Enterprise Unix Roundup: Next Stop, LinuxWorld

If you're on the U.S. IT trade show circuit, you're logging a lot of miles this time of year. Last week, the place to be was Salt Lake City for Novell's Brainshare. Next month the action will be at Interop in Las Vegas.

Next week, however, all eyes will turn east as the action moves to Boston, the next stop on the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo world tour — which got under way down under this week in Sydney, Australia. Sadly, our meager travel budget doesn't stretch that far, so we'll have to make do with Beantown.

Not that Boston is second-best, by any means. Other than the occasional swallowed SUV, the city holds many fun things to see and do, and Boston in April is certainly more pleasant than Boston in February, which was when the show was held last year.

And LinuxWorld East is an anchor of sorts in the franchise. It promises more to chew on than say, LinuxWorld Poland or LinuxWorld Korea.

We're not generally fans of expo-level shows. When successful, they're crowded and sales-pitch-laden, and if the dog-and-pony element isn't there, they tend to be cavernous and even more fluffy. In many cases, the announcements and news to come out of the show is manufactured and more about having something to say at the venue than actually having something to say that is held for the event or by happenstance is revealed at the venue.

The past few LinuxWorlds we've attended have eked this vibe, and left us feeling cynical about the show. At the time we attributed it to Linux becoming "just another operating system," and we wondered if there was even a business need for the show.

Fortunately, we reserved the right to change our minds, as next week's show appears to have more substance to it already.

As usual, the North American companies have held off on some of their big announcements until this show. Look for the usual new programs implementing Linux in the enterprise and new hardware vendor partnerships with Linux and open source stacks.

We also anticipate a giddy atmosphere as the Linux-loving attendees gloat about the recent fate of Vista and Office 2007.

But if the pre-show interviews we've been holding are any indication, the traditional heavyweights will not be where the action is. It will be the more nimble up-and-coming players that will keep the show relevant and growing.

We're going to attribute it to Linux's maturation. Now that the operating system is playing on a fairly level field, it's all about what it can be used to do. These are the players whose strategy starts with Linux, not the companies that have forged a Linux strategy. With this shift the show become less about getting to the operating system and more about where the operating system will take you.

For enterprise users, that's a lot more interesting than which hardware vendor is supporting which version of Red Hat, or which kernel changes will SUSE be rolling in.

Like last year's Boston show, expect to see a lot of products and services in the area of integration. Linux is deployed alongside a lot of Windows and/or Unix servers and Windows desktops, and getting them all to play nice with each other is still a big brass ring for all of these companies. Also, it won't be just the enterprise customers getting the big play this time around. Quite a few contacts we've spoken to are suggesting a much stronger focus on the small- to midsize business space this year.

ServerWatch Now Accepting Product Excellence Awards Nominations

Ask five sys admins which products are the best, and you'll likely get five different answers. ServerWatch wants to hear those answers. Last week, the Web site kicked off the nomination process for the 2006 Product Excellence Awards.

Nominees are being sought in variety of categories, from best Web server to best virtualization tool to (and we know this one will be hotly contested) most valuable open source community.

The nomination process is open until April 21. A ballot of finalists will be posted May 2, and voting will commence at that time.

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