Acer will use Moblin Linux across its products

The world's third-largest PC vendor plans to roll out the Moblin Linux operating system, championed by Intel, in its products, a top executive said Wednesday.

"Acer is in the process of putting Moblin in the range of its products," said R.C. Chang, chief technology officer at Acer, at a news conference in Taipei. Acer products that will soon run with Moblin Linux include Aspire One nettops, as well as regular laptop and desktop PCs, he said.



Source: The Standard

 

Dell Bundling Open Source Applications for SMBs 

Dell is planning to offer small and medium businesses (SMBs) globally pre-configured bundles of hardware and open source software to run their businesses, according to an executive at the company.
There is a definite shift from proprietary to open source software among SMBs, particularly as companies in this sector look to cut costs, said Amit Midha, president of Dell's Asia Pacific and Japan region for the SMB business, on Tuesday.

"The more advanced the customers, the more likely they will adopt open source, because they are likely to ask why they should spend money on something they can get free," he added.

Dell is now focusing on offering pre-configured software and hardware bundles using open source software to help customers who are not advanced enough to deploy open source on their own, Midha said. Dell and partners will be offering services and training to these customers.

Some of the hardware and software bundles will also be offered around proprietary software, Midha said.
The company has already introduced in the U.S. market a pre-configured product around open source software, described as "SMB-in-a-box", for retail customers, that will also be rolled out in Asia later this year, Midha said.

Dell decided on open source software for its offering for retailers, because as they deploy technology across a large number of stores, retailers are looking to cut software costs, Midha said.
Besides retail businesses, Dell is also planning similar configurations for businesses in manufacturing, healthcare, advertising, and online gaming.

The online gaming industry in China is using open source software, which provides an opportunity for Dell to configure and package it for other companies in the same business, said Midha who is also the president of Dell's Greater China operations.
Dell is seeing a recovery for PC demand in the SMB market in general in a number of countries including the U.S., and China. A lot of the times, the recovery shows up first in the SMB segment rather than in large corporate accounts, because while SMBs respond faster to economic changes, large companies have to first revise their budgets, Midha said.

"On a global basis, you get the sense that China is pulling the whole industry out of the recession" he added.

Consumer spending is still quite strong, and spending under stimulus plans by various local governments has helped boost demand for technology by SMBs, Midha said.

 

Source: CIO
 

Mozilla to Let Enterprises Build Custom Firefox Browsers

Mozilla is readying a program that will allow companies to build their own customized browsers based on the next version of Firefox, which will be out in a few weeks.

The Build Your Own Browser program is a good fit for enterprises that want to create a customized browser that can be easily installed across multiple corporate desktops, said Mike Beltzner, director of Firefox at Mozilla Corp.

Through the program, which will start sometime soon after Firefox 3.5 is released at the end of June, companies can use a Web application provided by Mozilla to specify certain customizations for the browser -- such as bookmarks to certain sites or corporate intranets or portals, he said.

Companies also can brand the browser through technology called Personas that allows them to code a skin across the top of the browser with a company's logo on it, Beltzner said.

Once the custom browser is developed, the application then will send it to the company and give it an installation program that makes it possible to install the browser across all desktops in the company, Beltzner added.

The bulk of enterprises still use Internet Explorer if they mandate a browser for company use, because Microsoft provides provisioning and installation software for IE that makes it easy for enterprises to control browser settings and install across all corporate desktops, said Forrester analyst Sheri McLeish.
Mozilla has not historically done this, but something like the Build Your Own Browser program is a good start to encourage enterprises to use Firefox over IE, she said.

"If Mozilla can enable some customization to developers and IT professionals to not only brand but give greater control to manage and administer the Firefox browser, that will certainly have companies take another look at it to make it the default browser of choice," McLeish said.

Up until now Mozilla has offered "deep customization tools" for Firefox, but they weren't always obvious to the average user and there has never been a good way for someone to build a customized version of the browser, Beltzner said.

Mozilla also has not provided software akin to Microsoft's installation pack for IE, but does make it possible for people to build their own multiple-machine installers for Firefox, given that the browser is open source and applications for it can easily be developed, he said.

Firefox has about 300 million users worldwide, and Firefox 3.5 will be available in more than 70 languages on the day it is available, according to Mozilla. A beta of the browser is available online now.

 

Source: PC World