Wonderful toys in San Francisco

In further indication that summer 2006 is not yet over, the annual umbrella industry event LinuxWorld San Francisco runs this week. Arrangers of the event are IDG World Expo and the Bay City’s Moscone Center will play host to the show featuring products, solutions, and analysis of emerging trends.

Also promised is new content focusing on the five “key technology themes” of enterprise applications: virtualization, SOA, mobile Linux, embedded Linux, and open source development. And, in an interesting side note, attendees will be wishing a happy fifteen birthday to the kernel.

The LinuxWorld Conference & Expo opens today at the runs Moscone Center, with the LinuxWorld exhibit hall floor opening on Tuesday, August 15 at 10:00 a.m. Key players on the LinuxWorld exhibit floor include a virtual “who’s who” in the silicon-based world, including AMD, Alfresco, Black Duck Software, CA, Dell, HP, Fujitsu, IBM, Ingres, Intel, Levanta, Motorola, Novell, Oracle, PalmSource, SAP, Scalix Corporation, SugarCRM, Ubuntu, and Virtuas Open Source Solutions, among others.

Although there will be talks and Q & A sessions, doubtlessly the greatest anticipated at any show of this ilk are the new products! Some firms have already provided a sneak or two at new toys they’ll be brandishing. Bivio Networks will be launching Bivio 200 and Bivio 500. The Bivio 200 is a programmable network appliance featuring architecture specifically optimized for wire-speed execution of emerging network services.

The Bivio 500 provides a network appliance platform with multi-gigabit throughput capacity. Centeris has on display the Centeris Likewise Management Suite 2.0, a program which features administration of Linux servers using Windows-based tools. Centric CRM will be showing off Centric CRM 4.1, a web-based and object-oriented architecture that runs on all standards-based platforms. Coraid will be highlighting the CLN20-FT, which provides fail-over for Coraid’s Linux NAS gateway.

With the CLN20-FT comes AoE storage, dual GigE ports that connect to NFS/CIFS clients, and a dedicated network of EtherDrive Storage devices. Motorola, Inc. almost always has something to show. This year, it’ll be their new Linux-based mobile handsets, at center the compelling ROKR E2, promoted as “the ultimate fusion of music and mobility.” Motorola also breaks out the A1200, their smartphone selling like, um, hotcakes in China. Palmsource will feature the Access Linux Platform, an upgrade in the Palm OS(R) for Linux.

SugarCRM hopes to wow with no fewer than three products: Sugar Open Source 4.5, a CRM application that manages sales, marketing and support information; Sugar Professional 4.5, which provides campaign management, opportunity tracking, account management, sales forecasting, and customer support capabilities; and Sugar Enterprise 4.5, offering enterprise-grade capabilities and scalability. VMware is set to break out their VMware Infrastructure 3.

This product builds upon the previously introduced VMware ESX server and actually comprises four new products: VMware VMFS, a distributed file system; VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler; VMware High Availability; and VMware consolidated backup. Other fun (really) stuff to be going on in San Fran includes the infamous “geek trivia game,” the Golden Penguin Bowl. Novell’s Jeremy Allison will fill in the Bob Barker role and the matchup will see Novell pitted against the Ubuntu bunch.

When all is said and done, however, and for most of 2006, we’ll surely be hearing about that closingest of all closing ceremonies, the Linux Journal Product Excellence Awards, in which Linux and open source product exhibitors receive are bestowed awards for product and service innovation.

Keep an eye on CRMchump for further information on the goodies coming to the market. LinuxWorld Conference & Expo is known as the premier event exclusively focused on Linux and open-source solutions. IDG World Expo is a producer of technology-focused trade shows, conferences and events. IDG World Expo’s portfolio of conferences and events includes Macworld Conference & Expo, LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, the Linux World Open Solutions Summit, Digital ID World, RoboBusiness and RoboNexus. IDG World Expo is a business unit of International Data Group, a publisher of more than 300 magazines and newspapers in 85 countries including CIO, CSO, Computerworld, GamePro, InfoWorld, Macworld, Network World, and PC World.