Linux news abroad

While Linux news has been relatively flat, following the barrage of announcements from the recent LinxuWorld Expo, open source software made many headlines abroad last week.

IBM recently announced a large Linux mainframe deployment in Switzerland. In a deal with Endress + Hauser, a holding company, IBM will deliver two Linux-based eServer zSeries 990 mainframes which the Swiss company will use to run SAP software. The deal for the two 36-processor machines is estimated at around $8 million, and the boxes will support 3,500 users.

In next door Germany, however, a large Linux installation at the City of Munich was still on hold. A project to roll out Linux across all government desktops was supposed to have started at the beginning of the month. But the move was delayed after the city decided to take a closer look at whether a recent legal ruling by the European Union on software patents might come back to haunt the city after it deploys a large Linux installation. Munich officials say they still plan to go forward with the project in a few weeks, countering reports earlier in the month that it would scrap the Linux rollout.

In the U.K., desktop Linux is having a harder time. It was reported last week that the London Borough of Newham recently decided to standardize on Windows desktops for all government agencies. This comes after the it was thought that the borough’s government was close to announcing a deal to go with all Linux PCs. It was reported that a last-minute price cut by Microsoft sealed the deal. Others in the open source community speculate that the government was just threatening to use Linux and open source software as leverage against Microsoft.

Finally, in China, a number of U.S. vendors and Chinese software companies formed the China Open Source Software Promotion Alliance. The goal of the group, which includes HP, Intel, IBM and Novell, is to promote the development of Linux software and the use Linux in businesses in China.