Apparently IBM views Microsoft and Windows as the major threat to its e-commerce strategy, which hinges on open standards such as Java. To fight this danger, it wants to push Java onto 50% of all PCs by teaming up with Netscape. Cisco and Network Associates also worry IBM. Interestingly, OS/2 has no future in this vision -- Ed: which hopefully means even more new Linux recruits. It'll be interesting to see if IBM attempts to enlist the Free Software Community to restore Java's momentum.

James Kachel writes "Netscape 4.07 was released. Get it from the usual spots " This one fixes the notorious cache bug. Snag it if you're worried about that sort of thing.

Samantha Bonsak would like to query you all on this issue: "I'm trying to find information reflecting the use of Linux within the corporate marketplace; who is using it and for what purpose. I've been hovering around the Slashdot site for a while and haven't seen any links or references regarding this. Can you point me in the right direction?" For the most part, I think that if Linux is being used in the average corporate workplace, then it is done so on the sly, but it would be interesting to know what other corporations are actively supporting Linux (aside from the usuals like IBM, Intel, Caldera, Corel and Netscape...) - Is there a way to get such information?

After reading a lot of stories about RH/I/N (including Chuck Milam's submission from CNN) I decided to write up my opinions on the whole deal and dump them online. Hit the link below to read it if you care.

Microsoft's understanding of Intel and Netscape's recent investment in Redhat is atypically dumb. Ed Muth, enterprise marketing group manager for NT, believes that because there is no proprietary IP in Linux (GPL oblige) "there is no reason to stay in the market". Given that Microsoft is built on marketing and some level of support, I have difficulty believing this statement is anything but FUD or some smoke-screen. The article goes on to a legal-expert who seems to believe that applications use linux source code. Thanks to Dan Speers.

Pierce sent us a link to a story over at Yahoo where you can read about An UltraSparc version of Linux. Sun actually has some fairly inexpensive ultra's these days. And this company will apparently build UltraSPARC Linux boxes for you. Not bad.

Redhat has now announced that Intel, Netscape, Greylock and Benchmark Partners have invested in it. Intel wants to target ISPs with their Linux strategy. Intel will also be joining Linux International. It will be interesting to see in which way Red Hat will react to UDI given the discussion about it on the kernel list, summarized by Linux Weekly News. (updated)

So what is life like without the X key? Lets be honest, you don't use it much. But who knew I used it as often as I did. I've got a 1 in 3 success rate with the X key now. That isn't so bad, but its pretty annoying when I need to type 'Linu' or 'Uni' or '11'. Ever trying sending a message in pine? Ctrl-X! Wanna delete a charachter in vi? You guessed it. X! How about doing a 'cut' in netscape? meta-X it is! I can't log out of telnets because like it or not, 'eit' is != 'exit'. I could alias it, but it just seems dirty. I can't run xterms, xcalc, rxvt, xon, but this matters very little since I also can't run startx.

A new study came out today, containing it in the estimated market share of each of the major browsers. For the first time, it appears that Netscape's Communicator fell below the 50% mark. Internet Explorer is up to 27.5%, the AOL version of IE is at 16.1%, Netscape is at 41.5%, and "other browsers" rose to 14.7%. Well, looks like Opera is doing better at least. (/me looks for silver lining)

Jamie writes "An article on ZdNet says that Intel and Netscape plan to Invest in Red Hat. The announcement will be made at ISPCon '98, and the money will most likely go towards creating an enterprise support group within RedHat. "

So pk has written in with a fairly important piece addressing Advocacy. There are a few folks on mailing lists, usenet and even Slashdot (boy, what a shock) who are making Linux Users look like loons with wonderful suggestions like killing KDE programmers or bombing Redmond. Flame has a place and purpose, but far to often its just a childish weapon. Anyway, pk's piece is something of a reality check and definately worth reading.

Rick Niles writes "I just talked to Jim Sweeney, a customer rep. from CorelComputer. He told me they would have WordPerfect 8 and Netscape 4.06 for the NetWinder by next month. Also, Quatro Pro by the end of the year and CorelDraw and CorelPaint sometime in 1999. I told him I'd be happy with X-windows support for Emacs and a release of the kernel source code for Netwinder. He assured me those things were coming soon. I also reminded him of the utmp problem and other problems and he said a new version of the kernel/compiler/libc is due any day now. "

Matt Borowski writes "Netscape 4.5PR2 is out. Get it at the usual places!" The win/mac versions have been out forever. Glad to finally see the Unix version has finally made it online. Now somebody explain to me why I'm still on a 21.6 line shared with 4 other people so I have to wait until midnight to download it?

Jim Rae writes "I currently have a dual/duel bot box running red hat 5.x (hacked to hell and back) and Windows '95. I am using my UPS wisely (an APC 1400) to save my ass in those times when the power goes out. Like now, indeed. The monitoring software blows, unless I've missed somthing. So, Here's is the question: What is the best UPS hardware within the following guidelins: 1) APC with NT connector cable and a modicom of good luck 2) Something else..... What do you use as a UPS, if antything?. "

I typically avoid posting stuff about TMS, but Lewis A. Mettler has submitted a really excellent one eplaining Microsoft's position as a monopoly, and some of the implications of it. It's a worthwhile read, and discusses a some of what might happen with DOJ.

Shlomi Fish has written up a piee on why Oracle and Java can't work together, but why Perl and Oracle will. It might be a language war type piece, but I don't really think it is. Both of these languages are really hot right now, and Shlomi does a great job explaining some of the reasons why.

Lee Cremeans writes "In this article, Bill tells us what he thinks the biggest risks to Microsoft are...interestingly, no mention of Linux anywhere. " Probably what is more along those lines is Steve Ballmer's remarks about Linux and Apache, in particular.

Martin Brown writes "In netscape.public.mozilla.general, Jamie Zawinski has announced the availability of nightly binary builds of Mozilla from mozilla.org. Absolutely no guarantees, of course."

Bob Keyes has written a piece on a Linux University. Some sort of system to help educate people about Linux, as well as administer some loose testing to credit the people who know there stuff. Read on to see what he has to say about it.

Andrew Wooldridge writes " There is a new site for news about mozilla - looks like it is set up to help increase awareness of stuff happening at mozilla.org "