A Time For OS

One theory went that the Internet would make operating systems irrelevant. A second went that Microsoft would make operating systems irrelevant, or at least hopelessly uniform. But a funny thing happened--operating systems are hotter than ever.

Solaris 9 is a in 'Developer Early Access' preview. Linux releases--from Caldera, Red Hat, SuSE and many others--are leapfrogging each other to offer new capabilities. Mac OS X 10.1 is garnering widespread attention and acclaim. And what systems administrator would deny that the Windows family--from 98 to NT to 2000--are vastly different, even competing, products?

October brings two critical network operating system releases to solution providers, and they're the topics of the two newest ChannelWeb News Centers: Novell NetWare 6 and Microsoft Windows XP.

Novell, whose NetWare 6 came out this week, has certainly seen some rough times. But among solution providers, Novell and NetWare maintain a loyal following. Novell scored big in this year's VARBusiness Annual Report Card, trouncing its enterprise operating platform competition (Sun, Microsoft, HP and Red Hat). Those same solution providers are hoping NetWare 6 will spur more demand for the OS.

Microsoft, which won the ARC OS category last year, but finished a distant third this time, hopes Windows XP will usher in a new era of Internet services based on Microsoft solutions. And next week's launch is sure to generate vast hype and hoopla. But will solution providers and enterprise developers take Microsoft's lead? That's for you to decide.

Results Are In

It's earnings season, and this week saw many tech companies report their quarterly results and peer out into the future. Whether the news was good or bad seemed tightly coupled to how you view that half-glass of water. Here's the latest from Apple, Bell Microproducts, Check Point, Computer Associates, Commerce One, EMC, Extreme Networks, Gateway, i2, IBM, Intel, Lante, Mercury Interactive, Microsoft, Nortel, SMC, Sprint, Sun, Symantec, and Veritas.

Best of the Week

In other news, Lotus entered the Web content management market, and Reality Research looked at Linux inroads in business. Ingram Micro suffered an anthrax scare, but fortunately got the all clear from the FBI. Ditto for a Microsoft office in Nevada.