban que el mercado mundial de tablets estaría en 2012 en unos 117,1 millones de unidades vendidas, sin embargo se han registrado unas 122,3 millones hasta ahora.

Esto nos indica el grado de incidencia que ha alcanzado Google Inc. en el nicho de mercado de las tabletas, al elegir Android - basado en FLOSS - como el sistema operativo base para su producto, en contraposición de iOS - basado en código propietario - el elegido por Apple Inc. para el iPad.

Fuente: http://www.eluniversal.com/vida/121205/apple-pierde-terreno-ante-android-en-mercado-de-tabletas